Charleston; the Market-place--Irishmen at Charleston--Governor
Pickens: his political economy and theories--Newspaper offices
and counting-houses--Rumours as to the war policy of the South.
_April 19th._--An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on the broad
sandy street of Charleston with immense power, and when the wind
blows down the thoroughfare it sends before it vast masses of
hot dust. The houses are generally detached, surrounded by small
gardens, well provided with verandahs to protect the windows from
the glare, and are sheltered with creepers and shrubs and flowering
plants, through which flit humming-birds and fly-catchers. In some
places the streets and roadways are covered with planking, and as
long as the wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon.
I paid a visit to the markets; the stalls are presided over by
negroes, male and female; the coloured people engaged in selling
and buying are well clad; the butchers’ meat by no means tempting
to the eye, but the fruit and vegetable stalls well-filled. Fish
is scarce at present, as the boats are not permitted to proceed
to sea lest they should be whipped up by the expected Yankee
cruisers, or carry malcontents to communicate with the enemy.
Around the flesh-market there is a skirling crowd of a kind of
turkey-buzzard; these are useful as scavengers and are protected
by law. They do their nasty work very zealously, descending on
the offal thrown out to them with the peculiar crawling, puffy,
soft sort of flight which is the badge of all their tribe, and
contending with wing and beak against the dogs which dispute the
viands with the harpies. It is curious to watch the expression of
their eyes as with outstretched necks they peer down from the ledge
of the market roof on the stalls and scrutinise the operations of
the butchers below. They do not prevent a disagreeable odour in the
vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a fine and active
breed of rats.
Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day. One very
ragged regiment which had been some time at Morris’ Island halted
in the shade near me, and I was soon made aware they consisted,
for the great majority, of Irishmen. The Emerald Isle, indeed,
has contributed largely to the population of Charleston. In the
principal street there is a large and fine red sandstone building
with the usual Greek-Yankee-composite portico, over which is
emblazoned the crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a
St. Patrick’s Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also attest
the Hibernian presence.
I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few moments’
conversation with him. He told me that an immense deal depended
on Virginia, and that as yet the action of the people in that
State had not been as prompt as might have been hoped, for the
President’s proclamation was a declaration of war against the
South, in which all would be ultimately involved. He is going to
Montgomery to confer with Mr. Jefferson Davis. I have no doubt
there is to be some movement made in Virginia. Whiting is under
orders to repair there, and he hinted that he had a task of no
common nicety and difficulty to perform. He is to visit the forts
which had been seized on the coast of North Carolina, and probably
will have a look at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal
authorities should have neglected to secure this place.
Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Pickens, to
whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp. His
palace was a very humble shed-like edifice with large rooms,
on the doors of which were pasted pieces of paper with sundry
high-reading inscriptions, such as “Adjutant General’s Dept.,
Quartermaster-General’s Dept., Attorney-General of State,” &c.,
and through the doorways could be seen men in uniform, and grave,
earnest people busy at their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco,
and spittoons. The governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a
large important looking face, with watery eyes and flabby features,
was seated in a barrack-like room, furnished in the plainest way
and decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington,
close to which was the “Ordinance of Secession of the State of
South Carolina” of last year.
Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his subjects, and
I was amused by a little middy, who described with much unction
the governor’s alarm on his visit to Fort Pickens, when he was
told that there were a number of live shells and a quantity of
powder still in the place. He is said to have commenced one of his
speeches with “Born insensible to fear,” &c. To me the governor
was very courteous, but I confess the heat of the day did not
dispose me to listen with due attention to a lecture on political
economy with which he favoured me. I was told, however, that he
had practised with success on the late Czar when he was United
States Minister to St. Petersburg, and that he does not suffer his
immediate staff to escape from having their minds improved on the
relations of capital to labour, and on the vicious condition of
capital and labour in the North.
“In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they have
maximised the hostile condition of opposed interests in the
accumulation of capital and in the employment of labour, whilst
we in the South, by the peculiar excellence of our domestic
institution, have minimised their opposition and maximised the
identity of interest by the investment of capital in the labourer
himself,” and so on, or something like it. I could not help
remarking it struck me there was “another difference betwixt the
North and the South which he had overlooked--the capital of the
North is represented by gold, silver, notes, and other exponents,
which are good all the world over and are recognised as such;
your capital has power of locomotion, and ceases to exist the
moment it crosses a geographical line.” “That remark, sir,” said
the Governor, “requires that I should call your attention to the
fundamental principles on which the abstract idea of capital should
be formed. In order to clear the ground, let us first inquire into
the soundness of the ideas put forward by your Adam Smith”----I
had to look at my watch and to promise I would come back to be
illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to keep an
engagement with myself to write letters by the next mail.
The Governor writes very good proclamations, nevertheless, and his
confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. “If we stand alone, sir,
we must win. They can’t whip us.” A gentleman named Pringle, for
whom I had letters of introduction, has come to Charleston to ask
me to his plantation, but there will be no boat from the port till
Monday, and it is uncertain then whether the blockading vessels, of
which we hear so much, may not be down by that time.
_April 20th._--I visited the editors of the _Charleston Mercury_
and the _Charleston Courier_ to-day at their offices. The Rhett
family have been active agitators for secession, and it is said
they are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for neglecting
their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard, ambitious
man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to his English
connections and predilections, and is intolerant of New England to
the last degree. I received from him, ere I left, a pamphlet on
his life, career, and services. In the newspaper offices there was
nothing worthy of remark; they were possessed of that obscurity
which is such a characteristic of the haunts of journalism--the
clouds in which the lightning is hiding. Thence to haunts more
dingy still where Plutus lives--to the counting-houses of the
cotton brokers, up many pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished
with hard seats, engravings of celebrated clippers, advertisements
of emigrant agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of
cotton, specimens of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and
clerks living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and
ledgers, and tumblers of water.
I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers, such
as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others. With all it was
the same story. Their young men were off to the wars--no business
doing. In one office I saw an announcement of a company for a
direct communication by steamers between a southern port and
Europe. “When do you expect that line to be opened?” I asked. “The
United States’ cruisers will surely interfere with it.” “Why,
I expect, sir,” replied the merchant, “that if those miserable
Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton, you’ll
just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us. That will
be before autumn, I think.” It was in vain I assured him he would
be disappointed. “Look out there,” he said, pointing to the wharf,
on which were piled some cotton bales; “there’s the key will open
all our ports, and put us into John Bull’s strong box as well.”
I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospitable
invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed, and
Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under-Secretary-of-State in Mr.
Buchanan’s Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit his
plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle’s. “We heard
much the same conversation as usual, relieved by Mr. Trescot’s
sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly the evils of slavery,
but is, like all of us, unable to discover the solution and means
of averting them.”
The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letcher’s
proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is hinted
that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of Black Republican
vermin which haunt the capital driven out. Agents are to be at once
despatched to get up a navy, and every effort made to carry out
the policy indicated in Jeff Davis’s issue of letters of marque
and reprisal. Norfolk harbour is blocked up to prevent the United
States ships getting away; and at the same time we hear that the
United States officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper’s Ferry
has retired into Pennsylvania, after destroying the place by fire.
How “old John Brown” would have wondered and rejoiced had he lived
a few months longer!