The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape by Albert D. Richardson, a Project Gutenberg eBook

Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1865,
Albert D. Richardson ,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District
of Connecticut.

List of Illustrations.

CONTENTS.

I.
THE SECRET SERVICE.

CHAPTER I.

Early in 1861, I felt a strong desire to look at the Secession movement for myself; to learn, by personal observation, whether it sprang from the people or not; what the Revolutionists wanted, what they hoped, and what they feared.

But the southern climate, never propitious to the longevity of Abolitionists, was now unfavorable to the health of every northerner, no matter how strong his political constitution. I felt the danger of being recognized; for several years of roving journalism, and a good deal of political speaking on the frontier, had made my face familiar to persons whom I did not remember at all, and given me that large and motley acquaintance which every half-public life necessitates.

Moreover, I had passed through the Kansas struggle; and many former shining lights of Border Ruffianism were now, with perfect fitness, lurid torches in the early bonfires of Secession. I did not care to meet their eyes, for I could not remember a single man of them all who would be likely to love me, either wisely or too well. But the newspaper instinct was strong within me, and the journalist who deliberates is lost. My hesitancy resulted in writing for a roving commission to represent The Tribune in the Southwest.

A few days after, I found the Managing Editor in his office, going through the great pile of letters the morning mail had brought him, with the wonderful rapidity which quick intuition, long experience, and natural fitness for that most delicate and onerous position alone can give. For the modern newspaper is a sort of intellectual iron-clad, upon which, while the Editorial Captain makes out the reports to his chief, the public, and entertains the guests in his elegant cabin, the leading column, and receives the credit for every broadside of type and every paper bullet of the brain poured into the enemy,—back out of sight is an Executive Officer, with little popular fame, who keeps the ship all right from hold to maintop, looks to every detail with sleepless vigilance, and whose life is a daily miracle of hard work.

The Manager went through his mail, I think, at the rate of one letter per minute. He made final disposition of each when it came into his hand; acting upon the great truth, that if he laid one aside for future consideration, there would soon be a series of strata upon his groaning desk, which no mental geologist could fathom or classify. Some were ruthlessly thrown into the waste-basket. Others, with a lightning pencil-stroke, to indicate the type and style of printing, were placed on the pile for the composing-room. A few great packages of manuscript were re-enclosed in envelopes for the mail, with a three-line note, which, while I did not read, I knew must run like this:—

There was that quick, educated instinct, which reads the whole from a very small part, taking in a line here and a key-word there. Two or three glances appeared to decide the fate of each; yet the reader was not wholly absorbed, for all the while he kept up a running conversation:

"Two of our correspondents have come home within the last week, after narrow escapes. We have six still in the South; and it would not surprise me, this very hour, to receive a telegram announcing the imprisonment or death of any one of them."

"While the excitement lasts, if possible. Do you know how long you will stay? You will be back here some fine morning in just about two weeks."

Pondering upon the line of conduct best for the journey, I remembered the injunction of the immortal [Pg 20] Pickwick: "It is always best on these occasions to do what the mob do!" "But," suggested Mr. Snodgrass, "suppose there are two mobs?" " Shout with the largest ," replied Mr. Pickwick. Volumes could not say more. Upon this plan I determined to act—concealing my occupation, political views, and place of residence. It is not pleasant to wear a padlock upon one's tongue, for weeks, nor to adopt a course of systematic duplicity; but personal convenience and safety rendered it an inexorable necessity.

On Tuesday, February 26th, I left Louisville, Kentucky, by the Nashville train. Public affairs were the only topic of conversation among the passengers. They were about equally divided into enthusiastic Secessionists, urging in favor of the new movement that negroes already commanded higher prices than ever before; and quasi Loyalists, reiterating, "We only want Kentucky to remain in the Union as long as she can do so honorably." Not a single man declared himself unqualifiedly for the Government.

A ride of five hours among blue, dreamy hills, feathered with timber; dense forests, with their drooping foliage and log dwellings, in the doors of which women and little girls were complacently smoking their pipes; great, hospitable farm-houses, in the midst of superb natural parks; tobacco plantations, upon which negroes of both sexes—the women in cowhide brogans, and faded frocks, with gaudy kerchiefs wrapped like turbans about their heads—were hoeing, and following the plow, brought us to Cave City.

I left the train for a stage-ride of ten miles to the Mammoth Cave Hotel. In the midst of a smooth lawn, shaded by stately oaks and slender pines, it looms up huge and white, with a long, low, one-story offshoot [Pg 21] fronted by a deep portico, and known as "the Cottages."

Several evening hours were spent pleasantly in White's Cave, where the formations, at first dull and leaden, turn to spotless white after one grows accustomed to the dim light of the torches. There are little lakes so utterly transparent that your eye fails to detect the presence of water; stone drapery, hanging in graceful folds, and forming an exquisitely beautiful chamber; petrified fountains, where the water still trickles down and hardens into stone; a honey-combed roof, which is a very perfect counterfeit of art; long rows of stalactites, symmetrically ribbed and fluted, which stretch off in a pleasing colonnade, and other rare specimens of Nature's handiwork in her fantastic moods. Many of them are vast in dimension, though the geologists declare that it requires thirty years to deposit a formation no thicker than a wafer! Well says the German proverb "God is patient because he is eternal."

With another visitor I passed the next day in the Mammoth Cave. "Mat," our sable cicerone, had been acting in the capacity of guide for twenty-five years, and it was estimated that he had walked more than fifty thousand miles under ground. The story is not so improbable when one remembers that the passages of the great cavern are, in the aggregate, upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in length, and that it has two hundred and twenty-six known chambers. The outfit consisted of two lamps for himself and one for each of us. Cans of oil are kept at several interior points; for it is of the last importance that visitors to this labyrinth of darkness should keep their lamps trimmed and burning.

The thermometer within stands constantly at fifty-nine Fahrenheit; and the cave "breathes just once a year." Through the winter it takes one long inspiration, and in summer the air rushes steadily outward. Its vast chambers are the lungs of the universe.

In 1845, a number of wood and stone cottages were erected in the cavern, and inhabited by consumptive patients, who believed that the dry atmosphere and equable temperature would prove beneficial. After three or four months their faces were bloodless; the pupils of their sunken eyes dilated until the iris became invisible and the organs appeared black, no matter what their original color. Three patients died in the cave; the others expired soon after leaving it.

Mat gave a vivid description of these invalids flitting about like ghosts—their hollow coughs echoing and reechoing through the cavernous chambers. It must have looked horrible—as if the tomb had oped its ponderous and marble jaws, that its victims might wander about in this subterranean Purgatory. A cemetery would seem cheerful in comparison with such a living entombment. Volunteer medical advice, like a motion to adjourn, is always in order. My own panacea for lung-complaints would be exactly the opposite. Mount a horse or take a carriage, and ride, by easy stages at first, across the great plains to the Rocky Mountains or California, eating and sleeping in the open air. Nature is very kind, if you will trust her fully; and in the atmosphere, which is so dry and pure that fresh meat, cut in strips and hung up, will cure without salting or smoking, and may be carried all over the world, her healing power seems almost boundless.

The walls and roof of the cave were darkened and often hidden by myriads of screeching bats, at this [Pg 23] season of the year all hanging torpid by the claws, with heads downward, and unable to fly away, even when subjected to the cruel experiment of being touched by the torches.

The Methodist Church is a semi-circular chamber, in which a ledge forms the natural pulpit; and logs, brought in when religious service was first performed, fifty years ago, in perfect preservation, yet serve for seats. Methodist itinerants and other clergymen still preach at long intervals. Worship, conducted by the "dim religious light" of tapers, and accompanied by the effect which music always produces in subterranean halls, must be peculiarly impressive. It suggests those early days in the Christian Church, when the hunted followers of Jesus met at midnight in mountain caverns, to blend in song their reverent voices; to hear anew the strange, sweet story of his teachings, his death, and his all-embracing love.

Upon one of the walls beyond, a figure of gypsum, in bass-relief, is called the American Eagle. The venerable bird, in consonance with the evil times upon which he had fallen, was in a sadly ragged and dilapidated condition. One leg and other portions of his body had seceded, leaving him in seeming doubt as to his own identity; but the beak was still perfect, as if he could send forth upon occasion his ancient notes of self-gratulation.

Minerva's Dome has fluted walls, and a concave roof, beautifully honey-combed; but no statue of its mistress. The oft-invoked goddess, wearied by the merciless orators who are always compelling her to leap anew from the brain of Jove, has doubtless, in some hidden nook, found seclusion and repose.

We toiled along the narrow, tortuous passage, chiseled [Pg 24] through the rock by some ancient stream of water, and appropriately named the Fat Man's Misery; wiped away the perspiration in the ample passage beyond, known as the Great Relief; glanced inside the Bacon Chamber, where the little masses of lime-rock pendent from the roof do look marvelously like esculent hams; peeped down into the cylindrical Bottomless Pit, which the reader shall be told, confidentially, has a bottom just one hundred and sixty feet below the surface; laughed at the roof-figures of the Giant, his Wife, and Child, which resemble a caricature from Punch; admired the delicate, exquisite flowers of white, fibrous gypsum, along the walls of Pensacola Avenue; stood beside the Dead Sea, a dark, gloomy body of water; crossed the Styx by the natural bridge which spans it, and halted upon the shore of Lethe.

Then, embarking in a little flat-boat, we slowly glided along the river of Oblivion. It was a strange, weird spectacle. The flickering torches dimly revealed the dark inclosing walls, which rise abruptly a hundred feet to the black roof. Our sable guide looked, in the ghastly light, like a recent importation from Pluto's domain; and stood in the bows, steering the little craft, which moved slowly down the winding, sluggish river. The deep silence was only broken by drops of water, which fell from the roof, striking the stream like the tick of a clock, and the sharp ylp of the paddle, as it was thrust into the wave to guide us. When my companion evoked from his flute strains of slow music, which resounded in hollow echoes through the long vault, it grew so demoniac, that I almost expected the walls to open and reveal a party of fiends, dancing to infernal music around a lurid fire. I never saw any stage effect or work of art that could compare with it. [Pg 25] If one would enjoy the most vivid sensations of the grand and gloomy, let him float down Lethe to the sound of a dirge.

We first saw the Star Chamber with the lights withdrawn. It revealed to us the meaning of "darkness visible." We seemed to feel the dense blackness against our eye-balls. An object within half an inch of them was not in the faintest degree perceptible. If one were left alone here, reason could not long sustain itself. Even a few hours, in the absence of light, would probably shake it. In numberless little spots, the dark gypsum has scaled off, laying bare minute sections of the white limestone roof, resembling stars. When the chamber was lighted the illusion became perfect. We seemed in a deep, rock-walled pit, gazing up at the starry firmament. The torch, slowly moved to throw a shadow along the roof, produced the effect of a cloud sailing over the sky; but the scene required no such aid to render it one of marvelous beauty. The Star Chamber is the most striking picture in all this great gallery of Nature.

My companion had spent his whole life within a few miles of the cave, but now visited it for the first time. Thus it is always; objects which pilgrims come half across the world to see, we regard with indifference at our own doors. Persons have passed all their days in sight of Mount Washington, and yet never looked upon the grand panorama from its brow. Men have lived from childhood almost within sound of the roar of Niagara, without ever gazing on the vast fountain, where mother Earth, like Rachel, weeps for her children, and will not be comforted. We appreciate no enjoyment justly, until we see it through the charmed medium of magnificent distances.

Throughout Kentucky the pending troubles were uppermost in every heart and on every tongue. One gentleman, in conversation, thus epitomized the feeling of the State:—

"We have more wrongs to complain of than any other slave community, for Kentucky loses more negroes than all the cotton States combined. But Secession is no remedy. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire."

"When I was a boy here in this county, some of our neighbors started for New Orleans on a flat-boat. As we bade them good-by, we never expected to see them again; we thought they were going out of the world. But, after several months, they returned, having come on foot all the way, through the Indian country, packing 1 their blankets and provisions. Now we come from New Orleans in five days. I thank God to have lived in this age—the age of the Railroad, the Telegraph, and the Printing Press. Ours was the greatest nation and the greatest era in history. But that is all past now. The Government is broken to pieces; the slave States can not obtain their rights; and those which have seceded will never come back."

An old farmer "reckoned," as I traveled a good deal, that I might know better than he whether there was any hope of a peaceable settlement. If the North, as he believed, was willing to be just, an overwhelming majority of Kentuckians would stand by the Union. "It is a great pity," he said, very earnestly, in a broken voice, "that we Americans could not live harmoniously, like [Pg 27] brethren, instead of always quarreling about a few niggers."

My recollections of Nashville, Tennessee, include only an unpalatable breakfast in one of its abominable hotels; a glimpse at some of its pleasant shaded streets and marble capitol, which, with the exception of that in Columbus, Ohio, is considered the finest State-house on the continent.

Continuing southward, I found the country already "appareled in the sweet livery of spring." The elm and gum trees wore their leafy glory; the grass and wheat carpeted the ground with swelling verdure, and field and forest glowed with the glossy green of the holly. The railway led through large cotton-fields, where many negroes, of both sexes, were plowing and hoeing, while overseers sat upon the high, zig-zag fences, armed with rifles or shot-guns. On the withered stalks snowy tufts of cotton were still protruding from the dull brown bolls—portions of the last year's crop, which had never been picked, and were disappearing under the plow.

A native Kentuckian, now a young merchant in Alabama, was one of my fellow-passengers. He pronounced the people aristocratic. They looked down upon every man who worked for his living—indeed, upon every one who did not own negroes. The ladies were pretty, and often accomplished, but, he mildly added, he would like them better if they did not "dip." He insisted that Alabama had been precipitated into the revolution.

"We were swindled out of our rights. In my own town, Jere Clemens—an ex-United States senator, and one of the ablest men in the State—was elected to the convention on the strongest public pledges of Unionism. When the convention met, he went completely over to the enemy. The leaders—a few heavy slaveholders, [Pg 28] aided by political demagogues—dared not submit the Secession ordinance to a popular vote; they knew the people would defeat them. They are determined on war; they will exasperate the ignorant masses to the last degree before they allow them to vote on any test question. I trust the Government will put them down by force of arms, no matter what the cost!"

The same evening, crossing the Alabama line, I was in the "Confederate States of America." At the little town of Athens, the Stars and Stripes were still floating; as the train left, I cast a longing look at the old flag, wondering when I should see it again.

The next person who took a seat beside me went through the formula of questions, usual between strangers in the South and the Far West, asking my name, residence, business, and destination. He was informed, in reply, that I lived in the Territory of New Mexico, and was now traveling leisurely to New Orleans, designing to visit Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico before returning home. This hypothesis, to which I afterward adhered, was rendered plausible by my knowledge of New Mexico, and gave me the advantage of not being deemed a partisan. Secessionists and Unionists alike, regarding me as a stranger with no particular sympathies, conversed freely. Aaron Burr asserts that "a lie well stuck to is good as the truth;" in my own case, it was decidedly better than the truth.

My querist was a cattle-drover, who spent most of his time in traveling through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He declared emphatically that the people of those States had been placed in a false position; that their hearts were loyal to the Union, in spite of all the arts which had been used to deceive and exasperate them.

At Memphis was an old friend, whom I had not met [Pg 29] for many years, and who was now commercial editor of the leading Secession journal. I knew him to be perfectly trustworthy, and, at heart, a bitter opponent of Slavery. On the morning of my arrival, he called upon me at the Gayoso House. After his first cordial greeting, he asked, abruptly:

"My friend," said he, in his deep bass tones, "do you know that you are on very perilous business? ' "

"I do not know" (with a shrug of the shoulders) "what you call a hot climate. Last week, two northerners, who had been mobbed as Abolitionists, passed through here, with their heads shaved, going home, in charge of the Adams' Express. A few days before, a man was hung on that cottonwood tree which you see just across the river, upon the charge of tampering with slaves. Another person has just been driven out of the city, on suspicion of writing a letter for The Tribune . If the people in this house, and out on the street in front, knew you to be one of its correspondents, they would not leave you many minutes for saying your prayers."

After a long, minute conversation, in which my friend learned my plans and gave me some valuable hints, he remarked:

"My first impulse was to go down on my knees, and beg you, for God's sake, to turn back; but I rather think you may go on with comparative safety. You are the first man to whom I have opened my heart for years. [Pg 30] I wish some of my old northern friends, who think Slavery a good thing, could witness the scenes in the slave auctions, which have so often made my blood run cold. I knew two runaway negroes absolutely starve themselves to death in their hiding-places in this city, rather than make themselves known, and be sent back to their masters. I disliked Slavery before; now I hate it, down to the very bottom of my heart." His compressed lips and clinched fingers, driving their nails into his palms, attested the depth of his feeling.

CHAPTER II.

While I remained in Memphis, my friend, who was brought into familiar contact with leading Secessionists, gave me much valuable information. He insisted that they were in the minority, but carried the day because they were noisy and aggressive, overawing the Loyalists, who staid quietly at home. Before the recent city election, every one believed the Secessionists in a large majority; but, when a Union meeting was called, the people turned out surprisingly, and, as they saw the old flag, gave cheer after cheer, "with tears in their voices." Many, intimidated, staid away from the polls. The newspapers of the city, with a single exception, were disloyal, but the Union ticket was elected by a majority of more than three hundred.

"Tell me exactly what the 'wrongs' and 'grievances' are, of which I hear so much on every side."

"It is difficult to answer. The masses have been stirred into a vague, bitter, 'soreheaded' feeling that the South is wronged; but the leaders seldom descend to particulars. When they do, it is very ludicrous. They urge the marvelous growth of the North; the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise (done by southern votes!), and that Freedom has always distanced Slavery in the territories. Secession is no new or spontaneous uprising; every one of its leaders here has talked of it and planned it for years. Individual ambition, and wild dreams of a [Pg 32] great southern empire, which shall include Mexico, Central America, and Cuba, seem to be their leading incentives. But there is another, stronger still. You can hardly imagine how bitterly they hate the Democratic Idea—how they loathe the thought that the vote of any laboring man, with a rusty coat and soiled hands, may neutralize that of a wealthy, educated, slave-owning gentleman."

Thus Charles Mackay describes Memphis; but it impressed me as the pleasantest city of the South. Though its population was only thirty thousand, it had the air and promise of a great metropolis. The long steamboat landing was so completely covered with cotton that drays and carriages could hardly thread the few tortuous passages leading down to the water's edge. Bales of the same great staple were piled up to the ceiling in the roomy stores of the cotton factors; the hotels were crowded, and spacious and elegant blocks were being erected.

A few days earlier, in Cleveland, I had seen the ground covered with snow; but here I was in the midst of early summer. During the first week of March, the heat was so oppressive that umbrellas and fans were in general use upon the streets. The broad, shining leaves of the magnolia, and the delicate foliage of the weeping willow, were nodding adieu to winter; the air was sweet with cherry blossoms; with

On the evening of March 3d I left Memphis. A thin-visaged, sandy-haired, angular gentleman in spectacles, who occupied a car-seat near me, though of northern birth, had resided in the Gulf States for several years, as agent for an Albany manufactory of cotton-gins and agricultural implements. A broad-shouldered, roughly dressed, sun-browned young man, whose chin was hidden by a small forest of beard, accepted the proffer of a cigar, took a seat beside us, and introduced himself as Captain McIntire, of the United States Army, who had just resigned his commission, on account of the pending troubles, and was returning from the Texian frontier to his plantation in Mississippi. He was the first bitter Secessionist I had met, and I listened with attent ear to his complaints of northern aggression.

The Albanian was an advocate of Slavery and declared that, in the event of separation, his lot was with the South, for better or for worse; but he mildly urged that the Secession movement was hasty and ill advised; hoped the difficulty might be settled by compromise, and declared that, traveling through all the cotton States since Mr. Lincoln's election, he had found, everywhere outside the great cities, a strong love for the Union and a universal hope that the Republic might continue indivisible. He was very "conservative;" had always voted the Democratic ticket; was confident the northern people would not willingly wrong their southern brethren; and insisted that not more than twenty or thirty thousand persons in the State of New-York were, in any just sense, Abolitionists.

"You seem to be a gentleman; you may be sincere in your opinions; but it won't do for you to express such [Pg 34] sentiments in the State of Mississippi. They will involve you in trouble and in danger!"

The New-Yorker was swift to explain that he was very "sound," favoring no compromise which would not give the slaveholders all they asked. Meanwhile, a taciturn but edified listener, I pondered upon the German proverb, that "speech is silver, while silence is golden." Something gave me a dim suspicion that our violent fire-eater was not of southern birth; and, after being plied industriously with indirect questions, he was reluctantly forced to acknowledge himself a native of the State of New Jersey. Soon after, at a little station, Captain McIntire, late of the Army of the United States, bade us adieu.

At Grand Junction, after I had assumed a recumbent position in the sleeping-car, two young women in a neighboring seat fell into conversation with a gentleman near them, when a droll colloquy ensued. Learning that he was a New Orleans merchant, one of them asked:—

"Yes, sir," reiterated the undaunted female; "and gamblers are the best men in the world."

The merchant opened the curtains into their compartment, and scrutinized the speaker—a young, rosy, and rather comely woman, with blue eyes and brown hair, quietly and tastefully dressed.

"Well, sir; if you've got plenty of money, he will be glad to make your acquaintance."

"Lord bless you, yes! He always comes home at one o'clock in the morning, after he gets through dealing faro. He has not missed a single night since we were married—going on five years. We own a farm in this vicinity, and if business continues good with him next year we shall retire to it, and never live in the city again."

All the following day I journeyed through deep forests of heavy drooping foliage, with pendent tufts of gray Spanish moss. The beautiful Cherokee rose everywhere trailed its long arms of vivid green; all the woods were decked with the yellow flowers of the sassafras and the white blossoms of the dogwood and the wild plum. Our road stretched out in long perspective through great Louisiana everglades, where the grass was four feet in hight and the water ten or twelve inches deep.

"I have wagered a new hat that neither he nor Hamlin will ever live to be inaugurated."

An old Mississippian, a working man, though the owner [Pg 36] of a dozen slaves, assured me earnestly that the people did not desire war; but the North had cheated them in every compromise, and they were bound to regain their rights, even if they had to fight for them.

"We of the South," said he, "are the most independent people in the universe. We raise every thing we need; but the world can not do without cotton. If we have war, it will cause terrible suffering in the North. I pity the ignorant people of the manufacturing districts there, who have been deluded by the politicians; for they will be forced to endure many hardships, and perhaps starvation. After Southern trade is withdrawn, manufactures stopped, operatives starving, grass growing in the streets of New York, and crowds marching up Broadway crying 'Bread or Blood!' northern fanatics will see, too late, the results of their folly."

This was the uniform talk of Secessionists. That Cotton was not merely King, but absolute despot; that they could coerce the North by refusing to buy goods, and coerce the whole world by refusing to sell cotton, was their profound belief. This was always a favorite southern theory. Bancroft relates that as early as 1661, the colony of Virginia, suffering under commercial oppression, urged North Carolina and Maryland to join her for a year in refusing to raise tobacco, that they might compel Great Britain to grant certain desired privileges. Now the Rebels had no suspicion whatever that there was reciprocity in trade; that they needed to sell their great staple just as much as the world needed to buy it; that the South bought goods in New York simply because it was the cheapest and best market; that, were all the cotton-producing States instantly sunk in the ocean, in less than five years the world [Pg 37] would obtain their staple, or some adequate substitute, from other sources, and forget they ever existed.

"I spent six weeks last summer," said another planter, "in Wisconsin. It is a hot-bed of Abolitionism. The working-classes are astonishingly ignorant. They are honest and industrious, but they are not so intelligent as the nig-roes of the South. They suppose, if war comes, we shall have trouble with our slaves. That is utterly absurd. All my nig-roes would fight for me."

A Mississippian, whom his companions addressed as "Judge," denounced the Secession movement as a dream of noisy demagogues:

"Their whole policy has been one of precipitation. They declared: 'Let us rush the State out of the Union while Buchanan is President, and there will be no war.' From the outset, they have acted in defiance of the sober will of the masses; they have not dared to submit one of their acts to a popular vote!"

Another passenger, who concurred in these views, and intimated that he was a Union man, still imputed the troubles mainly to agitation of the Slavery question.

"The northern people," said he, "have been grossly deceived by their politicians, newspapers, and books like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' whose very first chapter describes a slave imprisoned and nearly starved to death in a cellar in New Orleans, when there is not a single cellar in the whole city!"

Midnight found us at the St. Charles Hotel, a five-story edifice, with granite basement and walls of stucco—that be-all and end-all of New Orleans architecture. The house has an imposing Corinthian portico, and in the [Pg 38] hot season its stone floors and tall columns are cool and inviting to the eye.

"You can not fail to like New Orleans," said a friend, before I left the North. "Its people are much more genial and cordial to strangers than ours." I took no letters of introduction, for introduction was just the thing I did not want. But on the cars, before reaching the city, I met a gentleman with whom I had a little conversation, and exchanged the ordinary civilities of traveling. When we parted, he handed me his card, saying:

He proved to be the senior member of one of the heaviest wholesale houses in the city. Accepting the invitation, I found him in his counting-room, deeply engrossed in business; but he received me with great kindness, and gave me information about the leading features of the city which I wished to see. As I left, he promised to call on me, adding: "Come in often. By the way, to-morrow is Sunday; why can't you go home and take a quiet family dinner with me?"

I was curious to learn the social position of one who would invite a stranger, totally without indorsement, into his home-circle. The next day he called, and we took a two-story car of the Baronne street railway. It leads through the Fourth or Lafayette District—more like a garden than a city—containing the most delightful metropolitan residences in America. Far back from the street, they are deeply imbosomed in dense shrubbery and flowers. The tropical profusion of the foliage retains dampness and is unwholesome, but very delicious to the senses.

The houses are low—this latitude is unfavorable to climbing—and constructed of stucco, cooler than wood, and less damp than stone. They abound in verandas, balconies, and galleries, which give to New Orleans a peculiarly mellow and elastic look, much more alluring than the cold, naked architecture of northern cities.

My new friend lived in this district, as befits a merchant prince. His spacious grounds were rich in hawthorns, magnolias, arbor-vitæs, orange, olive, and fig trees, and sweet with the breath of multitudinous flowers. Though it was only the tenth of March, myriads of pinks and trailing roses were in full bloom; Japan plums hung ripe, while brilliant oranges of the previous year still glowed upon the trees. His ample residence, with its choice works of art, was quietly, unostentatiously elegant. There was no mistaking it for one of those gilt and gaudy palaces which seem to say: "Look at the state in which Crœsus, my master, lives. Lo, the pictures and statues, the Brussels and rosewood which his money has bought! Behold him clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day!"

Three other guests were present, including a young officer of the Louisiana troops stationed at Fort Pickens, and a lady whose husband and brother held each a high commission in the Rebel forces of Texas. All assumed to be Secessionists—as did nearly every person I met in New Orleans upon first acquaintance—but displayed none of the usual rancor and violence. In that well-poised, agreeable circle the evening passed quickly, and at parting, the host begged me to frequent his house. This was not distinctively southern hospitality, for he was born and bred at the North. But in our eastern cities, from a business man in his social position, it would [Pg 40] appear a little surprising. Had he been a Philadelphian or Bostonian, would not his friends have deemed him a candidate for a lunatic asylum?

Taking my customary stroll last evening, I sauntered into Canal street, and suddenly found myself in a dense and expectant crowd. Several cheers being given upon my arrival, I naturally inferred that it was an ovation to The Tribune correspondent; but native modesty, and a desire to blush unseen, restrained me from any oral public acknowledgment.

Just then, an obliging by-stander corrected my misapprehension by assuring me that the demonstration was to welcome home General Daniel E. Twiggs—the gallant hero, you know, who, stationed in Texas to protect the Government property, recently betrayed it all into the hands of the Rebels, to "prevent bloodshed." His friends wince at the order striking his name from the army rolls as a coward and a traitor, and the universal execration heaped upon his treachery even in the border slave States.

They did their best to give him a flattering reception. The great thoroughfare was decked in its holiday attire. Flags were flying, and up and down, as far as the eye could reach, the balconies were crowded with spectators, and the arms of long files of soldiers glittered in the evening sunlight. One company bore a tattered and stained banner, which went through the Mexican war. Another carried richly ornamented colors, presented by the ladies of this city. There were Pelican flags, and Lone Star flags, and devices unlike any thing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth; but nowhere could I see the old National banner. [Pg 41] It was well; on such occasion the Stars and Stripes would be sadly out of place.

After a welcoming speech, pronouncing him "not only the soldier of courage, but the patriot of fidelity and honor," and his own response, declaring that here , at least, he would "never be branded as a coward and traitor," the ex-general rode through some of the principal streets in an open barouche, bareheaded, bowing to the spectators. He is a venerable-looking man, apparently of seventy. His large head is bald upon the top; but from the sides a few thin snow-white locks, utterly oblivious of the virtues of "the Twiggs Hair Dye," 2 streamed in the breeze. He was accompanied in the carriage by General Braxton Bragg—the "Little-more-grape-Captain-Bragg" of Mexican war memory. By the way, persons who ought to know declare that General Taylor never used the expression, his actual language being: "Captain Bragg, give them ----!"

President Lincoln's Inaugural, looked for with intense interest, has just arrived. All the papers denounce it bitterly. The Delta , which has advocated Secession these ten years, makes it a signal for the war-whoop:—

"Foreign invader," is supposed to mean the President of our common country! The "submission" denounced so terribly would be simply the giving up of the Government property lately stolen by the Rebels, and the paying of the usual duties on imports!

The State convention which lately voted Louisiana out of the Union, sits daily in Lyceum Hall. The building fronts Lafayette Square—one of the admirable little parks which are the pride of New Orleans. Upon the first floor is the largest public library in the city, though it contains less than ten thousand volumes.

In the large hall above are the assembled delegates. Ex-Governor Mouton, their president, a portly old gentleman, of the heavy-father order, sits upon the platform. Below him, at a long desk, Mr. Wheat, the florid clerk, is reading a report in a voice like a cracked bugle. Behind the president is a life-size portrait of Washington; at his right, a likeness of Jefferson Davis, with thin, beardless face, and sad, hollow eyes. There is also a painting of the members, and a copy of the Secession ordinance, with lithographed fac similes of their signatures. The delegates, you perceive, have made all the preliminary arrangements for being immortalized. Physically, they are fine-looking men, with broad shoulders, deep chests, well-proportioned limbs, and stature decidedly above the northern standard.

CHAPTER III.

The good fortune which in Memphis enabled me to learn so directly the plans and aims of the Secession leaders, did not desert me in New Orleans. For several years I had been personally acquainted with the editor of the leading daily journal—an accomplished writer, and an original Secessionist. Uncertain whether he knew positively my political views, and fearing to arouse suspicion by seeming to avoid him, I called on him the day after reaching the city.

He received me kindly, never surmising my errand; invited me into the State convention, of which he was a member; asked me to frequent his editorial rooms; and introduced me at the "Louisiana Democratic Club," which had now ripened into a Secession club. Among prominent Rebels belonging to it were John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin, of Jewish descent, whom Senator Wade of Ohio characterized so aptly as "an Israelite with Egyptian principles."

Admission to that club was a final voucher for political soundness. The plans of the conspirators could hardly have been discussed with more freedom in the parlor of Jefferson Davis. Another friend introduced me at the Merchants' Reading-room, where were the same sentiments and the same frankness. The newspaper office also was a standing Secession caucus.

These associations gave me rare facilities for studying the aims and animus of the leading Revolutionists. I was [Pg 44] not compelled to ask questions, so constantly was information poured into my ears. I used no further deceit than to acquiesce quietly in the opinions everywhere heard. While I talked New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, my companions talked Secession; and told me more, every day, of its secret workings, than as a mere stranger I could have learned in a month. Socially, they were genial and agreeable. Their hatred of New England, which they seemed to consider "the cruel cause of all our woes," was very intense. They were also wont to denounce The Tribune , and sometimes its unknown Southern correspondents, with peculiar bitterness. At first their maledictions fell with startling and unpleasant force upon my ears, though I always concurred. But in time I learned to hear them not only with serenity, but with a certain quiet enjoyment of the ludicrousness of the situation.

I had not a single acquaintance in the city, whom I knew to be a Union man, or to whom I could talk without reserve. This was very irksome—at times almost unbearable. How I longed to open my heart to somebody! Recently as I had left the North, and strongly as I was anchored in my own convictions, the pressure on every hand was so great, all intelligence came so distorted through Rebel mediums, that at times I was nearly swept from my moorings. I could fully understand how many strong Union men had at last been drawn into the almost irresistible tide. It was an inexpressible relief to read the northern newspapers at the Democratic Club. There, even The Tribune was on file. The club was so far above suspicion that it might have patronized with impunity the organ of William Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglass.

The vituperation which the southern journals heaped [Pg 45] upon Abraham Lincoln was something marvelous. The speeches of the newly elected President on his way to Washington, were somewhat rugged and uncouth; not equal to the reputation he won in the great senatorial canvass with Douglas, where debate and opposition developed his peculiar powers and stimulated his unrivaled logic. The Rebel papers drew daily contrasts between the two Presidents, pronouncing Mr. Davis a gentleman, scholar, statesman; and Mr. Lincoln a vulgarian, buffoon, demagogue. One of their favorite epithets was "idiot;" another, "baboon;" just as the Roman satirists, fifteen hundred years ago, were wont to ridicule the great Julian as an ape and a hairy savage.

The times have changed. While I write some of the same journals, not yet extinguished by the fortunes of war, denounce Jefferson Davis with equal coarseness and bitterness, as an elegant, vacillating sentimentalist; and mourn that he does not possess the rugged common sense and indomitable perseverance displayed by Abraham Lincoln!

While keeping up appearances on the Mexican question, by frequent inquiries about the semi-monthly steamers for Vera Cruz, I devoted myself ostensibly to the curious features of the city. Odd enough it sounded to hear persons say, "Let us go up to the river;" but the phrase is accurate. New Orleans is two feet lower than the Mississippi, and protected against overflow by a dike or levee. The city is quite narrow, and is drained into a great swamp in the rear. In front, new deposits of soil are constantly and rapidly made. Four of the leading business streets, nearest the levee, traverse what, a few years ago, was the bed of the river. Anywhere, by digging two feet below the surface, one comes to water.

The earth is peculiarly spongy and yielding. The unfinished Custom House, built of granite from Quincy, Massachusetts, has sunk about two feet since its commencement, in 1846. The same is true of other heavy buildings. Cellars and wells being impossible in the watery soil, refrigerators serve for the one, and cylindrical upright wooden cisterns, standing aboveground, like towers, for the other.

In the cemeteries the tombs are called "ovens." They are all built aboveground, of brick, stone, or stucco, closed up with mortar and cement. Sometimes the walls crack open, revealing the secrets of the charnel-house. Decaying coffins are visible within; and once I saw a human skull protruding from the fissure of a tomb. Here, indeed,

Despite this revolting feature, the Catholic cemeteries are especially interesting . About the humblest of the monuments, artificial wreaths, well-tended rose-beds, garlands of fresh flowers, changed daily, and vases inserted in the walls, to catch water and attract the birds, evince a tender, unforgetful attention to the resting-place of departed friends. More than half the inscriptions are French or Spanish. Very few make any allusion to a future life. One imposing column marks the grave of Dominique You, the pirate, whose single virtue of patriotism, exhibited under Jackson during the war of 1815, hardly justifies, upon his monument, the magnificent eulogy of Bayard: "The hero of a hundred battles,—a chevalier without fear and without reproach."

In New Orleans, grass growing upon the streets is no sign of decadence. Stimulated by the rich, moist soil, it [Pg 47] springs up in profusion, not only in the smaller thoroughfares, but among the bricks and paving-stones of the leading business avenues.

Canal street is perhaps the finest promenade on the continent. It is twice the width of Broadway, and in the middle has two lines of trees, with a narrow lawn between them, extending its entire length. At night, as the long parallel rows of gas-lights glimmer through the quivering foliage, growing narrower and narrower in perspective till they unite and blend into one, it is a striking spectacle—a gorgeous feast of the lanterns. On the lower side of it is the "French Quarter," more un-American even than the famous German portion of Cincinnati known as "Over the Rhine." Here you may stroll for hours, "a straggler from another civilization," hearing no word in your native tongue, seeing no object to remove the impression of an ancient French city. The dingy houses, "familiar with forgotten years," call up memories of old Mexican towns. They are grim, dusky relics of antiquity, usually but one story high, with steep projecting roofs, tiled or slated, wooden shutters over the doors, and multitudinous eruptions of queer old gables and dormer windows.

New Orleans is the most Parisian of American cities. Opera-houses, theaters, and all other places of amusement are open on Sunday nights. The great French market wears its crowning glory only on Sunday mornings. Then the venders occupy not only several spacious buildings, but adjacent streets and squares. Their wares seem boundless in variety. Any thing you please—edible, drinkable, wearable, ornamental, or serviceable—from Wenham ice to vernal flowers and tropical fruits—from Indian moccasins to a silk dress-pattern—from [Pg 48] ancient Chinese books to the freshest morning papers—ask, and it shall be given unto you.

Sit down in a stall, over your tiny cup of excellent coffee, and you are hobnobbing with the antipodes—your next neighbor may be from Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand. Get up to resume your promenade, and you hear a dozen languages in as many steps; while every nation, and tribe, and people—French, English, Irish, German, Spanish, Creole, Chinese, African, Quadroon, Mulatto, American—jostles you in good-humored confusion.

Some gigantic negresses, with gaudy kerchiefs, like turbans, about their heads, are selling fruits, and sit erect as palm-trees. They look like African or Indian princesses, a little annoyed at being separated from their thrones and retinues, but none the less regal "for a' that." At every turn little girls, with rich Creole complexions and brilliant eyes, offer you aromatic bouquets of pinks, roses, verbenas, orange and olive blossoms, and other flowers to you unknown, unless, being a woman, you are a botanist by "gift of fortune," or, a man, that science has "come by nature."

Upon Jackson Square, a delicious bit of verdure fronting the river, gloom antique public buildings, which were the seat of government in the days of the old Spanish régime . Near them stands the equally ancient cathedral, richly decorated within, where devout Catholics still worship. Its great congregations are mosaics of all hues and nationalities, mingling for the moment in the democratic equality of the Roman Church.

Attending service in the cathedral one Sunday morning, I found the aisles crowded with volunteers who, on the eve of departure for the debatable ground of Fort Pickens, had assembled to witness the consecration of [Pg 49] their Secession flag, a ceremonial conducted with great pomp and solemnity by the French priests.

In the First Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Palmer, a divine of talent and local reputation, might be heard advocating the extremest Rebel views. The southerners had formerly been very bitter in their denunciation of political preaching; but now the pulpit, as usual, made obeisance to the pews, and the pews beamed encouragement on the pulpit.

If I may go abruptly from church to cotton—and they were not far apart in New Orleans—a visit to one of the great cotton-presses was worthy of note. It is a low building, occupying an entire square, with a hollow court in the center. It was filled with heaped-up cotton-bales, which overran their limits and covered the adjacent sidewalks. Negroes stood all day at the doors receiving and discharging cotton. The bales are compressed by heavy machinery, driven by steam, that they may occupy the least space in shipping. They are first condensed on the plantations by screw-presses; the cotton is compact upon arrival here; but this great iron machine, which embraces the bales in a hug of two hundred tons, diminishes them one-third more. The laborers are negroes and Frenchmen, who chant a strange, mournful refrain in time with their movements.

The ropes of a bale are cut; it is thrown under the press; the great iron jaws of the monster close convulsively, rolling it under the tongue as a sweet morsel. The ropes are tightened and again tied, the cover stitched up, and the bale rolled out to make room for another—all in about fifty seconds. It weighs five hundred pounds, but the workmen ~~sieze~~ seize it on all sides with their iron hooks, and toss it about like a schoolboy's ball. The superintendent informed me that they pressed, [Pg 50] during the previous winter, more than forty thousand bales.

The Rebels, with their early penchant for capturing empty forts and full treasuries, had seized the United States Branch Mint, containing three hundred thousand dollars, and the National barracks, garrisoned at the time by a single sergeant. Visiting, with a party of ~~gentleman~~ gentlemen , the historic Jackson battle-ground, four miles below the city, I obtained a glimpse of the tall, gloomy Mint, and spent an hour in the long, low, white, deep-balconied barracks beside the river.

The Lone Star flag of Louisiana was flying from the staff. A hundred and twenty freshly enlisted men of the State troops composed the garrison. Three of the officers, recent seceders from the Federal army, invited us into their quarters, to discuss political affairs over their Bourbon and cigars. As all present assumed to be sanguine and uncompromising Rebels, the conversation was one-sided and uninteresting.

We drove down the river-bank along the almost endless rows of ships and steamboats. The commerce of New Orleans, was more imposing than that of any other American city except New York. It seemed to warrant the picture painted by the unrivaled orator, Prentiss, of the future years, "when this Crescent City shall have filled her golden horn." The long landing was now covered with western produce, cotton, and sugar, and fenced with the masts of hundreds of vessels. Some displayed the three-striped and seven-starred flag of the "Southern Confederacy," many the ensigns of foreign nations, and a few the Stars and Stripes.

We were soon among the old houses of the Creoles. 3 [Pg 51] These anomalous people—a very large element of the population—properly belong to a past age or another land, and find themselves sadly at variance with America in the nineteenth century. They seldom improve or sell their property; permit the old fences and palings to remain around their antique houses; are content to live upon small incomes, and rarely enter the modern districts. It is even asserted that old men among them have spent their whole lives in New Orleans without ever going above Canal street! Many have visited Paris, but are profoundly ignorant of Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and other northern cities. They are devout Catholics, sudden and quick in quarrel, and duelling continues one of their favorite recreations.

We stopped at the old Spanish house—deeply embowered in trees—occupied as head-quarters by General Jackson, and saw the upper window from which, glass in hand, he witnessed the approach of the enemy. The dwelling is inhabited, and bears marks of the cannon-balls fired to dislodge him. Like his city quarters—a plain brick edifice, at one hundred and six, Royal-street, New Orleans—it is unchanged in appearance since that historic Eighth of January.

A few hundred yards from the river, we reached the battle-ground where, in 1815, four thousand motley, undisciplined, half-armed recruits defeated twelve thousand veterans—the Americans losing but five men, the British seven hundred. This enormous disparity is explained by the sheltered position of one party behind a breastwork, and the terrible exposure of the other in its march, by solid columns, of half a mile over an open field, without protection of hillock or tree. A horrible field, whence the Great Reaper gathered a bloody harvest!

The swamp here is a mile from the river. Jackson dug a canal between them, throwing up the earth on one side for a breastwork, and turning a stream of water from the Mississippi through the trench. The British had an extravagant fear of the swamp, and believed that, attempting to penetrate it, they would be ingulfed in treacherous depths. So they marched up, with unflinching Saxon courage, in the teeth of that terrible fire from the Americans, ranged four deep, behind the fortification; and the affair became a massacre rather than a battle.

The spongy soil of the breastwork (the tradition that bales of cotton were used is a fiction) absorbed the balls without any damage. It first proved what has since been abundantly demonstrated in the Crimean war, and the American Rebellion—the superiority of earthworks over brick and stone. The most solid masonry will be broken and battered down sooner or later, but shells and solid shot can do little harm to earthworks.

Jackson's army was a reproduction of Falstaff's ragamuffins. It was made up of Kentucky backwoodsmen, New Orleans clergymen, lawyers, merchants and clerks; pirates and ruffians just released from the calaboose to aid in the defense; many negroes, free and slave, with a liberal infusion of nondescript city vagabonds, noticeable chiefly for their tatters, and seeming, from their "looped and windowed raggedness," to hang out perpetual flags of truce to the enemy.

Judah Trouro, a leading merchant, while carrying ammunition, was struck in the rear by a cannon-ball, which cut and bore away a large slice of his body; but, in spite of the awkward loss, he lived many years, to leave an enviable memory for philanthropy and public [Pg 53] spirit. Parton tells of a young American who, during the battle, stooped forward to light a cigar; and when he recovered his position saw that a man exactly behind him was blown to pieces, and his brains scattered over the parapet, by an exploding shell.

More than half of Jackson's command was composed of negroes, who were principally employed with the spade, but several battalions of them were armed, and in the presence of the whole army received the thanks of General Jackson for their gallantry. On each anniversary the negro survivors of the battle always turned out in large numbers—so large, indeed, as to excite the suspicion that they were not genuine.

The free colored population, at the time of my visit, was a very peculiar feature of New Orleans. Its members were chiefly of San Domingo origin; held themselves altogether aloof from the other blacks, owned numerous slaves, and were the most rigorous of masters. Frequently their daughters were educated in Paris, married whites, and in some cases the traces of their negro origin were almost entirely obliterated. This, however, is not peculiar to that class. It is very unusual anywhere in the South to find persons of pure African lineage. A tinge of white blood is almost always detected.

Our company had an invaluable cicerone in the person of Judge Alexander Walker, author of "Jackson and New Orleans," the most clear and entertaining work upon the battle, its causes and results, yet contributed to American history. He had toiled unweariedly through all the official records, and often visited the ground with men who participated in the engagement. He pointed out positions, indicated the spot where Packenham fell, and drew largely upon his rich fund of anecdote, tradition, and biography.

A plain, unfinished shaft of Missouri limestone, upon a rough brick foundation, now marks the battle-field. It was commenced by a legislative appropriation; but the fund became exhausted and the work ceased. The level cotton plantation, ditched for draining, now shows no evidence of the conflict, except the still traceable line of the old canal, with detached pools of stagnant water in a fringe of reeds, willows, and live oaks.

A negro patriarch, with silvery hair, and legs infirm of purpose, hobbled up, to exhibit some balls collected on the ground. The bullets, which were flattened, he assured us, had "hit somebody." No doubt they were spurious; but we purchased a few buckshots and fragments of shell from the ancient Ethiop, and rode back to the city along avenues lined with flowers and shrubbery. Here grew the palm—the characteristic tree of the South. It is neither graceful nor beautiful; but looks like an inverted umbrella upon a long, slender staff. Ordinary pictures very faithfully represent it.

We are a good deal exercised, just now, about a new grievance. The papers charged, a day or two since, that the ship Adelaide Bell, from New Hampshire, had flung defiant to the breeze a Black Republican flag, and that her captain vowed he would shoot anybody attempting to cut it down. As one of the journals remarked, "his audacity was outrageous." En passant , do you know what a Black Republican flag is? I have never encountered that mythical entity in my travels; but 'tis a fearful thing to think of—is it not?

The reporter of The Crescent , with charming ingenuousness, describes it as "so much like the flag of the late United States, that few would notice the difference." [Pg 55] In fact, he adds, it is the old Stars and Stripes, with a red stripe instead of a white one immediately below the union. Of course, we are greatly incensed. It is flat burglary, you know, to love the Star Spangled Banner itself; and as for a Black Republican flag—why, that is most tolerable and not to be endured.

Captain Robertson, the "audacious," has been compelled, publicly, to deny the imputation. He asserts that, in the simplicity of his heart, he has been using it for years as a United States flag. But the newspapers adhere stoutly to the charge; so the presumption is that the captain is playing some infernal Yankee trick. Who shall deliver us from the body of this Black Republican flag?

If it were possible, I would like to see the "Southern Confederacy" work out its own destiny; to see how Slavery would flourish, isolated from free States; how the securities of a government, founded on the right of any of its members to break it up at pleasure, would stand in the markets of the world; how the principle of Democracy would sustain itself in a confederation whose corner-stones are aristocracy, oligarchy, despotism. This is the government which, in the language of one of its admirers, shall be "stronger than the bonds of Orion, and benigner than the sweet influences of the Pleiades."

A few days since, I was in a circle of southern ladies, when one of them remarked:

"Because, if he had been, Hamlin would become President, and it would be a shame to have a mulatto at the head of the Government."

A little discussion which followed developed that every lady present, except one, believed Mr. Hamlin a [Pg 56] mulatto. Yet the company was comparatively intelligent, and all its members live in a flourishing commercial metropolis. You may infer something of the knowledge of the North in rural districts, enlightened only by weekly visits from Secession newspapers!

We are enjoying that soft air "which comes caressingly to the brow, and produces in the lungs a luxurious delight." I notice, on the streets, more than one premonition of summer, in the form of linen coats. The yards and cemeteries, smiling with myriads of roses and pinks, are carpeted with velvet grass; the morning air is redolent of orange and clover blossoms, and nosegays abound, sweet with the breath of the tropics.

Men of northern nativity are numerous throughout the Gulf States. Many are leading merchants of the cities, and a few, planters in the interior. Some have gone north to stay until the storm is over. A part of those who remain out-Herod the native fire-eaters in zeal for Secession. Their violence is suspicious; it oversteps the modesty of nature. I was recently in a mixed company, where one person was conspicuously bitter upon the border slave States, denouncing them as "playing second fiddle to the Abolitionists," and "traitors to southern rights."

"He?" was the indignant reply; "why, he is a northerner, ---- him! He is talking all this for effect. What does he care about our rights? He don't own slaves, and wasn't raised in the South; if it were fashionable, he would be an Abolitionist. I'd as soon trust a nigger-stealer as such a man!"

CHAPTER IV.

The city was measurably quiet, but arrests, and examinations of suspected Abolitionists, were frequent. In general, I felt little personal disquietude, except the fear of encountering some one who knew my antecedents; but about once a week something transpired to make me thoroughly uncomfortable for the moment.

I attended daily the Louisiana Convention, sitting among the spectators. I could take no notes, but relied altogether upon memory. In corresponding, I endeavored to cover my tracks as far as possible. Before leaving Cincinnati, I had encountered a friend just from New Orleans, and induced him to write for me one or two letters, dated in the latter city. They were copied, with some changes of style, and published. Hence investigation would have shown that The Tribune writer began two or three weeks before I reached the city, and thrown a serious obstacle in the way of identifying him.

My dispatches, transmitted sometimes by mail, sometimes by express, were addressed alternately to half a dozen banking and commercial firms in New York, who at once forwarded them to The Tribune editorial rooms. They were written like ordinary business letters, treating of trade and monetary affairs, and containing drafts upon supposititious persons, quite princely in amount. I never learned, however, that they appreciably enlarged the [Pg 58] exchequer of their recipients. Indeed, they were a good deal like the voluminous epistles which Mr. Toots, in his school-boy days, was in the habit of writing to himself.

I used a system of cipher, by which all phrases between certain private marks were to be exactly reversed in printing. Thus, if I characterized any one as "patriot and an honest man," inclosing the sentence in brackets, it was to be rendered a "demagogue and a scoundrel." All matter between certain other marks was to be omitted. If a paragraph commenced at the very edge of a sheet, it was to be printed precisely as it stood. But beginning it half across the page indicated that it contained something to be translated by the cipher.

The letters, therefore, even if examined, would hardly be comprehended. Whether tampered with or not, they always reached the office. I never kept any papers on my person, or in my room, which could excite suspicion, if read.

In writing, I assumed the tone of an old citizen, sometimes remarking that during a residence of fourteen years in New Orleans, I had never before seen such a whirlwind of passion, etc. In recording incidents I was often compelled to change names, places, and dates, though always faithful to the fact. Toward the close of my stay, the correspondence appearing to pass unopened, I gave minute and exact details, designing to be in the North before the letters could return in print.

Two incidents will illustrate the condition of affairs better than any general description. Soon after Mr. Lincoln's election, a Philadelphian reached New Orleans, on a collecting tour. One evening he was standing in the counting-room of a merchant, who asked him:—

"Well, now you Black Republicans have elected your President, what are you going to do next?"

Both spoke in jest; but the bookkeeper of the house, standing by, with his back turned, belonged to the Minute Men, who, that very evening, by a delegation of fifty, waited on the Philadelphian at the St. James Hotel. They began by demanding whether he was a Black Republican. He at once surmised that he was obtaining a glimpse of the hydra of Secession, beside which the armed rhinoceros were an agreeable companion, and the rugged Russian bear a pleasant household pet. His face grew pallid, but he replied, with dignity and firmness:

The inquisitors, who were of good social position and gentlemanly manners, claimed that the public emergency was so great as to justify them in examining all strangers who excited suspicion; and that he left them only the alternative of concluding him an Abolitionist and an incendiary. At last he informed them truthfully that he had never sympathized with the Anti-Slavery party, and had always voted the Democratic ticket. They next inquired if the house which employed him was Black Republican.

"Gentlemen," he replied, "it is a business firm, not a political one. I never heard politics mentioned by either of the partners. I don't know whether they are Republicans or Democrats."

He cheerfully permitted his baggage to be searched by the Minute Men, who, finding nothing objectionable, bade him good-evening. But, just after they left, a mob of Roughs, attracted by the report that an Abolitionist was stopping there, entered the hotel. They [Pg 60] were very noisy and profane, crying—"Let us see him; bring out the scoundrel!"

His friend, the merchant, spirited him out of the house through a back door, and drove him to the railway station, whence a midnight train was starting for the North. His pursuers, finding the room of their victim empty, followed in hot haste to the dépôt. The merchant saw them coming, and again conveyed him away to a private room. He was kept concealed for three days, until the excitement subsided, and then went north by a night train.

One of the clerks at the hotel where I was boarding had been an acquaintance of mine in the North ten years before. Though I now saw him several times a day, politics were seldom broached between us. But, whenever they came up, we both talked mild Secession. I did not believe him altogether sincere, and I presume he did me equal justice; but instinct is a great matter, and we were cowards on instinct.

During the next summer, I chanced to meet him unexpectedly in Chicago. After we exchanged greetings, his first question was—

His eyes expanded visibly at this information, and he inquired, with some earnestness—

My friend knew the Secessionists thoroughly, and his evidence was doubtless trustworthy. I felt no inclination to test it by repeating the experiment.

The establishment of domestic manufactures was always a favorite theme throughout the South; but the manufactures themselves continued very rudimentary. The furniture dealers, for example, made a pretense of making their own wares. They invariably showed customers through their workshops, and laid great stress upon their encouragement of southern industry; but they really received seven-eighths of their furniture from the North, having it delivered at back-doors, under cover of the night.

Secession gave a new impetus to all sorts of manufacturing projects. The daily newspapers constantly advocated them, but were quite oblivious of the vital truth that skilled labor will have opinions, and opinions can not be tolerated in a slave community.

One sign on Canal-street read, "Sewing Machines manufactured on Southern Soil"—a statement whose truth was more than doubtful. The agent of a rival machine advertised that his patent was owned in New Orleans, and, therefore, pre-eminently worthy of patronage. Little pasteboard boxes were labeled "Superior Southern Matches," and the newspapers announced exultingly that a candy factory was about to be established.

But the greatest stress was laid upon the Southern Shoe Factory, on St. Ferdinand-street—a joint stock concern, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. It was only two months old, and, therefore, experimental; [Pg 62] but its work was in great demand, and it was the favorite illustration of the feasibility of southern manufactures.

Sauntering in, one evening, I introduced myself as a stranger, drawn thither by curiosity. The superintendent courteously invited me to go through the establishment with him.

His physiognomy and manners impressed me as unmistakably northern; but, to make assurance doubly sure, I ventured some remark which inferred that he was a native of New Orleans. He at once informed me that he was from St. Louis. When I pursued the matter further, by speaking of some recent improvements in that city, he replied:

"I was born in St. Louis, but left there when I was twelve months old. Philadelphia has been my home since, until I came here to take charge of this establishment."

The work was nearly all done with machinery run by steam. As we walked through the basement, and he pointed out the implements for cutting and pressing sole-leather, I could not fail to notice that every one bore the label of its manufacturer, followed by these incendiary words: "Boston, Massachusetts!"

Then we ascended to the second story, where sewing and pegging were going on. All the stitching was done as in the large northern manufactories, with sewing-machines run by steam—a combination of two of the greatest mechanical inventions. Add a third, and in the printing-press, the steam-engine, and the sewing-machine, you have the most potent material agencies of civilization.

Here was the greatest curiosity of all—the patent pegging-machine, which cuts out the pegs from a thin [Pg 63] strip of wood, inserts the awl, and pegs two rows around the sole of a large shoe, more regularly and durably than it can be done by hand—all in less than twenty-five seconds. Need I add that it is a Yankee invention? One machine for finishing, smoothing, and polishing the soles came from Paris; but all the others bore that ominous label, "Boston, Massachusetts!" In the third story, devoted to fitting the soles and other finishing processes, the same fact was apparent—every machine was from New England.

The work was confined exclusively to coarse plantation brogans, which were sold at from thirteen to nineteen dollars per case of twelve pairs. Shoes of the same quality, at the great factories in Milford, Haverhill, and Lynn, Massachusetts, were then selling by the manufacturers at prices ranging from six to thirteen dollars per case. In one apartment we found three men making boxes for packing the shoes, from boards already sawed and dressed.

"It comes from Illinois," replied my cicerone. "We have it planed and cut out in St. Louis—labor is so high here."

"No, sir. The leading men in all departments are from the North, mainly from Massachusetts and Philadelphia. We are compelled to pay them high salaries—from sixty to three hundred dollars per month. The subordinate workmen, whom we hope soon to put in their places, we found here. We employ forty-seven persons, and turn out two hundred and fifty pairs of brogans daily. We find it impossible to supply the demand, and are introducing more machinery, which will soon enable us to make six hundred pairs per day."

"Well, sir" (with a searching look, as if a little suspicious of being quizzed), " it also comes from the North, at present; but we shall soon have tanneries established. The South, especially Texas, produces the finest hides in the country; but they are nearly all sent north, to be tanned and curried, and then brought back in the form of leather."

Thanking the superintendent for his courtesy, and wishing him a very good evening, I strolled homeward, reflecting upon the Southern Shoe Factory. It was admirably calculated to appeal to local patriotism, and demonstrate the feasibility of southern manufacturing. Its northern machinery, run by northern workmen, under a northern superintendent, turned out brogans of northern leather, fastened with northern pegs, and packed in cases of northern pine, at an advance of only about one hundred per cent. upon northern prices!

New Orleans afforded to the stranger few illustrations of the "Peculiar Institution." Along the streets, you saw the sign, "Slave Dépôt—Negroes bought and sold," upon buildings which were filled with blacks of every age and of both sexes, waiting for purchasers. The newspapers, although recognizing slavery in general as the distinguishing cause which made southern gentlemen gallant and "high-toned," and southern ladies fair and accomplished, were yet reticent of details. They would sometimes record briefly the killing of a master by his negroes; the arrest of A., charged with being an Abolitionist; of B., for harboring or tampering with slaves; of C.—f. m. c. (free man of color)—for violating one of the [Pg 65] many laws that hedged him in; and, very rarely, of D., for cruelty to his slaves. But their advertising columns were filled with announcements of slave auctions, and long descriptions of the negroes to be sold. Said The Crescent :

There was much truth in this, though not in the sense intended by the writer. Strangers spending but a short time in the South were liable to very erroneous views. They saw only the exterior of a system, which looked pleasant and patriarchal. They had no opportunity of learning that, within, it was full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Northern men were so often deceived as to make one skeptical of the traditional acuteness of the Yankee. The genial and hospitable southerners would draw the long bow fearfully. A Memphis gentleman assured a northern friend of mine that, on Sundays, it was impossible for a white man to hire a carriage in that city, as the negroes monopolized them all for pleasure excursions!

One of my New Orleans companions, who was frank and candid upon other subjects, used to tell me the most egregious stories respecting the slaves. As, for instance, that their marriage-vows were almost universally held sacred by the masters; the virtue of negro women respected, and families rarely separated. I preserved my gravity, never disputing him; but he must have known that a visit to any of the half-dozen slave auctions, within three minutes' walk of his office, would disprove all these statements.

These slave auctions were the only public places where the primary social formation of the South cropped out sharply. I attended them frequently, as the best school for "studying southern institutions, southern society, and the character and sentiments of the southern people."

I remember one in which eighty slaves were sold, one after another. A second, at which twenty-one negroes were disposed of, I reported, in extenso , from notes written upon blank cards in my pocket during its progress. Of course, it was not safe to make any memoranda openly.

The auction was in the great bar-room of the St. Charles Hotel, a spacious, airy octagonal apartment, with a circular range of Ionic columns. The marble bar, covering three sides of the room, was doing a brisk business. Three perturbed tapsters were bustling about to supply with fluids the bibulous crowd, which by no means did its spiriting gently.

The negroes stood in a row, in front of the auctioneer's platform, with numbered tickets pinned upon their coats and frocks. Thus, a young woman with a baby in her arms, who rolled his great white eyes in astonishment, was ticketed "No. 7." Referring to the printed list, I found this description:

Those already sold were in a group at the other end of the platform. One young woman, in a faded frock and sun-bonnet, and wearing gold ear-rings, had straight brown hair, hazel eyes, pure European features, and a [Pg 67] very light complexion. I was unable to detect in her face the slightest trace of negro lineage. Her color, features, and movements were those of an ordinary country girl of the white working class in the South. A by-stander assured me that she was sold under the hammer, just before I entered. She associated familiarly with the negroes, and left the room with them when the sale was concluded; but no one would suspect, under other circumstances, that she was tinged with African blood.

The spectators, about two hundred in number, were not more than one-tenth bidders. There were planters from the interior, with broad shoulders and not unpleasing faces; city merchants, and cotton factors; fast young men in pursuit of excitement, and strangers attracted by curiosity.

Among the latter was a spruce young man in the glossiest of broadcloth, and the whitest of linen, with an unmistakable Boston air. He lounged carelessly about, and endeavored to look quite at ease, but made a very brilliant failure. His restless eye and tell-tale countenance indicated clearly that he was among the Philistines for the first time, and held them in great terror.

There were some professional slave-dealers, and many nondescripts who would represent the various shades between loafers and blacklegs, in any free community. They were men of thick lips, sensual mouths, full chins, large necks, and bleared eyes, suggesting recent dissipation. They were a "hard-looking" company. I would not envy a known Abolitionist who should fall into their unrestrained clutches. No prudent life-insurance company would take a risk in him.

The auctioneer descanted eloquently upon the merits of each of his chattels, seldom dwelling upon one more [Pg 68] than five minutes. An herculean fellow, with an immense chest, was dressed in rusty black, and wore a superannuated silk hat. He looked the decayed gentleman to a charm, and was bid off for $840. A plump yellow boy, also in black, silk hat and all, seemed to think being sold rather a good joke, grinning broadly the while, and, at some jocular remark, showing two rows of white teeth almost from ear to ear. He brought $1,195, and appeared proud of commanding so high a figure.

Several light quadroon girls brought large prices. One was surrounded by a group of coarse-looking men, who addressed her in gross language, shouting with laughter as she turned away to hide her face, and rudely manipulating her arms, shoulders, and breasts. Her age was not given. "That's the trouble with niggers," remarked a planter to me; "you never can tell how old they are, and so you get swindled." One mother and her infant sold for $1,415.

Strolling into the St. Charles, a few days later, I found two sales in full career. On one platform the auctioneer was recommending a well-proportioned, full-blooded negro, as "a very likely and intelligent young man, gentlemen, who would have sold readily, a year ago, for thirteen hundred dollars. And now I am offered only eight hundred—eight hundred—eight hundred—eight hundred; are you all done?"

On the opposite side of the room another auctioneer, in stentorian tones, proclaimed the merits of a pretty quadroon girl, tastefully dressed, and wearing gold finger and ear rings. "The girl, gentlemen, is only fifteen years old; warranted sound in every particular, an excellent seamstress, which would make her worth a thousand dollars, if she had no other qualifications . She is sold for no fault, but simply because her owner must have [Pg 69] money. No married man had better buy her; she is too handsome." The girl was bid off at $1,100, and stepped down to make way for a field-hand. Ascending the steps, he stumbled and fell, at which the auctioneer saluted him with "Come along, G-d d--n you!"

Mothers and their very young children were not often separated; but I frequently saw husbands and wives sold apart; no pretense being made of keeping them together. Negroes were often offered with what was decorously described as a "defect" in the arm, or shoulder. Sometimes it appeared to be the result of accident, sometimes of punishment. I saw one sold who had lost two toes from each foot. No public inquiries were made, and no explanation given. He replied to questions that his feet "hurt him sometimes," and was bid off at $625—about two-thirds of his value had it not been for the "defect."

Some slaves upon the block—especially the mothers—looked sad and anxious; but three out of four appeared careless and unconcerned, laughing and jesting with each other, both before and after the sale. The young people, especially, often seemed in the best of spirits.

And yet, though familiarity partially deadened the feeling produced by the first one I witnessed, a slave auction is the most utterly revolting spectacle that I ever looked upon. Its odiousness does not lie in the lustful glances and expressions which a young and comely woman on the block always elicits; nor in the indelicate conversation and handling to which she is subjected; nor in the universal infusion of white blood, which tells its own story about the morality of the institution; nor in the separation of families; nor in the sale of women—as white as our own mothers and sisters—made pariahs by an imperceptible African taint; nor in the scars and [Pg 70] "defects," suggestive of cruelty, which are sometimes seen.

All these features are bad enough, but many sales exhibit few of them, and are conducted decorously. The great revolting characteristic lies in the essence of the system itself—that claim of absolute ownership in a human being with an immortal soul—of the right to buy and sell him like a horse or a bale of cotton—which insults Democracy, belies Civilization, and blasphemes Christianity.

In March, there was a heavy snow-storm in New York. Telegraphic intelligence of it reached me in an apartment fragrant with orange blossoms, where persons in linen clothing were discussing strawberries and ice-cream. It made one shiver in that delicious, luxurious climate. Blind old Milton was right. Where should he place the Garden of Eden but in the tropics? How should he paint the mother of mankind but in

CHAPTER V.

Nearly every northerner whom I heard of in the South, as suffering from the suspicion of Abolitionism, was really a pro-slavery man, who had been opposing the Abolitionists all his life. I recollect an amusing instance of a man, originally from a radical little town in Massachusetts, who had been domiciled for several years in Mississippi. While in New England, during the campaign after which Mr. Lincoln was elected, he expressed pro-slavery sentiments so odious that he was with difficulty protected from personal violence.

He was fully persuaded in his heart of hearts of the divinity of Slavery; and, I doubt not, willing to fight for it. But his northern birth made him an object of suspicion; and, immediately after the outbreak of Secession, the inexorable Minute Men waited upon him, inviting him, if he wished to save his life, to prepare to quit the State in one hour. He was compelled to leave behind property to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. His case was one of many.

Even from a Rebel standpoint, there was an unpleasant injustice about this. Perhaps Democrats were almost the only northerners now in the South—Republicans and Abolitionists staying away, in the exercise of that discretion which is the better part of valor.

I well remember thinking, as I strolled down to the post-office one evening, with a long letter in my pocket, which gave a minute and bitterly truthful description of the slave auctions:

"If the Minute Men were to pounce upon me now, and find this dispatch, no amount of plausible talking could save me. There would be a vacancy on The Tribune staff within the next hour."

But when the message was safely deposited in the letter-box, I experienced a sort of relief in the feeling that if the Rebels were now to mob or imprison me, I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing they were not mistaking souls; and that, if I were forced to emulate Saint Paul in "labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in pains more frequent, in deaths oft," I should, in their code, most richly have earned martyrdom.

Yesterday was a lively day in the Convention. Mr. Bienvenu threw a hot shot into the Secession camp, in the shape of an ordinance demanding a report of the official vote in each parish (county) by which the delegates were elected. This would prove that the popular vote of the State was against immediate Secession by a majority of several hundred. The Convention would not permit such exposure of its defiance of the popular will; and, by seventy-three to twenty-two, refused to consider the question.

A warm discussion ensued, on the ordinance for submitting the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" to the popular vote, for ratification or rejection. The ablest argument against it was by Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, formerly attorney-general of Louisiana. He is a keen, wiry-looking, spectacled gentleman, who, in a terse, incisive speech, made the best of a bad cause. The pith of his argument was, that Republican Governments are not based upon pure Democracy, but upon what Mr. Calhoun termed "concurring [Pg 73] majorities." The voters had delegated full powers to the Convention, which was the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

The speaker's lip curled with ineffable scorn as he rang the changes upon the words "mere numerical majorities." Just now, this is a favorite phrase with the Rebels throughout the South. Yet they all admit that a majority, even of one vote, in Mississippi or Virginia, justly controls the action of the State, and binds the minority. I wish they would explain why a "mere numerical majority" is more oppressive in a collection of States than in a single commonwealth.

Mr. Add Rozier, of New Orleans, in a bold speech, advocated submitting the constitution to the people. On being asked by a member—"Did you vote for the Secession ordinance several weeks ago?" he replied, emphatically:—

A spontaneous outburst of applause from the lobby gave an index of the stifled public sentiment. Mr. Rozier charged that the Secessionists knew they were acting against the popular will, and dared not appeal to the people. Until the Montgomery constitution should become the law of the land, he utterly spurned it, spat upon it, trampled it under his feet.

Mr. Christian Roselius, also of this city, advocated the ordinance with equal boldness and fervor. He insisted that it was based on the fundamental principle of Republicanism—that this Convention was no Long Parliament to rule Louisiana without check or limit; and he ridiculed with merciless sarcasm Mr. Semmes's theory of the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

The inexorable majority here cut off debate, calling [Pg 74] the previous question, and defeated the ordinance by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-six.

This body is a good specimen of the Secession Oligarchy. It appointed, from its own members, the Louisiana delegates to the Convention of all the seceded States which framed the Montgomery Constitution, and now it proposes to pass finally upon their action, leaving the people quite out of sight.

Another exciting day in the Convention. Subject: "The adoption of the Montgomery Constitution." Five or six Union members fought it very gallantly, and denounced unsparingly the plan of a Cotton Confederacy, and the South Carolina policy of trampling upon the rights of the people. The majority made little attempt to refute these arguments, but some of the angry members glared fiercely upon Messrs. Roselius, Rozier, and Bienvenu, who certainly displayed high moral and physical courage. It is easy for you in the North to denounce Secession; but to oppose it here, as those gentlemen did, requires more nerve than most men possess.

The speech of Mr. Roselius was able and bitter. This was not a constitution; it was merely a league—a treaty of alliance. It sprung from an audacious, unmitigated oligarchy. It was a retrogression of six hundred years in the science of government. We were told (here the speaker's sarcasm of manner was ludicrous and inimitable, drawing shouts of laughter even from the leading Secessionists) that this body represented the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people!"

He supposed that Cæsar, when he crossed the Rubicon—Augustus, when he overthrew the Roman Republic—Cromwell, [Pg 75] when he broke up the Long Parliament—Bonaparte, when he suppressed the Council of Five Hundred at the point of the bayonet—Louis Napoleon, when he violated his oath to the republic, and ascended the imperial throne—were each the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

Like the most odious tyrannies of history, it preserved the forms of liberty; but its spirit was crushed out. The Convention from which this creature crept into light had imitated the odious government of Spain—the only one in the world taxing exports—by levying an export duty upon cotton. He was surprised that the Montgomery legislators failed to introduce a second Spanish feature—the Inquisition. One was as detestable as the other.

Mr. Roselius concluded in a broken voice and with great feeling. His heart grew sad at this overthrow of free institutions. The Secession leaders had dug the grave of republican liberty, and we were called upon to assist at the funeral! He would have no part in any such unhallowed business.

This, of course, is Secession in a nutshell—the fundamental principle of the whole movement. But the leaders refused to take their own medicine, and tabled the proposition without discussion.

Mr. Bienvenu caused to be entered upon the journal his protest against the action of the Convention, denouncing it as an ordinance which "strips the people of [Pg 76] their sovereignty, reduces them to a state of vassalage, and places the destinies of the State, and of the new Republic, at the mercy of an uncommissioned and irresponsible oligarchy."

The final vote was then taken, and resulted in one hundred and one yeas to seven nays; so "the Confederate Constitution" is declared ratified by the State of Louisiana.

The Revolutionists can not be charged with any lack of frankness. The Delta , lamenting that the Virginia Convention will not take that State out of the Union, predicts approvingly that "some Cromwellian influence will yet disperse the Convention, and place the Old Dominion in the Secession ranks." De Bow's Review , a leading Secession oracle, with high pretensions to philosophy and political economy, says, in its current issue:

To-day's Crescent discusses the propriety of admitting northern States into the Southern Confederacy, "when they find out, as they soon will, that they can not get along by themselves." It is quite confident that they will, ere long, beg admission—but predicts for them the fate of the Peri, who

They must not be permitted to enter. Upon this point it is inexorable. It will permit no compunctious visitings of nature to shake its fell purpose.

I know all this sounds vastly like a joke; but The Crescent is lugubriously in earnest. In sooth, these Rebels are gentlemen of magnificent expectations. "Sir," remarked one of them, a judge, too, while conversing with me this very day, "in seven years, the Southern Confederacy will be the greatest and richest nation on earth. We shall have Cuba, Central America, Mexico, and every thing west of the Alleghanies. We are the natural market of the northwestern States, and they are bound to join us!"

Think of that, will you! Imagine Father Giddings, Carl Schurz, and Owen Lovejoy—the stanch Republican States of Wisconsin, Michigan, and even young Kansas—whose infant steps to Freedom were over the burning plowshare and through the martyr's blood—knocking for admission at the door of a Slave Confederacy! Is not this the very ecstasy of madness?

That virtuous and lamented body, the Louisiana Convention, after a very turbulent session to-day, has adjourned until the 1st of November.

The Crescent is exercised at the presence here of "correspondents of northern papers, who indite real falsehoods and lies as coolly as they would eat a dinner at the Saint Charles." The Crescent's rhetoric is a little limping; but its watchfulness and patriotism are above all praise. The matter should certainly be attended to.

We are still enjoying the delights of summer. The air is fragrant with daffodils, violets, and roses, the buds of the sweet olive and the blossoms of the orange. I [Pg 78] have just returned from a ride through the swamp—that great cesspool of this metropolis, which generates, with the recurrence of summer, the pestilence that walketh in darkness.

It is full of sights strange to northern eyes. The stagnant pools of black and green water harmonize with the tall, ghastly dead trees, from whose branches depend long fleeces of gray Spanish moss, with the effect of Gothic architecture. It is used in lounges and mattresses; but when streaming from the branches, in its native state, reminds one of the fantastic term which the Choctaw Indians apply to leaves—"tree-hair."

The weird dead trunks, the moss and the water, contrast strikingly with the rich, bright foliage of the deciduous trees just glowing into summer life. The balmy air makes physical existence delicious, and diffuses a luxurious languor through the system. Remove your hat, close your eyes, and its strong current strokes your brow lovingly and nestles against your cheek like a pillow.

During the last week in March, I went by the New Orleans and Great Northern Railway to Jackson, Mississippi, where the State Convention was in session.

There is not in Louisiana a hill two hundred feet high. Along the railroad, smooth, grassy everglades give place to gloomy swamps, dark with the gigantic cypress and the varnished leaves of the laurel.

On the plantations, the white one-story cabins of the negroes stood in long double rows, near the ample porched and balconied residences of the planters. Young sugar-cane, resembling corn two or three weeks old, was just peering through the ground. Noble live-oaks [Pg 79] waved their drooping boughs above the fields. The Pride-of-China tree was very abundant about the dwellings. It produces a berry on which the birds eagerly feed, though its juice is said to intoxicate them. As they do not wear revolvers or bowie-knives, it is rather a harmless form of dissipation.

Jackson was not a paradise for a man of my vocation. Containing four or five thousand people, it was one of those delightful villages, calling themselves cities, of which the sunny South by no means enjoys a monopoly—where everybody knows everybody's business, and where, upon the advent of a stranger, the entire community resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole to learn who he is, where he came from, and what he wants.

In a great metropolis, espionage was easily baffled; but in Jackson, an unknown chiel, who looked capable of "takin' notes," to say nothing of "prentin' 'em," was subject to constant and uncomfortable scrutiny.

Contrasted with the bustle of New Orleans, existence seemed an unbroken seventh-day rest, though a dire certainty possessed me, that were my errand suspected, e'en Sunday would shine no Sabbath day for me.

Some months later, a refugee, who had resided there, pictured vividly to me the indignant and bewildered astonishment of the Jacksonians, when, through a stray copy of The Tribune , they learned that one of its correspondents had not only walked with them, talked with them, and bought with them, but, less scrupulous than Shylock, had been ready to eat with them, drink with them, and pray with them.

At this time the Charleston papers and some northern journals declared The Tribune's southern correspondence fictitious, and manufactured at the home office. To [Pg 80] remove that impression touching my own letters, I wrote, on certain days, the minutest records of the Convention, and of affairs in Jackson, which never found their way into the local prints.

Mournfully metropolitan was Jackson in one respect—the price of board at its leading hotel. The accommodations were execrable; but I suppose we were charged for the unusual luxury of an unctuous Teutonic landlord, who bore the formidable patronymic of H-i-l-z-h-e-i-m-e-r!

The Convention was discussing the submission of the Montgomery Constitution to the people. The chief clerk, with whom I formed a chance acquaintance, kindly invited me to a chair beside his desk, and as I sat facing the members, explained to me their capacity, views, and antecedents. Whether an undue inquisitiveness seemed to him the distinguishing quality of the New Mexican mind, he did not declare; but once he asked me abruptly if I was connected with the press? With the least possible delay, I disabused his mind of that peculiarly unjust misapprehension.

After a long discussion, the Convention, by a vote of fifty-three to thirty-two, refused to submit the Constitution to the people, and ratified it in the name of Mississippi. Seven Union members could not be induced to follow the usual practice of making the action unanimous, but to the last steadfastly refused their adherence.

CHAPTER VI.

The Mississippi State House, upon a shaded square in front of my window, is a faded, sober edifice, of the style in vogue fifty years ago, with the representative hall at one end, the senate chamber at the other, an Ionic portico in front, and an immense dome upon the top. Above this is a miniature dome, like an infinitesimal parasol upon a gigantic umbrella. The whole is crowned by a small gilded pinnacle, which has relapsed from its original perpendicular to an angle of forty-five degrees, and looks like a little jockey-cap, worn jantily upon the head of a plethoric quaker, to whom it imparts a rowdyish air, at variance with his general gravity.

The first story is of cracked free-stone, the front and end walls of stucco, and the rear of brick. As you enter the vestibule two musty cannon stand gaping at you, and upon one of them you may see, almost any day, a little "darkey" sound asleep. Whether he guards the gun, or the gun guards him, opens a wide field for conjecture.

Ascending a spiral stairway, and passing along the balustrade which surrounds the open space under the dome, you turn to the left, through a narrow passage into the representative hall. Here is the Mississippi Convention.

At the north end of the apartment sits the president, [Pg 82] upon a high platform occupying a recess in the wall, with two Ionic columns upon each side of him. Before him is a little, old-fashioned mahogany pulpit, concealing all but his head and shoulders from the vulgar gaze. In front of this, and three or four feet lower, at a long wooden desk, sit two clerks, one smoking a cigar.

Before them, and still lower, at a shorter desk, an unhappy Celtic reporter, with dark shaggy hair and eyebrows, is taking down the speech of the honorable member from something or other county. In front of his desk, standing rheumatically upon the floor, is a little table, which looks as if called into existence by a drunken carpenter on a dark night, from the relics of a superannuated dry-goods box.

Upon one of the columns at the president's right, hangs a faded portrait of George Poindexter, once a senator from this State. Further to the right is an open fire-place, upon whose mantel stand a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, now sadly faded and blurred, a lithographic view of the Medical College of Louisiana, and a pitcher and glass. On the hearth is a pair of ancient andirons, upon which a genial wood fire is burning.

The hypocritical plastering which coated the fireplace has peeled off, leaving bare the honest, worn faces of the original bricks. Some peculiar non-adhesive influence must affect plastering in Jackson. In whole rooms of the hotel it has seceded from the lath. Judge Gholson says that once, in the old State House, a few hundred yards distant, when ~~Sargeant~~ Seargeant S. Prentiss was making a speech, he saw "an acre or two" of the plastering fall upon his head, and quite overwhelm him for the time. The Judge is what Count Fosco would call the Man of Brains; he is deemed the ablest member [Pg 83] of the Convention. He was a colleague in Congress of the lamented Prentiss, whom he pronounces the most brilliant orator that ever addressed a Mississippi audience.

On the left of the president is another fire-place, also with a sadly blurred copy of the great Declaration standing upon its mantel. The members' desks, in rows like the curved line of the letter D, are of plain wood, painted black. Their chairs are great, square, faded mahogany frames, stuffed and covered with haircloth. As you stand beside the clerk's desk, facing them, you see behind the farthest row a semi-circle of ten pillars, and beyond them a narrow, crescent shaped lobby. Half-way up the pillars is a little gallery, inhabited just now by two ladies in faded mourning.

In the middle of the hall, a tarnished brass chandelier, with pendants of glass, is suspended from the ceiling by a rod festooned with cobwebs. This medieval relic is purely ornamental, for the room is lighted with gas. The walls are high, pierced with small windows, whose faded blue curtains, flowered and bordered with white, are suspended from a triple bar of gilded Indian arrows.

Chairs of cane, rush, wood and leather seats—chairs with backs, and chairs without backs, are scattered through the hall and lobby, in pleasing illustration of that variety which is the spice of life. The walls are faded, cracked, and dingy, pervaded by the general air of mustiness, and going to "the demnition bow-wows" prevalent about the building.

The members are in all sorts of social democratic positions. In the open spaces about the clerk's desk and fire-places, some sit with chairs tilted against the wall, some upon stools, and three slowly vibrate to and fro in pre-Raphaelite [Pg 84] rocking-chairs. These portions of the hall present quite the appearance of a Kentucky bar-room on a winter evening.

Two or three members are eating apples, three or four smoking cigars, and a dozen inspect their feet, resting upon the desks before them. Contemplating the spectacle yesterday, I found myself involuntarily repeating the couplet of an old temperance ditty:

and a moment after I was strongly tempted to give the prolonged, stentorian shout of " B-o-o-t-s! " familiar to ears theatrical. Pardon the irreverence, O decorous Tribune ! for there is such a woful dearth of amusement in this solemn, funereal city, that one waxes desperate. To complete my inventory, many members are reading this morning's Mississippian , or The New Orleans Picayune or Delta , and the rest listen to the one who is addressing the Chair.

They impress you by their pastoral aspect—the absence of urban costumes and postures. Their general bucolic appearance would assure you, if you did not know it before, that there are not many large cities in the State of Mississippi. Your next impression is one of wonder at their immense size and stature. Of them the future historian may well say: "There were giants in those days."

All around you are broad-shouldered, herculean-framed, well-proportioned men, who look as if a laugh from them would bring this crazy old capitol down about their ears, and a sneeze, shake the great globe itself. The largest of these Mississippi Anakim is a gigantic planter, clothed throughout in blue homespun.

You might select a dozen out of the ninety-nine delegates, each of whom could personate the Original Scotch Giant in a traveling exhibition. They have large, fine heads, and a profusion of straight brown hair, though here and there is a crown smooth, bald, and shining. Taken for all in all, they are fine specimens of physical development, with frank, genial, jovial faces.

The speaking is generally good, and commands respectful attention. There is little badinage or satire, a good deal of directness and coming right to the point, qualified by the strong southern proclivity for adjectives. The pungent French proverb, that the adjective is the most deadly enemy of the substantive, has never journeyed south of Mason & Dixon's line.

The members, like all deliberative bodies in this latitude, are mutual admirationists. Every speaker has the most profound respect for the honest motives, the pure patriotism, the transcendent abilities of the honorable gentleman upon the other side. It excites his regret and self-distrust to differ from such an array of learning and eloquence; and nothing could impel him to but a sense of imperious duty.

He speaks fluently, and with grammatical correctness, but in the Anglo-African dialect. His violent denunciations of the Black Republicans are as nothing to the gross indignities which he offers to the letter r . His " mo's ," " befo's ," and " hea's " convey reminiscences of the negress who nursed him in infancy, and the little "pickaninnies" with whom he played in boyhood.

The custom of stump-speaking, universal through the South and West, is a capital factory for converting the raw material into orators. Of course there are strong exceptions. This very morning we had an address from one member—Mr. D. B. Moore, of Tuppah county—which [Pg 86] is worthy of more particular notice. I wish I could give you a literal report. Pickwick would be solemn in comparison.

Mr. Moore conceives himself an orator, as Brutus was; but in attempting to cover the whole subject (the Montgomery Constitution), he spread himself out "very thin." I will "back" him in a given time to quote more Scripture, incorrectly, irreverently, and irrelevantly, than any other man on the North American continent.

His "like we" was peculiarly refreshing, and his history and classics had a strong flavor of originality. He quoted Patrick Henry, " Let Cæsar have his Brutus;" piled "Pelion upon Pelion !" and made Sampson kill Goliah!! He thought submitting the Secession ordinance to the people in Texas had produced an excellent effect. Previous to it, the New York Tribune said: "Secession is but a scheme of demagogues—a move on the political chess-board—the people oppose it." But afterward it began to ask: "How is this? What does it all mean? The people seem to have a hand in it, and to be in earnest, too." The tone of Mr. Seward also changed radically, he observed, after that election.

Mr. Moore spoke an hour and a half, and the other members, though listening courteously, betrayed a lurking suspicion that he was a bore. In person he resembles Henry S. Lane, the zealous United States Senator-elect from Indiana. The sergeant-at-arms, who, in a gray coat, and without a neckerchief, walks to and fro, with hands in his pockets, looks like the unlovely James H. Lane, Senator-expectant from Kansas.

Shall I give you a little familiar conversation of the members, as they smoke their post-prandial cigars in the [Pg 87] hall, waiting for the Convention to be called to order? Every mother's son of them has a title.

Judge. —Toombs is a great blusterer. When speaking, he seems determined to force, to drive you into agreeing with him. Howell Cobb is another blusterer, much like him, but immensely fond of good dinners. Aleck Stephens is very different. When he speaks, you feel that he desires to carry you with him only by the power of reason and argument.

Colonel. —I knew him when he used to be a mail-carrier in Georgia. He was a poor orphan boy, but a charitable society of ladies educated him. He is a very small man, with a hand no wider than my three fingers, and as transparent as any lady's who has been sick for a year. He always looked like an invalid. If you were to cut his head off, I don't believe he would bleed a pint. 4

Major. —Do you know what frightened Abe Lincoln out of Baltimore? Somebody told him that Aleck Stephens was lying in wait for him on a street corner, with a six-pounder strapped to his back. When he heard that, he sloped . [Loud laughter from the group.]

Judge. —Well, Lincoln has been abused immensely about his flight through Baltimore; but I believe the man acted from good motives. He knew that his partisans there meant to make a demonstration when he arrived, and that they were very obnoxious to the people; he had good reason to believe that it would produce [Pg 88] trouble, and perhaps bloodshed; so he went through, secretly, to avoid it.

The Second Louisiana Zouaves were reviewed on Lafayette Square last evening, before leaving for Pensacola. They are boyish-looking, and handle their muskets as if a little afraid of them, but seem to be the raw material of good soldiers. They are luridly grotesque, in closely-fitting, blue-tasseled, red fez caps, blue flannel jackets and frocks, faced with red, baggy red breeches, like galvanized corn-sacks, and gutta-percha greaves about their ankles.

All the Secession leaders except Senator Benjamin declare there will be no war. He asserts that war is sure to come; and in a recent speech characterized it as "by no means an unmixed evil."

The Fire-Eaters are intensely bitter upon the border States for refusing to plunge into the whirlpool of Secession. They are bent on persuading or driving all the slave States into their ranks. Otherwise they fear—indeed, predict frankly—that the border will gradually become Abolitionized, and extend free territory to the Gulf itself. They are quite willing to devote Kentucky and Virginia to the devastation of civil war, or the embarrassment of a contiguous hostile republic, which would not return their run-away negroes. 5 But they [Pg 89] will move heaven and earth to save themselves from any such possible contingency.

The recent warlike movements of the National Government cause excitement and surprise. At last, the people begin to suspect that they have invoked grim-visaged war. The newspapers descant upon the injury to commerce and industry. Why did they not think of all this before?

It is vouchsafed to few mortals to learn, before death, exactly what their associates think of them; but your correspondent is among the favored few. The other evening, I was sitting with a Secession acquaintance, in the great exchange of the St. Charles Hotel, when conversation turned upon the southern habit of lynching people who do not happen to agree with the majority. He presumed enough upon my ignorance to insist that any moderate, gentlemanly Republican might come here with impunity.

"Governor Dennison, of Ohio, is one. Since he refused to return that fugitive slave to Kentucky, he would hardly be permitted to stay in New Orleans; at all events, I should oppose it. Then there is Andy Johnson. He ought to be shot, or hanged, wherever found. But for him, Kentucky and Tennessee would have been with us long ago. He could not remain here unharmed for a single hour."

"Some infernal scoundrel, who is writing abusive letters about us to The New York Tribune ."

"Some think it is a Kentuckian, who pretends to be engaged in cattle-trading, but only makes that a subterfuge. I suspect, however, that it is an editor of The Picayune , which is a Yankee concern through and through. If he is caught, I don't think he will write many more letters."

I ventured a few words in palliation of the Governor and the Senator, but quite agreed that this audacious scribbler ought to be suppressed.

Telegraphic intelligence to-day of the attack upon Fort Sumter causes intense excitement. The Delta office is besieged by a crowd hungry for news. The universal expectation of the easy capture of the fort is not stronger than the belief that it will be followed by an immediate and successful movement against the city of Washington. The politicians and newspapers have persuaded the masses that the Yankees (a phrase which they no longer apply distinctively to New Englanders, but to every person born in the North) mean to subjugate them, but are arrant cowards, who may easily be frightened away. Leading men seldom express this opinion; yet The Crescent , giving the report that eight thousand Massachusetts troops have been called into the field, adds, that if they would come down to Pensacola, eighteen hundred Confederates would easily "whip them out."

CHAPTER VII.

There were two of my acquaintances (one very prominent in the Secession movement) with whom, while they had no suspicion of my real business, I could converse with a little frankness. One of them desired war, on the ground that it would unite the inhabitants of all the border slave States, and overpower the Union sentiment there.

"True; but do you suppose they could stand for a single week against the popular feeling which war would arouse?"

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, thoughtfully, "but it never occurred to me before."

"We can get along very well with the New England Yankees who are permanently settled here. They make the strongest Secessionists we have; but the Kentuckians give us a great deal of trouble. They were born and raised where Slavery is unprofitable. They have strong proclivities toward Abolitionism. The constituents of Rozier and Roselius, who fought us so persistently in the Convention, are nearly all Kentuckians.

"Slavery is our leading interest. Right or wrong, we have it and we must have it. Cotton, rice, and sugar cannot be raised without it. Being a necessity, we do not mean to allow its discussion. Every thing which clashes with it, or tends to weaken it, must go under. Our large German population is hostile to it. About all these Dutchmen would be not only Unionists, but Black Republicans, if they dared."

Perhaps it is the invariable law of revolutions that, even while the revolters are in a numerical minority, they are able to carry the majority with them. It is certain that, before Sumter was fired on, a majority in every State, except South Carolina, was opposed to Secession. The constant predictions of the Rebel leaders that there would be no war, and the assertions of prominent New York journals, that any attempt at coercion on the part of the Government would be met with armed and bloody resistance in every northern city and State, were the two chief causes of the apparent unanimity of the South.

The masses had a vague but very earnest belief that the North, in some incomprehensible manner, had done them deadly wrong. Cassio-like, they remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore." The leaders were sometimes more specific.

"The South," said a pungent writer, "has endured a great many wrongs; but the most intolerable of all the grievances ever thrust upon her was the Census Report of 1860!" There was a great deal of truth in this remark. One day I asked my New Orleans friend:

"Don't deceive yourself," he answered. "Mr. Lincoln's [Pg 93] election had nothing to do with it, beyond enabling us to rouse our people. Had Douglas been chosen, we should have broken up the Union just as quickly. Had Bell triumphed, it would have been all the same. Even if Breckinridge had been elected, we would have seceded before the close of his term. There is an essential incompatibility between the two sections. The South stands still, while the North has grown rich and powerful, and expanded from ocean to ocean. "

This was the fundamental grievance. Very liberal in his general views, he had not apparently the faintest suspicion that Slavery was responsible for the decadence of the South, or that Freedom impelled the gigantic strides of the North.

Yet his theory of the Rebellion was doubtless correct. It arose from no man, or party, or political event, but from the inherent quarrel between two adverse systems, which the fullness of time had ripened into open warfare. His "essential incompatibility" was only another name for Mr. Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict" between two principles. They have since recorded, in letters of blood, not merely their incompatibility, but their absolute, aggressive, eternal antagonism.

During the second week in April, I began to find myself the object of unpleasant, not to say impertinent, curiosity. So many questions were asked, so many pointed and significant remarks made in my presence, as to render it certain that I was regarded with peculiar suspicion.

At first I was at a loss to surmise its origin. But one day I encountered an old acquaintance in the form of a son of Abraham, who had frequently heard me, in public addresses in Kansas, utter sentiments not absolutely pro-slavery; [Pg 94] who knew that I once held a modest commission in the Free State army, and that I was a whilom correspondent of The Tribune .

He was by no means an Israelite without guile, for he had been chased out of the Pike's Peak region during the previous summer, for robbing one of my friends who had nursed him in sickness. Concluding that he might play the informer, I made an engagement with him for the next afternoon, and, before the time arrived, shook from my feet the dust of New Orleans. Designing to make a détour to Fort Pickens on my way, I procured a ticket for Washington. The sea was the safer route, but I was curious to take a final look at the interior.

On Friday evening, April 12th, I left the Crescent City. In five minutes our train plunged into the great swamp which environs the commercial metropolis of the Southwest. Deep, broad ditches are cut for draining, and you sometimes see an alligator, five or six feet long, and as large as the body of a man, lying lazily upon the edge of the green water.

The marshy ground is mottled with gorgeous flowers, and the palmetto is very abundant. It does not here attain to the dignity of a tree, seldom growing more than four feet high. Its flag, sword-shaped leaves branch out in flat semicircular clusters, resembling the fan palm. Its tough bulbous root was formerly cut into fine fragments by the Indians, then bruised to a pulp and thrown into the lake. It produced temporary blindness among the fishes, which brought them to the surface, where they were easily caught by hand.

With rare fitness stands the palmetto as the device of South Carolina. Indeed, it is an excellent emblem of Slavery itself; for, neither beautiful, edible, nor useful, it blinds the short-sighted fish coming under its influence.

A ride of four miles brought us to Lake Pontchartrain, stretching away in the fading sunlight. Over the broad expanse of swelling water, delicate, foamy white caps were cresting the waves.

We were transferred to the propeller Alabama, and, when I woke the next morning, were lying at Mobile. With a population of thirty thousand, the city contains many pleasant residences, embowered in shade-trees, and surrounded by generous grounds. It is rendered attractive by its tall pines, live oak, and Pride-of-China trees. The last were now decked in a profusion of bluish-white blossoms.

The war spirit ran high. Hand-bills, headed "Soldiers wanted," and "Ho! for volunteers," met the eye at every corner; uniforms and arms abounded, and the voice of the bugle was heard in the streets. All northern vessels were clearing on account of the impending crisis, though some were not more than half loaded.

Mobile was very radical. One of the daily papers urged the imposition of a tax of one dollar per copy upon every northern newspaper or magazine brought into the Confederacy!

The leading hotel was crowded with guests, including many soldiers en route for Bragg's army. It was my own design to leave for Pensacola that evening, and look at the possible scene of early hostilities. A Secession friend in New Orleans had given me a personal letter to General Bragg, introducing me as a gentleman of leisure, who would be glad to make a few sketches of proper objects of interest about his camps, for one of the New York illustrated papers. It added that he had known [Pg 96] me all his life, and vouched completely for my "soundness."

But a little incident changed my determination. Among my fellow-passengers from New Orleans were three young officers of the Confederate army, also bound for Fort Pickens. While on the steamer, I did not observe that I was an object of their special attention; but just after breakfast this morning, as I was going up to my room, in the fourth story of the Battle House, I encountered them also ascending the broad stairs. The moment they saw me, they dropped the subject upon which they were conversing, and one, with significant glances, burst into a most violent invective against The Tribune , denouncing it as the vilest journal in America, except Parson Brownlow's Knoxville Whig! pronouncing every man connected with it a thief and scoundrel, and asserting that if any of its correspondents could be caught here, they would be hung upon the nearest tree.

This philippic was so evidently inspired by my presence, and the eyes of the whole group glared with a speculation so unpleasant, that I felt myself an unhappy Romeo, "too early seen unknown and known too late." I had learned by experience that the best protection for a suspected man was to go everywhere, as if he had a right to go; to brave scrutiny; to return stare for stare and question for question.

So, during this tirade, which lasted while, side by side, we leisurely climbed two staircases, I strove to maintain an exterior of serene and wooden unconsciousness. When the speaker had exhausted his vocabulary of hard words, I drew a fresh cigar from my pocket, and said to him, "Please to give me a light, sir." With a puzzled air he took his cigar from his mouth, knocked off the ashes with his forefinger, handed it to me, and stood regarding [Pg 97] me a little curiously, while, looking him full in the face, I slowly ignited my own Havana, returned his, and thanked him.

They turned away apparently convinced that their zeal had outrun their discretion. The look of blank disappointment and perplexity upon the faces of those young officers as they disappeared in the passage will be, to me, a joy forever.

Pondering in my room upon fresh intelligence of the arrest of suspicious persons in General Bragg's camp, and upon this little experience, I changed my plan. As Toodles, in the farce, thinks he "won't smoke," so I decided not to go to Pensacola; but ordered a carriage, and drove down to the mail-boat St. Charles, which was to leave for Montgomery that evening.

I fully expected during the afternoon to entertain a vigilance committee, the police, or some military officials who would invite me to look at Secession through prison bars. It was not an inviting prospect; yet there was nothing to do but to wait.

The weather was dreamy and delicious. My state-room looked out upon the shining river, and the rich olive green of the grassy shore. Upon the dull, opaque water of a broad bayou beyond, little snowy sails flashed, and a steamer, with tall black chimneys, left a white, foamy track in the waters, and long clouds of brown smoke against the sky.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, while I was lying in my state-room, looking out drowsily upon this picture, a cabin-boy presented his sooty face at the door and said, "Mass'r, Fort Sumter's gone up!"

The intelligence had just arrived by telegraph. The first battle of the Great War was over, and seventy-two men, after a bombardment of two days, were captured [Pg 98] by twelve thousand! In a moment church and steamboat bells rang out their notes of triumph, and cannon belched forth their deep-mouthed exultation. A public meeting was extemporized in the street, and enthusiastic speeches were made. Mindful of my morning experience, I did not leave the boat, but tried to read the momentous Future. I thought I could see, in its early pages, the death-warrant of Slavery; but all else was inscrutable.

There was a steam calliope attached to the "St. Charles." That evening, when the last bell had rung, and the last cable was taken in, she left the Mobile landing, and plowed slowly up the river to the shrill notes of "Dixie's Land." 6

The Alabama is the "most monotonously beautiful of rivers." In the evening twilight, its sinuous sweep afforded a fine view of both shores, timbered down to the water's edge. Dense foliage, decked in the blended and intermingled hues of summer, gave them the appearance of two soft, smooth cushions of variegated velvet.

After dark, we met the descending mail-boat. Our calliope saluted her with lively music, and the passengers assembled on the guards, greeting each other with the usual huzzas and waving of hats and handkerchiefs.

On Sunday morning, the inevitable calliope awoke us—this time, with sacred music. At many river landings there was only a single well-shaded farm-house on the bank, with ladies sitting upon the piazzas, and white and negro children playing under the magnificent live-oaks. At others, a solitary warehouse stood upon the high, perpendicular bluff, with an inclined-plane railway for the conveyance of freight to the water. At some points the country was open, and a great cotton-field extended to the river-bank, with a weather-beaten cotton-press in the midst of it, like an old northern cider-mill.

Planters, returning from New Orleans and Mobile, were met at the landings by their negroes. The slaves appeared glad to see them, and were greeted with hearty hand-shakings. At one landing the calliope struck up a lively strain, and a young darkey on the bank, with the Terpsichorean proclivity of his race, began to dance as if for dear life, throwing his arms and legs in ludicrous and extravagant fashion. His master attempted to cuff his ears, but the little fellow ducked his head and danced away, to the great merriment of the lookers-on. The negro nurses on the boat fondled and kissed the little white children in their charge most ardently.

I saw no instance of unkind treatment to slaves; but a young planter on board mentioned to me, as a noteworthy circumstance, that he had not permitted a negro to be struck upon his plantation for a year.

A Texian on board the boat was very bitter against Governor Houston, and, with the usual extreme language of the Rebels, declared he would be hanged if he persisted in opposing the Disunionists. An old citizen of Louisiana, too, became so indignant at me for remarking I had always supposed Douglas to sympathize with the South, that I made haste to qualify the assertion.

Our passengers were excellent specimens of the better class of southerners. Aside from his negrophobia, the southern gentleman is an agreeable companion. He is genial, frank, cordial, profoundly deferential to women, and carries his heart in his hand. His social qualities are his weak point. To a northerner, passing through his country during these disjointed times, I would have said:

"Your best protection is to be 'hail fellow, well met;' spend money freely, tell good stories, be liberal of your private brandy-flask, and your after-dinner cigars. If you do this, and your manners are, in his thinking, gentlemanly, he can by no means imagine you a Yankee in the offensive sense. He pictures all Yankees as puritanic, rigid, fanatical, and talking through the nose. 'What the world wants,' says George William Curtis, 'is not honesty, but acquiescence.' That is profoundly true here. Acquiesce gracefully, not intemperately, in the prevailing sentiment. Don't hail from the State of Massachusetts; don't 'guess,' or use other northern provincialisms; don't make yourself conspicuous—and, if you know human nature, you may pass without serious trouble."

Our southerner has little humanity—he feels little sympathy for a man, as a man—as a mere human being—but he has abundant warmth toward his own social class. Not a very high specimen himself, he yet lays infinite stress upon being "a gentleman." If you have the misfortune to be poor, and without credentials, but possess the manners of education and good society, he will give you kinder reception than you are likely to obtain in the bustling, restless, crowded North.

He affects long hair, dresses in unqualified black, and wears kid gloves continually. He pronounces [Pg 101] iron " i -ron" (two syllables), and barrel "barl." He calls car "kyah" (one syllable), cigar " se -ghah," and negro " nig -ro"—never negro, and very rarely "nigger." The latter, by the way, was a pet word with Senator Douglas. Once, while his star was in the ascendant, some one asked Mr. Seward:

"No, sir," replied the New York senator. "No man will ever be President of the United States who spells negro with two g's!"

These southern provincialisms are sometimes a little startling. Conversing with a young man in the senior class of a Mississippi college, I remarked that men were seldom found in any circle who had not some sympathy or affinity with it, to stimulate them to seek it. "Yes," he replied, "something to aig them on !"

The forests along the river were beautiful with the brilliant green live-oak festooned with mistletoe, the dark pine, the dense cane, the spring glory of the cottonwood and maple, the drooping delicate leaves of the willow, the white-stemmed sycamore with its creamy foliage, and the great snowy blossoms of the dog-wood.

With a calliope, familiarity breeds contempt. Ours became an intolerable nuisance, and induced frequent discussions about bribing the player to stop it. He was apparently animated by the spirit of the Parisian who set a hand-organ to running by clockwork in his room, locked the apartment, went to the country for a month, and, when he returned, found that two obnoxious neighbors, whom he wished to drive away, had blown out their brains in utter despair.

While I was pleasantly engaged in a whist-party in the cabin, this fragment of a conversation between two bystanders reached my ears:

"Yes, a spy from the North, looking about to obtain information for old Lincoln; and they arrested one yesterday, too."

This was a pleasing theme of reflection for the timid and contemplative mind. A passenger explained the matter, by informing me that, at one of the landings where we stopped, telegraphic intelligence was received of the arrest of two spies at Montgomery. The popular impression seemed to be, that about one person in ten was engaged in that not-very-fascinating avocation!

In Indian dialect, Alabama signifies, "Here we rest;" but, for me, it had an exactly opposite meaning. We awoke one morning to find our boat lying at Montgomery. Reaching the hotel too early for breakfast, I strolled with a traveler from Philadelphia, a pretended Secessionist, to the State House, which was at present also the Capitol of the Confederacy.

Standing, like the Capitol in Washington, at the head of a broad thoroughfare, it overlooks a pleasant city of eight thousand people. The building is of stucco, and bears that melancholy suggestion of better days which seems inseparable from the Peculiar Institution.

The senate chamber is a small, dingy apartment, on whose dirty walls hang portraits of Clay, Calhoun, and two or three Alabama politicians. The desks and chairs were covered with antiquated public documents, and the other débris of legislative halls. While returning to the hotel, we heard from a street loafer a terse description of some model slave:

"He is just the best nigger in this town. He knows enough to work well, and he knows nothing else."

We were also informed that the Virginia Convention had passed a Secession ordinance.

"This is capital news; is it not?" said my Philadelphia companion, with well-assumed glee.

For several days, in spite of his violent assertions, I had doubted his sincerity. This was the first time he broached the subject when no one else was present. I looked steadily in his eye, and inquired:

His half-quizzical expression was a satisfactory answer, even without the reply:

In the hotel office, two well-dressed southerners were discussing the omnipresent topic. One of them said:

"Yes, we shall," replied the other. "The Yankees are going to fight for a while; but it will make no difference to us. We have got copperas breeches enough to carry this war through. None of the black breeches will have to shoulder muskets!"

The reader should understand that the clothing of the working whites was colored with a dye in which copperas was the chief ingredient; while, of course, the upper, slaveholding classes, wore "customary suits of solemn black." This was a very pregnant sentence, conveying in a few words the belief of those Rebels who instigated and impelled the war.

The morning newspapers, at our breakfast-table, detailed two interesting facts. First, that "Jasper," 7 the [Pg 104] Charleston correspondent of The New York Times , had been seized and imprisoned in the Palmetto City. Second, that Gen. Bragg had arrested in his camp, and sent under guard to Montgomery, "as a prisoner of war," the correspondent of The Pensacola (Fla.) Observer . This journalist was an enthusiastic Secessionist, but had been guilty of some indiscretion in publishing facts touching the strength and designs of the Rebel army. His signature was "Nemo;" and he now bade fair to be No One, indeed, for some time to come.

CHAPTER VIII.

I now began to entertain sentiments of profound gratitude toward the young officer, at Mobile, who kept me from going to Fort Pickens. Rejecting the tempting request of my Philadelphia companion to remain one day in Montgomery, that he might introduce me to Jefferson Davis, I continued my "Journey Due North."

When we reached the cars, my baggage was missing. The omnibus agent, who was originally a New Yorker, and probably thought it precarious for a man desiring to reach Washington to be detained, even a few hours, kindly induced the conductor to detain the train for five minutes while we drove back to the Exchange Hotel and found the missing valise. The event proved that delay would have been embarrassing, if not perilous.

A Georgian on the car-seat with me, while very careful not to let others overhear his remarks, freely avowed Union sentiments, and asserted that they were predominant among his neighbors. I longed to respond earnestly and sincerely, but there was the possibility of a trap, and I merely acquiesced.

The country was intoxicated by the capture of Sumter. A newspaper on the train, several days old, in its regular Associated Press report, contained the following:

An immense crowd serenaded President Davis and Mr. Walker, Secretary of War, at the Exchange Hotel to-night. The former was not [Pg 106] well, and did not appear. Secretary Walker, in a few words of electrical eloquence, told the news from Fort Sumter, declaring, in conclusion, that before many hours the flag of the Confederacy would float over that fortress. No man, he said, could tell where the war this day commenced would end, but he would prophesy that the flag which here streams to the breeze would float over the dome of the old Capitol at Washington before the first of May. Let them test Southern courage and resources, and it might float eventually over Faneuil Hall itself.

An officer from General Bragg's camp informed me that all preparations for capturing Fort Pickens were made, the United States sentinels on duty upon a certain night being bribed; but that "Nemo's" intimation of the intended attack frustrated it, a copy of his letter having found its way into the post, and forewarned and forearmed the commander.

Everybody was looking anxiously for news from the North. The predictions of certain New York papers, that the northern people would inaugurate war at home if the Government attempted "coercion," were received with entire credulity, and frequently quoted.

There was much admiration of Major Anderson's defense of Sumter; but the opinion was general, that only a military sense of honor dictated his conduct; that now, relieved from a soldier's responsibility, he would resign and join the Rebels. "He is too brave a man to remain with the Yankees," was the common remark. Far in the interior of Georgia, I saw fragments of his flag-staff exhibited, and highly prized as relics.

We dined at the little hamlet of West Point, on the line between Alabama and Georgia, and stopped for two evening hours at the bustling city of Atlanta. Our stay was enlivened by a fresh conversation in the car about northern spies and reporters, who were declared to be infesting the country, and worthy of hanging wherever found.

We spent the night in pursuit of sleep under difficulties, upon a rough Georgia railway. The next morning, the scantiness of the disappearing foliage indicated that we were going northward. In Augusta, we passed through broad, pleasant shaded streets, and then crossed the Savannah river into South Carolina. Companies of troops, bound for Charleston, began to come on board the train, and were greeted with cheering at all the stations. A young Carolinian, taking me for a southerner, remarked:

"The only thing we fear in this war is that the Yankees will arm our slaves and turn them against us."

This was the first statement of the kind I heard. Persons had said many times in my presence that they were perfectly sure of the slaves—who would all fight for their masters. In the last article of faith they proved as deluded as those sanguine northerners who believed that slave insurrections would everywhere immediately result from hostilities.

At Lee's Station we met the morning train from Charleston. Within two yards of my window, I saw a dark object disappear under the cow-catcher; and a moment after, a woman, wringing her hands, shrieked:

Lying on the track was a shapeless, gory mass, which only the clothing showed to be the remains of a human being. The station-keeper, attempting to cross the road just in advance of the train, was struck down and run over. His little son was standing beside him at the very moment, and two of his daughters looking on from the door of his residence, a few yards away. In the first bewilderment of terror, they now stood wildly beating their foreheads, and gasping for breath. In strange contrast with this scene, a martial band was [Pg 108] discoursing lively music, and people were loudly cheering the soldiers. Buoyant Life and grim Death stood side by side and walked hand in hand.

Our train plunged into deep pine woods, and wended through large plantations, whose cool frame houses were shaded by palmetto-trees. The negro men and women, who stood in the fields persuading themselves that they were working, handled their hoes with indescribable awkwardness. A sketch of their exact positions would look ridiculously unnatural. They were in striking contrast with the zeal and activity of the northern laborer, who moves under the stimulus of freedom.

In the afternoon, we passed through the Magnolia Cemetery, and in view of the State Arsenal, with the palmetto flag waving over it. The Mills' House, in Charleston, was crowded with guests and citizens, half of them in uniform. After I registered my name, a brawny fellow, with a "plug-ugly" countenance, looked over my shoulder at the book, and then regarded me with a long, impudent, scrutinizing stare, which I endeavored to return with interest. In a few seconds his eyes dropped, and he went back to his seat.

I strolled down the narrow streets, with their antiquated houses, to the pleasant Battery, where several columbiads, with pyramidal piles of solid shot between them, pointed at Fort Sumter. Down the harbor, among a few snow-white sails, stood the already historic fortress. The line of broken roof, visible above the walls, was torn and ragged from Rebel shots. At the distance of two miles, it was impossible, with the naked eye, to identify the two flags above it. A bystander told me that they were the colors of South Carolina and of the Confederacy.

The devices of treason flaunting in the breeze where [Pg 109] the Stars and Stripes, after being insulted for months, were so lately lowered in dishonor, were not a pleasant spectacle, and I turned slowly and sadly back to the hotel. In its reading-room, among the four or five papers on file, was a copy of The Tribune , whose familiar face was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

The city reeled with excitement. In the evening martial music and huzzas came floating up to my window from a meeting at the Charleston Hotel, where the young Virginian Hotspur, Roger A. Pryor, was one of the prominent speakers. Publicly and privately, the Charlestonians were boasting over their late Cadmean victory. They had not heard from the North.

I hoped to remain several days, but the public frenzy had grown so uncontrollable, that every stranger was subjected to espionage. One could hardly pick up a newspaper without seeing, or stand ten minutes in a public place without hearing, of the arrest of some northerner, charged with being a spy. While the lines of retreat were yet open, it was judicious to flee from the wrath to come.

Designing to stop for a while in North Carolina, whose Rip Van Winkle sleep seemed proof against any possible convulsion, I took the midnight train northward. A number of Baltimoreans on board were returning home, after assisting at the capture of Sumter. They were voluble and boisterous Rebels, declaring in good set terms that Maryland would shortly be revolutionized, Governor Hicks and Henry Winter Davis hanged, and President Lincoln driven out of Washington. They averred with great vehemence and iteration that the Yankees were all cowards, and could easily be "whipped out;" but when one, whose denunciations had been peculiarly bitter, was asked:

We were soon on the clayey soil of the Old North State, which, to the eye, closely resembles those regions of Ohio near Lake Erie. Hour after hour, we rode through the deep forests of tall pines, from which the bark had been stripped for making rosin and turpentine.

My anticipations of quiet proved altogether delusive. President Lincoln's Proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand soldiers, had just arrived by telegraph, and the country was on fire. It was the first flush of excitement here, and the feeling was more intense and demonstrative than in those States which had become accustomed to the Revolution. Forts were being seized, negroes and white men impressed to labor upon them, military companies forming, clergymen taking up the musket, and women encouraging the determination to fight the "Abolitionists." All Union sentiment was awed into utter silence.

While the train was stopping at Wilmington, a telegram, announcing that Virginia had passed a Secession ordinance, was received with yells of applause. Sitting alone at one end of the car, I observed three fellow-passengers, with whom I had formed a traveling acquaintance, conferring earnestly. Their frequent glances toward me indicated the subject of the conversation. As I had said nothing to define my political position, I resolved to set myself right at once, should they put me to the test. One of them approached me, and remarked:

I replied, with considerable emphasis: "Good! That will give us all the border States."

Apparently satisfied, he returned to his friends, and [Pg 111] they said no more to me upon the all-absorbing question.

A fragment of conversation which occurred near me, will illustrate the general tone of remark. A young man observed to a gentleman beside him:

"Do you think so? Lincoln is going to call out an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men."

"Oh, well, we can whip them out any morning before breakfast. Throw three or four shells among those blue-bellied Yankees and they will scatter like a flock of sheep!"

Up to this day I had earnestly hoped that a bloody conflict between the two sections might be averted; but these remarks were so frequent—the opinion that northerners were unmitigated cowards seemed so universal, 8 that I began to look with a great deal of complacency upon the prospect which the South enjoyed of testing this faith. It was time to ascertain, once for all, whether these gentlemen of the cotton and the canebrake were indeed a superior race, destined to wield the scepter, or whether their pretensions were mere arrogance and swagger.

It seemed impossible for the southern mind to comprehend that he who never blusters, or flourishes the [Pg 112] bowie-knife, who will endure a great deal before fighting, who would rather suffer a wrong than do a wrong, is, when roused, the most dangerous of adversaries—a fact so universal, that it has given us the proverb, "Beware the fury of a patient man."

New York papers, issued after receiving intelligence of the fall of Sumter, now reached us, and both in their news and editorial columns indicated how suddenly that event had aroused the whole North. The voice of every journal was for war. The Herald , which one morning spoke bitterly against coercion, received a visit during the day from several thousand tumultuous citizens, who left it the alternative of running up the American flag or having its office torn down. By the presence of the police, and the intercession of leading Union men, its property was saved from destruction. In next morning's paper appeared one of its periodical and constitutional somersaults. Its four editorial articles all cried "War to the knife!"

The Rebels were greatly surprised, half appalled, and doubly exasperated at the unexpected change of all the northern papers which they had counted friendly to them; but they also shouted "War!" even louder than before.

At Goldsboro, where we stopped for supper, a small slab of marble, standing upon the mantel in the hotel office, had these words upon it:

Before the train started again, a young patriot, whose articulation was impeded by whisky, passed through it, asking:

"S'thr any --- ---- Yankee onth'strain? F'thr's a --- ---- Union man board these cars, Ic'nwhip him by ---. H'rahfr Jeff. Davis nth'southrncnfdrcy!" He afterward [Pg 113] amused himself by firing his revolver from the car door. At the next station he stepped out upon the platform, and repeated:

"H'rah fr Jeff. Davis n'th'Southrn Confdrcy!" Another patriot among the bystanders at the station promptly responded:

"Yre th'man fr me," responded our passenger; "Come 'n' takeadrink. All fr Jeff. Davis here, ain't you?"

"Thatsallrightth'n. But what d'you elect that ---- ---- Abolitionist, Murphy, t'th' Leg'slature for?"

" I'm Murphy," replied the patriot, who had been standing in the group, but now sprang forward belligerently. "Who calls me an Abolitionist?"

"Beg y'r padon sr. Reck'n you ain't the man. But who is that Abolitionist you 'lected here? 's name's Brown, 'sn't it? Yes, that's it. ---- ---- Brown; y'ought t'hang him !"

At six o'clock next morning, we reached Richmond. Here, also, I had hoped to stop, but the caldron was seething too hotly. Rebel flags were everywhere flying, the newspapers all exulted over the passage of the Secession ordinance, and some of them warned northerners and Union men to leave the country forthwith. The tone of conversation, too, was very bitter. The farther I went, the intenser the frenzy; and, beginning to wonder whether there was any safe haven south of Philadelphia or New York, I continued northward without a moment's unnecessary delay.

The railway accommodations grew better in exact [Pg 114] ratio to our approach to Mason and Dixon's line, and northern physiognomies were numerous on the train. At Ashland, a few miles north of Richmond, the first palatable meal since leaving the Alabama River was set before us. All the intervening distance, to the epicurean eye, stretched out in a dreary perspective of bacon and corn bread.

Half the passengers were soldiers. Every village bristled with bayonets. At Fredericksburgh, one of the polished F. F. V.'s on the platform presented his face at our window, and asked what the unmentionable-to-ears-polite all these people were going north for? As the passengers maintained an "heroic reticence," he exploded a fresh oath, and went to the next car to pursue his investigations.

A citizen of Richmond, who occupied the seat with me, satisfied that I was sound on the Secession question, assured me that it had been very difficult to get the ordinance through the Convention; that trouble was anticipated from Union men in Western Virginia; that business in Richmond was utterly suspended, New York exchange commanding a premium of fifteen per cent.

"We are fearful," he added, "of difficulty with our free negroes. There are several thousand in Richmond, many of whom are intelligent, and some wealthy. They show signs of turbulence, and we are perfecting an organization to hold them in check. I sent the money to New York this morning for a quantity of Sharp's rifles, ordering them to be forwarded in dry-goods boxes, that they might not excite suspicion."

He added, that Ben McCulloch was in Virginia, and had perfected a plan by which, at the head of Rebel troops, he was about to capture Washington. As we [Pg 115] progressed northward, the noisy Secession element grew small by degrees, and beautifully less. At Acquia Creek, we left the cars and took a steamer up the Potomac.

A quiet gentleman, who had come on board at Richmond, impressed me, through that mysterious freemasonry which exists among journalists—indeed, between members of all professions—as a representative of the Fourth Estate. In reply to inquiries, he informed me that he had been reporting the Virginia Convention for The Richmond Enquirer , but, being a New Yorker, had concluded, like Jerry Blossom, he wanted "to go home." He described the Convention, which at first had an emphatic majority for the Government; but in time, one Union man after another was dragooned into the ranks, until a bare Secession majority was obtained.

The ordinance explicitly provided that it should not take effect until submitted to the popular vote; but the State authorities immediately assumed that it would be ratified. Senator Mason wrote a public letter, warning all Union men to leave the State; and before the time for voting arrived, the Secessionists succeeded in inaugurating a bloody conflict upon the soil, and bringing in armies from the Gulf States. It was then ratified by a large majority.

We steamed up the Potomac, passed the quiet tomb at Mount Vernon, which was soon to hear the clangor of contending armies, and early in the afternoon came in sight of Washington. There, at last, thank God! was the old Starry Banner, flying in triumph over the Capitol, the White House, the departments, and hundreds of dwellings. Albeit unused to the melting mood, my heart was full, and my eyelids quivered as I saw it. Until that hour, I never knew how I loved the old flag!

Walking down Pennsylvania avenue, I encountered [Pg 116] troops of old friends, and constantly wondered that I had been able to spend ten weeks in the South, without meeting more than two or three familiar acquaintances.

A body-guard for the President, made up entirely of citizens of Kansas, armed with Sharp's rifles, was on duty every night at the White House. It contained two United States Senators, three members and ex-members of Congress, the Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, and several editors and other prominent citizens of that patriotic young State.

With two friends, I spent an hour at the White House. The President, though overwhelmed with business, received us kindly, and economized time by taking a cup of tea while conversing with us, and inquiring very minutely about affairs in the seceding States.

This man had filled the measure of American ambition, but the remembered brightness of his face was in strange contrast with the weary, haggard look it now wore, and his blushing honors seemed pallid and ashen. There was the same honest, kindly tone—the same fund of humorous anecdote—the same genuineness; but the old, free, lingering laugh was gone.

"Mr. Douglas," remarked the President, "spent three hours with me this afternoon. For several days he has been too unwell for business, and has devoted his time to studying war-matters, until he understands the military position better, perhaps, than any one of the Cabinet. By the way," continued Mr. Lincoln, with his peculiar twinkle of the eye, "the conversation turned upon the rendition of slaves. 'You know,' said Douglas, 'that I am entirely sound on the Fugitive Slave [Pg 117] Law. I am for enforcing it in all cases within its true intent and meaning; but, after examining it carefully, I have concluded that a negro insurrection is a case to which it does not apply.'"

I had not come north a moment too early. The train which brought me from Richmond to Acquia Creek was the last which the Rebel authorities permitted to pass without interruption, and the steamer, on reaching Washington, was seized by our own Government, and made no more regular trips. Before I had been an hour in the Capital, the telegraph wires were cut, and railway tracks in Maryland torn up. Intelligence of the murderous attack of a Baltimore mob on the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, en route for Washington, startled the town from its propriety.

Chaos had come again. Washington was the seat of an intense panic. An attack from the Rebels was hourly expected, and hundreds of families fled from the city in terror. During the next two days, twenty-five hundred well-officered, resolute men could undoubtedly have captured the city. The air was filled with extravagant and startling rumors. From Virginia, Union refugees were hourly arriving, often after narrow escapes from the frenzied populace.

Massachusetts soldiers, who had safely run the Baltimore gantlet of death, were quartered in the United States Senate Chamber. They had mustered with characteristic promptness. At 5 o'clock one evening, a telegram reached Boston asking for troops for the defense of the imperiled Capital. At 9 o'clock the next morning, the first company, having come twenty-five miles from the country, stacked arms in Faneuil Hall. At 5 o'clock that night the Sixth Regiment, with full ranks, started for Washington. They were fine-looking [Pg 118] fellows, but greatly embittered by their Baltimore experience. In a very quiet, undemonstrative way, they manifested an earnest desire for immediate and active service.

The bewilderment and terror which had so long rested like a nightmare on the National authorities—which for months had left almost every leading Republican statesman timid and undecided—was at last over. The echoes of the Charleston guns broke the spell! The masses had been heard from! Then, as at later periods of the war, the popular instinct was clearer and truer than all the wisdom of the politicians.

During the three days I spent in Washington, the city was virtually blockaded, receiving neither mails, telegrams, nor re-enforcements. Martial law, though not declared, was sadly needed. Most of the Secessionists had left, but enough remained to serve as spies for the Virginia Revolutionists.

I left for New York, by an evening train crowded with fleeing families. Most of them went west from the Relay House, deterred from passing through Baltimore by the reign of terror which the Rebels had inaugurated. The most zealous Union papers advocated Secession as their only means of personal and pecuniary safety. The State and city authorities, though professedly loyal, bowed helpless before the storm. Governor Sprague, with his Rhode Island volunteers, had started for Washington. Mayor Brown telegraphed him, requesting that they should not come through Baltimore, as it would exasperate the people.

"The Rhode Island regiment," was Sprague's epigrammatic response, "came out to fight, and may just as well fight in Maryland as in Virginia." It passed unmolested!

We found Baltimore in a frenzy. The whole city seemed under arms. The Union men were utterly silenced, and many had fled. The only person I heard express undisguised loyalty was a young lady from Boston, and only her sex protected her. Several persons had been arrested as spies during the day, including two supposed correspondents of New York papers.

Baltimore, for the time, was worse than any thing I had seen in Charleston, New Orleans, or Mobile. Through the evening Barnum's hotel was filled with soldiers. Stepping into the office to make arrangements for going to Philadelphia, I encountered an old acquaintance from Cincinnati, now commanding a Baltimore company under arms:

"If Lincoln persists in attempting to send troops through Maryland," said he, "we are bound to have his head!"

Another Baltimorean came up and began to question me, but my acquaintance promptly vouched for me as "a true southern man," and I escaped annoyance. The same belief was expressed here which prevailed throughout the whole South, that northern men were cowards; and persons actually alluded to the attack upon the unarmed Massachusetts troops as an act of bravery.

Leaving Baltimore, I took a carriage for the nearest northern railway point. The roads were crowded with families leaving the city, and infested by Rebel scouts and patrols. Union citizens were helpless. One of them said to us:

"For God's sake, beg the Administration and the North not to let us be crushed out!"

We hoped to take the Philadelphia cars, twenty-six miles out, but a detachment of Baltimore soldiers that very morning had passed up the railroad, destroying [Pg 120] every bridge; smoke was still rising from their ruins. We were compelled to press on and on, until, in the evening, after a ride of forty-six miles, we reached York, Pennsylvania.

Here, at last, we could breathe freely. But both railroads being monopolized by troops, we were compelled, wearily, to drive on to the village of Columbia, on the Susquehanna river. There we began to see that the North, as well as the South, was under martial rule. Armed sentinels peremptorily ordered us to halt.

On identifying the driver, and learning my business, they allowed us to proceed. At the bridge, the person in charge declined to open the gate:

"Our orders are positive, to let no one pass who is not personally known to us."

He soon became convinced that I was not an emissary of the enemy; and the sentinels escorted us across the bridge, a mile and a quarter in length. We proceeded undisturbed to Lancaster, arriving there at two o'clock, after a carriage-ride of seventy miles. Thence to New York, communication was undisturbed.

The cold-blooded North was fully aroused. Rebel sympathizers found themselves utterly swept away by a Niagara of public indignation. In Pennsylvania, in New York, in New England, I heard only the sentiment that talking must be ended, and acting begun; that, cost what it might, in money and blood, all must unite to crush the gigantic Treason which was closing its fangs upon the throat of the Republic.

The people seemed much more radical than the President. In all public places, threats were heard that, if [Pg 121] the Administration faltered, it must be overturned, and a dictatorship established. Against the Monumental City, feeling was peculiarly bitter. All said:

"If National troops can not march unmolested through Baltimore, that city has stood long enough! Not one stone shall be left upon another."

I had witnessed a good deal of earnestness and enthusiasm in the South, but nothing at all approaching this wonderful uprising of the whole people. All seemed imbued with the sentiment of those official papers issued before Napoleon was First Consul, beginning, "In the name of the French Republic, one and indivisible ."

It was worth a lifetime to see it—to find down through all the débris of money-seeking, and all the strata of politics, this underlying, primary formation of loyalty—this unfaltering determination to vindicate the right of the majority, the only basis of republican government.

The storm-cloud had burst; the Irrepressible Conflict was upon us. Where would it end? What forecast or augury could tell? Revolutions ride rough-shod over all probabilities; and who has mastered the logic of civil war?

Here ended a personal experience, sometimes full of discomfort, but always full of interest. It enabled me afterward to look at Secession from the stand-point of those who inaugurated it; to comprehend Rebel acts and utterances, which had otherwise been to me a sealed book. It convinced me, too, of the thorough earnestness of the Revolutionists. My published prediction, that we should have a seven years' war unless the country used its utmost vigor and resources, seemed to excite a mild suspicion of lunacy among my personal acquaintances.

I was the last member of The Tribune staff to leave the South. By rare good fortune, all its correspondents [Pg 122] escaped personal harm, while representatives of several other New York journals were waited upon by vigilance committees, driven out, and in some cases imprisoned. It was a favorite jest, that The Tribune was the only northern paper whose attachés were allowed in the South.

Its South Carolinian correspondence had a peculiar history. Immediately after the Presidential election, Mr. Charles D. Brigham went to Charleston as its representative. With the exception of two or three weeks, he remained there from November until February, writing almost daily letters. The Charlestonians were excited and indignant, and arrested in all five or six persons whom they unjustly suspected.

Finally, about the middle of February, Mr. Brigham was one day taken into custody, and brought before Governor Pickens and his cabinet counselors, among whom Ex-Governor McGrath was the principal inquisitor. At this time the Southern Confederacy existed only in embryo, and South Carolina claimed to be an independent republic. The correspondent, who had great coolness and self-control, and knew a good deal of human nature, maintained a serene exterior despite the awkwardness of his position. After a rigid catechisation, he was relieved to find that the tribunal did not surmise his real character, but suspected him of being a spy of the Government.

His trial took place at the executive head-quarters, opposite the Charleston Hotel, and lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at night. During the afternoon, the city being disturbed by one of its daily reports that a Federal fleet had appeared off the bar, he was turned over to Mr. Alexander H. Brown, a leading criminal lawyer, famous for his skill in examining witnesses. Mr. Brown questioned, re-questioned, and [Pg 123] cross-questioned the vagrant scribe, but was completely baffled by him. He finally said:

"Mr. Brigham, while I think you are all right, this is a peculiar emergency, and you must see that, under the circumstances, it will be necessary for you to leave the South at once."

The "sweet sorrow" of parting gladdened his journalistic heart; but, at the bidding of prudence, he replied:

"I hope not, sir. It is very hard for one who, as you are bound to admit, after the most rigid scrutiny, has done nothing improper, who has deported himself as a gentleman should, who sympathizes with you as far as a stranger can, to be driven out in this way."

The attorney replied, with that quiet significance which such remarks possessed:

The lucky journalist, while whispering he would ne'er consent, consented. Whereupon the lawyer, who seemed to have some qualms of conscience, invited him to join in a bottle of wine, and when they had become a little convivial, suddenly asked:

"By the way, do you know who is writing the letters from here to The Tribune ? "

"Why, no," was the answer. "I haven't seen a copy of that paper for six months; but I supposed there was no such person, as I had read in your journals that the letters were purely fictitious."

"There is such a man," replied Brown; "and thus far, though we have arrested four or five persons, supposing that we had found him, he completely baffles us. Now, when you get home to New York, can't you ascertain who he is, and let us know?"

"Of course, sir, I would not act as a spy for you or anybody else. However, such things have a kind of publicity; are talked of in saloons and on street-corners. If I can learn in that way who The Tribune correspondent is, I shall deem it my duty to advise you."

The lawyer listened with credulity to this whisper of hope, though a well-known Rebel detective, named Shoubac—a swarthy, greasy, uncomfortable fellow, with a Jewish countenance—did not. He remarked to the late prisoner:

But Mr. Brigham was allowed to depart in peace for New York. The Tribune afterward had in Charleston five or six different correspondents, usually keeping two there at a time for emergencies. Often they did not know each other personally; and there was no communication between them. When one was arrested, there was always another in reserve to continue the correspondence. Mr. Brigham, who remained in the home editorial rooms, retouched the letters just enough to stamp them as the work of one hand, and the baffled authorities went hopelessly up and down to cast out the evil spirit which troubled their peace, and whose unsuspected name was legion.

II.
THE FIELD.

CHAPTER IX.

Sancho Panza passed away too early. To-day, he would extend his benediction on the man who invented sleep, to the person who introduced sleeping-cars. The name of that philanthropist, by whose luxurious aid we may enjoy unbroken sleep at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, should not be concealed from a grateful posterity.

Thus I soliloquized one May evening, when, in pursuit of that "seat of war," as yet visible only to the prophetic eye, or in newspaper columns, I turned my face westward. It were more exact to say, "turned my heels." Inexorable conductors compel the drowsy passenger to ride feet foremost, on the hypothesis that he would rather break a leg than knock his brains out.

I was detained for a day at Suspension Bridge; but life has more afflictive dispensations, even for the impatient traveler, than a Sunday at Niagara Falls. Vanity of vanities indeed must existence be to him who could not find a real Sabbath at the great cataract, laying his tired head upon the calm breast of Nature, and feeling the pulsations of her deep, loving heart!

Eight years had intervened since my last visit. There [Pg 126] was no second pang of the disappointment we feel in seeing for the first time any object of world-wide fame. In Nature, as in Art, the really great, however falling below the ideal at first glance, grows upon the beholder forever afterward.

Though the visiting season had not begun, the harpies were waiting for their victims. Step out of your hotel, or turn a corner, and one instantly pounced upon you. But, though numerous, they were quiet, and decorous manners, even in leeches, are above all praise.

Everybody at the Falls is eager to shield you from the extortion of everybody else. The driver, whom you pay two dollars per hour; the vender, who sells you Indian bead-work at a profit of one hundred per cent.; the guide, who fleeces you for leading to places you would rather find without him—each warns you against the other, with touching zeal for your welfare. And the precocious boy, who offers a bit of slate from under the Cataract for two shillings, cautions you to beware of them all.

As you cross the suspension bridge, the driver points out the spot, more than two hundred feet above the water, where Blondin, of tight-rope renown, crossed upon a single strand, with a man upon his shoulders, cooked his aerial omelet, hung by the heels, and played other fantastic tricks before high heaven.

From the bridge you view three sections of the Cataract. First, is the lower end of the American Fall, whose deep green is intermingled with jets and streaks of white. Its smooth surface conveys the impression of the segment of a slowly revolving wheel rather than of tumbling water. Beyond the dense foliage appears another section, parted in the middle by the stone tower on Goat Island. Its water is of snowy whiteness, and looks [Pg 127] like an immense frozen fountain. Still farther is the great Horse-shoe Fall, its deep green surface veiled at the base in clouds of pure white mist.

Here, at the distance of two miles, the Falls soothe you with their quiet, surpassing beauty. But when you reach them on the Canada side, and go down, down, beneath Table Rock, under the sheet of water, you feel their sublimity. As you look out upon the sea of snowy foam below, or through the rainbow hues of the vast sweeping curtain above, the earth trembles with the unceasing thunder of the cataract.

In winter the effect is grandest. Then, from the bank in front of the Clifton House, you look down on upright rocks, crowned with pinnacles of ice, till they rise half way to the summit, or catch glimpses of the boundless column of water as it strikes the torrent below, faintly seen through the misty, alabaster spray rising forever from its troubled bed. Hundreds of white-winged sea-gulls graze the rapids above, and circle down to plunge in the waters below.

Attired in stiff, cold, water-proof clothing, which, culminating in a round oil-cloth cap, makes you look like an Esquimaux and feel like a mummy, you follow the guide far down dark, icy stairs and paths.

Look up ninety feet, and see the great torrent pour over the brink. Look down seventy feet from your icy little shelf, and behold it plunge into the dense mist of the boiling gulf. Through its half-transparent sheet, filtered rays of the bright sunshine struggle toward your eyes. You are in the palace of the Frost King. Ice—ice everywhere, from your slippery foothold to the huge icicles, fifty feet long and three feet thick, which overhang you like the sword of Damocles.

Admiration without comparison is vague and unsatisfactory. [Pg 128] Less glorious, because less vast, than the matchless panorama seen from the summit of Pike's Peak, this picture is nearly as impressive, because spread right beside you, and at your very feet. Less minutely beautiful than the exquisite chambers of the Mammoth Cave, its great range and sweep make it more grand and imposing.

Along the Great Western Railway of Canada, the country closely resembles northern Ohio; but the people have uncompromising English faces. A well-dressed farmer and his wife rode upon our train all day in a second-class car, without seeming in the least ashamed of it—a moral courage not often exhibited in the United States.

At Detroit, an invalid, pale, wasted, unable to speak above a whisper, was lying on a bed hastily spread upon the floor of the railway station. Her husband, with their two little boys bending over her in tears, told us that they had been driven from New Orleans, and he was now taking his dying wife to their old home in Maine. There were few dry eyes among the lookers-on. A liberal sum of money was raised on the spot for the destitute family, whose broken pride, after some persuasion, accepted it.

The next morning we reached Chicago. In that breezy city upon the lake shore, property was literally rising. Many of the largest brick and stone blocks were being elevated five or six feet, by a very nice system of screws under their walls, while people were constantly pouring in and out of them, and the transaction of business was not impeded. The stupendous enterprise was undertaken that the streets might be properly graded and drained. This summoning a great metropolis to rise from its vasty deep of mud, is one of the modern miracles [Pg 129] of mechanics, which make even geological revelations appear trivial and common-place.

The world has many mysteries, but none more inscrutable than Western Currency. The notes of most Illinois and Wisconsin banks, based on southern State bonds, having depreciated steadily for several weeks, gold and New York exchange now commanded a premium of twenty per cent. The Michigan Central Railway Company was a good illustration of the effect of this upon Chicago interests. That corporation was paying six thousand dollars per week in premiums upon eastern exchange. Yet the hotels and mercantile houses were receiving the currency at par. One Illinois bank-note depreciated just seventy per cent., during the twelve hours it spent in my possession!

In Chicago I encountered an old friend just from Memphis. His association with leading Secessionists for some time protected him; but the popular frenzy was now so wild that they counselled him, as he valued his life, to stay not upon the order of his going, but go at once.

The Memphians were repudiating northern debts, and, with unexampled ferocity, driving out all men suspected of Abolitionism or Unionism. More than five thousand citizens had been forced or frightened away, and in many cases beggared. A secret Committee of Safety, made up of prominent citizens, was ruling with despotic sway.

Scores of suspected persons were brought before it daily, and, if they could not exculpate themselves, sentenced to banishment, with head half shaved, to whipping, or to death. Though, by the laws of all slave States, negroes were precluded from testifying against white men, this inquisition received their evidence. My friend [Pg 130] dared not avow that he was coming North, but purchased a ticket for St. Louis, which was then deemed a Rebel stronghold.

As the steamer passed Osceola, Arkansas, he saw the body of a man hanging by the heels, in full view of the river. A citizen told him that it had been there for eight days; that the wretched victim, upon mere suspicion of tampering with slaves, was suspended, head downward, and suffered intensely before death came to his relief.

All on board the crowded steamboat pretended to be Secessionists. But when, at last, nearing Cairo, they saw the Stars and Stripes, first one, then another, began to huzza. The enthusiasm was contagious; and in a moment nearly all, many with heaving breasts and streaming eyes, gave vent to their long-suppressed feeling in one tumultuous cheer for the Flag of the Free. Of the one hundred and fifty passengers, nearly every man was a fleeing Unionist.

The all-pervading railroad and telegraph in the North began to show their utility in war. Cairo, the extreme southern point of Illinois, now garrisoned by Union troops, was threatened by the enemy. The superintendent of the Illinois Central Railway (including branches, seven hundred and four miles in length) assured me that, at ten hours' notice, he could start, from the various points along his line, four miles of cars, capable of transporting twenty-four thousand soldiers.

The Rebels now began to perceive their mistake in counting upon the friendship of the great Northwest. Indeed, of all their wild dreams, this was wildest. They expected the very States which claimed Mr. Lincoln as from their own section, and voted for him by heavy majorities, to help break up the Union because he was elected! Though learning their delusion, they never [Pg 131] comprehended its cause. After the war had continued nearly a year, The New Orleans Delta said:

On the mere instinct of nationality—the bare question of an undivided republic—the West would perhaps fight longer, and sacrifice more, than any other section. Its people, if not more earnest, are much more demonstrative than their eastern brethren. Their long migration from the Atlantic States to the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Platte, has quickened and enlarged their patriotism. It has made our territorial greatness to them no abstraction, but a reality.

No one else looks forward with such faith and fervor to that great future when man shall "fill up magnificently the magnificent designs of Nature;" when their Mississippi Valley shall be the heart of mightiest empire; when, from all these mingling nationalities, shall spring the ripe fruitage of free schools and free ballots, in a higher average Man than the World has yet seen.

Our train from Chicago to St. Louis was crowded with Union troops. Along the route booming guns saluted them; handkerchiefs fluttered from windows; flags streamed from farm-houses and in village streets; old men and boys at the plow huzzaed themselves hoarse.

Thus, at the rising of the curtain, the northwestern States, worthy offspring of the Ordinance of Eighty-seven, were sending out—

Four blood-stained years have not dimmed their faith [Pg 132] or abated their ardor. "Wherever Death spread his banquet, they furnished many guests." What histories have they not made for themselves! Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin—indeed, if we call their roll, which State has not covered herself with honor—which has not achieved her Lexington—her Saratoga—her Bennington—though the battle-field lie beyond her soil? 9

In St. Louis I found at last a "seat of war." Recent days had been full of startling events. The Missouri Legislature, at Jefferson City, desired to pass a Secession ordinance, but had no pretext for doing so. The election of a State Convention, to consider this very subject, had just demonstrated, by overwhelming Union majorities, the loyalty of the masses. Claiborne Fox Jackson, the Governor, was a Secessionist, and was determined to plunge Missouri into revolution. This flagrant, open warfare against the popular majority, well illustrated how grossly the Rebels deceived themselves in supposing that their conduct was impelled by regard for State Rights, rather than by the inherent antagonism between free and slave labor.

Camp Jackson, commanded by Gen. D. M. Frost, was established at Lindell Grove, two miles west of St. Louis, "for the organization and instruction of the State Militia." It embraced some Union men, both officers and privates. Frost and his friends claimed that it was loyal; but the State flag, only, was flying from the camp, and its streets were named "Davis Avenue," "Beauregard Avenue," etc.

An envoy extraordinary, sent by Governor Jackson, had just returned from Louisiana with shot, shell, and mortars—all stolen from the United States Arsenal at Baton Rouge. The camp was really designed as the nucleus of a Secession force, to seize the Government property in St. Louis and drive out the Federal authorities. But the Union men were too prompt for the Rebels. Long before the capture of Fort Sumter, nightly drills were instituted among the loyal Germans of St. Louis; and within two weeks after the President's first call for troops, Missouri had ten thousand Union soldiers, armed, equipped, and in camp.

The first act of the Union authorities was to remove by night all the munitions from the United States Arsenal near St. Louis, to Alton, Illinois. When the Rebels learned it, they were intensely exasperated. The Union troops were commanded by a quiet, slender, stooping, red-haired, pale-faced officer, who walked about in brown linen coat, wearing no military insignia. He was by rank a captain; his name was Nathaniel Lyon.

On the tenth of May, Capt. Lyon, with three or four hundred regulars, and enough volunteers to swell his forces to five thousand, planted cannon upon the hills commanding Camp Jackson, and sent to Gen. Frost a note, reciting conclusive evidence of its treasonable intent, and concluding as follows:

This contrasted so sharply with the shuffling timidity of our civil and military authorities, usual at this period, [Pg 134] that Frost was surprised and "shocked." His reply, of course, characterized the demand as "illegal" and "unconstitutional." In those days there were no such sticklers for the Constitution as the men taking up arms against it! Frost wrote that he surrendered only upon compulsion—his forces being too weak for resistance. The encampment was found to contain twenty cannon, more than twelve hundred muskets, many mortars, siege-howitzers, and shells, charged ready for use—which convinced even the most skeptical that it was something more than a school for instruction.

The garrison, eight hundred strong, were marched out under guard. There were many thousands of spectators. Hills, fields, and house-tops were black with people. In spite of orders to disperse, crowds followed, jeering the Union troops, throwing stones, brickbats, and other missiles, and finally discharging pistols. Several soldiers were hurt, and one captain shot down at the head of his company, when the troops fired on the crowd, killing twenty and wounding eleven. As in all such cases, several innocent persons suffered.

Intense excitement followed. A large public meeting convened that evening in front of the Planter's House—heard bitter speeches from Governor Jackson, Sterling Price, and others. The crowd afterward went to mob The Democrat office, but it contained too many resolute Unionists, armed with rifles and hand-grenades, and they wisely desisted.

Sterling Price was president of the State Convention—elected as an Unconditional Unionist. But, in this whirlwind, he went over to the enemy. An old feud existed between him and a leading St. Louis loyalist. Price had a small, detached command in the Mexican war. Afterward, he was Governor of Missouri, and candidate [Pg 135] for the United States Senate. An absurd sketch, magnifying a trivial skirmish into a great battle, with Price looming up heroically in the foreground, was drawn and engraved by an unfortunate artist, then in the Penitentiary. It pleased Price's vanity; he circulated it largely, and pardoned out the suffering votary of art.

When the Legislature was about voting for United States Senator, Frank Blair, Jr., then a young member from St. Louis, obtained permission to say a few words about the candidates. He was a great vessel of wrath, and administered a terrible excoriation, pronouncing Price "worthy the genius of a convict artist, and fit subject for a Penitentiary print!" Price was defeated, and the rupture never healed.

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, Price was far more loyal than men afterward prominent Union leaders in Missouri. In those chaotic days, very slight influences decided the choice of many. By tender treatment, Price could doubtless have been retained; but neither party regarded him as possessing much ability.

His defection proved a calamity to the Loyalists. He was worth twenty thousand soldiers to the Rebels, and developed rare military talent. Like Robert E. Lee, he was an old man, of pure personal character, sincerity, kindness of heart, and unequaled popularity among the self-sacrificing ragamuffins whom he commanded. He held them together, and induced them to fight with a bravery and persistency which, Rebels though they were, was creditable to the American name. With a good cause, they would have challenged the world's acclamation.

At this time the President was treating the border slave States with marvelous tenderness and timidity. [Pg 136] The Rev. M. D. Conway declared, wittily, that Mr. Lincoln's daily and nightly invocation ran:

Captain Lyon was confident that if he asked permission to seize Camp Jackson, it would be refused. So he captured the camp, and then telegraphed to Washington—not what he proposed to do, but what he had done. At first his act was disapproved. But the loyal country applauded to the echo, and Lyon's name was everywhere honored. Hence the censure was withheld, and he was made a Brigadier-General!

Governor Jackson burned the bridges on the Pacific Railroad; the Missouri Legislature passed an indirect ordinance of Secession, and adjourned in a panic, caused by reports that Lyon was coming; a Union regiment was attacked in St. Louis, and again fired into the mob, with deadly results. The city was convulsed with terror. Every available vehicle, including heavy ox wagons, was brought into requisition; every outgoing railway train was crowded with passengers; every avenue was thronged with fugitives; every steamer at the levee was laden with families, who, with no definite idea of where they were going, had hastily packed a few articles of clothing, to flee from the general and bloody conflict supposed to be impending between the Americans and the Dutch, as Secessionists artfully termed the two parties. Thus there became a "Seat of War."

Heart-rending as were the stories of most southern refugees, some were altogether ludicrous. In St. Louis, I encountered an old acquaintance who related to me his recent experiences in Nashville. Grandiloquent enough they sounded; for his private conversation always ran into stump speeches.

"One day," said he, "I was waited on by a party of leading Nashville citizens, who remarked: 'Captain May, we know very well that you are with us in sentiment; but, as you come from the North, others, less intimate with you, desire some special assurance.' I replied: 'Gentlemen, by education, by instinct, and by association, I am a Southern man. But, gentlemen, when you fire upon that small bit of bunting known as the American flag, you can count me, by Heaven, as your persistent and uncompromising foe!' The committee intimated to me that the next train for the North started in one hour! You may stake your existence, sir, that the subscriber came away on that train. Confound a country, anyhow, where a man must wear a Secession cockade upon each coat-tail to keep himself from being kicked as an Abolitionist!"

Inexorable war knows no ties of friendship, of family, or of love. Its bitterest features were seen on the border, where brother was arrayed against brother, and husband against wife. At a little Missouri village, the Rebels raised their flag, but it was promptly torn down by the loyal wife of one of the leaders. I met a lady who had two brothers in the Union army, and two among Price's Rebels, who were likely soon to meet on the battle-field.

In St. Louis, a Rebel damsel, just about to be married, separated from her Union lover, declaring that no man who favored the Abolitionists and the "Dutch hirelings" could be her husband. He retorted that he had no use for a wife who sympathized with treason; and so the match was broken off.

I knew a Union soldier who found at Camp Jackson, among the prisoners, his own brother, wounded by two Minié rifle balls. He said: "I am sorry my brother [Pg 138] was shot; but he should not have joined the traitors!" Of course, the bitterness between relatives and old neighbors, now foes, was infinitely greater than between northerners and southerners. The same was true everywhere. How intensely the Virginia and Tennessee Rebels hated their fellow-citizens who adhered to the Union cause! Ohio and Massachusetts Loyalists denounced northern "Copperheads" with a malignity which they never felt toward South Carolinians and Mississippians.

When South Carolina seceded, the slave property of Missouri was worth forty-five millions of dollars; hence she is under bonds to just that amount to keep the peace. With thirteen hundred miles of frontier, she is "a slave peninsula in an ocean of free soil." Free Kansas, which has many old scores to clear up, guards her on the west. Free Iowa, embittered by hundreds of Union refugees, watches her on the north. Free Illinois, the young giantess of the prairie, takes care of her on the east. This loyal metropolis, with ten Union regiments already under arms, is for her a sort of front-door police. Missouri, in the significant phrase of the frontier, is corraled . 10

Here, at least, as The Richmond Whig , just before going over to the Rebels, so aptly said: "Secession is Abolitionism in its worst and most dangerous form."

Rebels glare upon Union men like chained wild beasts. Citizens, walking by night, remember the late assassinations, and, like Americans in Mexican towns, cast suspicious glances behind. Secessionists utter fierce [Pg 139] threats; but since their recent severe admonition that Unionists, too, can use fire-arms, and that it is not discreet to attack United States soldiers, they do not execute them.

Captain Lyon, who commands, is an exceedingly prompt and efficient officer, attends strictly to his business, exhibits no hunger for newspaper fame, and seems to act with an eye single to the honor of the Government he has served so long and so faithfully.

Among our regiments is the Missouri First, Colonel Frank P. Blair. Three companies are made up of German Turners—the most accomplished of gymnasts. They are sinewy, muscular fellows, with deep chests and well-knit frames. Every man is an athlete. To-day a party, by way of exercise, suddenly formed a human pyramid, and commenced running up, like squirrels, over each other's shoulders, to the high veranda upon the second story of their building. In climbing a wall, they would not require scaling-ladders. There are also two companies from the Far West—old trappers and hunters, who have smelt gunpowder in Indian warfare.

Colonel Blair's dry, epigrammatic humor bewilders some of his visitors. I was sitting in his head-quarters when a St. Louis Secessionist entered. Like nearly all of them, he now pretends to be a Union man, but is very tender on the subject of State Rights, and wonderfully solicitous about the Constitution. He remarked:

"I am a Union man, but I believe in State Rights. I believe a State may dissolve its connection with the Government if it wants to."

"O yes," replied Blair, pulling away at his ugly mustache, "yes, you can go out if you want to. Certainly you can secede. But, my friend, you can't take with you one foot of American soil!"

"I am a loyal man, ready to fight for the Union; but I am pro-slavery—I own niggers."

"Well, sir," replied Blair, with the faintest suggestion of a smile on his plain, grim face, "you have a right to. We don't like negroes very much ourselves. If you do, that's a matter of taste. It is one of your privileges. But if you gentlemen who own negroes attempt to take the State of Missouri out of the Union, in about six months you will be the most ---- niggerless set of individuals that you ever heard of!"

CHAPTER X.

Cairo, as the key to the lower Mississippi valley, is the most important strategic point in the West. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, it was occupied by our troops.

As a place of residence it was never inviting. To-day its offenses smell to heaven as rankly as when Dickens evoked it, from horrible obscurity, as the "Eden" of Martin Chuzzlewit. The low, marshy, boot-shaped site is protected from the overflow of the Mississippi and Ohio by levees. Its jet-black soil generates every species of insect and reptile known to science or imagination. Its atmosphere is never sweet or pure.

On the 13th of June, Major-General George B. McClellan, commander of all the forces west of the Alleghanies, reached Cairo on a visit of inspection. His late victories in Western Virginia had established his reputation for the time, as an officer of great capacity and promise, notwithstanding the high heroics of his ambitious proclamations. This was before Bull Run, and before the New York journals, by absurdly pronouncing him "the Young Napoleon," raised public expectation to an embarrassing and unreasonable hight.

In those days, every eye was looking for the Coming Man, every ear listening for his approaching footsteps, [Pg 142] which were to make the earth tremble. Men judged, by old standards, that the Hour must have its Hero. They had not learned that, in a country like ours, whatever is accomplished must be the work of the loyal millions, not of any one, or two, or twenty generals and statesmen.

McClellan was enthusiastically received, and, to the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner," escorted to head-quarters. There, General Prentiss, who had so decided a penchant for speech-making, that cynics declared he always kept a particular stump in front of his office for a rostrum, welcomed him with some rhetorical remarks:

The soldiers applauded enthusiastically—for in those days the anxiety to be in the earliest battles was intense. The impression was almost universal throughout the North that the war was to be very brief. Officers and men in the army feared they would have no opportunity to participate in any fighting!

General McClellan is stoutly built, short, with light hair, blue eyes, full, fresh, almost boyish face, and lip tufted with a brown mustache. His urbane manner truly indicates the peculiar amiability of character and yielding disposition which have hurt him more than all other causes. An officer once assured me that McClellan had said to him: "My friends have injured me a thousand times more than my enemies." It was certainly true.

Now, seeing his features the first time, I scanned them anxiously for lineaments of greatness. I saw a pleasant, mild, moony face, with one cheek distended by tobacco; but nothing which appeared strong or striking. Tinctured largely with the general belief in his military genius, I imputed the failure only to my own incapacity for reading "Nature's infinite book of secrecy."

One evening, at Cairo, a man, whose worn face, shaggy beard, matted locks, and tattered clothing marked him as one of the constantly arriving refugees, sought me and asked:

"Can you tell me the name of The Tribune correspondent who passed through Memphis last February?"

"Then," said he, "I have been lying in jail at Memphis about fifty days chiefly on your account! The three or four letters which you wrote from there were peculiarly bitter. Of course, I was not aware of your presence, and I sent one to The Tribune , which was also very emphatic. The Secessionists suspected me not only of the one which I did write, but also of yours. They pounced on me and put me in jail. After the disbanding of the Committee of Safety I was brought before the City Recorder, who assured me from the bench of his profound regrets that he could find no law for hanging [Pg 144] me! I would have been there until this time, but for the assistance of a young lady, through whom I succeeded in bribing an officer of the jail, and making my escape. I was hidden in Memphis for several days, then left the city in disguise, and have worked my way, chiefly on foot, aided by negroes and Union families, through the woods of Tennessee and the swamps of Missouri up to God's country."

The refugee seemed to be not only in good health, but also in excellent spirits, and I replied:

"I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I."

Nearly four years later, this gentleman turned the tables on me very handsomely. After my twenty months imprisonment in Rebel hands, among a crowd of visitors he walked into my room at Cincinnati one morning, and greeted me warmly.

"Well, my name is Collins. Once, when I escaped from the South, you congratulated me at Cairo. Now, I congratulate you, and I can do it with all my heart, in exactly the same words. I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I!"

After our troops captured Memphis, I encountered the young lady who aided Mr. Collins in escaping. She was enthusiastically loyal, but her feeling had been repressed for nearly two years, when the arrival of our forces loosened her tongue. She began to utter her long-stifled Union views, and it is my deliberate opinion that she has not stopped yet. She is now the wife of an officer in the United States service.

A drizzly, muddy, melancholy day. Never otherwise than forlorn, Cairo is pre-eminently lugubrious during a mild rain. In dry weather, even when glowing like a furnace, you may find amusement in the contemplation of the high-water mark upon trees and houses, the stilted-plank sidewalks, the half-submerged swamps, and other diluvian features of this nondescript, saucer-like, terraqueous town. You may speculate upon the exact amount of fever and ague generated to the acre, or inquire whether the whisky saloons, which spring up like mushrooms, are indigenous or exotic.

In downright wet weather you may calculate how soon the streets will be navigable, and the effect upon the amphibious natives. It is difficult to realize that anybody was ever born here, or looks upon Cairo as home. Washington Irving records that the old Dutch housewives of New York scrubbed their floors until many "grew to have webbed fingers, like unto a duck." I suspect the Cairo babies must have fins.

Long-suffering, much-abused Cairo! What wounds hast thou not received from the Parthian arrows of tourists! "The season here," wrote poor John Phenix, bitterest of all, "is usually opened with great éclat by small-pox, continued spiritedly by cholera, and closed up brilliantly with yellow fever. Sweet spot!"

Theorists long predicted that the great metropolis of the Mississippi valley—the granary of the world—must ultimately rise here. Many proved their faith by pecuniary investments, which are likely to be permanent.

Possessed by a similar delusion, Illinois, for years, strove to legislate Alton into a vast commercial mart. But, in spite of their unequaled geographical positions, Cairo and Alton still languish in obscurity, while St. [Pg 146] Louis and Cincinnati, twin queens of this imperial valley, succeed to their grand heritage.

Nature settles these matters by laws which, though hidden, are inexorable. Even that mysterious, semi-civilized race, which swarmed in this valley centuries before the American Indian, established their great centers of population where ours are to-day.

Intelligence of the death of Senator Douglas, received last evening, excites profound and universal regret. Though totally unfamiliar with books, Mr. Douglas thoroughly knew the masses of the Northwest, down to their minutest sympathies and prejudices. Beyond any of his cotemporaries, he was a man of the people, and the people loved him. Never before could he have died so opportunely for his posthumous fame. Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it. His last speech, in Chicago, was a fervid, stirring appeal for the Union and the Government, and for crushing out treason with an iron hand. His emphatic loyalty exerted great influence in Illinois. His life-long opponents forget the asperities of the past, in the halo of patriotism around his setting sun, and unite, with those who always idolized him, in common tribute to his memory.

We have very direct intelligence from Tennessee. The western districts are all Secession. Middle Tennessee is about equally divided. East Tennessee, a mountain region, containing few slaves, is inhabited by a hardy, primitive, industrious race. They are thoroughly, enthusiastically loyal. 11

The felicitous decision of Major-General Butler, that slaves of the enemy are "contraband of war," disturbs the Rebels not a little, even in the West. A friend just from Louisiana, relates an amusing conversation between a planter and an old, trusted slave.

"Sam," said his master, "I must furnish some niggers to go down and work on the fortifications at the Balize. Which of the boys had I better send?"

"Well, massa," replied the old servant, shaking his head oracularly, "I doesn't know about dat. War's comin' on, and dey might be killed. Ought to get Irishmen to do dat work, anyhow. I reckon you'd better not send any ob de boys—tell you what, massa, nigger property's mighty onsartin dese times!"

Scores of fugitives from the South arrive here daily, with the old stories of insult, indignity, and outrage. Several have come in with their heads shaved. To you, my reader, who have never seen a case of the kind, it may seem a trivial matter for a person merely to have one side of his head laid bare, but it is a peculiarly repulsive spectacle. The first time you look upon it, or on those worse cases, where free-born men of Saxon blood bear fresh marks of the lash, you will involuntarily clinch your teeth, and thank God that the system which bears such infernal fruits is rushing upon its own destruction.

The heated term is upon us. We are amid upper, nether, and surrounding fires. At eight, this morning, the mercury indicated eighty degrees in the shade. How high it has gone since, I dare not conjecture; but a friend insists that the sun will roast eggs to-day upon any doorstep in town. I am a little incredulous as to that, though a pair of smarting, half-blistered hands—the result of a [Pg 148] ten minutes' walk in its devouring breath—protest against absolute unbelief. Officers who served in the War with Mexico declare they never found the heat so oppressive in that climate as it is here. The raw troops on duty, who are sweltering in woolen shirts and cloth caps, bear it wonderfully well.

A number of Chicago ladies are already here, acting as nurses in the hospital. The dull eyes of the invalids brighten at their approach, and voices grow husky in attempting to express their gratitude. According to Carlyle, "in a revolution we are all savages still; civilization has only sharpened our claws;" but this tender care for the soldier is the one redeeming feature of modern war.

A review of all the troops. The double ranks of well-knit men, with shining muskets and bayonets, stretch off in perspective for more than a mile. After preliminary evolutions, at the word of command, the lines suddenly break and wheel into column by companies, and marching commences. You see two long parallel columns of men moving in opposite directions, with an open space between. Their legs, in motion, look for all the world like the shuttles in some great Lowell factory.

The artillerists fire each of their six-pounders three times a minute. They discharge one, dismount it, lay it upon the ground, remove the wheels from the carriage, drop flat upon their faces, then spring up, remount the gun, ready for reloading or removing, all in forty-five seconds.

Standing three hundred yards from the cannon, the column of smoke, white at first, but rapidly changing to blue, shoots out twenty-five or thirty feet from the muzzle before you hear the report.

The flying flags, playing bands, galloping officers, long lines of our boys in blue, and sharp metallic reports, impress you with something of the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.

But Captain Jenny, a young engineer officer, quietly remarks, that he once witnessed a review of seventy thousand French troops in the Champ de Mars, and in 1859 saw the army of seventy-five thousand men enter Paris, returning from the Italian wars. Colonel Wagner, an old Hungarian officer, who has participated in twenty-three engagements, assures you that he has looked upon a parade of one hundred and forty thousand men, whereupon our little force of five thousand appears insignificant. Nevertheless, it exceeds Jackson's recruits at New Orleans, and is larger than the effective force of Scott during the Mexican war.

Our first contraband arrived here in a skiff last night, bearing unmistakable evidences of long travel. He says he came from Mississippi, and the cotton-seed in his woolly head corroborates the statement. I first saw him beside the guard-house, surrounded by a party of soldiers. He answered my salutation with "Good evenin', Mass'r," removing his old wool hat from his grizzly head. He smiled all over his face, and bowed all through his body, as he depressed his head, slightly lifting his left foot, with the gesture which only the unmistakable darkey can give.

And Sambo gave a concluding bow, indescribable drollery shining through his sooty face, bisected by two rows of glittering ivory.

A reconnoitering party went down the Mississippi yesterday upon a Government steamer, under command of Colonel Richard J. Oglesby, colloquially known among the Illinois sovereigns of the prairie as "Dick Oglesby."

Twenty miles below Cairo, we slowly passed the town of Columbus, Ky., on the highest bluffs of the Mississippi. The village is a straggling collection of brick blocks, frame houses, and whisky saloons. It contains no Rebel forces, though seven thousand are at Union City, Tenn., twenty-five miles distant.

On a tall staff, a few yards from the river, a great Secession flag, with its eight stars and three stripes, was triumphantly flying.

Turning back, after steaming two miles below, the boat was stopped at the landing; the captain went on shore, cut down the flag, and brought it on board, amid cheers from our troops. The Columbians looked on in grim silence—all save four Union ladies, who,

Each star of the flag bore the name in pencil of the young lady who sewed it on. The Maggies, and Julias, and Sues, and Kates, and Sallies, who thus left their autographs upon their handiwork, did not anticipate that it would so soon be scrutinized by Yankee soldiers. And, doubtless, "Julia K----," the damsel whose star I pilfered, scarcely aspired to the honor of furnishing a relic for The Tribune cabinet.

CHAPTER XI.

On the 15th of June I returned from Cairo to St. Louis. Lyon had gone up the Missouri River with an expedition, which was all fitted out and started in a few hours. Lyon was very much in earnest, and he knew the supreme value of time in the outset of a war.

How just are the retributions of history! Virginia originated State Rights run-mad, which culminated in Secession. Behold her ground between the upper and nether mill-stones! Missouri lighted the fires of civil war in Kansas; now they blazed with tenfold fury upon her own soil. She sent forth hordes to mob printing-presses, overawe the ballot-box, substitute the bowie-knife and revolver for the civil law. Now, her own area gleamed with bayonets; the Rebel newspaper was suppressed by the file of soldiers, civil process supplanted by the unpitying military arm.

Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, in 1855, led a raid into Kansas, which overthrew the civil authorities, and drove citizens from the polls. Now, the poisoned chalice was commended to his own lips. A hunted fugitive from his home and his chair of office, he was deserted by friends, ruined in fortune, and the halter waited for his neck. Thomas C. Reynolds, late Lieutenant-Governor, by advocating the right of Secession, did much to poison the public mind of the South. He, too, found [Pg 152] his reward in disgrace and outlawry; unable to come within the borders of the State which so lately delighted to do him honor!

I followed Lyon's Expedition by the Pacific railway. The president of the road told me a droll story, which illustrates the folly that governed the location of the railway system of Missouri. The Southwest Branch is about a hundred miles long, through a very thinly settled region. For the first week after the cars commenced running over it, they carried only about six passengers, and no freight except a live bear and a jar of honey. The honey was carried free, and the freight on Bruin was fifty cents. Shut up in the single freight car, during the trip, he ate all the honey! The company were compelled to pay two dollars for the loss of that saccharine esculent. Thus their first week's profits on freight amounted to precisely one dollar and fifty cents on the wrong side of the ledger.

The Rebels had now evacuated Jefferson City, and our own troops, commanded by Colonel Bœrnstein, a German editor, author, and theatrical manager, of St. Louis, were in peaceable possession. The soldiers were cooking upon the grass in the rear of the Capitol, standing in the shade of its portico and rotunda, lying on beds of hay in its passages, and upon carpets in the legislative halls. They reposed in all its rooms, from the subterranean vaults to the little circular chamber in the dome.

Governor and Legislature were fled. With Colonel Bœrnstein, I went through the executive mansion, which had been deserted in hot haste. Sofas were overturned, carpets torn up and littered with letters and public documents. Tables, chairs, damask curtains, cigar-boxes, champagne-bottles, ink-stands, books, private letters, and family knick-knacks, were scattered everywhere [Pg 153] in chaotic confusion. Some of the Governor's correspondence was amusing. The first letter I noticed was a model of brevity. Here it is—its virgin paper unsullied by the faintest touch of "B. Republicanism."

There was a ludicrous disparity between the evidences of sudden flight on all sides and the pompous language of the Governor's latest State paper, which lay upon the piano in the drawing-room:

Beds were unmade, dishes unwashed, silver forks and spoons, belonging to the State, scattered here and there. The only things that appeared undisturbed were the Star Spangled Banner and the national escutcheon, both frescoed upon the plaster of the gubernatorial bedroom.

As we walked through the deserted rooms, a hollow echo answered to the tramp of the colonel and his lieutenant, and to the dull clank of their scabbards against the furniture.

General Lyon opened the war in the West by the battle of Booneville. It lasted only a few minutes, and the undisciplined and half-armed Rebel troops, after a faint show of resistance, retreated toward the South. Lyon's command lost only eleven men.

During the engagement, the Rev. William A. Pile, Chaplain of the First Missouri Infantry, with a detail of four men, was looking after the wounded, when, coming suddenly upon a party of twenty-four Rebels, he ordered them to surrender. Strangely enough, they laid down their arms, and were all brought, prisoners, to General Lyon's head-quarters by their five captors, headed by the reverend representative of the Church militant and the Church triumphant.

Messrs. Thomas W. Knox and Lucien J. Barnes, army correspondents, zealous to see the first battle, narrowly escaped with their lives. Appearing upon a hill, surveying the conflict through their field-glasses, they were mistaken by General Lyon for scouts of the enemy. He ordered his sharpshooters to pick them off, when one of his aids recognized them.

The First Iowa Infantry has arrived here. On the way, several slaves, who came to its camp for refuge, were sent back to their masters.

The regiment contains many educated men, and that large percentage of physicians, lawyers, and editors, found in every far-western community. On the way here, they indulged in a number of freaks which startled the natives. At Macon, Mo., they took possession of The Register , a hot Secession sheet, and, having no less than forty printers in their ranks, promptly issued a spicy loyal journal, called Our Whole Union . The valedictory, which the Iowa boys addressed to Mr. Johnson, the fugitive editor, in his own paper, is worth perusing.

"VALEDICTORY.

"Johnson, wherever you are—whether lurking in recesses of the dim woods, or fleeing a fugitive on open plain, under the broad canopy [Pg 155] of Heaven—good-by! We never saw your countenance—never expect to—never want to—but, for all that, we won't be proud; so, Johnson, good-by, and take care of yourself!

"We're going to leave you, Johnson, without so much as looking into your honest eyes, or clasping your manly hand—even without giving utterance, to your face, of 'God bless you!' We're right sorry, we are, that you didn't stay to attend to your domestic and other affairs, and not skulk away and lose yourself, never to return. Oh, Johnson! why did you—how could you do this?

"Johnson, we leave you to-night. We're going where bullets are thick and mosquitos thicker. We may never return. If we do not, old boy, remember us. We sat at your table; we stole from your 'Dictionary of Latin Quotations;' we wrote Union articles with your pen, your ink, on your paper. We printed them on your press. Our boys set 'em up with your types, used your galleys, your 'shooting-sticks,' your 'chases,' your 'quads,' your 'spaces,' your 'rules,' your every thing. We even drank some poor whisky out of your bottle.

"And now, Johnson, after doing all this for you, you won't forget us, will you? Keep us in mind. Remember us in your evening prayers, and your morning prayers, too, when you say them, if you do say them. If you put up a petition at mid-day, don't forget us then; or if you awake in the solemn stillness of the night, to implore a benison upon the absent, remember us then!

"Once more, Johnson—our heart pains us to say it—that sorrowful word!—but once more and forever, Johnson, Good-By ! If you come our way, Call! Johnson, adieu!"

One of the privates in the regular army has just been punished with fifty lashes on the bare back, for taking from a private house a lady's furs and a silk dress.

This morning I passed a group of the Iowa privates, resting beside the road, along which they were bringing buckets of water to their camp. They were debating the question whether a heavy national debt tends to weaken or to strengthen a Government! These are the men whom the southern Press calls "ignorant mercenaries."

The Missouri State Journal , which made no disguise of its sympathy with the Rebels, is at last suppressed by the military authorities. It was done to-day, by order of General Lyon, who is pursuing the Rebels near Springfield, in the southwest corner of the State. Secessionists denounce it as a military despotism, but the loyal citizens are gratified.

Are you fond of the marvelous? If so, here is a camp story about Colonel Sigel's late engagement at Carthage:

A private in one of his companies (so runs the tale), while loading and firing, was lying flat upon his face to avoid the balls of the Rebels, when a shot from one of their six-pounders plunged into the ground right beside him, plowed through under him, about six inches below the surface, came out on the other side, and pursued its winding way. It did not hurt a hair of his head, but, in something less than a twinkling of an eye, whirled him over upon his back!

If you shake your head, save your incredulity for this : A captain assures me that in the same battle he saw one of Sigel's artillerists struck by a shot which cut off both legs; but that he promptly raised himself half up, rammed the charge home in his gun, withdrew the ramrod, and then fell back, dead! This is, at least, melo-dramatic, and only paralleled by the ballad-hero

CHAPTER XII.

It was a relief to escape the excitement and bitterness of Missouri, and spend a few quiet days in the free States. Despite Rebel predictions, grass did not grow in the streets of Chicago. In sooth, it wore neither an Arcadian nor a funereal aspect. Palatial buildings were everywhere rising; sixty railway trains arrived and departed daily; hotels were crowded with guests; and the voice of the artisan was heard in the land. Michigan Avenue, the finest drive in America, skirting the lake shore for a mile and a half, was crowded every evening with swift vehicles, and its sidewalks thronged with leisurely pedestrians. It afforded scope to one of the two leading characteristics of Chicago residents, which are, holding the ribbons and leaving out the latch-string.

I did not hear a single cry of "Bread or Blood!" As the city had over two million bushels of corn in store, and had received eighteen million bushels of grain during the previous six months, starvation was hardly imminent. War or peace, currency or no currency, breadstuffs will find a market. Corn, not cotton, is king; the great Northwest, instead of Dixie Land, wields the sceptre of imperial power.

The elasticity of the new States is wonderful. Wisconsin and Illinois had lost about ten millions of dollars [Pg 158] through the depreciation of their currency within a few months. It caused embarrassment and stringency, but no wreck or ruin.

Reminiscences of the financial chaos were entertaining. New York exchange once reached thirty per cent. The Illinois Central Railroad Company paid twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars premium on a single draft. For a few weeks before the crash, everybody was afraid of the currency, and yet everybody received it. People were seized with a sudden desire to pay up. The course of nature was reversed; debtors absolutely pursued their creditors, and creditors dodged them as swindlers dodge the sheriff. Parsimonious husbands supplied their wives bounteously with means to do family shopping for months ahead. There was a "run" upon those feminine paradises, the dry-goods stores, while the merchants were by no means anxious to sell.

Suddenly prices went up, as if by magic. Then came a grand crisis. Currency dropped fifty per cent., and one morning the city woke up to find itself poorer by just half than it was the night before. The banks, with their usual feline sagacity, alighted upon their feet, while depositors had to stand the loss.

Persons who settled in Chicago when it was only a military post, many hundred miles in the Indian country, relate stories of the days when they sometimes spent three months on schooners coming from Buffalo. Later settlers, too, offer curious reminiscences. In 1855, a merchant purchased a tract of unimproved land near the lake, outside the city limits, for twelve hundred dollars, one-fourth in cash. Before his next payment, a railroad traversed one sandy worthless corner of it, and the company paid him damages to the amount of eleven hundred dollars. Before the end of the third year, when [Pg 159] his last installment of three hundred dollars became due, he sold the land to a company of speculators for twenty-one thousand five hundred dollars. It is now assessed at something over one hundred thousand.

On a July day, so cold that fires were comforting within doors, and overcoats and buffalo robes requisite without, I visited the grave of Senator Douglas, unmarked as yet by monumental stone. He rests near his old home, and a few yards from the lake, which was sobbing and moaning in stormy passion as the great, white-fringed waves chased each other upon the sandy shore.

With the arrival of each railway train from the east, long files of immigrants from Norway and northern Germany come pouring up Dearborn street, gazing curiously and hopefully at their new Land of Promise. One of the many railroad lines had brought twenty-five hundred within two weeks. There were gray-haired men and young children. All were attired neatly, especially the women, with snow-white kerchiefs about their heads.

They were bound, mainly, for Wisconsin and Minnesota. Men and women are the best wealth of a new country. Though nearly all poor, these brought, with the fair hair and blue eyes of their fatherland, honesty, frugality, and industry, as their contribution to that great crucible which, after all its strange elements are fused, shall pour forth the pure and shining metal of American Character.

Missouri, at the commencement of the war, had two hundred thousand Germans in a population of little more than one million. Almost to a man, they were loyal, and among the first who sprang to arms.

In the South, they were always regarded with suspicion. [Pg 160] The Rebels succeeded in dragooning but very few of them into their ranks. Honor to the loyal Germans!

According to some unknown philosopher, "an Englishman or a Yankee is capital; an Irishman is labor; but a German is capital and labor both." Cincinnati, at the outbreak of the Rebellion, contained about seventy thousand German citizens, who for many years had contributed largely to her growth and prosperity.

A visit to their distinctive locality, called "Over the Rhine," with its German daily papers, German signs, and German conversation, is a peep at Faderland.

Cincinnati is nearer than Hamburg, the Miami canal more readily crossed than the Atlantic, and that "sweet German accent," with which General Scott was once enraptured, is no less musical in the Queen City than in the land of Schiller and Göethe. Why, then, should one go to Germany, unless, indeed, like Bayard Taylor, he goes for a wife? The multitudinous maidens—light-eyed and blonde-haired—in these German streets, would seem to remove even that excuse.

When Young America becomes jovial, he takes four or five boon companions to a drinking saloon, pours down half a glass of raw brandy, and lights a cigar. Continuing this programme through the day, he ends, perhaps, by being carried home on a shutter or conducted to the watch-house.

But the German, at the close of the summer day, strolls with his wife and two or three of his twelve children (the orthodox number in well-regulated Teutonic families) to one of the great airy halls or gardens abounding in his portion of the city. Calling for Rhein wine, Catawba, or " zwei glass lager bier und zwei pretzel ," they sit an hour or two, chatting with friends, and [Pg 161] then return to their homes like rational beings after rational enjoyment. The halls contain hundreds of people, who gesticulate more and talk louder during their mildest social intercourse than the same number of Americans would in an affray causing the murder of half the company; but the presence of women and children guarantees decorous language and deportment.

The laws of migration are curious. One is, that people ordinarily go due west. The Massachusetts man goes to northern Ohio, Wisconsin, or Minnesota; the Ohioan to Kansas; the Tennesseean to southern Missouri; the Mississippian to Texas. Great excitements, like those of Kansas and California, draw men off their parallel of latitude; but this is the general law. Another is, that the Irish remain near the sea-coast, while the Germans seek the interior. They constitute four-fifths of the foreign population of every western city.

In 1788, a few months before the first settlement of Cincinnati, seven hundred and forty acres of land were bought for five hundred dollars. The tract is now the heart of the city, and appraised at many millions. As it passed from hand to hand, colossal fortunes were realized from it; but its original purchaser, then one of the largest western land-owners, at his death did not leave property enough to secure against want his surviving son. Until 1862, that son resided in Cincinnati, a pensioner upon the bounty of relatives. As, in the autumn of life, he walked the streets of that busy city, it must have been a strange reflection that among all its broad acres of which his father was sole proprietor, he did not own land enough for his last resting-place. "Give him a little earth for charity!"

Many high artificial mounds, circular and elliptical, stood here when the city was founded. In after years, [Pg 162] as they were leveled, one by one, they revealed relics of that ancient and comparatively civilized race, which occupied this region before the Indian, and was probably identical with the Aztecs of Mexico.

Upon the site of one of these mounds is Pike's Opera House, a gorgeous edifice, erected at an expense of half a million of dollars, by a Cincinnati distiller, who, fifteen years before, could not obtain credit for his first dray-load of whisky-barrels. It is one of the finest theaters in the world; but the site has more interest than the building. What volumes of unwritten history has that spot witnessed, which supports a temple of art and fashion for the men and women of to-day, was once a post from which Indian sentinels overlooked the "dark and bloody ground" beyond the river, and, in earlier ages, an altar where priests of a semi-barbaric race performed mystic rites to propitiate heathen gods!

Cincinnati was built by a woman. Its founder was neither carpenter nor speculator, but in the legitimate feminine pursuit of winning hearts. Seventy years ago, Columbia, North Bend, and Cincinnati—all splendid cities on paper—were rivals, each aspiring to be the metropolis of the West. Columbia was largest, North Bend most favorably located, and Cincinnati least promising of all.

But an army officer, sent out to establish a military post for protecting frontier settlers against Indians, was searching for a site. Fascinated by the charms of a dark-eyed beauty—wife of one of the North Bend settlers—that location impressed him favorably, and he made it head-quarters. The husband, disliking the officer's pointed attentions, came to Cincinnati and settled—thus, he supposed, removing his wife from temptation.

But as Mark Antony threw the world away for Cleopatra's lips, this humbler son of Mars counted the military advantages of North Bend as nothing compared with his charmer's eyes. He promptly followed to Cincinnati, and erected Fort Washington within the present city limits. Proximity to a military post settled the question, as it has all similar ones in the history of the West. Now Cincinnati is the largest inland city upon the continent; Columbia is an insignificant village, and North Bend an excellent farm.

In architecture, Cincinnati is superior to its western rivals, and rapidly gaining upon the most beautiful seaboard cities. Some of its squares are unexcelled in America. A few public buildings are imposing; but its best structures have been erected by private enterprise. The Cincinnatian is expansive. Narrow quarters torture him. He can live in a cottage, but he must do business in a palace. An inferior brick building is the specter of his life, and a freestone block his undying ambition.

From the Queen City I went to Louisville. Though communication with the South had been cut off by every other route, the railroad was open thence to Nashville.

Kentucky was disputed ground. Treason and Loyalty jostled each other in strange proximity. At the breakfast table, one looked up from his New York paper, forty-eight hours old, to see his nearest neighbor perusing The Charleston Mercury . He found The Louisville Courier urging the people to take up arms against the Government. The Journal , published just across the street, advised Union men to arm themselves, and announced that any of them wanting first-class revolvers could learn something to their advantage by calling upon its editor. In the telegraph-office, the [Pg 164] loyal agent of the Associated Press, who made up dispatches for the North, chatted with the Secessionist, who spiced his news for the southern palate. On the street, one heard Union men advocate the hanging of Governor Magoffin, and declare that he and his fellow-traitors should find the collision they threatened a bloody business. At the same moment, some inebriated "Cavalier" reeled by, shouting uproariously "Huzza for Jeff. Davis!"

Here, a group of pale, long-haired young men was pointed out as enlisted Rebel soldiers, just leaving for the South. There, a troop of the sinewy, long-limbed mountaineers of Kentucky and East Tennessee, marched sturdily toward the river, to join the loyal forces upon the Indiana shore. Two or three State Guards (Secession), with muskets on their shoulders, were closely followed by a trio of Home Guards (Union), also armed. It was wonderful that, with all these crowding combustibles, no explosion had yet occurred in the Kentucky powder-magazine.

While Secessionists were numerous, Louisville, at heart loyal, everywhere displayed the national flag. Yet, although the people tore to pieces a Secession banner, which floated from a private dwelling, they were very tolerant toward the Rebels, who openly recruited for the Southern service. Imagine a man huzzaing for President Lincoln and advertising a Federal recruiting-office in any city controlled by the Confederates!

"The real governor of Kentucky," said a southern paper, "is not Beriah Magoffin, but George D. Prentice." In spite of his "neutrality," which for a time threatened to stretch out to the crack of doom, Mr. Prentice was a thorn in the side of the enemy. His strong influence, [Pg 165] through The Louisville Journal , was felt throughout the State.

Visiting his editorial rooms, I found him over an appalling pile of public and private documents, dictating an article for his paper. Many years ago, an attack of paralysis nearly disabled his right hand, and compelled him ever after to employ an amanuensis.

His small, round face was fringed with dark hair, a little silvered by age; but his eyes gleamed with their early fire, and his conversation scintillated with that ready wit which made him the most famous paragraphist in the world. His manner was exceedingly quiet and modest. For about three-fourths of the year, he was one of the hardest workers in the country; often sitting at his table twelve hours a day, and writing two or three columns for a morning issue.

At this time, the Kentucky Unionists, advocating only "neutrality," dared not urge open and uncompromising support of the Government. When President Lincoln first called for troops, The Journal denounced his appeal in terms almost worthy of The Charleston Mercury , expressing its "mingled amazement and indignation." Of course the Kentuckians were subjected to very bitter criticism. Mr. Prentice said to me:

The State election, held a few weeks after, exposed the groundless alarm of the leading politicians. It resulted in returning to Congress, from every district but [Pg 166] one, zealous Union men. Afterward the State furnished troops whenever they were called for, and, in spite of her timid leaders, finally yielded gracefully to the inexorable decree of the war, touching her pet institution of Slavery.

I paid a visit to the encampment of the Kentucky Union troops, on the Indiana side of the Ohio, opposite Louisville. "Camp Joe Holt" was on a high, grassy plateau. Unfailing springs supplied it with pure water, and trees of beech, oak, elm, ash, maple, and sycamore, overhung it with grateful shade. The prospective soldiers were lying about on the ground, or reading and writing in their tents.

General Rousseau, who was sitting upon the grass, chatting with a visitor, looked the Kentuckian. Large head, with straight, dark hair and mustache; eye and mouth full of determination; broad chest, huge, erect, manly frame.

His men were sinewy fellows, with serious, earnest faces. Most of them were from the mountain districts. Many had been hunters from boyhood, and could bring a squirrel from the tallest tree with their old rifles. Byron's description of their ancestral backwoodsmen seemed to fit them exactly:

The history of this brigade was characteristic of the times. Rousseau scouted "neutrality" from the outset. On the 21st of May, he said from his place in the Kentucky Senate:

In that Legislature, the struggle between the Secessionists and the Loyalists was fierce, protracted, and uncertain. Each day had its accidents, incidents, telegraphic and newspaper excitements, upon which the action of the body seemed to depend.

In firm and determined men, the two parties were about equally divided; but there were a good many "floats," who held the balance of power. These men were very tenderly nursed by the Loyalists.

The Secessionists frequently proposed to go into secret session, but the Union men steadfastly refused. Rousseau declared in the Senate that if they closed the doors he would break them open. As he stands about six feet two, and is very muscular, the threat had some significance.

Buckner, Tighlman, and Hanson 12 —all afterward generals in the Rebel army—led the Secessionists. They [Pg 168] professed to be loyal, and were very shrewd and plausible. They induced hundreds of young men to join the State-Guard, which they were organizing to force Kentucky out of the Union, though its ostensible object was to assure "neutrality."

"State Rights" was their watchword. "For Kentucky neutrality," first; and, should the conflict be forced upon them, "For the South against the North." They worked artfully upon the southern partiality for the doctrine that allegiance is due first to the State, and only secondly to the National Government.

Governor Magoffin and Lieutenant-Governor Porter were bitter Rebels. The Legislature made a heavy appropriation for arming the State, but practically displaced the Governor, by appointing five loyal commissioners to control the fund and its expenditure.

In Louisville, the Unionists secretly organized the "Loyal League," which became very large; but the Secessionists, also, were noisy and numerous, firm and defiant.

On the 5th of June, Rousseau started for Washington, to obtain authority to raise troops in Kentucky. At Cincinnati, he met Colonel Thomas J. Key, then Judge-Advocate of Ohio, on duty with General McClellan. Key was alarmed, and asked if it were not better to keep Kentucky in the Union by voting, than by fighting. Rousseau replied:

"As fast as we take one vote, and settle the matter, another, in some form, is proposed. While we are voting, the traitors are enlisting soldiers, preparing to throttle Kentucky and precipitate her into Revolution as they have the other southern States. It is our duty to see that we are not left powerless at the mercy of those who will butcher us whenever they can."

Key declared that he would ruin every thing by his rashness. By invitation, Rousseau called on the commander of the Western Department. During the conversation, McClellan remarked that Buckner had spent the previous night with him. Rousseau replied that Buckner was a hypocrite and traitor. McClellan rejoined that he thought him an honorable gentleman. They had served in Mexico together, and were old personal friends.

He added: "But I did draw him over the coals for saying he would not only drive the Rebels out of Kentucky, but also the Federal troops."

"Well, sir," said Rousseau, "it would once have been considered pretty nearly treason for a citizen to fight the United States army and levy war against the National Government!"

When Rousseau reached Washington, he found that Colonel Key, who had frankly announced his determination to oppose his project, was already there. He had an interview with the President, General Cameron, and Mr. Seward. The weather was very hot, and Cameron sat with his coat off during the conversation.

As usual, before proceeding to business, Mr. Lincoln had his "little story" to enjoy. He shook hands cordially with his visitor, and asked, in great glee:

It was this: Dr. John M. Johnson, senator from Paducah, wrote to Mr. Lincoln a rhetorical document, in the usual style of the Rebels. In behalf of the sovereign State, he entered his solemn and emphatic protest against the planting of cannon at Cairo, declaring that the guns [Pg 170] actually pointed in the direction of the sacred soil of Kentucky!

In an exquisitely pithy autograph letter, Mr. Lincoln replied, if he had known earlier that Cairo, Illinois, was in Dr. Johnson's Kentucky Senatorial District, he certainly should not have established either the guns or the troops there! Singularly enough—for a keen sense of humor was very rare among our "erring brethren"—Johnson appreciated the joke.

"I have half pretended to submit to Kentucky neutrality, but, in discussing the matter before the people, while apparently standing upon the line, I have almost always poked ."

This word was not in the Cabinet vocabulary. General Cameron looked inquiringly at Mr. Lincoln, who was supposed to be familiar with the dialect of his native State.

"General," asked the President, "you don't know what 'poke' means? Why, when you play marbles, you are required to shoot from a mark on the ground; and when you reach over with your hand, beyond the line, that is poking! "

"General, don't be too hasty; you know we have seen another man to-day, and we should act with caution." Rousseau explained:

"The masses in Kentucky are loyal. I can get as many soldiers as are wanted; but if the Rebels raise troops, while we do not, our young men will go into their army, taking the sympathies of kindred and friends, and may finally cause the State to secede. It is of vital importance [Pg 171] that we give loyal direction to the sentiment of our people."

At the next interview, the President showed him this indorsement on the back of one of his papers:

"Those are good men, Mr. President, loyal men; but perhaps some of the rest of us, who were born and reared in Kentucky, are just as good Union men as they are, and know just as much about the State. If you want troops, I can raise them, and I will raise them. If you do not want them, or do not want to give me the authority, why that ends the matter."

Finally, through the assistance of Mr. Chase, who steadfastly favored the project, and of Secretary Cameron, the authority was given.

A few Kentucky Loyalists were firm and outspoken. But General Leslie Coombs was a good specimen of the whole. When asked for a letter to Mr. Lincoln, he wrote: "Rousseau is loyal and brave, but a little too much for coercion for these parts."

After Rousseau returned, with permission to raise twenty companies, The Louisville Courier , whose veneer of loyalty was very thin, denounced the effort bitterly. Even The Louisville Journal derided it until half a regiment was in camp.

A meeting of leading Loyalists of the State was held in Louisville, at the office of James Speed, since Attorney General of the United States. Garrett Davis, Bramlette, Boyle, and most of the Louisville men, [Pg 172] were against the project. They feared it would give the State to the Secessionists at the approaching election. Speed and the Ballards were for it. So was Samuel Lusk, an old judge from Garrard County, who sat quietly as long as he could during the discussion, then jumped up, and bringing his hand heavily down on the table, exclaimed:

A resolution was finally adopted that, when the time came, they all wished Rousseau to raise and command the troops, but that, for the present, it would be impolitic and improper to commence enlisting in Kentucky.

Greatly against his own will, and declaring that he never was so humiliated in his life, Rousseau established his camp on the Indiana shore. After the election, some Secession sympathizers, learning that he proposed to bring his men over to Louisville, protested very earnestly, begging him to desist, and thus avoid bloodshed, which they declared certain.

"Gentlemen," said he, "my men, like yourselves, are Kentuckians. I am a Kentuckian. Our homes are on Kentucky soil. We have organized in defense of our common country; and bloodshed is just the business we are drilling for. If anybody in the city of Louisville thinks it judicious to begin it when we arrive, I tell you, before God, you shall all have enough of it before you get through!"

The next day he marched his brigade unmolested through the city. Afterward, upon many battle-fields, its honorable fame and Rousseau's two stars were fairly won and worthily worn.

CHAPTER XIII.

I spent the last days of July, in Western Virginia, with the command of General J. D. Cox, which was pursuing Henry A. Wise in hot haste up the valley of the Kanawha. There had been a few little skirmishes, which, in those early days, we were wont to call battles.

Like all mountain regions, the Kanawha valley was extremely loyal. Flags were flying, and the people manifested intense delight at the approach of our army. We were very close upon the flying enemy; indeed, more than once our cavalry boys ate hot breakfasts which the Rebels had cooked for themselves.

At a farm-house, two miles west of Charleston, a dozen natives were sitting upon the door-step as our column passed. The farmer shook hands with us very cordially. "I am glad to see the Federal army," said he; "I have been hunted like a dog, and compelled to hide in the mountains, because I loved the Union." His wife exclaimed, "Thank God, you have come at last, and the day of our deliverance is here. I always said that the Lord was on our side, and that he would bring us through safely."

Two of the women were ardent Rebels. They did not blame the native-born Yankees, but wished that every southerner in our ranks might be killed. Just then one of our soldiers, whose home was in that county, passed by the door-step, on his way to the well [Pg 174] for a canteen of water. One of the women said to me, with eyes that meant it:

"I hope he will be killed! If I had a pistol I would shoot him. Why! you have a revolver right here in your belt, haven't you? If I seen it before, I would have used it upon him!"

Her companion assured me that she prayed every night and morning for Jefferson Davis. If his armies were driven out of Virginia, she would go and live in one of the Gulf States. She had a brother and a lover in General Wise's army, and gave us their names, with a very earnest request to see them kindly treated, should they be taken prisoners. When we parted, she shook my hand, with: "Well, I hope no harm will befall you, if you are an Abolitionist!"

An old citizen, who had been imprisoned for Union sentiments, was overcome with joy at the sight of our troops. He mounted a great rock by the roadside, and extemporized a speech, in which thanks to the Union army and the Lord curiously intermingled.

Women, with tears in their eyes, told us how anxiously they had waited for the flag; how their houses had been robbed, their husbands hunted, imprisoned, and impressed. Negroes joined extravagantly in the huzzaing, swinging flags as a woodman swings his ax, bending themselves almost double with shouts of laughter, and exclamations of "Hurrah for Mass'r Lincoln!"

Thirteen miles above Charleston, at the head of navigation, [Pg 175] we left behind what we grandiloquently called "the fleet." It consisted of exactly four little stern-wheel steamboats.

The people of these mountain regions use the old currency of New England, and talk of "fourpence ha'pennies" and "ninepences."

Our road continued along the river-bank, where the ranges of overhanging hills began to break into regular, densely timbered, pyramidal spurs. The weather was very sultry. How the sun smote us in that close, narrow valley! The accoutrement's of each soldier weighed about thirty pounds, and made a day's march of twenty miles an arduous task.

A private who had served in the First Kentucky Infantry 13 for three months, proved to be of the wrong sex. She performed camp duties with great fortitude, and never fell out of the ranks during the severest marches. She was small in stature, and kept her coat buttoned to her chin. She first excited suspicion by her feminine method of putting on her stockings; and when handed over to the surgeon proved to be a woman, about twenty years old. She was discharged from the regiment, but sent to Columbus upon suspicion, excited by some of her remarks, that she was a spy of the Rebels.

At Cannelton, a hundred slaves were employed in the coal-oil works—two long, begrimed, dilapidated buildings, with a few wretched houses hard by. Nobody was visible, except the negroes. When I asked one of them—"Where are all the white people?" he replied, with a broad grin—

The slaves, who always heard the term "runaway" applied only to their own race, were not aware that it could have any other significance. After the war opened, its larger meaning suddenly dawned upon them. The idea of the master running away and the negroes staying, was always to them ludicrous beyond description. The extravagant lines of "Kingdom Coming," exactly depicted their feelings:

"Dey tole us," said a group of blacks, "dat if your army cotched us, you would cut off our right feet. But, Lor! we knowed you wouldn't hurt us !"

At a house where we dined, the planter assuming to be loyal, one of our officers grew confidential with him, when a negro woman managed to beckon me into a back room, and seizing my arm, very earnestly said: "I tell you, mass'r's only just putting on. He hates you all, and wants to see you killed. Soon as you [Pg 177] have passed, he will send right to Wise's army, and tell him what you mean to do; if any of you'uns remain here behind the troops, you will be in danger. He's in a heap of trouble," she added, "but, Lord, dese times just suits me !"

At another house, while the Rebel host had stepped out for a moment, an intelligent young colored woman, with an infant in her arms, stationed two negro girls at the door to watch for his return, and interrogated me about the progress and purposes of the War. "Is it true," she inquired, very sadly, "that your army has been hunting and returning runaway slaves?"

Thanks to General Cox, who, like the sentinel in Rolla, "knew his duty better," I could reply in the negative. But when, with earnestness gleaming in her eyes, she asked, if, through these convulsions, any hope glimmered for her race, what could I tell her but to be patient, and trust in God?

Army rations are not inviting to epicurean tastes; but in the field all sorts of vegetables and poultry were added to our bill of fare. Chickens, young pigs, fence-rails, apples, and potatoes, are legitimate army spoils the world over.

"Where did you get that turkey?" asked a captain of one of his men. "Bought it, sir," was the prompt answer. "For how much?" "Seventy-five cents." "Paid for it, did you?" "Well, no, sir; told the man I would pay when we came back !"

"Mass'r," said a little ebony servant to a captain with whom I was messing, "I sees a mighty fine goose. Wish we had him for supper."

"Ginger," replied the officer, "have I not often told you that it is very wicked to steal?"

The little negro laughed all over his face, and fell out [Pg 178] of the ranks. By a "coincidence," worthy of Sam Weller, we supped on stewed goose that very evening.

Seen by night from the adjacent hills, our picturesque encampments gave to the wild landscape a new beauty. In the deep valleys gleamed hundreds of snowy tents, lighted by waning camp-fires, round which grotesque figures flitted. The faint murmur of voices, and the ghostly sweetness of distant music, filled the summer air.

At the Falls of the Kanawha the river is half a mile wide. A natural dam of rocks, a hundred yards in breadth, and, on its lower side, thirty feet above the water, extends obliquely across the stream—a smooth surface of gray rock, spotted with brown moss.

Near the south bank is the main fall, in the form of a half circle, three or four hundred yards long, with a broken descent of thirty feet. Above the brink, the water is dark, green, and glassy, but at the verge it looks half transparent, as it tumbles and foams down the rocks, lashed into a passion of snowy whiteness. Plunging into the seething caldron, it throws up great jets and sheets of foam. Above, the calm, shining water extends for a mile, until hidden by a sudden bend in the channel. The view is bounded by a tall spur, wrapped in the sober green of the forest, with an adventurous corn-field climbing far up its steep side. At the narrow base of the spur, a straw-colored lawn surrounds a white farm-house, with low, sloping roof and antique chimneys. It is half hidden among the maples, and sentineled by a tall Lombardy poplar.

Two miles above the fall, the stream breaks into its two chief confluents—the New River and the Gauley. Hawk's Nest, near their junction, is a peculiarly romantic spot. In its vicinity our command halted. It was [Pg 179] far from its base, and Wise ran too fast for capture. We had five thousand troops, who were ill-disciplined and discontented. General Cox was then fresh from the Ohio Senate. After more field experience, he became an excellent officer.

When I returned through the valley, I found Charleston greatly excited. A docile and intelligent mulatto slave, of thirty years, had never been struck in his life. But, on the way to a hayfield, his new overseer began to crack his whip over the shoulders of the gang, to hurry them forward. The mulatto shook his head a little defiantly, when the whip was laid heavily across his back. Turning instantly upon the driver, he smote him with his hayfork, knocking him from his horse, and laying the skull bare. The overseer, a large, athletic man, drew his revolver; but, before he could use it, the agile mulatto wrenched it away, and fired two shots at his head, which instantly killed him. Taking the weapon, the slave fled to the mountains, whence he escaped to the Ohio line.

In the days of stage-coaches, the trip from Cincinnati to St. Louis was a very melancholy experience; in the days of steamboats, a very tedious one. Now, you leave Cincinnati on a summer evening; and the placid valley of the Ohio—the almost countless cornfields of the Great Miami (one of them containing fifteen hundred acres), where the exhaustless soil has produced that staple abundantly for fifty years—the grave and old home of General Harrison, at North Bend—the dense forests of Indiana—the Wabash Valley, that elysium of chills and fever, where pumpkins are "fruit," and hoop-poles "timber"—the dead-level prairies of Illinois, with their [Pg 180] oceans of corn, tufts of wood, and painfully white villages—the muddy Mississippi, "All-the-Waters," as one Indian tribe used to call it—are unrolled in panorama, till, at early morning, St. Louis, hot and parched with the journey, holds out her dusty hands to greet you.

No inland city ever held such a position as this. Here is the heart of the unequaled valley, which extends from the Rocky Mountains to the Alleghanies, and from the great lakes to the Gulf. Here is the mighty river, which drains a region six times greater than the empire of France, and bears on its bosom the waters of fifty-seven navigable streams. Even the rude savage called it the "Father of Waters," and early Spanish explorers reverentially named it the "River of the Holy Ghost."

St. Louis, "with its thriving young heart, and its old French limbs," is to be the New York of the interior. The child is living who will see it the second city on the American continent.

Three Rebel newspapers have recently been suppressed. The editor of one applied to the provost-marshal for permission to resume, but declined to give a pledge that no disloyal sentiment should appear in its columns. He was very tender of the Constitution, and solicitous about "the rights of the citizen." The marshal replied:

CHAPTER XIV.

On the 10th of August, at Wilson Creek, two hundred and forty miles southwest of St. Louis, occurred the hardest-fought battle of the year. General Lyon had pursued the Rebels to that corner of the State. He had called again and again for re-enforcements, but at Washington nothing could be seen except Virginia. Lyon's force was five thousand two hundred men. The enemy, under Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price, numbered over eleven thousand, according to McCulloch's official report. Lyon would not retreat. He thought that would injure the Cause more than to fight and be defeated.

To one of his staff-officers, the night before the engagement, he said: "I believe in presentiments, and, ever since this attack was planned, I have felt that it would result disastrously. But I cannot leave the country without a battle."

On his way to the field, he was silent and abstracted; but when the guns opened, he gave his orders with great promptness and clearness.

He had probably resolved that he would not leave the field alive unless he left it as a victor. By a singular coincidence, the two armies marched out before daybreak on that morning each to attack the other. They met, and for many hours the tide of battle ebbed and flowed.

Lyon's little army fought with conspicuous gallantry. [Pg 182] It contained the very best material. The following is a list—from memory, and therefore quite incomplete—of some officers, who, winning here their first renown, afterward achieved wide and honorable reputation:

During the battle, Captain Powell Clayton's company of the First Kansas Volunteers, becoming separated from the rest of our forces, was approached by a regiment uniformed precisely like the First Iowa. Clayton had just aligned his men with this new regiment, when he detected small strips of red cloth on the shoulders of the privates, which marked them as Rebels. With perfect coolness, he gave the order:

By this maneuver his company soon placed a good fifty yards between itself and the Rebel regiment, when the Adjutant of the latter rode up in front, suspicious that all was not right. Turning to Clayton, he asked:

"Southern," said the Rebel, wheeling his horse; but Clayton seized him by the collar, and threatened to shoot him if he commanded his men to attack. The Adjutant, heedless of his own danger, ordered his regiment to open fire upon the Kansas company. He was shot dead on the spot by Clayton, who told his men to run for their lives. They escaped with the loss of only four.

Toward evening Lyon's horse was killed under him. Immediately afterward, his officers begged that he would retire to a less exposed spot. Scarcely raising his eyes from the enemy, he said:

While the line was forming, he turned to Major Sturgis, who stood near him, and remarked:

Early in the day he had received a flesh-wound in the leg, from which the blood flowed profusely. Sturgis now noticed fresh blood on the General's hat, and asked where it came from.

"It is nothing, Major, nothing but a wound in the head," replied Lyon, mounting a fresh horse.

Without taking the hat that was held out to him by Major Sturgis, he shouted to the soldiers:

Two minutes later he lay dead on the field, pierced by a rifle-ball through the breast, just above the heart.

	At Wilson Creek.	Afterward.
Frederick Steele	Captain	Major-General.
F. J. Herron	Captain	Major-General.
P. J. Osterhaus	Major	Major-General.
S. D. Sturgis	Major	Major-General.
R. B. Mitchell	Colonel	Major-General.
Franz Sigel	Colonel	Major-General.
D. S. Stanley	Captain	Major-General.
J. M. Schofield	Major	Major-General.
Gordon Granger	Captain	Major-General.
J. B. Plummer	Captain	Brigadier-General.
James Totten	Captain	Brigadier-General.
E. A. Carr	Captain	Brigadier-General.
Geo. W. Deitzler	Colonel	Brigadier-General.
T. W. Sweeney	Captain	Brigadier-General.
Geo. L. Andrews	Lieutenant-Colonel	Brigadier-General.
I. F. Shepard	Major	Brigadier-General.

Our officers held a hurried consultation, and decided not only to retreat, but to abandon southwest Missouri. Strangely enough, the coincidence of the morning was [Pg 184] here repeated. Almost simultaneously, the Rebels decided to fall back. They were in full retreat when they were arrested by the news of the departure of the Federal troops, and returned to take possession of the field which the last Union soldier had abandoned eight hours before.

They claimed a great victory, and with justice, as they finally held the ground. Their journals were very jubilant. Said The New Orleans Picayune :

Lyon went into the battle in civilian's dress, excepting only a military coat. He had on a soft hat of ashen hue, with long fur and very broad brim, turned up on three sides. He had worn it for a month; it would have individualized the wearer among fifty thousand men. His peculiar dress and personal appearance were well known through the enemy's camp. He received a new and elegant uniform just before the battle, but it was never worn until his remains were clothed in it, after the brave spirit had fled, and while our forces were retreating from Springfield by night.

Notwithstanding his personal bravery and military education, he always opposed dueling on principle. No provocation made him recognize the "code." Once he was struck in the face, but he had courage enough to refuse to challenge his adversary. For a time this subjected him to misapprehension and contempt among military [Pg 185] men, but, long before his death, his fellow-officers understood and respected him.

He seemed to care little for personal fame—to think only of the Cause. Knowing exactly what was before him, he went to death on that summer evening "as a man goes to his bridal." Losing a life, he gained an immortality. His memory is green in the nation's heart, his name high on her roll of honor.

On the 25th of July, Major-General John C. Fremont reached St. Louis, in command of the Western Department. His advent was hailed with great enthusiasm. The newspapers, West, predicted for him achievements extravagant and impossible as those which the New York journals had foretold for McClellan. In those sanguine days, the whole country made "Young Napoleons" to order.

With characteristic energy, Fremont plunged into the business of his new department, where chaos reigned, and he had no spell to evoke order, save the boundless patriotism and earnestness of the people.

His head-quarters were established on Chouteau Avenue. He was overrun with visitors—every captain, or corporal, or civilian, seeking to prosecute his business with the General in person. He was therefore compelled to shut himself up, and, by the sweeping refusal to admit petitioners to him, a few were excluded whose business was important. Some dissatisfaction and some jesting resulted. I remember three Kansas officers, charged with affairs of moment, who used daily to be merry, describing how they had made a reconnoissance toward Fremont's head-quarters, fought a lively engagement, and driven in the pickets, only to find the main garrison so well guarded that they were quite unable to force it.

A long caravan of old-fashioned Virginia wagons, containing rude chairs, bedsteads, and kitchen utensils, passed through town yesterday. They brought from the Southwest families who,

We were lately surprised and gratified to learn that a gentleman from Minnesota had offered an unasked loan of forty-six thousand dollars to the Government authorities—gratified at such spontaneous patriotism, and surprised that any man who lived in Minnesota should have forty-six thousand dollars. The latter mystery has been explained by the discovery that he never took his funds to that vortex of real estate speculation, but left them in this city, where he formerly resided. Moreover, his money was in Missouri currency, which, though at par here in business transactions, is at a discount of eight per cent. on gold and New York exchange. The loan is to be returned to him in gold. So, after all, there is probably as much human nature to the square acre in Minnesota as anywhere else.

"Egypt to the rescue!" is the motto upon the banner of a new Illinois regiment. Southern Illinois, known as Egypt, is turning out men for the Mississippi campaign with surprising liberality; whereupon a fiery Secessionist triumphantly calls attention to this prophetic [Pg 187] text, from Hosea: "Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them!"

The aptness of the citation is admirable; but he is reminded, in return, that the pet phrase of the Rebels, "Let us alone," was the prayer of a man possessed of a devil, to the Saviour of the world!

I have just met a gentleman, residing in southwestern Missouri, whose experience is novel. He visited the camp of the Rebels to reclaim a pair of valuable horses, which they had taken from his residence. They not only retained the stolen animals, but also took from him those with which he went in pursuit, and left him the alternative of walking home, twenty-three miles, through a dangerous region, or remaining in their camp. Fond of adventure, he chose the latter, and for three weeks messed with a Missouri company. The facetious scoundrels told him that they could not afford to keep him unless he earned his living; and employed him as a teamster. He had philosophy enough to make the best of it, and flattered himself that he became a very creditable mule-driver.

Early on the morning of August 10th, he was breakfasting with the officers from a dry-goods box, which served for a table, when bang! went a cannon, not more than two or three hundred yards from them, and crash! came a ball, cutting off the branches just above their heads. "Here is the devil to pay; the Dutch are upon us!" exclaimed the captain, springing up and ordering his company to form.

My friend was a looker-on from the Southern side during the whole battle. He gives a graphic account of the joy of the Rebels at finding the body of General Lyon, lying under a tree (the first information they had of his death), and their surprise and consternation at the bravery with which the little Union army fought to the bitter end.

Twenty leading Secessionists are in durance vile here. There is a poetic justice in the fact that their prison was formerly a slave-pen, and that they are enabled to study State Rights from old negro quarters.

The Rebels have just perpetrated a new and startling atrocity. They cut down the high railroad bridge over the Little Platte River near St. Joseph. The next train from Hannibal reached the spot at midnight, and its locomotive and five cars were precipitated, thirty feet, into the bed of the river. More than fifty passengers were dangerously wounded, and twenty instantly killed. They were mainly women and children; there was not a single soldier among them.

General Fremont is issuing written guarantees for their freedom to the slaves of Rebels. They are in the form of real-estate conveyances, releasing the recipient from all obligations to his master; declaring him forever free from servitude, and with full right and authority to control his own labor. They are headed "Deed of Manumission," authenticated by the great seal of the Western Department, and the signature of its commander. Think of giving a man a warranty-deed for his own body and soul!

In compliance with imperative orders from the Government, several regiments, though sadly needed here, are being sent eastward. To the colonel commanding one of them, the order was conveyed by Fremont in these characteristic terms:

CHAPTER XV.

In October, General Fremont's forming army rendezvoused at the capital of Missouri. From afar, Jefferson City is picturesque; but distance lends enchantment. Close inspection shows it uninviting and rough. The Capitol, upon a frowning hill, is a little suggestive of the sober old State House which overlooks Boston Common. Brick and frame houses enough for a population of three thousand straggle over an area of a mile square, as if they had been tossed up like a peck of apples, and left to come down and locate themselves. Many are half hidden by the locust, ailantus, and arbor-vitæ trees, and the white blossoms of the catalpas.

The war correspondents "smelled the battle from afar off." More than twenty collected two or three weeks before the army started. Some of them were very grave and decorous at home, but here they were like boys let out of school.

They styled themselves the Bohemian Brigade, and exhibited that touch of the vagabond which Irving charitably attributes to all poetic temperaments. They were quartered in a wretched little tavern eminently First Class in its prices. It was very southern in style. A broad balcony in front, over a cool brick pavement; no two rooms upon the same level; no way of getting up stairs except by going out of doors; long, low wings, shooting off in all directions; a gallery in the rear, deeper than the house itself; heavy furniture, [Pg 190] from the last generation, with a single modern link in the shape of a piano in the ladies' parlor; leisurely negro waiters, including little boys and girls, standing behind guests at dinner, and waving long wands over the table to disconcert the omnipresent flies; and corn bread, hot biscuits, ham, and excellent coffee. The host and hostess were slaveholders, who said "thar" and "whar," but held that Secessionists were traitors, and that traitors ought to be hung.

The landlord, who was aged, rheumatic, and half blind, labored under the delusion that he kept the house; but an intelligent and middle-aged slave, yclept John, was the real brain of the establishment.

"John," asked one of the correspondents, "does your master really think he is alive?"

"Why, he has been dead these twenty years. He hobbles around, pretending he exists, just to save funeral expenses."

John's extravagant enjoyment of this sorry jest beggared description. He threw himself on the floor, rolled over and over, and roared with laughter for fifteen minutes. He did not recover his usual gravity for weeks. Again and again, while waiting upon guests, he would see his master coming, and suddenly explode with merriment, to the infinite amazement of the habitués of the house, who suspected that the negro was losing his wits.

The Bohemians took their ease in their inn, and held high carnival, to the astonishment of all its attachés , from the aged proprietor down to the half-fledged negro cherubs. Each seemed to regard as his personal property the half-dozen rooms which all occupied. The one who dressed earliest in the morning would appropriate the [Pg 191] first hat, coat, and boots he found, remarking that the owner was probably dead.

One huge, good-natured brother they called "the Elephant." He was greatly addicted to sleeping in the daytime; and when other resources failed, some reckless quill-driver would say:

Eight or ten would pile themselves upon his bed, beside him and upon him, until his good-nature became exhausted, when the giant would toss them out of the room like so many pebbles, and lock his door.

There was little work to be done; so they discussed politics, art, society, and metaphysics; and would soon kindle into singing, reciting, "sky-larking," wrestling, flinging saddles, valises, and pillows. In some recent theatrical spectacle, two had heard a "chorus of fiends," which tickled their fancy. As the small hours approached, it was their unceasing delight to roar imitations of it, declaring, with each repetition, that it was now to be given positively for the last time, and by the very special request of the audience. How they sent that demoniac "Ha! ha! ha!" shrieking through the midnight air! The following account of their diversions was given by "J. G." in The Cincinnati Gazette . The scenes he witnessed suggested, very naturally, the nomenclature of the prize-ring:

Happening to drop in the other night, I found the representatives of The Missouri Republican , The Cincinnati Commercial , The New York World , and The Tribune , engaged in a hot discussion upon matrimony, which finally ran into metaphysics. The Republican having plumply disputed an abstruse proposition of The Tribune , the latter seized an immense bolster, and brought it down with emphasis upon the glossy pate of his antagonist. This instantly broke up the debate, and a general mêlée commenced. The Republican grabbed a damp towel and [Pg 192] aimed a stunning blow at his assailant, which missed him and brought up against the nasal protuberance of Frank Leslie . The exasperated Frank dealt back a pillow, followed by a well-packed knapsack. Then The Missouri Democrat sent a coverlet, which lit upon and enveloped the knowledge-box of The Herald . The latter disengaged himself after several frantic efforts, and hurled a ponderous pair of saddle-bags, which passed so close to The Gazette's head, that in dodging it he bumped his phrenology against the bed-post, and raised a respectable organ where none existed before. Simultaneously The Commercial threw a haversack, which hit Harper in the bread-basket, and doubled him into a folio—knocking him against The World , who, toppling from his center of gravity, was poising a plethoric bed-tick with dire intent, when the upturned legs of a chair caught and tore it open, scattering the feathers through the surging atmosphere. In falling, he capsized the table, spilling the ink, wrecking several literary barks, extinguishing the "brief candle" that had faintly revealed the sanguinary fray, thus abruptly terminating hostilities, but leaving the panting heroes still defiant and undismayed. A light was at last struck; the combatants adjusted their toilets, and, having lit the calumets of peace, gently resigned themselves to the soothing influence of the weed.

They did not learn, for several days, that a meek chaplain, with his wife and three children, inhabited an adjacent apartment. He was at once sent for, and a fitting apology tendered. He replied that he had actually enjoyed the novel entertainment. He must have been the most polite man in the whole world. He is worthy a niche in biography, beside the lady who was showered with gravy, by Sidney Smith, and who, while it was still dripping from her chin, blandly replied to his apologies, that not a single drop had touched her!

When in-door diversions failed, the correspondents amused themselves by racing their horses, which were all fresh and excitable. That region, abounding in hills, ravines, and woods, is peculiarly seductive to reckless equestrians desiring dislocated limbs or broken necks.

One evening, the "Elephant" was thrown heavily [Pg 193] from his horse, and severely lamed. The next night, nothing daunted, he repeated the race, and was hurled upon the ground with a force which destroyed his consciousness for three or four hours. A comrade, in attempting to stop the riderless horse, was dragged under the heels of his own animal. His mild, protesting look, as he lay flat upon his back, holding in both hands the uplifted, threatening foot of his fiery Pegasus, was quite beyond description. One correspondent dislocated his shoulder, and went home from the field before he heard a gun.

These deep ravines and this fathomless mud offer to obstinate mules unlimited facilities for shying, and infinite possibilities of miring. Last night, six animals and an army wagon went over a small precipice, and, after a series of somersaults, driver, wagon, and mules, reached the bottom, in a very chaotic condition.

Jefferson is strong on the wet weather question. When Lyon got here in June, he was welcomed by one man with an umbrella. When Fremont arrived, a few nights ago, he was taken in charge by the same gentleman, who was floundering about through the mud with a lantern, seeking, not an honest man, but quarters for the commanding general.

Most of the troops have gone forward, but some remain. Newly mounted officers, who sit upon their steeds much as an elephant might walk a tight rope, dash madly through the streets, fondly dreaming that they witch the world with noble horsemanship. Subalterns show a weakness for brass buttons, epaulettes, and gold braid, which leaves feminine vanity quite in the shade.

In the camps, the long roll is sometimes sounded at midnight, to accustom officers and men to spring to arms. [Pg 194] Upon the first of these sudden calls from Morpheus to Mars, the negro servant of a staff-officer was so badly frightened that he brought up his master's horse with the crupper about the neck instead of the tail. The mistake was discovered just in season to save the rider from the proverbial destiny of a beggar on horseback.

Here is a German private very shaky in the legs; he swears by Fremont and "fights mit Sigel." Too much "lager" is the trouble with him ; and, in serene though harmless inebriety, he is arrested by a file of soldiers. A capital print in circulation represents a native and a German volunteer, with uplifted mugs of the nectar of Gambrinus, striking hands to the motto, "One flag, one country, zwei lager! "

Here is a detachment of Home Guards, whose "uniform is multiform." To a proposition, that the British militia should never be ordered out of the country, Pitt once moved the satirical proviso, "Except in case of invasion." So it is alleged that the Missouri Home Guards are very useful—except in case of a battle; and I hear one merciless critic style them the "Home Cowards." This is unjust; but they illustrate the principle, that to attain good drill and discipline, soldiers should be beyond the reach of home.

Camp Lillie, upon a beautiful grassy slope, is the head-quarters of the commander. In his tent, directing, by telegraph, operations throughout this great department, or upon horseback, personally inspecting the regiments, you meet the peculiarly graceful, slender, compact, magnetic man whose assignment here awoke so much enthusiasm in the West. General Fremont is quiet, well-poised, and unassuming. His friends are very earnest, his enemies very bitter. Those who know him only by his early exploits, are surprised to find in the hero of the [Pg 195] frontier the graces of the saloon. He impresses one as a man very modest, very genuine, and very much in earnest.

His hair is tinged with silver. His beard is sprinkled with snow, though two months ago it was of unmingled brown.

but it did blanch under the absorbing labors and anxieties of two months—a physiological fact which Doctor Holmes will be good enough to explain to us at his earliest convenience.

Mrs. Fremont is in camp, but will return to Saint Louis when the army moves. She inherits many traits of her father's character. She possesses that "excellent thing in woman," a voice, like Annie Laurie's, low and sweet—more rich, more musical, and better modulated, than that of any tragédienne upon the stage. To a broad, comprehensive intellect she adds those quick intuitions which leap to results, anticipating explanations, and those proclivities for episode, incident, and bits of personal analyzing, which make a woman's talk so charming.

How much rarer this grace of familiar speech than any other accomplishment whatever! In a lifetime one meets not more than four or five great conversationalists. Jessie Benton Fremont is among the felicitous few, if not queen of them all.

The army is forty thousand strong. Generals Sigel, Hunter, Pope, Asboth, and McKinstry command respectively its five divisions.

Sigel is slender, pale, wears spectacles, and looks more like a student than a soldier. He was professor in a university when the war broke out.

Hunter, at sixty, and agile as a boy, is erect and grim, with bald head and Hungarian mustache.

Asboth is tall, daring-eyed, elastic, a mad rider, and profoundly polite, bowing so low that his long gray hair almost sweeps the ground.

McKinstry is six feet two, sinewy-framed, deep-chested, firm-faced, wavy-haired, and black-mustached. He looks like the hero of a melodrama, and the Bohemians term him "the heavy tragedian."

An officer of New York mercantile antecedents, recently appointed to a high position, reached Syracuse a few days since, under orders to report to Fremont. He would come no farther than the end of the railroad, but turned abruptly back to St. Louis. Being asked his reason, he made this reply, peculiarly ingenuous and racy for a brigadier-general and staff-officer:

With two fellow-journalists, I left Syracuse four days ago. Asboth's and Sigel's divisions had preceded us. The post-commandant would not permit us to come through the distracted, guerrilla-infested country without an escort, but gave us a sergeant and four men of the regular army.

On the way we spent the supper hour near Cole Camp. Our Falstaffian landlord informed us that two brothers, Jim and Sam Cole, encamped here in early [Pg 197] days, to hunt bears, and that the creek was named in remembrance of them. Being asked with great gravity the extremely Bohemian question, " Which of them?" he relapsed into a profound study, from which he did not afterward recover.

We made the trip—forty-seven miles—in ten hours. This is a strong Secession village. Half its male inhabitants are in the Rebel army. Our officers quarter in the most comfortable residences. At first the people were greatly incensed at the "Abolition soldiery," but they now submit gracefully. One of the most malignant Rebel families involuntarily entertains a dozen German officers, who drink lager-beer industriously, smoke meerschaums unceasingly, and at night sing unintermittently.

We are quartered at the house of a lady who has a son in Price's army, and a daughter in whom education and breeding maintain constant warfare with her antipathies toward the Union forces. Being told the other evening that one of our party was a Black Republican, she regarded him with a wondering stare, declaring that she never saw an Abolitionist before in her life, and apparently amazed that he wore the human face divine!

Sigel, as usual, is thirty miles ahead. He has more go in him than any other of our generals. Several division commanders are still waiting for transportation, but Sigel collected horse-wagons, ox-wagons, mule-wagons, family-carriages, and stage-coaches, and pressed animals until he organized a most unique transportation train three or four miles long. He crossed his division over the swift Osage River—three hundred yards wide—in twenty-four hours, upon a single ferry-boat. The Rebels justly name him "The Flying Dutchman."

The Missourians along our line of march have very extravagant ideas about the Federal army. We stopped at [Pg 198] the house of a native, where ten thousand troops had passed. He placed their number at forty thousand!

"I reckon you have, in all, about seventy thousand men, and three hundred cannon, haven't you?" he asked.

"We have a hundred and fifty thousand men, and six hundred pieces of artillery," replied a wag in the party.

"Well," said the countryman, thoughtfully, "I reckon you'll clean out old Price this time!"

CHAPTER XVI.

General Fremont's Body Guard was composed of picked young men of unusual intelligence. They were all handsomely uniformed, efficiently armed, and mounted upon bay horses. They cultivated the mustache, with the rest of the face smooth—at least, not a more whimsical decree than the rigid regulation of the British army, which compelled every man to shave and wear a stock under the burning sun of the Crimea. Many denounced the Guard as a "kid-gloved," ornamental corps, designed only to swell Fremont's retinue.

Major Zagonyi, commandant of the Guard, with one hundred and fifty of his men, started with orders to reconnoiter the country in front of us. When near Springfield, they found the town held by a Rebel force of cavalry and infantry, ill organized, but tolerably armed, and numbering two thousand.

Zagonyi drew his men up in line, explained the situation, and asked whether they would attack or turn back for re-enforcements. They replied unanimously that they would attack.

They did attack. Men and horses were very weary. They had ridden fifty miles in seventeen hours; they had never been under fire before; but history hardly parallels their daring.

The Rebels formed in line of battle at the edge of a wood. To approach them, the Guard were compelled [Pg 200] to ride down a narrow lane, exposed to a terrible fire from three different directions. They went through this shower of bullets, dismounted, tore down the high zig-zag fence, led their horses over in the teeth of the enemy, remounted, formed, and, spreading out, fan-like, charged impetuously, shouting "Fremont and the Union."

The engagement was very brief and very bloody. Though only in the proportion of one to thirteen, the Guard behaved as if weary of their lives. Men utterly reckless are masters of the situation. At first, the Confederates fought well; but they were soon panic-stricken, and many dropped their guns, and ran to and fro like persons distracted.

The Guard charged through and through the broken ranks of the Rebels, chased them in all directions—into the woods, beyond the woods, down the roads, through the town—and planted the old flag upon the Springfield court-house, where it had not waved since the death of Lyon.

Armed with revolvers and revolving carbines, members of the Guard had twelve shots apiece. After delivering their first fire, there was no time to reload, and (the only instance of the kind early in the war) nearly all their work was done with the saber. When they mustered again, almost every blade in the command was stained with blood.

Of their one hundred and fifty horses, one hundred and twenty were wounded. A sergeant had three horses shot under him. A private received a bullet in a blacking-box, which he carried in his pocket. They lost fifty men, sixteen of whom were killed on the spot.

"I wonder if they will call us fancy soldiers and kid-gloved boys any longer?" said one, who lay wounded in the hospital when we arrived.

On a cot beside him, I found an old schoolmate. His eye brightened as he grasped my hand.

It was a glorious fight. Wilson Creek is doubly historic ground. There first a thousand of our men poured out their blood like water, and the brave Lyon laid down his life "for our dear country's sake." Two months later, the same stream witnessed the charge of the Body Guard, which, in those dark days, when the Cause looked gloomy, thrilled every loyal heart in the nation. It will shine down the historic page, and be immortal in song and story.

Major Frank J. White, of our army, was with the Rebels as a prisoner of war during the charge. Just before they were routed, fourteen men, under a South Carolina captain, started with him for General Price's camp. At a house where they spent the night, the farmer boldly avowed himself a Union man. He supposed White to be one of the Rebel officers; but, finding a moment's opportunity, the major whispered to him:

"I am a Union prisoner. Send word to Springfield at once, and my men will come and rescue me."

The Rebels, leaving one man on picket outside, went to bed in the same room with their prisoner. Then the farmer sent his little boy of twelve years, on horseback, fourteen miles to Springfield. At three o'clock in the morning, twenty-six Home Guards surrounded the house, and captured the entire party. Major White at once took command, and posted his guards over the crestfallen Confederates.

While they sat around the fire in the evening, waiting for supper, the Rebel captain had remarked:

"Major, we have a little leisure, and I believe I will [Pg 202] amuse myself by looking over your papers." Whereupon he spent an hour in examining the letters which he found in White's possession. In the morning, when the party, again sitting by the fire, waited for breakfast, the major said, quietly:

"Captain, we have a little leisure, and I think I will amuse myself by looking over your papers." So the Rebel documents were scrutinized in turn. White returned in triumph to Springfield, bringing his late captors as prisoners. A friendship sprang up between him and the South Carolina captain, who remained on parole in our camp for several days, and they messed and slept together.

When our troops entered Springfield, the people greeted them with uncontrollable joy; for they were intensely loyal, and had been under Rebel rule more than eleven weeks. Scores and scores of National flags now suddenly emerged from mysterious hiding-places; wandering exiles came pouring back, and we were welcomed by hundreds of glad faces, waving handkerchiefs, swinging hats, and vociferous huzzas.

Fremont had now modified his Proclamation; but the logic of events was stronger than President Lincoln. The negroes would throng our camp, and Fremont never permitted a single one to be returned. One slave appropriated a horse, and, guiding him only by a rope about the nose, without saddle or bridle, blanket or spur, rode from Price's camp to Fremont's head-quarters, more than eighty miles, in eighteen hours.

A brigade of regular troops, under General Sturgis, having marched from Kansas City, joined us in Springfield. They were under very rigid discipline, and all their supplies, whether procured from Rebels or Unionists, were paid for in gold. Sturgis was then very [Pg 203] "conservative," and some of our people denounced him as disloyal. But, like hundreds of others, inexorable war educated him very rapidly. His sympathies were soon heartily on our side. He afterward, in the Army of the Potomac, won and wore bright laurels.

The Kansas volunteer brigade, under General "Jim" Lane, also joined us at Springfield. Their course contrasted sharply with that of Sturgis's men. They had a good many old scores to settle up, and they swept along the Missouri border like a hurricane. Sublimely indifferent to the President's orders, and all other orders which did not please them, they received over two thousand slaves, sending them off by installments into Kansas. When the master was loyal, they would gravely appraise the negro; give him a receipt for his slave, named ----, valued at ---- hundred dollars, "lost by the march of the Kansas Brigade," and advise him to carry the claim before Congress!

By some unexplained law, dandies, fools, and supercilious braggarts often gravitate into staff positions; but Fremont's staff was an exceedingly agreeable one. Many of its members had traveled over the globe, and, from their wide experiences, whiled away many hours before the evening camp-fires.

On the 31st of October, the correspondents, under cavalry escort, visited the Wilson Creek battle-ground, ten miles south of Springfield.

The field is broken by rocky ridges and deep ravines, and covered with oak shrubs. Picking his way among the brushwood, my horse's hoof struck with a dull, hollow sound against a human skull. Just beyond, still clad in uniform, lay a skeleton, on whose ghastliness the storms and sunshine of three months had fallen. The head was partially severed; and though the upturned [Pg 204] face was fleshless, I could not resist the impression that it wore a look of mortal agony. It was in a little thicket, several yards from the scene of any fighting. The poor fellow was carried there, dying or dead, during the progress of the battle, and afterward overlooked. Among our lost his name was probably followed by the sad word "Missing."

Many graves had been opened by wolves. Bones of horses, haversacks, shoes, blouses, gun-barrels, shot, and fragments of shell, were scattered over the field. The trees were scarred with bullets, and hundreds were felled by the artillery. A six-inch shot would cut down one of these brittle oaks a foot in diameter.

A few miles south of Springfield one of our scouts encountered a young woman on horseback. Suspecting her errand, he informed her confidentially that he was a spy from Price's army, who had been several days in Fremont's camp. Falling into this palpable trap, the girl told him frankly that she was sent by Price to visit our forces, and obtain information. She was taken immediately to Fremont's head-quarters. Her terror was very great on finding herself betrayed. She told all she knew about the Rebels, and was finally allowed to depart in peace. The employment of female spies was very common upon both sides.

On the 2d of November our whole army was at Springfield. Fremont had progressed farther south than any other Union commander, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande. Detachments of Rebels were within ten miles of our camps. Emphatic, but entirely false reports from the colonel at the head of Fremont's scouts, 14 had given the impression that Price's entire command was very near us; and a great battle was hourly expected.

Fremont was in the midst of an important campaign. His army was most patriotic, enthusiastic, and promising. His personal popularity among his troops was without parallel.

At this moment the official ax fell. He received an order to turn over his command to Hunter. It was a trying ordeal, but he did a soldier's duty, obeying silently and instantly. The first intelligence which the army received was conveyed by this touching farewell:

Fremont's name had been the rallying-point of the volunteers. Officers and entire regiments had come from distant parts of the country to serve under him. All felt the impropriety and cruelty of his removal at this time. Many officers at once wrote their resignations. Whole battalions were reported laying down their arms. The Germans were specially indignant, and among the Body Guard there was much bitterness.

The slightest encouragement or tolerance from the General would have produced wide-spread mutiny; but he expostulated with the malcontents, reminding them that their first duty was to the country; and, after Hunter's arrival, left the camp before daylight, lest his appearance among the soldiers, as he rode away, should excite improper demonstrations.

A few days moderated the feeling of the troops; for, like all our volunteers, they were wedded not to any man, but to the Cause.

In St. Louis, Fremont was received more like a conquering hero than a retiring general. An immense assembly greeted him. In their enthusiasm, the people even carpeted his door-step with flowers.

For weeks before his removal the air had been filled with clamors, charging him with incompetency, extravagance, and giving Government contracts to corrupt men. The first attacks upon him immediately followed his Emancipation Proclamation, issued August 31, 1861.

There were many half-hearted Unionists in Missouri. [Pg 207] For example, shortly after the capture of Sumter, General Robert Wilson, of Andrew County, in a public meeting, served upon the committee on resolutions reporting the following:

Eight months after, this same Wilson claimed to be a Union leader, and, as such, was sent to represent Missouri in the Senate of the United States! Of course all men of this class waged unrelenting war upon Fremont. Afterward there was a rupture among the really loyal men; a fierce quarrel, in which the able but unscrupulous Blairs headed the opposition, and some zealous and patriotic Unionists co-operated with them. The President, always conscientious, was persuaded to remove the General; but afterward tacitly admitted its injustice by giving him another command.

Mr. Lincoln also countermanded the Emancipation Proclamation, which was a little ahead of the times. Still it gratified the plain people, even then. Tired of the tender and delicate terms in which our authorities were wont to speak of "domestic institutions" and "systems of labor," they were delighted to read the announcement in honest Saxon:

Of course Fremont made mistakes, though the abuses in his department were infinitely less than those which disgraced Washington, and which in some degree are inseparable from large, unusual disbursements of public money.

But he was very earnest. He was quite ignorant of How Not to Do it. He took grave responsibilities. When red tape hampered him, he cut it. Unable to obtain arms at Washington—which, in those days, knew only Virginia—he ransacked the markets of the world for them. When a paymaster refused to liquidate one of his bills, on the ground of irregularity, he arrested him, and threatened to have him shot if he persisted. Able to leave but few troops in St. Louis, he fortified the city in thirty days, employing five thousand laborers.

Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas visited Missouri, after Fremont started upon his Springfield campaign. General Thomas did not hesitate, in railway cars and hotels, to condemn him violently—a gross breach of official propriety, and clearly tending to excite insubordination among the soldiers. Cameron dictated a letter, ordering Fremont to discontinue the St. Louis fortifications as unnecessary, informing him that his official debts would not be discharged till investigated, his contracts recognized, or the officers paid whom he had appointed under the written authority of the President.

In due time they were recognized and paid. The St. Louis fortifications proved needful, and were afterward finished. Yet Cameron permitted the contents of this letter to be telegraphed all over the country four days before Fremont received it. It seemed designed to impugn his integrity, destroy his credit, promote disaffection in his camps, and prevent his contractors from fulfilling their engagements. Thomas officially reported that Fremont would not be able to move his army for lack of transportation. Before the report could reach Washington, the army had advanced more than a hundred miles!

Time, which at last makes all things even, vindicated Fremont's leading measures in Missouri. His subsequent withdrawal from the field, in Virginia, was doubtless unwise. It was hard to be placed under a junior and hostile general; but private wrongs must wait in war, and resignation proves quite as inadequate a remedy for the grievances of an officer, as Secession for the fancied wrongs of the Slaveholders.

Brigadier-General Justus McKinstry, ex-Quartermaster of the Western Department, was arrested, and closely confined in the St. Louis arsenal for many months. His repeated demands for the charges and specifications against him were disregarded. He was at last court-martialed and dismissed the service, on the charge of malfeasance in office. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was for a long time kept under arrest in the same manner. These proceedings flagrantly violated both the Army Regulation, entitling officers to know the charges and witnesses against them, within ten days after arrest, and the spirit of the Constitution itself, which guarantees to every man a speedy public trial in the presence of his accusers.

Equally reprehensible was the arrest and long confinement of many civilians without formal charges or trial. States where actual war existed, and even the debatable ground which bordered them, might be proper fields for this exercise of the Military Power. But the friends of the Union, holding Congress, and nearly every State Legislature by overwhelming majorities, could make whatever laws they pleased; therefore, these measures were unnecessary and unjustifiable in the North, hundreds of miles from the seat of war. Utterly at variance with personal rights and republican institutions, they were alarming and dangerous precedents, which any unscrupulous future [Pg 210] administration may plausibly cite in defense of the grossest outrages. President Lincoln was always very chary of this exercise of arbitrary power; but some of his constitutional advisers were constantly urging it. Secretary Stanton, in particular, advocated and committed acts of flagrant despotism. He was a good patent-office lawyer, but had not the faintest conception of those primary principles of Civil Liberty which underlie English and American institutions. Even the Magna Charta, in sonorous Latin, declared:

Kindred questions arose touching the Military Power and the Liberty of the Press. Each northern city had its daily journal, which, under thin disguise of loyalty, labored zealously for the Rebels. Soldiers could not patiently read treasonable sheets. On several occasions military commanders suppressed them, but the President promptly removed the disability. The sober second thought of the people was, that if editors and publishers in the loyal North could not be convicted and punished in the civil courts, they should not be molested.

General Hunter, succeeding Fremont, evacuated southwestern Missouri. Before leaving Springfield, besieged with applications for runaway slaves, he issued orders to deliver them up; but soldiers and officers in his camps hid them so safely that they could not be found by their masters.

Hunter's little brief authority lasted just fifteen days, when he was succeeded by General Halleck—a stout, heavy-faced, rather stupid-looking officer, who wore [Pg 211] civilian's dress, and resembled a well-to-do tradesman. On the 20th of November appeared his shameful General Order Number Three:

Its inhumanity outraged the moral sense, and its falsehood the common sense, of the country. The negroes were uniformly friends to our soldiers. After diligent inquiry from every leading officer of my acquaintance, I could not learn a single instance of treachery. To the cruelty of turning the slave away, Halleck added the dishonesty of slandering him.

When Charles James Fox was canvassing for Par ~~lia-~~ liament, one of his auditors said to him:

Many who had official business with Halleck uttered similar maledictions. To his visitors he was brusque to surliness. Dr. Holmes says, with great truth, that all men are bores when we do not want them. Like all public characters, Halleck was beset by those grievous dispensations of Providence. But a general in command of half a continent ought, at least, to have the manners of a gentleman; and he was sometimes so insulting that his legitimate visitors would have been justified in kicking him down stairs. None of our high officials equaled him in rudeness, except Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War.

In January, as a Government steamer approached the [Pg 212] landing at Commerce, Missouri, two women on shore shouted to the pilot:

The redoubtable guerrilla, with fifty men, instantly sprang from behind a wood-pile and fired a volley. Twenty-six bullets entered the cabin of the retreating boat; but, thanks to the loyal women, no person was killed or captured.

One day, a seedy individual in soiled gray walked into Halleck's private room at the Planter's House, in St. Louis, and, with the military salute, thus addressed him:

"Sir, I am an officer of General Price's army, and have brought you a letter under flag of truce."

"Here," was the prompt reply, and the Rebel pulled a dirty white rag from his pocket!

He had entered our lines, and come one hundred and fifty miles, without detection, passing pickets, sentinels, guards, and provost-marshals. Halleck, who plumed himself on his organizing capacity and rigid police regulations, was not a little chagrined. He sent back the unique messenger with a letter, assuring Price that he would shoot as a spy any one repeating the attempt.

CHAPTER XVII.

In January, Colonel Lawson, of the Missouri Union forces, was captured by a dozen Rebels, who, after some threats of hanging, decided to release him upon parole. Not one of them could read or write a line. Lawson, requested by them to make out his own parole, drew up and signed an agreement, pledging himself never to take up arms against the United States of America, or give aid and comfort to its enemies! Upon this novel promise he was set at liberty.

Immediately obeying the summons, I found that Commodore Foote had gone up the Tennessee River with the new gunboats. The accompanying land forces were under the command of an Illinois general named Grant, of whom the country knew only the following:

Making a reconnoissance to Belmont, Missouri, opposite Columbus, Kentucky, he had ventured too far, when the enemy opened on him. Yielding to the fighting temptation, he made a lively resistance, until compelled to retreat, leaving behind his dead and wounded. Jefferson Davis officially proclaimed it a great Confederate success, [Pg 214] and Rebel newspapers grew merry over Grant's bad generalship, expressing the wish that he might long lead the Yankee armies!

As the gunboats had never been tested, intense interest was felt in their success. Approaching Fort Henry, three went forward to reconnoiter. At the distance of two miles and a half, a twenty-four pounder rifled ball penetrated the state-room of Captain Porter, commanding the Essex, passing under his table, and cutting off the feet of a pair of stockings which hung against the ceiling as neatly as shears would have cut them.

"Pretty good shot!" said Porter. "Now we will show them ours." And he dropped a nine-inch Dahlgren shell right into the fort.

The next day, a large number of torpedoes, each containing seventy-five pounds of powder, were fished up from the bottom of the river. The imprudent tongue of an angry Rebel woman revealed their whereabouts. Prophesying that the whole fleet would be blown to atoms, she was compelled to divulge what she knew, or be confined in the guard-house. In mortal terror she gave the desired information. The torpedoes were found wet and harmless. Commodore Foote predicted

The night was excessively rainy and severe upon our boys in blue in their forest bivouacs; but in the well-furnished cabin of General Grant's steamer, we found "going to war" an agreeable novelty.

At mid-day on the 6th, Foote fired his first shot, at the distance of seventeen hundred yards. Then he slowly [Pg 215] approached the fort with his entire fleet, until within four hundred yards. The Rebel fire was very severe; but he determined to vindicate the iron-clads or to sink them in the Tennessee. The wood-work of his flag-ship was riddled by thirty-one shots, but her iron plating turned off the balls like hail. All the boats were more or less damaged; but they fully established their usefulness, and their officers and men behaved with the greatest gallantry. One poor fellow on the Essex, terribly scalded by the bursting of a steam drum, learning that the fort was captured, sprung from his bunk, ran up the hatchway, and cheered until he fell senseless upon the deck. He died the same night.

With several fellow-correspondents, I witnessed the fight from the top of a high tree, up on the river-bank, between the fortification and the gun-boats. There was little to be seen but smoke. Foote's prediction proved correct. After he had fired about six hundred shots, just one hour and fifteen minutes from the beginning, the colors of Fort Henry were struck, and the gunboats trembled with the cheers and huzzas of our men.

The Rebel infantry, numbering four thousand, escaped. Grant's forces, detained by the mud, came up too late to surround them. Brigadier-General Lloyd Tilghman, commanding, and the immediate garrison, were captured.

In the barracks we found camp-fires blazing, dinners boiling, and half-made biscuits still in the pans. Pistols, muskets, bowie-knives, books, tables partially set for dinner, half-written letters, playing-cards, blankets, and carpet-sacks were scattered about.

Our soldiers ransacked trunks, arrayed themselves in Rebel coats, hats, and shirts, armed themselves with Rebel revolvers, stuffed their pockets with Rebel books [Pg 216] and miniatures, and some were soon staggering under heavy loads of Rebel whisky.

From the quarters of one officer, I abstracted a small Confederate flag; the daguerreotype of a female face so regular and classic that, without close inspection, it was difficult to believe it taken from life; a long tress of brown hair, and a package of elegantly written letters, full of a sister's affection. A year afterward I was able to return these family mementoes to their owner in Jackson, Mississippi.

Our shots had made great havoc. Carpet-sacks, trunks, and tables were torn in pieces, walls and roofs were pierced with holes large enough for a man to creep through, and cavities plowed in the ground which would conceal a flour-barrel. A female Marius among the ruins, in the form of an old negress, stood rubbing her hands with glee.

"Lord, yes, mass'r, we did just dat! De big balls, dey come whizzing and tearing 'bout, and I thought de las' judgment was cum, sure."

"Dere was one Arkansas regiment over dere where you see de tents, a Mississippi regiment dere, another dere, two Tennessee regiments here, and lots more over de river."

"I was sick, you see" (she could only speak in a whisper); "besides, I wasn't afraid—only ob de shots. I just thought if dey didn't kill me I was all right."

"Not berry, mass'r!"—with a fresh rub of the hands and a grin all over her sable face.

In the fort, the magazine was torn open, the guns completely shattered, and the ground stained with blood, brains, and fragments of flesh. Under gray blankets were six corpses, one with the head torn off and the trunk completely blackened with powder; others with legs severed and breasts opened in ghastly wounds. The survivors, stretched upon cots, rent the air with groans.

The captured Rebel officers, in a profusion of gold lace, were taken to Grant's head-quarters. Tilghman was good-looking, broad-shouldered, with the pompous manner of the South. Commodore Foote asked him:

"Sir," replied Tilghman, with indescribable pomposity, "if General Grant wishes to use my name in his official dispatches, I have no objection; but, sir, I do not wish to appear at all in this matter in any newspaper report."

"I merely asked it," persisted the journalist, "for the list of prisoners captured."

Tilghman, whose name should have been Turveydrop, replied, with a lofty air and a majestic wave of the hand:

"You will oblige me, sir, by not giving my name in any newspaper connection whatever!"

One of the Rebel officers was reminded of the predominance of Union sentiments among the people about Fort Henry.

"True, sir," was his reply. "It is always so in these hilly countries. You see, these d-----d Hoosiers don't know any better. For the genuine southern feeling, sir, you must go among the gentlemen—the rich people. You won't find any Tories there."

The gunboats returned to Cairo for repairs. On the next Sunday morning, the pastor of the Cairo Presbyterian Church failing to arrive, Commodore Foote was induced to conduct the services. From the text:

he preached an excellent practical discourse, urging that human happiness depends upon integrity, pure living, and conscientious performance of duty.

The land forces remained near Fort Henry. A few days after the battle, I stepped into General Grant's head-quarters to bid him good-by, as I was about starting for New York.

"We have not been able to ascertain exactly, but I think we can take it. At all events, we can try."

The hopelessly muddy roads and the falling snow were terrible to our troops, who had no tents; but Grant marched to the fort. On Wednesday he skirmished and placed his men in position; on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, he fought from daylight until dark. On Saturday [Pg 219] night, the sanguine General Pillow telegraphed to Nashville:

Before dawn on Sunday, the negro servant of a Confederate staff officer escaped into our lines, and was taken to General Grant. He insisted that the Rebel commanders were consulting about surrender, and that Floyd's men were already deserting the fort. A few hours later came a letter from Buckner, suggesting the appointment of commissioners to adjust terms of capitulation. Grant wrote in answer:

Buckner's response, exquisitely characteristic of the Rebels, regretfully accepted what he described as Grant's "ungenerous and unchivalrous terms!" So the North was electrified by a success which recalled the great battles of Napoleon.

Grant first invested the garrison with thirteen thousand men. The enemy's force was twenty-two thousand. For two days, Grant's little command laid siege to this much larger army, which was protected by ample fortifications. At the end of the second day, Grant received re-enforcements, swelling his forces to twenty-six thousand.

From three to four thousand Rebels, of Floyd's command, escaped from the fort; others escaped on the way to Cairo, and several thousand were killed or wounded; but Grant delivered, at Cairo, upward of fifteen thousand eight hundred prisoners.

I was in Chicago when these captives, on their way [Pg 220] to Camp Douglas, passed through the streets in sad procession. Motley was the only wear. A few privates had a stripe on the pantaloons and wore gray military caps; but most, in slouched hats and garments of gray or butternut, made no attempt at uniform. Some had the long hair and cadaverous faces of the extreme South; but under the broad-brimmed hats of the majority, appeared the full, coarse features of the working classes of Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Chicago citizens, who crowded the streets, were guilty of no taunts or rude words toward the prisoners.

Columbus, Kentucky, twenty miles below Cairo, on the highest bluffs of the Mississippi, was called the Gibraltar of the West, and expected to be the scene of a great battle.

On the 4th of March, a naval and land expedition was ready to attack it. Before leaving Cairo, hundreds of workmen crowded the gunboats, repairing damages received on the Tennessee River—

Commodore Foote, lame from his Donelson wound, hobbled on board upon crutches. A great National flag was taken along.

"Don't forget that," said the commodore. "Fight or no fight, we must raise it over Columbus!"

The leading commanders of the flotilla were from the regular navy—quiet and unassuming, with no nonsense about them. They were far freer from envy and jealousy than army officers. Before the war, the latter had been stationed for years at frontier posts, hundreds of miles beyond civilization, with no resources except [Pg 221] drinking and gambling, nothing to excite National feeling or prick the bubble of their State pride. Naval officers, going all over the world, had acquired the liberality which only travel imparts, and learned that, abroad, their country was not known as Virginia or Mississippi, but the United States of America. With them, it was the Nation first, and the State afterward. Hence, while nearly all southerners holding commissions in the regular army joined the Rebellion, the navy almost unanimously remained loyal.

The low, flat, black iron-clads crept down the river like enormous turtles. Each had attending it a little pocket edition of a steamboat, in the shape of a tug, capable of carrying fifty or sixty men, and moving up the strong current twelve miles an hour. They were constantly puffing about among the unwieldy vessels like a breathless little errand-boy.

Nearing Columbus, we found that the Rebels had evacuated it twelve hours before. The town was already held by an enterprising scouting party of the Second Illinois Cavalry, who had unearthed and raised an old National flag. Our colors waved from the Rebel Gibraltar, and the last Confederate soldier had abandoned Kentucky.

The enemy left in hot haste. Half-burned barracks, chairs, beds, tables, cooking-stoves, letters, charred gun-carriages, bent musket-barrels, bayonets, and provisions were promiscuously lying about.

The main fortifications, on a plateau one hundred and fifty feet high, mounted eighty-three guns, commanding the river for nearly three miles. Here, and in the auxiliary works, we captured one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery.

Fastened to the bluff, we found one end of a great [Pg 222] chain cable, composed of seven-eighths inch iron, which the brilliant Gideon J. Pillow had stretched across the river, to prevent the passage of our gunboats! It was worthy of the man who, in Mexico, dug his ditch on the wrong side of the parapet. The momentum of an iron-clad would have snapped it like a pipe-stem, had not the current of the river broken it long before.

We found, also, enormous piles of torpedoes, which the Rebels had declared would annihilate the Yankee fleet. They became a standing jest among our officers, who termed them original members of the Peace Society, and averred that the rates of marine insurance immediately declined whenever the companies learned that torpedoes had been planted in the waters where the boats were to run!

In the abandoned post-office I collected a bushel of Rebel newspapers, dating back for several weeks. At first the Memphis journals extravagantly commended the South Carolina planters for burning their cotton, after the capture of Port Royal, and urged universal imitation of their example. They said:—

But when the capture of Donelson rendered the early fall of Memphis probable, the same journals suddenly changed their tone. They argued that Moscow was not a parallel case; that it would be highly injudicious to fire their city, as the Yankees, if they did take it, would hold it only for a short time; that those who urged applying the torch should be punished as demagogues and public enemies! But they abounded in frantic appeals like the following from The Avalanche :

The Avalanche was a great advocate of what is termed the "aggressive policy," declaring that:

General Jeff. Thompson, a literary Missouri bushwhacker, was termed the "Swamp Fox" and the "Marion of the Southern Revolution." I found one of his effusions, entitled "Home Again," in that once decorous journal, The New Orleans Picayune . Its transition from the pathetic to the profane is a curious anticlimax.

Our hospitals at Mound City, Illinois, contained fourteen hundred inmates. A walk along the double rows of cots in the long wards revealed the sadder phase of war. Here was a typhoid-fever patient, motionless and unconscious, the light forever gone out from his glazed eyes; here a lad, pale and attenuated, who, with a shattered leg, had lain upon this weary couch for four months. There was a Tennessean, who, abandoning his family, came stealthily hundreds of miles to enlist under the Stars and Stripes, with perfect faith in their triumph, and had lost a leg at Donelson; an Illinoisan, from the same battle, with a ghastly aperture in the face, still blackened with powder from his enemy's rifle; a young officer in neat dressing-gown, furnished by the United States Sanitary Commission, sitting up reading a newspaper, but with the sleeve of his left arm limp and empty; marines terribly scalded by the bursting boiler of the Essex at Fort Henry, some of whose whole bodies were one continuous scar. Sick, wounded, and convalescent were alike cheerful; and twenty-five Sisters of Mercy, worthy of their name, moved noiselessly among them, ministering to their wants.

CHAPTER XVIII.

On the 14th of March, the flotilla again started down the Mississippi, steaming slowly by Columbus, where Venus followed close upon Mars, in the form of two women disbursing pies and some other commodities to sailors and soldiers. The next day we anchored above Island Number Ten, where Beauregard had built formidable fortifications.

A fast little Rebel gunboat, called the Grampus, ran screeching away from the range of our guns. Below her we could read with glasses the names painted upon the many steamers lying in front of the enemy's works, and see the guns upon a great floating battery.

Our gunboats fired one or two experimental shots, and the mortar-rafts, with tremendous explosions, began to throw their ten-inch shells, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds each. Great results were expected from these enormous mortars, but they proved inaccurate. Our shots fell among the batteries and steamboats of the enemy, throwing up clouds of dirt and sheets of water. The Rebel guns replied with great puffs of smoke; but their missiles, bounding along the river, fell three-quarters of a mile short.

Light skirmishing in closer range continued for several days. My own quarters were on the Benton, Commodore Foote's flagship. She was the largest of the iron-clads, [Pg 226] one hundred and eighty-three feet by seventy, and contained quite a little community of two hundred and forty men.

Standing upon the hurricane roof, directly over our bow-guns, we caught the first glimpse of each shot, a few feet from the muzzle, and watched it rushing through the air like a round, black meteor, till it exploded two or three miles away. After we saw the warning puff of smoke, the time seemed very long before each Rebel shot struck the water near us; but no more than ten or fifteen seconds ever elapsed.

"You had better take your place with the other correspondents, upon a transport in the rear, out of range. Should any accident befall you here, censure would be cast upon me for permitting you to stay."

Haunted by a resistless curiosity to learn exactly how one feels under fire, I persuaded him to let me remain.

Two other iron-clads, the St. Louis and the Cincinnati, were lashed upon either side of the Benton. Hammocks were taken down and piled in front of the boilers to protect them; the hose was attached to reservoirs of hot water, designed for boarders in close conflict; surgeons scrutinized the edges of their instruments, while our triple floating battery moved slowly down, with the other iron-clads a short distance in the rear. We opened fire, and the balls of the enemy soon replied, now and then striking our boats.

A deafening noise from the St. Louis shook every plank beneath our feet. A moment after, a dozen men rushed upon her deck, their faces so blackened by powder that they would have been taken for negroes. Two were carrying the lifeless form of a third; several [Pg 227] others were wounded. Through the din of the cannonade, one of her crew shouted to us from a port-hole that an old forty-two pounder had exploded, killing and mutilating several men.

We obtained the best view from the hurricane deck of the Benton, where there could be no special danger from splinters. While we stood there, one of the party was constantly on the look-out, and, seeing a puff of smoke curl up from the Rebel battery, he would shout:

Then we all dropped upon our faces behind the iron-plated pilot-house, which rose from the deck like a great umbrella. The screaming shot would sometimes strike our bows, but usually pass over, falling into the water behind us.

While the Rebels fired from one battery, there was just sufficient excitement to make it interesting; but when they opened with two others, stationed at different points in the bend of the river, their range completely covered the pilot-house. Dropping behind that shelter to avoid the missiles in front, we were exposed to a hail of shot from the side. Thereupon the commodore peremptorily ordered us below, and we went down upon the gun-deck.

A correspondent of The Chicago Times , who chanced to be on board, took a position in the stern of the boat, under the impression that it was entirely safe. A moment after he came rushing in with blanched face and dripping clothing. A shot had struck within three feet of him, glancing into the river, and drenching every thing in the vicinity.

That long gun-deck was alive with action. The executive officer, Lieutenant Bishop, a gallant young fellow, [Pg 228] fresh from the naval school, superintended every thing. Swarthy gunners manned the pieces; little powder-boys rushed to and fro with ammunition, and hurrying men crowded the long compartment.

There came a tremendous crashing of glass, iron, and wood! An eight-inch solid shot, penetrating the half-inch iron plating and the five-inch timber, near the bows, as if they were paper, buried itself in the deck, and rebounded, striking the roof. In that manner it danced along the entire length of the boat, through the cabin, the ward-room, the machinery, the pantry—where it smashed a great deal of crockery—until, at the extreme stern, it fell and remained upon the commodore's writing-desk, crushing in the lid.

A moment before the noisy, agile visitor arrived, the whole deck seemed crowded with busy men. A moment after, I looked again. A score of undismayed fellows were comfortably blowing splinters from their mouths and beards, and brushing them from their hair and faces; but, by a fortunate accident, not a single one of them was hurt.

As the shot screamed along very near me, my curiosity diminished. I had a dim perception that nothing in this gunboat life could become me like the leaving of it. A mulatto cabin-boy, whose face turned almost white when the missile tore through the boat, shared my sensations.

"I wish that I was out of it," he said, confidentially; "but I put my own neck into this yoke, and I have got to wear it."

Toward evening, some of the enemy's batteries were silent, and we idlers once more sought the hurricane deck, dodging behind the pilot-house whenever the smoke puffed from the hostile guns. Once, some one [Pg 229] cried, "There she comes!" and we dropped as usual. Looking up, I noticed a second engineer standing beside me.

While he spoke, the Rebel shot passed within fifteen inches of his bloodless face, shaved a sheet-iron ventilator, tore through the chimney, severed a large wrought-iron rod, struck the deck, plowed through a half-inch iron plate, neatly cutting it in two, passed under the next plate, and then came out again, with its force spent, and rolled languidly against a sky-light. When he felt the rush of air, Blakely bent back almost double, and thereafter he was among the first to seek the shelter of the pilot-house.

From the mortars and the guns on both sides, there were sometimes fifty shots to the minute. The jarrings and explosions induced head-ache for hours afterward. The results of the day's bombardment were not very sanguinary. Our iron-clads were struck scores of times, but few men were injured. This desultory fighting was kept up for two or three weeks.

Meanwhile, General Pope, moving across the country from Cairo with great enterprise and activity, had defeated the Rebels and captured their forts at New Madrid, on the Missouri shore of the Mississippi, eight miles below Island Number Ten. He thus held the river in the rear of the enemy, preventing steamboats from ascending to them; but he had not even a skiff or a raft in which he could cross to the Tennessee bank, and reach the rear of the fortifications. How to supply him with boats was the great problem.

Pope was anxious that the commodore should send [Pg 230] one of the iron-clads to him, past the Rebel fortifications. Foote hesitated, as running batteries was then an untried experiment.

Pope had an active, hard-working Illinois engineer regiment, which began cutting a canal, to open communication between the flotilla and New Madrid; and we waited for results.

I found life on the Benton full of novelty. More than half of her crew were old salts, and the discipline was the same as on a man-of-war. Half-hour bells marked the passage of time. Every morning the deck was holystoned to its utmost possibilities of whiteness. Through each day we heard the shrill whistle of the boatswain, amid hoarse calls of "All hands to quarters," "Stand by the hammocks!" etc.

Even the negro servants caught the naval expressions. One of them, playing on the guitar and singing, broke down from too high a pitch.

Exchanging shots with the enemy grew monotonous. Reading, writing, or playing chess in the ward-room, we carelessly noted the reports from the Rebel batteries, and some officer from the deck walked in, saying:

"Near us," or "Just over us in the woods," would be the reply; and the idlers returned to their employments.

My own state-room was within six feet of a thirty-two pounder, which fired every fifteen minutes during [Pg 231] the day. The explosions in no wise disturbed my afternoon naps.

On Sunday mornings, after the weekly muster, the men in clean blue shirts and tidy clothing, and the officers, in full uniform, with all their bravery of blue and gold, assembled on the gun-deck for religious service. Hat in hand, they stood in a half circle around the commodore, who, behind a high stool, upon which the National flag was spread, read the comprehensive prayer for "All who are afflicted in mind, body, or estate," or acknowledged that "We have done the things which we ought not to have done, and left undone the things which we ought to have done."

Among the groups of worshipers were seen the gaping mouths of the black guns, and the pyramidal piles of grape and canister ready for use. During prayer, the boat was often shaken by the discharge of a mortar, which made the neighboring woods resound with its long, rolling echoes. The commodore extemporized a brief, simple address on Christian life and duty; then the men were "piped down" and dispersed.

On a dark April night, during a terrific thunder-shower, the iron-clad Carondelet started to run the gantlet. The undertaking was deemed hazardous in the extreme. The commodore gave to her commander written instructions how to destroy her, should she become disabled; and solemnly commended him to the mercy and protection of Almighty God.

The Carondelet crept noiselessly down through the darkness. When the Rebels discovered her, they opened with shot, shell, and bullets. All her ports were closed, and she did not fire a gun. It was too dark to guide her by the insufficient glimpses of the shore obtained from the little peep-holes of her pilot-house. Mr. D. R. Hoell, an [Pg 232] old river pilot, volunteered to remain unprotected on the open upper deck, among the rattling shots and the singing bullets, to give information to his partners within. His daring was promptly rewarded by an appointment as lieutenant in the navy.

Upon the flag-ship above intense anxiety prevailed. After an hour, which seemed a day, from far down the river boomed two heavy reports; then there was silence, then two shots again. All gave a sigh of relief. This was the signal that the Carondelet had lived through the terrible ordeal!

The Rebels had made themselves very merry over Pope's canal. But, at daylight on the second morning after this feat of the iron-clad, they saw four little stern-wheel steamboats lying in front of Pope's camps. The canal was a success! In two weeks the indefatigable engineers had brought these steamers from Foote's flotilla, sixteen miles, through corn-fields, woods, and swamps, cutting channels from one bayou to another, and felling heavy timber all the way. They were compelled to saw off hundreds of huge trees, three feet below the water's edge. It was one of the most creditable feats of the war.

The loyal troops, like these Illinois engineers, were men of skilled industry, proud to know themselves "kings of two hands."

The Confederates felt that Birnam wood had come to Dunsinane. Declaring that it was useless to fight men who would deliberately float gunboats by the very muzzles of their heavy guns, and could run steamers sixteen [Pg 233] miles over dry land, they began to evacuate Island Number Ten. But Pope had already ferried the greater part of his army across the river, and he replied to my inquiries:

He kept his promise. The Rebels were caged. They fled in haste across the country to Tiptonville, where they supposed their steamboats awaited them. Instead, they found two of our iron-clads lying in front of the town, and learned that Pope held the river even ten miles below. The trap was complete. On their front was Tiptonville, with the cavernous eyes of the Carondelet and the Pittsburgh ominously scrutinizing them. At their left was an impassable line of lake and slough; at their right a dry region, bounded by the river, and held by our troops; in their rear, Pope's army was hotly pursuing them. Some leaped into the lake or plunged into the swamps, trying to escape. Three times the Rebel forces drew up in line of battle; but they were too much demoralized to fight, and, after a weary night, they surrendered unconditionally.

At sunrise, long files of stained, bedraggled soldiers, in butternut and jeans, began to move sadly into a great corn-field, and stack their arms. The prisoners numbered twenty-eight hundred. We captured upward of a hundred heavy guns, twenty-five field-pieces, half a dozen steamboats, and immense supplies of provisions and ammunition. The victory was won with trifling loss of life, and reflected the highest credit both upon the land and water forces. The army and the navy, fitting together like the two blades of the scissors, had cut the gordian knot.

Pope telegraphed to Halleck that, if steamboats could be furnished him, in four days he would plant the [Pg 234] Stars and Stripes in Memphis. Halleck, as usual, engrossed in strategy, declined to supply the transportation.

But the great northern flood rolled on toward the Gulf, and in its resistless torrent was no refluent wave.

CHAPTER XIX.

Simultaneously with the capture of Island Number Ten occurred the battle of Shiloh. The first reports were very wild, stating our loss at seventeen thousand, and asserting that the Union commander had been disastrously surprised, and hundreds of men bayoneted in their tents. It was even added that Grant was intoxicated during the action. This last fiction showed the tenacity of a bad name. Years before, Grant was intemperate; but he had abandoned the habit soon after the beginning of the war.

General Albert Sydney Johnson was killed, and Beauregard ultimately driven back, leaving his dead and wounded in our hands; but Jefferson Davis, with the usual Rebel policy, announced in a special message to the Confederate Congress:

I went up the Tennessee River by a boat crowded with representatives—chiefly women—of the Sanitary Commissions of Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago.

One evening, religious services were held in the [Pg 236] cabin. A clergyman exhorted his hearers, when they should arrive at the bloody field, to minister to the spiritual as well as physical wants of the sufferers. With special infelicity, he added:

"Many of them have doubtless been wicked men; but you can, at least, remind them of divine mercy, and tell them the story of the thief on the cross."

The next speaker, a quiet gentleman, wearing the blouse of a private soldier, after some remarks about practical religion, added:

"I can not agree with the last brother. I believe we shall best serve the souls of our wounded soldiers by ministering, for the present, simply to their bodies. For my own part, I feel that he who has fallen fighting for our country—for your Cause and mine—is more of a man than I am. He may have been wicked; but I think room will be found for him among the many mansions above. I should be ashamed to tell him the story of the thief on the cross."

Hearty, spontaneous clapping of hands through the crowded cabin followed this sentiment—a rather unusual demonstration for a prayer-meeting. The speaker was the Rev. Robert Colyer, of Chicago.

With officers who had participated in the battle, I visited every part of the field. The ground was broken by sharp hills, deep ravines, and dense timber, which the eye could not penetrate.

The reports of a surprise were substantially untrue. No man was bayoneted in his tent, or anywhere else, according to the best evidence I could obtain.

But the statements, said to come from Grant and Sherman, that they could not have been better prepared, had they known that Beauregard designed to attack, were also untrue. Our troops were not encamped advantageously [Pg 237] for battle. Raw and unarmed regiments were on the extreme front, which was not picketed or scouted as it should have been in the face of an enemy.

Beauregard attacked on Sunday morning at daylight. The Rebels greatly outnumbered the Unionists, and impetuously forced them back. Grant's army was entirely western. It contained representatives of nearly every county in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Partially unprepared, and steadily driven back, often ill commanded and their organizations broken, the men fought with wonderful tenacity. It was almost a hand-to-hand conflict. Confederates and Loyalists, from behind trees, within thirty feet of each other, kept up a hot fire, shouting respectively, "Bull Run!" and "Donelson!"

Prentiss' shattered division, in that dense forest, was flanked before its commander knew that the supporting forces—McClernand on his right and Hurlbut on his left—had been driven back. Messengers sent to him by those commanders were killed. During a lull in the firing, Prentiss was lighting his cigar from the pipe of a soldier when he learned that the enemy was on both sides of him, half a mile in his rear. With the remnant of his command he was captured.

Remaining in Rebel hands for six months, he was enabled to indulge in oratory to his heart's content. Southern papers announced, with intense indignation, that Prentiss—occupying, with his officers, an entire train—called out by the bystanders, was permitted to make radical Union speeches at many southern railway stations. Removed from prison to prison, the Illinois General continued to harangue the people, and his men to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner," until at last the Rebels were glad to exchange them.

Throughout the battle, Grant rode to and fro on the front, smoking his inevitable cigar, with his usual stolidity and good fortune. Horses and men were killed all around him, but he did not receive a scratch. On that wooded field, it was impossible for any one to keep advised of the progress of the struggle. Grant gave few orders, merely bidding his generals do the best they could.

Sherman had many hair-breadth 'scapes. His ~~briddle~~ bridle -rein was cut off by a bullet within two inches of his fingers. As he was leaning forward in the saddle, a ball whistled through the top and back of his hat. His metallic shoulder-strap warded off another bullet, and a third passed through the palm of his hand. Three horses were shot under him. He was the hero of the day. All awarded to him the highest praise for skill and gallantry. He was promoted to a major-generalship, dating from the battle. His official report was a clear, vivid, and fascinating description of the conflict.

Five bullets penetrated the clothing of an officer on McClernand's staff, but did not break the skin. A ball knocked out two front teeth of a private in the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, but did him no further injury. A rifle-shot passed through the head of a soldier in the First Missouri Artillery, coming out just above the ear, but did not prove fatal. Dr. Cornyn, of St. Louis, told me that he extracted a ball from the brain of one soldier, who, three days afterward, was on duty, with the bullet in his pocket.

More than a year afterward, at the battle of Fredericksburg, Captain Richard Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry, noticed one of his men whose skull had been cut open by the fragment of a shell, with a section of it standing upright, leaving the brain exposed. Cross shut the piece of skull down like the lid of a teapot, [Pg 239] tied a handkerchief around it, and sent to the rear the wounded soldier, who ultimately recovered. The one truth, taught by field experience to army surgeons, was that few, if any, wounds are invariably fatal.

At Shiloh, Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sweeney, who had lost one arm in the Mexican War, received a Minié bullet in his remaining arm, and another shot in his foot, while his horse fell riddled with seven balls. Almost fainting from loss of blood, he was lifted upon another horse, and remained on the field through the entire day. His coolness and his marvelous escapes were talked of before many camp-fires throughout the army.

Once, during the battle, he was unable to determine whether a battery whose men were dressed in blue, was Rebel or Union. Sweeney, leaving his command, rode at a gentle gallop directly toward the battery until within pistol-shot, saw that it was manned by Confederates, turned in a half circle, and rode back again at the same easy pace. Not a single shot was fired at him, so much was the respect of the Confederates excited by this daring act. I afterward met one of them, who described with great vividness the impression which Sweeney's gallantry made upon them.

The steady determination of Grant's troops during that long April Sunday, was perhaps unequaled during the war. At night companies were commanded by sergeants, regiments by lieutenants, and brigades by majors. In several regiments, one-half the men were killed and wounded; and in some entire divisions the killed and wounded exceeded thirty-three per cent, of the numbers who went into battle.

I have seen no other field which gave indication of such deadly conflict as the Shiloh ridges and ravines, [Pg 240] everywhere covered with a very thick growth of timber—

In one tree I counted sixty bullet-holes; another bore marks of more than ninety balls within ten feet of the ground. Sometimes, for several yards in the dense ~~shubbery~~ shrubbery , it was difficult to find a twig as large as one's finger, which had not been cut off by balls.

A friend of mine counted one hundred and twenty-six dead Rebels, lying where they fell, upon an area less than fifty yards wide and a quarter of a mile long. One of our details buried in a single trench one hundred and forty-seven of the enemy, including three lieutenant-colonels and four majors.

But our forces, overpowered by numbers, fell farther and further back, while the Rebels took possession of many Union camps. At night, our line, originally three miles in length, was shortened to three-quarters of a mile.

For weeks the inscrutable Buell had been leisurely marching through Kentucky and Tennessee, to join Grant. He arrived at the supreme moment. At four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, General Nelson, of Kentucky, who commanded Buell's advance, crossed the Tennessee, and rode up to Grant and his staff when the battle was raging.

"Here we are, General," said Nelson, with the military salute, and pointing to long files of his well-clad, athletic, admirably disciplined fellows, already pouring on the steamboats, to be ferried across the river. "Here we are! We are not very military in our division. We don't know many fine points or nice evolutions; but if you want stupidity and hard fighting, I reckon we are the men for you."

That night both armies lay upon their guns, and the opposing pickets were often within a hundred yards of each other. The groans and cries of the dying rendered it impossible to sleep. Grant said:

"We must not give the enemy the moral advantage of attacking to-morrow morning. We must fire the first gun."

Just at day-break, the Rebels were surprised at all points of the line by assaults from the foe whom they had supposed vanquished. Grant's shattered troops behaved admirably, and Buell's splendid army won new laurels. The Confederates were forced back at all points. Their retreat was a stampede, leaving behind great quantities of ammunition, commissary stores, guns, caissons, small arms, supply-wagons and ambulances. They were not vigorously followed; but as no effective pursuit was made by either side during the entire war (until Sheridan, in one of its closing scenes, captured Lee), perhaps northern and southern troops were too equally matched for either to be thoroughly routed.

Beauregard withdrew to Corinth, as usual, announcing a glorious victory. He addressed a letter to Grant, asking permission, under flag of truce, to send a party to the battle-field to bury the Confederate dead. He prefaced the request as follows:

Grant was strongly tempted to assure Beauregard that no apologies for his retreat were necessary! But [Pg 242] he merely replied in a courteous note, declining the request, and stating that the dead were already interred.

The excess of Rebel wounded was owing to the superiority of the muskets used by the Federal soldiers; and the excess of Union missing, to the capture of Prentiss' division.

	Killed.	Wounded.	Missing.	Total.
Union	1,614	7,721	3,963	13,298
Rebel	1,728	8,012	959	10,699

CHAPTER XX.

It was long after the battle of Shiloh before all the dead were buried. Many were interred in trenches, scores together. A friend, who was engaged in this revolting labor, told me that, after three or four days, he found himself counting off the bodies as indifferently as he would have measured cord-wood.

General Halleck soon arrived, assuming command of the combined forces of Grant, Buell, and Pope. It was a grand army.

Grant nominally remained at the head of his corps, but was deprived of power. He was under a cloud. Most injurious reports concerning his conduct at Shiloh pervaded the country. All the leading journals were represented in Halleck's army. At the daily accidental gatherings of eight or ten correspondents, Grant was the subject of angry discussion. The journalistic profession tends to make men oracular and severely critical.

Several of these writers could demonstrate conclusively that Grant was without capacity, but a favorite of Fortune; that his great Donelson victory was achieved in spite of military blunders which ought to have defeated him.

The subject of all this contention bore himself with [Pg 244] undisturbed serenity. Sherman, while constantly declaring that he cared nothing for the newspapers, was foolishly sensitive to every word of criticism. But Grant, whom they really wounded, appeared no more disturbed by these paper bullets of the brain than by the leaden missiles of the enemy. He silently smoked and waited. The only protest I ever knew him to utter was to the correspondent of a journal which had denounced him with great severity:

"Your paper is very unjust to me; but time will make it all right. I want to be judged only by my acts."

When the army began to creep forward, I messed at Grant's head-quarters, with his chief of staff; and around the evening camp-fires I saw much of the general. He rarely uttered a word upon the political bearings of the war; indeed, he said little upon any subject. With his eternal cigar, and his head thrown slightly to one side, for hours he would sit silently before the fire, or walk back and forth, with eyes upon the ground, or look on at our whist-table, now and then making a suggestion about the play.

Most of his pictures greatly idealize his full, rather heavy face. The journalists called him stupid. One of my confrères used to say:

"How profoundly surprised Mrs. Grant must have been, when she woke up and learned that her husband was a great man!"

He impressed me as possessing great purity, integrity, and amiability, with excellent judgment and boundless pluck. But I should never have suspected him of military genius. Indeed, nearly every man of whom, at the beginning of the war, I prophesied a great career, proved inefficient, and vice versâ .

Military men seem to cherish more jealousies than members of any other profession, except physicians and artistes . At almost every general head-quarters, one heard denunciations of rival commanders. Grant was above this "mischievous foul sin of chiding." I never heard him speak unkindly of a brother officer. Still, the soldier's taint had slightly poisoned him. He regarded Rosecrans with peculiar antipathy, and finally accepted the command of our combined armies only on condition that he should be at once removed.

Hooker once boasted that he had the best army on the planet. One would have declared that Grant commanded the worst. There was little of that order, perfect drill, or pride, pomp, and circumstance, seen among Buell's troops and in the Army of the Potomac. But Grant's rough, rugged soldiers would fight wonderfully, and were not easily demoralized. If their line became broken, every man, from behind a tree, rock, or stump, blazed away at the enemy on his own account. They did not throw up their hats at sight of their general, but were wont to remark, with a grim smile:

"There goes the old man. He doesn't say much; but he's a pretty hard nut for Johnny Reb. to crack."

Unlike Halleck, Grant did not pretend to familiarity with the details of military text-books. He could not move an army with that beautiful symmetry which McClellan displayed; but his pontoons were always up, and his ammunition trains were never missing.

Though not occupied with details, he must have given them close attention; for, while other commanding generals had forty or fifty staff-officers, brilliant with braid and buttons, Grant allowed himself but six or seven.

Within ten days after the battle of Shiloh, nineteen large steamers, crowded with wounded, passed down the [Pg 246] river. In the long rows of cots which filled their cabins and crowded their guards, Rebel and Union soldiers were lying side by side, and receiving the same attendance.

Scores of volunteer physicians aided the regular army surgeons. Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them wives, sisters, and mothers, came from every walk of life to join in the work of mercy. Hands hardened with toil, and hands that leisure and luxury left white and soft, were bathing fevered brows, supporting wearied heads, washing repulsive wounds, combing matted and bloody locks.

Patient forms kept nightly vigils beside the couches; gentle tones dropped priceless words of sympathy; and, when all was over, tender hands closed the fixed eyes, and smoothed the hair upon the white foreheads. Thousands of poor fellows carried to their homes, both North and South, grateful memories of those heroic women; thousands of hearts, wrung with the tidings that loved ones were gone, found comfort in the knowledge that their last hours were soothed by those self-denying and blessed ministrations.

One man, who had received several bullets, lay undiscovered for eight days in a little thicket, with no nourishment except rain-water. After discovery he lived nearly two weeks. At some points the ground was so closely covered with mutilated bodies that it was difficult to step between them. One soldier, rigid in death, was found lying upon the back, holding in his fixed hand, and regarding with stony eyes, the daguerreotype of a woman and child. It was terribly suggestive of the desolate homes and bleeding hearts which almost force one to Cicero's conclusion, that any peace is better than the justest war.

CHAPTER XXI.

General Sherman was very violent toward the Press. Some newspapers had treated him unjustly early in the war. While he commanded in Kentucky, his eccentricities were very remarkable, and a journalist started the report that Sherman was crazy, which obtained wide credence. There was, at least, method in his madness; for his supposed insanity which declared that the Government required two hundred thousand troops in the West, though hooted at the time, proved wisdom and prophecy.

Nevertheless, he was very erratic. When I first saw him in Missouri, during Fremont's administration, his eye had a half-wild expression, probably the result of excessive smoking. From morning till night he was never without his cigar. To the nervous-sanguine temperament, indicated by his blonde hair, light eyes, and fair complexion, tobacco is peculiarly injurious.

While many insisted that no correspondent could meet Sherman without being insulted, I sought him at his tent in the field; he was absent with a scouting party, but soon returned, with one hand bandaged from his Shiloh wound. A staff-officer introduced me:

"How do you do, Mr. ----?" inquired Sherman, with great suavity, offering me his uninjured hand.

The general's manner changed from Indian summer to a Texas norther, and he asked, in freezing tones:

"I think not. I want to learn some facts about the late battle from your own lips. You complain that journalists misrepresent you. How can they avoid it, when you refuse to give them proper information? Some officers are drunkards and charlatans; but you would think it unjust if we condemned all on that account. Is it not equally absurd to anathematize every man of my profession for the sins of a few unworthy members?"

"Perhaps it is. Sit down. Will you have a cigar? The trouble is, that you of the Press have no responsibilities. Some worthless fellow, wielding a quill, may send falsehoods about me to thousands of people who can never hear them refuted. What can I do? His readers do not know that he is without character. It would be useless to prosecute him. If he would even fight there would be some satisfaction in that; but a slanderer is likely to be a coward as well."

"True; but when some private citizen slanders you on the street or in a drinking-saloon, you do not find it necessary to pull the nose of every civilian whom you meet. Reputable journalists have just as much pride in their profession as you have in yours. This tendency to treat them superciliously and harshly, which encourages flippant young staff-officers to insult them, tends to drive them home in disgust, and leave their places to be supplied by a less worthy class; so you only aggravate the evil you complain of."

After further conversation on this subject, Sherman gave me a very entertaining account of the battle. Since I first saw him, his eye had grown much calmer, and his nervous system healthier. He is tall, of bony frame, spare [Pg 249] in flesh, with thin, wrinkled face, sandy beard and hair, and bright, restless eyes. His face indicates great vitality and activity; his manner is restless; his discourse rapid and earnest. He looks rather like an anxious man of business than an ideal soldier, suggesting the exchange, and not the camp.

He has great capacity for labor—sometimes working for twenty consecutive hours. He sleeps little, nor do the most powerful opiates relieve his terrible cerebral excitement. Indifferent to dress and to fare, he can live on hard bread and water, and fancies any one else can do so. Often irritable, and sometimes rude, he is a man of great originality and daring, and a most valuable lieutenant for a general of coolness and judgment, like Grant or Thomas. With one of them to plan or modify, he is emphatically the man to execute. His purity and patriotism are beyond all question. He did not enter the army to speculate in cotton, or to secure a seat in the United States Senate, but to serve the country.

Military weaknesses are often amusing. A prominent officer on Halleck's staff, who had served with Scott in Mexico, had something to do with fortifying Island Number Ten, after its capture. An obscure country newspaper gave another officer the credit. Seeking the agent of the Associated Press at Halleck's head-quarters, the aggrieved engineer remarked:

"By the way, Mr. Weir, I have been carrying a paper in my pocket for several days, but have forgotten to hand it to you. Here it is."

And he produced a letter page of denial, upon which the ink was not yet dry, stating that the island had been fortified under the immediate direction of General ----, the well-known officer of the regular army, who served upon the staff of Lieutenant-General Scott during the [Pg 250] Mexican war, and was at present ----, ----, and ---- upon the staff of General Halleck.

"I rely upon your sense of justice," said this ornament of the staff, "to give this proper publicity."

Mr. Weir, with a keen sense of the ridiculous, sent the long dispatch word for word to the Associated Press, adding: "You may rest assured that this is perfectly reliable, because every word of it was written by the old fool himself!" All the newspaper readers in the country had the formal dispatch, and all the telegraph corps had their merriment over this confidential addendum.

Halleck's command contained eighty thousand effective men, who were nearly all veterans. His line was ten miles in length, with Grant on the right, Buell in the center, and Pope on the left.

The grand army was like a huge serpent, with its head pinned on our left, and its tail sweeping slowly around toward Corinth. Its majestic march was so slow that the Rebels had ample warning. It was large enough to eat up Beauregard at one mouthful; but Halleck crept forward at the rate of about three-quarters of a mile per day. Thousands and thousands of his men died from fevers and diarrhœa.

There was great dissatisfaction at his slow progress. Pope was particularly impatient. One day he had a very sharp skirmish with the enemy. Our position was strong. General Palmer, who commanded on the front, reported that he could hold it against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but Halleck telegraphed to Pope three times within an hour not to be drawn into a general engagement. After the last dispatch, Pope retired, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. How he did storm about it!

The little army which Pope had brought from the [Pg 251] capture of Island Number Ten was perfectly drilled and disciplined, and he handled it with rare ability. Much of his subsequent unpopularity arose from his imprudent and violent language. He sometimes indulged in the most unseemly profanity and billingsgate within hearing of a hundred people.

But his personal weaknesses were pardonable compared with those of some other prominent officers. During Fremont's Missouri campaign, I knew one general who afterward enjoyed a well-earned national reputation for skill and gallantry. His head-quarters were the scenes of nightly orgies, where whisky punches and draw-poker reigned from dark until dawn. In the morning his tent was a strange museum of bottles, glasses, sugar-bowls, playing-cards, gold, silver, and bank-notes. I knew another western officer, who, during the heat of a Missouri battle, according to the newspaper reports, inspirited his men by shouting:

He did use those words, but no enemy was within half a mile, and he was lying drunk on the ground, flat upon his back. Afterward, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, he did the State some service, and his delinquency was never made public.

At Antietam, a general, well known both in Europe and America, was reported disabled by a spent shell, which struck him in the breast. The next morning, he gave me a minute history of it, assuring me that he still breathed with difficulty and suffered greatly from internal soreness. The fact was that he was disabled by a bottle of whisky, having been too hospitable to that seductive friend!

After the evacuation of Corinth, Pope's reputation suffered greatly from a false dispatch, asserting [Pg 252] that he had captured ten thousand prisoners. Halleck alone was responsible for the report. Pope was in the rear. One of his subordinates on the front telegraphed him substantially as follows:

Pope forwarded this message, which said nothing about taking prisoners, to Halleck, without erasing or adding a line; and Halleck, smarting under his mortifying failure at Corinth, telegraphed that Pope reported the capture of ten thousand Rebels. Pope's reputation for veracity was fatally wounded, and the newspapers burlesqued him mercilessly.

One of my comrades lay sick and wounded at the residence of General Clinton B. Fisk, of St. Louis. On a Sunday afternoon the general was reading to him from the Bible an account of the first contraband. This historic precedent was the servant of an Amalekite, who came into David's camp and proposed, if assured of freedom, to show the King of Israel a route which would enable him to surprise his foes. The promise was given, and the king fell upon the enemy, whom he utterly destroyed. While our host was reading the list of the spoils, the prisoners, slaves, women, flocks and herds captured by David, the sick journalist lifted his attenuated finger, and in his weak, piping voice, said:

"Stop, General; just look down to the bottom of that list, and see if it is not signed John Pope, Major-General commanding!"

At last, Halleck's army reached Corinth, but the bird [Pg 253] had flown. No event of the war reflected so much credit upon the Rebels and so much discredit upon the Unionists as Beauregard's evacuation. He did not disturb himself until Halleck's Parrott guns had thrown shots within fourteen feet of his own head-quarters. Then, keeping up a vigorous show of resistance on his front, he deserted the town, leaving behind not a single gun, or ambulance, or even a sick or wounded man in the hospital.

Halleck lost thenceforth the name of "Old Brains," which some imaginative person had given him, and which tickled for a time the ears of his soldiers. The only good thing he ever did, in public, was to make two brief speeches. When he first reached St. Louis, upon being called out by the people, he said:

Called upon again, on leaving St. Louis for Washington, to assume the duties of general-in-chief, he made an equally brief response:

Heavy re-enforcements are arriving. The woods, in luxuriant foliage, are spiced with

Still we creep slowly along. Pope's head-quarters are [Pg 254] now within the borders of Mississippi. Out on his front you find several hundred acres of cotton-field and sward, ridged with graves from a recent hot skirmish. Carcasses of a hundred horses, killed during the battle, are slowly burning under piles of rails, covered with a layer of earth, that their decay may not taint the atmosphere.

Beyond, our infantry pickets present muskets and order you to halt. If you are accompanied by a field-officer, or bear a pass "by order of Major-General Halleck," you can cross this Rubicon. A third of a mile farther are our vedettes, some mounted, others lying in the shade beside their grazing horses, but keeping a sharp look-out in front. In a little rift of the woods, half a mile away, you see through your field-glass a solitary horseman clad in butternut. Two or three more, and sometimes forty or fifty, come out of the woods and join him, but they keep very near their cover, and soon go back. Those are the enemy's pickets. You hear the drum beat in the Rebel lines, and the shrill whistle of the locomotives at Corinth, which is three miles distant.

Along our entire front, almost daily, the long roll is sounded, and the ground jarred by the dull rumble of cannonade. The little attention paid to these skirmishes, where we lose from fifty to one hundred men, illustrates the magnitude of the war.

We feel the earth vibrate, and look inquiringly into the office of the telegraph which accompanies every corps.

If it does not become rapid and prolonged, no further [Pg 255] questions are asked. At night, awakened by the sharp rattle of musketry, we raise our heads, listen for the alarm-drum, and, not hearing it, roll over in our blankets, to court again the drowsy god.

Ride out with me to the front, five miles from Halleck's head-quarters. The country is undulating and woody, with a few cotton-fields and planters' houses. The beautiful groves open into delicious vistas of green grass or rolling wheat; luxuriant flowers perfume the vernal air, and the rich foliage already seems to display—

Here is a deserted camp of a division which has moved forward. Three or four adjacent farmers are gathering up the barrels, boxes, provisions, and other débris , left behind by the troops.

Here is a division on drill, advancing in line of battle, the skirmishers thrown out in front, deploying, gathering in groups, or falling on their faces at the word of command.

Beyond those white tents our soldiers, in gray shirts and blue pants, are busily plying the spade. They throw up a long rampart notched with embrasures for cannon. We have already built fifty miles of breastworks.

A little in the rear are the heavy siege-guns, where they can be brought up quickly; a little in front, the field artillery, with the horses harnessed and tied to trees, ready for use at a moment's notice. Near the workmen, their comrades, who do the more legitimate duty of the soldier, are standing on their arms, to repel any sortie from the enemy. Their guns, with the burnished barrels [Pg 256] and bayonets glistening in the sun, are stacked in long rows, while the men stand in little groups, or sit under the trees, playing cards, reading letters or newspapers. More than twenty thousand copies of the daily papers of the western cities and New York are sold in the army at ten cents each. The number of letters which go out from the camps in each day's mail is nearly as large.

When this parapet is completed, we shall go forward a few hundred yards, and throw up another; and thus we advance slowly toward Corinth.

Ride still farther, and you find the infantry pickets. The vedettes are drawn in, if there is any skirmishing going on. From the extreme front, you catch an occasional glimpse of the Rebels—"Butternuts," as they are termed in camp, from their cinnamon-hued homespun, dyed with butternut extract. They are dodging among the trees, and, if you are wise, you will get behind a tree yourself, and beware how you show your head.

Already one of their sharp-shooters notices you. Puff, comes a cloud of smoke from his rifle; in the same breath you hear the explosion, and the sharp, ringing "ping" of the bullet through the air! Capital shots are many of these long, lank, loose-jointed Mississippians and Texans, whose rifles are sometimes effective at ten and twelve hundred yards. Yesterday, one of them concealed himself in the dense foliage of a tree-branch, and picked off several of our soldiers. At last, one of our own sharp-shooters took him in hand, and, at the sixth discharge, brought him down to the ground. This sharp-shooting is a needless aggravation of the horrors of war; but if the enemy indulges in it, you have no recourse but to do likewise.

Stealing is the inevitable accompaniment of camp life—"convey, the wise" call it. I have a steed, cadaverous and bony, but with good locomotive powers. There was profound policy in my selection. For five consecutive nights that horse was stolen, but no thief ever kept him after seeing him by day-light. In the morning, he would always come browsing back. My friend and tent-mate "Carlton," of The Boston Journal , had a more vaulting ambition. He procured a showy horse, which proved the most expensive luxury in all his varied experience. The special aptitude of the animal was to be stolen. Regularly, seven mornings in the week, our African factotum would thrust his woolly head into the tent, and awaken us with this salutation:

By hard search and liberal rewards, he would be reclaimed during the day from some cavalry soldier, who averred that he had found him running loose. After being impaled and nearly killed upon a rake-handle, the poor brute, hardly able to walk ten paces, was stolen again, and never re-appeared. My friend now remembered his showy steed, and the last five-dollar note which he sent in fruitless pursuit, among blessings which brightened as they took their flight.

General Halleck has expelled all the correspondents from the army, on the plea that he must exclude "unauthorized hangers-on," to keep spies out of his camps. His refusal to accept any guaranties of their loyalty and prudence, even from the President himself, proves that this plea was a shallow subterfuge. The real trouble is, that Halleck is not willing to have his conduct exhibited [Pg 258] to the country through any other medium than official reports. "As false as a bulletin," has passed into a proverb.

The journalists received invitations to remain, from friends holding commissions in the army, from major-generals down to lieutenants; but, believing their presence just as legitimate and needful as that of any soldier or officer, they determined not to skulk about camps like felons, but all left in a body. Their individual grievances are nothing to the public; but this is a grave issue between the Military Power and the rights of the Press and the People.

CHAPTER XXII.

No history of the war is likely to do full justice to the bitterness of the Rebel women. Female influence tempted thousands of young men to enter the Confederate service against their own wishes and sympathies. Women sometimes evinced incredible rancor and bloodthirstiness. The most startling illustration of the brutalizing effect of Slavery appeared in the absence of that sweetness, charity, and tenderness toward the suffering, which is the crowning grace of womanhood.

"I suppose I have not struck any of my negroes for ten years. When they need correcting, my wife always does it."

If he had a horse or a mule requiring occasional whipping, would he put the scourge in the hands of his little daughter, and teach her to wield it, from her tender years? How infinitely more must it brutalize and corrupt her when the victim is a man—the most sacred thing that God has made—his earthly image and his human temple!

Before we captured Memphis, the sick and wounded Union prisoners were in a condition of great want and suffering. Women of education, wealth, and high social position visited the hospitals to minister to Rebel patients. [Pg 260] Frequently entering the Federal wards from curiosity, they used toward the groaning patients expressions like this:

"I would like to give you one dose! You would never fight against the South again!"

In what happy contrast to this shone the self-denying ministrations of northern women, to friend and enemy alike!

In Memphis, on the evening of June 5th, General Jeff. Thompson, commanding the Rebel cavalry, and Commodore Edward Montgomery, commanding the Rebel flotilla, stated at the Gayoso House that there would be a battle the next morning, in which the Yankee fleet would be destroyed in just about two hours.

Just after daylight, the Rebel flotilla attacked ours, two miles above the city. We had five iron-clads and several rams, which were then experimental. They were light, agile little stern-wheel boats, whose machinery was not at all protected against shots. The battle occurred in full view of the city. Though it began soon after daylight, it was witnessed by ten thousand people upon the high bluff—an anxious, excited crowd. The Rebels dared not be too demonstrative, and the Unionists dared not whisper a word of their long-cherished and earnest hopes.

While the two fleets were steaming toward each other, Colonel Ellet, determined to succeed or to die, daringly pushed forward with his little rams, the Monarch and Queen of the West. With these boats, almost as fragile as pasteboard, he steamed directly into the Rebel flotilla. One of his rams struck the great gunboat Sterling Price with a terrific blow, crushing timbers and tearing away the entire larboard wheel-house. The Price drifted helplessly down the stream and stranded. Another of [Pg 261] Ellet's rams ran at full speed into the General Lovell, cutting her in twain. The Rebel boat filled and sunk.

From the shore, it was a most impressive sight. There was the Lovell, with holiday decorations, crowded with men and firing her guns, when the little ram struck her, crushing in her side, and she went down like a plummet. In three minutes, even the tops of her tall chimneys disappeared under water. Scores of swimming and drowning Rebels in the river were rescued by boats from the Union fleet.

One of the rams now ran alongside and grappled the Beauregard, and, through hose, drenched her decks with scalding water, while her cannoneers dared not show their heads to Ellet's sharpshooters, who were within a few feet of them. Another Rebel boat came up to strike the ram, but the agile little craft let go her hold and backed out. The blow intended for her struck the Beauregard, which instantly went down, "hoist with his own petar."

The Sumter and the Little Rebel, both disabled, were stranded on the Arkansas shore. The Jeff. Thompson was set on fire and abandoned by her crew. In a few minutes there was an enormous dazzling flash of light, a measureless volume of black smoke, and a startling roar, which seemed to shake the earth to its very center. For several seconds the air was filled with falling timbers. Exploding her magazine, the Rebel gunboat expired with a great pyrotechnic display.

The General Bragg received a fifty-pound shot, which tore off a long plank under her water-mark, and she was captured in a sinking condition. The Van Dorn, the only Rebel boat which survived the conflict, turned and fled down the river.

The battle lasted just one hour and three minutes. It was the most startling, dramatic, and memorable display [Pg 262] of the whole war. On our side, no one was injured except Colonel Ellet, who had performed such unexampled feats with his little rams. A splinter, which struck him in the leg, inflicted a fatal wound.

As our fleet landed, a number of news-boys sprang on shore, and, a moment after, were running through the street, shouting:

The correspondents, before the city was formally surrendered, had strolled through the leading streets. At the Gayoso House they registered their names immediately under those of the fugacious Rebel general, and ordered dinner.

The Memphis Rebels, who had predicted a siege rivaling Saragossa and Londonderry, were in a condition of stupor for two weeks after our arrival. They rubbed their eyes wonderingly, to see Union officers and Abolition journalists at large without any suggestions of hanging or tarring and feathering. Remembering my last visit, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I appended in enormous letters to my signature upon the hotel register, the name of the journal I served.

On the day of the capture, an intoxicated seaman from one of the gun-boats, who had been shut up for several months, went on shore "skylarking." Offering his arms to the first two negro women he met, he promenaded the whole length of Main street. The Memphis Rebels were suffering for an outrage, and here was one just to their mind.

"If that is the way, sir," remarked one of them, "that your people propose to treat southern gentlemen and ladies—if they intend to thrust upon us such a disgusting spectacle of negro equality, it will be perilous [Pg 263] for them. Do they expect to conciliate our people in this manner?"

I mildly suggested that the era of conciliation ceased when the era of fighting began. The sailor was arrested and put in the guard-house.

Our officers mingled freely with the people. No citizens insulted our soldiers in the streets; no woman repeated the disgraceful scenes of New Orleans by spitting in the faces of the "invaders." The Unionists received us as brothers from whom they had long been separated. One lady brought out from its black hiding-place, in her chimney, a National flag, which had been concealed there from the beginning of the war. A Loyalist told me that, coming out of church on Sunday, he was thrilled with the news that the Yankees had captured Fort Donelson; but, with a grave face, he replied to his informant:

Reaching home, with his wife and sister, they gave vent to their exuberant joy. He could not huzza, and so he relieved himself by leaping two or three times over a center-table!

There were many genuine Rebels whose eyes glared at us with the hatred of caged tigers. Externally decorous, they would remark, ominously, that they hoped our soldiers would not irritate the people, lest it should deluge the streets with blood. They proposed fabulous wagers that Sterling Price's troops could whip the whole Union army; circulated daily reports that the Confederates had recaptured New Orleans and Nashville, and talked mysteriously about the fatality of the yellow fever, and the prospect that it would soon break out.

Gladness shone from the eyes of all the negroes. Their dusky faces were radiant with welcome, and many women, turbaned in bright bandanas, thronged the office of [Pg 264] the provost-marshal, applying for passage to the North. We found Memphis as torpid as Syria, where Yusef Browne declared that he saw only one man exhibit any sign of activity, and he was engaged in tumbling from the roof of a house! But stores were soon opened, and traders came crowding in from the North. Most of them were Jews.

Everywhere we saw the deep eyes and pronounced features of that strange, enterprising people. I observed one of them, with the Philistines upon him, marching to the military prison. The pickets had caught him with ten thousand dollars' worth of boots and shoes, which he was taking into Dixie. He bore the miscarriage with great philosophy, bewailing neither his ducats nor his daughter, his boots nor his liberty—smiling complacently, and finding consolation in the vilest of cigars. But in his dark, sad eye was a gleam of latent vengeance, which he doubtless wreaked upon the first unfortunate customer who fell into his clutches after his release.

Glancing at the guests who crowded the dining-hall of the Gayoso, one might have believed that the lost tribes of Israel were gathering there for the Millennium.

Many of them engaged in contraband traffic, supplying the Rebels with food, and even with ammunition. Some months after, these very gross abuses induced Grant to issue a sweeping ukase expelling all Jews from his department—an order which the President wisely countermanded.

The Rebel authorities had destroyed all the cotton, sugar, and molasses they could find; but these articles now began to emerge from novel hiding-places. One gentleman had fifty bales of cotton in his closed parlor. Hundreds of bales were concealed in the woods, in lofts, and in cellars. Much sugar was buried. One man, entombing [Pg 265] fifteen hogsheads, neglected to throw up a mound to turn off the water; when he dug for his sugar, its linked sweetness was too long drawn out! The hogsheads were empty.

On the 17th of June, a little party of Union officers came galloping into the city from the country. They were evidently no gala-day soldiers. Their sun-browned faces, dusty clothing, and jaded horses bespoke hard campaigns and long marches.

One horseman, in a blue cap and plain blouse, bore no mark of rank, but was noticeable for the peculiar brilliancy of his dark, flashing eye. This modest soldier was Major-General Lew. Wallace; and his division arrived a few hours after. He established his quarters at the Gayoso, in the same apartments which had been occupied successively by four Rebel commanders, Pillow, Polk, Van Dorn, and Price.

The Memphis Argus , a bitter Secession sheet, had been allowed to continue publication, though its tone was very objectionable. General Wallace at once addressed to the proprietors the following note:

The publishers, glad to continue upon any terms, acquiesced, and thereafter every morning, before The Argus went to press, the proof-sheets were sent to us for revision.

The first dress-parade of Wallace's original regiment, the Eleventh Indiana Infantry, was attended by hundreds of Memphians, curious to see northern troops [Pg 266] drawn up in line. They wore no bright trappings or holiday attire. Their well-kept arms shone in the fading sunlight, a line of polished steel; but their soiled uniforms had left their brightness behind in many hard-fought battles. They went through the drill with rare precision. The Rebel bystanders clapped their hands heartily, with a certain unconscious pride that these soldiers were their fellow-Americans. The spectacle dimmed their faith in their favorite five-to-one theory.

"Well, John," asked one of them beside me, "how many regiments like that do you think one of ours could whip?"

Months before our arrival, a Union employé of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad sold a watch to a Secession comrade. Vainly attempting to collect the pay, he finally wrote a pressing letter. The debtor sent back the dun with this reply:

The Loyalist pocketed the affront, "ablichiness" and all, and nursed his wrath to keep it warm. Meeting his debtor on the street, after the arrival of our forces, he administered to him a merciless flagellation. Before our Provost-Marshal it was decided to be a case of "justifiable assault," and the prisoner was discharged from custody.

Confederate currency was a curiosity of literature and finance. Dray-tickets and checks, marked "Good for twenty-five cents," and a great variety of shinplasters, were current. One, issued by a baker, represented "twenty-five cents in drayage or confectionary," at the option of the holder. Another guaranteed to the bearer "the sum of five cents from the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad Company, in freight or passage!"

One of my acquaintances had purchased in Chicago, at ten cents a dozen, lithographic fac-similes of the regular Confederate notes, promising to pay to the bearer ten dollars, six months after a treaty of peace between the United States and the Confederate States. A Memphis merchant, knowing that they were counterfeit, manufactured only to sell as curiosities, considered their execution so much better than the originals, that he gladly gave Tennessee bank-notes in exchange for them. My friend subsisted at his hotel for several days upon the proceeds of these fac-similes , and thought it cheap boarding. While Curtis's army was in northern Arkansas, our officers found at a village druggist's several large sheets of his [Pg 268] printed promises to pay, neither cut nor signed. At the next village one of them purchased a canteen of whisky, and offered the grocer a National treasury note in payment. The trader refused it; it was, doubtless, good, but might cause him trouble after the army had left. He would receive either gold or Confederate money. The officer exhibited one of these blanks, and asked if he would take that . "O yes," he replied; "it is as good money as I want!" And he actually sold two hundred and fifty canteens of whisky for those unsigned shinplasters, cut off from the sheets in his presence!

Late in June, General Grant, accompanied only by his personal staff, often rode from Corinth to Memphis, ninety miles, through a region infested by guerrillas.

The guests at the Gayoso House regarded with much curiosity the quiet, slightly-stooping, rural-looking man in cotton coat and broad-brimmed hat, talking little and smoking much, who was already beginning to achieve world-wide reputation.

A party of native Arkansans, including a young lady, arrived in Memphis, coming up the Mississippi in an open skiff. When leaving home they expected to encounter some of our gun-boats in a few hours, and provided themselves only with one day's food, and an ample supply of champagne. Accustomed to luxury, and all unused to labor, in the unpitying sun they rowed for five days against the strong current of the Mississippi, burnt, sick, and famishing. For five nights they slept upon the ground on the swampy shore, half devoured by musquitoes. At last they found an ark of safety in the iron-clad St. Louis.

During a fight at St. Charles, on the White River, the steam-drum of the gun-boat Mound City was exploded by a Rebel shot. The terrified gunners and seamen, [Pg 269] many of them horribly scalded, jumped into the water. The Confederates, from behind trees on the bank, deliberately shot the scalded and drowning wretches!

Halleck continued in command at Corinth. From some cause, his official telegrams to General Curtis, in Arkansas, and Commodore Davis, on the Mississippi, were not transmitted in cipher; and the line was unguarded, though leading through an intensely Rebel region. In July, the Memphis operators, from the difficult working of their instruments, surmised that some outsider must be sharing their telegraphic secrets. One day the transmission of a message was suddenly interrupted by the ejaculation:

Individuality reveals itself as clearly in telegraphing as in the footstep or handwriting. Mr. Hall, the Memphis operator, instantly recognized the performer—by what the musicians would call his "time"—as a former telegraphic associate in the North; and sent him this message:

"Saville, if you don't want to be hung, you had better leave. Our cavalry is closing in on all sides of you."

"How in the world did you know me? I have been here four days, and learned about all your military secrets; but it is becoming a rather tight place, and I think I will leave. Good-by, boys."

He made good his escape. In the woods he had cut the wire, inserted one of his own, and by a pocket instrument perused our official dispatches, stating the exact number and location of United States troops in Memphis. Re-enforcements were immediately ordered in, to guard against a Rebel dash.

Later in July, Sherman assumed command. One day, [Pg 270] a bereaved man-owner visited him, to learn how he could reclaim his runaway slaves.

"I know of only one way, sir," replied the general, "and that is, through the United States marshal."

The unsuspecting planter went up and down the city inquiring for that civil officer.

"Yes, sir. I want my negroes. General Sherman says he is the proper person to return them."

At last it dawned upon the planter's brain that the Fugitive Slave Law was void after the people drove out United States officers. He went sadly back to Sherman, and asked if there was no other method of recovering his chattels.

"The law provided a remedy for you slaveholders in cases like this; but you were dissatisfied and smashed the machine. If you don't like your work, you had better set it to running again."

On the 7th and 8th of March, 1862, occurred the battle of Pea Ridge, in Arkansas. Our troops were commanded by General Curtis. Vandeveer's brigade made a forced march of forty-one miles between 2 o'clock a. m. , and 10 p. m. , in order to participate in the engagement. The fight was very severe, but the tenacity of the western soldiers finally routed the Rebels.

There chanced to be only one New York correspondent [Pg 271] with Curtis's command. During the battle he was wounded by a fragment of shell. He sent forward his report, with calm complacency, presuming that it was exclusive.

But two other New York journalists in St. Louis, hearing of the battle, at once repaired to Rolla, the nearest railway point, though one hundred and ninety-five miles distant from Pea Ridge. Perusing the very meager official dispatches, knowing what troops were engaged, and learning from an old countryman the topography of the field, they wrote elaborate accounts of the two days' conflict.

Indebted to their imagination for their facts, they gave minute details and a great variety of incidents. Their reports were plausible and graphic. The London Times reproduced one of them, pronouncing it the ablest and best battle account which had been written during the American war. For months, the editors who originally published these reports, did not know that they were fictitious. They were written only as a Bohemian freak, and remained the only accounts manufactured by any reputable journalist during the war.

After the battle, Curtis's army, fifteen thousand strong, pursued its winding way through the interior of Arkansas. It maintained no communications, carrying its base of supplies along with it. When out of provisions, it would seize and run all the neighboring corn-mills, until it obtained a supply of meal for one or two weeks, and then move forward.

Day after day, the Memphis Rebels told us, with ill-concealed glee, that Curtis's army, after terrific slaughter, had all been captured, or was just about to surrender. For weeks we had no reliable intelligence from it. But suddenly it appeared at Helena, on the Mississippi, [Pg 272] seventy-five miles below Memphis, having marched more than six hundred miles through the enemy's country. Despite the unhealthy climate, the soldiers arrived in excellent sanitary condition, weary and ragged, but well, and with an immense train of followers. It was a common jest, that every private came in with one horse, one mule, and two negroes.

The army correspondents, disgusted with the hardships and unwholesome fare of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi, often predicted, with what they thought extravagant humor:—

"When Cincinnati or Chicago becomes the seat of war, all this will be changed. We will take our ease at our inn, and view battles æsthetically."

But in September, this jest became the literal truth. Bragg, leaving Buell far behind in Tennessee, invaded Kentucky, and seriously threatened Cincinnati.

Martial law was declared, and all Cincinnati began arming, drilling, or digging. In one day, twenty-five thousand citizens enrolled their names, and were organized into companies. Four thousand worked upon the Covington fortifications. Newspaper proprietors were in the trenches. Congressmen, actors, and artists, carried muskets or did staff duty.

A few sneaks were dragged from their hiding-places in back kitchens, garrets, and cellars. One fellow was found in his wife's clothing, scrubbing away at the wash-tub. He was suddenly stripped of his crinoline by the German guard, who, with shouts of laughter, bore him away to a working-party.

New regiments of volunteers came pouring in from Indiana, Michigan, and the other Northwestern States. The farmers, young and old, arrived by thousands, with their shot-guns and their old squirrel-rifles. The market houses, [Pg 273] public buildings, and streets, were crowded with them. They came even from New York and Pennsylvania, until General Wallace was compelled to telegraph in all directions that no more were needed.

One of these country boys had no weapon except an old Revolutionary sword. Quite a crowd gathered one morning upon Sycamore street, where he took out his rusty blade, scrutinized its blunt edge, knelt down, and carefully whetted it for half an hour upon a door-stone; then, finding it satisfactorily sharp, replaced it in the scabbard, and turned away with a satisfied look. His gravity and solemnity made it very ludicrous.

Buell, before starting northward in pursuit of Bragg, was about to evacuate Nashville. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee, implored, expostulated, and stormed, but without effect. He solemnly declared that, if all the rest of the army left, he would remain with his four Middle Tennessee regiments, defend the city to the last, and perish in its ashes, before it should be given up to the enemy. Buell finally left a garrison, which, though weak in numbers, proved sufficient to hold Nashville.

The siege of Cincinnati proved of short duration. Buell's veterans, and the enthusiastic new volunteers soon sent the Rebels flying homeward. Then, as through the whole war, their appearance north of Tennessee and Virginia was the sure index of disaster to their arms. Southern military genius did not prove adapted to the establishment of a navy, or to fighting on Northern soil.

Maryland invaded, Frankfort abandoned, Nashville evacuated, Tennessee and Kentucky given up almost without a fight, the Rebels threatening the great commercial metropolis of Ohio—these were the disastrous, humiliating tidings of the hour. These were, perhaps, [Pg 274] the gloomiest days that had been seen during the war. We were paying the bitter penalty of many years of National wrong.

CHAPTER XXIII.

At the Capital, I found orders to join the Army of the Potomac. It was during Lee's first invasion. In Pennsylvania, the governor and leading officials nearly doubled the Confederate army, estimating it at two hundred thousand men.

Reaching Frederick, Maryland, I found more Union flags, proportionately, in that little city, than I had ever seen elsewhere. The people were intensely loyal. Four miles beyond, in a mountain region, I saw winding, fertile valleys of clear streams, rich in broad corn-fields; and white vine-covered farm-houses, half hidden in old apple-orchards; while great hay and grain stacks surrounded—

The roads were full of our advancing forces, with bronzed faces and muscles compacted by their long campaigning. They had just won the victory of South Mountain, where Hooker found exercise for his peculiar genius in fighting above the clouds, and driving the enemy by an impetuous charge from a dizzy and apparently inaccessible hight.

The heroic Army of the Potomac, which had suffered more, fought harder, and been defeated oftener than any other National force, was now marching cheerily under the unusual inspiration of victory. But what fearful loads the soldiers carried! Gun, canteen, knapsack, haversack, pack of blankets and clothing, often must have reached fifty pounds to the man. These modern Atlases had little chance in a race with the Rebels.

There were crowds of sorry-looking prisoners marching to the rear; long trains of ambulances filled with our wounded soldiers, some of them walking back with their arms in slings, or bloody bandages about their necks or foreheads; Rebel hospitals, where unfortunate fellows were groaning upon the straw, with arms or legs missing; eleven of our lost, resting placidly side by side, while their comrades were digging their graves hard by; the unburied dead of the enemy, lying in pairs or groups, behind rocks or in fence corners; and then a Rebel surgeon, in bluish-gray uniform, coming in with a flag of truce, to look after his wounded.

All the morning I heard the pounding of distant guns, and at 4 p. m. , near the little village of Keedysville, I reached our front. On the extreme left I found an old friend whom I had not met for many years—Colonel Edward E. Cross, of the Fifth New Hampshire Infantry. Formerly a Cincinnati journalist, afterward a miner in Arizona, and then a colonel at the head of a Mexican regiment, his life had been [Pg 277] full of interest and romance.

While living in Arizona he incurred the displeasure of the pro-Slavery politicians, who ruled the territory. Mowry, their self-styled Delegate to Congress, challenged him—probably upon the hypothesis that, as a Northerner, he would not recognize the code; but Cross was an ugly subject for that experiment. He promptly accepted, and named Burnside rifles at ten paces! Mowry was probably ready to say with Falstaff—

Both were dead shots. Their seconds placed them across the strong prairie wind, to interfere with their aim. At the first fire, a ball grazed Mowry's ear. At the second, a lock of Cross's hair was cut off.

At the third fire, Mowry's rifle missed. His friends insisted that he was entitled to his fire. Those of the other party declared that this was monstrous, and that he should be killed if he attempted it. But Cross settled the difficulty by deciding that Mowry was right, and stood serenely, with folded arms, to receive the shot. The would-be Delegate was wise enough to fire into the air. Thus ended the bloodless duel, and the journalist was never challenged again.

A year or two later, I chanced to be in El Paso, Mexico, shortly after Cross had visited that ancient city. An old cathedral, still standing, was built before the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. Ascending to the steeple, Cross pocketed and brought away the clapper of the old Spanish bell, which was hung there when the edifice was erected. [Pg 278] The devout natives were greatly exasperated at this profanation, and would have killed the relic-hunting Yankee had they caught him. I heard from them a great deal of swearing in bad Spanish on the subject.

Now, when I greeted him, his men were deployed in a corn-field, skirmishing with the enemy's pickets. He was in a barn, where the balls constantly whistled, and occasionally struck the building. He had just come in from the front, where Confederate bullets had torn two rents in the shoulder of his blouse, without breaking the skin. A straggling soldier passed us, strolling down the road toward the Rebel pickets.

"My young friend," said Cross, "if you don't want a hole through you, you had better come back."

Just as he spoke, ping! came a bullet, perforating the hat of the private, who made excellent time toward the rear. A moment after, a shell exploded on a bank near us, throwing the dirt into our faces.

We spent the night at the house of a Union resident, of Keedysville. General Marcy, McClellan's father-in-law and chief of staff, who supped there, inquired, with some curiosity, how we had gained admission to the lines, as journalists were then nominally excluded from the army. We assured him that it was only by "strategy," the details whereof could not be divulged to outsiders.

One of the Tribune correspondents had not left the army since the Peninsular campaign, and, remaining constantly within the lines, his position had never been questioned. Another, who had a nominal appointment upon the staff of a major-general, wore a saber and passed for an officer. I had an old pass, without date, from General Burnside, authorizing the bearer to go to and fro from his head-quarters at all times, which enabled me to go by all guards with ease.

Marcy engaged lodgings at the house for McClellan; but an hour after, a message was received that the general thought it better to sleep upon the ground, near the bivouac-fires, as an example for the troops.

Last night came intelligence of the surrender, to Stonewall Jackson, of Harper's Ferry, including the impregnable position of Maryland Hights and our army.

Colonel Miles, who commanded, atoned for his weakness with his life, being killed by a stray shot just after he had capitulated. Colonel Thomas H. Ford, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, who was stationed on the Hights, professed to have a written order from Miles, his superior officer, to exercise his own discretion about evacuating; but he could not exhibit the paper, and stated that he had lost it. He gave up that key to the position without a struggle. It was like leaving the rim of a teacup, to go down to the bottom for a defensive point. He was afterward tried before a court-martial, but saved from punishment, and permitted to resign, through the clemency of President Lincoln. In any other country he would have been shot.

On September 16th, General McClellan established his head-quarters in a great shaded brick farm-house.

Under one of the old trees sat General Sumner, at sixty-four erect, agile, and soldierly, with snow-white hair. A few yards distant, in an open field, a party of officers were suddenly startled by two shells which dropped very near them. The group broke up and scattered with great alacrity.

"Why," remarked Sumner, with a peculiar smile, "the shells seem to excite a good deal of commotion among those young gentlemen!"

It appeared to amuse and surprise the old war-horse that anybody should be startled by bullets or shots.

Lying upon the ground near by, with his head resting upon his arm, was another officer wearing the two stars of a major-general.

With his side-whiskers, rather heavy countenance, and transparent cheeks, which revealed the blood like those of a blushing girl, he hardly looked all my fancy had painted him.

Toward evening, at the head of his corps, preceded by the pioneers tearing away fences for the column, Hooker led a forward movement across Antietam Creek. His milk-white horse, a rare target to Rebel sharpshooters, could be seen distinctly from afar against the deep green landscape. I could not believe that he was riding into battle upon such a steed, for it seemed suicidal.

In an hour we halted, and the cavalry went forward to reconnoiter. A few minutes after, Mr. George W. Smalley, of The Tribune , said to me:

"There will be a cavalry stampede in about five minutes. Let us ride out to the front and see it."

Galloping up the road, and waiting two or three minutes, we heard three six-pound shots in rapid succession, and a little fifer who had climbed a tree, shouted:

From a vast cloud of dust, emerged soon our troopers in hot haste and disorder. They had suddenly awakened a Rebel battery, which opened upon them.

"Well, sir," answered Hooker, " ~~have'nt~~ haven't we got as many batteries as they have? Move on!"

McClellan, who had accompanied the expedition thus far, rode back to the rear. Hooker pressed forward, accompanied by General Meade, then commanding a division—a dark-haired, scholarly-looking gentleman in spectacles. The grassy fields, the shining streams, and the vernal forests, stretched out in silent beauty. With their bright muskets, clean uniforms, and floating flags, Hooker's men moved on with assured faces.

With a very heavy force of skirmishers, we pushed on, finding no enemy. Our line was three-quarters of a mile in length. Hooker was on the extreme right, close upon the skirmishers.

As we approached a strip of woods, a hundred yards wide, far on our extreme left, we heard a single musket. Then there was another, then another, and in an instant our whole line blazed like a train of powder, in one long sheet of flame.

Right on our front, through the narrow belt of woods, so near that it seemed that we might toss a pebble to them, rose a countless horde of Rebels, almost instantly obscured by the fire from their muskets and the smoke of the batteries.

My confrère and myself were within a few yards of Hooker. It was a very hot place. We could not distinguish the "ping" of the individual bullets, but their combined and mingled hum was like the din of a great Lowell factory. Solid shot and shell came shrieking through the air, but over our heads, as we were on the extreme front.

Hooker—common-place before—the moment he heard the guns, loomed [Pg 282] up into gigantic stature. His eye gleamed with the grand anger of battle. He seemed to know exactly what to do, to feel that he was master of the situation, and to impress every one else with the fact. Turning to one of his staff, and pointing to a spot near us, he said:

The lieutenant rode away. After giving one or two further orders with great clearness, rapidity, and precision, Hooker's eye turned again to that mass of Rebel infantry in the woods, and he said to another officer, with great emphasis:

Sending more messages to the various divisions and batteries, only a single member of the staff remained. Once more scanning the woods with his eager eye, Hooker directed the aid:

"Go, and tell Captain ---- to bring that battery here without one second's delay. Why, my God, how he can pour it into their infantry!"

By this time, several of the body-guard had fallen from their saddles. Our horses plunged wildly. A shell plowed the ground under my rearing steed, and another exploded near Mr. Smalley, throwing great clouds of dust over both of us. Hooker leaped his white horse over a low fence into an adjacent orchard, whither we gladly followed. Though we did not move more than thirty yards, it took us comparatively out of range.

The desired battery, stimulated by three successive messages, came up with smoking horses, at a full run, was unlimbered in the twinkling of an eye, and began to pour shots into the enemy, who were also [Pg 283] suffering severely from our infantry discharges. It was not many seconds before they began to waver. Through the rifting smoke, we could see their line sway to and fro; then it broke like a thaw in a great river. Hooker rose up in his saddle, and, in a voice of suppressed thunder, exclaimed:

Our whole line moved on. It was now nearly dark. Having shared the experience of "Fighting Joe Hooker" quite long enough, I turned toward the rear. Fresh troops were pressing forward, and stragglers were ranged in long lines behind rocks and trees.

Riding slowly along a grassy slope, as I supposed quite out of range, my meditations were disturbed by a cannon-ball, whose rush of air fanned my face, and made my horse shrink and rear almost upright. The next moment came another behind me, and by the great blaze of a fire of rails, which the soldiers had built, I saw it ricochet down the slope, like a foot-ball, and pass right through a column of our troops in blue, who were marching steadily forward. The gap which it made was immediately closed up.

Men with litters were groping through the darkness, bearing the wounded back to the ambulances.

At nine o'clock, I wandered to a farm-house, occupied by some of our pickets. We dared not light candles, as it was within range of the enemy. The family had left. I tied my horse to an apple-tree, and lay down upon the parlor floor, with my saddle for a pillow. At intervals during the night, we heard the popping of musketry, and at the first glimpse of dawn the picket-officer shook me by the arm.

"My friend," said he, "you had better go away as soon as you can; [Pg 284] this place is getting rather hot for civilians."

I rode around through the field, for shot and shell were already screaming up the narrow lane.

Thus commenced the long, hotly-contested battle of Antietam. Our line was three miles in length, with Hooker on the right, Burnside on the left, and a great gap in the middle, occupied only by artillery; while Fitz-John Porter, with his fine corps, was held in reserve. From dawn until nearly dark, the two great armies wrestled like athletes, straining every muscle, losing here, gaining there, and at many points fighting the same ground over and over again. It was a fierce, sturdy, indecisive conflict.

Five thousand spectators viewed the struggle from a hill comparatively out of range. Not more than three persons were struck there during the day. McClellan and his staff occupied another ridge half a mile in the rear.

No one who looked upon that wonderful panorama can describe or forget it. Every hill and valley, every corn-field, grove, and cluster of trees, was fiercely fought for.

The artillery was unceasing; we could often count more than sixty guns to the minute. It was like thunder; and the musketry sounded like the patter of rain-drops in an April shower. On the great field were riderless horses and scattering men, clouds of dirt from solid shot and exploding shells, long dark lines of infantry swaying to and fro, with columns of smoke rising from their muskets, red flashes and white puffs from the batteries—with the sun shining brightly on all this scene of tumult, and beyond it, upon the dark, rich woods, and [Pg 285] the clear blue mountains south of the Potomac.

We saw clearly our entire line, except the extreme left, where Burnside was hidden by intervening ridges; and at times the infantry and cavalry of the Rebels. We could see them press our men, and hear their shrill yells of triumph. Then our columns in blue would move forward, driving them back, with loud, deep-mouthed, sturdy cheers. Once, a great mass of Rebels, in brown and gray, came pouring impetuously through a corn-field, forcing back the Union troops. For a moment both were hidden under a hill; and then up, over the slope came our soldiers, flying in confusion, with the enemy in hot pursuit. But soon after, up rose and opened upon them two long lines of men in blue, with shining muskets, who, hidden behind a ridge, had been lying in wait. The range was short, and the fire was deadly.

The Rebels instantly poured back, and were again lost for a moment behind the hill, our troops hotly following. In a few seconds, they reappeared, rushing tumultuously back into the corn-field. While they were so thick that they looked like swarming bees, one of our batteries, at short range, suddenly commenced dropping shots among them. We could see with distinctness the explosions of the shells, and sometimes even thought we detected fragments of human bodies flying through the air. In that field, the next day, I counted sixty-four of the enemy's dead, lying almost in one mass.

Hooker, wounded before noon, was carried from the field. Had he not been disabled, he would probably have made it a decisive conflict. Realizing that it was one of the world's great days, he said:

"I would gladly have compromised with the enemy by receiving a mortal wound at night, could I have remained at the head of my troops until the sun went down." [Pg 286]

On the left, Burnside, who had a strong, high stone bridge to carry, was sorely pressed. McClellan denied his earnest requests for re-enforcements, though the best corps of the army was then held in reserve.

The Fifteenth Massachusetts Infantry took into the battle five hundred and fifty men, and brought out only one hundred and fifty-six. The Nineteenth Massachusetts, out of four hundred and six men, lost all but one hundred and forty-seven, including every commissioned officer above a first lieutenant. The Fifth New Hampshire, three hundred strong, lost one hundred and ten privates and fourteen officers. Colonel Cross, who seldom went into battle without receiving wounds, was struck in the head by a piece of shell early in the day, but with face crimsoned and eyes dimmed with blood, he led his men until night closed the indecisive conflict.

At night, the four Tribune correspondents, who had witnessed the battle, met at a little farm-house. They prepared hasty reports, by a flickering tallow candle, in a narrow room crowded with wounded and dying.

Mr. Smalley had been with Hooker from the firing of the first gun. Twice his horse had been shot under him, and twice his clothing was cut by bullets. Without food, without sleep, greatly exhausted physically and mentally, he started for New York, writing his report on a railway train during the night, by a very dim light.

Reaching New York at seven in the morning, he found the printers awaiting him; and, an hour later, his account of the conflict, filling five Tribune columns, was being cried in the streets by the news-boys. Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances of its preparation, it was vivid and truthful, and was considered the best battle-report of the war.

CHAPTER XXIV.

In a lull of the musketry, during the battle of Antietam, McClellan rode forward toward the front. On the way, he met a Massachusetts general, who was his old friend and class-mate.

"They have behaved admirably," replied Gordon; "but they are now somewhat scattered."

"Collect them at once. We must fight to-night and fight to-morrow. This is our golden opportunity. If we cannot whip the Rebels here, we may just as well all die on the field."

That was the spirit of the whole army. It was universally expected that McClellan would renew the attack at daylight the next morning; but, though he had many thousand fresh men, and defeat could only be repulse to him, while to the enemy, with the river in his rear, it would be ruin, his constitutional timidity prevented. It was the costliest of mistakes.

Thursday proved a day of rest—such rest as can be found with three miles of dead men to bury, and thousands of wounded to bring from the field. It was a day of standing on the line where the battle closed—of intermittent sharp-shooting and discharges of artillery, [Pg 288] but no general skirmishing, or attempt to advance on either side.

Riding out to the front of General Couch's line, I found the Rebels and our own soldiers mingling freely on the disputed ground, bearing away the wounded. I was scanning a Rebel battery with my field-glass, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, when one of our pickets exclaimed:

"Put up your glass, sir! The Johnnies will shoot in a minute, if they see you using it."

In front of Hancock's lines, a flag of truce was raised. Hancock—erect and soldierly, with smooth face, light eyes, and brown hair, the finest-looking general in our service—accompanied by Meagher, rode forward into a corn-field, and met the young fire-eating brigadier of the Rebels, Roger A. Pryor. Pryor insisted that he had seen a white flag on our front, and asked if we desired permission to remove our dead and wounded. Hancock indignantly denied that we had asked for a truce, as we claimed the ground, stating that, through the whole day, we had been removing and ministering to both Union and Rebel wounded. He suggested a cessation of sharp-shooting until this work could be completed. Pryor declined this, and in ten minutes the firing reopened.

"A great victory," said Wellington, "is the most awful thing in the world, except a great defeat." Antietam, though not an entire victory, had all its terrific features. Our casualties footed up to twelve thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of whom about two thousand were killed on the field.

Between the fences of a road immediately beyond the corn-field, in a space one hundred yards long, I counted more than two hundred Rebel dead, lying where they fell. Elsewhere, over many acres, they [Pg 289] were strewn singly, in groups, and occasionally in masses, piled up almost like cord-wood. They were lying—some with the human form undistinguishable, others with no outward indication of wounds—in all the strange positions of violent death. All had blackened faces. There were forms with every rigid muscle strained in fierce agony, and those with hands folded peacefully upon the bosom; some still clutching their guns, others with arm upraised, and one with a single open finger pointing to heaven. Several remained hanging over a fence which they were climbing when the fatal shot struck them.

It was several days before all the wounded were removed from the field. Many were shockingly mutilated; but the most revolting spectacle I saw was that of a soldier, with three fingers cut off by a bullet, leaving ragged, bloody shreds of flesh.

On Thursday night the sun went down with the opposing forces face to face, and their pickets within stone's throw of each other. On Friday morning the Rebel army was in Virginia, the National army in Maryland. Between dark and daylight, Lee evacuated the position, and carried his whole army across the river. He had no empty breastworks with which to endow us; but he left a field plowed with shot, watered with blood, and sown thick with dead. We found the débris of his late camps, two disabled pieces of artillery, a few hundred of his stragglers, two thousand of his wounded, and as many more of his unburied dead; but not a single field-piece or caisson, ambulance or wagon, not a tent, a box of stores, or a pound of ammunition. He carried with him the supplies gathered in Maryland and the rich spoils of Harper's Ferry.

Adieu to western Maryland, with the stanch loyalty of its suffering people! Adieu to Sharpsburg, which, cut to pieces by our own shot and shell as no other village in America ever was, gave us the warm welcome that comes from the heart! Adieu to the drenched field of Antietam, with its glorious Wednesday, writing for our army a record than which nothing brighter shines through history; with its fatal Thursday, permitting the clean, leisurely escape of the foe down into the valley, across the difficult ford, and up the Virginia Hights! Our army might have been driven back; it could never have been captured or cut to pieces. Failure was only repulse; success was crowning, decisive, final victory. The enemy saw this, and walked undisturbed out of the snare.

Three days ago, our army moved down the left bank of the Potomac, climbing the narrow, tortuous road that winds around the foot of the mountains; under Maryland Hights; across the long, crooked ford above the blackened timbers of the railroad bridge; then up among the long, bare, deserted walls of the ruined Government Armory, past the engine-house which Old John Brown made historic; up through the dingy, antique, oriental looking town of Harper's Ferry, sadly worn, almost washed away by the ebb and flow of war; up through the village of Bolivar to these Hights, where we pitched our tents.

Behind and below us rushed the gleaming river, till its dark, shining surface was broken by rocks. Across it came a line of our stragglers, wading to the knees with staggering steps. Beyond it, the broad forest-clad Maryland Hights rose gloomy and somber. Down behind me, to the river, winding across it like a slender S, then [Pg 291] extending for half a mile on the other side, far up along the Maryland hill, stretched a division-train of snowy wagons, standing out in strong relief from the dark background of water and mountain.

Two weeks ago shots exchanged between the army of Slavery and the army of Freedom shrieked and screamed over the engine-house, where, for two days, Old John Brown held the State of Virginia at bay. A week ago its walls were again shaken by the thunders of cannonade, when the armies met in fruitless battle. Last night, within rifle-shot of it, the President's Proclamation of Emancipation was heard gladly among thirty thousand soldiers.

President Lincoln arrived here yesterday, and reviewed the troops, accompanied by McClellan, Sumner, Hancock, Meagher, and other generals. He appeared in black, wearing a silk hat; and his tall, slender form, and plain clothing, contrasted strangely with the broad shoulders and the blue and gold of the major-general commanding.

He is unusually thin and silent, and looks weary and careworn. He regarded the old engine-house with great interest. It reminded him, he said, of the Illinois custom of naming locomotives after fleet animals, such as the "Reindeer," the "Antelope," the "Flying Dutchman," etc. At the time of the John Brown raid, a new locomotive was named the "Scared Virginians."

The cavalry raid of the Rebel General Stuart, around our entire army, into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and back again, crossing the Potomac without serious loss, is [Pg 292] the one theme of conversation. It was audacious and brilliant. On his return, Stuart passed within five miles of McClellan's head-quarters, which were separated from the rest of the troops by half a mile, and guarded only by a New York regiment. Some of the staff officers are very indignant when they are told that Stuart knew the interest of the Rebels too well to capture our commander.

A reconnoissance to the front, commanded by General Hancock. The column moved briskly over the broad turnpike, through ample fields rich with shocks of corn, past stately farm-houses, with deep shade-trees and orchards, by gray barns, surrounded by hay and grain stacks—beyond our lines, over the debatable ground, past the Rebel picket-stations, in sight of Charlestown, and yet no enemy appeared.

We began to think Confederates a myth. But suddenly a gun belched forth in front of us; another, and yet another, and rifled shot came singing by, cutting through the tree-branches with sharp, incisive music.

Two of our batteries instantly unlimbered, and replied. Our column filled the road. Nearly all the Rebel missiles struck in an apple-orchard within twenty yards of the turnpike; but our men would persist in climbing the trees and gathering the fruit, in spite of the shrieking shells.

I have not yet learned to avoid bowing my head instinctively as a shot screams by; but some old stagers sit perfectly erect, and laughingly remind me of Napoleon's remark to a young officer: "My friend, if that shell were really your fate, it would hit you and kill you if you were a hundred feet underground."

We could plainly see the Rebel cavalry. Far in advance [Pg 293] of all others, was a rider on a milk-white horse, which made him a conspicuous mark. The sharpshooters tried in vain to pick him off, while he sat viewing the artillery drill as complacently as if enjoying a pantomime. Some of our officers declare that they have seen that identical steed and rider on the Rebel front in every fight from Yorktown to Antietam.

After an artillery fire of an hour, in which we lost eight or ten men, the Rebels evacuated Charlestown, and we entered.

The troops take a very keen interest in every thing connected with the historic old man, who, two years ago, yielded up his life in a field which is near our camp. They visit it by hundreds, and pour into the court-house, now open and deserted, where he was tried, and made that wonderful speech which will never die. They scan closely the jail, where he wrote and spoke so many electric words. As our column passed it, one countenance only was visible within—that of a negro, looking through a grated window. How his dusky face lit up behind its prison-bars at the sight of our column, and the words—

Our pickets descried a solitary horseman, with a basket on his arm, jogging soberly toward them. He proved a dark mulatto of about thirty-five, and halted at their order.

"Cap'n Rhett's, of South Caroliny. You'se heard of Mr. Barnwell Rhett, Editor of The Charleston Mercury ; Cap'n is his brother, and commands a battery."

"Cap'n gave me fifteen dollars this morning. He said: 'John, go out and forage for butter and eggs.' So you see, boss" (with a broad grin), "I'se out foraging. I pulled my hat over my eyes, and jogged along on the cap'n's horse, with this basket on my arm, right by our pickets. They never challenged me once. If they had I should have shown them this."

And he produced from his pocket an order in pencil from Captain Rhett to pass his servant John, on horseback, in search of butter and eggs.

"That every slave is to be emancipated after the first day of next January. Isn't that it, boss?"

"Hear of him! Lord bless you, yes; I've his life now in my trunk in Charleston. I've read it to heaps of colored folks. They think John Brown was almost a god. Just say you are a friend of his, and any slave will kiss your feet, if you will let him. They think, if he was only alive now, he would be king. How he did frighten the white folks! It was Sunday morning. I was waiter [Pg 295] at the Mills House, in Charleston. A lady from Massachusetts breakfasted at my table. 'John,' she says, 'I want to see a negro church. Where is the best one?' 'Not any open to-day, Missus,' I told her. 'Why not?' 'Because a Mr. John Brown has raised an insurrection in Virginny, and they don't let the negroes go into the street to-day.' 'Well,' she says, 'they had better look out, or they will get their white churches shut up, too, one of these days.'"

This truly intelligent contraband, being taken to McClellan, replied very modestly and intelligently to questions about the numbers and organization of the Rebel army. At the close of the interview, he asked anxiously:

"I hope you won't, General" (with great earnestness). "I come to you'se all for protection, and I hope you won't."

"Well, then, John, you are at liberty to stay with the army, if you like, or to go where you please. No one can ever make you a slave again."

"May the Lord bless you, General! I thought you wouldn't drive me out. You'se the best friend I ever had. I shall never forget you till I die."

"The view from the mountains at Harper's Ferry," said Thomas Jefferson, "is worth a journey across the Atlantic."

Let us approach it at the lower price of climbing Maryland Hights. The air is soft and wooing to-day. It is the time—

Half way up the mountain, you rest your panting horse at a battery, among bottle-shaped Dahlgrens, sure at thirty-five hundred yards, and capable at their utmost elevation of a range of three miles and a half; black, solemn Parrotts, with iron-banded breech, and shining howitzers of brass. Far up, accessible only to footmen, is a long breast-work, where two of our companies repulsed a Rebel regiment. How high the tide of war must run, when its waves wash this mountain-top! Here, on the extreme summit, is an open tent of the Signal-Corps. It is labeled:

Inside, two operators are gazing at the distant hights, through fixed telescopes, calling out, "45," "169," "81," etc., which the clerk records. Each number represents a letter, syllable, or abbreviated word.

Looking through the long glass toward one of the seven signal-stations, from four to twenty miles away, communicating with this, you see a flag, with some large black figure upon a white foreground. It rises; so many waves to the right; so many to the left. Then a different flag takes its place, and rises and falls in turn.

By these combinations, from one to three words per minute are telegraphed. The operator slowly reads the distant signal to you: "Two— hundred— Rebel— [Pg 297] cavalry— riding— out— of— Charlestown— this— way— field-piece— on—road," and it occupies five minutes. Five miles is an easy distance to communicate, but messages can be sent twenty miles. The Signal-Corps keep on the front; their services are of great value. Several of the members have been wounded and some killed.

You are on the highest point of the Blue Ridge, four thousand feet above the sea, one thousand above the Potomac.

Along the path by which you came, climbs a pony; on the pony's back a negro; on the negro's head a bucket of water; then a mule, bearing a coffee-sack, containing at each end a keg of water. Thus all provisions are brought up. Here, in the early morning, you could only look out upon a cold, shoreless sea of white fog. Now, you look down upon all the country within a radius of twenty miles, as you would gaze into your garden from your own house-top.

You see the Potomac winding far away in a thread of silver, broken by shrubs, rocks, and islands. At your feet lies Pleasant Valley, a great furrow—two miles across, from edge to edge—plowed through the mountains. It is full of camps, white villages of tents, and black groups of guns. You see cozy dwellings, with great, well-filled barns, red brick mills, straw-colored fields dotted with shocks of corn and reaching far up into the dark, hill-side woods, green sward-fields, mottled with orchards, and a little shining stream. A dim haze rests upon the mountain-guarded picture, and the soft wind seems to sing with Whittier:

See the regiments on dress parade; long lines of dark blue, with bayonets that flash brightly in the waning sunlight. When dismissed, each breaks into companies, which move toward their quarters like monster antediluvian reptiles, with myriads of blue legs.

On that distant hill-side, just at the forest's edge, in the midst of a group of tents, are Burnside's head-quarters. Through your field-glass, you see standing in front of them the military man whose ambition has a limit. He has twice refused to accept the chief command of the army. There stands Burnside, the favorite of the troops, in blue shirt, knit jacket, and riding-boots, with frank, manly face, and full, laughing eyes.

Under your feet are Bolivar Hights, crowned with the tents of Couch's Corps—dingy by reason of long service, like a Spring snow-drift through which the dirt begins to sift. You see the quaint old village of Harper's Ferry, and glimpses of the Potomac—gold in the sunset—with trees and rocks mirrored in its mellow face.

The sun goes down, and the glory of the western hills fades as you slowly descend; but the picture you have seen is one which memory paints in fast colors.

CHAPTER XXV.

When the army left Harper's Ferry, on a forced march, it moved, with incredible celerity, thirty miles in nine days!

The Virginians east of the Blue Ridge were nearly all hot Secessionists. The troops, who had behaved well among the Union people of Maryland, saw the contrast, and spoiled the Egyptians accordingly. I think if Pharaoh had seen his homestead passed over by a hungry, hostile force, he would have let the people go.

In the presence of the army, many professed a sort of loyal neutrality, or neutral loyalty; but I did not hear a single white Virginian of either sex claim to be an unconditional Unionist.

At Woodgrove, one evening, finding that we should not go into camp before midnight, I sought supper and lodging at a private house of the better class. My middle-aged host and his two young, unmarried sisters, were glad to entertain some one from the army, to protect their dwelling against stragglers.

The elder girl, of about eighteen, was almost a monomaniac upon the war. She declared she had no aspiration for heaven, if any Yankees were to be there. She would be proud to kiss the dirtiest, raggedest soldier in [Pg 300] the Rebel army. I refrained from discussing politics with her, and we talked of other subjects.

During the evening, Generals Gorman and Burns reached the house to seek shelter for the night. The officers, discovering the sensitiveness of the poor girl, expressed the most ultra sentiments. Well educated, and with a tongue like a rapier, she was at times greatly excited, and the blood crimsoned her face; but she out-talked them all.

"Read it! I would not touch it with a pair of tongs! It is the most infamous Abolition, negro-equality sheet in the whole world!"

"So a great many people say," continued Burns. "However, here is one of its correspondents."

"I thought you were deceiving me. That is no Tribune correspondent. I do not believe you." (To me:) "This Yankee officer says that you write for The New York Tribune . You don't, do you?"

"Why, you seem to be a gentleman. It is not true! It's a jest between you just to make me angry. ' "

At last convinced, she withheld altogether from me the expected vituperation, but assailed Burns in a style which made him very glad to abandon the unequal contest. She relentlessly persisted that he should always wear his star, for nobody would suspect him of being a [Pg 301] general if he appeared without his uniform—that he was the worst type of the most obnoxious Yankee, etc.

At Upperville, the next day, I inquired of a woman who was scrutinizing us from her door:

"Well, Uncle," I asked of a white-haired patriarch, who was tottering along the road, "are you a Rebel, like everybody else?"

"No, sir! What should I be a Rebel for? I have been wanting to come to you all a heap of times; but I just watched and waited."

Watching and waiting! Four millions of negroes were watching and waiting from the beginning of the war until President Lincoln's Proclamation.

On the march, Major O'Neil, of General Meagher's staff, started with a message to Burnside, who was a few miles on our left. Unsuspectingly, he rode right into a squad of cavalry dressed in United States uniform. He found that they were Stuart's Rebels in disguise, and that he was a captive. O'Neil had only just been exchanged from Libby Prison, and his prospect was disheartening. The delighted Rebels sent him to their head-quarters in Bloomfield, under guard of a lieutenant and two men. But, on reaching the village, they found the head-quarters closed.

"I wonder where our forces are gone," said the Rebel officer. "Oh, here they are! Men, guard the prisoner while I ride to them."

And he galloped down the street to a company of [Pg 302] approaching cavalry. Just as he reached them, they leveled their carbines, and cried:

He had made precisely the same mistake as Major O'Neil, and ridden into our cavalry instead of his own. So, after spending three hours in the hands of the Rebels, O'Neil found himself once more in our lines, accompanied by three Rebel prisoners.

The slaveholders complained greatly of the depredations of our army. A very wealthy planter, who had lost nothing of much value, drew for me a frightful picture of impending starvation.

"I could bear it myself," exclaimed this Virginian Pecksniff, "but it is very hard for these little negroes, who are almost as dear to me as my own children."

He had one of the young Africans upon his knee, and it was quite as white as "his own children," who were running about the room. The only perceptible difference was that its hair was curly, while theirs was straight.

At Warrenton, on the 7th of November, McClellan was relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac. He issued the following farewell:

McClellan's political and personal friends were aggrieved and indignant at his removal in the midst of a campaign. Three of his staff officers even made a foolish attempt to assault a Tribune correspondent, on account of the supposed hostility of that journal toward their commander. General McClellan, upon hearing of it, sent a disclaimer and apology, and the officers were soon heartily ashamed.

The withdrawal was worked up to its utmost dramatic effect. Immediately after reading the farewell order to all the troops, there was a final review, in which the outgoing and incoming generals, with their long staffs, rode along the lines. Salutes were fired and colors dipped. At some points, the men cheered warmly, but the new regiments were "heroically reticent." McClellan's chief strength was with the rank and file.

Burnside pushed the army rapidly forward to the Rappahannock. The Rebels held Fredericksburg, on the south bank. The men conversed freely across the stream. One day I heard a dialogue like this:

"You made it too hot. Your shots drove away the cannoneers, and they haven't stopped running yet. We infantry men had to come out and withdraw the guns."

By this time, War Correspondence was employing hundreds of pens. The Tribune had from five to eight men in the Army of the Potomac, and twelve west of the Alleghanies. My own local habitation was the head-quarters of Major-General O. O. Howard, who afterward won wide reputation in Tennessee and Georgia, and who is an officer of great skill, bravery, and personal purity.

My dispatches were usually prepared, and those of my associates sent to me, at night. Before dawn, a special messenger called at my tent for them, and bore them on horseback, or by railway and steamer, to Washington, whence they were forwarded to New York by mail or telegraph.

Correspondents usually lived at the head-quarters of some general officer, bearing their due proportion of mess expenditures; but they were compelled to rely upon the bounty of quartermasters for forage for their horses, and transportation for their baggage.

Having no legal and recognized positions in the army, they were sometimes liable to supercilious treatment from young members of staff. They were sure of politeness and consideration from generals; yet, particularly in the regular army, there was a certain impression that they deserved Halleck's characterization of "unauthorized hangers-on." To encourage the best class of journalists to accompany the army, there should be a law distinctly authorizing representatives of the Press, who are engaged in no other pursuit, to accompany troops in the field, and purchase forage and provisions at the same rates as officers. They should, of course, be held to a just responsibility [Pg 305] not to publish information which could benefit the enemy.

Nightly, around our great division camp-fire, negroes of all ages pored over their spelling-books with commendable thirst for learning.

One boy, of fourteen, was considered peculiarly stupid, and had seen hard work, rough living, and no pay, during his twelve months' sojourn with the army. I asked him: "Did you work as hard for your old master as you do here?"

In December occurred the battle of Fredericksburg. The enemy's position was very strong—almost impregnable. Our men were compelled to lay their pontoons across the river in a pitiless rain of bullets from the Rebel sharpshooters. But they did it without flinching. Our troops, rank, file, and officers, marched into the jaws of death with stubborn determination.

We attacked in three columns; but the original design [Pg 306] was that the main assault should be on our left, which was commanded by General Franklin. A road which Franklin wished to reach would enable him to come up in the rear of Fredericksburg, and compel the enemy to evacuate his strong works, or be captured. Franklin was very late in starting. He penetrated once to this road, but did not know it, and again fell back. Thus the key to the position was lost.

In the center, our troops were flung upon very strong works, and repulsed with terrible slaughter. It proved a massacre rather than a battle. Our killed and wounded exceeded ten thousand.

I was not present at the battle, but returned to the army two or three days after. Burnside deported himself with rare fitness and magnanimity. As he spoke to me about the brave men who had fruitlessly fallen, there were tears in his eyes, and his voice broke with emotion. When I asked him if Franklin's slowness was responsible for the slaughter, he replied:

"No. I understand perfectly well that when the general commanding an army meets with disaster, he alone is responsible, and I will not attempt to shift that responsibility upon any one else. No one will ever know how near we came to a great victory. It almost seems to me now that I could have led my old Ninth Corps into those works."

Indeed, Burnside had desired to do this, but was dissuaded by his lieutenants. The Ninth Corps would have followed him anywhere; but that would have been certain death.

Burnside was, at least, great in his earnestness, his moral courage, and perfect integrity. The battle was better than squandering precious lives in fevers and dysentery during months of inaction. Better a soldier's death on [Pg 307] the enemy's guns than a nameless grave in the swamps of the Chickahominy or the trenches before Corinth.

Ordered to move, Burnside obeyed without quibbling or hesitating, and flung his army upon the Rebels. The result was defeat; but that policy proved our salvation at last; by that sign we conquered.

Every private soldier knew that the battle of Fredericksburg was a costly and bloody mistake, and yet I think on the day or the week following it, the soldiers would have gone into battle just as cheerfully and sturdily as before. The more I saw of the Army of the Potomac, the more I wondered at its invincible spirit, which no disasters seemed able to destroy.

In January, among the lookers-on in Virginia, was the Hon. Henry J. Raymond, of The Times . He had a brother in the service, and one day he received this telegram:—

Hastening to the army as fast as steam could carry him, to perform the last sad offices of affection, he found his relative not only living, but in vigorous health. Through the eccentricities of the telegraph, the word corps had been changed into corpse .

On the 22d of January, Burnside attempted another advance, designing to cross the Rappahannock in three columns. The weather for a long time had been fine, but, a few hours after the army started, the heavens opened, and converted the Virginia roads into almost fathomless mire. Advance seemed out of the question, and in two days the troops came back to camp. The Rebels understood the cause, and prepared an enormous sign, which they erected on their side of the river, in full [Pg 308] view of our pickets, bearing the inscription, " Stuck in the mud! "

Still on the north bank of the Rappahannock! Upon the high bluffs, along a line of three miles, twenty-four of our guns point threateningly toward the enemy. In the ravines behind them a hundred more wait, ready to be wheeled up and placed in position.

Upon the hills south of the river, distant from them a thousand to five thousand yards, Rebel guns confront them. Some peer blackly through hastily-built earthworks; some are just visible over the crests of sharp ridges; some almost hidden by great piles of brush. Already we count eighteen; the cannonading will unmask many more.

In front of our right batteries, but far below and hidden from them, the antique, narrow, half-ruined village of Falmouth hugs the river. In front of the Rebel batteries, in full view of both sides, the broad, well-to-do town of Fredericksburg, with its great factories, tall spires, and brick buildings, is a tempting target for our guns. The river which flows between (though Fredericksburg is half a mile below Falmouth), is now so narrow, that a lad can throw a stone across.

Behind our batteries and their protecting hills rests the infantry of the Grand Division. General Couch's corps occupies a crescent-shaped valley—a symmetric natural amphitheater. It is all aglow nightly with a [Pg 309] thousand camp-fires; and, from the proscenium-hill of General Howard's head-quarters, forms a picture mocking all earthly canvas. Behind the Rebel batteries, in the dense forest, their infantry occupies a line five miles long. By night we just detect the glimmer of their fires; by day we see the tall, slender columns of smoke curling up from their camps.

All the citizens ask to have guards placed over their houses; but very few obtain them. "I will give no man a guard," replied General Howard to one of these applicants, "until he is willing to lose as much as I have lost, in defending the Government." The Virginian cast one long, lingering look at the General's loose, empty coat-sleeve (he lost his right arm while leading his brigade at Fair Oaks), and went away, the picture of despair.

The general tone of the army is good; far better than could be expected. There is regret for our failure, sympathy for our wounded, mourning for our honored dead; but I find little discouragement and no demoralization.

This is largely owing to the splendid conduct of all our troops. The men are hopeful because there are few of the usual jealousies and heart-burnings. No one is able to say, "If this division had not broken," or "if that regiment had done its duty, we might have won." The concurrence of testimony is universal, that our men in every division did better than they ever did before, and made good their claim to being the best troops in the world. We have had victories without merit, but this was a defeat without dishonor.

In many respects—in all respects but the failure of [Pg 310] its vital object—the battle of Fredericksburg was the finest thing of the war. Laying the bridge, pushing the army across, after the defeat withdrawing it successfully—all were splendidly done, and redound alike to the skill of the general and the heroism of the troops.

And those men and officers of the Seventh Michigan, the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, and the Eighty-ninth New York, who eagerly crossed the river in open boats, in the teeth of that pitiless rain of bullets, and dislodged the sharpshooters who were holding our whole army at bay—what shall we say of them? Let the name of every man of them be secured now, and preserved in a roll of honor; let Congress see to it that, by medal or ribbon to each, the Republic gives token of gratitude to all who do such royal deeds in its defense. To the living, at least, we can be just. The fallen, who were left by hundreds in line of battle, "dead on the field of honor," we cannot reward; but He who permits no sparrow to fall to the ground unheeded, will see to it that no drop of their precious blood has been shed in vain.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The assassination of President Lincoln, while these chapters are in press, attaches a sad interest to everything connected with his memory.

During the great canvass for the United States Senate, between Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas s , the right of Congress to exclude Slavery from the Territories was the chief point in dispute. Kansas was the only region to which it had any practical application; and we, who were residing there, read the debates with peculiar interest.

No such war of intellects, on the rostrum, was ever witnessed in America. Entirely without general culture, more ignorant of books than any other public man of his day, Douglas s was christened "the Little Giant" by the unerring popular instinct. He who, without the learning of the schools, and without preparation, could cope with Webster, Seward, and Sumner, surely deserved that appellation. He despised study. Rising after one of Mr. Sumner's most scholarly and elaborate speeches, he said: "Mr. President, this is very elegant and able, but we all know perfectly well that the Massachusetts Senator has been rehearsing it every night for a month, before a looking-glass, with a negro holding a candle!"

Douglas s was, beyond all cotemporaries, a man of the [Pg 312] people. Lincoln, too, was distinctively of the masses; but he represented their sober, second thought, their higher aspirations, their better possibilities. Douglas s embodied their average impulses, both good and bad. Upon the stump, his fluency, his hard common sense, and his wonderful voice, which could thunder like the cataract, or whisper with the breeze, enabled him to sway them at his will.

Hitherto invincible at home, he now found a foeman worthy of his steel. All over the country people began to ask about this "Honest Abe Lincoln," whose inexhaustible anecdotes were so droll, yet so exactly to the point; whose logic was so irresistible; whose modesty, fairness, and personal integrity, won golden opinions from his political enemies; who, without "trimming," enjoyed the support of the many-headed Opposition in Illinois, from the Abolition Owen Lovejoys of the northern counties, down to the "conservative" old Whigs of the Egyptian districts, who still believed in the divinity of Slavery.

Those who did not witness it will never comprehend the universal and intense horror at every thing looking toward "negro equality" which then prevailed in southern Illinois. Republican politicians succumbed to it. In their journals and platforms they sometimes said distinctly: "We care nothing for the negro. We advocate his exclusion from our State. We oppose Slavery in the Territories only because it is a curse to the white man." Mr. Lincoln never descended to this level. In his plain, moderate, conciliatory way, he would urge upon his simple auditors that this matter had a Right and a Wrong—that the great Declaration of their fathers meant something. And—always his strong point—he would put this so clearly to the common [Pg 313] apprehension, and so touch the people's moral sense, that his opponents found their old cries of "Abolitionist" and "Negro-worshiper" hollow and powerless.

His defeat, by a very slight majority, proved victory in disguise. The debates gave him a National reputation. Republican executive committees in other States issued verbatim reports of the speeches of both Douglas s and Lincoln, bound up together in the order of their delivery. They printed them just as they stood, without one word of comment, as the most convincing plea for their cause. Rarely, if ever, has any man received so high a compliment as was thus paid to Mr. Lincoln.

In Kansas his stories began to stick like chestnut-burrs in the popular ear—to pass from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to cabin. The young lawyers, physicians, and other politicians who swarm in the new country, began to quote from his arguments in their public speeches, and to regard him as the special champion of their political faith.

Late in the Autumn of 1859 he visited the Territory for the first and last time. With Marcus J. Parrott, Delegate in Congress, A. Carter Wilder, afterward Representative, and Henry Villard, a Journalist, I went to Troy, in Doniphan County, to hear him. In the imaginative language of the frontier, Troy was a "town"—possibly a city. But, save a shabby frame court-house, a tavern, and a few shanties, its urban glories were visible only to the eye of faith. It was intensely cold. The sweeping prairie wind rocked the crazy buildings, and cut the faces of travelers like a knife. Mr. Wilder froze his hand during our ride, and Mr. Lincoln's party arrived wrapped in buffalo-robes.

Not more than forty people assembled in that little, bare-walled court-house. There was none of the magnetism [Pg 314] of a multitude to inspire the long, angular, ungainly orator, who rose up behind a rough table. With little gesticulation, and that little ungraceful, he began, not to declaim, but to talk. In a conversational tone, he argued the question of Slavery in the Territories, in the language of an average Ohio or New York farmer. I thought, "If the Illinoisans consider this a great man, their ideas must be very peculiar."

But in ten or fifteen minutes I was unconsciously and irresistibly drawn by the clearness and closeness of his argument. Link after link it was forged and welded like a blacksmith's chain. He made few assertions, but merely asked questions: "Is not this true? If you admit that fact, is not this induction correct?" Give him his premises, and his conclusions were inevitable as death.

His fairness and candor were very noticeable. He ridiculed nothing, burlesqued nothing, misrepresented nothing. So far from distorting the views held by Mr. Douglas s and his adherents, he stated them with more strength probably than any one of their advocates could have done. Then, very modestly and courteously, he inquired into their soundness. He was too kind for bitterness, and too great for vituperation.

His anecdotes, of course, were felicitous and illustrative. He delineated the tortuous windings of the Democracy upon the Slavery question, from Thomas Jefferson down to Franklin Pierce. Whenever he heard a man avow his determination to adhere unswervingly to the principles of the Democratic party, it reminded him, he said, of a "little incident" in Illinois. A lad, plowing upon the prairie, asked his father in what direction he should strike a new furrow. The parent replied, "Steer for that yoke of oxen standing at the further end [Pg 315] of the field." The father went away, and the lad obeyed. But just as he started, the oxen started also. He kept steering for them; and they continued to walk. He followed them entirely around the field, and came back to the starting-point, having furrowed a circle instead of a line!

The address lasted for an hour and three-quarters. Neither rhetorical, graceful, nor eloquent, it was still very fascinating. The people of the frontier believe profoundly in fair play, and in hearing both sides. So they now called for an aged ex-Kentuckian, who was the heaviest slaveholder in the Territory. Responding, he thus prefaced his remarks:—

"I have heard, during my life, all the ablest public speakers—all the eminent statesmen of the past and the present generation. And while I dissent utterly from the doctrines of this address, and shall endeavor to refute some of them, candor compels me to say that it is the most able and the most logical speech I ever listened to."

I have alluded in earlier pages, to remarks touching the reports that Mr. Lincoln would be assassinated, which I heard in the South, on the day of his first inauguration. Afterward, in my presence, several persons of the wealthy, slaveholding class, alluded to the subject, some having laid wagers upon the event. I heard but one man condemn the proposed assassination, and he was a Unionist. Again and again, leading journals, which were called reputable, asked: "Is there no Brutus to rid the world of this tyrant?" Rewards were openly proposed for the President's head. If Mr. Lincoln had then been murdered in Baltimore, every thorough Secession journal in the South would have expressed its approval, directly or indirectly. Of course, I do not believe that the masses, or all Secessionists, [Pg 316] would have desired such a stain upon the American name; but even then, as afterward, when they murdered our captured soldiers, and starved, froze, and shot our prisoners, the men who led and controlled the Rebels appeared deaf to humanity and to decency. Charity would fain call them insane; but there was too much method in their madness.

Their last, great crime of all was, perhaps, needed for an eternal monument of the influence of Slavery. It was fitting that they who murdered Lovejoy, who crimsoned the robes of young Kansas, who aimed their gigantic Treason at the heart of the Republic, before the curtain went down, should crown their infamy by this deed without a name. It was fitting that they should seek the lives of President Lincoln, General Grant, and Secretary Seward, the three officers most conspicuous of all for their mildness and clemency. It was fitting they should assassinate a Chief Magistrate, so conscientious, that his heavy responsibility weighed him down like a millstone; so pure, that partisan rancor found no stain upon the hem of his garment; so gentle, that e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; so merciful, that he stood like an averting angel between them and the Nation's vengeance.

The Rebel newspapers represented him—a man who used neither spirits nor tobacco—as in a state of constant intoxication. They ransacked the language for epithets. Their chief hatred was called out by his origin. He illustrated the Democratic Idea, which was inconceivably repugnant to them. That a man who sprang from the people, worked with his hands, actually split rails in boyhood, should rise to the head of a Government which included Southern gentlemen, was bitter beyond description!

On the 28th of December, 1862, Sherman fought the battle of Chickasaw Bayou, one of our first fruitless attempts to capture Vicksburg. Grant designed to co-operate by an attack from the rear, but his long supply-line extended to Columbus, Kentucky, though he might have established a nearer base at Memphis. Van Dorn cut his communications at Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Grant was compelled to fall back.

Sherman's attack proved a serious disaster. Our forces were flung upon an almost impregnable bluff, where we lost about two thousand five hundred men, and were then compelled to retreat.

In the old quarrel between Sherman and the Press, as usual, there was blame upon both sides. Some of the correspondents had treated him unjustly; and he had not learned the quiet patience and faith in the future which Grant exhibited under similar circumstances. At times he manifested much irritation and morbid sensitiveness.

A well-known correspondent, Mr. Thomas W. Knox, was present at the battle, and placed his report of it, duly sealed, and addressed to a private citizen, in the military mail at Sherman's head-quarters. One "Colonel" A. H. Markland, of Kentucky, United States Postal Agent, on mere surmise about its contents, took the letter from the mail and permitted it to be opened. He insisted afterward that he did this by Sherman's express command. Sherman denied giving any such order, but said he was satisfied with Markland's course.

Markland should have been arrested for robbing the Government mails, which he was sworn to protect. There was no reasonable pretext for asserting that the letter would give information to the enemy; therefore it did not imperil the public interest. If General Sherman [Pg 318] deemed it unjust to himself individually, he had his remedy, like any other citizen or soldier, in the courts of the country and the justice of the people.

The purloined dispatch was left for four or five days lying about Sherman's head-quarters, open to the inspection of officers. Finally, upon Knox's written request, it was returned to him, though a map which it contained was kept—as he rather pungently suggested, probably for the information of the military authorities!

Knox's letter had treated the generalship of the battle very tenderly. But after this proceeding he immediately forwarded a second account, which expressed his views on the subject in very plain English. Its return in print caused great excitement at head-quarters. Knox was arrested, and tried before a military tribunal on these charges:—

The court-martial sat for fifteen days. It acquitted Knox upon the first and second charges. Of course, he was found guilty of the third. After some hesitation between sentencing him to receive a written censure, or to leave Grant's department, the latter was decided upon, and he was banished from the army lines.

When information of this proceeding reached Washington, the members of the press at once united in a memorial to the President, asking him to set aside the sentence, inasmuch as the violated Article of War was altogether obsolete, and the practice of sending newspaper letters, without any official scrutiny, had been [Pg 319] universal, with the full sanction of the Government, from the outset of the Rebellion. It was further represented that Mr. Knox was thoroughly loyal, and the most scrupulously careful of all the army correspondents to write nothing which, by any possibility, could give information to the enemy. Colonel John W. Forney headed the memorial, and all the journalists in Washington signed it.

One evening, with Mr. James M. Winchell, of The New York Times, and Mr. H. P. Bennett, Congressional Delegate from Colorado, I called upon the President to present the paper.

After General Sigel and Representative John B. Steele had left, he chanced to be quite at liberty. Upon my introduction, he remarked:—

"Oh, yes, I remember you perfectly well: you were out on the prairies with me on that winter day when we almost froze to death; you were then correspondent of The Boston Journal . That German from Leavenworth was also with us—what was his name?"

"Hatterscheit?" I suggested. "Yes, Hatterscheit! By-the-way" (motioning us to seats, and settling down into his chair, with one leg thrown over the arm), "that reminds me of a little story, which Hatterscheit told me during the trip. He bought a pony of an Indian, who could not speak much English, but who, when the bargain was completed, said: 'Oats—no! Hay—no! Corn—no! Cottonwood—yes! very much!' Hatterscheit thought this was mere drunken maundering; but a few nights after, he tied his horse in a stable built of cottonwood logs, fed him with hay and corn, and went quietly to bed. The next morning he found the grain and fodder untouched, but the barn was quite empty, with a great hole on one side, which the pony had gnawed his [Pg 320] way through! Then he comprehended the old Indian's fragmentary English."

This suggested another reminiscence of the same Western trip. Somewhere in Nebraska the party came to a little creek, the Indian name of which signified weeping water. Mr. Lincoln remarked, with a good deal of aptness, that, as laughing water, according to Longfellow, was "Minne-haha," the name of this rivulet should evidently be "Minne-boohoo."

These inevitable preliminaries ended, we presented the memorial asking the President to interpose in behalf of Mr. Knox. He promptly answered he would do so if Grant coincided. We reminded him that this was improbable, as Sherman and Grant were close personal friends. After a moment's hesitancy he replied, with courtesy, but with emphasis:—

"I should be glad to serve you or Mr. Knox, or any other loyal journalist. But, just at present, our generals in the field are more important to the country than any of the rest of us, or all the rest of us. It is my fixed determination to do nothing whatever which can possibly embarrass any one of them. Therefore, I will do cheerfully what I have said, but it is all I can do."

There was too much irresistible good sense in this to permit any further discussion. The President took up his pen and wrote, reflecting a moment from time to time, the following:—

Reading it over carefully, he handed it to me, and gave a little sigh of relief. General conversation ensued. Despondent and weighed down with his load of care, he sought relief in frank speaking. He said, with great earnestness: "God knows that I want to do what is wise and right, but sometimes it is very difficult to determine."

He conversed freely of military affairs, but suddenly remarked: "I am talking again! Of course, you will remember that I speak to you only as friends; that none of this must be put in print."

Touching an attack upon Charleston which had long been contemplated, he said that Du Pont had promised, some weeks before, if certain supplies were furnished, to make the assault upon a given day. The supplies were promptly forwarded; the day came and went without any intelligence. Some time after, he sent an officer to Washington, asking for three more iron-clads and a large quantity of deck-plating as indispensable to the preparations.

"I told the officer to say to Commodore Du Pont," observed Mr. Lincoln, "that I fear he does not appreciate at all the value of time."

The Army of the Potomac was next spoken of. The great Fredericksburg disaster was recent, and the public heart was heavy. In regard to General McClellan, the President spoke with discriminating justice:—

"I do not, as some do, regard McClellan either as a [Pg 324] traitor or an officer without capacity. He sometimes has bad counselors, but he is loyal, and he has some fine military qualities. I adhered to him after nearly all my Constitutional advisers lost faith in him. But do you want to know when I gave him up? It was after the battle of Antietam. The Blue Ridge was then between our army and Lee's. We enjoyed the great advantage over them which they usually had over us: we had the short line, and they the long one, to the Rebel Capital. I directed McClellan peremptorily to move on Richmond. It was eleven days before he crossed his first man over the Potomac; it was eleven days after that before he crossed the last man. Thus he was twenty-two days in passing the river at a much easier and more practicable ford than that where Lee crossed his entire army between dark one night and daylight the next morning. That was the last grain of sand which broke the camel's back. I relieved McClellan at once. As for Hooker, I have told him forty times that I fear he may err just as much one way as McClellan does the other—may be as over-daring as McClellan is over-cautious."

We inquired about the progress of the Vicksburg campaign. Our armies were on a long expedition up the Yazoo River, designing, by digging canals and threading bayous, to get in the rear of the city and cut off its supplies. Mr. Lincoln said:—

"Of course, men who are in command and on the spot, know a great deal more than I do. But immediately in front of Vicksburg, where the river is a mile wide, the Rebels plant batteries, which absolutely stop our entire fleets. Therefore it does seem to me that upon narrow streams like the Yazoo, Yallabusha, and Tallahatchie, not wide enough for a long boat to turn around in, if any of our steamers which go there ever come [Pg 325] back, there must be some mistake about it. If the enemy permits them to survive, it must be either through lack of enterprise or lack of sense."

A few months later, Mr. Lincoln was able to announce to the nation: "The Father of Waters again flows unvexed to the sea."

Our interview left no grotesque recollections of the President's lounging, his huge hands and feet, great mouth, or angular features. We remembered rather the ineffable tenderness which shone through his gentle eyes, his childlike ingenuousness, his utter integrity, and his absorbing love of country.

Ignorant of etiquette and conventionalities, without the graces of form or of manner, his great reluctance to give pain, his beautiful regard for the feelings of others, made him

Strong without symmetry, humorous without levity, religious without cant—tender, merciful, forgiving, a profound believer in Divine love, an earnest worker for human brotherhood—Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the best contribution which America has made to History.

His origin among humble laborers, his native judgment, better than the wisdom of the schools, his perfect integrity, his very ruggedness and angularities, made him fit representative of the young Nation which loved and honored him.

No more shall sound above our tumultuous rejoicing his wise caution, "Let us be very sober." No more shall breathe through the passions of the hour his tender pleading that judgment may be tempered with mercy. His work is done. Nothing could have assured and enlarged his posthumous fame like this tragic ending. He [Pg 326] goes to a place in History where his peers will be very few. The poor wretch who struck the blow has gone to be judged by infinite Justice, and also by infinite Mercy. So have many others indirectly responsible for the murder, and directly responsible for the war. Let us remember them in no Pharisaic spirit, thanking God that we are not as other men—but as warnings of what a race with many generous and manly traits may become by being guilty of injustice and oppression.

Some of the President's last expressions were words of mercy for his enemies. A few hours before his death, in a long interview with his trusted and honored friend Schuyler Colfax, he stated that he wished to give the Rebel leaders an opportunity to leave the country and escape the vengeance which seemed to await them here.

America is never likely to feel again the profound, universal grief which followed the death of Abraham Lincoln. Even the streets of her great Metropolis "forgot to roar." Hung were the heavens in black. For miles, every house was draped in mourning. The least feeling was manifested by that sham aristocracy, which had the least sympathy with the Union cause and with the Democratic Idea. The deepest was displayed by the "plain people" and the poor.

What death is happier than thus to be wept by the lowly and oppressed, as a friend and protector! What life is nobler than thus to be filled, in his own golden words, "with charity for all, with malice toward none!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

During the month of March, Major-General Edwin V. Sumner was in Washington, apparently in vigorous health. He had just been appointed to the command of the Department of the Missouri. One Saturday evening, having received his final orders, he was about leaving for his home in Syracuse, New York, where he designed spending a few days before starting for St. Louis.

I went into his room to bid him adieu. Allusion was made to the allegations of speculation against General Curtis, his predecessor in the West. "I trust," said he, "they are untrue. No general has a right to make one dollar out of his official position, beyond the salary which his Government pays him." He talked somewhat in detail of the future, remarking, "For the present, I shall remain in St. Louis; but whenever there is a prospect of meeting the enemy, I shall take the field, and lead my troops in person. Some men can fight battles over a telegraph-wire, but you know I have no talent in that direction."

With his friendly grasp of the hand, and his kindly smile, he started for home. It proved to him Home indeed. A week later the country was startled by intelligence of his sudden death. He, who for forty-eight [Pg 328] years had braved the hardships of campaigning and the perils of battle, until he seemed to have a charmed life, was abruptly cut down by disease under his own roof, surrounded by those he loved.

For almost half a century, Sumner had belonged to the Army of the United States; but he steadfastly refused to be put on the retired list. Entering the service from civil life, he was free from professional traditions and narrowness. Senator Wade once asked him, "How long were you at the Military Academy?" He replied, "I was never there in my life."

The bluff Ohioan sprang up and shook him fervidly by the hand, exclaiming, "Thank God for one general of the regular Army, who was never at West Point!"

During the early Kansas troubles, Sumner, then a colonel, was stationed in the Territory with his regiment of dragoons. Unscrupulous as were the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan in their efforts to force Slavery upon Kansas, embittered as were the people against the troops,—generally mere tools of Missouri ruffians—their feelings toward Sumner were kindly and grateful. They knew he was a just man, who would not willingly harass or oppress them, and who sympathized with them in their fiery trial.

From the outbreak of the Slaveholders' Rebellion his name was one of the brightest in that noble but unfortunate army which illustrated Northern discipline and valor on so many bloody fields, but had never yet gathered the fruits of victory. He was always in the deadliest of the fighting. He had the true soldierly temperament. He snuffed the battle afar off. He felt [Pg 329] "the rapture of the strife," and went into it with boyish enthusiasm.

In exposing himself, he was Imprudence personified. It was the chronic wonder of his friends that he ever came out of battle alive. At last they began to believe, with him, that he was invincible. He would receive bullets in his hat, coat, boots, saddle, horse, and sometimes have his person scratched, but without serious injury. His soldiers related, with great relish, that in the Mexican War a ball which struck him square in the forehead fell flattened to the ground without breaking the skin, as the bullet glances from the forehead of the buffalo. This anecdote won for him the soubriquet of "Old Buffalo."

At Fair Oaks, his troops were trembling under a pitiless storm of bullets, when he galloped up and down the advance line, more exposed than any private in the ranks.

"I, too, am from Massachusetts; three cheers for our old Bay State!" And swinging his hat, the general led off, and every soldier joined in three thundering cheers. The enemy looked on in wonder at the strange episode, but was driven back by the fierce charge which followed.

This was no unusual scene. Whenever the guns began to pound, his mild eye would flash with fire. He would remove his artificial teeth, which became troublesome during the excitement of battle, and place them carefully in his pocket; raise his spectacles from his eyes and rest them upon the forehead, that he might see clearly objects at a distance; give his orders to subordinates, [Pg 330] and then gallop headlong into the thick of the fight.

Hundreds of soldiers were familiar with the erect form, the snowy, streaming hair, and the frank face of that wonderful old man who, on the perilous edge of battle, while they were falling like grass before the mower, would dash through the fire and smoke, shouting:—

"Steady, men, steady! Don't be excited. When you have been soldiers as long as I, you will learn that this is nothing. Stand firm and do your duty!"

Never seeking a dramatic effect, he sometimes displayed quiet heroism worthy of history's brightest pages. Once, quite unconsciously reproducing a historic scene, he repeated, almost word for word, the address of the great Frederick to his officers, before the battle of Leuthen. It was on the bloody field of Fair Oaks, at the end of the second day. He commanded the forces which had crossed the swollen stream. But before the other troops came up, the bridges were swept away. The army was then cut in twain; and Sumner, with his three shattered corps, was left to the mercy of the enemy's entire force.

On that Sunday night, after making his dispositions to receive an attack, he sent for General Sedgwick, his special friend and a most trusty soldier:—

"Sedgwick, you perceive the situation. The enemy will doubtless open upon us at daylight. Re-enforcements are impossible; he can overwhelm and destroy us. But the country cannot afford to have us defeated. There is just one thing for us to do; we must stand here and die like men! Impress it upon your officers that we must do this to the last man—to the last man! We may not meet again; good-by, Sedgwick."

The two grim soldiers shook hands, and parted. [Pg 331] Morning came, but the enemy, failing to discover our perilous condition, did not renew the attack; new bridges were built, and the sacrifice was averted. But Sumner was the man to carry out his resolution to the letter.

Afterward, he retained possession of a house on our old line of battle; and his head-quarter tents were brought forward and pitched. They were within range of a Rebel battery, which awoke the general and his staff every morning, by dropping shot and shell all about them for two or three hours. Sumner implored permission to capture or drive away the hostile battery, but was refused, on the ground that it might bring on a general engagement. He chafed and stormed: "It is the most disgraceful thing of my life," he said, "that this should be permitted." But McClellan was inexorable. Sumner was directed to remove his head-quarters to a safer position. He persisted in remaining for fourteen days, and at last only withdrew upon a second peremptory order.

The experience of that fortnight exhibited the ever-recurring miracle of war—that so much iron and lead may fly about men's ears without harming them. During the whole bombardment only two persons were injured. A surgeon was slightly wounded in the head by a piece of shell which flew into his tent; and a private, while lying behind a log for protection, was instantly killed by a shot which tore a splinter from the wood, fracturing his skull; but not another man received even a scratch.

After Antietam, McClellan's ever-swift apologists asserted that his corps commanders all protested against renewing the attack upon the second morning. I asked General Sumner if it were true. He replied, with emphasis:—

"No, sir! My advice was not asked, and I did not volunteer it. But I was certainly in favor of renewing the attack. Much, as my troops had suffered, they were good for another day's fighting, especially when the enemy had that river in his rear, and a defeat would have ruined him forever."

At Fredericksburg, by the express order of Burnside, Sumner did not cross the river during the fighting. The precaution saved his life. Had he ridden out on that fiery front, he had never returned to tell what he saw. But he chafed sadly under the restriction. As the sun went down on that day of glorious but fruitless endeavor, he paced to and fro in front of the Lacy House, with one arm thrown around the neck of his son, his face haggard with sorrow and anxiety, and his eyes straining eagerly for the arrival of each successive messenger.

He was a man of high but patriotic ambition. Once, hearing General Howard remark that he did not aspire to the command of a corps, he exclaimed, "General you surprise me. I would command the world, if I could!"

He was called arbitrary, but had great love for his soldiers, especially for old companions in arms. A New York colonel told me a laughable story of applying to him for a ten days' furlough, when the rule against them was imperative. Sumner peremptorily refused it. But the officer sat down beside him, and began to talk about the Peninsular campaign—the battles in which he had done his duty, immediately under Sumner's eye; and it was not many minutes before the general granted his petition. "If he had only waited," said the narrator, "until I recalled to his memory some scenes at Antietam, I am sure he would have given me twenty days instead of ten!"

His intercourse with women and children was characterized [Pg 333] by peculiar chivalry and gentleness. He revived the old ideal of the soldier—terrible in battle, but with an open and generous heart.

To his youngest son—a captain upon his staff—he was bound by unusual affection. "Sammy" was his constant companion; in private he leaned upon him, caressed him, and consulted him about the most trivial matters. It was a touching bond which united the gray, war-worn veteran to the child of his old age.

We have had greater captains than Sumner; but no better soldiers, no braver patriots. The words which trembled upon his dying lips—"May God bless my country, the United States of America"—were the key-note to his life. Green be the turf above him!

For the last week I have been traveling through the States of the Northwest. The tone of the people on the war was never better. Now that the question has become simply one of endurance, their Northern blood tells. "This is hard pounding, gentlemen," said Wellington at Waterloo; "but we will see who can pound the longer." So, in spite of the Copperheads—"merely the dust and chaff on God's thrashing-floor"—the overwhelming sentiment of the people is to fight it out to the last man and the last dollar.

You have been wont to say: "The West can be depended on for the war. She will never give up her great outlet, the Mississippi." True; but the inference that her loyalty is based upon a material consideration, is untrue and unjust. The West has poured out its best blood, not on any petty question of navigation, or of trade, but upon the weightier issues of Freedom and Nationality.

The New-Yorker or Pennsylvanian may believe in [Pg 334] the greatness of the country; the Kansan or Minnesotian, who has gone one or two thousand miles to establish his prairie home, walks by sight and not by faith. To him, the Great Republic of the future is no rhetorical flourish or flight of fancy, but a living verity. His instinct of nationality is the very strongest; his belief the profoundest. May he never need Emerson's pungent criticism: "The American eagle is good; protect it, cherish it; but beware of the American peacock!"

Have you heard Prentice's last, upon the bursting of the Rebel bubble that Cotton is King? He says: "They went in for cotton, and they got worsted!"

A visit to Rosecrans's army. I rode yesterday over the historical battle-ground of Stone River, among rifle-pits and breastworks, great oaks, with scarred trunks, and tops and branches torn off, and smooth fields thickly planted with graves.

It is interesting to hear from the soldiers reminiscences of the battle. Rosecrans may not be strong in planning a campaign, but the thundering guns rouse him to the exhibition of a higher military genius than any other general in our service has yet displayed. The "grand anger of battle" makes him see at a glance the needs of the occasion, and stimulates those quick intuitions which enable great captains, at the supreme moment, to wrest victory from the very grasp of defeat. Peculiarly applicable to him is Addison's description of Marlborough:—

During the recent great conflict which began with disaster that would have caused ordinary generals to retreat, he seemed omnipresent. A devout Catholic, he performed, before entering the battle, the solemn rites of his Church. A profound believer in destiny, he appeared like a man who sought for death. A few feet from him, a solid shot took off the head of Garasche, his loved and trusted chief of staff.

"Well, in about five minutes, the Rebels will pour out of it, and come right toward you. Lie still until you can easily see the buttons on their coats; then drive them back. Do you understand?"

They laughingly assented, and "Old Rosy," as the soldiers call him, rode along the line, to encourage some other corps.

This is an army of veterans. Every regiment has been in battle, and some have marched three thousand miles during their checkered campaigning. Their garments are old and soiled; but their guns are bright and glistening, and on review their evolutions are clockwork. They are splendidly disciplined, of unequaled enthusiasm, full of faith in their general and in themselves.

Rosecrans is an erect, solid man of one hundred and seventy-five pounds weight, whose forty-three years sit lightly on his face and frame. He has a clear, mild-blue eye, which lights and flashes under excitement; an intensified [Pg 336] Roman nose, high cheek-bones, florid complexion, mouth and chin hidden under dark-brown beard, hair faintly tinged with silver, and growing thin on the edges of the high, full, but not broad, forehead. In conversation, a winning, mirthful smile illumines his face. As Hamlet would take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds, so you would trust that countenance in a stranger as indicating fidelity, reserved power, an overflowing humor, and imperious will.

Riding near the Elmwood Cemetery, yesterday, I witnessed a curious feature of Southern life. It was a negro funeral—the ~~cortége~~ cortège , a third of a mile in length, just entering that city of the dead. The carriages were filled with negro families, and, almost without exception, they were driven by white men. If such a picture were exhibited in Boston, would those who clamor in our ears about negro equality ever permit us to hear the last of it?

III.
THE DUNGEON.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

On Sunday evening, May 3d, accompanied by Mr. Richard T. Colburn, of The New York World , I reached Milliken's Bend, on the Mississippi River, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg. Grant's head-quarters were at Grand Gulf, fifty-five miles below Vicksburg. Fighting had already begun.

We joined my associate, Mr. Junius H. Browne, of The Tribune , who for several days had been awaiting us. The insatiate hunger of the people for news, and the strong competition between different journals, made one day of battle worth a year of camp or siege to the war correspondent. Duty to the paper we represented required that we should join the army with the least possible delay.

We could go over land, down the Louisiana shore, and, if we safely ran the gauntlet of Rebel guerrillas, reach Grand Gulf in three days. But a little expedition was about to run the Vicksburg batteries. If it survived the fiery ordeal, it would arrive at Grant's head-quarters in eight hours. Thus far, three-fourths of the boats attempting to run the batteries had escaped destruction; and yielding to the seductive doctrine of [Pg 338] probabilities, we determined to try the short, or water route. It proved a very long one.

At ten o'clock our expedition started. It consisted of two great barges of forage and provisions, propelled by a little tug between them. For some days, Grant had been receiving supplies in this manner, cheaper and easier than by transportation over rough Louisiana roads.

The lives of the men who fitted out the squadron being as valuable to them as mine to me, I supposed that all needful precautions for safety had been adopted. But, when under way, we learned that they were altogether inadequate. Indeed, we were hardly on board when we discovered that the expedition was so carelessly organized as almost to invite capture.

The night was one of the lightest of the year. We had only two buckets, and not a single skiff. Two tugs were requisite to steer the unwieldy craft, and enable us to run twelve or fifteen miles an hour. With one we could accomplish only seven miles, aided by the strong Mississippi current.

There were thirty-five persons on board—all volunteers. They consisted of the tug's crew, Captain Ward and Surgeon Davidson of the Forty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, with fourteen enlisted men, designed to repel possible boarders, and other officers and citizens, en route for the army.

For two or three hours, we glided silently along the glassy waters between banks festooned with heavy, drooping foliage. It was a scene of quiet, surpassing beauty. Captain Ward suddenly remembered that he had some still Catawba in his valise. He was instructed to behead the bottle with his sword, that the wine might not in any event be wasted. From a soldier's cup of gutta-percha we drank to the success of the expedition.

At one o'clock in the morning, on the Mississippi shore, a rocket shot up and pierced the sky, signaling the Rebels of our approach. Ten minutes later, we saw the flash and heard the boom of their first gun. Much practice on similar expeditions had given them excellent range. The shell struck one of our barges, and exploded upon it.

We were soon under a heavy fire. The range of the batteries covered the river for nearly seven miles. The Mississippi here is very crooked, resembling the letter S, and at some points we passed within two hundred yards of ten-inch guns, with point-blank range upon us. As we moved around the bends, the shots came toward us at once from right and left, front and rear.

Inclination had joined with duty in impelling us to accompany the expedition. We wanted to learn how one would feel looking into the craters of those volcanoes as they poured forth sheets of flame and volleys of shells. I ascertained to my fullest satisfaction, as we lay among the hay-bales, slowly gliding past them. I thought it might be a good thing to do once, but that, if we survived it, I should never feel the least desire to repeat the experiment.

We embraced the bales in Bottom's belief that "good hay, sweet hay hath no fellow."

Discretion was largely the better part of my valor, and I cowered close in our partial shelter. But two or three times I could not resist the momentary temptation to rise and look about me. How the great sheets of flame leaped up and spread out from the mouths of the guns! How the shells came screaming and shrieking through the air! How they rattled and crashed, penetrating the sides of the barges, or exploding on board in great fountains of fire!

The moment hardly awakened serene meditations or sentimental memories; but every time I glanced at that picture, Tennyson's lines rang in my ears:—

"Junius" persisted in standing, all exposed, to watch the coming shots. Once, as a shell exploded near at hand, he fell heavily down among the hay-bales. Until that moment I never knew what suspense was. I could find no voice in which to ask if he lived. I dared not put forth my hand in the darkness, lest it should rest on his mutilated form. At last he spoke, and relieved my anxiety. He had only slipped and fallen.

Each time, after being struck, we listened for the reassuring puff! puff! puff! of our little engine; and hearing it, said: "Thus far, at least, we are all right!"

Now we were below the town, having run five miles of batteries. Ten minutes more meant safety. Already we began to felicitate each other upon our good fortune, when the scene suddenly changed.

A terrific report, like the explosion of some vast magazine, left us breathless, and seemed to shake the earth to its very center. It was accompanied by a shriek which I shall never forget, though it seemed to occupy less than a quarter of the time consumed by one tick of the watch. It was the death-cry wrung from our captain, killed as he stood at the wheel. For his heedlessness [Pg 341] in fitting out the expedition, his life was the penalty.

We listened, but the friendly voice from the tug was hushed. We were disabled, and drifting helplessly in front of the enemy's guns!

For a moment all was silent. Then there rose from the shore the shrill, sharp, ragged yell so familiar to the ears of every man who has been in the front, and clearly distinguishable from the deep, full, chest-tones in which our own men were wont to give their cheers. Many times had I heard that Rebel yell, but never when it was vociferous and exultant as now.

Seeing fire among the hay-bales about us, Colburn and myself carefully extinguished it with our gloved hands, lest the barge should be burnt. Then, creeping out of our refuge, we discovered the uselessness of our care.

That shot had done wonderful execution. It had killed the captain, exploded the boiler, then passed into the furnace, where the shell itself exploded, throwing up great sheets of glowing coals upon both barges. At some stage of its progress, it had cut in twain the tug, which went down like a plummet. We looked for it, but it had disappeared altogether. There was some débris —chairs, stools, and parts of machinery, buoyed up by timbers, floating upon the surface; but there was no tug.

The barges, covered with bales of dry hay, had caught like tinder, and now, at the stern of each, a great sheet of flame rose far toward the sky, filling the night with a more than noonday glare.

Upon the very highest bale, where the flames threw out his pale face and dark clothing in very sharp relief, stood "Junius," in a careless attitude, looking upon the situation with the utmost serenity. My first thought was [Pg 342] that the one thing he required to complete the picture was an opera-glass. To my earnest injunction to leave that exposed position, he replied that, so far as safety was concerned, there now was little choice of places.

Meanwhile, we were under hotter fire than at any previous moment. In the confusion caused by our evolutions in the eddies, I had quite lost the points the of compass, and asked:—

Just then I did see the flash of more guns than I coveted, and four or five shots came shrieking toward us.

Colburn and myself instinctively dropped behind the nearest hay-bales. A moment after, we were amused to observe that we had sought shelter on the wrong side of the bales—the side facing the Rebel guns. Our barge was so constantly changing position that our geographical ideas had become very confused.

It does not often happen to men, in one quarter of an hour, to see death in as many forms as confronted us—by bombarding, scalding, burning, and drowning. It was uncomfortable, but less exciting than one might suppose. The memory impresses me far more deeply than did the experience. I remember listening, during a little cessation of the din, for the sound of my own voice, wondering whether its tones were calm and equable. There was hurrying to and fro, and groans rent the air.

It was very creditable to the determination of our confrère ; but, to put it mildly, our fighting facilities just then were somewhat limited.

My comrades assisted nearly all wounded and scalded men down the sides of the barge to the water's edge, and placed them carefully upon hay-bales. Remaining there, we had every thing to lose and nothing to gain, and I urged—

Soon, I repeated the suggestion, and they repeated the answer. It was no time to stand upon forms. I jumped into the river—twelve or fifteen feet below the top of our barge. They rolled over a hay-bale for me. I climbed upon it, and found it a surprisingly comfortable means of navigation. At last, free from the instinctive dread of mutilation by splinters, which had constantly haunted me, I now felt that if wounded at all it must, at least, be by a clean shot. The thought was a great relief.

With a dim suspicion—not the ripe and perfect knowledge afterward obtained—that clothing was scarce in the Southern Confederacy, I removed my boots, tied them together with my watch-guard, and fastened them to one of the hoops of the bale. Taking off my coat, I secured it in the same manner.

I was about swimming away in a vague, blundering determination not to be captured, when, for the first time in my life, I saw a shot coming toward me. I had always been sceptical on this point. Many persons had averred to me that they could see shots approaching; but remembering that such a missile flying toward a man with a [Pg 344] scream and a rush would not quicken his vision, and judging from my own experience, I supposed they must be deceived.

Now, far up the river I saw a shot coming with vivid distinctness. How round, smooth, shining, and black it looked, ricochetting along, plunging into the water, throwing up great jets of spray, bounding like a schoolboy's ball, and then skimming the river again! It struck about four feet from my hay-bale, which was now a few yards from the burning barge.

The great sheet of water which dashed up quite obscured me from Colburn and "Junius," who, upon the bows of the barge, were just bidding me adieu. At first they thought the shot an extinguisher. But it did me no greater harm than partially to overturn my hay-bale and dip me into the river. A little more or less dampness just then was not of much consequence. It was the last shot which I saw or heard. The Rebels now ceased firing, and shouted—

Learning that we had none, they sent out a yawl. I looked about for a plank, but could find none adapted to a long voyage. Rebel pickets were on both sides of the river, and Rebel batteries lined it ten or twelve miles below, at a point which, by floating, one could reach at daylight. Surrender seemed the only alternative.

At Memphis, two days before, I had received a package of letters, including two or three from the Tribune office, and some which treated of public men, and military strength, movements, and prospects, with great freedom. One of them, from Admiral Foote, containing some very kind words, I sorely regretted to lose; but the package was quite too valuable to be submitted to the scrutiny of the enemy. I kept it until the last moment, but when the Rebel yawl approached within twenty feet, tore the letters in pieces and threw them into the Mississippi.

The boat was nearly full. After picking me up, it received on board two scalded men who were floating near, and whose groans were heart-rending.

We were deposited on the Mississippi shore, under guard of four or five soldiers in gray, and the yawl went back to receive the remainder. Among the saved I found Surgeon Davidson. He was unable to swim, but some one had carefully placed him upon a hay-bale. On reaching the shore, he sat down upon a stool, which he had rescued from the river, spread his overcoat upon his knee, and deposited his carpet-sack beside him. It was the first case I ever knew of a man so hopelessly shipwrecked, who saved all his baggage, and did not even wet his feet.

The boat soon returned. To my infinite relief, the first persons who sprang to the shore were "Junius" and Colburn. Sartorially they had been less fortunate than I. One had lost his coat, and the other was without shoes, stockings, coat, vest, or hat.

There, in the moonlight, guarded by Rebel bayonets, we counted the rescued, and found that just sixteen—less than half our number—were alive and unharmed. All the rest were killed, scalded, or wounded.

Some of the scalded were piteous spectacles. The raw flesh seemed almost ready to drop from their faces; and they ran hither and thither, half wild from excruciating pain.

None of the wounded were unable to walk, though one or two had broken arms. The most had received slight contusions, which a few days would heal.

The missing numbered eight or ten, not one of whom was ever heard of afterward. It was impossible to [Pg 346] obtain any correct list of their names, as several of them were strangers to us and to each other; and no record had been made of the persons starting upon the expedition.

We were two miles below the city, whither the lieutenant of our guard now marched us.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"You had better not say Tribune to the Rebels. Tell them you are correspondents of some less obnoxious journal."

Months before, I had asked three Confederate officers—paroled prisoners within our lines:—

"What would you do with a Tribune correspondent, if you captured him?" With the usual recklessness, two had answered:—

This remembrance was not cheering; but as we were the first correspondents of a radical Northern journal who had fallen into the enemy's hands, after a moment's interchange of views, we decided to stand by our colors, and tell the plain truth. It proved much the wiser course.

One of the rescued men, coatless and hatless, with his face blackened until he looked like a native of Timbuctoo, addressed me familiarly. Unable to recognize him, I asked:—

When the explosion occurred, he was sitting on the hurricane roof of the tug. It was more exposed than any other position, but the officers of the boat had shown symptoms of fear, and he determined to be where his revolver would enable him to control them if they attempted to desert us.

Some missile struck his head and stunned him. When he recovered consciousness, the tug had gone to the bottom, and he was struggling in the river. He had strength enough to clutch a rope hanging over the side of a barge, and keep his head above water. Permitting his sword and revolver, which greatly weighed him down, to sink, he called to his men on the blazing wreck. Under the hot fire of cannon and musketry, they formed a rope of their belts, and let it down to him. He fastened it under his arms; they lifted him up to the barge, whence he escaped by the hay-bale line.

"The best" proved ludicrously bad. Just before daylight we were taken into the city jail. Its foul yard was half filled with criminals and convicts, black and white, all dirty and covered with vermin. In its midst was an open sewer, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, the grand receptacle of all the prison filth. The rising sun of that sultry morning penetrated its reeking depths, and produced the atmosphere of a pest-house.

We dried our clothing before a fire in the yard, conversed with the villainous-looking jail-birds, and laughed [Pg 349] about this unexpected result of our adventure. We had felt the danger of wounds or death; but it had not occurred to either of us that we might be captured. One of the private soldiers had paid a dollar for the privilege of coming on the expedition. To our query whether he deemed the money well invested, he replied that he would not have missed the experience for ten times the amount. One youth, confined in the jail for thieving, asked us the question, with which we were soon to grow familiar:—

At noon we were taken out and marched through the streets. "Junius's" bare and bleeding feet excited the sympathy of a lady, who immediately sent him a pair of stockings, requesting if ever he met any of "our soldiers" suffering in the North, that he would do as much for them. The donor—Mrs. Arthur—was a very earnest Unionist, with little sympathy for "our soldiers," but used the phrase as one of the habitual subterfuges of the Loyalists.

While we waited in the office of the Provost-Marshal, I obtained a first brief glimpse of the inevitable negro. Just outside the open window, which extended to the floor, stood an African, with great shining eyes, expressing his sympathy through remarkable grimaces and contortions, bowing, scraping, and

Rebel citizens and soldiers were all about him; and, somewhat alarmed, I indicated by a look that he should be a little less demonstrative. But Sambo, as usual, knew what he was doing, and was not detected.

The Provost-Marshal, Captain Wells, of the Twenty-eighth [Pg 350] Louisiana Infantry, courteously assigned to us the upper story of the court-house, posting a sentinel at the door.

Major Watts, the Rebel Agent of Exchange, called upon us and administered the following parole:—

This parole was regular, formal, and final, taken at a regular point of exchange, by an officer duly appointed under the express provisions of the cartel. Major Watts informed us that he was prevented from sending us across the lines at Vicksburg, only because Grant's operations had suspended flag-of-truce communication. He assured us, that while he was thus compelled to forward us to Richmond, the only other point of exchange, we should not be detained there beyond the arrival of the first truce-boat.

These formalities ended, the major, who was a polite, kind-hearted, rather pompous little officer, made an attempt at condolence and consolation.

We knew something about that! Of course, we were familiar with the size of Grant's army; and, before we had been many hours in the Rebel lines, we found Union people who told us minutely the strength of Pemberton. So we replied to the prophet, that, while we had no sort of doubt of his seeing General Grant there, it would not be exactly in the capacity of a prisoner!

Colburn—who had the good fortune, for that occasion, to be attached to The World , and who, on reaching Richmond, was sent home by the first truce-boat—came back to Vicksburg in season to be in at the death. One of the first men he met, after the capture of the city, was Watts, to whom he rehearsed this little scene, with the characters reversed.

We stayed in Vicksburg two days. Our noisy advent made us objects of attention. Several Rebel journalists visited us, with tenders of clothing, money, and any assistance [Pg 352] they could render. Confederate officers and citizens called in large numbers, inquiring eagerly about the condition of the North, and the public feeling touching the war.

Some complained that Northern officers, while in confinement, had said to them: "While we are in favor of the Union, we disapprove altogether the war as conducted by this Abolition Administration, with its tendencies to negro equality;" but that, after reaching home, the same persons were peculiarly radical and bloodthirsty.

As political affairs were the only topic of conversation, we had excellent opportunity for preventing any similar misunderstanding touching ourselves. Courteously, but frankly, we told them that we were in favor of the war, of emancipation, and of arming the negroes. They manifested considerable feeling, but used no harsh expressions. Two questions they invariably asked:—

They talked much of our leading officers, all seeming to consider Rosecrans the best general in the Union service. Nearly all used the stereotyped Rebel expression:—

We reminded them that the determination they expressed was by no means peculiar to them, referring to Bancroft, in proof that even the Indian tribes, at war with the early settlers of New England, used exactly the same language. We asked one Texan colonel, noticeably voluble concerning the "last ditch," what he meant by [Pg 353] it—if he really intended to fight after their armies should be dispersed and their cities taken.

"Oh, no!" he replied, "you don't suppose I'm a fool, do you? As long as there is any show for us, we shall fight you. If you win, most of us will go to South America, Mexico, or Europe."

On Monday evening, Major-General Forney, of Alabama, sent an officer to escort us to his head-quarters. He received us with great frigidity, and we endeavored to be quite as icy as he. With some of his staff officers, genial young fellows educated in the North, we had a pleasant chat.

Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, and now a colonel on the staff of Lieutenant-General Pemberton, was at the same head-quarters. With the suavity of an old politician, he conversed with us for two or three hours. He asserted that some of our soldiers had treated his aged mother with great cruelty. He declared that Northern dungeons now contained at least three thousand inoffensive Southern citizens, who had never taken up arms, and were held only for alleged disloyalty.

Many other Rebel officers talked a great deal about arbitrary arrests in the North. Several gravely assured us that, in the South, from the beginning of the war, no citizen had ever been arrested, except by due process of law, under charges well defined, and publicly made. We were a little astounded, afterward, to learn how utterly bare-faced was this falsehood.

On Tuesday evening we started for Jackson, Mississippi, in company with forty other Union prisoners. They were mainly from Ohio regiments, young in years, but veteran soldiers—farmers' sons, with intelligent, earnest faces. Pemberton's army was in motion. Our train [Pg 354] passed slowly through his camps, and halted half an hour at several points, among crowds of Rebel privates.

The Ohio boys and their guards were on the best possible terms, drinking whisky and playing euchre together. The former indulged in a good deal of verbal skirmishing with the soldiers outside, thrusting their heads from the car windows and shouting:—

"Look out, Rebs! The Yankees are coming! Keep on marching, if you don't want old Grant to catch you!"

"How are times in the North?" the Confederates replied. "Cotton a dollar and twenty-five cents a pound in New York!"

"How are times in the South? Flour one hundred and seventy-five dollars a barrel in Vicksburg, and none to be had at that!"

After waiting vainly for an answer to this quenching retort, the Buckeyes sang "Yankee Doodle," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "John Brown's Body lies a-moldering in the Ground," for the edification of their bewildered foes.

Before dark, we reached Jackson. Though a prisoner, I entered it with far more pleasurable feelings than at my last visit; for my tongue was now free, and I was not sailing under false colors. The dreary little city was in a great panic. Before we had been five minutes in the street, a precocious young newsboy came running among us, and, while shouting—"Here's The Mississippian extra!" talked to us incessantly in a low tone:—

We remained in Jackson three days. Upon parole, [Pg 355] we were allowed to take our meals at a boarding-house several squares from the prison, and to visit the office of The Appeal . This journal, originally published at Memphis, was removed to Grenada upon the approach of our forces; Grenada being threatened, it was transferred to Jackson; thence to Atlanta, and finally to Montgomery, Alabama. It was emphatically a moving Appeal .

Its editors very kindly supplied us with clothing and money. They seemed to be sick of the war, and to retain little faith in the Rebel cause, for which they had sacrificed so much, abandoning property in Memphis to the amount of thirty thousand dollars. They now published the most enterprising and readable newspaper in the South. It was noticeably free from vituperation, calling the President "Mr. Lincoln," instead of the "Illinois Baboon," and characterizing us not as Yankee scoundrels, but as "unwilling guests"—

Grant's army was moving toward Jackson. We longed for his approach, straining our ears for the booming of his guns. The Rebels, in their usual strain, declared that the city could not be captured, and would be defended to the last drop of blood. But on the night before our departure, we were confidentially told that the Federal advance was already within twenty-five miles, and certain to take the town.

With forty-five unarmed prisoners, we were placed on an ammunition train, which had not more than a [Pg 356] dozen guards. The privates begged Captain Ward to lead them, and permit them to capture the train. We all deemed the project feasible. Ten minutes would suffice to blow up the cars. With twelve guns, we could easily march twenty miles through those sparse settlements to Grant's forces.

But there were our paroles! A careful reading convinced us that if we failed in the attempt, the enemy would be justified, under the laws of war, in punishing us with death; and, after much debate, we abandoned the project.

Rebel officers in Vicksburg had assured us that crossing the Confederacy from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, upon the Southern railroads, was a more hazardous undertaking than running the river batteries. The rolling stock was in wretched condition, and fatal accidents frequently occurred; but we traveled at a leisurely, old-fashioned rate, averaging eight miles per hour, making long stops, and seldom running by night.

CHAPTER XXX.

It did not require many days of captivity to teach us the infinite expressiveness and trustworthiness of the human eye. We began to recognize Union people by their friendly look before they spoke a word.

Our train stopped for dinner at a secluded Mississippi tavern. At the door of the long dining-room stood the landlady, an intelligent woman of about thirty-five. When I handed her a twenty-dollar Rebel note, she inquired—

"Of course he will" (with great earnestness), "if he only tries! The force there is incapable of resisting him."

Other passengers coming within hearing, I moved [Pg 358] away, but I would unhesitatingly have trusted that woman with my liberty or my life.

Grierson's raid, then in progress, was the universal theme of conversation and wonder. That dashing cavalier, selecting his route with excellent judgment, evaded all the large forces which opposed him, and defeated all the small ones, while he rode leisurely the entire length of Mississippi, tearing up railroads and burning bridges. Occasionally he addressed the people in humorous harangues. To one old lady, who tremblingly begged that her property might not be destroyed, he replied:—

"You shall certainly be protected, madam. It is not my object to hurt any body. It is not generally known, but the truth is, I am a candidate for Governor, and am stumping the State."

Our slow progress enabled us to converse much with the people, constantly preaching to them the gospel of the Union. But they had so long heard only the gospel according to Jefferson Davis, that they paid little heed to our threatenings of the judgment which was certain to come.

In the dense woods which the railways traversed, the pine, the palm and the magnolia, grew side by side, festooned with long, hairy tufts of Spanish moss. On the plantations, the young cotton, three inches high, looked like sprouting beans.

Colburn's solemn waggery was constantly cropping out. In our car one day he had a long discussion with a brawny Texan officer, who declared with great bitterness that he had assisted in hanging three Abolitionists upon a single blackjack, 16 in sight of his own door. He concluded with the usual assertion:—

"Well, sir," replied Colburn, with the utmost gravity, "if you should do that and all be killed, we should regret it extremely!"

Like most Southerners, the Texan was insensible to satire. Understanding this to be perfectly sincere, he reiterated:—

"Well, sir, as I said before, if you do, and all happen to get killed, including the very last man himself, of course we of the North shall be quite heart-broken!"

Once comprehended, the mock condolence enraged the huge Texan fearfully. For a few seconds his eyes were the most wicked I ever saw. He looked ready to spring upon Colburn and tear him in pieces; but it was the last we heard of his bravado.

One of our fellow-prisoners had manifested great trepidation while we lay disabled in front of Vicksburg. He was probably no more frightened than the rest of us, but had less self-control, running to and fro on the burning barge, wringing his hands, and shrieking: "My God! my God! We shall all be killed!"

"Well, sir," solemnly continued the satirist, "I think, in view of that fact, that you behaved with more coolness than any man I ever saw!"

While we preserved our gravity with the utmost difficulty, the victim scrutinized his tormentor very suspiciously. But that serious, immovable face told no tales, and he finally received the compliment as serious. From [Pg 360] that time, it was Colburn's daily delight, to remark, with ever-increasing admiration:—

"Mr. ----, I cannot help remembering how marvelously self-possessed you were during those exciting minutes. I never saw your coolness equaled by a man under fire for the first time."

Before we reached Richmond, the new-fledged hero received his praises with complacent and serene condescension. He will, doubtless, tell his children and grandchildren of the encomium his courage won from companions, who, "born and nursed in Danger's path, had dared her worst."

At Demopolis, Alabama, we encountered a planter removing from Mississippi, where Grierson and Grant were rapidly depreciating slave property. He had with him a long gang of negroes, some chained together in pairs, with handcuffs riveted to their wrists.

While the train stopped, a young fellow from Kentucky, captain and commissary in the Confederate army, took me up to his room, on pretext of "a quiet drink."

"When I went into the war," said he, "I thought it would be a nice little diversion of about two weeks, with a good deal of fun and no fighting. Now, I would give my right arm to escape from it; but there is no such good fortune for me. When you reach the North, write to my friends at home, giving them my love, and saying that I wish I had followed their advice."

A benevolent lady was at the station, with her carriage, distributing cakes among the Rebel soldiers and the Union prisoners.

At Selma, a new officer took charge of our party. The post commandant instructed him how to treat the privates, and, pointing to the two officers and the three journalists, added:—

"You will consider these gentlemen not under your guard, but under your escort."

We took a steamer up the Alabama River. As we sat looking out upon the beautiful stream, it was amusing to hear the comments of the negro chamber-maids:—

"How mean the Southern soldiers look! But just see those Yankees! Anybody might know that they are God's own people!"

The pilot of the boat, a native Alabamian, took me aside, stating that he was an unconditional Union man, and inquiring eagerly about the North, which, he feared, might abandon the contest.

We spent Sunday, May 11th, in the pleasant city of Montgomery: strolling at pleasure through the shaded streets, and at evening taking a bath in the Alabama, swimming round a huge Rebel ram, then nearly completed. We gained some knowledge of its character and dimensions, which, after reaching Richmond, we succeeded in transmitting to the Government.

The officer in charge of our party spent the night in camp with his men, but we slept at the Exchange Hotel. When we registered our names, the bystanders, with their broad-brimmed hats, long pipes, and heavy Southern faces, manifested a good deal of curiosity to see what they termed "two of old Greeley's correspondents." They asked us many questions of the North, and of our army experiences. Several said emphatically that, ere long, the people would "take this thing out of the hands of politicians, and settle it themselves."

Reaching Atlanta, we were placed in the filthy, vermin-infested military prison. Encouraged by the courtesies we had received from Rebel journals, we sent, through the commandant, a card to one of the newspaper offices, asking for a few exchanges. The blundering [Pg 362] messenger took it to the wrong establishment, leaving it at the office of an intensely bitter sheet called The Confederate . The next morning we were not allowed to purchase newspapers. Learning that The Confederate commented upon our request, we induced an attaché of the prison to smuggle a copy to us, and found the following leader:—

"Last evening some correspondents of The New York World and New York Tribune were brought here among a batch of prisoners captured at Vicksburg a few days ago. They had not been here a half hour before the impudent scamps got one of the sentinels guarding the barracks to go around to the newspaper offices in this city with their 'card,' requesting the favor of some exchange-papers to read. Their impudence is beyond comprehension, upon any other consideration than that they belong to the Yankee press-gang. Yankees are everywhere more impudent than any honest race of people can be, and a Yankee newspaper-man is the quintessence of all impudence. We thought we had seen and understood something of this Yankee accomplishment in times gone by (some specimens of it have been seen in the South); but the unheard-of effrontery that prompted these villains, who, caught in company with the thieving, murdering vandals who have invaded our country, despoiled our homes, murdered our citizens, destroyed our property, violated our wives, sisters, and daughters, to boldly claim of the press of the South the courtesies and civilities which gentlemen of the press usually extend to each other, is above and beyond all the unblushing audacity we ever imagined. They had come along with Northern vandals, to chronicle their rapes, arsons, plunders, and murders, and to herald them to the world as deeds of heroism, greatness, and glory. They are our vilest and most unprincipled enemies—far more deeply steeped in guilt, and far more richly deserving death, than the vilest vandal that ever invaded the sanctity of our soil and outraged our homes and our peace. We would greatly prefer to assist in hanging these enemies to humanity, than to show them any civilities or courtesies. The common robber, thief, and murderer, is more respectable, in our estimation, than these men; for he never tries to make his crimes respectable, but always to conceal them. These men, however, have come into our country with the open robbers and murderers of our people, for the express purpose of whitewashing their hellish deeds, and presenting [Pg 363] them to the world as great deeds of virtuous heroism. They deserve a rope's end, and will not receive their just deserts till their crimes are punished with death."

The Rebel authorities were very sensitive to newspaper censure. With unusual rigor, they now refused us permission to go outside the prison for meals, though offering to have them sent in, at our expense, from the leading hotel. They told us that The Confederate was edited by two renegade Vermonters.

"I am not very fond of Yankees, myself," remarked Hunnicutt, the heavy-jawed, broad-necked, coarse-featured lieutenant commanding the prison. "I am as much in favor of hanging them as anybody; but these Vermonters, who haven't been here six months, are a little too violent. They don't own any niggers. 'Tisn't natural. There's something wrong about them. If I were going to hang Yankees at a venture, I think I would begin with them."

An Irish warden brought us, from a Jew outside, three hundred Confederate dollars, in exchange for one hundred in United States currency. For a fifty-dollar Rebel note he procured me a cap of southern manufacture, to replace my hat, which had been snatched from my head by a South Carolina officer, passing upon a railroad train meeting our own. The new cap, of grayish cotton, a marvel of roughness and ugliness, elicited roars of laughter from my comrades.

On the journey thus far, we had gone almost wherever we pleased, unguarded and unaccompanied. But from Atlanta to Richmond we were treated with rigor and very closely watched. A Rebel officer begged of "Junius" his fine pearl-handled pocket knife. Receiving it, he at once conceived an affection for a gold ring upon the prisoner's finger. Even the courtesy of my colleague was not [Pg 364] proof against this second impertinence, and he contemptuously declined the request.

The captain in charge of us stated that his orders were imperative to keep all newspapers from us; and on no account to permit us to leave the railway carriage. But, finding that we still obtained the daily journals from fellow-passengers, he made a virtue of necessity, and gracefully acquiesced. At last, he even allowed us to take our meals at the station, upon being invited to participate in them at the expense of his prisoners.

CHAPTER XXXI

At 5 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, May 16th, we reached Richmond. At that early hour, the clothing-dépôt of the Confederate government was surrounded by a crowd of poor, ill-clad women, seeking work.

We were marched to the Libby Prison. Up to this time we had never been searched. I had even kept my revolver in my pocket until reaching Jackson, Mississippi, where, knowing I could not much longer conceal it, I gave it to a friend. Now a Rebel sergeant carefully examined our clothing. All money, except a few dollars, was taken from us, and the flippant little prison clerk, named Ross, with some inquiries not altogether affectionate concerning the health of Mr. Greeley, gave us receipts.

As we passed through the guarded iron gateway, I glanced instinctively above the portal in search of its fitting legend:—

Up three flights of stairs, we were escorted into a room, fifty feet by one hundred and twenty-five, filled with officers lying in blankets upon the floor and upon rude bunks. Some shouted, "More Yankees!—more Yankees!" while many crowded about us to hear our story, and learn the news from the West.

We soon found friends, and became domesticated in our novel quarters. With the American tendency toward organization, the prisoners divided into companies of four each. Our journalistic trio and Captain Ward ceased to be individuals, becoming merely "Mess Number Twenty-one."

The provisions, at this time consisting of good flour, bread, and salt pork, were brought into the room in bulk. A commissary, elected by the captives from their own number, divided them, delivering its quota to each mess.

Picking up two or three rusty tin plates and rheumatic knives and forks, we commenced housekeeping. The labor of preparation was not arduous. It consisted in making little sacks of cotton cloth for salt, sugar, pepper, and rice, fitting up a shelf for our dishes, and spreading upon the floor blankets, obtained from our new comrades, and originally sent to Richmond by the United States Government for the benefit of prisoners.

The Libby authorities, and white and negro attachés , were always hungry for "greenbacks," and glad to give Confederate currency in exchange. The rates varied greatly. The lowest was two dollars for one. During my imprisonment, I bought fourteen for one, and, a few weeks after our escape, thirty were given for one.

A prison sergeant went out every morning to purchase supplies. He seemed honest, and through him we could obtain, at extravagant prices, dried apples, sugar, eggs, molasses, meal, flour, and corn burnt and ground as a substitute for coffee. Without these additions, our rations would hardly have supported life.

In our mess, each man, in turn, did the cooking for an entire day. In that hot, stifling room, frying pork, baking griddle-cakes, and boiling coffee, over the crazy, smoking, broken stove, around which there was a constant [Pg 367] crowd, were disagreeable in the extreme. The prison hours were long, but the cooking-days recurred with unpleasant frequency.

We scrubbed our room two or three times a week, and it was fumigated every morning. At one end stood a huge wooden tank, with an abundant supply of cold water, in which we could bathe at pleasure.

The vermin were the most revolting feature of the prison, and the one to which it was the most difficult to become resigned. No amount of personal cleanliness could guard our bodies against the insatiate lice. Only by examining under-clothing and destroying them once or twice a day, could they be kept from swarming upon us. For the first week, I could not think of them without shuddering and faintness: but in time I learned to make my daily entomological researches with calm complacency.

In Nashville, two weeks before my capture, I met Colonel A. D. Streight, of Indiana. At the head of a provisional brigade from Rosecrans's army, he was about starting on a raid through northern Alabama and Georgia. The expedition promising more romance and novelty than ordinary army experiences, now grown a little monotonous, I desired to accompany him; but other duties prevented. I had been in Libby just four hours, when in walked Streight, followed by the officers of his entire brigade. We had taken very different routes, but they brought us to the same terminus.

Streight's command had been furnished with mules, averaging about two years old, and quite unused to the saddle. Utterly worthless, they soon broke down, and with much difficulty, he remounted his men upon horses, pressed from the citizens; but the delay proved fatal.

The Rebel General Forrest overtook him with a [Pg 368] largely superior force. Streight was an enterprising, brave officer, and his exhausted men behaved admirably in four or five fights; but at last, near Rome, Georgia, after losing one third of his command, the colonel was compelled to surrender. The Rebels were very exultant, and Forrest—originally a slave-dealer in Memphis, and a greater falsifier than Beauregard himself—telegraphed that, with four hundred men, he had captured twenty-eight hundred.

Lieutenant Charles Pavie, of the Eightieth Illinois, who commanded Streight's artillery, came in with his coat torn to shreds; a piece of shell had struck him in the back, inflicting only a flesh wound. Upon feeling the shock, he instinctively clapped his hands to his stomach, to ascertain if there was a hole there, under the impression that the entire shell had passed through his body!

The prisoners bore their confinement with good-humor and hilarity. During the long evenings, they joined in the "Star-Spangled Banner," "Old Hundred," "Old John Brown," and other patriotic and religious airs. The Richmond Whig , shocked that the profane and ungodly Yankees should presume to sing "Old Hundred," denounced it as a piece of blasphemy.

Captain Brown and his officers, of the United States gunboat Indianola, were pointed out to me as men who had actually been in prison for three months. I regarded them with pity and wonder. It seemed utterly impossible that I could endure confinement for half that time. After-experiences inclined me to patronize new-comers, and regard with lofty condescension, men who had been prisoners only twelve or fifteen months! "The Father of the Marshalsea" became an intelligible and sympathetic personage, with whom we should have hobnobbed delightfully.

Simultaneously with our arrival in Richmond, a Rebel officer of the exchange bureau received a request from the editor of The World , for the release of Mr. Colburn. It proved as efficient as if it had been an order from Jefferson Davis. After ten days' confinement in Libby, Colburn was sent home by the first truce-boat. A thoroughly loyal gentleman, and an unselfish, devoted friend, he was induced to go, only by the assurance that while he could do no good by remaining, he might be of service to us in the North.

At his departure, he left for me, with Captain Thomas P. Turner, commandant of the prison, fifty dollars in United States currency. A day or two afterward, Turner handed the sum to me in Confederate rags, dollar for dollar, asserting that this was the identical money he had received. The perpetrator of this petty knavery was educated at West Point, and claimed to be a Virginia gentleman.

"Junius" suffered greatly from intermittent fever. The weather was torrid. In the roof was a little scuttle, to which we ascended by a ladder. The column of air rushing up through that narrow aperture was foul, suffocating, and hot as if coming from an oven. At night we went out on the roof for two or three hours to breathe the out-door atmosphere. When the authorities discovered it, they informed us, through Richard Turner—an ex-Baltimorean, half black-leg and half gambler, who was inspector of the prison—that if we persisted, they would close the scuttle. It was a refined and elaborate method of torture.

On one occasion, this same Turner struck a New York captain in the face for courteously protesting against being deprived of a little fragment of shell which he had brought from the field as a relic. A Rebel [Pg 370] sergeant inflicted a blow upon another Union captain who chanced to be jostled against him by the crowd.

For slight offenses, officers were placed in an underground cell so dark and foul, that I saw a Pennsylvania lieutenant come out, after five weeks' confinement there, his beard so covered with mold that one could pluck a double handful from it!

Prisoners putting their heads for a moment between the bars of the windows, and often for only approaching the apertures, were liable to be shot. One officer, standing near a window, was ordered by the sentinel to move back. The rattling carriages made the command inaudible. The guard instantly shot him through the head, and he never spoke again.

Colonel Streight was the most prominent prisoner. He talked to the Rebel authorities with imprudent, but delightful frankness. More than once I heard him say to them:—

"You dare not carry out that threat! You know our Government will never permit it, but will promptly retaliate upon your own officers, whom it holds."

When our rations of heavy corn-bread and tainted meat grew very short, he addressed a letter to James A. Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, protesting in behalf of his brigade, and inquiring whether he designed starving prisoners to death! The Rebels hated him with peculiar bitterness.

The five Richmond dailies helped us greatly in filling up the long hours. At daylight an old slave, named Ben, would arouse us from our slumbers, shouting:—

"Great news in de papers! Great news from de Army of Virginny! Great tallygraphic news from the Soufwest!"

He disbursed his sheets at twenty-five cents per copy, but they afterward went up to fifty.

A lieutenant in Grant's army, while charging one of the batteries in the rear of Vicksburg, received a shot in the face which entered one eye, destroying it altogether. Ten days after, he arrived in Libby. He walked about our room with a handkerchief tied around his head, smoking complacently, apparently considering a bullet in the brain a very slight annoyance.

We attempted to celebrate the Fourth of July. Captain Driscoll, of Cincinnati, with other ingenious officers, had manufactured from shirts a National flag, which was hung above the head of Colonel Streight, who occupied the chair, or rather the bed, which necessity substituted. Two or three speeches had been made, and several hours of oratory were expected, when a sergeant came up and said:—

Observing the flag, he called upon several officers to assist him in taking it down. Of course, none did so. He finally reached it himself, tore it down, and bore it to the prison office. A long discussion ensued about obeying Turner's order. After nearly as much time had been consumed in debate as it would have required to carry out the programme, and speak to all the toasts—dry toasts—it was voted to comply. So the meeting, first adopting a number of intensely patriotic resolutions, incontinently adjourned.

The Rebel authorities confiscated large sums of money sent from home to the prisoners, and sometimes stopped the purchase of supplies, asserting that it was done in retaliation for similar treatment of their own soldiers confined in the North. Still our officers fared incomparably better than the Union privates who were half [Pg 372] starved upon Belle Isle, in sight of our prison. We did not fully accredit the reports which reached us touching the sufferings of these prisoners, though the engravings of their emaciation and tortures in the New York illustrated papers, which sometimes drifted to us, so enraged the Rebels, that we often called their attention to them. But our own paroled officers, who were permitted to distribute among the privates clothing sent by our Government, assured us that they were substantially true.

CHAPTER XXXII.

On the 6th of July, an order came to our apartments for all the captains to go down into a lower room. At this time, as usual, there was constant talk about resuming the exchange. They went below with light hearts, supposing they were about to be paroled and sent North. Half an hour after, when the first one returned, his white, haggard face showed that he had been through a trying scene.

After being drawn up in line, they were required to draw lots, to select two of their number for execution, in retaliation for two Rebel officers, tried and shot in Kentucky by Burnside, for recruiting within our lines.

The unhappy designation fell upon Captain Sawyer, of the First New Jersey Cavalry, and Captain Flynn, of the Fifty-first Indiana Infantry. They were taken to the office of General Winder, who assured them that the sentence would be carried out; and without pity or decency, selected that hour to revile them as Yankee scoundrels who had "come down here to kill our sons, burn our houses, and devastate our country." In reply to these taunts, they bore themselves with dignity and calmness.

"When I went into the war," responded Flynn, "I [Pg 374] knew I might be killed. I don't know but I would just as soon die in this way as any other."

"I have a wife and child," said Sawyer, "who are very dear to me, but if I had a hundred lives I would gladly give them all for my country."

In two hours they came back to their quarters. Sawyer was externally nervous; Flynn calm. Both expected that the order would be carried out. We were confident that it would not. I predicted to Sawyer—

"I will bet you a hundred dollars they do!" was his impulsive reply. I said to Flynn—

"I know it," he answered. "But, when we drew lots, I took one chance in thirty-five, and then lost!" 17

On the same evening came intelligence that, at an obscure town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg, Meade had received a Waterloo defeat, was flying in confusion to the mountains of Pennsylvania after losing forty thousand prisoners, who were actually on their way to Richmond. It was entertaining to read the speculations of the Rebel papers as to what they could do with these forty thousand Yankees—where they could find men to guard them, and room for them—how in the world they could feed them without starving the people of Richmond.

We did not fully believe the report, but it touched us very nearly. Those reverses to our army came home drearily to the hearts of men who were waiting hopelessly in Rebel prisons, and weighed them down like millstones.

Success kindled a corresponding joy. I have seen sick and dying prisoners on cold and filthy floors of the wretched hospitals filled with a new vitality—their sad, pleading eyes lighted with a new hope, their wan faces flushed, and their speech jubilant, when they learned that all was going well with the Cause. It made life more endurable and death less bitter.

Already suffering from anxiety for Flynn and Sawyer, and disheartened by the reports from Pennsylvania, we received intelligence that Grant had been utterly repulsed before the works of Vicksburg, the siege raised, and the campaign closed in defeat and disaster. It was a very black night when this grief was added to the first. The prison was gloomy and silent many hours earlier than usual. Our hearts were too heavy for speech.

But suddenly there came a great revulsion. Among the negro prisoners was an old man of seventy, who had particularly attra c ted my attention from the fact that when I happened to speak to him about the National conflict, he replied, after the manner of Copperheads, that it was a speculators' war on both sides, in which he felt no sort of interest; that it would do nobody any good; that he cared not when or how it ended. I wondered whether the old African was shamming, lest his conversation should be reported, to the curtailing of his privileges, or whether he was really that anomaly, a black man who felt no interest in the war.

But about five o'clock, one afternoon, he came up into our room, and, when the door was closed behind [Pg 376] him, so that he could not be seen by the officers or guards, he made a rush for an open space upon the floor, and immediately began to dance in a manner very remarkable for a man of seventy, and rheumatic at that. We all gathered around him and asked—

"De Yankees has taken Vicksburg! De Yankees has taken Vicksburg!" and then he began to dance again.

As soon as we could calm him into a little coherence, he drew from his pocket a newspaper extra—the ink not yet dry—which he had stolen from one of the Rebel officers. There it was! The Yankees had taken Vicksburg, with more than thirty thousand prisoners.

Good tidings, like bad, seldom come alone. Shortly after, we learned that there was also a slight mistake about Gettysburg—that Lee, instead of Meade, was flying in confusion; and that, while our people had captured fifteen or twenty thousand Rebels, those forty thousand Yankee prisoners were "conspicuous for their absence."

How our hearts leaped up at this cheering news! How suddenly that foul prison air grew sweet and pure as the fragrant breath of the mountains! There was laughing, there was singing, there was dancing, which the old negro did not altogether monopolize. Some one shouted, "Glory, hallelujah!" Mr. McCabe, an Ohio chaplain, whose clear, ringing tones, as he led the singing, cheered many of our heaviest hours, instantly took the hint, and started that beautiful hymn, by Mrs. Howe, of which "Glory, hallelujah" is the chorus:—

Every voice in the room joined in it. I never saw men more stirred and thrilled than were those three or four [Pg 377] hundred prisoners, as they heard the impressive closing stanza:—

Despite reading, conversing, and cutting out finger-rings, napkin-rings, breast-pins, and crosses, from the beef-bones extracted from our rations, in which some prisoners were exceedingly skillful, the hours were very heavy. A debating-club was formed, and much time was spent in discussing animal magnetism and other topics. Occasionally we had mock courts, which developed a good deal of originality and wit.

Late in July, a mania for study began to prevail. Classes were formed in Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Algebra, Geometry, and Rhetoric. We sent out to the Richmond stores for text-books, and all found instructors, as the motley company of officers embraced natives of every civilized country.

July 30th was a memorable day. The prisoners had become greatly excited on the momentous question of small messes versus large messes. There were only three cooking-stoves for the accommodation of three hundred and seventy-five officers. A majority thought it more convenient to divide into messes of twenty, while others, favoring small messes of from four to eight each, determined to retain those organizations. The prisoners now occupied five rooms, communicating with each other.

A public meeting was called in our apartment, with Colonel Streight in the chair. A fiery discussion ensued. The large-mess party insisted that the majority must rule, and the minority submit to be formed into messes of twenty. The small-mess party replied:—

"We will not be coerced. We are one-third of all the prisoners. We insist upon our right to one-third of the kitchen, one-third of the fuel, and one of the three cooking-stoves. It is nobody's business but our own whether we have messes of two or one hundred."

I was never present at any debate, parliamentary, political, or religious, which developed more earnestness and bitterness. The meeting passed a resolution, insisting upon large messes; the small-mess party refused to vote upon it, and declared that they would never, never submit! The question was finally decided by permitting all to do exactly as they pleased.

Prisoners kept in the underground cells heard revolting stories. They were informed by the guards that the bodies of the dead, usually left in an adjoining room for a day or two before burial, were frequently eaten by rats.

From want of vegetables and variety of diet, scurvy became common. With many others, I suffered somewhat from it. On the 13th of August, Major Morris, of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, died suddenly from a malignant form of this disease. His fellow-prisoners desired to have his body embalmed. The Rebel authorities had one hundred dollars in United States curren c y, belonging to the major, but they refused to apply it to this purpose. Four hundred dollars in Confederate currency was therefore subscribed by the prisoners. Several brother-officers of the deceased were permitted to follow the remains to the cemetery.

Thirty or forty Northern citizens were confined in a room under us. They were thrust in with Yankee deserters of the worst character, and treated with the greatest barbarity. Their rations were very short; they were allowed to purchase nothing. We cut a hole through the floor, and every evening dropped down [Pg 379] crackers and bread, contributed from the various messes. When they saw the food coming, they would crowd beneath the aperture, with upturned faces and eager eyes, springing to clutch every crumb, sometimes ready to fight over the smallest morsels, and looking more like ravenous animals than human beings. Some of them, accustomed to luxury at home, ate water-melon rinds and devoured morsels which they extracted from the spittoons and from other places still more revolting.

Several schemes of escape were ingenious and original. Impudence was the trump card. Four or five officers took French leave, by procuring Confederate uniforms, which enabled them to pass the guards. Captain John F. Porter, of New York, obtaining a citizen's suit, walked out of the prison in broad daylight, passing all the sentinels, who supposed him to be a clergyman or some other pacific resident of Richmond. A lady in the city secreted him. By the negroes, he sent a message to his late comrades, asking for money, which they immediately transmitted. Obtaining a pilot, he made his way through the swamps to the Union lines, in season to claim, on the appointed day, the hand of a young lady who awaited him at home. He was an enterprising bridegroom.

During the long evenings, when we were faint, bilious, and weak from our thin diet, some of my comrades, with morbid eloquence, would dwell upon all luxuries that tempt the epicurean palate,—debating, in detail, what dishes they would order, were they at the best hotels of New York or Philadelphia. These tantalizing discussions were so annoying that they invariably drove me from the group, sometimes exciting a desire to strike those who would drag forward the unpleasant subject, and keep me reminded of the hunger which I was striving to forget.

The exchange was altogether suspended, and new prisoners were constantly arriving, until Libby contained several hundred officers.

Extravagant rumors of all sorts were constantly afloat among the captives; hardly a day passing without some sensation story. They were not usually pure invention; but in prison, as elsewhere during exciting periods, the air seemed to generate wild reports, which, in passing from mouth to mouth, grew to wonderful proportions.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

On the evening of September 2d, all the northern citizens were transferred from Libby to Castle Thunder. The open air caused a strange sensation of faintness. We grew weak and dizzy in walking the three hundred yards between the prisons.

That night we were thrust into an unventilated, filthy, subterranean room, nearly as loathsome as the Vicksburg jail. But we smoked our pipes serenely, remembering that "Fortune is turning, and inconstant, and variations, and mutabilities," and wondering what that capricious lady would next decree. At intervals, our sleep upon the dirty floor was disturbed by the playful gambols of the rats over our hands and faces.

The next morning we were drawn up in line, and our names registered by an old warden named Cooper, who, in spectacles and faded silk hat, looked like one of Dickens's beadles. His query whether we possessed moneys, was uniformly answered in the negative. When he asked if we had knives or concealed weapons, all gave the same response, except one waggish prisoner, who averred that he had a ten-inch columbiad in his vest pocket.

The Commandant of Castle Thunder was Captain George W. Alexander, an ex-Marylander, who had participated [Pg 382] with "the French Lady" 18 in the capture of the steamer St. Nicholas, near Point Lookout, and was afterward confined for some months at Fort McHenry. He formerly belonged to the United States Navy, in the capacity of assistant engineer. He made literary pretensions, writing thin plays for the Richmond theaters, and sorry Rebel war-ballads. Pompous and excessively vain, delighting in gauntlets, top-boots, huge revolvers, and a red sash, he was sometimes furiously angry, but, in the main, kind to captives. He caused us to be placed in the "Citizens' Room," which he called the prison parlor. Its walls were whitewashed, its four windows were iron-barred, its air tainted by exhalations from the adjoining "Condemned Cell," which was fearfully foul. It was lighted with gas, and had a single stove for cooking, a few bunks, and a clean floor.

Castle Thunder contained about fifteen hundred inmates—northern citizens, southern Unionists, Yankee deserters, Confederate convicts, and eighty-two free negroes, captured with Federal officers, who employed them as servants in the field.

The prison's reputation was worse than that of Libby; but, as usual, we found the devil not quite so black as he was painted. We missed sadly the society of the Union officers, but the Commandant and attachés , unlike the Turners, treated us courteously, never indulging in epithets and insults.

In the Citizens' Room were two northerners, named [Pg 383] Lewis and Scully, sent to Richmond in the secret service of our Government, by General Scott, before the battle of Bull Run, and confined ever since. One of them was a Catholic, through the influence of whose priest both had thus far been preserved. But they held existence by a frail tenure, and I could not wonder that long anxiety had turned Lewis's hair gray, and given to both nervous, haggard faces.

In all southern prisons I was forced to admire the fidelity with which the Roman Church looks after its members. Priests frequently visited all places of confinement to inquire for Catholics, and minister both to their spiritual and bodily needs. The chaplain at Castle Thunder was a Presbyterian. He scattered documents, and preached every Sunday in the yard or one of the large rooms. He would have given tracts on the sin of dancing to men without any legs.

The Rev. William G. Scandlin and Dr. McDonald, of Boston—agents of the United States Sanitary Commission—were held with us. The doctor was dangerously ill from dysentery. The Commission had never discriminated between suffering Unionists and Confederates, extending to both the same bounty and tenderness; yet the Rebels kept these gentlemen, whom they had captured on the way to Harper's Ferry with sanitary supplies, for more than three months.

"Junius" was very feeble; but during the weary months which followed, he manifested wonderful vitality. His indignation toward the enemy, and his earnest determination not to die in a Rebel prison, greatly helped his endurance. Like the Duchess of Marlboro', he refused either to be bled or to give up the ghost.

A Virginia citizen was brought in on the charge of attempting to trade in "greenbacks,"—a penitentiary [Pg 384] offense under Confederate law. Before he had been in our room five minutes one of the sub-wardens entered, asking:

"Is there anybody here who has 'greenbacks?' I am paying four dollars for one to-day."

The negroes were used for scrubbing and carrying messages from the office of the prison to the different apartments. Invariably our friends, they surreptitiously conveyed notes to acquaintances in the other rooms, and often to Unionists outside.

While we were at Libby, an intelligent mulatto prisoner from Philadelphia was whipped for some trivial offense. His piercing shrieks followed each application of the lash; one of my messmates, who counted them, stated that he received three hundred and twenty-seven blows. A month afterward I examined his back, and found it still gridironed with scars.

At the Castle the negroes frequently received from five to twenty-five lashes. I saw boys not more than eight years old turned over a barrel and cowhided. One woman upward of sixty was whipped in the same manner. This negress was known as "Old Sally;" she earned a good deal of Confederate money by washing for prisoners, and spent nearly the whole of it in purchasing supplies for unfortunates who were without means. She had been confined in different prisons for nearly three years.

The next oldest inmate was a Little Dorrit of a cur, born and raised in the Castle. Notwithstanding her life-long associations, she manifested the usual canine antipathy toward negroes and tatterdemalions.

Soon after our arrival, Spencer Kellogg, of Philadelphia, one of our fellow-prisoners, was executed as a Yankee spy. He had been in the secret service of the [Pg 385] United States, but belonged to the western navy at the time of his capture. He bore himself with great coolness and self-possession, assuring the Rebels that he was glad to die for his country. On the scaffold he did not manifest the slightest tremor. While the rope was being adjusted, he accidentally knocked off the hat of a bystander, to whom he turned and said, with great suavity: "I beg your pardon, sir."

The loyalty of the southern Unionists was intense. One Tennessean, whose hair was white with age, was taken before Major Carrington, the Provost-Marshal, who said to him:

"You are so old that I have concluded to send you home, if you will take the oath."

"Sir," replied the prisoner, "if you knew me personally, I should think you meant to insult me. I have lived seventy years, and, God helping me, I will not now do an act to embitter the short remnant of my life, and one which I should regret through eternity. I have four boys in the Union army; they all went there by my advice. Were I young enough to carry a musket I would be with them to-day fighting against the Rebellion."

There were many kindred cases. Nearly all the men of this class confined with us were from mountain regions of the South. Many were ragged, all were poor. They very seldom heard from their families. They were compelled to live solely upon the prison rations, often a perpetual compromise with starvation. Some had been in confinement for two or three years, and their homes desolated and burned. Unlike the North, they knew what war meant.

Yet the lamp of their loyalty burned with inextinguishable brightness. They never denounced the Government, [Pg 386] which sometimes neglected them to a criminal degree. They never desponded, through the gloomiest days, when imbecility in the Cabinet and timidity in the field threatened to ruin the Union Cause. They seldom yielded an iota of principle to their keepers. Hungry, cold, and naked—waiting, waiting, waiting, through the slow months and years—often sick, often dying, they continued true as steel. History has few such records of steadfast devotion. Greet it reverently with uncovered head, as the Holy of Holies in our temple of Patriotism!

CHAPTER XXXIV.

We consumed many of the long hours in conversing, reading, and whist-playing. Night after night we strolled wearily up and down our narrow room, ignorant of the outer world, save through glimpses, caught from the barred windows, of the clear blue sky and the pitying stars.

Still, endeavoring to make the best of it, we were often mirthful and boisterous. Two correspondents of The Herald , Mr. S. T. Bulkley and Mr. L. A. Hendrick, were partners in our captivity. Hendrick's irrepressible waggery never slept. One evening a Virginia ruralist, whose intellect was not of the brightest, was brought in for some violation of Confederate law. After pouring his sorrows into the sympathetic ear of the correspondent, he suddenly asked:

"I am the victim," replied Hendrick, "of gross and flagrant injustice. I am the inventor of a new piece of artillery known as the Hendrick gun. Its range far exceeds every other cannon in the world. A week ago I was testing it from the Richmond defenses, where it is mounted. One of its shots accidentally struck and sunk a blockade runner just entering the port of Wilmington. It was not my fault. I didn't aim at the steamer. I was just trying the gun for the benefit of the country. But [Pg 388] these confounded Richmond authorities insisted upon it that I should pay for the vessel. I told them I would see them ------ first, and they shut me up in Castle Thunder; but I never will pay in the world."

"You are quite right. I would not, if I were you," replied the innocent Virginian. "It is the greatest outrage I ever heard of."

A fellow-prisoner had been elected commissary of our room, to divide and distribute the rations. One evening a court was organized to try him for "malfeasance in office." The indictment charged that he issued soup only when he ought to issue meat—stealing the beef and selling it for his personal benefit. One correspondent appeared as prosecuting attorney, another as counsel for the defense, and a third as presiding judge.

An extract from a Richmond journal being objected to as testimony, it was decided that any thing published by any newspaper must necessarily be true, and was competent evidence in that court. A great deal of remarkable law was cited in Greek, Latin, German, and French. Counsel were fined for contempt of court, jurors placed under arrest for going to sleep. When the spectators became boisterous, the sheriff was ordered to clear the court-room, and, during certain testimony, the judge requested that the ladies withdraw.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and, after being harangued in touching terms upon the enormity of his offense, the culprit was sentenced to eat a quart of his own soup at a single meal. It was an hilarious affair for that loathsome place, which swarmed with vermin, and where the silence was broken nightly by the clanking and rattling of the chains of convicts.

Many prison inmates exhibited daring and ingenuity in attempting to escape. Castle Thunder was vigilantly [Pg 389] and securely guarded, with a score of sentinels inside, and a cordon of sentinels without.

In the condemned cell adjoining our room was a Rebel officer named Booth, with three comrades, under sentence of death on charge of murder. All were heavily ironed. Nightly, as the time appointed for their execution approached, they surprised us by dancing, rattling their chains, and singing. At one o'clock on the morning of October 22d, we were awakened by shouts and musket-shots. The whole Castle was alarmed, and the guard turned out.

With a saw made from a case-knife, Booth had cut a hole through the floor of his cell, his comrades the while singing and dancing to drown the noise. They were compelled to be very cautious, as a sentinel paced within six feet of them, under instructions to watch them closely. Filing off their irons, they descended cautiously through the aperture into a store-room, where they found four muskets. In the darkness they removed the lock from the door, and each taking a gun, crept into another room opening to the street; struck down the sentinel, and felled a second with the butt of a musket, knocking him ten or twelve feet. At the outer door, a guard, who had taken the alarm, presented his gun. Before he could fire, Booth shot him fatally through the head.

The three late prisoners ran up the street, several ineffectual shots being fired after them by the guards, who dared not leave their posts. At the long bridge across the James River they knocked down another sentinel, who attempted to stop them. Traveling by night through the woods, they soon reached the Union lines.

A considerable number of prisoners smeared their faces with croton-oil to produce eruptions. The surgeon, [Pg 390] called in at exactly the right stage, pronounced the disease small-pox. They were driven toward the small-pox hospital in unguarded ambulances, from which they jumped and ran for their lives. It was a profound mystery to the physician that patients should be so agile, until, examining one face after the eruptions began to subside, he detected the imposition.

In Tennessee two Indiana captains were found within the Rebel lines. They were actually in the secret service of the Government, reconnoitering Confederate camps; but they passed themselves off as deserters, and were brought to the Castle. One told me his story, adding:

"They offer to release us if we will take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy; but I cannot do that. I want to rejoin my regiment, and fight the Rebels while the war lasts. I must escape, and I cannot afford to lose any time."

He kept his own counsel; but the next night took up a plank and descended to a subterranean room, whence he began digging a tunnel. After several nights' labor, when almost completed, the tunnel was discovered by the prison authorities. He immediately commenced another. That also was found, a few hours before it would have proved a success. Then he tried the croton-oil, and in ten days he was again under the old flag.

One prisoner, procuring from the negroes a suit of old clothing, a slouched hat, and a piece of burnt cork, assumed the garments, and blackened his face. With a bucket in his hand, he followed the negroes down three flights of stairs and past four sentinels. Hiding in the negro quarters until after dark, he then leaped from a window in the very face of a sentinel, but disappeared around a corner before the soldier could fire.

Another was sent to General Winder's office for examination. On the way he told his stolid guard that he was clerk of the Castle, and ordered him:

"Go up this street to the next corner and wait there for me. I am compelled to visit the Provost-Marshal's office. Be sure and wait. I will meet you in fifteen minutes."

Captain Lafayette Jones, of Carter County, Tennessee, was held on the charge of bushwhacking and recruiting for the Federal army within the Rebel lines. If brought to trial, he would undoubtedly have been convicted and shot. He succeeded in deluding the officers of the prison about his own identity, and was released upon enlisting in the Rebel army, under the name of Leander Johannes.

George W. Hudson, of New York, had been caught in Louisiana, while acting as a spy in the Union service. Returning to the prison from a preliminary examination before General Winder, he said:

"They have found all my papers, which were sewn in the lining of my valise. There is evidence enough to hang me twenty times over. I have no hope unless I can escape."

He canvassed a number of plans, at last deciding upon one. Then he remarked, with great nonchalance:

"Well, I am not quite ready yet; I must send out to buy a valise and get my clothes washed, so that I can leave in good shape."

Three or four days later, having completed these arrangements, he wrote an order for his own discharge, forging General Winder's' signature. It was a close imitation of Winder's genuine papers upon which [Pg 392] prisoners were discharged daily. Hudson employed a negro to leave this document, unobserved, upon the desk of the prison Adjutant. Just then I was confined in a cell for an attempt to escape. One morning some one tapped at my door; looking out through the little aperture, I saw Hudson, valise in hand, with the warden behind him.

"I have come to say good-by. My discharge has arrived." (In a whisper,) "Put your ear up here. My plan is working to a charm. It is the prettiest thing you ever saw."

He bade me adieu, conversed a few minutes with the prison officers, and walked leisurely up the street. A Union lady sheltered him, and when the Rebels next heard of Hudson he was with the Army of the Potomac, serving upon the staff of General Meade.

Robert Slocum, of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers, was taken to Richmond as a prisoner of war. In two days he escaped, and procured, from friendly negroes, citizen's clothing. Then passing himself off as an Englishman recently arrived in America by a blockade-runner, he attempted to leave the port of Wilmington for Nassau. Through some informality in his passport, he was arrested and lodged in Castle Thunder. Employing an attorney, he secured his release. Still adhering to the original story, he remained in Richmond for many months. He frequently sent us letters, supplies, and provisions, and made many attempts to aid us in escaping. One day he wrote me an entertaining description of President Davis's levee, at which he had spent the previous evening.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Several days of our confinement in Castle Thunder were spent in a little cell with burglars, thieves, "bounty-jumpers," and confidence men. Our association with these strange companions happened in this wise:

One day we completed an arrangement with a corporal of the guard, by which, with the aid of four of his men, he was to let us out at midnight. We had a friend in Richmond, but did not know precisely where his house was situated. We were very anxious to learn, and fortunately, on this very day, he sent a meal to a prisoner in our room. Recognizing the plate, I asked the intelligent young Baltimore negro who brought it:

The boy led me through the passages and down the stairs, past four guards, who supposed that he had been sent by the prison authorities. As we reached the lower floor, I saw my friend standing in the street door, with two officers of the prison beside him. By a look I beckoned him. He walked toward me and I toward him, [Pg 394] until we met at the little railing which separated us. There, over the bayonet of the sentinel, this whispered conversation followed:

He told me the street and number. By this time, the Rebel officers, discovering what was going on, grew indignant and very profane. They peremptorily ordered my friend into the street. He went out wearing a look of mild and injured innocence. The negro had shrewdly slipped out of sight the moment he brought us together, and thus escaped severe punishment.

The officers ordered me back to my quarters, and as I went up the stairs, I heard a volley of oaths. They were not especially incensed at me, recognizing the fact that a prisoner under guard has a right to do any thing he can; but were indignant and chagrined at that want of discipline which permitted an inmate of the safest apartment in the Castle to pass four sentinels to the street door, and converse with an unauthorized person.

Ten minutes after, a boy came up from the office, with the message—this time genuine—that another visitor wished to see me. I went down, and there, immediately beyond the bars through which we were allowed to communicate with outsiders, I saw a lady who called me by name. I did not recognize her, but her eyes told me that she was a friend. A Rebel officer was standing near, to see that no improper communication passed between us. She conversed upon indifferent subjects, but soon found opportunity for saying:

"I am the wife of your friend who has just left you. [Pg 395] He dared not come again. I succeeded in obtaining admission. I have a note for you. I cannot give it to you now, for this officer is looking; but, when I bid you good-by, I will slip it into your hand."

"We will do any thing in the world for you. You shall have shelter at our house, or, if you think that too public, at any house you choose among our friends. We will find you the best pilot in Richmond to take you through the lines. We will give you clothing, we will give you money—every thing you need. If you wish, we will send a half dozen young men to steal up in front of the Castle at midnight; and, for a moment, to throw a blanket over the head of each of the sentinels who stand beside the door."

At one o'clock that night, the Rebel corporal came to our door and said, softly:

"All things are ready; I have my four men at the proper posts; we can pass you to the street without difficulty. Should you meet any pickets beyond, the countersign for to-night is 'Shiloh.' I know you all, and implicitly trust you; but some of my men do not, and before passing out your party of six, they want to see that you have in your possession the money you propose to give us" (seventy dollars in United States currency, together with two gold watches).

This request was reasonable, and Bulkley handed his portion of the money to the corporal. A moment later he returned with it from the gas-light, and said:

"There is a mistake about this. Here are five one-dollar notes, not five-dollar notes."

My friend was very confident there was no error; and we were forced to the conclusion that the guards designed [Pg 396] to obtain our money without giving us our liberty. So the plan was baffled.

The next morning proved that the corporal was right. My friend had offered him the wrong roll of notes. We hoped very shortly to try again, but considerable finessing was required to get the right sentinels upon the right posts. Before it could be done we were placed in a dungeon, on the charge of attempting to escape. We were kept there ten days.

Our fellows in confinement were the burglars and confidence men—"lewd fellows of the baser sort," without principle or refinement, living by their wits. They frankly related many of their experiences in enlisting and re-enlisting for large bounties as substitutes in the Rebel service; decoying negroes from their masters, and then selling them; stealing horses, etc. But they treated us with personal courtesy, and though their own rations were wretchedly short, never molested our dried beef, hams, and other provisions, which any night they could safely have purloined.

Small-pox was very prevalent during the winter months. An Illinois prisoner, named Putman, had a remarkable experience. He was first vaccinated, and two or three days after, attacked with varioloid. Just as he recovered from that, he was taken with malignant small-pox, while the vaccine matter was still working in his arm, which was almost an unbroken sore from elbow to shoulder. In a few weeks he returned to the prison with pits all over his face as large as peas. Small-pox patients were sometimes kept in our close room for two or three days after the eruptions appeared. One of my own messmates barely survived this disease.

We were allowed to purchase whatever supplies the Richmond market afforded, and to have our meals prepared [Pg 397] in the prison kitchen, by paying the old negro who presided there. These were privileges enjoyed by none of the other inmates. Supplies commanded very high prices; it was a favorite jest in the city, that the people had to carry money in their baskets and bring home marketing in their porte-monnaies. Our mess consisted of the four correspondents and Mr. Charles Thompson, a citizen of Connecticut, whose Democratic proclivities, age, and gravity, invariably elected him spokesman when we wished to communicate with the prison authorities. As they regarded us with special hostility, we kept in the back-ground; but Mr. Thompson's quiet tenacity, which no refusal could dishearten, and the "greenbacks" which no attaché could resist, secured us many favors.

Northern letters from our own families reached us with considerable regularity. Those sent by other persons were mostly withheld. Robert Ould, the Rebel Commissioner of Exchange, with petty malignity, never permitted one of the many written from The Tribune office to reach us. All inclosures, excepting money, and sometimes including it, were stolen with uniform consistency. I finally wrote upon one of my missives, which was to go North:

Apparently a little ashamed, the Rebel censor thereafter ceased his peculations.

For a time, boxes of supplies from the North were forwarded to us with fidelity and promptness. Supposing that this could not last long, we determined to make hay while the sun shone. One day, dining from the contents [Pg 398] of a home box, in cutting through the butter, my knife struck something hard. We sounded, and brought to the surface a little phial, hermetically sealed. We opened it, and there found "greenbacks!"

Upon that hint we acted. While it was impossible to obtain letters from the North, we could always smuggle them thither by exchanged prisoners, who would sew them up in their clothing, or in some other manner conceal them. We immediately began to send many orders for boxes; all but two or three came safely to hand, and "brought forth butter in a lordly dish." Treasury notes were also sent bound in covers of books so deftly as to defy detection. One of my messmates thus received two hundred and fifty dollars in a single Bible. The supplies of money, obtained in this manner, lasted through nearly all our remaining imprisonment, and were of infinite service.

All the prisoners who were taken to Richmond with us had received identically the same paroles. In every case, except ours, the Rebels recognized the paroles, and sent the persons holding them through the lines. But they utterly disregarded ours. We felt it a sort of duty to keep them occasionally reminded of their solemn, deliberate, written obligation to us. We first did this through our attorney, General Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky. His relations with Robert Ould were very close. Upon receiving heavy fees in United States currency, he had secured the release of several citizens, after all other endeavors failed. The prisoners believed that Ould shared the fees.

General Marshall made a strong statement of our case in writing, adding to the application for release:

Commissioner Ould indorsed upon this application that he repudiated the parole altogether. In reporting to us, General Marshall said:

"I don't feel at liberty to accept a fee from you, because I consider your case hopeless."

Early in the new year, we addressed a memorial to Mr. Seddon, the Rebel Secretary of War, in which we attempted to argue the case upon its legal merits, and to prove what a flagrant, atrocious violation of official faith was involved in our detention. We plumed ourselves a good deal on our legal logic, but Mr. Seddon returned a very convincing refutation of our argument. He simply wrote an order that we be sent to the Rebel penitentiary at Salisbury, North Carolina, to be held until the end of the war, as hostages for Rebel citizens confined in the North, and for the general good conduct of our Government toward them!

Like the historic Roman, content to be refuted by an emperor who was master of fifty legions, we yielded gracefully to the argument of the Secretary who had the whole Confederate army at his back; and thus we were sent to Salisbury.

On the night before our departure, the warden, a Maryland refugee, named Wiley, ordered us below into a very filthy apartment, to be ready for the morning train. We appealed to Captain Richardson, Commandant of the Castle, who, countermanding the order, permitted us to remain in our own more comfortable quarters during the night. Ten minutes after, one of the little negroes came to our room, and, beckoning me to bend down, he whispered:

"What do you think Mr. Wiley says about Captain [Pg 400] Richardson's letting you stay here to-night? As soon as the Captain went out, he said: 'It's a shame for Richardson and Browne to receive so many more favors than the other prisoners. Why, ---- ---- them, they were Abolitionists before the war!'"

On the way to Salisbury we were very closely guarded, but there were many times during the night when we might easily have jumped from the car window.

At Raleigh, a pleasant little city of five thousand people, named in honor of the great Sir Walter, the temptation was very strong. In the confusion and darkness through which we passed from one train to another, we might easily have eluded the guards; but we were feeble, a long distance from our army lines, and quite unfamiliar with the country. It was a golden opportunity neglected; for it is always comparatively easy for captives to escape while in transitu , and very difficult when once within the walls of a military prison.

On the evening of February 3d we reached Salisbury, and were taken to the Confederate States Penitentiary. It was a brick structure, one hundred feet by forty, four stories in hight, originally erected for a cotton-factory. In addition to the main building, there were six smaller ones of brick, which had formerly been tenement houses; and a new frame hospital, with clean hay mattresses for forty patients. The buildings, which would hold about five hundred prisoners, were all filled. Confederate convicts, Yankee deserters, about twenty enlisted men of our navy and three United States officers confined as hostages, one hundred and fifty Southern Unionists, and fifty northern citizens, composed the inmates.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Truly saith the Italian proverb, "There are no ugly loves and no handsome prisons." Still we found Salisbury comparatively endurable. Captain Swift Galloway, commanding, though a hearty Confederate, was kind and courteous to the captives. Our sleeping apartment, crowded with uncleanly men, and foul with the vilest exhalations, was filthy and vermin-infested beyond description. No northern farmer, fit to be a northern farmer, would have kept his horse or his ox in it.

But the yard of four acres, like some old college grounds, with great oak trees and a well of sweet, pure water, was open to us during the whole day. There, the first time for nine months, our feet pressed the mother earth, and the blessed open air fanned our cheeks.

Mr. Luke Blackmer, of Salisbury, kindly placed his library of several thousand volumes at our disposal. Whenever we wished for books we had only to address a note to him, through the prison authorities, and, in a few hours, a little negro with a basket of them on his head would come in at the gate. It seemed more like life and less like the tomb than any prison we had inhabited before.

And yet those long Summer months were very dreary to bear, for we had upon us the one heavy, crushing [Pg 402] weight of captivity. It is not hunger or cold, sickness or death, which makes prison life so hard to bear. But it is the utter idleness, emptiness, aimlessness of such a life. It is being, through all the long hours of each day and night—for weeks, months, years, if one lives so long—absolutely without employment, mental or physical—with nothing to fill the vacant mind, which always becomes morbid and turns inward to prey upon itself.

It was doubtless this which gave us the look peculiar to the captive—the disturbed, half-wild expression of the eye, the contraction of the wrinkled brow which indicates trouble at the heart.

We were most struck with this in the morning, when, on first going out of our sleeping quarters, we passed down by the hospital and stopped beside the bench where those were laid who had died during the night. As we lifted the cloth, to see who had found release, the one thing which always impressed me was the perfect calm, the sweet, ineffable peace, which those white, thin faces wore. For months I never saw it without a twinge of envy. Until then I never felt the meaning of the words, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Until then I never realized the wealth of the assurance, "He giveth his beloved sleep."

Some prisoners had an additional weight to bear. They were southern Unionists—Tennesseans, North Carolinians, West Virginians, and Mississippians—whose families lived on the border. They knew that they were liable any day to have their houses robbed or burned by the enemy, and their wives and little ones turned out to the mercy of the elements, or the charity of friends. [Pg 403] This gnawing anxiety took away their elasticity and power of endurance. They had far less capacity for resisting disease and hardship than the northeners, and died in the proportion of four or five to one. I could hardly wonder at the fervor with which, in their devotional exercises, night after night, they sung the only hymn which they ever attempted:

The cup of others, yet, had a still bitterer ingredient, which filled it to overflowing. I wonder profoundly that any one drinking of it ever lived to tell his story. They had received bad news from home—news that those nearest and dearest, finding their load of life too heavy, had laid it wearily down. During the long prison hours, such had nothing to think of but the vacant place, the hushed voice, and the desolate hearth. Hope—the one thing which buoys up the prisoner—was gone. That picture of home, which had looked before as heaven looks to the enthusiastic devotee, was forever darkened. The prisoner knew if the otherwise glad hour of his release should ever come, no warmth of welcome, no greeting of friendship, no rejoicing of affection, could ever replace for him the infinite value of the love he had lost.

Early in the Spring we were delighted to learn from Richmond that Colonel Streight had succeeded in escaping from Libby. The officers constructed a long tunnel, which proved a perfect success, liberating one hundred and fourteen of them. Streight, whose proportions tended toward the Falstaffian, was very apprehensive [Pg 404] that he could not work his way through it. Narrowly escaping the fate of the greedy fox which "stuck in the hole," he finally squeezed through. The Rebels hated him so bitterly that, by the unanimous wish of his fellow-prisoners, he was the first man to pass out. A Union woman of Richmond concealed him for nearly two weeks. The first officers who reached our lines announced through the New York papers that Streight had arrived at Fortress Monroe. This caused the Richmond authorities to relinquish their search; and finally, under a skillful pilot, having traveled with great caution for eleven nights to accomplish less than a hundred miles, Streight reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes.

Our prison rations of corn bread and beef were tolerable, in quantity and quality. The Salisbury market also afforded a few articles, of which eggs were the great staple. We indulged extravagantly in that mild form of dissipation—our mess of five at one time having on hand seventy-two dozen, which represented, in Confederate currency, about two hundred dollars.

We soon made the acquaintance of several loyal North Carolinians. Citizens of respectability were permitted to visit the prison. Those of Union proclivities invariably found opportunity to converse with us. Like all Loyalists of the South, white and black, they trusted northern prisoners implicitly. The reign of terror was so great that they often feared to repose confidence in each other, and cautioned us against repeating their expressions of loyalty to their neighbors and friends, whose Union sympathies were just as strong as theirs.

Captains Julius L. Litchfield, of the Fourth Maine Infantry, Charles Kendall, of the Signal Corps, and Edward E. Chase, of the First Rhode Island Cavalry, were imprisoned in the upper room of the factory. Held as hostages [Pg 405] for certain Rebel officers in the Alton, Illinois, penitentiary, they were sentenced to confinement and hard labor during the war. In one instance only was the hard labor imposed. In the prison yard they were ordered to remove several heavy stones a few yards and then carry them back. For some minutes they stood beside the Rebel sergeant, silently and with folded arms. Then Chase thus instructed the guard:

"Go to Captain Galloway, and tell him, with my compliments, that perhaps I was just as delicately nurtured as he—that, if he were in my place, he would hardly do this work, and that I will see the whole Confederacy in the Bottomless Pit before I lift a single stone!"

Chase and his comrades were never afterward ordered to labor. Other Union officers, held as hostages, arrived from time to time. Eight, who came from Richmond, had been confined one hundred and forty-five days in that horrible Libby cell where the mold accumulated on the beard of the Pennsylvania lieutenant. While there they suffered intensely from cold, ate daily all their scanty ration the moment it was issued, and were compelled to fast for the rest of the twenty-four hours, save when they could catch rats, which they eagerly devoured. Some came out with broken constitutions, and all were frightfully pallid and emaciated. Starving and freezing are words easily said, but these gentlemen learned their actual significance.

Four of them were held for Kentucky bushwhackers, whom one of our military courts had sentenced to death, which they clearly deserved under well-defined laws of war. Had they been promptly executed, the Rebels would never have dared, in retaliation, to hurt the hair of a prisoners head. But Mr. Lincoln's kindness of heart induced him to commute their sentence to imprisonment, [Pg 406] and made him unwittingly the cause of this barbarity toward our own officers.

The hostages were plucky and enterprising, frequently attempting to escape. One night they suspended from their fourth-story window a rope which they had constructed of blankets. Captain Ives, of the Tenth Massachusetts Infantry, descended in safety. A daring and loyal Rebel deserter, from East Tennessee, named Carroll, who designed to pilot them to our lines, attempted to follow; but the rope broke, and he fell the whole distance, striking upon his head. It would have killed most men; but Carroll, after spending the night in the guard-house, bathed his swollen head and troubled himself no further about the matter.

Captain B. C. G. Reed, from Zanesville, Ohio, was constantly trying to secure his own release. It always seemed to make him unhappy when he passed two or three weeks without making attempts to escape. They usually resulted in his being hand-cuffed and ballasted by a ball and chain, or confined in a filthy cell.

But, sooner or later, perseverance achieves. Once, while so weak from inflammatory rheumatism, contracted in a Richmond dungeon, that he could hardly walk, he made a successful endeavor, in company with Captain Litchfield. At nine o'clock, on a rainy March night, with their blankets wrapped about them, they coolly walked up to the gate. They rebuked the guard who halted them, indignantly asking him if he did not know that they belonged at head-quarters! Impudence won the day. The innocent sentinel permitted them to pass. They went directly through Captain Galloway's office, which fortunately happened to be empty; reached the outer fence; Litchfield helped over his weak companion, and the world was all before them, where to choose. [Pg 407] They traveled one hundred and twenty miles, but, in the mountains of East Tennessee, were recaptured and brought back.

Nothing daunted, Reed repeated the attempt again and again. Finally, he jumped from a train of cars in the city of Charleston, found a negro who secreted him, and by night conveyed him in a skiff to our forces at Battery Wagner. Reed returned to his command in Thomas's Army, and was subsequently killed in one of the battles before Nashville. Entering the service as a private, and fairly winning promotion, he was an excellent type of the thinking bayonets, of the young men who freely gave their lives "for our dear country's sake."

Early in the summer, our mess was agreeably enlarged by the arrival of Mr. William E. Davis, Correspondent of The Cincinnati Gazette and Clerk of the Ohio Senate. Davis owed his capture to the stupidity of a mule. Riding leisurely along a road within the lines of General Sherman's army, more than a mile from the front, he was compelled to pass through a little gap left between two corps, which had not quite connected. He was suddenly confronted by a double-barreled shot-gun, presented by a Rebel standing behind a tree, who commanded him to halt. Not easily intimidated, Davis attempted to turn his mule and ride for a life and liberty. With the true instinct of his race, the animal resisted the rein, seeming to require a ten-acre lot and three days for turning around—wherefore the rider fell into the hands of the Philistines.

Books whiled away many weary hours. As Edmond Dantes, in the Count of Monte Christo, came out from his twelve years of imprisonment "a very well-read man," we ought to have acquired limitless lore; but reading at last palled upon our tastes, and we would none of it.

Our Salisbury friends supplied us liberally with money. The editors of the migratory Memphis Appeal frequently offered to me any amount which I might desire, and made many attempts to secure my exchange.

The prison authorities sometimes searched us; but friendly guards, or officers of Union proclivities, would always give us timely notice, enabling us to secrete our money. One (nominally) Rebel lieutenant, after we were drawn up in line and the searching had begun, would sometimes receive bank-notes from us, and hand them back when we were returned to our own quarters.

Once, as we were being examined, I had forty dollars, in United States currency, concealed in my hat. That was an article of dress which had never been examined. But now, looking down the line, I saw the guard suddenly commence taking off the prisoners' hats, carefully scrutinizing them. Removing the money from mine, I handed it to Lieutenant Holman, of Vermont; but, turning around, I observed that two Rebel officers immediately behind us had witnessed the movement. Holman promptly passed the notes to "Junius," who stood near, reading a ponderous volume, and who placed them between the leaves of his book. Holman was at once taken from the line and searched rigorously from head to foot, but the Rebels were unable to find the coveted "greenbacks."

The prison officers, under rigid orders from the Richmond authorities, would sometimes retain money received by mail. Two hundred dollars in Confederate notes were thus withheld from me for more than a year. Determined that the Rebel officials should not enjoy much peace of mind, I addressed them letter after letter, reciting their various subterfuges. At last, upon my demanding that they should either give me the [Pg 409] money, or refuse positively over their own signatures, the amount was forthcoming. Thousands of dollars belonging to prisoners were confiscated upon frivolous pretexts, or no pretext whatever.

Persistent ill-fortune still followed all our attempts to escape. Once we perfected an arrangement with a friendly guard, by which, at midnight, he was to pass us over the fence upon his beat. Before our quarters were locked for the night, "Junius" and myself hid under the hospital, where, through the faithful sentinel, escape would be certain. But just then, we chanced to be nearly without money, and Davis waited for a Union attaché of the prison to bring him four hundred dollars from a friend outside. The messenger, for the first and last time in eleven months, becoming intoxicated that afternoon, arrived with the money five minutes too late. Davis was unable to join us; we determined not to leave him, expecting to repeat the attempt on the following night; but the next day the guard was conscribed and sent to Lee's army.

These constant failures subjected us to many jests from our fellow-prisoners. Once, in a dog-day freak, "Junius" had every hair shaved from his head, leaving his pallid face diversified only by a great German mustache. He replied to all badinage that he was not the correspondent for whom his interlocutors mistook him, but the venerable and famous Chinaman "No-Go."

The Yankee deserters, having no friends to protect them, were treated with great harshness. During a single day six were tied up to a post and received, in the aggregate, one hundred and twenty-seven lashes with the cat-o'nine-tails upon their bare backs, as punishment for digging a tunnel. Many of them were "bounty-jumpers" and desperadoes. They robbed each newly-arriving [Pg 410] deserter of all his money, beating him unmercifully if he resisted. After being thus whipped, at their own request their status was changed, and they were sent as prisoners of war to Andersonville, Georgia. There the Union prisoners, detecting them in several robberies and murders, organized a court-martial, tried them, and hung six of them upon trees within the garrison, with ropes furnished by the Rebel commandant.

For seven months no letters, even from our own families, were permitted to reach us. This added much to our weariness. I never knew the pathos of Sterne's simple story until I heard "Junius" read it one sad Summer night in our prison quarters. For weeks afterward rung in my ears the cry of the poor starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!"

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Early in October, the condition of the Salisbury garrison suddenly changed. Nearly ten thousand prisoners of war, half naked and without shelter, were crowded into its narrow limits, which could not reasonably accommodate more than six hundred. It was converted into a scene of suffering and death which no pen can adequately describe. For every hour, day and night, we were surrounded by horrors which burned into our memories like a hot iron.

We had never before been in a prison containing our private soldiers. In spite of many assurances to the contrary, we had been skeptical as to the barbarities which they were said to suffer at Belle Isle and Andersonville. We could not believe that men bearing the American name would be guilty of such atrocities. Now, looking calmly upon our last two months in Salisbury, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the incredible cruelty of the Rebel authorities.

When captured, the prisoners were robbed of the greater part of their clothing. When they reached Salisbury, all were thinly clad, thousands were barefooted, not one in twenty had an overcoat or blanket, and many hundreds were without coats or blouses.

For several weeks, they were furnished with no shelter whatever. Afterward, one Sibley tent and one A tent was issued to each hundred men. With the closest crowding, these contained about one-half of them. The rest burrowed in the earth, crept under buildings, or dragged out the nights in the open air upon the muddy, snowy, or frozen ground. In October, November, and December, snow fell several times. It was piteous beyond description to see the poor fellows, coatless, hatless, and shoeless, shivering about the yard.

They were organized into divisions of one thousand each, and subdivided into squads of one hundred. Almost daily one or more divisions was without food for twenty-four hours. Several times some of them received no rations for forty-eight hours. The few who had money, paid from five to twenty dollars, in Rebel currency, for a little loaf of bread. Some sold the coats from their backs and the shoes from their feet to purchase food.

When a subordinate asked the post-Commandant, Major John H. Gee, "Shall I give the prisoners full rations?" he replied: "No, G-d d--n them, give them quarter-rations!"

Yet, at this very time, one of our Salisbury friends, a trustworthy and Christian gentleman, assured us, in a stolen interview:

"It is within my personal knowledge that the great commissary warehouse, in this town, is filled to the roof with corn and pork. I know that the prison commissary finds it difficult to obtain storage for his supplies."

After our escape, we learned from personal observation that the region abounded in corn and pork. Salisbury was a general dépôt for army supplies.

That section of country is densely wooded. The cars [Pg 413] brought fuel to the door of our prison. If the Rebels were short of tents, they might easily have paroled two or three hundred prisoners, to go out and cut logs, with which, in a single week, barracks could have been constructed for every captive; but the Commandant would not consent. He did not even furnish half the needed fuel.

Cold and hunger began to tell fearfully upon the robust young men, fresh from the field, who crowded the prison. Sickness was very prevalent and very fatal. It invariably appeared in the form of pneumonia, catarrh, diarrhœa, or dysentery; but was directly traceable to freezing and starvation. Therefore the medicines were of little avail. The weakened men were powerless to resist disease, and they were carried to the dead-house in appalling numbers.

By appointment of the prison authorities, my two comrades and myself were placed in charge of all the hospitals, nine in number, inside the garrison. The scenes which constantly surrounded us were enough to shake the firmest nerves; but there was work to be done for the relief of our suffering companions. We could accomplish very little—hardly more than to give a cup of cold water, and see that the patients were treated with sympathy and kindness.

Mr. Davis was general superintendent, and brought to his arduous duties good judgment, untiring industry, and uniform kindness.

"Junius" was charged with supplying medicines to the "out-door patients." The hospitals, when crowded, would hold about six hundred; but there were always many more invalids unable to obtain admission. These wretched men waited wearily for death in their tents, in subterranean holes, under hospitals, or in the open [Pg 414] air. My comrade's tender sympathy softened the last hours of many a poor fellow who had long been a stranger to

I was appointed to supervise all the hospital books, keeping a record of each patient's name, disease, admission, and discharge or death. At my own solicitation, the Rebel surgeon-in-chief also authorized me to receive the clothing left by the dead, and re-issue it among the living. I endeavored to do this systematically, keeping lists of the needy, who indeed were nine-tenths of all the prisoners. The deaths ranged from twenty to forty-eight daily, leaving many garments to be distributed. Day after day, in bitterly cold weather, pale, fragile boys, who should have been at home with their mothers and sisters, came to me with no clothing whatever, except a pair of worn cotton pantaloons and a thin cotton shirt.

Dr. Richard O. Currey, a refugee from Knoxville, was the surgeon in charge. Though a genuine Rebel, he was just and kind-hearted, doing his utmost to change the horrible condition of affairs. Again and again he sent written protests to Richmond, which brought several successive inspectors to examine the prison and hospitals, but no change of treatment.

We were reluctantly driven to the belief that the Richmond authorities deliberately adopted this plan to reduce the strength of our armies. The Medusa head of Slavery had turned their hearts to stone. At this time, they held nearly forty thousand prisoners. In our garrison the inmates were dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month upon the aggregate. About as many more were enlisting in the Rebel army. Thus our soldiers [Pg 415] were destroyed at the rate of more than twenty-five per cent. a month, with no corresponding loss to the enemy.

Frequently, for two or three days, Dr. Currey would refrain from entering the garrison, reluctant to look upon the revolting scenes from which we could find no escape. I am glad to be able to throw one ray of light into so dark a picture. Nearly all the surgeons evinced that humanity which ought to characterize their profession. They were much the best class of Rebels we encountered. They denounced unsparingly the manner in which prisoners were treated, and endeavored to mitigate their sufferings.

To call the foul pens, where the patients were confined, "hospitals," was a perversion of the English tongue. We could not obtain brooms to keep them clean; we could not get cold water to wash the hands and faces of those sick and dying men. In that region, where every farmer's barn-yard contained grain-stacks, we could not procure clean straw enough to place under them. More than half the time they were compelled to lie huddled upon the cold, naked, filthy floors, without even that degree of warmth and cleanliness usually afforded to brutes. The wasted forms and sad, pleading eyes of those sufferers, waiting wearily for the tide of life to ebb away—without the commonest comforts, without one word of sympathy, or one tear of affection—will never cease to haunt me.

At all hours of the day and night, on every side, we heard the terrible hack! hack! hack! in whose pneumonic tones every prisoner seemed to be coughing his life away. It was the most fearful sound in that fearful place.

The last scene of all was the dead-cart, with its rigid forms piled upon each other like logs—the arms [Pg 416] swaying, the white ghastly faces staring, with dropped jaws and stony eyes—while it rattled along, bearing its precious freight just outside the walls, to be thrown in a mass into trenches and covered with a little earth.

When received, there were no sick or wounded men among the prisoners. But before they had been in Salisbury six weeks, "Junius," with better facilities for knowing than any one else, insisted that among eight thousand there were not five hundred well men. The Rebel surgeons coincided in this belief.

The rations, issued very irregularly, were insufficient to support life. Men grew feeble before living upon them a single week; but could not buy food from the town; and were not permitted to receive even a meal sent by friends from the outside. Our positions in the hospitals enabled us to purchase supplies and fare better. Prisoners eagerly devoured the potato-skins from our table. They ate rats, dogs, and cats. Many searched the yard for bones and scraps among the most revolting substances.

They constantly besieged us for admission to the hospitals, or for shelter and food, which we were unable to give. It seemed almost sinful for us to enjoy protection from the weather and food enough to support life in the midst of all this distress.

On wet days the mud was very deep, and the shoeless wretches wallowed pitifully through it, seeking vainly for cover and warmth. Two hundred negro prisoners were almost naked, and could find no shelter whatever except by burrowing in the earth. The authorities treated them with unusual rigor, and guards murdered them with impunity.

No song, no athletic game, few sounds of laughter broke the silence of the garrison. It was a Hall of Eblis—devoid of its gold-besprinkled pavements, crystal vases, and dazzling saloons; but with all its oppressive silence, livid lips, sunken eyes, and ghastly figures, at whose hearts the consuming fire was never quenched.

Constant association with suffering deadened our sensibilities. We were soon able to pass through the hospitals little moved by their terrible spectacles, except when patients addressed us, exciting a personal interest.

The credulity and trustfulness of our Government toward the enemy passed belief. Month after month it sent by the truce-boats many tons of private boxes for Union prisoners, while the Rebels, not satisfied with their usual practice of stealing a portion under the rose, upon one trivial pretext or other, openly confiscated every pound of them. At the same time, returning truce-boats were loaded with boxes sent to Rebel prisoners from their friends in the South, and express-lines crowded with supplies from their sympathizers in the North.

The Government held a large excess of prisoners, and the Rebels were anxious to exchange man for man; but our authorities acted upon the cold-blooded theory of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, that we could not afford to give well-fed, rugged men, for invalids and skeletons—that returned prisoners were infinitely more valuable to the Rebels than to us, because their soldiers were inexorably kept in the army, while many of ours, whose terms of service had expired, would not re-enlist.

The private soldier who neglects his duty is taken out and shot. Officials seemed to forget that the soldier's obligation of obedience devolves upon the Government the obligation of protection. It was clearly the duty of our authorities either to exchange our own soldiers, or [Pg 418] to protect them—not by indiscriminate cruelty, but by well-considered, systematic retaliation in kind, until the Richmond authorities should treat prisoners with ordinary humanity. It was very easy to select a number of Rebel officers, corresponding to the Union prisoners in the Salisbury garrison, and give them precisely the same kind and amount of food, clothing, and shelter.

When the Confederate Government placed certain of our negro prisoners under fire, at work upon the fortifications of Richmond, General Butler, in a brief letter, informed them that he had stationed an equal number of Rebel officers, equally exposed and spade in hand, upon his fortifications. When his letter reached Richmond, before that day's sun went down, the negroes were returned to Libby Prison and ever afterward treated as prisoners of war. But, by the mawkish sensibilities of a few northern statesmen and editors, our Government was encouraged to neglect the matter, and thus permitted the needless murder of its own soldiers—a stain upon the nation's honor, and an inexcusable cruelty to thousands of aching hearts.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

On the 26th of November, while we were sitting at dinner, John Lovell came up from the yard and whispered me:

We had heard similar reports so frequently as to lose all faith in them; but this was true. Without deliberation or concert of action, upon the impulse of the moment, a portion of the prisoners acted. Suffering greatly from hunger, many having received no food for forty-eight hours, they said:

"Let us break out of this horrible place. We may just as well die upon the guns of the guards as by slow starvation."

A number, armed with clubs, sprang upon a Rebel relief of sixteen men, just entering the yard. Though weak and emaciated, these prisoners performed their part promptly and gallantly. Man for man, they wrenched the guns from the soldiers. One Rebel resisted and was bayoneted where he stood. Instantly, the building against which he leaned was reddened by a great stain of blood. Another raised his musket, but, before he could fire, fell to the ground, shot through the head. [Pg 420] Every gun was taken from the terrified relief, who immediately ran back to their camp, outside.

Had parties of four or five hundred then rushed at the fence in half a dozen different places, they might have confused the guards, and somewhere made an opening. But some thousands ran to it at one point only. Having neither crow-bars nor axes they could not readily effect a breach. At once every musket in the garrison was turned upon them. Two field-pieces opened with grape and canister. The insurrection—which had not occupied more than three minutes—was a failure, and the uninjured at once returned to their quarters.

The yard was now perfectly quiet. The portion of it which we occupied was several hundred yards from the scene of the mêlée . In our vicinity there had been no disturbance whatever; yet the guards stood upon the fence for twenty minutes, with deliberate aim firing into the tents, upon helpless and innocent men. Several prisoners were killed within a dozen yards of our building. One was wounded while leaning against it. The bullets rattled against the logs, but none chanced to pass through the wide apertures between them, and enter our apartment. Sixteen prisoners were killed and sixty wounded, of whom not one in ten had participated in the outbreak; while most were ignorant of it until they heard the guns.

After this massacre, cold-blooded murders were very frequent. Any guard, standing upon the fence, at any hour of the day or night, could deliberately raise his musket and shoot into any group of prisoners, black or white, without the slightest rebuke from the authorities. He would not even be taken off his post for it.

One Union officer was thus killed when there could be no pretext that he was violating any prison rule.

Moses Smith, a negro soldier of the Seventh Maryland Infantry, was shot through the head while standing inoffensively beside my own quarters, conversing with John Lovell. One of many instances was that of two white Connecticut soldiers who were shot within their tents. We induced one of the surgeons to inquire at head-quarters the cause of the homicide. The answer received was, that the guard saw three negroes in range, and, knowing he would never have so good an opportunity again, fired at them, but missed aim and killed the wrong men! It seemed to be regarded as a harmless jest.

" The Tribune did more than any other agency to bring on the war. It is useless for you to ask the exchange of its correspondents. They are just the men we want, and just the men we are going to hold."

Our Government, through blundering rather than design, released a large number of Rebel journalists without requiring our exchange. Finally, while among the horrors of Salisbury, we learned that Edward A. Pollard, a malignant Rebel, and an editor of The Richmond Examiner , most virulent of all the southern papers, was paroled to the city of Brooklyn, after confinement for a few weeks in the North. This news cut us [Pg 422] like a knife. We, after nearly two years of captivity, in that foul, vermin-infested prison, among all its atrocities—he, at large, among the comforts and luxuries of one of the pleasantest cities in the world! The thought was so bitter, that, for weeks after hearing the intelligence, we did not speak of it to each other. Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, was the person who set Pollard at liberty. I record the fact, not that any special importance attaches to our individual experience, but because hundreds of Union prisoners were subjected to kindred injustice.

At the Salisbury penitentiary was a respectable woman from North Carolina, who was confined for two months, in the same quarters with the male inmates. Her crime was, giving a meal to a Rebel deserter! In Richmond, a Virginian of seventy was shut up with us for a long time, on the charge of feeding his own son, who had deserted from the army!

In September, a number of Rebel convicts, armed with clubs and knives, forcibly took from John Lovell a Union flag, which he had thus far concealed. After the prisoners of war arrived they vented their indignation upon the convicts, wherever they could catch them. For several days, Rebels venturing into the yard were certain to return to their quarters with bruised faces and blackened eyes.

During the peace mania, which seemed to possess the North, at the time of McClellan's nomination, the Rebels were very hopeful. Lieutenant Stockton, the post-Adjutant, one day observed:

"The tone of your newspapers and politicians. McClellan [Pg 423] is certain to be elected President, and peace will immediately follow."

"You southerners are the most credulous people in the whole world. You have been so long strangers to freedom of speech and the press, that you cannot comprehend it at all. There are half a dozen public men and as many newspapers in the North, who really belong to your side, and express their Rebel sympathies with little or no disguise. Can you not see that they never receive any accessions? Point out a single important convert made by them since the beginning of the war. Before Sumter, these same men told you that, if we attempted coërcion, it would produce war in the North; and you believed them. Again and again they have told you, as now, that the loyal States would soon give up the conflict, and you still believe them. Wait until the people vote, in November, and then tell me what you think."

In due time came news of Mr. Lincoln's re-election. The prisoners received it with intense satisfaction. I conveyed it to the Union officers, from whom we were separated by bayonets—tossing to them a biscuit containing a concealed note. A few minutes after, their cheering and shouting excited the surprise and indignation of the prison authorities. The next morning I asked Stockton how he now regarded the peace prospect. Shaking his head, he sadly replied:

A private belonging to the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Infantry, had left Boston, a new recruit, just six weeks before we met him. In the interval he participated in two great battles and five skirmishes, was wounded in the leg, captured, escaped from his guards, while en route for Georgia, traveled three days on foot, was then [Pg 424] re-captured and brought to Salisbury. His six weeks' experience had been fruitful and varied.

That hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, began to tell seriously upon our mental health. We grew morbid and bitter, and were often upon the verge of quarreling among ourselves. I remember even feeling a pang of jealousy and indignation at an account of some enjoyment and hilarity among my friends at home.

Our prison was like the tomb. No voice from the North entered its gloomy portal. Knowing that we had been unjustly neglected by our own Government, wondering if we were indeed forsaken by God and man, we seemed to lose all human interest, and to care little whether we lived or died. But I suppose lurking, unconscious hope, still buoyed us up. Could we have known positively that we must endure eight months more of that imprisonment, I think we should have received with joy and gratitude our sentence to be taken out and shot.

"What shall we do? We grow weaker day by day. Staying here we shall be certain to follow our comrades to the hospital and the dead-house. The Rebels assure us that if we will enlist, we shall have abundant food and clothing; and we may find a chance of escaping to our own lines."

I always answered that they owed no obligation to God or man to remain and starve to death. Of the two thousand who did enlist, nearly all designed to desert at the first opportunity. Their remaining comrades had no toleration for them. If one who had joined the Rebels came back into the yard for a moment, his life was in imminent peril. Two or three times such persons were [Pg 425] shockingly beaten, and only saved from death by the interference of the Rebel guards. This ferocity was but the expression of the deep, unselfish patriotism of our private soldiers. These men, who carried muskets and received but a mere pittance, were so earnest that they were almost ready to kill their comrades for joining the enemy even to escape a slow, torturing death.

We grew very familiar with the occult science of tunneling. Its modus operandi is this: the workman, having sunk a hole in the ground three, six, or eight feet, as the case may require, strikes off horizontally, lying flat on his face, and digging with whatever tool he can find—usually a case-knife. The excavation is made just large enough for one man to creep through it. The great difficulty is, to conceal the dirt. In Salisbury, however, this obstacle did not exist, for many of the prisoners lived in holes in the ground, which they were constantly changing or enlarging. Hence the yard abounded in hillocks of fresh earth, upon which that taken from the tunnels could be spread nightly without exciting notice.

After the great influx of prisoners of war in October, a large tunneling business was done. I knew of fifteen in course of construction at one time, and doubtless there were many more. The Commandant adopted an ingenious and effectual method of rendering them abortive.

In digging laterally in the ground, at the distance of thirty or forty feet the air becomes so foul that lights will not burn, and men breathe with difficulty. In the great tunnel sixty-five feet long, by which Colonel Streight and many other officers escaped from Libby prison, this embarrassment was obviated by a bit of Yankee ingenuity. The officers, with tacks, blankets, and boards, constructed a pair of huge bellows, like those used by blacksmiths. Then, while one of them worked with his case-knife, [Pg 426] progressing four or five feet in twelve hours, and a second filled his haversack with dirt and removed it (of course backing out, and crawling in on his return, as the tunnel was a single track, and had no turn-table), a third sat at the mouth pumping vigorously, and thus supplied the workers with fresh air.

At Salisbury this was impracticable. I suppose a paper of tacks could not have been purchased there for a thousand dollars. There were none to be had. Of course we could not pierce holes up to the surface of the ground for ventilation, as that would expose every thing.

Originally there was but one line of guards—posted some twenty-five feet apart, upon the fence which surrounded the garrison, and constantly walking to and fro, meeting each other and turning back at the limits of each post. Under this arrangement it was necessary to tunnel about forty feet to go under the fence, and come up far enough beyond it to emerge from the earth on a dark night without being seen or heard by the sentinels.

When the Commandant learned (through prisoners actually suffering for food, and ready to do almost any thing for bread) that tunneling was going on, he tried to ascertain where the excavations were located; but in vain, because none of the shaky Unionists had been informed. Therefore he established a second line of guards, one hundred feet outside of those on the fence, who also paced back and forth in the same manner until they met, forming a second line impervious to Yankees. This necessitated tunneling at least one hundred and forty feet, which, without ventilation, was just as much out of the question as to tunnel a hundred and forty miles.

IV.
THE ESCAPE.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

We were constantly trying to escape. During the last fifteen months of our imprisonment, I think there was no day when we had not some plan which we hoped soon to put in execution. We were always talking and theorizing about the subject.

Indeed, we theorized too much. We magnified obstacles. We gave our keepers credit for greater shrewdness and closer observation than they were capable of. We would not start until all things combined to promise success. Therefore, as the slow months wore away, again and again we saw men of less capacity, but greater daring, escape by modes which had appeared to us utterly chimerical and impracticable.

Fortune, too, persistently baffled us. At the vital moment when freedom seemed just within our grasp, some unforeseen obstacle always intervened to foil our plans. Still, assuming a confidence we did not feel, we daily promised each other to persist until we gained our liberty or lost our lives. After the malignity which the Richmond authorities had manifested toward us, escape seemed a thousand-fold preferable to release by exchange.

I should hardly dare to estimate the combined length of tunnels in which we were concerned; they were [Pg 428] always discovered, usually on the eve of completion. My associate was wont to declare that we should never escape in that way, unless we constructed an underground road to Knoxville—two hundred miles as the bird flies!

Even if we passed the prison walls, the chance of reaching our lines seemed almost hopeless. We were in the heart of the Confederacy. During the ten months we spent in Salisbury, at least seventy persons escaped; but nearly all were brought back, though a few were shot in the mountains. We knew of only five who had reached the North.

"Junius," certain to see the gloomy side of every picture, frequently said: "To walk the same distance in Ohio or Massachusetts, where we could travel by daylight upon public thoroughfares, stop at each village for rest and refreshments, and sleep in warm beds every night, we should consider a severe hardship. Think of this terrible tramp of two hundred miles, by night, in mid-winter, over two ranges of mountains, creeping stealthily through the enemy's country, weak, hungry, shelterless! Can any of us live to accomplish it?"

When at last we did essay it, the journey proved nearly twice as long and infinitely severer than even he had conceived.

Among the officers of the prison, were three stanch Union men—a lieutenant, a surgeon, and Lieutenant John R. Welborn. They were our devoted friends. Their homes, families, and interests, were in the South. Attempting to escape, they were likely to be captured and imprisoned. Remaining, they must enter the army in some capacity, and they preferred wearing swords to carrying muskets. Hundreds of Loyalists were in the same predicament, and adopted the same course.

These gentlemen were of service to us in a thousand ways. They supplied us with money, books, and provisions; bore messages between us and other friends in the village; and kept us constantly advised of military and political events known to the officials, but concealed from the public.

Lieutenant Welborn came to the garrison only about a month before our departure. He belonged to a secret organization known as the Sons of America, instituted expressly to assist Union men, whether prisoners or refugees, in escaping to the North. Its members were bound, by solemn oath, to aid brothers in distress. They recognized each other by the signs, grips, and passwords, common to all secret societies.

We soon discovered that Welborn was not only of the Order, but a very earnest and self-sacrificing member. He was singularly daring. At our first stolen interview he said: "You shall be out very soon, at all hazards." Had he been detected in aiding us, it would have cost him his life; but he was quite ready to peril it.

Beyond the inner line of sentinels, which was much the more difficult one to pass, stood a Rebel hospital, where all medicines for the garrison were stored. When we were placed in charge of the Union hospitals, Mr. Davis was furnished with a pass to go out for medical supplies. It was the inflexible rule of the prison that all persons having such passes should give paroles not to escape. Davis would have assumed no such obligation. But in the confusion incident to the great influx of prisoners of war, and because it was the business of several Rebel officers—the Commandant, the Medical Director, and the Post-Adjutant—instead of the duty of one man to see it done, he was never asked for the parole.

A few days later, the prison authorities gave similar [Pg 430] passes to "Junius" and to Captain Thomas E. Wolfe, of Connecticut, master of a merchant-vessel, who had been a prisoner nearly as long as we. We attempted to convince them, through several deluded Rebel attachés , that it was essential to the proper conduct of the medical department that I too should be supplied with a pass. Doubtless we should have succeeded in time, had not an incident occurred to hasten our movements.

On Sunday, December 18th, we learned that General Bradley T. Johnson, of Maryland, had arrived, and on the following day would supersede Major Gee as Commandant of the prison. Johnson was a soldier who knew how business should be done, and would doubtless put a stop to this loose arrangement about passes. Not a moment was to be lost, and we determined to escape that very night.

I engaged several prisoners, without informing them for what purpose, in copying from my hospital books the names of the dead. I felt that, to relieve friends at home, we ought to make an effort to carry through this information, as long as there was the slightest possibility of success.

My own books only contained the names of prisoners who died in the hospitals. "Out-door patients"—those deceased in their own quarters, or in no quarters whatever, were recorded in a separate book, by the Rebel clerk in the outside hospital. I dared not send to him for their names on Sunday, lest it should excite his suspicion. But the list from my own records was appalling. It comprised over fourteen hundred prisoners deceased within sixty days, and showed that they were now dying at the rate of thirteen per cent. a month on the entire number—a rate of mortality which would depopulate any city in the world in forty-eight hours, and send the [Pg 431] people flying in all directions, as from a pestilence! Yet when those prisoners came there, they were young and vigorous, like our soldiers generally in the field. There was not a sick or wounded man among them. It was a fearful revelation of the work which cold and starvation had done.

When I put on extra under-clothing for the possible journey, it was without conscious expectation—almost without any hope whatever—of success. I had assumed the same garments for the same purpose, at the very least, thirty times before, within fifteen months, only to be disappointed; and that was enough to dampen the most sanguine temperament.

We believed that our attempt, if detected, would be made the excuse for treating us with peculiar rigor. But, in the event of discovery, we were likely to be sent back to our own quarters for the night, and not ironed or confined in a cell until the next morning.

Lieutenant Welborn was on duty that day. We made him privy to our plan. He agreed, if it proved unsuccessful, to smuggle in muskets for us; and we proposed to wrap ourselves in gray blankets, slouch our hats down over our eyes, and pass out at midnight, as Rebel soldiers, when he relieved the guard. Once in the camp, he could conduct us outside.

On that Sunday evening, half an hour before dark (the latest moment at which the guards could be passed, even by authorized persons, without the countersign), Messrs. Browne, Wolfe, and Davis, went outside, as if to order their medical supplies for the sick prisoners. As they passed in and out a dozen times a day, and their faces were quite familiar to the sentinels, they were not compelled to show their passes, and "Junius" left his behind with me.

A few minutes later, taking a long box filled with bottles in which the medicines were usually brought, and giving it to a little lad who assisted me in my hospital duties, I started to follow them.

As if in great haste, we walked rapidly toward the fence, while, leaning against trees or standing in the hospital doors, half a dozen friends looked on to see how the plan worked. When we reached the gate, I took the box from the boy, and said to him, of course for the benefit of the sentinel:

"I am going outside to get these bottles filled. I shall be back in about fifteen minutes, and want you to remain right here, to take them and distribute them among the hospitals. Do not go away, now."

The lad, understanding the matter perfectly, replied, "Yes, sir;" and I attempted to pass the sentinel by mere assurance.

I had learned long before how far a man may go, even in captivity, by sheer, native impudence—by moving straight on, without hesitation, with a confident look, just as if he had a right to go, and no one had any right to question him. Several times, as already related, I saw captives, who had procured citizens' clothes, thus walk past the guards in broad daylight, out of Rebel prisons.

I think I could have done it on this occasion, but for the fact that it had been tried successfully twice or thrice, and the guards severely punished. The sentinel stopped me with his musket, demanding:

"Certainly, I have a pass," I replied, with all the indignation I could assume. "Have you not seen it often enough to know by this time?"

We had speculated for a long time about my using a spurious pass, and my two comrades prepared several with a skill and exactness which proved that, if their talents had been turned in that direction, they might have made first-class forgers. But we finally decided that the veritable pass was better, because, if the guard had any doubt about it, I could tell him to send it into head-quarters for examination. The answer returned would of course be that it was genuine.

But it was not submitted to any such inspection. The sentinel spelled it out slowly, then folded and returned it to me, saying:

I thought him excusable under the circumstances, and walked out. My great fear was that, during the half hour which must elapse before I could go outside the garrison, I might encounter some Rebel officer or attaché who knew me.

Before I had taken ten steps, I saw, sauntering to and fro on the piazza of the head-quarters building, a deserter from our service, named Davidson, who recognized and bowed to me. I thought he would not betray me, but was still fearful of it. I went on, and a few yards farther, [Pg 434] coming toward me in that narrow lane, where it was impossible to avoid him, I saw the one Rebel officer who knew me better than any other, and who frequently came into my quarters—Lieutenant Stockton, the Post-Adjutant. Observing him in the distance, I thought I recognized in him that old ill-fortune which had so long and steadfastly baffled us. But I had the satisfaction of knowing that my associates were on the look-out from a window and, if they saw me involved in any trouble, would at once pass the outer gate, if possible, and make good their own escape.

When we met, I bade Stockton good-evening, and talked for a few minutes upon the weather, or some other subject in which I did not feel any very profound interest. Then he passed into head-quarters, and I went on. Yet a few yards farther, I encountered a third Rebel, named Smith, who knew me well, and whose quarters, inside the garrison, were within fifty feet of my own. There were not half a dozen Confederates about the prison who were familiar with me; but it seemed as if at this moment they were coming together in a grand convention.

Not daring to enter the Rebel hospital, where I was certain to be recognized, I laid down my box of medicines behind a door, and sought shelter in a little outbuilding. While I remained there, waiting for the blessed darkness, I constantly expected to see a sergeant, with a file of soldiers, come to take me back into the yard; but none came. It was rare good fortune. Stockton, Smith, and Davidson, all knew, if they had their wits about them, that I had no more right there than in the village itself. I suppose their thoughtlessness must have been caused by the peculiarly honest and business-like look of that medicine-box!

CHAPTER XL.

At dark, my three friends joined me. We went through the outer gate, in full view of a sentinel, who supposed we were Rebel surgeons or nurses. And then, on that rainy Sunday night, for the first time in twenty months, we found ourselves walking freely in a public street, without a Rebel bayonet before or behind us!

Reaching an open field, a mile from the prison, we crouched down upon the soaked ground, in a bed of reeds, while Davis went to find a friend who had long before promised us shelter. While lying there, we heard a man walking through the darkness directly toward us. We hugged the earth and held our breaths, listening to the beating of our own hearts. He passed so near, that his coat brushed my cheek. We were beside a path which led across the field from one house to another. Davis soon returned, and called us with a low "Hist!" We crept to the fence where he waited.

He led us through bushes and lanes until we found our friend, leaning against a tree in the rain, waiting for us.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed, "you are out at last. I wish I could extend to you the hospitalities of my house; but it is full of visitors, and they are all Rebels. However, [Pg 436] I will take you to a tolerably safe place. I have to leave town by a night train in half an hour, but I will tell ---- where you are, and he will come and see you to-morrow."

He conducted us to a barn, in full sight of the prison; directed us how to hide, wrung our hands, bade us Godspeed, and returned to his house and his unsuspecting guests.

We climbed up the ladder into the hay-mow. Davis and Wolfe burrowed down perpendicularly into the fodder, as if sinking an oil-well, until they were covered, heads and all. "Junius" and myself, after two hours of perspiring labor, tunneled into a safe position under the eaves, where we lay, stretched at full length, head to head, luxuriating in the fresh air, which came in through the cracks.

Wonderfully pure and delicious it seemed, contrasted with the foul, vitiated atmosphere we had just left! How sweet smelled the hay and the husks! How infinite the "measureless content" which filled us at the remembrance that at last we were free! Hearing the prison sentinels, as they shouted "Ten o'—clock; a—ll's well!" we sank, like Abou Ben Adhem, into a deep dream of peace.

Our object in remaining here was twofold. We desired to meet Welborn, and obtain minute directions about the route, which thus far he had found no opportunity to give us. Besides, we anticipated a vigilant search. The Rebel authorities were thoroughly familiar with the habits of escaping prisoners, who invariably acted as if there were never to be any more nights after the first, and walked as far as their strength would permit. Thus exhausted, they were unable to resist or run, if overtaken.

The Commandant would be likely to send out and picket all the probable routes near the points we could reach by a hard night's travel. We thought it good policy to keep inside these scouts. While they held the advance, they would hardly obtain tidings of us. We could learn from the negroes where they guarded the roads and fords, and thus easily evade them. Our shelter, in full view of the garrison, and within sound of its morning drum-beat, was the one place, of all others, where they would never think of searching for us.

On the second morning after our disappearance, The Salisbury Daily Watchman announced the escape, and said that it caused some chagrin, as we were the most important prisoners in the garrison. But it added that we were morally certain to be brought back within a week, as scouts had been sent out in all directions, and the country thoroughly alarmed. Some of these scouts went ninety miles from Salisbury, but were naturally unable to learn any thing concerning us.

Remained hidden in the barn. There was a house only a few yards away, and we could hear the conversation of the inmates whenever the doors were open. White and negro children came up into the hay-loft, sometimes running and jumping directly over the heads of Wolfe and Davis.

At dark, another friend, a commissioned officer in the Rebel army, came out to us with a canteen of water, which, quite without food, we had wanted sadly during the day. He was unable to bring us provisions. His wife was a Southern lady. Reluctant to cause her anxiety for his liberty and property, imperiled by aiding us, or from some other reason, he did not take her into [Pg 438] the secret. Like most frugal wives, where young and adult negroes abound, she kept her provisions under lock and key, and he found it impossible to procure even a loaf of bread without her knowledge.

With his parting benediction, we returned to the field where we had waited the night before, and found Lieutenant Welborn, punctual to appointment, with another escaped prisoner, Charles Thurston, of the Sixth New Hampshire Infantry.

Thurston had two valuable possessions—great address, and the uniform of a Confederate private. At ten o'clock, on Sunday night, learning of our escape, and thinking us a good party to accompany, he walked out of the prison yard behind two Rebel detectives, the sentinel taking him for a third officer. Slouching his hat over his face, with matchless effrontery he sat down on a log, among the Rebel guards. In a few minutes he caught the eye of Welborn, who soon led him by all the sentinels, giving the countersign as he passed, until he was outside the garrison, and then hid him in a barn, half a mile from our place of shelter. The negroes fed him during the day; and now here he was, jovial, sanguine, daring, ready to start for the North Pole itself.

Welborn gave us written directions how to reach friends in a stanch Union settlement fifty miles away. It was hard to part from the noble fellow. At that very moment he was under arrest, and awaiting trial by court martial, on the charge of aiding prisoners to escape. In due time he was acquitted. Three months later he reached our lines at Knoxville, with thirty Union prisoners, whom he had conducted from Salisbury.

We said adieu, and went out into the starry silence. Plowing through the mud for three miles, we struck the Western Railroad, and followed it. Beside it were several [Pg 439] camps with great fires blazing in front of them. Uncertain whether they were occupied by guards or wood-choppers, we kept on the safe side, and flanked them by wide détours through the almost impenetrable forest.

We were very weak. In the garrison we had been burying from twelve to twenty men per day, from pneumonia. I had suffered from it for more than a month, and my cough was peculiarly hollow and stubborn. My lungs were still sore and sensitive, and walking greatly exhausted me. It was difficult, even when supported by the arm of one of my friends, to keep up with the party. At midnight I was compelled to lie, half unconscious, upon the ground, for three-quarters of an hour, before I could go on.

We accomplished twelve miles during the night. At three o'clock in the morning we went into the pine-woods, and rested upon the frozen ground.

We supposed our hiding-place very secluded; but daylight revealed that it was in the midst of a settlement. Barking dogs, crowing fowls, and shouting negroes, could be heard from the farms all about us. It was very cold, and we dared not build a fire. None of us were adequately clothed, and "Junius" had not even an overcoat. It was impossible to bring extra garments, which would have excited the attention of the sentinel at the gate.

We could sleep for a few minutes on the pine-leaves; but soon the chilly air, penetrating every fibre, would awaken us. There was a road, only a few yards from our pine-thicket, upon which we saw horsemen and farmers with loads of wood, but no negroes unaccompanied by white men.

Soon after dark it began to rain; but necessity, that inexorable policeman, bade us move on. When we approached a large plantation, leaving us behind, in a fence-corner, Thurston went forward to reconnoiter. He found the negro quarters occupied by a middle-aged man and woman. They were very busy that night, cooking for and serving the young white people, who had a pleasure-party at the master's house, within a stone's throw of the slave-cabin.

But when they learned that there were hungry Yankees in the neighborhood, they immediately prepared and brought out to us an enormous supper of fresh pork and corn-bread. It was now nine o'clock on Tuesday night, and we had eaten nothing since three o'clock Sunday afternoon, save about three ounces of bread and four ounces of meat to the man. We had that to think of which made us forget the gnawings of hunger, though we suffered somewhat from a feeling of faintness. Now, in the barn, with the rain pattering on the roof, we devoured supper in an incredibly brief period, and begged the slave to go back with his basket and bring just as much more.

About midnight the negro found time to pilot us through the dense darkness and pouring rain, back to the railroad, from which we had strayed three miles. The night was bitterly cold, and in half an hour we were as wet as if again shipwrecked in the Mississippi.

For five weary miles we plodded on, with the stinging rain pelting our faces. Then we stopped at a plantation, and found the negroes. They told us it was unsafe to remain, several white men being at home, and no good hiding-place near, but directed us to a neighbor's. There the slaves sent us to a roadside barn, which we reached just before daylight.

CHAPTER XLI.

The barn contained no fodder except damp husks. Burrowing into these, we wrapped our dripping coats about us, covered ourselves, faces and all, and shivered through the day, so weary that we drowsed a little, but too uncomfortable for any refreshing slumbers.

Rising at dark, with skins irritated by atoms of husk which had penetrated our clothing, we combed out our matted hair and beards—a very faint essay toward making our toilets. Hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, and haversacks, were hopelessly lost in the fodder. Hungry, cold, rheumatic, aching at every joint, we seemed to have exhausted our slender endurance.

But a walk of ten minutes took us to a slave-cabin, where, as usual, we found devoted friends. The old negro killed two chickens, and then stood outside, to watch and warn us of the patrols, should he hear the clattering hoofs of their approaching horses. His wife and daughter cooked supper, while we stood before the blazing logs of the wide-mouthed fireplace, to dry our steaming garments.

It was the first dwelling I had entered for nearly twenty months. It was rude almost to squalor; but it looked more palatial than the most elegant and luxurious saloon. There was a soft bed, with clean, snowy [Pg 442] sheets. How I envied those negroes, and longed to stretch my limbs upon it and sleep for a month! There were chairs, a table, plates, knives, and forks—the commonest comforts of life, which, like sweet cold water, clean clothing, and pure air, we never appreciate until once deprived of them.

We eagerly devoured the chickens and hot corn-bread, and drank steaming cups of green tea, which our ebony hostess, unfamiliar with the beverage that cheers, but not inebriates, prepared under my directions. Before starting I had taken the precaution to fill a pocket with tea, which I had been saving more than a year for that purpose. In commercial parlance, tea was tea in the Confederacy. The last pound we purchased, for daily use, cost us one hundred and twenty-seven dollars in Rebel currency, and we were compelled to send to Wilmington before we could obtain it even at that price.

It is an article little used by the Southerners, who are inveterate coffee-drinkers. All along our route we found the women, white and black, ignorant of the art of making tea without instructions. Captain Wolfe assured us that his father once attended a log-rolling in South Carolina, where, as a rare and costly luxury, the host regaled the workers with tea at the close of their labors. But, unacquainted with its use, they were only presented with the boiled leaves to eat! After this novel banquet, one old lady thus expressed the views of the rural assembly: "Well, I never tasted this before. It is pleasant enough; but except for the name of it, I don't consider tea a bit better than any other kind of greens!"

Experience on the great Plains and among the Rocky Mountains had taught me the superiority of tea over all stronger stimulants in severe, protracted hardships. [Pg 443] Now it proved of inestimable service to us. After a two-hours' halt, refreshed by food and dry clothing, we seemed to have a new lease of life. Elastic and vigorous, we felt equal to almost any labor.

"May God bless you," said the old woman, bidding us adieu, while earnest sympathy shone from her own and her daughter's eyes and illumined their dark faces. To us they were "black, and comely too." The husband led us to the railroad, and there parted from us.

At midnight we were twenty-three miles from Salisbury, and three from Statesville. We wished to avoid the latter village; and leaving the railway, which ran due west, turned farther northward. In two miles we expected to strike the Wilkesboro road, at Allison's Mill. We followed the old negro's directions as well as possible, but soon suspected that we must be off the route. It was bitterly cold, and to avoid suffering we walked on and on with great rapidity. Before daylight, at a large plantation, we wakened a slave, and learned that, since leaving the railway, we had traveled twelve miles circuitously and gained just one half-mile on the journey! There were two Allison's Mills, and our black friend had directed us to the wrong one.

"Can you conceal us here to-day?" we asked in a whisper of the negro who gave us this information from his bed, in a little cabin.

"I reckon so. Master is a terrible war-man, a Confederate officer, and would kill me if he were to find it out. But I kept a sick Yankee captain here last summer for five days, and then he went on. Go to the barn and hide, and I will see you when I come to fodder the horses."

We found the barn, groped our way up into a hay-loft, under the eaves, and buried ourselves in the straw.

The biting wind whistled and shrieked between the logs of the barn, and, cover ourselves as we would, it was too cold for sleep. The negro—an intelligent young man—spent several hours with us, asking questions about the North, brought us ample supplies of food, and a bottle of apple-brandy purloined from his master's private stores.

At dark he took us into his quarters, only separated by a narrow lane from the planter's house, and we were warmed and fed. A dozen of the blacks—including little boys and girls of ten and twelve years—visited us there. Among them was a peculiarly intelligent mulatto woman of twenty-five, comely, and neatly dressed. The poor girl interrogated us for an hour very earnestly about the progress of the War, its probable results, and the feeling and purposes of the North touching the slaves. Using language with rare propriety, she impressed me as one who would willingly give up life for her unfortunate race. With culture and opportunity, she would have been an intellectual and social power in any circle. She was the wife of a slave; but her companions told us that she had been compelled to become the mistress of her master. She spoke of him with intense loathing.

By this time we had learned that every black face was a friendly face. So far as fidelity was concerned, we felt just as safe among the negroes as if in our Northern homes. Male or female, old or young, intelligent or simple, we were fully assured they would never betray us.

Some one has said that it needs three generations to make a gentleman. Heaven only knows how many generations are required to make a freeman! But we have [Pg 445] been accustomed to consider this perfect trustworthiness, this complete loyalty to friends, a distinctively Saxon trait. The very rare degree to which the negroes have manifested it, is an augury of brightest hope and promise for their future. It is a faint indication of what they may one day become, with Justice, Time, and Opportunity.

They were always ready to help anybody opposed to the Rebels. Union refugees, Confederate deserters, escaped prisoners—all received from them the same prompt and invariable kindness. But let a Rebel soldier, on his way to the army, or returning from it, apply to them, and he would find but cold kindness.

The moment they met us, they would do whatever we required upon impulse and instinct. But afterward, when there was leisure for conversation, they would question us with some anxiety. Few had ever seen a Yankee before. They would repeat to us the bugbear stories of their masters, about our whipping them to force them into the Union army, and starving their wives and children. Professing utterly to discredit these reports, they still desired a little reassurance. We can never forget their upturned, eager eyes, and earnest faces. Happily we could tell them that the Nation was rising to the great principles of Freedom, Education, and an open Career for every human being.

Starting at ten o'clock to-night, we had an arduous march over the rough, frozen ground. Hard labor and loss of sleep began to tell upon us. I think every member of the party had his mental balance more or less shaken. Davis was haggard, with blood-shot eyes; "Junius" was pallid, and threatened with typhoid fever; Wolfe, with a sprained ankle, could barely limp; I was weak and short of breath, from the pneumonic [Pg 446] affection. Charley Thurston was our best foot, and we always put him foremost. With his Confederate uniform and his ready invention, he could play Rebel soldier admirably.

Toward morning we were compelled to stop, build a fire in the dense pine-forest, and rest for an hour. We were uncertain about the roads, and just before daylight Charley stopped to make inquiries of an old farmer. Then we went on, and, as the road was very secluded, were talking with less discretion than usual, when a twig snapped behind us. Instantly turning around, we saw the old man following stealthily, listening to our conversation. We ordered him to halt; but he ran away with wonderful agility for a septuagenarian.

The moment he was out of sight, we left the road, and ran, too, in an opposite direction, fast as our tired limbs could carry us. It would be a very nice point to determine which was the more frightened, we or our late pursuer. We afterward learned that he was an unrelenting Rebel and a zealous Home Guard. He was doubtless endeavoring to follow us to our shelter, that he might bring out his company, and capture us during the day.

Long after daylight we continued running, until we had put five miles between ourselves and the road. The region was very open, and it seemed morally certain that we would be discovered through the barking dogs at some of the farm-houses. But about nine o'clock we halted in a pine-grove, small but thick, and built a great fire of rails, which, being very dry, emitted little smoke. There was danger that the blaze would be discovered; but in our feeble condition we could no longer endure the inclemency of the weather.

Hungry and fatigued, with our feet to the fire, we could sleep an hour at a time upon the frozen ground before the cold awakened us. When, after a waiting which seemed endless, the welcome darkness came at last, it lifted a load from our hearts; we no longer listened anxiously for the coming of the Guard.

Starting again, we toiled on with slow and painful steps. We were entering a region where slaves were few, and we could find no negroes. "Junius," in a high fever, was so weak that we were almost compelled to carry him, and his voice was faint as the wail of an infant. Again and again he begged us to go on, and leave him to rest upon the ground. We had sore apprehensions that it might become necessary to commit him to the first friends we found, and press forward without him.

About eight o'clock Charley entered a little tavern to procure provisions. He assumed his favorite character of a Rebel soldier, on parole, going to his home in Wilkes County for the holidays. An old man was spending the night there. While supper was cooking, he gave to Charley a recognizing sign of the Sons of America. It was instantly answered; and, stepping outside, they had an interview.

Then our new friend stealthily led his three mules from the tavern stable, through the fields to the road, placed three of us upon them, and guided us five miles, to the house of his brother, another strong Union man. The brother warmed us, fed us, and "stayed us with flagons" of apple-brandy; then brought out two of his mules, and again we pressed forward. They cautioned us not to intrust the secret of their assistance to any one, reminding us that it would be a hanging matter for them.

So, on this cold winter night, while we were so stiff [Pg 448] and exhausted that we could barely keep our seats on the steeds they had so thoughtfully furnished, these kind friends conducted us fifteen miles, and left us in the Union settlement we were seeking, fifty miles from Salisbury.

CHAPTER XLII.

It was now five o'clock in the morning of Saturday, December 24th, the seventh day of our escape. Leaving my companions behind, I tapped at the door of a log-house.

"Come in," said a voice; and I entered. In its one room the children and father were still in bed; the wife was already engaged in her daily duties. I asked:

"There are two widow ----s, in this neighborhood," she replied. "What is your name?"

I was seeking information, just then, not giving it; so avoiding the question, I added:

"They both have sons who are officers in the army. Don't be afraid; you are among friends."

"Friends" might mean Union or it might mean Rebel; so I accepted no amendments, but adhered to the main question:

I knew my man too well to be baffled. I continued: [Pg 450] "He is in the second regiment of the Senior Reserves; and is now on duty at ----."

At once I told her what we were. She replied, with a wonderful light of welcome shining in her eyes:

"If you are Yankees, all I have to say is, that you have come to exactly the right place!"

And, in exuberant joy, she bustled about, doing a dozen things at once, talking incoherently the while, replenishing the fire, bringing me a seat, offering me food, urging her husband to hurry out for the rest of the party. At last her excitement culminated in her darting under the bed, and reappearing on the surface with a great pint tumbler filled to the brim with apple-brandy. There was enough to intoxicate our whole party! It was the first form of hospitality which occurred to her. Afterward, when better acquainted, she explained:

We heartily reciprocated the feeling. Just then the only woman who had any charms for us was the Goddess of Liberty; and this, at least, was one of her handmaidens.

We were soon by the great log fire of a house where friends awaited us. Belonging to the secret Union organization, they had received intelligence that we were on the way. Our feet were blistered and swollen; mine were frostbitten. We removed our clothing, and were soon reposing in soft feather beds. At noon, awakened for breakfast, we found "Junius" had been sleeping like a child, and was now hungry—a relief to our anxiety. After the meal was over, we returned to bed.

Our friends were constantly on the alert; but the house was very secluded, and they were not compelled to watch outside. There, two ferocious dogs were on guard, rendering it unsafe for any one to come within a hundred yards of them. Nearly all the people, Loyal and Rebel, had similar sentinels. Along the route, we had been anathematizing the canine race, which often prevented us from approaching negro-quarters on the plantations; but these were Union dogs, which made all the difference in the world.

At dark, we were conducted to a barn, where, wrapped in quilts, we passed a comfortable night.

Our resting-place was in Wilkes County, North Carolina, among the outlying spurs of the Alleghanies—a county so strong in its Union sentiments, that the Rebels called it "the Old United States." Among the mountains of every Southern State, a vast majority of the people were loyal. Hilly regions, unadapted to cotton-culture, contained few negroes; and where there was no Slavery, there was no Rebellion. Milton's verse—

Our self-sacrificing friends belonged to a multitudinous family, extending through a settlement many miles in length. They all seemed to be nephews, cousins, or brothers; and the white-haired patriarch—at seventy, erect and agile as a boy,—in whose barn we remained to-day, was father, grandfather, or uncle, to the whole tribe. His loyalty was very stanch and intense.

"The Home Guards," said he, "are usually pretty civil. Occasionally they shoot at some of the boys who [Pg 452] are hiding; but pretty soon afterward, one of them is found in the woods some morning with a hole in his head! I suppose there are a thousand young men lying out in this county. I have always urged them to fight the Guards, and have helped to supply them with ammunition. Two or three times, regiments from Lee's army have been sent here to hunt conscripts and deserters, and then the boys have to run. I have a son among them; but they never wounded him yet. I asked him the other day: 'Won't you kill some of them before you are ever captured?' 'Well, father,' says he, ' I'll be found a tryin'! ' I reckon he will, too; for he has never gone without his rifle these two years, and he can bring down a squirrel every time, from the top of yon oak you see on the hill."

The barn was beside a public road, and very near the house of a woman whose Rebel sympathies were strong. There was danger that any one entering it might be seen by her or her children, who were running about the yard.

But we held quite a levée to-day. I think we had fifty visitors. We would hear the opening door and stealthy footsteps upon the barn-floor; then a soft voice would ask:

We would rise from our bed of hay, and come forward to the front of the loft, to find some member of this great family of friends, who had brought his wife and children to see the Yankees. We would converse with them for a few minutes; they would invariably ask if there was nothing whatever they could do for us, invite us to visit their house by night, and express the warmest wishes for our success. They did this with such perfect spontaneity, with such overflowing hearts, that it touched us [Pg 453] very nearly. Had we been their own sons or brothers, they could not have treated us more tenderly. This Christmas may have witnessed more brilliant gatherings than ours; but none, I am sure, warmed by a more self-sacrificing friendship.

Among others, we were visited by a conscript, who had been one of our guards at Salisbury. While at the prison, his great portly form would come laboring and puffing up the stairs to our quarters; with flushed face, he would sit down, glance cautiously around to assure himself that none but friends were present, then question us eagerly about the North, and breathe out maledictions against all Confederates.

The Rebels, suspecting him, determined to send him to Lee's army. But he was just then taken with rheumatism, and kept his quarters for six weeks! At last, the day before he was to start for Richmond, he obtained permission of the surgeon to visit the village. He hobbled up the street, groaning piteously; but, after turning the first corner, threw away his crutches, plunged into the woods, and made his way home by night. He now related his experiences with a quiet chuckle, and was very desirous of serving us.

He was able to give me a pair of large boots in place of my own, which lacerated my sore and swollen feet. The sharp rocks, hills, and stumps, compelled me to have the new boots repaired seven times before reaching our lines. Two nights' traveling would quite wear out the ill-tanned leather of the stoutest soles.

To-day, our friends brought us twice as much food as we wanted, and we wanted a great deal. At dark, alarmed by a rumor that the suspicions of the Guard had been excited, they took us several miles into a neighboring county, to a very secluded house, occupied by the [Pg 454] wife and daughters of an officer in the Confederate army. Here we spent the night in inviting beds.

Our hostess, a comely lady of thirty-five, was a second Mrs. Katie Scudder—the very embodiment of "Faculty." Her plain log house, with its snowy curtains, cheap prints, and engravings cut from illustrated newspapers, was tasteful and inviting. Her five daughters, all clothed in fabric spun and woven at home—for these people were now entirely self-dependent—looked as pretty and tidy to uncritical, masculine eyes, as if robed in silk and cashmere.

Our pursuit of a quiet refuge proved ludicrously unsuccessful. The day was diversified by

But the lady bore herself with such coolness, and proved so ready for every emergency, that we enjoyed them rather than otherwise.

Early in the morning, while standing a few yards from the house, I saw her and her daughter suddenly step into the open doorway, quite filling it with their persons and skirts, and earnestly beckon me to go in out of sight. Of course, I obeyed. A woman of questionable political soundness had called; but they attracted her in another direction, keeping her face turned away from the door, till I was lost to sight.

Several parties of Rebel cavalry passed down the road. Breckinridge's army, in the mountains above, had recently dissolved in a great thaw and break-up, and these were the small fragments of ice floating down toward Virginia. A squad of a dozen stopped and entered the house, which was of one story, the length of three large [Pg 455] rooms. But the lady kept them in the kitchen, while we were shut in the other end of the building.

Next, the barking dog warned us of approaching footsteps. At her suggestion, we went up into the corn-loft, above our apartment. The new visitor was a neighbor, to whom she owed a bushel of corn, and who, with his ox-cart, had come to collect it. With ready woman's wit, she said to him:

"You know my husband is away. I have no fuel. Won't you go and haul me a load of wood, as a Christmas present?"

Who could resist such a feminine appeal? The neighbor went for the wood, while she came laughing in, to tell us her stratagem. We descended from the corn-loft, and went into a back room, where there were two beds, one large and the other small, with an open door between them. Four of us crept under the large bed, one under the small one; and here we had an experience, ludicrous enough to remember, but not so pleasant to undergo.

One of our party was an inveterate snorer. Whenever he took a recumbent position, with his head upon the ground or the floor, he would begin snoring like a steam-engine. Like all persons of that class, when reminded of it, he steadfastly vowed that he never snored in all his life! For a time, he regarded our awakening him, with rebuke and caution, as a sorry practical joke.

Thus far, I believe our danger of detection had been greater from this source than from any other. We had always traveled in single file, almost like specters, with our leader thrown out as far ahead as we could keep him in view. Whenever he thought he saw danger, he raised a warning hand; every man passed the sign back to those in his rear, and dropped [Pg 456] quietly behind a log, or stepped into the bushes, until the person had passed or the alarm was explained. We walked with softest footsteps, no man coughing, or speaking above his breath. During the day we were often concealed in very public places, only a few feet from the road, where, the ground being covered with snow, we could not hear approaching footsteps.

Now, our musical companion chanced to go under the small bed, and in three minutes we heard his trumpet-tongued snore. At first, we whispered to him; but we might as well have talked to Niagara. If one of us went to him, there was danger that the neighbor, who stood upon the front porch, would see us through the open door; but if we did not, that fatal snore was certain to be heard. So I darted across the room, crept in beside my friend, and kept him well shaken until the danger was over.

At night, the lady told us that more people had come to her house during the day than ever visited it in a month before; and we were marched back through the darkness, to our first place of concealment.

In the barn through the whole day. A messenger brought us a note from two late fellow-prisoners, Captain William Boothby, a Philadelphia mariner, and Mr. John Mercer, a Unionist, of Newbern, North Carolina, who had been in duress almost three years. They were now hiding in a barn two miles from us. They escaped from Salisbury two nights later than we, paying the guards eight hundred dollars in Confederate money to let them out.

Thurston at once joined them. During the rest of the journey, we sometimes traveled and hid together for several days and nights; but, when there was special danger, divided into two companies, one keeping twenty-four [Pg 457] hours in advance—the smaller the party, the less peril being involved.

Now, for the first time, we began to have some hope of reaching our lines. But the road was still very long, and fraught with many dangers. We examined the appalling list of dead, which I had brought from Salisbury, and talked much of our companions left behind in that living entombment. Remembering how earnestly they longed and prayed for some intelligent, trustworthy voice to bear to the Government and the people tidings of their terrible condition, we pledged each other very solemnly, that if any one of us lived to regain home and freedom, he should use earnest, unremitting efforts to excite sympathy and secure relief for them.

It may not be out of place here to say, that upon reaching the North, before visiting our families, or performing any other duties, we hastened to Washington, and used every endeavor to call the attention of the authorities and the country to the Salisbury prisoners. Before many weeks, all who survived were exchanged; but more than five thousand—upwards of half the number who were taken to Salisbury five months before—were already buried just outside the garrison.

Those five thousand loyal graves will ever remain fitting monuments of Rebel cruelty, and of the atrocious inhumanity of Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, who steadfastly refused to exchange these prisoners, on the ground that we could not afford to give the enemy robust, vigorous men for invalids and skeletons, and yet refrained from compelling them to treat prisoners with humanity, by just and discriminating retaliation upon an equal number of Rebel officers, taken from the great excess held by our Government.

To-day, as usual, we saw a large number of the Union [Pg 458] mountaineers. Theirs was a very blind and unreasoning loyalty, much like the disloyalty of some enthusiastic Rebels. They did not say "Unionist," or "Secessionist," but always designated a political friend thus: "He is one of the right sort of people"—strong in the faith that there could, by no possibility, be more than one side to the question. They had little education; but when they began to talk about the Union, their eyes lighted wonderfully, and sometimes they grew really eloquent. They did not believe one word in a Rebel newspaper, except extracts from the Northern journals, and reports favorable to our Cause. They thought the Union army had never been defeated in a single battle. I heard them say repeatedly:

"The United States can take Richmond any day when it wants to. That it has not, thus far, is owing to no lack of power, but because it was not thought best."

They regarded every Rebel as necessarily an unmitigated scoundrel, and every Loyalist, particularly every native-born Yankee, almost as an angel from heaven.

How earnestly they questioned us about the North! How they longed to escape thither! To them, indeed, it was the Promised Land. They were very bitter in their denunciations of the heavy slaveholders, who had done so much to degrade white labor, and finally brought on this terrible war.

They had an abundance of the two great Southern staples—corn-bread and pork. They felt severely the absence of their favorite beverage, and would ask us, with amusing earnestness, if they could get coffee when our armies came. The Confederate substitutes—burnt corn and rye—they regarded with earnest and well-founded aversion.

They were compelled to use thorns for fastening the [Pg 459] clothing of the women and children. We distributed among them our small supply of pins, to their infinite delectation. Davis also gladdened the hearts of all the womankind by disbursing a needle to each. A needle nominally represented five dollars in Confederate currency, but actually could not be purchased at any price.

A number of the young men "lying out" desired to accompany us to the North. Some were deserters from the Rebel army; others, more fortunate, had evaded conscription from the beginning of the war. But their lives had been passed in that remote county of North Carolina, and the two hundred and ninety miles yet to be accomplished stretched out in appalling prospective. They saw many lions in the way, and, Festus-like, at the last moment, decided to wait for a more convenient season. It was not from lack of nerve; for some of them had fought Rebel guards with great coolness and bravery.

Our friends feared that one slaveholding Secessionist in the neighborhood might learn of our presence, and betray us. He did ascertain our whereabouts, but sent us an invitation to visit his house, offering to supply all needed food, clothing, and shelter. He said he foolishly acquiesced in the Revolution because at first it seemed certain to succeed, and he wished to save his property; but that now he heartily repented.

Possibly his conversion was partially owing to remorse for having persuaded his two sons to enter the Rebel army. One, after much suffering, had deserted, and was now "lying out" near home. The other, wounded and captured in a "Virginia battle, was still in a Northern prison, where he had been confined for many months. The father was very desirous of sending to him a message of sympathy and affection.

But he was an index of the change which had [Pg 460] recently come over Rebel sympathizers in that whole region. The condition of our armies then was not peculiarly promising. We were by no means sanguine that the war would soon terminate. But the loyal mountaineers, with unerring instinct, were all confident that we were near its close, and constantly surprised us by speaking of the Rebellion as a thing of the past. We fancied their wish was father to the thought; but they proved truer prophets than we.

CHAPTER XLIII.

On the evening of the eleventh day, Wednesday, December 28, we left the kind friends with whom we had stayed for five days and four nights, gaining new vigor and inspired by new hope. Their last injunction was:

"Remember, you cannot be too careful. We shall pray God that you may reach your homes in safety. When you are there, do not forget us, but do send troops to open a way by which we can escape to the North."

In their simplicity, they fancied Yankees omnipotent, and that we could send them an army by merely saying the word. They bade us adieu with embraces and tears. I am sure many a fervent prayer went up from their humble hearths, that Our Father would guide us through the difficulties of our long, wearisome journey, and guard us against the perils which beset and environed it.

At ten o'clock we passed within two hundred yards of a Rebel camp. We could hear the neigh of the horses and the tramp of four or five sentinels on their rounds. We trod very softly; to our stimulated senses every sound was magnified, and every cracking twig startled us.

Leaving us in the road a few yards behind, our pilot entered the house of his friend, a young deserter from the Rebel army. Finding no one there but the family, he [Pg 462] called us in, to rest by the log fire, while the deserter rose from bed, and donned his clothing to lead us three miles and point out a secluded path. For many months he had been "lying out;" but of late, as the Guards were less vigilant than usual, he sometimes ventured to sleep at home. His girlish wife wished him to accompany us through; but, with the infant sleeping in the cradle, which was hewn out of a great log, she formed a tie too strong for him to break. At parting, she shook each of us by the hand, saying:

"I hope you will get safely home; but there is great danger, and you must be powerful cautious."

At eleven o'clock our guide left us in the hands of a negro, who, after our chilled limbs were warmed, led us on our way. By two in the morning we had accomplished thirteen miles over the frozen hills, and reached a lonely house in a deep valley, beside a tumbling, flashing torrent.

The farmer, roused with difficulty from his heavy slumbers, informed us that Boothby's party, which had arrived twenty-four hours in advance of us, was sleeping in his barn. He sent us half a mile to the house of a neighbor, who fanned the dying embers on his great hearth, regaled us with the usual food, and then took us to a barn in the forest.

"Climb up on that scaffolding," said he. "Among the husks you will find two or three quilts. They belong to my son, who is lying out. To-night he is sleeping with some friends in the woods."

The cold wind blew searchingly through the open barn, but before daylight we were wrapped in "the mantle that covers all human thoughts."

At dark, our host, leaving us in a thicket, five hundred yards from his house, went forward to reconnoiter. Finding the coast clear, he beckoned us on to supper and ample potations of apple-brandy.

With difficulty we induced one of his neighbors to guide us. Though unfamiliar with the road, he was an excellent walker, swiftly leading us over the rough ground, which tortured our sensitive feet, and up and down sharp, rocky hills.

At two in the morning we flanked Wilkesboro, the capital of Wilkes County. To a chorus of barking dogs, we crept softly around it, within a few hundred yards of the houses. The air was full of snow, and when we reached the hills again, the biting wind was hard to breathe.

We walked about a mile through the dense woods, when Captain Wolfe, who had been all the time declaring that the North Star was on the wrong side of us, convinced our pilot that he had mistaken the road, and we retraced our steps to the right thoroughfare.

We stopped to warm for half an hour at a negro-cabin, where the blacks told us all they knew about the routes and the Rebels. Before morning we were greatly broken down, and our guide was again in doubt concerning the roads. So we entered a deep ravine in the pine-woods, built a great fire, and waited for daylight.

After dawn, we pressed forward, reluctantly compelled to pass near two or three houses.

We reached the Yadkin River just as a young, blooming woman, with a face like a ripe apple, came gliding across the stream. With a long pole, she guided [Pg 464] the great log canoe, which contained herself, a pail of butter, and a side-saddle, indicating that she had started for the Wilkesboro market. Assisting her to the shore, we asked:

"Just beyond the hill there, across the river," she replied, with scrutinizing, suspicious eyes.

"By no means, madam. We are Union men, and Yankees at that. We have escaped from Salisbury, and are trying to reach our homes in the North."

"Ben Hanby is my husband. He is lying out. I wondered, if you were the Guard, what you could be doing without guns. From a hill near our house, the children saw you coming more than an hour ago; and my husband, taking you for the soldiers, went with his rifle to join his companions in the woods. Word has gone to every Union house in the neighborhood that the troops are out hunting deserters."

We embarked in the log canoe, and shipped a good deal of water before reaching the opposite shore. We had two sea-captains on board, and concluded that, with one sailor more, we should certainly have been hopelessly wrecked.

A winding forest-path led to the lonely house we sought, where we found no one at home, except three children [Pg 465] of our fair informant and their grandmother. For more than two hours we could not allay the woman's suspicions that we were Guards. They had recently been adopting Yankee disguises, deceiving Union people, and beguiling them of damaging information.

As indignantly as General Damas inquires whether he looks like a married man, we asked the cautious woman if we resembled Rebels. At last, convinced that we were veritable Yankees, she gave us breakfast, and sent one of the children with us to a sunny hillside among the pines, where we slept off the weariness and soreness caused by the night's march of sixteen miles.

At evening a number of friends visited us. As they were not merely Rebel deserters, but Union bushwhackers also, we scanned them with curiosity; for we had been wont to regard bushwhackers, of either side, with vague, undefined horror.

These men were walking arsenals. Each had a trusty rifle, one or two navy revolvers, a great bowie knife, haversack, and canteen. Their manners were quiet, their faces honest, and one had a voice of rare sweetness. As he stood tossing his baby in the air, with his little daughter clinging to his skirt, he looked

He and his neighbors had adopted this mode of life, because determined not to fight against the old flag. They would not attempt the uncertain journey to our lines, leaving their families in the country of the enemy. Ordinarily very quiet and rational, whenever the war was spoken of, their eyes emitted that peculiar glare which I had observed, years before, in Kansas, and which seems inseparable from the hunted man. They said:

"When the Rebels let us alone, we let them alone; when they come out to hunt us, we hunt them! They know that we are in earnest, and that before they can kill any one of us, he will break a hole in the ice large enough to drag two or three of them along with him. At night we sleep in the bush. When we go home by day, our children stand out on picket. They and our wives bring food to us in the woods. When the Guards are coming out, some of the Union members usually inform us beforehand; then we collect twenty or thirty men, find the best ground we can, and, if they discover us, fight them. But a number of skirmishes have taught them to be very wary about attacking us."

In this dreary mode of life they seemed to find a certain fascination. While we took supper at the house of one of them, eight bushwhackers, armed to the teeth, stood outside on guard. For once, at least, enjoying what Macbeth vainly coveted, we took our meal in peace.

Two of them were United States volunteers, who had come stealthily home on furlough, from our army in Tennessee. They were the first Union soldiers we had seen at liberty for nearly two years. Their faces were very welcome, and their worn, soiled uniforms were to our eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue. Our friends urged us to remain, one of them saying:

"The snow is deep on the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies; the Rebels can easily trace you; the guerrillas are unusually vigilant, and it is very unsafe to attempt crossing the mountains at present. I started for Knoxville three weeks ago, and, after walking fifty miles, was compelled to turn back. Stay with us until the snow is gone, and the Guards less on the alert. We will each of us take two of you under our special charge, and feed and shelter you until next May, if you desire it."

The Blue Ridge was still twenty-five miles away, and we determined to push on to a point where we could look the danger, if danger there were, directly in the face. The bushwhackers, therefore, piloted us through the darkness and the bitter cold for seven miles. At midnight, we reached the dwelling of a Union man. He said:

"As the house is unsafe, I shall be compelled to put you in my barn. You will find two Rebel deserters sleeping there."

The barn was upon a high hill. We burrowed among the husks, at first to the infinite alarm of the deserters, who thought the Philistines were upon them. While we shivered in the darkness, they told us that they had come from Petersburg—more than five hundred miles—and been three months on the journey. They had found friends all the way, among negroes and Union men. Ragged, dirty, and penniless, they said, very quietly, that they were going to reach the Yankee lines, or die in the attempt.

Before daylight our host visited us, and finding that we suffered from the weather, placed us in a little warm storehouse, close beside the public road. To our question, whether the Guards had ever searched it, he replied:

"What an appalling journey still stretches before us! I fear the lamp of my energy is nearly burned out."

I could not wonder at his despondency. For several years he had been half an invalid, suffering from a spinal affection. For weeks before leaving Salisbury, he was often compelled, of an afternoon, to lie upon his bunk of [Pg 468] straw with blinding headache, and every nerve quivering with pain. "Junius" and myself frequently said: "Davis's courage is unbounded, but he can never live to walk to Knoxville."

The event proved us false prophets. Nightly he led our party—always the last to pause and the first to start. His lamp of energy was so far from being exhausted that, before he reached our lines, he broke down every man in the party. I expect to suffer to my dying day from the killing pace of that energetic invalid.

Spent all this cold day and night sleeping in the quilts and fodder of the little store-house. At evening, Boothby's party went forward, as the next thirty-five miles were deemed specially perilous.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Our emaciated condition, hard labor, and the bracing mountain air, conspired to make us ravenous. In quantity, the pork and corn-bread which we devoured was almost miraculous; in quality, it seemed like the nectar and ambrosia of the immortal gods. It was far better adapted to our necessities than the daintiest luxuries of civilization. In California, Australia, and Colorado goldmines, on the New Orleans levée , and wherever else the most trying physical labor is to be performed, pork and corn-bread have been found the best articles of food.

The Loyalists were all ready to feed, shelter, and direct us, but reluctant to accompany us far from their homes. They would say:

But midnight journeys among the narrow lanes and obscure mountain-paths had taught us that we could miss any road whatever which was not inclosed upon both sides by fences too high for climbing. Therefore, we insisted upon pilots.

Fortunately, I had left Salisbury with a one-hundred-dollar United States note concealed under the hem of each leg of my pantaloons, just above the instep, and two more sewn in the lining of my coat. I had in my portmonnaie [Pg 470] fifty dollars in Northern bank-notes, five dollars in gold, and a hundred dollars in Confederate currency. Davis brought away about the same amount. We should have left it with our fellow-prisoners, but for the probability of being recaptured and confined, where money would serve us in our extremest need. Now it enabled us to remunerate amply both our white and black friends. Sometimes the mountaineers would say:

"We do not do these things for money. We have fed and assisted hundreds of refugees and escaping prisoners, but never received a cent for it."

Those whom they befriended were usually penniless. We appreciated their kindness none the less because fortunate enough to be able to recompense them. They were unable to resist the argument that, when our forces came, they would need "green-backs" to purchase coffee.

Every man who gave us a meal, sheltered us in his house or barn, pointed out a refuge in the woods, or directed us one mile upon our journey, did it at the certainty, if discovered, of being imprisoned, or forced into the Rebel army, whether sick or well, and at the risk of having his house burned over his head. In many cases, discovery would have resulted in his death by shooting, or hanging in sight of his own door.

During our whole journey we entered only one house inhabited by white Unionists, which had never been plundered by Home Guards or Rebel guerrillas. Almost every loyal family had given to the Cause some of its nearest and dearest. We were told so frequently—"My father was killed in those woods;" or, "The guerrillas shot my brother in that ravine," that, finally, these tragedies made little impression upon us. The mountaineers never seemed conscious that they were doing any heroic or self-sacrificing thing. Their very sufferings

had greatly intensified their love for the Union, and their faith in its ultimate triumph.

Drowsily wondering at our capacity for sleep, we dozed through the first day of the New Year, and the fifteenth of our liberty. After dark we spent two hours in the house before the log fire. The good woman had one son already escaped to the North—a fresh link which bound her mother-heart to that ideal paradise. She fed us, mended our clothing, and parted from us with the heartiest "God bless you!"

Her youngest born, a lad of eleven years, accompanied us five miles to the house of a Unionist, who received us without leaving his bed. He gave us such minute information about the faint, obscure road that we found little difficulty in keeping it.

Through the biting air we pressed rapidly up the narrow valley of a clear, tumbling mountain stream, whose frowning banks, several hundred feet in hight, were covered with pines and hemlocks. In twelve miles the road crossed the creek twenty-nine times. Instead of bridges were fords for horsemen and wagons, and foot-logs for pedestrians. Cold and stiff, we discovered that crossing the smooth, icy logs in the darkness was a hazardous feat. Wolfe was particularly lame, and slipped several times into the icy torrent, but managed to flounder out without much delay. He endured with great serenity all our suggestions, that even though water was his native element, he had a very eccentric taste to prefer swimming to walking, in that state of the atmosphere.

At one crossing the log was swept away. We wandered up and down the stream, which was about a hundred feet wide, but could find not even the hair which Mahomet discovered to be the bridge over the bottomless pit. But as canoes are older than ships, so legs are more [Pg 472] primitive than bridges. We e'en plunged in, waist deep, and waded through, among the cakes of floating ice.

Our wardrobes were suffering quite as much as our persons. We did not carry looking-glasses, so I am not able to speak of myself; but my colleague was a subject for a painter. Any one seeing him must have been convinced that he was made up for the occasion; that his looped and windowed raggedness never could have resulted from any natural combination of circumstances. The fates seemed to decree that as "Junius" went naked into the Confederacy (leaving most of his wardrobe on deposit at the bottom of the Mississippi), he should come out of it in the same condition.

Overcoat he had none. Pantaloons had been torn to shreds and tatters by the brambles and thorn-bushes. He had a hat which was not all a hat. It was given to him, after he had lost his own in a Rebel barn, by a warm-hearted African, as a small tribute from the Intelligent Contraband to his old friend the Reliable Gentleman—by an African who felt with the most touching propriety that it would be a shame for any correspondent of The Tribune to go bareheaded as long as a single negro in America was the owner of a hat! It was a white wool relic of the old-red-sandstone period, with a sugar-loaf crown, and a broad brim drawn down closely over his ears, like the bonnet of an Esquimaux.

His boots were a stupendous refutation of the report that leather was scarce among the Rebels. I understood it to be no figure of rhetoric, but the result of actual and exact measurement, which induced him to call them the "Seven-Leaguers." The small portion of his body, which was visible between the tops of his boots and the bottom of his hat, was robed in an old gray quilt of Secession proclivities; and taken for all in all, with his pale, nervous face and his remarkable costume, he looked like a cross between the Genius of Intellectuality and a Rebel bushwhacker!

Before daylight, we shiveringly tapped on the door of a house at the foot of the Blue Ridge.

Entering, we found a woman sitting by the log fire. Beginning to introduce ourselves, she interrupted:

"O, I know all about you. You are Yankee prisoners. Your friends who passed last evening told us you were coming, and I have been sitting up all night for you. Come to the fire and dry your clothes."

For two hours we listened to her tales of the war. The history of almost every Union family was full of romance. Each unstoried mountain stream had its incidents of daring, of sagacity, and of faithfulness; and almost every green hill had been bathed in that scarlet dew from which ever springs the richest and the ripest fruit.

Concealment here was difficult; so we were taken to the house of a neighbor, who also was waiting to welcome us. He took us to his storehouse, right by the road-side.

"The Guard," said he, "searched this building last Thursday, unsuccessfully, and are hardly likely to try it again just yet."

Soon, lying near a fire upon a warm feather-bed, we wooed the drowsy god with all the success which the hungry Salisbury vermin, sticking closer than brothers, would permit.

Before night the guide returned from conducting Boothby's party, and assured us that the coast was [Pg 474] clear. After dark, invigorated by tea and apple brandy, we followed our pilot by devious paths up the steep, fir-clad, piny slope of the Blue Ridge.

The view from the summit is beautiful and impressive; but for our weariness and anxiety, we should have enjoyed it very keenly.

A few weeks before, the Unionist now leading us had sent his little daughter of twelve years, alone, by night, fifteen miles over the mountains, to warn some escaping Union prisoners that the Guard had gained a clue to their whereabouts. They received the warning in season to find a place of safety before their pursuers came.

We were now on the west side of the Ridge. A heavy rain began to fall, and, though soaked and weary, we were glad to have our tracks obliterated, and thus be insured against pursuit.

but in this case the effort was so arduous that the panacea was not very effective. Thomas Starr King tells the story of a little man, who, being asked his weight, replied:

I think any one of our wet, blistered feet, which, at every step, sunk deep into the slush, would have counterbalanced his whole body! Like millstones we dragged them up hill after hill, and through the long valleys which stretched drearily between. Though not hungering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, we still thought, half regretfully, of our squalid Salisbury quarters, where we had at least a roof to shelter us, and a bunk of straw. But we needed no injunction to remember Lot's wife; for a pillar of salt would have represented a fabulous [Pg 475] sum of money in the currency of the Rebels; and we had no desire to swell their scanty revenues or supply their impoverished commissary department.

At midnight we reached New River, two hundred and fifty yards wide. Our guide took us over, one at a time, behind him upon his horse. We were probably five hundred miles above the point where this river, as the Great Kanawha, unites with the Ohio; but it was the first stream we had found running northward, and its soft, rippling song of home and freedom was very sweet to our ears. Already our Promised Land stretched before us, and the shining river seemed a pathway of light to its hither boundary. Better than Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, this was the Jordan, flowing toward all we loved and longed for. It revived the great world of work and of life which had faded almost to fable.

At two in the morning we reached the house of a stanch Unionist, which nestled romantically in the green valley, inclosed on all sides by dark mountains.

Our new friend, herculean in frame and with a heavy-tragedy voice, came out where we sat, dripping and dreary, under an old cotton-gin, and addressed us in a pompous strain, worthy of Sergeant Buzfuz:

"Gentlemen," said he, "there are, unfortunately, at my house to-night two wayfarers, who are Rebels and traitors. If they knew of your presence, it would be my inevitable and eternal ruin. Therefore, unable to extend to you such hospitalities as I could wish, I bid you welcome to all which can be furnished by so poor a man as I. I will place you in my barn, which is warm, and filled with fodder. I will bring you food and apple brandy. In the morning, when these infernal scoundrels are gone, I will entertain you under my family roof. Gentlemen, I have been a Union man from the [Pg 476] beginning, and I shall be a Union man to the end. I had three sons; one died in a Rebel hospital; one was killed at the battle of the Wilderness, fighting (against his will) for the Southern cause; the third, thank God! is in the Union lines."

Here the father overcame the orator; and, with the conjunction of apple brandy, corn bread, and quilts, we were soon asleep in the barn.

CHAPTER XLV.

"Gentlemen, I trust you have slept well. The enemy has gone, and breakfast waits. I call you early, because I want to take you out of North Carolina into Tennessee, where I will show you a place of refuge infinitely safer than this."

For the first time since leaving Salisbury we traveled by daylight. Our guide led us deviously through fields, and up almost perpendicular ascents, where the rarefied air compelled us frequently to stop for breath.

We dragged our weary feet up one hill, down another, through ravines of almost impenetrable laurels, swinging across the streams by the snowy, pendent boughs, only to find another appalling hight rising before us. Nothing but the hope of freedom enabled us to keep on our feet. Once, when near a public road, our guide suddenly whispered.

Lying behind logs, we saw two or three horse-teams and sleds pass by, and heard the conversation of the drivers.

Our pilot was not agitated, for, like all the Union mountaineers, danger had been so long a part of his every-day existence, that he had no physical nervousness. But it was reported that the Guards would be out to-day, so he was very wary and vigilant. We crossed the road in [Pg 478] the Indian mode, walking in single file, each man treading in the footsteps of his immediate predecessor. No casual observer would have suspected that it was the track of more than one man.

At 4 p.m. , we entered Tennessee, which, like the passage of the New River, seemed another long stride toward home. Approaching a settlement, we went far around through the woods, persuading ourselves that we were unobserved. A mile beyond we reached a small log house, where our friend was known, and a blooming, matronly woman, with genial eyes, welcomed us.

"Come in, all. I am very glad to see you. I thought you must be Yankees when I heard of your approach, about half an hour ago."

"A good many young men are lying out in this neighborhood, and my son is one of them. He has not slept in the house for two years. He always carries his rifle. At first, I was opposed to it, but now I am glad to have him. They may murder him any day, and if they do, I at least want him to kill some of the traitors first. Nobody can approach this settlement, day or night, without being seen by some of these young men, always on the watch. The Guard have come in twice, at midnight, as fast as they could ride; but the news traveled before them, and they found the birds flown. When you appeared in sight, the boys took you for Rebels. My son and two others, lying behind logs, had their rifles drawn on you not more than three hundred yards away. They were very near shooting you, when they discovered that you had no arms, and concluded you must be the right sort of people. In the distance you look like Home Guards—part of you dressed as citizens, one in Rebel [Pg 479] uniform, and two wearing Yankee overcoats. You are unsafe traveling a single mile through this region, without sending word beforehand who you are."

After dark we were shown to a barn, where we wrapped ourselves in quilts. During the last twenty-four hours we had journeyed twenty-five miles, equal to fifty upon level roads, and our eye-lids were very heavy.

This settlement was intensely loyal, and admirably picketed by Union women, children, and bushwhackers. We dined with the wife of a former inmate of Castle Thunder. She told us that Lafayette Jones, whose escape from that prison I have already recorded, remained in the Rebel army only a few days, deserting from it to the Union lines, and then coming back to his Tennessee home.

The Rebel guerrilla captain who originally captured him was notoriously cruel, had burned houses, murdered Union men, and abused helpless women. He took from Jones two hundred dollars in gold, promising to forward it to his family, but never did so. After reaching home, Jones sent a message to him that he must refund the money at once, or be killed wherever found. Jones finally sought him. As they met, the guerrilla drew a revolver and fired, but without wounding his antagonist. Thereupon Jones shot him dead on his own threshold. The Union people justified and applauded the deed. Jones was afterward captain in a loyal Tennessee regiment. His father had died in a Richmond dungeon, one of his brothers in an Alabama prison, and a second had been hung by the Rebels.

The woman told us that another guerrilla, peculiarly obnoxious to the Loyalists, had disappeared early in [Pg 480] November. A few days before we arrived, his bones were found in the woods, with twenty-one bullet-holes through his clothing. His watch and money were still undisturbed in his pocket. Vengeance, not avarice, stimulated his destroyers.

Here we met another of our Castle Thunder fellow-prisoners, named Guy. The Richmond authorities knew he was a Union bushwhacker, and had strong evidence against him, which would have cost him his life if brought to trial. But he, too, under an assumed name, enlisted in the Rebel army, deserted, returned to Tennessee, and resumed his old pursuit as a hunter of men with new zeal and vigor.

He and his companion were now armed with sixteen-shooter rifles, revolvers, and bowie-knives. Guy's father and brother had both been killed by the guerrillas, and he was bitter and unsparing. If he ever fell into Rebel hands again, his life was not worth a rush-light. But he was merry and jocular as if he had never heard of the King of Terrors. I asked him how he now regarded his Richmond adventures. He replied:

"I would not take a thousand dollars in gold for the experience I had while in prison; but I would not endure it again for ten thousand."

Guy and his comrade were supposed to be "lying out," which suggested silent and stealthy movements; but on leaving us they went yelling, singing, and screaming up the valley, whooping like a whole tribe of Indians. Occasionally they fired their rifles, as if their vocal organs were not noisy enough. It was ludicrously strange deportment for hunted fugitives.

"Guy always goes through the country in that way," said the woman. "He is very reckless and fearless. The Rebels know it, and give him a wide field. He has killed [Pg 481] a good many of them, first and last, and no doubt they will murder him, sooner or later, as they did his father."

At night, just as we were comfortably asleep in the barn, our host awakened us, saying:

"Five Rebel cavalry are reported approaching this neighborhood, with three hundred more behind them, coming over the mountains from North Carolina. I think it is true, but am not certain. I am so well known as a Union man, that, if they do come, they will search my premises thoroughly. There is another barn, much more secluded, a mile farther up the valley, where you will be safer than here, and will compromise nobody if discovered. If they arrive, you shall be informed before they can reach you."

Coleridge did not believe in ghosts, because he had seen too many of them. So we were skeptical concerning the Rebel cavalry, having heard too much of it. But we went to the other barn, and in its ample straw-loft found a North Carolina refugee, with whom we slept undisturbed. He deemed this place much safer than his home—a gratifying indication to us that the danger was growing small by degrees.

This morning, the good woman whose barn had sheltered us mended our tattered clothing. Her husband was a soldier in the Union service. I asked her:

"Very easily," she replied. "Last year, I did all my own housework, and weaving, spinning, and knitting, and raised over a hundred bushels of corn, with no assistance whatever except from this little girl, eleven years old. The hogs run in the woods during the summer, [Pg 482] feeding themselves; so we are in no danger of starvation."

Boothby's company, enhanced by the two Rebel deserters from Petersburg, and a young conscript, formerly one of our prison-guards at Salisbury, here rejoined us. Our entire party, numbering ten, started again at 3 p.m.

The road was over Stony Mountain, very rocky and steep. As we halted wearily upon its summit, we overlooked a great waste of mountains, intersected with green valleys of pine and fir, threaded by silver streams. Our guide assured us that, at Carter's Dépôt, one hundred and ten miles east of Knoxville, we should find Union troops. Soon after dark, to our disappointment and indignation, he declared that he must turn back without a moment's delay. His long-deferred explanation that the young wife, whom he had left at his lonely log house, was about to endure

After dark we found our way, deviously, around several dwellings, to the house of an old Union man. With his wife and three bouncing daughters, he heartily welcomed us:

"We learned yesterday that there were ten Yankees, one in red breeches and a Rebel uniform, over the mountain. Girls, make a fire in the kitchen, and get supper for these gentlemen!"

While we discussed the meal and a great bucket of rosy apples before the roaring fire, our host—silver-haired, deep-chested, brawny-limbed, a splendid specimen [Pg 483] of physical manhood—poured out his heart. He was devoted to the Union with a zeal passing the love of women. How intensely he hated the Rebels! How his eyes flashed and dilated as he talked of the old flag! How perfect his faith that he should live to see it again waving triumphantly on his native mountains! One of his sons had died fighting for his country, and two others were still in the Union army.

The old gentleman piloted us through the deep woods, for three miles, to a friendly house. We were now near a rendezvous of Rebel guerrillas, reported to be without conscience and without mercy. Their settlement was known through that whole region as "Little Richmond." We must pass within a quarter of a mile of them. It was feared that they might have pickets out, and the point was deemed more dangerous than any since leaving Salisbury.

Our new friend, though an invalid, promptly rose from his bed to guide us through the danger. His wife greeted us cordially, but was extremely apprehensive—darting to and from the door, and in conversation suddenly pausing to listen. When we started, she said, taking both my hands in hers:

"May God prosper you, and carry you safely through to those you love. But you must be very cautious. Less than six weeks ago, my two brothers started for the North by the same route; and when they reached Crab Orchard, the Rebel guerrillas captured them, and murdered them in cold blood."

After leading us two miles, the guide stopped, and when all came up, he whispered:

"We are approaching the worst place. Let no man speak a word. Step lightly as possible, while I keep as far ahead as you can see me. If you hear any noise, dart [Pg 484] out of sight at once. Should I be discovered with you, it would be certain death to me. If found alone, I can tell some story about sickness in my family."

We crept softly behind him for two miles. Then, leading us through a rocky pasture into the road, he said:

"Thank God! I have brought another party of the right sort of people past Little Richmond in safety. My health is broken, and I shall not live long; but it is a great consolation to know that I have been able to help some men who love the Union made by our fathers."

At three in the morning, we reached our destination. Davis and Boothby did pioneer duty, going forward to the house, where they were received by a clamor of dogs, which made the valleys ring. After a whispered conference with the host, they returned and said:

"There is a Rebel traveler spending the night here. We are to stay in the barn until morning, when he will be gone."

We burrowed in the warm hay-mow, and vainly essayed to sleep. The all-devouring vermin by this time swarmed upon us, poisoning our blood and stimulating every nerve, as we tossed wearily until long after daylight.

He was educated, intelligent, and had been a leader among the "Conservative" or Union people, until compelled [Pg 485] to acquiesce, nominally, in the war. His house and family were pleasant. But while we now began to approach civilization, the Union lines steadily receded. He informed us that we would find no loyal troops east of Jonesboro, ninety-eight miles from Knoxville, and probably none east of Greenville, seventy-four miles from Knoxville.

"But," said he, "you are out of the woods for the present. You are on the border of the largest Union settlement in all the Rebel States. You may walk for twenty-four miles by daylight on the public road. Look out for strangers, Home Guards, or Rebel guerrillas; but you will find every man, woman, and child, who lives along the route, a stanch and faithful friend."

With light hearts we started down the valley. It seemed strange to travel the public road by daylight, visit houses openly, and look people in the face.

Our way was on the right bank of the Watauga, a broad, flashing stream, walled in by abrupt cliffs, covered with pines and hemlocks. A woman on horseback, with her little son on foot, accompanied us for several miles, saying:

In the evening a Union man rowed us across the stream. On the left bank our eyes were gladdened by three of our boys in blue—United States soldiers at home on furlough. Seeing us in the distance, they leveled their rifles, but soon discovered that we were not foes.

Our host for the night beguiled the evening hours with stories of the war; and again we enjoyed the luxury of beds.

A friend piloted us eight miles over the rough, snowy mountains, avoiding public roads. In the afternoon, we found shelter at a white frame house, nestling among the mountains, and fronted by a natural lawn, dotted with firs.

Here, for the first time, we were entirely safe. Any possible Rebel raid must come from the south side of the river. The house was on the north bank of the stream, which was too much swollen for fording, and the only canoe within five miles was fastened on our shore. Thus fortified on front, flank, and rear, we took our ease in the pleasant, home-like farmhouse.

Near the dwelling was a great spring, of rare beauty. Within an area of twelve feet, a dozen streams, larger than one's arm, came gushing and boiling up through snow-white sand. By the aid of a great fire, and an enormous iron kettle, we boiled all our clothing, and at last vanquished the troublesome enemies which, brought from the prison, had so long disturbed our peace.

Then, bathing in the icy waters, we came out renewed, like the Syrian leper, and, in soft, clean beds, enjoyed the sweet sleep of childhood.

A new guide took us eight miles to a log barn in the woods. After dining among, but not upon, the husks, we started again, an old lady of sixty guiding us through the woods toward her house. Age had not withered her, nor custom staled, for she walked at a pace which made it difficult to keep in sight of her.

At dark, in the deep pines, behind her lonely dwelling, we kindled a fire, supped, and, with fifteen or twenty companions, who had joined us so noiselessly that they seemed to spring from earth, we started on.

CHAPTER XLVI.

For many months before leaving prison, we had been familiar with the name of Dan Ellis —a famous Union guide, who, since the beginning of the war, had done nothing but conduct loyal men to our lines.

Ellis is a hero, and his life a romance. He had taken through, in all, more than four thousand persons. He had probably seen more adventure—in fights and races with the Rebels, in long journeys, sometimes bare-footed and through the snow, or swimming rivers full of floating ice—than any other person living.

He never lost but one man, who was swooped up through his own heedlessness. The party had traveled eight or ten days, living upon nothing but parched corn. Dan insisted that a man could walk twenty-five miles a day through snow upon parched corn just as well as upon any other diet—if he only thought so. I feel bound to say that I have tried it and do not think so. This person held the same opinion. He revolted against the parched-corn diet, vowing that he would go to the first house and get an honest meal, if he was captured for it. He went to the first house, obtained the meal, and was captured.

After we had traveled fifty miles, everybody said to us, "If you can only find Dan Ellis, and do just as he tells you, you will be certain to get through."

We did find Dan Ellis. On this Sunday night, one [Pg 488] hundred and thirty-four miles from our lines, greatly broken down, we reached a point on the road, waited for two hours, when along came Dan Ellis, with a party of seventy men—refugees, Rebel deserters, Union soldiers returning from their homes within the enemy's lines, and escaping prisoners. About thirty of them were mounted and twenty armed.

Like most men of action, Dan was a man of few words. When our story had been told him, he said to his comrades:

"Boys, here are some gentlemen who have escaped from Salisbury, and are almost dead from the journey. They are our people. They have suffered in our Cause. They are going to their homes in our lines. We can't ride and let these men walk. Get down off your horses, and help them up."

In low conversation, as we rode through the darkness, I learned from Dan and his companions something of his strange, eventful history. At the outbreak of the war, he was a mechanic in East Tennessee. After once going through the mountains to the Union lines, he displayed rare capacity for woodcraft, and such vigilance, energy, and wisdom, that he fell naturally into the pursuit of a pilot.

Six or eight of his men, who had been with him from the beginning, were almost equally familiar with the routes. They lived near him, in Carter County, Tennessee, in open defiance of the Rebels. When at home, they usually slept in the woods, and never parted from their arms for a single moment.

As the Rebels would show them no mercy, they could not afford to be captured. For three years there had

been a standing offer of five thousand dollars for Dan Ellis's head. During that period, except when within our lines, he had never permitted his Henry rifle, which would fire sixteen times without reloading, to go beyond the reach of his hand.

Once, when none of his comrades, except Lieutenant Treadaway, were with him, fourteen of the Rebels came suddenly upon them. Ellis and Treadaway dropped behind logs and began to fire their rifles. As the enemy pressed them, they fell slowly back into a forest, continuing to shoot from behind trees. The unequal skirmish lasted three hours. Several Rebels were wounded, and at last they retreated, leaving the two determined Unionists unharmed and masters of the field.

Dan usually made the trip to our lines once in three or four weeks, leading through from forty to five hundred persons. Before starting, he and his comrades would make a raid upon the Rebels in some neighboring county, take from them all the good horses they could find, and, after reaching Knoxville, sell them to the United States quartermaster.

Thus they obtained a livelihood, though nothing more. The refugees and escaping prisoners were usually penniless, and Ellis, whose sympathies flowed toward all loyal men like water, was compelled to feed them during the entire journey. He always remunerated Union citizens for provisions purchased from them.

To-night was so cold, that our sore, lame joints would hardly support us upon our horses. Dan's rapid marching was the chief secret of his success. He seemed determined to keep at least one day ahead of all Rebel pursuers.

Now that we were safe in his hands, I accompanied the party mechanically, with no further questions or [Pg 490] anxiety about routes; but I chanced to hear Treadaway ask him:

Upon the mule which I rode, a sack of corn served for a saddle. I was not accomplished in the peculiar gymnastics required to sit easily upon it and keep it in place.

Thirsty and feverish, I stopped at the crossing of Rock Creek for a draught of water and to adjust the corn-sack. Attempting to remount, I was as stiff and awkward as an octogenarian, and my restive mule would not stand for a moment. I finally succeeded in climbing upon his back two or three minutes after the last horseman disappeared up the bank.

We had been traveling across forests, over hills, through swamps, without regard to thoroughfares; but I rode carelessly on, supposing that my mule's instinct would keep him on the fresh scent of the cavalcade. When we had jogged along for ten minutes, awakening from a little reverie, I listened vainly to hear the footfalls of the horses. All was silent. I dismounted, and examined the half-frozen road, but no hoof-marks could be seen upon it.

I was lost! It might mean recapture—it might mean reimprisonment and death, for the terms were nearly synonymous. I was ignorant about the roads, and whether I was in a Union or Rebel settlement.

To search for that noiseless, stealthy party would be useless; so I rode back to the creek, tied my mule to a laurel in the dense thicket, and sat down upon a log, pondering on my stupid heedlessness, which seemed [Pg 491] likely to meet its just reward. I remembered that Davis owed his original capture to a mule, and wondered if the same cause was about to produce for me a like result.

Mentally anathematizing my long-eared brute, I gave him a part of the corn, and threw myself down behind a log, directly beside the road. This would enable me to hear the horse's feet of any one who might return for me. In a few minutes I was sound asleep.

When awakened by the cold, my watch told me that it was three o'clock. Running to and fro in the thicket until my blood was warmed, I resumed my position behind the log, and slept until daylight was gleaming through the forest.

Walking back to the creek, I reconnoitered a log dwelling, so small and humble that its occupant was probably loyal. In a few minutes, through the early dawn, an old man, with a sack of corn upon his shoulder, came out of the house. He evinced no surprise at seeing me. Looking earnestly into his eyes, I asked him:

His manner appeared sincere, and he carried a letter of recommendation in his open, honest face. I told him my awkward predicament. He reassured me at once.

"I know Dan Ellis as well as my own brother. No truer man ever lived. What route was he going to take?"

"That is a ford only five miles from here. Barnet is one of the right sort of people. This road will take you to his house. Good-by, my friend, and don't get separated from your party again."

I certainly did not need the last injunction. Reaching the ford, Barnet told me that our party had spent several hours in crossing, and was encamped three miles ahead. He took me over the river in his canoe, my mule swimming behind. Half a mile down the road. I met Ellis and Treadaway.

"Ah ha!" said Dan, "we were looking for you. I told the boys not to be uneasy. There are men in our crowd who would have blundered upon some Rebel, told all about us, and so alarmed the country and brought out the Home Guards; but I knew you were discreet enough to take care of yourself, and not endanger us. Let us breakfast at this Union house."

"It is generally called ten miles; but I suspect it is about fifteen, and a rather hard road at that."

About fifteen, and a rather hard road! It seemed fifty, and a very Via Dolorosa .

We started at 11 a.m. For three miles we followed a winding creek, the horsemen on a slow trot, crossing the stream a dozen times; the footmen keeping up as best they could, and shivering from their frequent baths in the icy waters.

We turned up the sharp side of a snowy mountain. For hours and hours we toiled along, up one rocky, [Pg 493] pine-covered hill, down a little declivity, then up another hill, then down again, but constantly gaining in hight. The snow was ten inches deep. Dan averred he had never crossed the mountain when the travel was so hard; but he pushed on, as if death were behind and heaven before.

The rarity of the air at that elevation increased my pneumonic difficulty, and rendered my breath very short. Ellis furnished me with a horse the greater part of the way; but the hills, too steep for riding, compelled us to climb, our poor animals following behind. The pithy proverb, that "it is easy to walk when one leads a horse by the bridle," was hardly true in my case, for it seemed a hundred times to-day as if I could not possibly take another step, but must fall out by the roadside, and let the company go on. But after my impressive lesson of last night, I was hardly likely to halt so long as any locomotive power remained.

Our men and animals, in single file, extended for more than a mile in a weary, tortuous procession, which dragged its slow length along. After hours which appeared interminable, and efforts which seemed impossible, we halted upon a high ridge, brushed the snow from the rocks, and sat down to a cold lunch, beside a clear, bright spring which gushed vigorously from the ground. I ventured to ask:

"Come, come, boys; we must pull out!" urged Davis; and, following that irrepressible invalid, we moved forward again.

As we climbed hill after hill, thinking we had [Pg 494] nearly reached the summit, beyond us would still rise another mountain a little higher than the one we stood upon. They seemed to stretch out to the crack of doom.

To increase the discomfort, a violent rain came on. The very memory of this day is wearisome. I pause, thankful to end only a chapter, in the midst of an experience which, judged by my own feelings, appeared likely to end life itself.

CHAPTER XLVII.

As I toiled, staggering, up each successive hill, it seemed that this terrible climbing and this torturing day would never end. But Necessity and Hope work miracles, and strength proved equal to the hour.

At 4 p.m. the clouds broke, the sun burst out, as we stood on the icy summit, revealing a grand view of mountains, valleys, and streams on every side.

After a brief halt, we began the descent. Our path, trodden only by refugees and prisoners, led by Dan Ellis, had been worn so deep by the water, that, in many places, our bodies were half concealed! How Dan rushed down those steep declivities! It was easy to follow now, and I kept close behind him.

Twilight, dusk, darkness, came on, and again the rain began to pour down. We could not see each other five yards away. We pressed steadily on. We reached the foot of the mountain, and were in a dark, pine-shadowed, winding road, which frequently crossed a swollen, foaming creek. At first Dan hunted for logs; but the darkness made this slow work. He finally abandoned it, and, whenever we came to a stream, plunged in up to the middle, dashed through, and rushed on, with dripping garments. Our cavalcade and procession must have stretched back fully three miles; but every man endeavored [Pg 496] to keep within shouting distance of his immediate predecessor.

"We shall camp to-night," said Dan, "at a lonely house two miles from the foot of the mountain."

Reaching the place, we found that, since his last journey, this dwelling had tumbled down, and nothing was left but a labyrinth of timbers and boards. We laboriously propped up a section of the roof. It proved a little protection from the dripping rain, and, while the rest of the party slowly straggled in, Treadaway went to the nearest Union house, to learn the condition of the country. In fifteen minutes we heard the tramp of his returning horse, and could see a fire-brand glimmering through the darkness.

"Something wrong here," said Dan. "There must be danger, or he would not bring fire, expecting us to stay out of doors such a night as this. What is the news, Treadaway?"

"Bad enough," replied the lieutenant, dismounting from his dripping horse, carefully nursing, between two pieces of board, the glowing firebrand. "The Rebel guerrillas are thick and vigilant. A party of them passed here only this evening. I tell you, Dan Ellis, we have got to keep a sharp eye out, if we don't want to be picked up."

All who could find room huddled under the poorly propped roof, which threatened to fall and crush them. Dan and his immediate comrades, with great readiness, improvised a little camp for themselves, so thatching it with boards and shingles that it kept the water off their heads. They were soon asleep, grasping their inseparable rifles and near their horses, from which they never permitted themselves to be far away.

With my two journalistic friends, I deemed rest [Pg 497] nearly as important as safety, for we needed to accumulate strength. We found our way through the darkness to the nearest Union house. There was a great fire blazing on the hearth; but the little room was crowded with our weary and soaking companions, who had anticipated us.

We crossed the creek to another dwelling, where the occupant, a life-long invalid, was intensely loyal. With his wife and little son, he greeted us very warmly, adding:

"I wish I could keep you in my house; but it would not be safe. We will give you quilts, and you may sleep among the husks in the barn, where you will be warm and dry. If the Guards come during the night, they will be likely to search the house first, and the boy or the woman can probably give you warning. But, if they do find you, of course you will tell them that we are not privy to your concealment, because, you know, it would be a matter of life and death for me."

Breakfasting before daylight, that we might not be seen leaving the house, we sought our rendezvous. Those who had remained in camp were a wet, cold, sorry-looking party.

By nine o'clock, several, who had been among the Union people in the neighborhood, returned, and held a consultation. The accounts of all agreed that, fifteen or twenty miles ahead, the danger was great, and the country exceedingly difficult to pass through. Moreover, the Union forces still appeared to recede as we approached the places where they were reputed to be. We were now certain that there were none at Jonesboro, [Pg 498] none at Greenville, probably none east of Strawberry Plains.

Eight or ten of our party determined to turn back. Among them were three Union soldiers, who had seen service and peril. But they said to us, as they turned to retrace their steps over Rich Mountain:

"It is useless to go on. The party will never get through in the world. Not a single man of it will reach Knoxville, unless he waits till the road is clear."

Ellis and Treadaway listened to them with a quiet smile. The perils ahead did not disturb our serenity, because they were so much lighter than the perils behind. We had left horrors to which all future possibilities were a mercy. We had looked in at the windows of Death, and stood upon the verge of the Life To Be. We doubted not that the difficulties were greatly magnified, and all dangers looked infinitesimal, along the path leading toward home and freedom.

Among those who went back was a North Carolina citizen, accompanied by a little son, the child of his old age. Reluctant to trust himself again to the tender mercies of the Rebels, he was unaccustomed to the war-path, and decided to return to the ills he had, rather than fly to others which he knew not of. Purchasing one of his horses, I was no longer dependent upon the kindness of Ellis and his comrades for a steed.

Before noon we started, following secluded valley paths. The rain ceased and the day was pleasant. At a Union dwelling we came upon the hot track of eight guerrillas, who had been there only an hour before. The Rebel-hunting instinct waxed strong within Dan, and, taking eight of his own men, he started in fierce pursuit, leaving Treadaway in charge of the company.

Before dark we reached Kelly's Gap, camping in an [Pg 499] old orchard, beside a large farm-house with many ample out-buildings. The place was now deserted. One of our guides explained:

"A Union man lived here, and he was hanged last year upon that apple-tree. They cut him down, however, before he died, and he fled from the country."

Tying our horses to the trees, we parched corn for supper. Fires were kindled in the buildings, giving the place a genial appearance as night closed in.

After dark, Dan and his comrades returned. The whole party of guerrillas had very narrowly escaped them. They captured one, and brought him in a prisoner. One of the out-buildings was cleared, and he was placed in it, under two volunteer guards armed with rifles. He was not more than twenty-two years old, and had a heavy, stolid face. He steadily denied that he was a guerrilla, asserting that he had been in the Rebel army, had deserted from it, taken the oath of allegiance to the United States while at Knoxville, and was now trying to live quietly.

Some of Ellis's men believed that he had broken his oath of allegiance, and was the most obnoxious of the guerrillas. In his presence they discussed freely the manner of disposing of him. Some advocated taking him to Knoxville, and turning him over to the authorities. Others, who seemed to be a majority, urged taking him out into the orchard and shooting him. This counsel seemed likely to prevail. Several of the men who gave it had seen brothers or fathers murdered by the Rebels.

The prisoner had little intelligence, and talked only when addressed. I could but admire the external stolidity with which he listened to these discussions. One of his judges and would-be executioners asked him:

"I am in your hands," he replied, without moving a muscle; "you can kill me if you want to; but I have kept the oath of allegiance, and I am innocent of the charges you bring against me."

"He may deserve death, and he probably does. But we are not murderers, and he shall not be shot. I will use my own revolver on anybody who attempts it. Let us hear no more of these taunts. No brave man will insult a prisoner."

It was at last decided to take him to Knoxville. He bore this decision with the same silence he had manifested at the prospect of death.

During this scene Dan was absent. He had gone to the nearest Union house to learn the news, for every loyal family in a range of many hundred miles knew and loved him. We, very weary, lay down to sleep in an old orchard, with our saddles for pillows. Our reflections were pleasant. We were only seventy-nine miles from the Union lines. We progressed swimmingly, and had even begun to regulate the domestic affairs of the border!

Before midnight some one shook my arm. I rubbed my eyes open and looked up. There was Dan Ellis.

"Boys, we must saddle instantly. We have walked right into a nest of Rebels. Several hundred are within a few miles; eighty are in this immediate vicinity. They are lying in ambush for Colonel Kirk and his men. It is doubtful whether we can ever get out of this. We must divide into two parties. The footmen must take to the mountains; we who are riding, and in much greater [Pg 501] danger—as horses make more noise, and leave so many traces—must press on at once, if we ever hope to."

The word was passed in low tones. Our late prisoner, no longer an object of interest, was allowed to wander away at his own sweet will. Flinging our saddles upon our weary horses, we were in motion almost instantly. My place was near the middle of the cavalcade. The man just before me was riding a white horse, which enabled me to follow him with ease.

We galloped along at Dan's usual pace, with sublime indifference to roads—up and down rocky hills, across streams, through swamps, over fences—everywhere but upon public thoroughfares.

I sup p osed we had traveled three miles, when Davis fell back from the front, and said to me:

I had thought Dan Ellis was piloting us, and rode forward to see about the young lady.

There she was! I could not scrutinize her face in the darkness, but it was said to be comely. I could see that her form was graceful, and the ease and firmness with which she sat on her horse would have been a lesson for a riding-master.

She was a member of the loyal family to which Dan had gone for news. The moment she learned his need, she volunteered to pilot him out of that neighborhood, where she was born and bred, and knew every acre. The only accessible horse (one belonging to a Rebel officer, but just then kept in her father's barn) was brought out and saddled. She mounted, came to our camp at midnight, and was now stealthily guiding us—avoiding [Pg 502] farm-houses where the Rebels were quartered, going round their camps, evading their pickets.

She led us for seven miles. Then, while we remained in the wood, she rode forward over the long bridge which spanned the Nolechucky River (now to be crossed a second time), to see if there were any guards upon it; went to the first Union house beyond, to learn whether the roads were picketed; came back, and told us the coast was clear. Then she rode by our long line toward her home. Had it been safe to cheer, we should certainly have given three times three for the Nameless Heroine 19 who did us such vital kindness. "Benisons upon her dear head forever!"

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Relieved again from immediate danger, every thing seemed like a blessed dream. I was haunted by the fear of waking to find myself in the old bunk at Salisbury, with its bare and squalid surroundings.

We were often compelled to walk and lead our weary animals. The rushing creeks were perilous to cross by night. The rugged mountains were appalling to our aching limbs and frost-bitten feet. The Union houses, where we obtained food and counsel, were often humble and rude. But we had vanquished the Giant Despair, and come up from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. To our eyes, each icy stream was the River of Life. The frowning cliffs, with their cruel rocks, were the very Delectable Mountains; and every friendly log cabin was the Palace called Beautiful.

After our fair guide left us, Dan's foot was on his native heath. Familiar with the road, he pressed on like a Fate, without mercy to man or beast. After the late heavy rains it was now growing intensely cold. A crust, not yet hard enough to bear, was forming upon the mud, and at every step our poor horses sunk to the fetlocks.

Even with frequent walking I found it difficult to keep up the circulation in my own sensitive feet; but the severe admonition of one frost-bite had taught me to be very cautious. A young North Carolinian, riding [Pg 504] a mule, wore nothing upon his feet except a pair of cotton stockings; that he kept from freezing is one of the unsolved mysteries of human endurance.

Passing a few miles north of Greenville, at four o'clock in the morning, we had accomplished twenty-five miles, despite all our weakness and weariness.

This brought us to Lick Creek, which proved too much swollen for fording. An old Loyalist, living on the bank, assured us that guerrillas were numerous and vigilant. Should we never leave them behind?

Ascending the stream for three miles, we crossed upon the only bridge in that whole region. Here, at least, our rear was protected; because, if pursued, we could tear up the planks. Soon after dawn, upon a hill-side in the pine woods, we dismounted, and huddled around our fires, a weary, hungry, morose, and melancholy company.

This was a source of uneasiness to Davis and myself, because we had left "Junius" behind. He was offered a horse when we started, at midnight. Supposing, like ourselves, that the parties would re-unite in a few hours, and tired of riding without a saddle, he declined, and cast his lot among the footmen. It was the first separation since our capture. Our fates had been so long cast together, that we meant to keep them united until deliverance should come for one or both, either through life or death. But Treadaway was an excellent pilot, and the footmen, able to take paths through the mountains where no cavalry could follow them, would probably have less difficulty than we.

I found an old man splitting rails, down in a wooded ravine two or three hundred yards from our camp. While he went to his house, a mile distant, to bring me food, I threw myself on the ground beside his fire and slept like a baby. In an hour, he returned with a basket containing a great plate of the inevitable bread and pork. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, who wanted to look at the Yankee. Coarse-featured and hard-handed, they were smoking long pipes; but they were not devoid of womanly tenderness, and earnestly asked if they could do any thing to help us.

About noon we broke camp, and compelled our half-dead horses to move on. The road was clearer and safer than we anticipated. At the first farm which afforded corn, we stopped two or three hours to feed and rest the poor brutes.

Three of us rode forward to a Union house, and asked for dinner. The woman, whose husband belonged to the Sixteenth (loyal) Tennessee Infantry, prepared it at once; but it was an hour before we fully convinced her that we were not Rebels in disguise.

We passed through Russelville soon after dark, and, two miles beyond, made a camp in the deep woods. The night was very cold, and despite the expostulations of Dan Ellis, who feared they belonged to a Union man, we gathered and fired huge piles of rails, one on either side of us. Making a bed between them of the soft, fragrant twigs of the pine, we supped upon burnt corn in the ear. By replenishing our great fires once an hour we spent the night comfortably.

At our farm-house breakfast this morning, a sister of Lieutenant Treadaway was our hostess. She gave us an [Pg 506] inviting meal, in which coffee, sugar, and butter, which had long been only reminiscences to us, were the leading constituents.

By ten we were again upon the road. Two or three of our armed men kept the advance as scouts, but we now journeyed with comparative impunity.

Some of our young men, who had long been hunted by the Rebels, embraced every possible opportunity of turning the tables. No haste, weariness, or danger could induce them to omit following the track of guerrillas, wherever there was reasonable hope of finding the game. On the road to-day, one of these footmen met a citizen riding a fine horse.

"What are you, Southerner or Union?" asked the boy, playing with the hammer of his rifle.

"Well," replied the old Tennesseean, a good deal alarmed, "I have kept out of the war from the beginning; I have not helped either side."

"Come! come! That will never do. You don't take me for a fool, do you? You never could have lived in this country without being either one thing or the other. Are you Union or Secession?"

"Well, sir, I do; I have two sons in Johnson's army. I was an original Secessionist, and I am as good a Southern man as you can find in the State of Tennessee."

"I mean that you are just the man I have been looking for, in walking about a hundred miles—a good Southerner with a good horse! I am a Yankee; we are all Yankees; so slide down, and be quick about it."

Accompanied by the clicking of the rifle, the injunction was not to be despised. The rider came down, the boy mounted and galloped up the road, while the old citizen walked slowly homeward, with many a longing, lingering look behind.

We traveled twenty-five miles to-day, and at night made our camp in the pine woods near Friend's Station.

As the country was now comparatively safe, Davis and myself went in pursuit of beds. At the first house, two women assured us that they were good Union people, and very sorry they had not a single vacant couch. Their words were unexceptionable, but I could not see the welcome in their eyes. We afterward inquired, and found that they were violent Rebels.

The next dwelling was a roomy old farm-house, with pleasant and generous surroundings. In answer to our rap, a white-haired patriarch of seventy came to the door.

"Can you give us supper and lodging to-night, and breakfast in the morning? We will pay you liberally, and be greatly obliged beside."

"I should be glad to entertain you," he replied, in tremulous, childish treble, "but to-night my daughters are all gone to a frolic. I have no one in the house except my wife, who, like myself, is old and feeble."

The lady, impelled by curiosity, now appearing, we repeated the request to her, with all the suavity and persuasiveness at our command, for we were hungry and tired, and the place looked inviting. She dryly gave us the same answer, but began to talk a little. Presently we again inquired:

"Why didn't you say so before? Of course I can give you supper! Come in, all of you!" The old lady prepared us the most palatable meal we had yet found, and told us the usual stories of the war. For hours, by the log fire, we talked with the aged couple, who had three sons carrying muskets in the Union army, and who loved the Cause with earnest, enthusiastic devotion. We were no longer apprehensive; for they assured us that the Rebels had never yet searched their premises.

In this respect they had been singularly fortunate. Theirs was the only one among the hundreds of Union houses we entered, which had not been despoiled by Rebel marauders. More than once the Confederates had taken from them grain and hay to the value of hundreds of dollars; but their dwelling had always been respected.

My poor steed gave signs of approaching dissolution; and I asked the first man I saw by the roadside:

I handed him the bridle, and he led the animal away with a look of wonder; but it could not have taken him long to comprehend the nature of my generosity. Several other horses in the party had died or were left behind as worthless.

Our journey—originally estimated at two hundred miles—had now grown into two hundred and ninety-five by the roads. In view of our devious windings, [Pg 509] we deemed three hundred and forty miles a very moderate estimate of the distance we had traveled.

At ten o'clock on the morning of this twenty-seventh day, came our great deliverance. It was at Strawberry Plains, fifteen miles east of Knoxville. Here—after a final march of seven miles, in which our heavy feet and aching limbs grew wonderfully light and agile—in silence, with bowed heads, with full hearts and with wet eyes, we saluted the Old Flag. 20

Notes:

1 Vernacular for carrying a load upon the back of a man or animal.

2 In Mexico, General Twiggs, while applying some preparation to a wound in his head, found it restoring his hair to its natural color. An enterprising nostrum-vender at once placed in market and advertised largely something which he styled the "Twiggs Hair Dye." Dr. Holmes makes the incident a target for one of his Parthian arrows:—

"How many a youthful head we've seen put on its silver crown!
What sudden changes back again, to youth's empurpled brown!
But how to tell what's old or young—the tap-root from the sprigs,
Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs?"

3 Creole means "native;" but its New Orleans application is only to persons of French or Spanish descent.

4 He never weighed over ninety-six pounds, and, to see his attenuated figure bent over his desk, the shoulders contracted, and the shape of his slender limbs visible through his garments, a stranger would select him as the John Randolph of our time. He has the appearance of having undergone great bodily anguish.— Newspaper Biography of Alexander H. Stephens.

5 By the last census report, the whole number of escaping fugitives in the United States, in the year 1860, was eight hundred and three, being a trifle over one-fiftieth of one per cent. upon the whole number of slaves. Of these, it is probable that the greater part fled to places of refuge in the South, the Dismal Swamp, everglades of Florida, southern mountain regions, and the northern States of Mexico.— Everett's New York Oration, July 4, 1861.

6 Dixie's Land is a synonym for heaven. It appears that there was once a good planter named Dixie, who died at some period unknown, to the intense grief of his animated property. They found expression for their sorrow in song, and consoled themselves by clamoring in verse for their removal to the land to which Dixie had departed, and where probably the renewed spirit would be greatly surprised to find himself in their company. Whether they were ill treated after he died, and thus had reason to deplore his removal, or merely desired heaven in the abstract, nothing known enables me to assert. But Dixie's Land is now generally taken to be the Seceded States, where Mr. Dixie certainly is not at the present writing.— Russell's Diary in America.

7 This gentleman went to Charleston openly for The Times , and constantly insisted that a candid and truthful correspondent of any northern paper could travel through the South without serious difficulty. He was daily declaring that the devil was not so black as he is painted, denying charges brought against Charlestonians by the northern press, and sometimes evidently straining a point in his own convictions to say a kind word for them. But, during the storming of Sumter, he was suddenly arrested, robbed, and imprisoned in a filthy cell for several days. He was at last permitted to go; but the mob had become excited against him, and with difficulty he escaped with his life. No other correspondent was subjected to such gross indignities. "Jasper" reached Washington, having obtained a good deal of new and valuable information about South Carolina character.

8 Of course the folly was not all on one side. Few northerners, up to the attack on Sumter, thought the Rebels would do any thing but threaten. And long after this error was exploded, our ablest journals were fond of contrasting the resources of the two sections, and demonstrating therefrom, with mathematical precision, that the war could not last long; that the superiority of the North in men and money would make the subjugation of the South a short and easy task. But they did not commit the egregious blunder of imputing cowardice to any class of native-born Americans.

9 Now (April, 1865), while we are witnessing some of the closing scenes of the war, subscriptions to the popular loan of the Government come pouring in from the West more largely, according to wealth and population, than from any other section.

10 From the Spanish corral , a yard. Upon our frontier it is used, colloquially, as a verb, to signify surrounded, captured, completely in the power, or at the mercy, of another.

11 Through severest trials, and cruel neglect from our Government, they never swerved a hair's-breadth. Before our troops opened East Tennessee, enough left their homes, coming stealthily through the mountains and enlisting in the Union army, to make sixteen regiments.

12 The leniency of the Government toward these men was remarkable. For many months after the war began, Breckinridge, in the United States Senate, and Burnett, in the House of Representatives, uttered defiant treason, for which they were not only pardoned, but paid by the Government they were attempting to overthrow. As late as August, 1861, after Bull Run, after Wilson Creek, Buckner visited Washington, was allowed to inspect the fortifications, and went almost directly thence to Richmond. When he next returned to Kentucky, it was at the head of an invading Rebel army.

13 So called, though nearly all its members came from Cincinnati.

14 This officer was a native Missourian, deemed trustworthy, and thoroughly familiar with the country. He reported officially to Fremont that the whole Rebel army was within eleven miles of us, when it was really fifty miles away. Then, indeed, much later in the war, accurate information about the enemy seemed absolutely unattainable. Scott, McClellan, Halleck, Grant, all failed to procure it. Rosecrans was the first general who kept himself thoroughly advised of the whereabouts, strength, and designs of the Rebels.

15 Commander, not of the tug, whose captain was killed, but of the soldiers guarding it and the barges.

16 A species of Southern oak.

17 Our Government, upon learning of this, ordered the commandant at Fortress Monroe, the moment he should learn, officially or otherwise, that Sawyer and Flynn had been executed, to shoot in retaliation two Rebel officers—sons of Generals Lee and Winder. On the reception of this news in the Richmond papers at daylight one morning, the prisoners cheered and shouted with delight. As they supposed, that settled the question. Nothing more was heard about executing our officers; and soon after, Sawyer and Flynn were exchanged, months before their less fortunate comrades.

18 Captain Thomas, in the character of a French lady, took passage on the steamer at Baltimore, with several followers disguised as mechanics. Near Point Lookout they overpowered the crew and captured the vessel, converting her into a privateer. Afterward, while attempting to repeat the enterprise, they were made prisoners.

19 Nameless no more. The substantial closing of the war, while these pages are in press, renders it safe to give her name—Miss Melvina Stevens .

20 Knoxville, Tennessee , January 13, 1865.

"Out of the jaws of Death; out of the mouth of Hell."

Albert D. Richardson.
Tribune , January 14, 1865.

Transcriber's Change Table
Page	As printed	Changed to
9	People	People.
10	Freedom.	Freedom.—
29	'	"
46	interesting	interesting.
49	sieze	seize
50	gentleman	gentlemen
82	Sargeant	Seargeant
110	reply	reply.
110	'	"
123	Tribune?	Tribune?"
171	Gu rie	Guthrie
211	Parlia-liament	Parliament
223	IIer	Her
228	feels	Feels
230	care lessly	carelessly
238	briddle	bridle
240	shubbery	shrubbery
267	whose	Whose
267	satis faction	satisfaction
280	have'nt	haven't
300	'	"
311	Douglass	Douglas
312	Douglass	Douglas
313	Douglass	Douglas
314	Douglass	Douglas
336	cortége	cortège
370	Gaurds	Guards
375	attraced	attracted
378	curreny	currency
501	suposed	supposed

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape

THE SECRET SERVICE, THE FIELD, THE DUNGEON, AND THE ESCAPE.

List of Illustrations.

CONTENTS.

I. THE SECRET SERVICE.

CHAPTER I.

II. THE FIELD.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IV. THE ESCAPE.

Notes:

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

THE

SECRET SERVICE,

THE FIELD, THE DUNGEON,

AND

THE ESCAPE.

I.
THE SECRET SERVICE.

II.
THE FIELD.

IV.
THE ESCAPE.