Border and Bastille Part 8

I had one pa.s.sage of arms with the Superintendent during that week. I have an idea that I spoke somewhat freely with regard to the Administration that he had the honor to serve, pressing him for a justification of its conduct in my own especial case.

The official listened quite coolly and calmly, with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt in his shrewd cynical eyes, and answered:

"Well, we've had a good bit of trouble with England and English this year; and I reckon they think they've got a pretty fair-sized fish now, and mean to keep him, whether or no."

"That's Republican justice, all over," I said; "to make the one that you can catch, pay for the dozen that you can't, or that you are afraid to grapple with."

"I don't know about justice," was the reply; "but it's d--d good policy."

And so we parted-not a whit worse friends than before.

Delicta, majorum, immeritus lues, if memory had not failed me, I might have quoted that line often and appropriately enough. But every agent in the "robbery"-from the vainglorious Virginian, my chief captor, down to the smooth Secretary, whose velvet gripe was so loth to unclose-seemed provokingly bent on exaggerating the importance of their prize. Perhaps the very interest felt in my release, and the exertions unsparingly used-especially in Baltimore-to secure it, strengthened the false impressions or pretenses of the Federal powers. I write in the firm a.s.surance that no Southern friend will deem these words ungracious or ungrateful.

There is no stone, above or below ground, white enough to mark, worthily, in my calender, the fifth day of last June. I hereby abjure, for evermore, any superst.i.tious prejudice against the ill luck of Fridays. Late in the afternoon, I was pacing to and fro in the narrow exercise-ground, speculating idly as to the delay of my dinner, which was overdue-not that I felt any interest in the subject, but it was a sort of break, and fresh starting-point in the monotony of hours-when I was summoned once more into official presence. They took me to the room on the ground-floor, where I had waited on the first day of my imprisonment while the cell above was preparing. I found there the lieutenant commanding the guard, and two or three more officers, one of whom, I understood, was a deputy of the Judge-Advocate. They read out a paper, of which the following is an exact copy, and asked if I had any objection to sign it:

/P District of Columbia, County of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Old Capital Prison, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. P/

I, --, of --, in England, do solemnly swear on my Parole of Honor, that I will leave the United States of America, with as little delay us possible, and that I will not return there during the existing rebellion.

So help me G.o.d.

Signed, --.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this fifth day of June, A. D. 1863.

John A. Lovell, Lieut. Comdg. Guard.

Now, had I been offered a free pa.s.sage South, I doubt if I should have accepted it, then; the aspect of things within the last two mouths had changed for me entirely. I could not hope to carry out one of my original plans; for all available resources were nearly exhausted, and procuring fresh supplies from home would have involved infinite difficulty and delay. Besides, a refusal gave at once to the Federal authorities the pretext for detention that they had sought so eagerly, and, so far, failed to find. I know no earthly consideration, excepting clear obligations of duty or honor, that would have persuaded me to incur ten more prison days. If, instead of being a free agent, I had been bound by an oath to penetrate into Secessia at all hazards, I should have held myself at that moment amply a.s.soilzed of my vow. So, with the remark-"that, of all the places on this earth, the Northern States of America was the country I most wished to leave, and least cared to revisit"-I signed the parole, and confirmed it with an oath.

Then, it appeared that my debt to the Union was paid, so that it had no further lien on my effects or me. The saddle-bags were soon packed; in another half-hour, I stood outside the prison-door-realizing, with a dull, dazed feeling of strangeness and novelty, that there was not the shadow of bolt, bar, or wall between me and the clear sultry skies.

CHAPTER XI.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

Now that this personal narrative is drawing rapidly to its close, there is one point to which I must needs allude, at the risk of sinning egotistically. While under lock and key, I never ventured to grapple with the subject. Even now-sitting in a pleasant room, with windows opening down on a trim lawn studded with flower-jewels and girdled with the mottled belts of velvet-green that are the glory of Devonion shrub-land, beyond which Tobray s.h.i.+mmers broad and blue under the breezy summer weather-I shrink from it with a strange reluctance that I cannot, shake off, though it shames me.

I speak of the effect-moral, intellectual, and physical-produced by those eight weeks of imprisonment.

I do not wish to intimate that there were any actual hards.h.i.+ps beyond the prevention of free air and exercise to be endured. More than this: I am ready and willing to allow, that certain privileges were conceded to me that I had no right to claim, which were granted to few, if any, of my fellows in misfortune. The Corporal of the Keys was a clerk in the house of Ticknor & Field, the great Boston publishers, before he became a soldier; and was disposed to show every consideration and indulgence to one whom he was pleased to consider a brother of the Literate Guild. The under-superintendent-Donnelly by name-treated one with a benevolence quite paternal. The monotony of my solitary confinement was often broken by his rambling chat and reminiscences of a gambler's life in the Far West; for he liked nothing better than lingering in my cell for an hour or so, when his day's work was done. After the prison doors were opened, I lingered for ten minutes within them, to exchange a farewell hand-grip with that quaint, kind old man. There was a stringent curfew-order, enjoining the extinguishment of all lights at nine, P. M.; but on condition of vailing my window with a horse-rug, so as not to establish a bad precedent, I was allowed to keep mine burning at discretion. Now some readers of these pages may think that a confinement, such as I have described, wherein, there was to be obtained a sufficiency of meat, drink, tobacco, and light literature, is not, after all, a peine forte et dure; and that it is both weak and unreasonable thereanent to make one's moan. So, in bygone days, when a lazy fit was strong upon me, have I thought myself. I am not malicious enough to wish that the most contemptuously skeptical of such critics may be undeceived, at the price which I paid for the learning. It is possible that a person of settled sedentary habits, endowed not only with powerful resources within himself, but also with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, might hold out well enough for awhile, more especially if supported by the reflection that he was suffering for his country's good or for his own private advantage. But take the converse example of a man unsupported by any consolations of patriotism or peculation, of a temperament somewhat impatient, and p.r.o.ne to anger, accustomed, too, from youth upwards, to constant habits of strong out-door exercise, with such an one I fancy it will fare-very much as it fared with me. It is an established fact, that a few months' confinement within four walls, without stint of food or aggravation of punishment, will bring an athletic Red Indian to the extreme of bodily prostration, if not to mortal sickness.

It is humiliating to confess, but I fear unhappily true, that in despite of all advantages of a civilized education, some of us, under like circ.u.mstances, will go down as helplessly as the n.o.ble savage.

Would you like to hear of the process? It is not pleasant to look upon, or to tell.

The first few days are spent in an uneasy, irritable expectation that every hour will bring some news-good or bad-from the world without, bearing on your own especial case; then comes the frame of mind wherein you allow that there must be certain official delays, and begin to calculate, wearily, how far the wire-drawn formalities will be protracted, making a liberal margin for unexpected contingencies: this phase soon pa.s.ses away: then comes the bitter, up-hill fight of hoping against hope; how long this may endure depends much on temperament-more on bodily health; but in most cases it is soon over, and is succeeded by the last state, ten thousand times worse than the first: slowly, but very surely, the dense black cloud of utter listlessness settles down, never broken thereafter save by brief flashes of a futile, irrational ferocity. All your ideas move round like tired mill-horses, in the narrowest circle, with an unhappy Ipse Ego for its centre: all the pa.s.sing events of the outward world seem unnaturally dwarfed and distant, as if seen through an inverted telescope: the struggles of stranger nations move you no more than the battles on an ant-hill; the only question of civil or religious liberty in which you feel the faintest interest is the unimportant one involving your own personal freedom. And throughout you are shamefully conscious that this indifference is not philosophical, but simply selfish.

So much for the morale. Does the physique fare better.

When you enter the gaol, there is probably laid up in your lungs a certain store of fresh, free air, which takes some time to exhaust itself; but soon you begin to draw your breath more and more slowly, and to feel that the atmosphere inhaled no longer refreshes you; no wonder-it is laden with compressed animal life. Then a dull, hot weight closes round your brows, as if a heavy, fever-stricken hand was always clasping them; there it lies-at night, when the drowsiness which is not sleep overcomes you-in the morning, when you wake, with damp linen and dank hair: plunge your forehead in ice-cold water; before the drops have dried there it is burning-burning again. The distaste for all food grows upon you, till it becomes a loathing not to be driven away by bitters or quinine: there is no savor in the smoke of Kinnekinnick, nor any flavor in the still waters of Monongahela. Physical prostration of necessity speedily ensues. Let me mention one fact-not in vaunting, but in proof that I do not speak idly. When we were trying those athletics at Greenland, the day after my capture, I could rend a broad linen band fastened tightly round my upper arm by bending the biceps: when I had been a month in Carroll place I had to halt, at least once, from absolute breathlessness and debility, on the stairs leading from the yard to the third story; my pulse was almost imperceptible. By this time my sight had become so seriously affected that I was absolutely unable to read the clearest print; even now, a month after my enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, though keen Atlantic breezes and home comforts have worked wonders, I cannot write five consecutive sentences without a respite.

I am forced to quote my own experience; but I know that it could be matched, if not exceeded, by very many cases of equal or worse suffering.

Long confinement falls, of course, intensely harder on a stranger than on a native. The latter, I suppose, can never quite divest himself of an interest in pa.s.sing events, which the former, at the best of times, can but faintly share: besides which, most Americans-not purely political prisoners-have either a definite term of captivity to look forward to, or are, in one way or other, subject to the chances of exchange.

If the Federal Government had avowed at once, that it was their sovereign pleasure to keep an Englishman in durance for a certain period, without attempting to excuse the arbitrary stretch of authority, one would have chafed, I suppose, under the injustice, but still submitted, as it is the duty of manhood to submit to any inevitable necessity. It was the doubt and indefiniteness of the whole affair that made it so inexpressibly exasperating. It was bad enough to have no palpable adversary to grapple with: it was worse to have no specific charge. As I had contravened a general order by crossing the Federal lines without a pa.s.s, the Legation did not apply for my unconditional release: it merely pressed for the inquiry and trial that, in most civilized countries, a criminal can claim as a right. I was never confronted with any judicial authority from the moment that I entered the prison doors till they opened to let me go free: I never received any official intimation of the reasons for my prolonged detention; and Lord Lyons' repeated applications were at last only met by a vague a.s.sertion that they "had reason to believe that an aide-de-camp's commission, signed by General Lee, had reached me at Baltimore." There was not, of course, the faintest scintilla of evidence to establish anything of the sort. While in America I received no communication whatever-written or verbal-from any person connected with the Confederate Government or army.

I do honestly affirm that, in dilating on the several hards.h.i.+ps of my own especial case, I have no idea of enlisting any sympathy, public or private. I simply wish to show what arbitrary oppression can be exercised upon British subjects with perfect impunity by a Government which will maintain quasi-friendly relations with our own just so long as it conforms the standing-ground of a tottering Cabinet. Perhaps, some day or other, as a last peace-offering to the Republican hydra, MM. Seward and Stanton will burn a bishop, and so bring our pacific Foreign Office to bay.

Physical causes prevented my feeling very exhilarated or exultant during my earliest hours of freedom. It was pleasant though to meet an English face at the hotel where I meant to sleep. I had not seen Mr. Austin since we were contemporaries at Oxford; but on the 2d June I had received from him a very kind and courteous note, offering a visit, if it should be acceptable. I need scarcely say how welcome it would have been; but he did not get my written reply till the following Monday-not bad time, either, for the Old Capitol post-office. I dined with Mr. Austin, and at the same table sat General Martindale, military commander at Was.h.i.+ngton, and Senator Sumner. The former certainly recognized my ident.i.ty; but he was not the less amicable for that. It was odd to find myself receiving suggestions as to my route, in case I visited Niagara, from the same man who three days before had granted a pa.s.s to my friend for his proposed prison visit. I sat some time after dinner in talk with Mr. Sumner. His face is much aged and careworn since I first saw it, some years ago, in England: but his manner retains the polished geniality which made him so great a favorite in most European salons.

The rest of the evening I spent at Percy Anderson's. I much regretted that I could not see Lord Lyons, to express my sense of his unwearied exertions in my behalf; but he was dining out; and it was judged better that I should not risk an apparent infringement of my parole by lingering in Was.h.i.+ngton an unnecessary hour the next morning, so I was forced to trust my thanks to writing.

I can never forget, while I live, the welcomes which waited me in Baltimore; welcomes much too cordial to be wasted on a discomfited adventurer. Still I was glad to find that those whose opinion was well worth having gave one credit for having deserved success. I was very, very loth to leave my kind friends, though we may perchance forgather again should I outlive my parole, and be enabled to carry out certain half-formed plans of hunting in the Far West. It was only the sternest sense of duty that impelled me to sacrifice to Niagara sixty hours that intervened before June the 13th, when the Inman steamer started, in which I had secured a berth by telegraph.

Twenty-two hours of unbroken rail-travel-partly through the beautiful Susquehannah Valley; partly through the best cultivated lands (about Troy and Elmira) that I saw in the States, whose trim, loose stone walls reminded one of part of the Heythrop and Cotswold countries-brought us to Buffalo. The Company had here so contrived matters that it was absolutely impossible for the traveler to proceed farther that night, or to get at any luggage beyond what he carries in his hand: from Elmira it travels by a route of its own, to which your through-ticket does not apply: the baggage-agent hands it over to you at Niagara the next morning, with a cheerfully placid face, as if rather proud of the satisfactory correctness of the whole arrangement.

I will not add a stone to the descriptive cairn heaped up by generations of tourists in honor of the King-Cataract; simply because it is presumption in any man to pa.s.s judgment on that famous scene till he has studied it for more days than I could spare hours. I do not think, the eye is disappointed, even at first sight: after being fully prepared by Church's vivid picture-a very triumph of transparent coloring-you still stand dumb in honest admiration of that one miracle in the midst of wonders-the central curve of the Horse-shoe-where the main current plunges over the verge, without a ripple to break the grandeur of the clear, smooth chrysoprase, flas.h.i.+ng back the sunlight through a filmy lace-work of foam. But the ear is certainly dissatisfied: perhaps my acoustics were out of order, as well as other cephalic organs; but it struck me that Niagara hardly made any noise at all. Yet I penetrated under the Fall as far as there is practicable foothold; and listened at all sorts of distances for a deafening roar, which never came.

I started eastward again by that same night's express. I cannot let this, my last experience, pa.s.s, without recording my vote on the much-mooted question of American railway travel. The natives, of course, extol the whole system as one of the greatest of their inst.i.tutions; but I cannot understand any difference of opinion among strangers. The baggage arrangement-except when the Company suffers under an aberration of intellect, such as I have mentioned on the Niagara route-is really convenient, and the commissionaires attached to every train relieve you of all responsibility at your journey's end, by collecting your effects and transporting them to any given direction; but this solitary advantage does not counterbalance other desagremens. When the weather is such as to allow a true current of air to circulate through the car, the atmosphere is barely endurable; but with stoves at work, and all apertures closed, it soon becomes dangerously oppressive. The German element prevails strongly throughout Yankee-land: perhaps this accounts for the natives' dread of fresh air. Your only chance of escaping from semi-suffocation is to secure a seat next to a window, and keep it open, hardening your heart against all the grumbling of your neighbors, who run through a whole gamut of complaints, in the hope of softening or shaming the Hyperborean. Sometimes you will have to encounter menaces; but, in such a cause, it is surely worth while to do battle to the death; revolver and bowie-knife lose their terrors in the presence of imminent asphyxia. The advocates of the system chiefly insist on the sleeping-cars, and the advantage of pa.s.sing from one end of the train to the other at your pleasure. On the first of these points, let me say, that few aliens, after one trusting experiment of those stifling berths, will be inclined to repeat it: the atmosphere of a crowded steamboat cabin is pure and fresh by comparison. As for the vaunted promenade-the man who would avail himself thereof, would, probably waltz with grace and comfort to himself on the deck of the Lively Sally in a sea-way: it requires some practice even to stand upright without holding on; the jolting and oscillation are such that I think you take rather more involuntary exercise than on the back of a cantering cover-hack. The pace is not such as to make much amends: from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour is the outside speed even of expresses: and on many lines you ought to calculate the probabilities of arrival by anything rather than the time-tables. Collisions, however, are certainly rare; the most common accident is when the train breaks through one of the crazy wooden bridges, or, obeying the direction of some playfully eccentric pointsman, plunges headlong over an embankment into some peaceful valley below. The steam-signals are very peculiar; the engine never whistles, but indulges in a prolonged bellow, very like the hideous sounds emitted by that hideous semi-brute, yclept the Gong-Donkey, who used to haunt our race-courses some years ago-making weak-minded men start, and strong-minded women scream with his unearthly roaring. When I first heard the hoa.r.s.e warning-note boom through the night, a shudder of reminiscence came over me, for I used to shrink from that awful creature with a repugnance such as I never felt for any other living thing.

All the weariness of the long night-journey will not prevent a traveler from appreciating the superb Hudson, along whose banks the last part of the road, from Albany, is carried. You are seldom out of sight of the Caatskill range-blue in the distance or dark in the foreground-but the crowning glory of the river are the old cliffs, where the rock soars up sheer from the water's edge, with no more vegetation on its face than will grow in the crevices of ancient walls.

I had scarcely twenty-four hours left for the Imperial City before the Edinburgh sailed. This time I abode at the New York Hotel, where a Baltimorean had already secured quarters. This much, at least, must be conceded to the Yankee capital. In no other town that I know of can a traveler so thoroughly take his ease in his inn. These magnificent caravanserais cast far into the shade the best managed establishments of London, Paris, or Vienna, simply because luxuries enough to satiate any moderate desires, are furnished at fixed prices that need not alarm the most economical traveler. The cuisine at the New York Hotel is really artistic, and the attendance quite perfect. Also is found there a certain Chateau Margaux of '48: after savoring that rich liquid velvet, you wilt not wonder that the house has long been a favorite with the Southern Sybarites. Things are changed, of course, now, and many of Mr. Cranston's old patrons must now exercise their critical tastes on mountain whisky and ration beef; but the tone of feeling in the establishment remains the same. An out-spoken Republican or Abolitionist would not meet a cordial welcome from the present frequenters of the New York, nor, I think, from its jovial host. Likewise the Empress City can boast that her barbers and iced drinks do actually "beat all creation." After a long journey you are thoroughly disposed to appreciate these scientific tonsors, whose delicacy of manipulation is unequaled in Europe. Only the pen of that eloquent writer, who told the "Times" how he "thirsted in the desert," could do justice to the high-art triumphs of the cunning barkeeper.

"Joe"-of the mirthful eye, and agile hand, and ready repartee-long may you flourish, mitigating the fierce summer thirst of many a parched palate; stimulating withered appet.i.tes till they hunger anew for the flesh-pots; warming the heart-c.o.c.kles of departing voyagers till they laugh the keen breezes of the bay to scorn. With me, at least, grat.i.tude for repeated refreshment shall long keep your memory green-green as the mint-sprays that, when your last "julep" is mingled, should surely be strewn, unsparingly, on your grave.

I never felt quite clear of Federaldom till I set my foot firm on the deck of the good s.h.i.+p Edinburgh. I did not indulge in a soliloquy even then; so I certainly shall not inflict on you any rhapsodies about freedom; but, in good truth, the sensation was too agreeable to be easily forgotten.

The homeward voyage was as great a "success," as unbroken fine weather, favorable winds, and company both pleasant and fair, could make it. On the thirteenth day, towards evening, I found myself in the familiar Adelphi, at Liverpool, savoring some "clear" turtle, not with a less relish because, in the accurately pale face of the waiter who brought in the lordly dish, there was not the faintest yellow tinge nor a ripple of "wool" in his hair.

All of my personal narrative that could possibly interest the most indulgent public is told now; if the few words I have left to say should bore you-O patient reader!-they will at least be free of egotism.

CHAPTER XII.

A POPULAR ARMAMENT.

It was ordained that the navy should reap all the boys and the men that were to be gathered in the warfare of this spring. The amphibious failures in the southwest involved no graver consequences than a vast futile expenditure of Northern time, money, and men; such waste has been too common, of late, to excite much popular disgust or surprise. In other parts, the keenest correspondent has been put to great straits for memorable matter; for a skirmish, or a raid, even on a large scale, can hardly carry much beyond a local interest.

On the last day of April, the summer land-campaign began in earnest, when its truculent commander led the "finest army on the planet" across the Rappahanock, unopposed.

If all other warlike music was prudently silent then, be sure, the General's own private trumpet flourished very sonorously; indeed, for many days past it had not ceased to ring. Few armaments have set forth under more pompous auspices. First came the great review, graced by the presence of the White House Court, who witnessed the marching past of the biennial veterans with perfect patience, if not satisfaction. The "specials" of the Republican papers outdid themselves on that occasion; magnificently ignoring his temporary dignity, they hesitated not to compare each member of the President's family with a corresponding European royalty, giving, of course, the preference to the home-manufactured article: it was good to read their raptures over the gallant bearing of Master Lincoln, as if "the young Iulus" (as they would call him) had shown himself worthy of high hereditary honors. One writer, I think, did allow, that the balance of grace might incline rather to Eugenie the Empress, than to the President's stout, good-tempered spouse; but he was much more cynical or conscientious than most of his fellows.

Thenceforward one became aweary of the sight, sound, and name of "Hooker." The right man was in the right place at last: had his counsels been followed in the Peninsula, when the caution or incapacity of McClellan threw the grand opportunity away, the Federal flag would have floated over Richmond last summer. Was there not the hero's own testimony to that effect, rendered before the War Committee, months ago, wherein, with a chivalrous generosity, he ceased not to exalt himself on the ruined reputation of his late commander? Even as Ajax prayed for light, the people cried aloud for one week of fair weather: no more was wanted to crush and utterly confound the hopes of Rebels, Copperheads, and perfidious Albion. Every ill.u.s.trated journal was crowded with portraits, of Fighting Joe and his famous white charger; it was said, that horse and rider could never show themselves without eliciting a burst of cheering, such as rang out near the Lake Regillus, when Herminus and Black Auster broke into the wavering battle. No wonder. Had he not thoroughly reorganized the army demoralized by Burnside's defeat, till there was but one word in every soldier's mouth, and that word-"Forward!"

There was joy, as for a victory, when it was known that the Falmouth camp was broken up, and that the eager battalions had left the Rappahannock fairly behind them: as to success, only fools or traitors could question it. Even the Democratic journals were carried away by the tide, and hardly ventured to hesitate their doubts. The hero's own proclamation, issued on the south bank of the river, was surely enough to rea.s.sure the most timid unbeliever.

How vaunt and prophecy were fulfilled, all the world knows now. A more miserable waste of apparently ample means and material has seldom been recorded in the annals of modern war. General Hooker stands forth the worthy rival of that mighty monarch, who,

"With fifty thousand men, Marched up the hill and then-marched down again."

But of the two, the exploit of the American strategist is much the most brilliant and memorable; his preparations and blunders were conducted on a vaster scale, and, Varus-like, scorning the triviality of a bloodless disgrace, he left sixteen thousand dead, wounded, and missing behind in his retreat.