The Civil War in America Part 7

From Kennersville, an ancient sugar plantation cut up into "town lots,"

our first halt, ten miles out, we shoot through a cypress swamp, the primitive forest of this region, and note a greater affluence of Spanish moss than in the woods of Georgia or Carolina. There it hung, like a hermit's beard, from the pensile branch. Here, to one who should venture to thread the snake and alligator haunted mazes of the jungle, its matted profusion must resemble cl.u.s.ters of stalact.i.tes pendent from the roof of some vast cavern; for the gloom of an endless night appears to pervade the deeper recesses, at the entrance of which stand, like outlying skeleton pickets, the unfelled and leafless patriarchs of the clearing, that for a breadth of perhaps fifty yards on either side seems to have furnished the road with its sleepers.

The gray swamp yields to an open savannah, beyond which, upon the left, a straggling line of spa.r.s.e trees skirts the left bank of the Mississippi, and soon after the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain appears within gunshot of our right, only separated from the road by one hundred yards or more of rush-covered prairie, which seems but a feeble barrier against the caprices of so extensive a sheet of water subject to the influences of wind and tide. In fact, ruined shanties and outhouses, fields laid waste, and prostrate fences remain evidences of the ravages of the "Wash" which a year ago inundated and rendered the railroad impa.s.sable save for boats. The down trains first notice of the disaster was the presence of a two-story frame building, which the waves had transported to the road, and its pa.s.sengers, detained a couple of days in what now strikes us as a most grateful combination of timber-skirted meadow and lake scenery, were rendered insensible to its beauties by the torments of hungry mosquitoes. Had its engineers given the road but eighteen inches more elevation its patrons would have been spared this suffering, and its stock-holders might have rejoiced in a dividend. Many of the settlers have abandoned their improvements. Others, chiefly what are here called Dutchmen, have resumed their tillage with unabated zeal, and large fields of cabbages, one of them embracing not less than sixty acres, testify to their energy.

Again through miles of cypress swamps the train pa.s.ses on to what is called the "trembling prairie," where the sleepers are laid upon a tressel-work of heavier logs, so that the rails are raised by "cribs" of timber nearly a yard above the mora.s.s. Three species of rail, one of them as large as a curlew, and the summer duck, seem the chief occupants of the marsh, but white cranes and brown bitterns take the alarm, and falcons and long-tailed "blackbirds" sail in the distance.

Toward sunset a halt took place upon the long bridge that divides Lake Maurepas, a picturesque sheet of water which blends with the horizon on our left, from Pa.s.s Maunshae, an arm of Lake Pontchartrain, which disappears in the forest on our right. Half a dozen wherries and a small fis.h.i.+ng-smack are moored in front of a rickety cabin, crowded by the jungle to the margin of the cove. It is the first token of a settlement that has occurred for miles, and when we have sufficiently admired the scene, rendered picturesque in the sunset by the dense copse, the water and the bright colors of the boats at rest upon it, a commotion at the head of the train arises from the unexpected arrival upon the "switch"

of a long string of cars filled with half a regiment of Volunteers, who had been enlisted for twelve months' service, and now refused to be mustered in for the war, as required by the recent enactment of the Montgomery Congress. The new comers are at length safely lodged on the "turn off," and our train continues its journey. As we pa.s.s the row of cars, most of them freight wagons, we are hailed with shouts and yells in every key by the disbanded Volunteers, who seem a youngish, poorly-clad, and undersized lot, though noisy as a street mob.

After Maunshae, the road begins to creep up toward _terra firma_, and before nightfall there was a change from cypresses and swamp laurels to pines and beeches, and we inhale the purer atmosphere of dry land, with an occasional whiff of resinous fragrance, that dispels the fever-tainted suggestions of the swamp below. There we only breathed to live. Here we seem to live to breathe. The rise of the road is a grade of but a foot to the mile, and yet at the camp an elevation of not more than eighty feet in as many miles suffices to establish all the climatic difference between the malarious marshes and a much higher mountain region.

But during our journey the hampers have not been neglected. The younger members of the party astonish the night-owls with patriotic songs, chiefly French, and the French chiefly with the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," which, however inappropriate as the slogan of the Confederate States, they persist in quavering, forgetful, perhaps, that not three-quarters of a century ago Toussaiant l'Ouverture caught the words and air from his masters, and awoke the lugubrious notes of the insurrection.

Towards nine P. M., the special car rests in the woods, and is flanked on one side by the tents and watch-fires of a small encampment, chiefly of navvy and cotton-handling Milesian volunteers, called "the Tigers,"

from their prehensile powers and predatory habits. A guard is stationed around the car; a couple of Ethiopians who have attended us from town are left to answer the query, _quis custodiet ipsos custodes?_ and we make our way to the hotel, which looms up in the moonlight in a two-storied dignity. Here, alas! there have been no preparations made to sleep or feed us. The scapegoat "n.o.body" announced our coming. Some of the guests are club men, used to the small hours, who engage a room, a table, half a dozen chairs, and a brace of bottles to serve as candlesticks. They have brought stearine and pasteboards with them, and are soon deep in the finesses of "Euchre." We quietly stroll back to the car, our only hope of shelter. At the entrance we are challenged by a sentry, apparently ignorant that he has a percussion cap on his brown rifle, which he levels at us c.o.c.ked. From this unpleasant vision of an armed and reckless Tiger rampant we are relieved by one of the dusky squires, who a.s.sures the sentinel that we are "all right," and proceeds to turn over a seat and arrange what might be called a sedan-chair bed, in which we prepare to make a night of it. Our party is soon joined by others in quest of repose, and in half an hour breathings, some of them so deep as to seem subterranean, indicate that all have attained their object--like Manfred's--forgetfulness.

An early breakfast of rashers and eggs was prepared at the _table d'hote_, which we were told would be replenished half-hourly until noon, when a respite of an hour was allowed to the "help" in which to make ready a dinner, to be served in the same progression.

Through a shady dingle a winding path led to the camp, and, after trudging a pleasant half mile, a bridge of boards, resting on a couple of trees laid across a pool, was pa.s.sed, and, above a slight embankment, tents and soldiers are revealed upon a "clearing" of some thirty acres in the midst of a pine forest. Turning to the left, we reach a double row of tents, only distinguished from the rest by their "fly roofs" and boarded floors, and, in the centre, halt opposite to one which a poster of capitals on a planed deal marks as "Head-quarters." Major-General Tracy commands the camp. The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various as those of Joseph's coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open camp, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no Volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pa.s.s or the word. There are neither wagons nor ambulances, and the men are rolling in barrels of bacon and bread and shouldering bags of pulse--good picnic practice and campaigning gymnastics in fair weather.

The arms of these Volunteers are the old United States smooth-bore musket, altered from flint to percussion, with bayonet--a heavy and obsolete copy of Brown Bess in bright barrels. All are in creditable order. Most of them have never been used, even to fire a parade volley, for powder is scarce in the Confederated States, and must not be wasted.

Except in their material, the shoes of the troops are as varied as their clothing. None have as yet been served out, and each still wears the boots, the brogans, the patent leathers, or the Oxford ties in which he enlisted. The tents have mostly no other floor than the earth, and that rarely swept; while blankets, boxes, and utensils are stowed in corners with a disregard of symmetry that would drive a martinet mad. Camp stools are rare and tables invisible, save here and there in an officer's tent. Still the men look well, and, we are told, would doubtless present a more cheerful appearance, but for some little demoralization occasioned by discontent at the repeated changes in the organic structure of the regiments, arising from misapprehensions between the State and Federal authorities, as well as from some favoritism toward certain officers, effected by political wire-pulling in the governing councils. The system of electing officers by ballot has made the camp as thoroughly a political arena as the poll districts in New Orleans before an election, and thus many heroes, seemingly ambitious of epaulettes, are in reality only "laying pipes" for the attainment of civil power or distinction after the war.

The volunteers we met at Maunshae the previous evening had been enlisted by the State to serve for twelve months, and had refused to extend their engagement for the war--a condition now made precedent at Montgomery to their being mustered into the army of the Confederate States. Another company, a majority of whom persist in the same refusal, were disbanded while we were patrolling the camp, and an officer told one of the party he had suffered a loss of six hundred volunteers by this disintegrating process within the last twenty-four hours. Some of these country companies were skilled in the use of the rifle, and most of them had made pecuniary sacrifices in the way of time, journeys, and equipments.

Our informant deplored this reduction of volunteers, as tending to engender dissaffection in the parishes to which they will return, and comfort when known to the Abolitionists of the North. He added that the war will not perhaps last a twelvemonth, and if unhappily prolonged beyond that period, the probabilities are in favor of the short-term recruits willingly consenting to a reenlistment.

The encampment of the "Perrit Guards" was worthy of a visit. Here was a company of _professional gamblers_, one hundred and twelve strong, recruited for the war in a moment of banter by one of the patriarchs of the fraternity, who, upon hearing at the St. Charles Hotel one evening, that the vanity or the patriotism of a citizen, not famed for liberality, had endowed with $1,000 a company which was to bear his name, exclaimed that "he would give $1,500 to any one who should be fool enough to form a company and call it after him." In less than an hour after the utterance of this caprice, Mr. Perrit was waited upon by fifty-six "professionals," who had enrolled their names as the "Perrit Guards," and unhesitatingly produced from his wallet the sum so sportively pledged. The Guards are uniformed in Mazarin blue flannel with red facings, and the captain, a youngish-looking fellow, with a hawk's eye, who has seen service with Scott in Mexico and Walker in Nicaragua, informed us that there is not a pair of shoes in the company that cost less than six dollars, and that no money has been spared to perfect their other appointments. A sack of ice and half a dozen silver goblets enforced his invitation "to take a drink at his quarters," and we were served by an African in uniform, who afterward offered us cigars received by the last Havana steamer. Looking at the sable attendant, one of the party observes that if these "experts of fortune win the present fight, it will be a case of _couleur gagne_."

It would be difficult to find in the same number of men taken at hazard greater diversities of age, stature, and physiognomy; but in keenness of eye and imperturbility of demeanor they exhibit a family likeness, and there is not an unintelligent face in the company. The gamblers, or, as they are termed, the "sports," of the United States have an air of higher breeding and education than the dice-throwers and card-turners of Ascot or Newmarket--nay, they may be considered the Anglo-Saxon equals, minus the t.i.tle, of those _ames d.a.m.nees_ of the continental n.o.bility who are styled Greeks by their Parisian victims. They are the Pariahs of American civilization, who are, nevertheless, in daily and familiar intercourse with their patrons, and not restricted, as in England, to a betting-ring toleration by the higher orders. The Guards are the model company of Camp Moore, and I should have felt disposed to admire the spirit of gallantry with which they have volunteered in this war as a purification by fire of their maculated lives, were it not hinted that the "Oglethorpe Guards," and more than one other company of volunteers, are youths of large private fortunes, and that in the Secession, as in the Mexican War, these patriots will doubtless pursue their old calling with as much profit as they may their new one with valor.

From the Lower Camp we wind through tents, which diminish in neatness and cleanliness as we advance deeper, to the Upper Division, which is styled "Camp Tracy," a newer formation, whose brooms have been employed with corresponding success. The adjutant's report for the day sums up one thousand and seventy-three rank and file, and but two on the sick list. On a platform, a desk beneath the shade of the grove holds a Bible and Prayer-book, that await the arrival at ten o'clock of the Methodist preacher, who is to perform Divine service. The green uniforms of the "Hibernian Guards," and the gray and light blue dress of other companies, appertain to a better appointed sort of men than the Lower Division.

There may be two thousand men in Camp Moore--not more, and yet every authority gives us a different figure. The lowest estimate acknowledged for the two camps is three thousand five hundred men, and _The Picayune_ and other New Orleans papers still speak in glowing terms of the five thousand heroes a.s.sembled in Tangipao. Although the muster there presents a tolerable show of ball-stoppers, it would require months of discipline to enable them to pa.s.s for soldiers even at the North; and besides that General Tracy has never had other experience than in militia duty, there is not, I think, a single West Point officer in his whole command. The only hope of shaping such raw material to the purposes of war, would naturally be by the admixture of a proper allowance of military experience, and until those possessing it shall be awarded to Camp Moore, we must sigh over the delusion which pictures its denizens to the good people of New Orleans as "fellows ready for the fray."

While the hampers are being ransacked an express locomotive arrives from town with despatches for General Tracy, who exclaims when reading them, "Always too late!" from which expression it is inferred that orders have been received to accept the just-disbanded volunteers. The locomotive was. .h.i.tched to the car and drew it back to the city. Our car was built in Ma.s.sachusetts, the engine in Philadelphia, and the magnifier of its lamp in Cincinnati. What will the South do for such articles in future?

MAY 26.--In the evening, as I was sitting in the house of a gentleman in the city, it was related as a topic of conversation that a very respectable citizen named Bibb had had a difficulty with three gentlemen, who insisted on his reading out the news for them from his paper as he went to market in the early morning. Mr. Bibb had a revolver "casually" in his pocket, and he shot one citizen dead on the spot, and wounded the other two severely, if not mortally. "Great sympathy," I am told, "is felt for Mr. Bibb." There has been a skirmish somewhere on the Potomac, but Bibb has done more business "on his own hook" than any of the belligerents up to this date; and, though I can scarcely say I sympathize with him, far be it from me to say that I do not respect him.

One curious result of the civil war in its effects on the South will, probably, extend itself as the conflict continues--I mean the refusal of the employers to pay their workmen, on the ground of inability. The natural consequence is much distress and misery. The English Consul is hara.s.sed by applications for a.s.sistance from mechanics and skilled laborers who are in a state bordering on dest.i.tution and starvation.

They desire nothing better than to leave the country and return to their homes. All business, except tailoring for soldiering and cognate labors, are suspended. Money is not to be had. Bills on New York are worth little more than the paper, and the exchange against London is enormous--18 per cent. discount from the par value of the gold in bank, good draughts on England having been negotiated yesterday at 92 per cent. One house has been compelled to accept 4 per cent. on a draught on the North, where the rate was usually from per cent. to per cent.

There is some fear that the police force will be completely broken up, and the imagination refuses to guess at the result. The city schools will probably be closed--altogether, things do not look well at New Orleans. When all their present difficulties are over, a struggle between the mob and the oligarchy, or those who have no property and those who have, is inevitable; for one of the first acts of the Legislature will probably be directed to establish some sort of qualification for the right of suffrage, relying on the force which will be at their disposal on the close of the war. As at New York, so at New Orleans. Universal suffrage is denounced as a curse, as corruption legalized, confiscation organized. As I sat in a well-furnished club-room last night, listening to a most respectable, well-educated, intelligent gentleman descanting on the practices of "the Thugs"--an organized band who coolly and deliberately committed murder for the purpose of intimidating Irish and German voters, and were only put down by a Vigilance Committee, of which he was a member--I had almost to pinch myself to see that I was not the victim of a horrid nightmare.

MONDAY, MAY 27.--The Was.h.i.+ngton Artillery went off to-day to the wars--_quo fas et gloria duc.u.n.t_; but I saw a good many of them in the streets after the body had departed--spirits who were disembodied. Their uniform is very becoming, not unlike that of our own foot artillery, and they have one battery of guns in good order. I looked in vain for any account of Mr. Bibb's little affair yesterday in the papers. Perhaps, as he is so very respectable, there will not be any reference to it at all.

Indeed, in some conversation on the subject last night it was admitted that when men were very rich they might find judges and jury-men as tender as Danae, and policeman as permeable as the walls of her dungeon.

The whole question now is, "What will be done with the blockade?" The Confederate authorities are acting with a high hand. An American vessel, the Ariel, which had cleared out of port with British subjects on board, has been overtaken, captured, and her crew have been put in prison. The ground is that she is owned in main by Black Republicans. The British subjects have received protection from the Consul. Prizes have been made within a league of sh.o.r.e, and in one instance, when the captain protested, his s.h.i.+p was taken out to sea, and was then re-captured formally. I went round to several merchants to-day; they were all gloomy and fierce. In fact, the blockade of Mobile is announced, and that of New Orleans has commenced, and men-of-war have been reported off the Pas-a-l'Outre. The South is beginning to feel that it is being bottled up all fermenting and frothing, and is somewhat surprised and angry at the natural results of its own acts, or, at least, of the proceedings which have brought about a state of war. Mr. Slidell did not seem at all contented with the telegrams from the North, and confessed that "if they had been received by way of Montgomery he should be alarmed." The names of persons liable for military service have been taken down in several districts, and British subjects have been included. Several applications have been made to Mr. Mure, the Consul, to interfere in behalf of men who, having enlisted, are now under orders to march, and who must leave their families dest.i.tute if they go away; but he has, of course, no power to exercise any influence in such cases. The English journals to the 4th of May have arrived here to-day. It is curious to see how quaint in their absurdity the telegrams become when they have reached the age of three weeks. I am in the hapless position of knowing, without being able to remedy, the evils from this source, for there is no means of sending through to New York political information of any sort by telegraph. The electric fluid may be the means of blasting and blighting many reputations, as there can be no doubt the revelations which the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton will be able to obtain through the files of the despatches it has seized at the various offices, will compromise some whose views have recently undergone remarkable changes. It is a hint which may not be lost on Governments in Europe when it is desirable to know friends and foes hereafter, and despotic rulers will not be slow to take a hint from "the land of liberty."

Orders have been issued by the Governor to the tow-boats to take out the English vessels by the southwest pa.s.sage, and it is probable they will all get through without any interruption on the part of the blockading force. It may be imagined that the owners and consignees of cargoes from England, China, and India, which are on their way here, are not at all easy in their minds. Two of the Was.h.i.+ngton Artillery died in the train on their way to that undefinable region called "the seat of war."

MAY 28.--The Southern States have already received the a.s.sistance of several thousands of savages, or red men, and "the warriors" are actually engaged in pursuing the United States troops in Texas in conjunction with the State Volunteers. A few days ago a deputation of the chiefs of the Five Nations, Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Camanches, and others pa.s.sed through New Orleans on their way to Montgomery, where they hoped to enter into terms with the Government for the transfer of their pension list and other responsibilities from Was.h.i.+ngton, and to make such arrangements for their property and their rights as would justify them in committing their fortunes to the issue of war. These tribes can turn out twenty thousand warriors, scalping-knives, tomahawks, and all. The chiefs and princ.i.p.al men are all slaveholders.

MAY 29.--A new "affair" occurred this afternoon. The servants of the house in which I am staying were alarmed by violent screams in a house in the adjoining street, and by the discharge of firearms--an occurrence which, like the cry of "murder" in the streets of Havana, clears the streets of all wayfarers if they be wise, and do not wish to stop stray bullets. The cause is thus stated in the journals:

"SAD FAMILY AFFRAY.--Last evening, at the residence of Mr. A. P.

Withers, in Nayades street, near Thalia, Mr. Withers shot and dangerously wounded his step-son, Mr. A. F. W. Mather. As the police tell it, the nature of the affair was this: The two men were in the parlor, and talking about the Was.h.i.+ngton Artillery, which left on Monday for Virginia. Mather denounced the artillerists in strong language, and his step-father denied what he said. Violent language followed, and, as Withers says, Mather drew a pistol and shot at him once, not hitting him. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a Sharp's revolver that was lying near and fired four times at his step-son. The latter fell at the third fire, and as he was falling Withers fired a fourth time, the bullet wounding the hand of Mrs. Withers, wife of one and mother of the other, she having rushed in to interfere, and she being the only witness of the affair. Withers immediately went out into the street and voluntarily surrendered himself to officer Ca.s.son, the first officer he met. He was locked up. Three of his shots. .h.i.t Mather, two of them in the breast. Last night Mather was not expected to live."

Another difficulty is connected with the free colored people who may be found in prize s.h.i.+ps. Read and judge of the conclusion:

"What shall be done with them?--On the 28th inst., Capt. O. W.

Gregor, of the privateer Calhoun, brought to the station of this district about ten negro sailors, claiming to be free, found on board of the brigs Panama, John Adams, and Mermaid.

"The Recorder sent word to the Marshal of the Confederate States that said negroes were at his disposition. The Marshal refused to receive them or have anything to do with them, whereupon the Recorder gave the following decision:

"'Though I have no authority to act in this case, I think it is my duty as a magistrate and good citizen to take upon myself, in this critical moment, the responsibility of keeping the prisoners in custody, firmly believing it would not only be bad policy, but a dangerous one, to let them loose upon the community.'

"The following despatch was sent by the Recorder to the Hon. J. P.

Benjamin:

"'NEW ORLEANS, May 23.

"'To J. P. BENJAMIN, Richmond--_Sir:_ Ten free negroes, taken by a privateer from on board three vessels returning to Boston, from a whaling voyage, have been delivered to me. The Marshal refuses to take charge of them. What shall I do with them?

'Respectfully, A. BLACHE,

'Recorder, Second District.'"

The monthly statement I enclose of the condition of the New Orleans banks on the 25th inst., must be regarded as a more satisfactory exhibit to their depositors and shareholders, though of no greater benefit to the commercial community in this its hour of need than the tempting show of a pastrycook's window to the famished street poor. These inst.i.tutions show a.s.sets estimated at $54,000,000, of which $20,000,000 are in specie and sterling exchange, to meet $25,000,000 of liabilities, or more than two for one. But, with this apparent amplitude of resources, the New Orleans banks are at a deadlock, affording no discounts and buying no exchange--the latter usually their greatest source of profit in a mart which s.h.i.+ps so largely of cotton, sugar, and flour, and the commercial movement of which for not over nine months of the year is the second in magnitude among the cities of the old Union.

As an instance of the caution of their proceedings, I have only to state that a gentleman of wealth and the highest respectability, who needed a day or two since some money for the expenses of an unexpected journey, was compelled, in order to borrow of these banks the sum of $1,500, to hypothecate, as security for his bill at 60 days, $10,000 of bonds of the Confederate States, and for which a month ago he paid par in coin--a circ.u.mstance which reflects more credit upon the prudence of the banks than upon the security pledged for this loan.

MOVEMENTS OF THE BANKS, MAY 25, 1861.

CASH RESPONSIBILITIES.

Circulation--Chartered Banks, $5,323,376 Circulation--Free Banks, 1,798,835 ---------- $7,122,211

Deposits--Chartered Banks, $12,979,307 Deposits--Free Banks, 4,929,544 ---------- $17,908,851 ---------- Total, $25,031,062

CASH a.s.sETS.

Coin--Chartered Banks, $10,808,812 Coin--Free Banks, 4,183,722 ---------- $14,992,534 Exchange, chiefly sterling matured and maturing: Chartered Banks, $4,481,140 Free Banks, 1,083,928 --------- $ 5,565,068 ----------- Total, $20,557,602

Short commercial paper, 1 to 90 days, intended to meet cash responsibilities, and not renewable: Chartered Banks, $7,235,077 Free Banks, 4,670,979 --------- $11,906,056 ----------- Total, $32,463,658