New orleans, May 25, 1861.
THERE are doubts arising in my mind respecting the number of armed men
actually in the field in the South, and the amount of arms in the
possession of the Federal forces. The constant advertisements and
appeals for “a few more men to complete” such and such companies furnish
some sort of evidence that men are still wanting. But a painful and
startling insight into the manner in which “Volunteers” have been
sometimes obtained has been afforded to me at New Orleans. In no country
in the world have outrages on British subjects been so frequent and so
wanton as in the States of America. They have been frequent, perhaps,
because they have generally been attended with impunity. Englishmen,
however, will be still a little surprised to hear that within a few days
British subjects living in New Orleans have been seized, knocked down,
carried off from their labor at the wharf and the workshop, and forced
by violence to serve in the “Volunteer” ranks! These cases are not
isolated. They are not in twos and threes, but in tens and twenties;
they have not occurred stealthily or in by-ways, they have taken place
in open day, and in the streets of New Orleans. These men have been
dragged along like felons, protesting in vain that they were British
subjects. Fortunately, their friends bethought them that there was still
a British Consul in the city, who would protect his countrymen—English,
Irish, or Scotch. Mr. Mure, when he heard of the reports and of the
evidence, made energetic representations to the authorities, who, after
some evasion, gave orders that the impressed “Volunteers” should be
discharged, and the “Tiger Rifles” and other companies were deprived of
the services of thirty-five British subjects whom they had taken from
their usual avocations. The Mayor promises it shall not occur again. It
is high time that such acts should be put a stop to, and that the mob of
New Orleans should be taught to pay some regard to the usages of
civilized nations. There are some strange laws here and elsewhere in
reference to compulsory service on the part of foreigners which it would
be well to inquire into, and Lord John Russell may be able to deal with
them at a favorable opportunity. As to any liberty of opinion or real
freedom here, the boldest Southerner would not dare to say a shadow of
either exists. It may be as bad in the North, for all I know; but it
must be remembered that in all my communications I speak of things as
they appear to me to be in the place where I am at the time. The most
cruel and atrocious acts are perpetrated by the rabble who style
themselves citizens. The national failing of curiosity and prying into
other people’s affairs is now rampant, and assumes the name and airs of
patriotic vigilance. Every stranger is watched, every word is noted,
espionage commands every keyhole and every letter-box; love of country
takes to eavesdropping, and freedom shaves men’s heads, and packs men up
in boxes for the utterance of “Abolition sentiments.” In this city there
is a terrible substratum of crime and vice, violence, misery, and
murder, over which the wheels of Cotton King’s chariot rumble gratingly,
and on which rest in dangerous security the feet of his throne. There
are numbers of negroes who are sent out on the streets every day with
orders not to return with less than seventy-five cents—anything more
they can keep. But if they do not gain that—about three shillings and
six pence a day—they are liable to punishment; they may be put into
jail on charges of laziness, and may be flogged ad libitum, and are
sure to be half starved. Can anything, then, be more suggestive than
this paragraph, which appeared in last night’s papers. “Only three
coroners inquests were held yesterday on persons found drowned in the
river, names unknown!” The italics are mine. Over and over again has the
boast been repeated to me that on the plantations lock and key are
unknown or unused in the planters’ houses. But in the cities they are
much used, though scarcely trusted. It appears, indeed, that unless a
slave has made up his or her mind to incur the dreadful penalties of
flight, there would be no inducement to commit theft, for money or
jewels would be useless; search would be easy, detection nearly certain.
That all the slaves are not indifferent to the issues before them, is
certain. At one house of a planter, the other day, one of them asked my
friend, “Will we be made to work, massa, when ole English come?” An old
domestic in the house of a gentleman in this city said, “There are few
whites in this place who ought not to be killed for their cruelty to
us.” Another said, “Oh, just wait till they attack Pickens!” These
little hints are significant enough coupled with the notices of
runaways, and the lodgments in the police jails, to show that all is not
quiet below the surface. The holders, however, are firm, and there have
been many paragraphs stating that slaves have contributed to the various
funds for State defence, and that they generally show the very best
spirit.
By the proclamation of Governor Magoffin, a copy of which I inclose, you
will see that the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and
Commander-in-chief of all her military forces on land or water, warns
all States, separated or united, especially the United States and the
Confederate States, that he will fight their troops if they attempt to
enter his Commonwealth. Thus Kentucky sets up for herself, while
Virginia is on the eve of destruction, and an actual invasion has taken
place of her soil. It is exceedingly difficult of comprehension that,
with the numerous troops, artillery, and batteries, which the
Confederate journals asserted to be in readiness to repel attack, an
invasion which took place in face of the enemy, and was effected over a
broad river, with shores readily defensible, should have been
unresisted. Here it is said there is a mighty plan, in pursuance of
which the United States troops are to be allowed to make their way into
Virginia, that they may at some convenient place be eaten up by their
enemies; and if we hear that the Confederates at Harper’s Ferry retain
their position one may believe some such plan really exists, although it
is rather doubtful strategy to permit the United States forces to gain
possession of the right bank of the Potomac. Should the position at
Harper’s Ferry be really occupied with a design of using it as a point
d’appui for movements against the North, and any large number of troops
be withdrawn from Annapolis, Washington, and Baltimore, so as to leave
those places comparatively undefended, an irruption in force of the
Confederates on the right flank and in rear of General Scott’s army,
might cause most serious inconvenience and endanger his communications,
if not the possession of the places indicated.
Looking at the map, it is easy to comprehend that a march southwards
from Alexandria could be combined with an offensive movement by the
forces said to be concentrated in and around Fortress Monroe, so as to
place Richmond itself in danger, and, if any such measure is
contemplated, a battle must be fought in that vicinity, or the
prestige of the South will receive very great damage. It is impossible
for any one to understand the movements of the troops on both sides.
These companies are scattered broadcast over the enormous expanse of the
States, and, where concentrated in any considerable numbers, seem to
have had their position determined rather by local circumstances than by
considerations connected with the general plan of a large campaign.
In a few days the object of the present movement will be better
understood, and it is probable that your correspondent at New York will
send, by the same mail which carries this, exceedingly important
information, to which I, in my present position, can have no access. The
influence of the blockade will be severely felt, combined with the
strict interruption of all intercourse by the Mississippi. Although the
South boasts of its resources and of its amazing richness and abundance
of produce, the constant advices in the journals to increase the breadth
of land under corn, and to neglect the cotton crop in consideration of
the paramount importance of the cause, indicate an apprehension of a
scarcity of food if the struggle be prolonged.
Under any circumstances, the patriotic ladies and gentlemen who are so
anxious for the war must make up their minds to suffer a little in the
flesh. All they can depend on is a supply of home luxuries; Indian corn
and wheat, the flesh of pigs, eked out with a small supply of beef and
mutton, will constitute the staple of their food. Butter there will be
none, and wine will speedily rise to an enormous price. Nor will coffee
and tea be had, except at a rate which will place them out of the reach
of the mass of the community. These are the smallest sacrifices of war.
The blockade is not yet enforced here, and the privateers of the port
are extremely active, and have captured vessels with more energy than
wisdom.
The day before yesterday, ships belonging to the United States in the
river were seized by the Confederation authorities, on the ground that
war had broken out, and that the time of grace accorded to the enemy’s
traders had expired. Great was the rush to the Consul’s office to
transfer the menaced property from ownership under the Stars and Strips
to British hands; but Mr. Mure refused to recognize any transactions of
the kind, unless sales bona fide had been effected before the action
of the Confederate Marshals.
At Charleston the blockade has been raised, owing, apparently, to some
want of information or of means on the part of the United States
Government, and considerable inconvenience may be experienced by them in
consequence. On the 11th, the United States steam frigate Niagara
appeared outside and warned off several British ships, and on the 13th
she was visited by Mr. Bunch, our Consul, who was positively assured by
the officers on board that eight or ten vessels would be down to join in
enforcing the blockade. On the 15th, however, the Niagara departed,
leaving the port open, and several vessels have since run in and
obtained fabulous freights, suggesting to the minds of the owners of the
vessels which were warned off the propriety of making enormous demands
for compensation. The Southerners generally believe not only that their
Confederacy will be acknowledged, but that the blockade will be
disregarded by England. Their affection for her is proportionably
prodigious, and reminds one of the intensity of the gratitude which
consists in lively expectations of favors to come.
NEW ORLEANS, May 21, 1861.
Yesterday morning early I left Mobile in the steamer Florida, which
arrived in the Lake of Pontchartrain late at night, or early this
morning. The voyage, if it can be called so, would have offered, in less
exciting times, much that was interesting—certainly, to a stranger, a
good deal that was novel—for our course lay inside a chain, almost
uninterrupted, of reefs, covered with sand and pine trees, exceedingly
narrow, so that the surf and waves of the ocean beyond could be seen
rolling in foam through the foliage of the forest, or on the white
beach, while the sea lake on which our steamer was speeding lay in a
broad, smooth sheet, just crisped by the breeze, between the outward
barrier and the wooded shores of the mainland. Innumerable creeks, or
“bayous,” as they are called, pierce the gloom of these endless pines.
Now and then a sail could be made out, stealing through the mazes of the
marshy waters. If the mariner knows his course, he may find deep water
in most of the channels from the outer sea into these inner waters, on
which the people of the South will greatly depend for any coasting
trade, and supplies coastwise, they may require, as well as for the safe
retreat of their privateers. A few miles from Mobile, the steamer
turning out of the bay, entered upon the series of these lakes through a
narrow channel called Grant’s Pass, which some enterprising person, not
improbably of Scottish extraction, constructed for his own behoof by an
ingenious watercut, and for the use of which, and of a little iron
light-house that he has built close at hand, on the model of a
pepper-castor, he charges toll on passing vessels. This island is
scarcely three feet above the water; it is not over twenty yards broad
and one hundred and fifty yards long. A number of men were, however,
busily engaged in throwing up the sand, and arms gleamed amid some tents
pitched around the solitary wooden shed in the centre. A schooner lay at
the wharf, laden with two guns and sand-bags, and as we passed through
the narrow channel several men in military uniform, who were on board,
took their places in a boat which pushed off for them, and were conveyed
to their tiny station, of which one shell would make a dust-heap. The
Mobilians are fortifying themselves as best they can, and seem, not
unadvisedly, jealous of gunboats and small war steamers. On more than
one outlying sand-bank toward New Orleans are they to be seen at work on
other batteries, and they are busied in repairing, as well as they can,
old Spanish and new United States works which had been abandoned, or
which were never completed. The news has just been reported, indeed,
that the batteries they were preparing on Ship Island have been
destroyed and burnt by a vessel of war of the United States. For the
whole day we saw only a few coasting craft and the return steamers from
New Orleans; but in the evening a large schooner, which sailed like a
witch and was crammed with men, challenged my attention, and on looking
at her through the glass I could make out reasons enough for desiring to
avoid her if one was a quiet, short-handed, well-filled old merchantman.
There could be no mistake about certain black objects on the deck. She
lay as low as a yacht, and there were some fifty or sixty men in the
waist and forecastle. On approaching New Orleans, there are some
settlements rather than cities, although they are called by the latter
title, visible on the right hand, embowered in woods and stretching
along the beach. Such are the “Mississippi City,” Pass Cagoula, and Pass
Christian, &c.—all resorts of the inhabitants of New Orleans during the
summer heats and the epidemics which play such havoc with life from time
to time. Seen from sea, these huge hamlets look very picturesque. The
detached villas, of every variety of architecture, are painted brightly
and stand in gardens in the midst of magnolias and rhododendrons. Very
long and slender piers lead far into the sea before the very door, and
at the extremity of each there is a bathing box for the inmates. The
general effect of one of these settlements, with its light domes and
spires, long lines of whitewashed railings, and houses of every hue set
in the dark green of the pines, is very pretty. The steamer touched at
two of them. There was a motley group of colored people on the jetty, a
few whites, of whom the males were nearly all in uniform; a few bales of
goods were landed or put on board, and that was all one could see of the
life of that place. Our passengers never ceased talking politics all
day, except when they were eating or drinking, for I regret to say they
can continue to chew and to spit while they are engaged in political
discussion. Some were rude provincials in uniform. One was an
acquaintance from the far East, who had been a lieutenant on board of
the Minnesota, and had resigned his commission in order to take service
under the Confederate flag. The fiercest among them all was a thin
little lady, who uttered certain energetic aspirations for the
possession of portions of Mr. Lincoln’s person, and who was kind enough
to express intense satisfaction at the intelligence that there was
small-pox among the garrison at Monroe. In the evening a little
difficulty occurred among some of the military gentlemen, during which
one of the logicians drew a revolver, and presented it at the head of
the gentleman who was opposed to his peculiar views, but I am happy to
say that an arrangement, to which I was an unwilling “party,” for the
row took place within a yard of me, was entered into for a fight to come
off on shore in two days after they landed, which led to the
postponement of immediate murder.
The entrance to Pontchartrain Lake is infamous for the abundance of its
mosquitoes, and it was with no small satisfaction that we experienced a
small tornado, a thunderstorm, and a breeze of wind which saved us from
their fury. It is a dismal canal through a swamp. At daylight the vessel
lay alongside a wharf surrounded by small boats and bathing stations. A
railway-shed receives us on shore, and a train is soon ready to start
for the city, which is six miles distant. For a few hundred yards the
line passes between wooden houses, used as restaurants, or “restaurats,”
as they are called hereaway, kept by people with French names and using
the French tongue; then the rail plunges through a swamp, dense as an
Indian jungle, and with the overflowings of the Mississippi creeping in
feeble, shallow currents over the black mud. Presently the spires of
churches are seen rising above the underwood and rushes. Then we come
out on a wide marshy plain, in which flocks of cattle up to the belly in
mud are floundering to get at the rich herbage on the unbroken surface.
Next comes a wide-spread suburb of exceedingly broad lanes, lined with
small one-storied houses. The inhabitants are pale, lean, and sickly,
and there is about the men a certain look, almost peculiar to the
fishy-fleshy populations of Levantine towns, which I cannot describe,
but which exists all along the Mediterranean seaboard, and crops out
here again. The drive through badly-paved streets enables us to see that
there is an air of French civilization about New Orleans. The streets
are wisely adapted to the situation; they are not so wide as to permit
the sun to have it all his own way from rising to setting. The shops are
“magasins;” cafés abound. The colored population looks well dressed, and
is going to mass or market in the early morning. The pavements are
crowded with men in uniform, in which the taste of France is generally
followed. The carriage stops at last, and rest comes gratefully after
the stormy night, the mosquitoes, “the noise of the captains” (at the
bar), and the shouting.
May 22.—The prevalence of the war spirit here is in everything somewhat
exaggerated by the fervor of Gallic origin, and the violence of popular
opinion and the tyranny of the mass are as potent as in any place in the
South. The great house of Brown Brothers, of Liverpool and New York, has
closed its business here in consequence of the intimidation of the mob,
or, as the phrase is, of the “citizens,” who were “excited” by seeing
that the firm had subscribed to the New York fund, on its sudden
resurrection after Fort Sumter had fallen. Some other houses are about
to pursue the same course; all large business transactions are over for
the season, and the migratory population which comes here to trade has
taken wing much earlier than usual. But the streets are full of “Turcos”
and “Zouaves” and “Chasseurs;” the tailors are busy night and day on
uniforms; the walls are covered with placards for recruits, the
seamstresses are sewing flags, the ladies are carding lint and stitching
cartridge bags. The newspapers are crowded with advertisements relating
to the formation of new companies of Volunteers and the election of
officers. There are Pickwick Rifles, Lafayette, Beauregard, Irish,
German, Scotch, Italian, Spanish, Crescent, McMahon—innumerable—Rifle
Volunteers of all names and nationalities, and the Meagher Rifles,
indignant with “that valiant son of Mars” because he has drawn his sword
for the North, have re-baptized themselves, and are going to seek glory
under a more auspicious nomenclature. About New Orleans I shall have
more to say when I see more of it. At present it looks very like an
outlying suburb of Chalons when the Grand Camp is at its highest
military development, although the thermometer is rising gradually, and
obliges one to know occasionally that it can be 95° in the shade
already. In the course of my journeying southward I have failed to find
much evidence that there is any apprehension on the part of the planters
of a servile insurrection, or that the slaves are taking much interest
in the coming contest, or know what it is about. But I have my
suspicions that all is not right; paragraphs meet the eye, and odd
sentences strike the ear, and little facts here and there come to the
knowledge which arouse curiosity and doubt. There is one stereotyped
sentence which I am tired of: “Our negroes, Sir, are the happiest, the
most contented, and the best off of any people in the world.”
The violence and reiterancy of this formula cause one to inquire whether
anything which demands such insistance is really in the condition
predicated, and, for myself, I always say, “It may be so, but as yet I
do not see the proof of it. The negroes do not look to be what you say
they are.” For the present that is enough as to one’s own opinions.
Externally the paragraphs which attract attention, and the acts of the
authorities, are inconsistent with the notion that the negroes are all
very good, very happy, or at all contented, not to speak of their being
in the superlative condition of enjoyment; and, as I only see them, as
yet, in the most superficial way, and under the most favorable
circumstances, it may be that when the cotton-picking season is at its
height, and it lasts for several months, when the labor is continuous
from sunrise to sunset, there is less reason to accept the assertions as
so largely and generally true of the vast majority of the slaves. “There
is an excellent gentleman over there,” said a friend to me, “who gives
his overseers a premium of $10 on the birth of every child on his
plantation.” “Why so?” “Oh, in order that the overseers may not work
the women in the family-way overmuch.” There is little use in this part
of the world in making use of inferences. But where overseers do not get
the premium, it may be supposed they do work the pregnant women too
much. Here are two paragraphs which do not look very well as they stand:
“Those negroes who were taken with a sudden leaving on Sunday night
last will save the country the expenses of their burial if they
keep dark from these parts. They and other of the ‘breden’ will not
be permitted to express themselves quite so freely in regard to
their braggadocio designs upon virtue in the absence of
volunteers.”—[Wilmington (Clintock County, Ohio,) Watchman
(Republican).
“SERVED HIM RIGHT.—One day last week some colored individual,
living near South Plymouth, made a threat that, in case a civil war
should occur, ‘he would be one to ravish the wife of every
Democrat, and to help murder their offspring and wash his hands in
their blood.’ For this diabolical assertion he was hauled up before
a committee of white citizens, who adjudged him forty stripes on
his naked back. He was accordingly stripped, and the lashes were
laid on with such good will, that the blood flowed at the end of
the castigation.—[Washington (Fayette County, Ohio,) Register
(Neutral).
It is reported that the patrols are strengthened, and I could not help
hearing a charming young lady say to another, the other evening, that
“she would not be afraid to go back to the plantation, though Mrs. Brown
Jones said she was afraid her negroes were after mischief.”
There is a great scarcity of powder, which is one of the reasons,
perhaps, why it has not yet been expended as largely as might be
expected from the tone and temper on both sides. There is no sulphur in
the States—nitre and charcoal abound. The sea is open to the North.
There is no great overplus of money on either side. In Missouri, the
interest on the State debt due in July will be used to procure arms for
the State volunteers to carry on the war. The South is preparing for the
struggle by sowing a most unusual quantity of grain, and in many fields
corn and maize have been planted instead of cotton. “Stay laws,” by
which all inconveniences arising from the usual, dull, old-fashioned
relations between debtor and creditor are avoided (at least by the
debtor), have been adopted in most of the Seceding States. How is it
that the State Legislatures seem to be in the hands of the debtors, and
not of the creditors?
There are some who cling to the idea that there will be no war, after
all; but no one believes that the South will ever go back of its own
free will, and the only reason that can be given for those who hope
rather than think in that way, is to be found in the faith that the
North will accept some mediation, and will let the South go in peace.
But could there, can there be peace? The frontier question, the
adjustment of various claims, the demands for indemnity, or for
privileges or exemptions, in the present state of feeling, can have but
one result. The task of mediation is sure to be as thankless as
abortive. Assuredly the proffered service of England would, on one side
at least, be received with something like insult. Nothing but adversity
can teach these people its own most useful lessons. Material prosperity
has puffed up the citizens to an unwholesome state. The toils and
sacrifices of the Old World have been taken by them as their birthright,
and they have accepted the fruits of all that the science, genius,
suffering, and trials of mankind in time past have wrought out,
perfected, and won as their own peculiar inheritance, while they have
ignorantly rejected the advice and scorned the lessons with which these
were accompanied.
May 23.—The Congress at Montgomery, having sat with closed doors almost
since it met, has now adjourned till July the 20th, when it will
reassemble at Richmond, in Virginia, which is thus designated, for the
time, capital of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, the
principal city of the old Dominion, is about one hundred miles in a
straight line south by west of Washington. The rival capitals will thus
be in very close proximity by rail and by steam, by land and by water.
The movement is significant. It will tend to hasten a collision between
the forces which are collected on the opposite sides of the Potomac.
Hitherto, Mr. Jefferson Davis has not evinced all the sagacity and
energy, in a military sense, which he is said to possess. It was bad
strategy to menace Washington before he could act. His Secretary of War,
Mr. Walker, many weeks ago, in a public speech, announced the intention
of marching upon the capital. If it was meant to do so, the blow should
have been struck silently. If it was not intended to seize upon
Washington, the threat had a very disastrous effect on the South, as it
excited the North to immediate action, and caused General Scott to
concentrate his troops on points which present many advantages in the
face of any operations which may be considered necessary along the
lines either of defence or attack. The movement against the Norfolk Navy
Yard strengthened Fortress Monroe, and the Potomac and Chesapeake were
secured to the United States. The fortified ports held by the Virginians
and the Confederate States troops, are not of much value as long as the
streams are commanded by the enemy’s steamers; and General Scott has
shown that he has not outlived either his reputation or his vigor by the
steps, at once wise and rapid, he has taken to curb the malcontents in
Maryland, and to open his communications through the City of Baltimore.
Although immense levies of men may be got together on both sides for
purposes of local defence or for State operations, it seems to me that
it will be very difficult to move these masses in regular armies. The
men are not disposed for regular, lengthened service, and there is an
utter want of field trains, equipment, and commissariat, which cannot be
made good in a day, a week, or a month.
The bill passed by the Montgomery Congress, entitled “An act to raise an
additional military force to serve during the war,” is, in fact, a
measure to put into the hands of the Government the control of irregular
bodies of men, and to bind them to regular military service. With all
their zeal, the people of the South will not enlist. They detest the
recruiting sergeant, and Mr. Davis knows enough of war to feel
hesitation in trusting himself in the field to volunteers. The bill
authorizes Mr. Davis to accept volunteers, who may offer their services,
without regard to the place of enlistment, “to serve during the war,
unless sooner discharged.” They may be accepted in companies, but Mr.
Davis is to organize them into squadrons, battalions, or regiments, and
the appointment of field and staff officers is reserved especially to
him. The company officers are to be elected by the men of the company,
but here again Mr. Davis reserves to himself the right of veto, and will
only commission those officers whose election he approves.
The absence of cavalry and the deficiency of artillery may prevent
either side obtaining any decisive results in one engagement, but no
doubt there will be great loss whenever these large masses of men are
fairly opposed to each other in the field. Of the character of the
Northern regiments I can say nothing more from actual observation, nor
have I yet seen in any place such a considerable number of the troops of
the Confederate States moving together, as would justify me in
expressing any opinion with regard to their capacity for organized
movements such as regular troops in Europe are expected to perform. An
intelligent and trustworthy observer, taking one of the New York State
Militia regiments as a fair specimen of the battalions which will fight
for the United States, gives an account of them which leads me to the
conclusion that such regiments are much superior when furnished by the
country districts to those raised in the towns and cities. It appears in
this case, at least, that the members of the regular militia companies
in general send substitutes to the ranks. Ten of these companies form
the regiment, and in nearly every instance they have been doubled in
strength by volunteers. Their drill is exceedingly incomplete, and in
forming the companies there is a tendency for the different
nationalities to keep themselves together. In the regiment in question,
the rank and file often consists of quarrymen, mechanics, and canal
boatmen, mountaineers from the Catskill, bark peelers and timber
cutters—ungainly, square-built, powerful fellows, with a Dutch tenacity
of purpose crossed with an English indifference to danger. There is no
drunkenness and no desertion among them. The officers are almost as
ignorant of military training as their men. The Colonel, for instance,
is the son of a rich man in his district, well educated, and a man of
travel. Another officer is a shipmaster. A third is an artist; others
are merchants and lawyers, and they are all busy studying “Hardee’s
Tactics,” the best book for infantry drill in the United States. The men
have come out to fight for what they consider the cause of theo cuntry,
and are said to have no particular hatred of the South or of its
inhabitants, though they think they are “a darned deal too high and
mighty, and require to be wiped down considerably.” They have no notion
as to the length of time for which their services will be required, and
I am assured that not one of them has asked what his pay is to be.
Reverting to Montgomery, one may say without offence, that its claims to
be the capital of a Republic which asserts that it is the richest, and
believes that it will be the strongest in the world, are not by any
means evident to a stranger. Its central position, which has reference
rather to a map than to the hard face of matter, procured for it a
distinction to which it had no other claim. The accommodations which
suited the modest wants of a State Legislature vanished or were
transmuted into barbarous inconveniences by the pressure of a central
government, with its offices, its departments, and the vast crowd of
applicants which flocked thither to pick up such crumbs of comfort as
could be spared from the Executive table. Never shall I forget the
dismay of myself, and of the friends who were travelling with me, on our
arrival at the Exchange Hotel, under circumstances with some of which
you are already acquainted. With us were men of high position, Members
of Congress, Senators, ex-Governors, and General Beauregard himself. But
to no one was greater accommodation extended than could be furnished by
a room held, under a sort of ryot-warree tenure, in common with a
community of strangers. My room was shown to me. It contained four large
fourpost beds, a ricketty table, and some chairs of infirm purpose and
fundamental unsoundness. The floor was carpetless, covered with litter
of paper and ends of cigars, and stained with tobacco juice. The broken
glass of the window afforded no ungrateful means of ventilation. One
gentleman sat in his shirt sleeves at the table reading the account of
the marshalling of the Highlanders at Edinburgh in the Abbotsford
edition of Sir Walter Scott; another, who had been wearied, apparently,
by writing numerous applications to the Government for some military
post, of which rough copies lay scattered around, came in, after
refreshing himself at the bar, and occupied one of the beds, which,
by-the-bye, were ominously provided with two pillows apiece. Supper
there was none for us in the house, but a search in an outlying street,
enabled us to discover a restaurant, where roasted squirrels and baked
opossums figured as luxuries in the bill of fare. On our return we found
that due preparation had been made in the apartment by the addition of
three mattresses on the floor. The beds were occupied by unknown
statesmen and warriors, and we all slumbered and snored in friendly
concert till morning. Gentlemen in the South complain that strangers
judge of them by their hotels, but it is a very natural standard for
strangers to adopt, and in respect to Montgomery it is almost the only
one that a gentleman can conveniently use; for, if the inhabitants of
this city and its vicinity are not maligned, there is an absence of the
hospitable spirit which the South lays claim to as one of its animating
principles, and a little bird whispered to me that from Mr. Jefferson
Davis down to the least distinguished member of his Government, there
was reason to observe that the usual attentions and civilities offered
by residents to illustrious stragglers had been “conspicuous for their
absence.” The fact is, that the small planters, who constitute the
majority of the land-owners, are not in a position to act the
Amphytrion, and that the inhabitants of the district can scarcely aspire
to be considered what we would call gentry in England, but are a frugal,
simple, hog and hominy-living people, fond of hard work and,
occasionally, of hard drinking.
NEW ORLEANS, May 24, 1861.
It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy
can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland
was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at
the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of
the people. If words mean anything, they are animated by only one
sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a
man or a dollar. There is nothing of a sectional character in this
disposition of the South. In every State there is only one voice
audible. Hereafter, indeed, State jealousies may work their own way.
Whatever may be the result, unless the men are the merest braggarts—and
they do not look like it—they will fight to the last before they give
in, and their confidence in their resources is only equalled by their
determination to test them to the utmost. There is a noisy vociferation
about their declarations of implicit trust and, reliance on their
slaves, which makes one think they do “protest too much,” and it remains
to be seen whether the slaves really will remain faithful to their
masters should the Abolition army ever come among them as an armed
propaganda. One thing is obvious here. A large number of men who might
be usefully employed in the ranks are idling about the streets. The
military enthusiasm is in proportion to the property interest of the
various classes of the people; and the very boast that so many rich men
are serving in the ranks is a significant proof either of the want of
substratum, or of the absence of great devotion to the cause of any such
layer of white people as may underlie the great slaveholding,
mercantile, and planting oligarchy. The whole State of Louisiana
contains about 50,000 men liable to serve when called on. Of that number
only 15,000 are enrolled and under arms in any shape whatever; and if
one is to judge of the state of affairs by the advertisements which
appear from the Adjutant-General’s office, there was some difficulty in
procuring the 3,000 men—merely 3,000 volunteers—“to serve during the
war,” who are required by the Confederate Government. There is plenty of
“prave lords,” and if fierce writing and talking could do work, the
armies on both sides would have been killed and eaten long ago. It is
found out that “the lives of the citizens” at Pensacola are too valuable
to be destroyed in attacking Pickens. A storm that shall drive away the
ships, a plague, yellow fever, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, small-pox—any
of these agencies is looked to with confidence to do the work of shot,
shell, and bayonet. Our American “brethren in arms” have yet to learn
that great law in American cookery, that “if they want to make omelets
they must break eggs.” The “moral suasion” of the lasso, of
head-shaving, ducking, kicking, and such processes, are, I suspect, used
not unfrequently to stimulate volunteers; and the extent to which the
acts of the recruiting officer are somewhat aided by the arm of the law,
and the force of the policeman and the magistrate, may be seen from
paragraphs in the morning papers now and then, to the effect that
certain gentlemen of Milesian extraction, who might have been engaged in
pugilistic pursuits, were discharged from custody, unpunished, on
condition that they enlisted for the war. With the peculiar views
entertained of freedom of opinion and action by large classes of people
on this continent, such a mode of obtaining volunteers is very natural,
but resort to it evinces a want of zeal on the part of some of the
50,000 who are on the rolls; and, from all I can hear—and I have asked
numerous persons likely to be acquainted with the subject—there are not
more than those 15,000 men of whom I have spoken in all the State under
arms, or in training, of whom a considerable proportion will be needed
for garrison and coast defence duties. It may be that the Northern
States and Northern sentiments are as violent as the South, but I see
some evidences to the contrary. For instance, in New York ladies and
gentlemen from the South are permitted to live at their favorite hotels
without molestation; and one hotel-keeper at Saratoga Springs advertises
openly for the custom of his Southern patrons. In no city of the South
which I have visited would a party of Northern people be permitted to
remain for an hour if the “citizens” were aware of their presence. It is
laughable to hear men speaking of the “unanimity” of the South. Just
look at the peculiar means by which unanimity is enforced and secured.
This is an extract from a New Orleans paper:
"Charges of Abolitionism.—Mayor Monroe has disposed of some of the
cases brought before him on charges of this kind by sending the
accused to the workhouse.
“A Mexican, named Bernard Cruz, born in Tampico, and living here
with an Irish wife, was brought before the Mayor this morning,
charged with uttering Abolition sentiments. After a full
investigation, it was found that from the utterance of his
incendiary language, that Cruz’s education was not yet perfect in
Southern classics, and his Honor therefore directed that he be sent
for six months to the Humane Institution for the Amelioration of
the Condition of Northern Barbarians and Abolition Fanatics,
presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell, keeper of the workhouse,
and who will put him through a course of study on Southern ethics
and institutions.
“The testimony before him on Saturday, however, in the case of a
man named David O’Keefe, was such as to induce him to commit the
accused for trial before the Criminal Court. One of the witnesses
testified positively that she heard him make his children shout for
Lincoln; another, that the accused said, ‘I am an Abolitionist,’
&c. The witnesses, neighbors of the accused, gave their evidence
reluctantly, saying they had warned him of the folly and danger of
his conduct. O’Keefe says he has been a United States soldier, and
came here from St. Louis and Kansas.
“John White was arraigned before Recorder Emerson on Saturday for
uttering incendiary language while travelling in the baggage car of
a train of the New Orleans, Ohio and Great Western Railroad,
intimating that the decapitator of Jefferson Davis would get
$10,000 for his trouble, and the last man of us would be whipped
like dogs by the Lincolnites. He was held under bonds of $500 to
answer the charge on the 8th of June.
“Nicholas Gento, charged with declaring himself an Abolitionist,
and acting very much like he was one by harboring a runaway slave,
was sent to prison, in default of bail, to await an examination
before the Recorder.”
Such is “freedom of speech” in Louisiana! But in Texas the machinery for
the production of “unanimity” is less complicated, and there are no
insulting legal formalities connected with the working of the simple
appliances which a primitive agricultural people have devised for their
own purposes. Hear the Texan correspondent of one of the journals of
this city on the subject. “It is to us astonishing,” he says,
“That such unmitigated lies as those Northern papers disseminate as
anarchy and disorder here in Texas, dissension among ourselves, and
especially from our German, &c., population, with dangers and
anxieties from the fear of insurrection among the negroes, &c.,
should be deemed anywhere South worthy of a moment’s thought. It is
surely notorious enough that in no part of the South are
Abolitionists or other disturbers of the public peace so very
unsafe as in Texas. The lasso is so very convenient!"
Here is an excellent method of preventing dissension described by a
stroke of the pen; and, as such, an ingenious people are not likely to
lose sight of the uses of a revolution in developing peculiar principles
to their own advantage, repudiation of debts to the North has been
proclaimed and acted on. One gentleman has found it convenient to inform
Major Anderson that he does not intend to meet certain bills which he
had given the Major for some slaves. Another declares he won’t pay
anybody at all, as he has discovered it is immoral and contrary to the
laws of nations to do so. A third feels himself bound to obey the
commands of the Governor of his State, who has ordered that debts due to
the North shall not be liquidated. As a naive specimen of the way in
which the whole case is treated, take this article and the
correspondence of “one of the most prominent mercantile houses of New
Orleans:”
SOUTHERN DEBTS TO THE NORTH.
“The Cincinnati Gazette copies the following paragraph from The
New York Evening Post:
“‘BAD FAITH.—The bad faith of the Southern merchants in their
transactions with their Northern correspondents is becoming more
evident daily. We have heard of several recent cases where parties
in this city, retired from active business, have, nevertheless,
stepped forward to protect the credit of their Southern friends.
They are now coolly informed that they cannot be reimbursed for
these advances until the war is over. We know of a retired merchant
who in this way has lost $100,000.’—and adds:
“‘The same here. Men who have done most for the South are the chief
sufferers. Debts are coolly repudiated by the Southern merchants,
who have heretofore enjoyed a first-class reputation. Men who have
grown rich upon the trade furnished by the West are among the first
to pocket the money of their correspondents, asking, with all the
impudence and assurance of a highwayman, “What are you going to do
about it?” There is honor among thieves, it is said, but there is
not a spark of honor among these repudiating merchants. People who
have aided and trusted them to the last moment are the greatest
losers. There is a future, however. This war will be over, and the
Southern merchants will desire a resumption of their connections
with the West. As the repudiators—such as Goodrich & Co. of New
Orleans—will be spurned, there will be a grand opening for honest
men.
“‘There are many honorable exceptions in the South, but dishonesty
is the rule. The latter is but the development of latent rascality.
The rebellion has afforded a pretext merely for the swindling
operations. The parties previously acted honestly, only because
that was the best policy. The sifting process that may now be
conducted will be of advantage to Northern merchants in the future.
The present losses will be fully made up by subsequent gains.’
“We have been requested to copy the following reply to this tirade
from one of our most prominent mercantile houses, Messrs. Goodrich
& Co.:
“‘NEW ORLEANS, May 24, 1861.
“‘CINCINNATI GAZETTE.—We were handed, through a friend of ours,
your issue of the 18th inst., and attention directed to an article
contained therein, in which you are pleased to particularize us out
of a large number of highly respectable merchants of this and other
Southern cities as repudiators, swindlers, and other epithets,
better suited to the mouths of the Wilson Regiment of New York than
from a once respectable sheet, but now has sunk so low in the
depths of niggerdom, that it would take all the soap in Porkopolis
and the Ohio River to cleanse it from its foul pollution.
“‘We are greatly indebted to you for using our name in the above
article, as we deem it the best card you could publish for us, and
may add greatly to our business relations in the Confederate
States, which will enable us in the end to pay our indebtedness to
those who propose cutting our throats, destroying our property,
stealing our negroes, and starving our wives and children, to pay
such men in times of war. You may term it rascality, but we beg
leave to call it patriotism.
“‘Giving the sinews of war to your enemies have ever been
considered as treason.—Kent.
“‘Now for ‘repudiating.’ We have never, nor do we ever expect to
repudiate any debt owing by our firm. But this much we will say,
never will we pay a debt due by us to a man, or any company of men,
who is a known Black Republican, and marching in battle array to
invade our homes and firesides, until every such person shall be
driven back, and their polluted footsteps shall, now on our once
happy soil, be entirely obliterated.
“‘We have been in business in this city for twenty years, have
passed through every crisis with our names untarnished or credit
impaired, and would at present sacrifice all we have made, were it
necessary, to sustain our credit in the Confederacy, but care
nothing for the opinions of such as are open and avowed enemies. We
are sufficiently known in this city not to require the indorsement
of The Cincinnati Gazette, or any such sheet, for a character.
“‘The day is coming, and not far distant, when there will be an
awful reckoning, and we are willing and determined to stand by our
Confederate flag, sink or swim, and would like to meet some of The
Gazette’s editors vis-à-vis on the field of blood, and see who
would be the first to flinch.
“‘Our senior partner has already contributed one darkey this year
to your population, and she is anxious to return, but we have a few
more left which you can have, provided you will come and take them
yourselves.
“‘We have said more than we intended, and hope you will give this a
place in your paper.
GOODRICH & Co.’”
There is some little soreness felt here about the use of the word
“repudiation,” and it will do the hearts of some people good, and will
carry comfort to the ghost of the Rev. Sydney Smith, if it can hear the
tidings, to know I have been assured, over and over again, by eminent
mercantile people and statesmen, that there is “a general desire” on the
part of the repudiating States to pay their bonds, and that no doubt, at
some future period, not very clearly ascertainable or plainly indicated,
that general desire will cause some active steps to be taken to satisfy
its intensity, of a character very unexpected, and very gratifying to
those interested. The tariff of the Southern Confederation has just been
promulgated, and I send herewith a copy of the rates. Simultaneously,
however, with this document, the United States steam frigates Brooklyn
and Niagara have made their appearance off the Pas-à-l’Outre, and the
Mississippi is closed, and with it the port of New Orleans. The
steam-tugs refuse to tow out vessels for fear of capture, and British
ships are in jeopardy.
MAY 25.—A visit to the camp at Tangipao, about fifty miles from New
Orleans, gave an occasion for obtaining a clearer view of the internal
military condition of those forces of which one reads much, and sees so
little, than any other way. Major-General Lewis of the State Militia,
and staff, and General Labuzan, a Creole officer, attended by Major
Ranney, President of the New-Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern
Railway, and by many officers in uniform, started with that purpose at
4:30 this evening in a rail-carriage, carefully and comfortably fitted
for their reception. The militia of Louisiana has not been called out
for many years, and its officers have no military experience, and the
men have no drill or discipline.
Emerging from the swampy suburbs, we soon pass between white clover
pastures, which we are told invariably salivate the herds of small but
plump cattle browsing upon them. Soon cornfields “in tassel,” alternate
with long narrow rows of growing sugar-cane, which, though scarcely a
fourth of the height of the maize, will soon over-shadow it; and the
cane-stalks grow up so densely together that nothing larger than a
rattle-snake can pass between them.
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 clusters of stalactites 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 sparse 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
impassable 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 passengers, 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 passes 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 morass. 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 Pass Maunshae, an arm of Lake Pontchartrain, which
disappears in the forest on our right. Half a dozen wherries and a small
fishing-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 pass 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 “Marseillaise,” 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 “nobody” 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 cocked. From this unpleasant vision of an
armed and reckless Tiger rampant we are relieved by one of the dusky
squires, who assures 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’hôte, 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 passed, 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
pass 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 reënlistment.
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 title, of those âmes damnées of the continental nobility 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 assembled in Tangipao. Although the muster there
presents a tolerable show of ball-stoppers, it would require months of
discipline to enable them to pass 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 hitched to the car and drew it back to the city. Our car was built
in Massachusetts, 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
harassed by applications for assistance from mechanics and skilled
laborers who are in a state bordering on destitution 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 ¼ per cent. to ½ 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 Washington Artillery went off to-day to the
wars—quo fas et gloria ducunt; 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 shore, and in one instance, when the captain
protested, his ship 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-à-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 destitute 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 Washington 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 passage, 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 Washington 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 assistance 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 passed 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 Washington, 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 principal 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 Washington 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 snatched 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 Casson, the first officer he met. He was locked up. Three of
his shots hit 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 ships. 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 institutions
show assets 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 ships 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
circumstance 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 ASSETS. |
| 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 |
Circulation of the Free Banks, secured by a
deposit in the public Treasury, of State
and New Orleans City Bonds, to the amount
of, | $3,793,873 |
The Chartered Banks hold of the same
securities, | 1,747,467 |
| | ———— | $5,541,340 |
| DEAD WEIGHT. |
Chartered Banks—bills and mortgaged
in 90 days, | $14,140,925 |
Free Banks—bills and mortgaged bonds and
other assets, not realizable in 90 days, | 2,606,249 |
| | ———— | $16,747,174 |
| Total | | $54,752,172 |
| Remarks: |
| Amount of coin, as above, | | $14,993,531 |
| Amount of coin required by the Fundamental Bank |
Rules of Louisiana—one-third of the cash responsibilities,
say, on $25,031,062, as above, | | $8,343,137 |
| Surplus, | | $6,648,847 |
Amount of short notes maturing within a circle of 90
days, and exchange, as above, | | $17,471,124 |
| Amount required to be held by the Fundamental Bank |
| Rules—at least two-thirds, | | $16,687,378 |
| Surplus, | | $783,771 |