A great budget of news to-day, which, with the events of the
week, may be briefly enumerated. The fighting has actually commenced between
the United States steamers off Fortress Monroe, and the Confederate battery
erected at Sewall's Point — both sides claim a certain success. The
Confederates declare they riddled the steamer, and that they killed and wounded
a number of the sailors. The captain of the vessel says he desisted from want
of ammunition, but believes he killed a number of the rebels, and knows he had
no loss himself. Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the sovereign State of Kentucky,
has warned off both Federal and Confederate soldiers from his territory. The
Confederate congress has passed an act authorizing persons indebted to the
United States, except Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District
of Columbia, to pay the amount of their debts to the Confederate treasury. The
State convention of
North
Carolina has passed an ordinance of secession. Arkansas has sent its
delegates to the Southern congress. Several Southern vessels have been made
prizes by the blockading squadron; but the event which causes the greatest
excitement and indignation here, was the seizure, on Monday, by the United
States marshals, in every large city throughout the Union, of the telegraphic
despatches of the last twelve months.
In the course of the day, I went to the St. Charles Hotel,
which is an enormous establishment, of the American type, with a Southern
character about it. A number of gentlemen were seated in the hall, and front of
the office, with their legs up against the wall, and on the backs of chairs,
smoking, spitting, and reading the papers. Officers crowded the bar. The bustle
and noise of the place would make it anything but an agreeable residence for
one fond of quiet; but this hotel is famous for its difficulties. Not the least
disgraceful among them, was the assault committed by some of Walker's
filibusters, upon Captain Aldham of the Royal Navy.
The young artist, who has been living in great seclusion,
was fastened up in his room; and when I informed him that Mr. Mure had
despatches which he might take, if he liked, that night, he was overjoyed to
excess. He started off north in the evening, and I saw him no more.
At half-past four, I went down by train to the terminus on
the lake, where I had landed, which is the New Orleans, Richmond, or rather,
Greenwich, and dined with Mr. Eustis, Mr. Johnson, an English merchant, Mr.
Josephs, a New Orleans lawyer, and Mr. Hunt. The dinner was worthy of the
reputation of the French cook. The terrapin soup excellent, though not
comparable, as Americans assert, to the best turtle. The creature from which it
derives its name, is a small tortoise; the flesh is boiled somewhat in the
manner of turtle, but the soup abounds in small bones, and the black paws with
the white nail-like stumps projecting from them, found amongst the disjecta
membra, are not agreeable to look upon. The bouillabaisse was,
unexceptionable, the soft crab worthy of every commendation; but the best dish
was, unquestionably, the pompinoe, an odd fish, something like an unusually
ugly John Dory, but possessing admirable qualities in all that makes fish good.
The pleasures of the evening were enhanced by a most glorious sunset, which
cast its last rays through a wilderness of laurel roses in full bloom, which
thronged the garden. At dusk, the air was perfectly alive with fire-flies and
strange beetles. Flies and coleopters buzzed in through the open windows, and
flopped among the glasses. At half-past nine we returned home, in cars drawn by
horses along the rail.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 234-5
