We got a very fair breakfast at Seguin at 7 A.M., which was
beginning to be a well-to-do little place when the war dried it up.
It commenced to rain at Seguin, which made the road very
woolly, and annoyed the outsiders a good deal.
The conversation turned a good deal upon military subjects,
and all agreed that the system of election of officers had proved to be a great
mistake. According to their own accounts, discipline must have been extremely
lax at first, but was now improving. They were most anxious to hear what was
thought of their cause in Europe; and none of them seemed aware of the great
sympathy which their gallantry and determination had gained for them in England
in spite of slavery.
We dined at a little wooden hamlet called Belmont, and
changed horses again there.
The country through which we had been travelling was a good
deal cultivated, and there were numerous farms. I saw cotton-fields for the
first time.
We amused ourselves by taking shots with our revolvers at
the enormous jack-rabbits which came to stare at the coach.
In the afternoon tobacco-chewing became universal, and the
spitting was sometimes a little wild.
It was the custom for the outsiders to sit round the top of
the carriage, with their legs dangling over (like mutes on a hearse returning
from a funeral). This practice rendered it dangerous to put one's head out of
the window, for fear of a back kick from the heels, or of a shower of
tobacco-juice from the mouths of the Southern chivalry on the roof. In spite of
their peculiar habits of hanging, shooting, &c, which seemed to be natural
to people living in a wild and thinly-populated country, there was much to like
in my fellow-travellers. They all had a sort of bonhommie honesty and
straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good-nature, which was very
agreeable. Although they were all very anxious to talk to a European — who, in
these blockaded times, is a rara avis — yet their inquisitiveness was
never offensive or disagreeable.
Any doubts as to my personal safety, which may have been
roused by my early insight into Lynch law, were soon completely set at rest;
for I soon perceived that if any one were to annoy me the remainder would stand
by me as a point of honour.
We supped at a little town called Gonzales at 6.30.
We left it at 8 P.M. in another coach with six horses — big
strong animals.
The roads being all natural ones, were much injured by the
rains.
We were all rather disgusted by the bad news we heard at
Gonzales of the continued advance of Banks, and of the probable fall of
Alexandria.
The squeezing was really quite awful, but I did not suffer
so much as the fat or long-legged ones. They all bore their trials in the most
jovial good-humoured manner.
My fat vis-à-vis
(in despair) changed places with me, my two bench-fellows being rather
thinner than his, and I benefited much by the change into a back seat.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
months in the southern states: April-June, 1863, p. 55-8
