I slept well last night in spite of the tics and fleas, and
we started at 5.30 P.M. After passing a dead rattlesnake eight feet long, we
reached water at 7 A.M.
At 9 A.M. we espied the cavalcade of General Magruder
passing us by a parallel track about half a mile distant. McCarthy and I jumped
out of the carriage, and I ran across the prairie to cut him off, which I just
succeeded in doing by borrowing the spare horse of the last man in the train.
I galloped up to the front, and found the General riding
with a lady who was introduced to me as Mrs. –––, an undeniably pretty woman,
wife to an officer on Magruder's staff, and she is naturally the object of
intense attention to all the good-looking officers who accompany the General
through this desert.
General Magruder, who commands in Texas, is a fine
soldierlike man, of about fifty-five, with broad shoulders, a florid
complexion, and bright eyes. He wears his whiskers and mustaches in the English
fashion, and he was dressed in the Confederate grey uniform. He was kind enough
to beg that I would turn back and accompany him in his tour through Texas. He
had heard of my arrival, and was fully determined I should do this. He asked after
several officers of my regiment whom he had known when he was on the Canadian
frontier. He is a Virginian, a great talker, and has always been a great ally
of English officers.
He insisted that M'Carthy and I should turn and dine with
him, promising to provide us with horses to catch up Mr. Sargent.
After we had agreed to do this, I had a long and agreeable
conversation with the General, who spoke of the Puritans with intense disgust,
and of the first importation of them as “that pestiferous crew of the Mayflower;” but he is by no means
rancorous against individual Yankees. He spoke very favourably of M'Clellan,
whom he knew to be a gentleman, clever, and personally brave, though he might
lack moral courage to face responsibility. Magruder had commanded the
Confederate troops at Yorktown which opposed M'Clellan's advance. He told me
the different dodges he had resorted to, to blind and deceive the latter as to
his (Magruder's) strength; and he spoke of the intense relief and amusement
with which he had at length seen M'Clellan with his magnified army begin to
break ground before miserable earthworks, defended only by 8000 men. Hooker was
in his regiment, and was “essentially a mean man and a liar.” Of Lee and
Longstreet he spoke in terms of the highest admiration.
Magruder was an artilleryman, and has been a good deal in
Europe; and having been much stationed on the Canadian frontier, he became
acquainted with many British officers, particularly those in the 7th Hussars
and Guards.
He had gained much credit from his recent successes at
Galveston and Sabine Pass, in which he had the temerity to attack heavily-armed
vessels of war with wretched river steamers manned by Texan cavalrymen.
His principal reason for visiting Brownsville was to settle about
the cotton trade. He had issued an edict that half the value of cotton exported
must be imported in goods for the benefit of the country (government stores).
The President had condemned this order as illegal and despotic.
The officers on Magruder's Staff are a very goodlooking,
gentlemanlike set of men. Their names are — Major Pendleton, Major Wray,
Captain De Ponté,
Captain Alston, Captain Turner, Lieutenant-Colonel M'Neil, Captain Dwyer, Dr
Benien, Lieutenant Stanard, Lieutenant Yancey, and Major Magruder. The latter
is nephew to the General, and is a particularly good-looking young fellow. They
all live with their chief on an extremely agreeable footing, and form a very
pleasant society. At dinner I was put in the post of honour, which is always
fought for with much acrimony — viz., the right of Mrs. ——. After dinner we had
numerous songs. Both the General and his nephew sang; so also did Captain
Alston, whose corpulent frame, however, was too much for the feeble camp-stool,
which caused his sudden disappearance in the midst of a song with a loud crash.
Captain Dwyer played the fiddle very well, and an aged and slightly-elevated
militia general brewed the punch and made several "elegant" speeches.
The latter was a rough-faced old hero, and gloried in the name of M'Guffin. On
these festive occasions General Magruder wears a red woollen cap, and fills the
president's chair with great aptitude.
It was 11.30 before I could tear myself away from this
agreeable party; but at length I effected my exit amidst a profusion of kind
expressions, and laden with heaps of letters of introduction.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
months in the southern states: April-June, 1863, p. 29-33
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