In the morning I took a drive about the city, which is
loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty undulating country covered
with wood and fruit-trees. Many good houses of dazzling white, with bright
green blinds, verandas, and doors, stand in their own grounds or gardens. In
the course of the drive I saw two or three signboards and placards announcing
that “Smith & Co. advanced money on slaves, and had constant supplies of
Virginian negroes on sale or hire.” These establishments were surrounded by
high walls enclosing the slave-pens or large rooms, in which the slaves are
kept for inspection. The train for Montgomery started at 9:45 A. M., but I had
no time to stop and visit them.
It is evident we are approaching the Confederate capital,
for the candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a printed
testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country, from Macon, in Georgia, to
Montgomery, in Alabama, offers no features to interest the traveller which are
not common to the districts already described. It is, indeed, more undulating,
and somewhat more picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on the whole, there
is little to recommend it, except the natural fertility of the soil. The people
are rawer, ruder, bigger — there is the same amount of tobacco chewing and its
consequences — and as much swearing or use of expletives. The men are tall,
lean, uncouth, but they are not peasants. There are, so far as I have seen, no
rustics, no peasantry in America; men dress after the same type, differing only
in finer or coarser material; every man would wear, if he could, a black satin
waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of his shirt, as he
certainly has a watch and a gilt or gold chain of some sort or other. The Irish
laborer, or the German husbandman is the nearest approach to our Giles Jolter
or the Jacques Bonhomme to be found in the States. The mean white affects the
style of the large proprietor of slaves or capital as closely as he can; he
reads his papers — and, by the by, they are becoming smaller and more
whitey-brown as we proceed — and takes his drink with the same air — takes up
as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same fashion.
The people are all hearty Secessionists here — the Bars and
Stars are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops, and there are
lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. Troops are flocking
towards Virginia from the Southern States in reply to the march of Volunteers
from Northern States to Washington; but it is felt that the steps taken by the
Federal Government to secure Baltimore have obviated any chance of successfully
opposing the “Lincolnites” going through that city. There is a strong
disposition on the part of the Southerners to believe they have many friends in
the North, and they endeavor to attach a factious character to the actions of
the Government by calling the Volunteers and the war party in the North “Lincolnites,”
“Lincoln's Mercenaries,” “Black Republicans,” “Abolitionists,” and the like.
The report of an armistice, now denied by Mr. Seward officially, was for some
time current, but it is plain that the South must make good its words, and
justify its acts by the sword. General Scott would, it was fondly believed,
retire from the United States army, and either remain neutral or take command
under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain he will not follow any
of these courses, he is assailed in the foulest manner by the press and in
private conversation. Heaven help the idol of a democracy!
At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by Mr.
Manning, and others of his staff, got into the car, and tried to elude
observation, but the conductors take great pleasure in unearthing distinguished
passengers for the public, and the General was called on for a speech by the crowd
of idlers. The General hates speech-making, he told me, and he had besides been
bored to death at every station by similar demands. But a man must be popular
or he is nothing. So, as next best thing, Governor Manning made a speech in the
General's name, in which he dwelt on Southern Rights, Sumter, victory, and
abolitiondom, and was carried off from the cheers of his auditors by the train
in the midst of an unfinished sentence. There were a number of blacks listening
to the Governor, who were appreciative.
Towards evening, having thrown out some slight outworks,
against accidental sallies of my fellow-passengers’ saliva, I went to sleep,
and woke up at eleven P. M., to hear we were in Montgomery. A very rickety
omnibus took the party to the hotel, which was crowded to excess. The General
and his friends had one room to themselves. Three gentlemen and myself were
crammed into a filthy room which already contained two strangers, and as there
were only three beds in the apartment it was apparent that we were intended to “double
up considerably;” but after strenuous efforts, a little bribery and cajoling,
we succeeded in procuring mattresses to put on the floor, which was regarded by
our, neighbors as a proof of miserable aristocratic fastidiousness. Had it not
been for the flies, the fleas would have been intolerable, but one nuisance
neutralized the other. Then, as to food — nothing could be had in the hotel —
but one of the waiters led us to a restaurant, where we selected from a choice
bill of fare, which contained, I think, as many odd dishes as ever I saw, some unknown
fishes, oyster-plants, ‘possums, raccoons, frogs, and other delicacies, and,
eschewing toads and the like, really made a good meal off dirty plates on a vile
table-cloth, our appetites being sharpened by the best of condiments.
Colonel Pickett has turned up here, having made his escape
from Washington just in time to escape arrest — travelling in disguise on foot
through out-of-the-way places till he got among friends.
I was glad when bedtime approached, that I was not among the
mattress men. One of the gentlemen in the bed next the door was a tremendous
projector in the tobacco juice line: his final rumination ere he sank to repose
was a masterpiece of art — a perfect liquid pyrotechny, Roman candles and
falling stars. A horrid thought occurred as I gazed and wondered. In case he
should in a supreme moment turn his attention my way! — I was only seven or
eight yards off, and that might be nothing to him! — I hauled down my mosquito
curtain at once, and watched him till, completely satiated, he slept.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 162-4
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