When I awoke this morning and, gazing out of my little
window on the regiments parading on the level below me, after an arduous
struggle to obtain cold water for a bath, sat down to consider what I had seen
within the last two months, and to arrive at some general results from the
retrospect, I own that after much thought my mind was reduced to a hazy
analysis of the abstract principles of right and wrong, in which it failed to
come to any very definite conclusion: the space of a very few miles has
completely altered the phases of thought and the forms of language.
I am living among “abolitionists, cut-throats, Lancolnite
mercenaries, foreign invaders, assassins, and plundering Dutchmen.” Such, at
least, the men of Columbus tell me the garrison at Cairo consists of. Down
below me are “rebels, conspirators, robbers, slave breeders, wretches bent upon
destroying the most perfect government on the face of the earth, in order to
perpetuate an accursed system, by which, however, beings are held in bondage
and immortal souls consigned to perdition.”
On the whole, the impression left upon my mind by what I had
seen in slave states is unfavorable to the institution of slavery, both as
regards its effect on the slave and its influence on the master. But my
examination was necessarily superficial and hasty. I have reason to believe
that the more deeply the institution is probed, the more clearly will its
unsoundness and its radical evils be discerned. The constant appeals made to
the physical comforts of the slaves, and their supposed contentment, have
little or no effect on any person who acts up to a higher standard of human
happiness than that which is applied to swine or the beasts of the fields “See
how fat my pigs are.”
The arguments founded on a comparison of the condition of
the slave population with the pauperized inhabitants of European states are
utterly fallacious, inasmuch as in one point, which is the most important by
far, there can be no comparison at all. In effect slavery can only be justified
in the abstract on the grounds which slavery advocates decline to take boldly,
though they insinuate it now and then, that is, the inferiority of the negro in
respect to white men, which removes them from the upper class of human beings
and places them in a condition which is as much below the Caucasian standard as
the quadrumanous creatures are beneath the negro. Slavery is a curse, with its
time of accomplishment not quite, at hand — it is a cancer, the ravages of
which are covered by fair outward show, and by the apparent health of the
sufferer.
The Slave States, of course, would not support the Northern
for a year, if cotton, sugar, and tobacco became suddenly worthless. But,
nevertheless, the slave-owners would have strong grounds to stand upon if they
were content to point to the difficulties in the way of emancipation, and the
circumstances under which they received their damnosa hereditas from
England, which fostered, nay forced, slavery in legislative hotbeds throughout
the colonies. The Englishman may say, “We abolished slavery when we saw its
evils.” The slave-owner replies, “Yes, with you it was possible to decree the
extinction — not with us.”
Never did a people enter on a war so utterly destitute of
any reason for waging it, or of the means of bringing it to a successful
termination against internal enemies. The thirteen colonies had a large
population of sea-faring and soldiering men, constantly engaged in military
expeditions. There was a large infusion, compared with the numbers of men
capable of commanding in the field, and their great enemy was separated by a
space far greater than the whole circumference of the globe would be in the
present time from the scene of operations. Most American officers who took part
in the war of 1812-14 are now too old for service, or retired into private life
soon after the campaign. The same remark applies to the senior officers who
served in Mexico, and the experiences of that campaign could not be of much use
to those now in the service, of whom the majority were subalterns, or at most,
officers in command of volunteers.
A love of military display is very different indeed from a
true soldierly spirit, and at the base of the volunteer system there lies a
radical difficulty, which must be overcome before real military efficiency can
be expected. In the South the foreign element has contributed largely to
swell the ranks with many docile and a few experienced soldiers, the number of
the latter predominating in the German levies, and the same remark is, I hear,
true of the Northern armies.
The most active member of the staff here is a young
Englishman named Binmore, who was a stenographic writer in London, but has now
sharpened his pencil into a sword, and when I went into the guard-room this
morning I found that three fourths of the officers, including all who had seen
actual service, were foreigners. One, Milotzky, was an Hungarian; another,
Waagner, was of the same nationality; a third, Schuttner, was a German;
another, Mac something, was a Scotchman; another was an Englishman. One only
(Colonel Morgan), who had served in Mexico, was an American. The foreigners, of
course, serve in this war as mercenaries; that is, they enter into the conflict
to gain something by it, either in pay, in position, or in securing a status
for themselves.
The utter absence of any fixed principle determining the
side which the foreign nationalities adopt is proved by their going North or
South with the state in which they live. On the other hand, the effects of
discipline and of the principles of military life on rank and file are shown by
the fact that the soldiers of the regular regiments of the United States and
the sailors in the navy have to a man adhered to their colors, notwithstanding
the examples and inducements of their officers.
After breakfast I went down about the works, which fortify
the bank of mud, in the shape of a V, formed by the two rivers — a fleche with
a ditch, scarp, and counter-scarp. Some heavy pieces cover the end of the spit
at the other side of the Mississippi, at Bird's Point. On the side of Missouri
there is a field intrenchment, held by a regiment of Germans, Poles, and
Hungarians, about 1000 strong, with two field batteries. The sacred soil of
Kentucky, on the other side of the Ohio, is tabooed by Beriah Magoffin, but it
is not possible for the belligerents to stand so close face to face without
occupying either Columbus or Hickman. The thermometer was at 100° soon after
breakfast, and it was not wonderful to find that the men in Camp Defiance,
which is the name of the cantonment on the mud between the levees of the Ohio
and Mississippi, were suffering from diarrhoea and fever.
In the evening there was a review of three regiments,
forming a brigade of some 2800 men, who went through their drill, advancing in
columns of company, moving en echelon, changing front, deploying into
line on the centre company, very creditably. It was curious to see what a start
ran through the men during the parade when a gun was fired from the battery
close at hand, and how their heads turned toward the river; but the steamer
which had appeared round the bend hoisted the private signs, by which she was
known as a friend, and tranquillity was restored.
I am not sure that most of these troops desire anything but
a long residence at a tolerably comfortable station, with plenty of pay and no
marching. Cairo, indeed, is not comfortable; the worst barrack that ever asphyxiated
the British soldier would be better than the best shed here, and the flies and
the mosquitoes are beyond all conception virulent and pestiferous. I would not
give much to see Cairo in its normal state, but it is my fate to witness the
most interesting scenes in the world through a glaze of gunpowder. It would be
unfair to say that any marked superiority in dwelling, clothing, or comfort was
visible between the mean white of Cairo or the black chattel a few miles down
the river. Brawling, rioting, and a good deal of drunkenness prevailed in the
miserable sheds which line the stream, although there was nothing to justify
the libels on the garrison of the Columbus Crescent, edited by one
Colonel L. G. Faxon, of the Tennessee Tigers, with whose writings I was made
acquainted by General Prentiss, to whom they appeared to give more annoyance
than he was quite wise in showing.
This is a style of journalism which may have its merits, and
which certainly is peculiar; I give a few small pieces. “The Irish are for us,
and they will knock Bologna sausages out of the Dutch, and we will knock wooden
nutmegs out of the Yankees.” “The mosquitoes of Cairo have been sucking the
lager-bier out of the dirty soldiers there so long, they are bloated and
swelled up as large as spring ’possums. An assortment of Columbus mosquitoes
went up there the other day to suck some, but as they have not returned, the
probability is they went off with delirium tremens; in fact, the blood
of these Hessians would poison the most degraded tumble bug in creation.”
Our editor is particularly angry about the recent seizure of
a Confederate flag at Columbus by Colonel Oglesby and a party of Federals from
Cairo. Speaking of a flag intended for himself, he says, “Would that its folds
had contained 1000 asps to sting 1000 Dutchmen to eternity unshriven.” Our
friend is certainly a genius. His paper of June the 19th opens with an apology
for the non-appearance of the journal for several weeks. “Before leaving,” he
says, “we engaged the services of a competent editor, and left a printer here
to issue the paper regularly. We were detained several weeks beyond our time,
the aforesaid printer promised faithfully to perform his duties, but he left
the same day we did, and consequently there was no one to get out the paper. We
have the charity to suppose that fear and bad whiskey had nothing to do with
his evacuation of Columbus.” Another elegant extract about the flag commences, “When
the bow-legged wooden-shoed, sour craut stinking, Bologna sausage eating, hen
roost robbing Dutch sons of —— had accomplished the brilliant feat of taking
down the Secession flag on the river bank, they were pointed to another flag of
the same sort which their guns did not cover, flying gloriously and defiantly,
and dared yea! double big black dog — dared, as we used to say at school, to
take that flag down — the cowardly pups, the thieving sheep dogs, the sneaking
skunks dare not do so, because their twelve pieces of artillery were not
bearing on it.” As to the Federal commander at Cairo, Colonel Faxon's sentiments
are unambiguous. “The qualifications of this man, Prentiss,” he says, “for the
command of such a squad of villains and cut-throats are, that he is a miserable
hound, a dirty dog, a sociable fellow, a treacherous villain, a notorious
thief, a lying blackguard, who has served his regular five years in the
Penitentiary and keeps his hide continually full of Cincinnati whiskey, which
he buys by the barrel in order to save his money — in him are embodied the
leprous rascals ties of the world, and in this living score, the gallows is
cheated of its own. Prentiss wants our scalp; we propose a plan by which he may
get that valuable article. Let him select 150 of his best fighting men, or 250
of his lager-bier Dutchmen, we will select 100, then let both parties meet
where there will be no interruption at the scalping business, and the longest
pole will knock the persimmon. If he does not accept this proposal, he is a
coward. We think this a gentlemanly proposition and quite fair and equal to
both parties.”
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 332-6
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