An exceeding hot day. The sun pours on the broad sandy
street of Charleston with immense power, and when the wind blows down the
thoroughfare it sends before it vast masses of hot dust. The houses are
generally detached, surrounded by small gardens, well provided with verandas to
protect the windows from the glare, and are sheltered with creepers and shrubs
and flowering plants, through which flit humming-birds and fly-catchers. In
some places the streets and roadways are covered with planking, and as long as
the wood is sound they are pleasant to walk or drive upon.
I paid a visit to the markets; the stalls are presided over
by negroes, male and female; the colored people engaged in selling and buying
are well clad; the butchers' meat by no means tempting to the eye, but the
fruit and vegetable stalls well filled. Fish is scarce at present, as the boats
are not permitted to proceed to sea lest they should be whipped up by the
expected Yankee cruisers, or carry malecontents to communicate with the enemy.
Around the flesh-market there is a skirling crowd of a kind of turkey-buzzard;
these are useful as scavengers and are protected by law. They do their nasty
work very zealously, descending on the offal thrown out to them with the
peculiar crawling, puffy, soft sort of flight which is the badge of all their
tribe, and contending with wing and beak against the dogs which dispute the
viands with the harpies. It is curious to watch the expression of their eyes as
with outstretched necks they peer down from the ledge of the market roof on the
stalls and scrutinize the operations of the butchers below. They do not prevent
a disagreeable odor in the vicinity of the markets, nor are they deadly to a
fine and active breed of rats.
Much drumming and marching through the streets to-day. One
very ragged regiment which had been some time at Morris' Island halted in the
shade near me, and I was soon made aware they consisted, for the great
majority, of Irishmen. The Emerald Isle, indeed, has contributed largely to the
population of Charleston. In the principal street there is a large and fine
red-sandstone building with the usual Greek-Yankee-composite portico, over
which is emblazoned the crownless harp and the shamrock wreath proper to a St.
Patrick's Hall, and several Roman Catholic churches also attest the Hibernian
presence.
I again called on General Beauregard, and had a few moments'
conversation with him. He told me that an immense deal depended on Virginia,
and that as yet the action of the people in that State had not been as prompt
as might have been hoped, for the
President's proclamation was a declaration of war against the South, in
which all would be ultimately involved. He is going to Montgomery to confer
with Mr. Jefferson Davis. I have no doubt there is to be some movement made in
Virginia. Whiting is under orders to repair there, and he hinted that he had a
task of no common nicety and difficulty to perform. He is to visit the forts
which had been seized on the coast of North Carolina, and probably will have a
look at Portsmouth. It is incredible that the Federal authorities should have neglected
to secure this place.
Later I visited the Governor of the State, Mr. Pickens, to
whom I was conducted by Colonel Lucas, his aide-de-camp. His palace was a very
humble shed-like edifice with large rooms, on the doors of which were pasted
pieces of paper with sundry high-reading inscriptions, such as “Adjutant General's
Dept.,” “Quartermaster-General's Dept.,” “Attorney-General of State,” &c.;
and through the doorways could be seen men in uniform, and grave, earnest
people busy at their desks with pen, ink, paper, tobacco, and spittoons. The
governor, a stout man, of a big head, and a large, important-looking face, with
watery eyes and flabby features, was seated in a barrack-like room, furnished
in the plainest way, and decorated by the inevitable portrait of George Washington,
close to which was the “Ordinance of Secession of the State of South Carolina”
of last year.
Governor Pickens is considerably laughed at by his subjects;
and I was amused by a little middy, who described with much unction the
Governor's alarm on his visit to Fort Pickens, when he was told that there were
a number of live shells and a quantity of powder still in the place. He is said
to have commenced one of his speeches with “Born insensible to fear,” &c.
To me the Governor was very courteous; but I confess the heat of the day did
not dispose me to listen with due attention to a lecture on political economy
with which he favored me. I was told, however, that he had practised with
success on the late Czar when he was United States Minister to St. Petersburg,
and that he does not suffer his immediate staff to escape from having their
minds improved on the relations of capital to labor, and on the vicious
condition of capital and labor in the North.
“In the North, then, you will perceive, Mr. Russell, they
have maximized the hostile condition of opposed interests in the accumulation
of capital and in the employment of labor, whilst we in the South, by the
peculiar excellence of our domestic institution, have minimized their
opposition and maximized the identity of interest by the investment of capital
in the laborer himself,” and so on, or something like it. I could not help remarking
it struck me there was “another difference betwixt the North and the South
which he had overlooked, — the capital of the North is represented by gold,
silver, notes, and other exponents, which are good all the world over and are
recognized as such; your capital has power of locomotion, and ceases to exist
the moment it crosses a geographical line.” “That remark, sir,” said the
Governor, “requires that I should call your attention to the fundamental
principles on which the abstract idea of capital should be formed. In order to
clear the ground, let us first inquire into the soundness of the ideas put
forward by your Adam Smith.” —— I had to look at my watch and to promise I
would come back to be illuminated on some other occasion, and hurried off to
keep an engagement with myself to write letters by the next mail.
The Governor writes very good proclamations, nevertheless,
and his confidence in South Carolina is unbounded. “If we stand alone, sir, we
must win. They can't whip us.” A gentleman named Pringle, for whom I had
letters of introduction, has come to Charleston to ask me to his plantation,
but there will be no boat from the port till Monday, and it is uncertain then whether
the blockading vessels, of which we hear so much, may not be down by that time.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 120-2
