On looking out of my cabin window this morning I found the
steamer fast along-side a small wharf, above which rose, to the height of 150
feet, at an angle of forty-five degrees, the rugged bluff already mentioned.
The wharf was covered with commissariat stores and ammunition. Three heavy
guns, which some men were endeavoring to sling to rude bullock-carts, in a
manner defiant of all the laws of gravitation, seemed likely to go slap into
the water at every moment; but of the many great strapping fellows who were
lounging about, not one gave a hand to the working party. A dusty track wound
up the hill to the brow, and there disappeared; and at the height of fifty feet
or so above the level of the river two earthworks had been rudely erected in an
ineffective position. The volunteers who were lounging about the edge of the
stream were dressed in different ways, and had no uniform.
Already the heat of the sun compelled me to seek the shade;
and a number of the soldiers, laboring under the same infatuation as that which
induces little boys to disport themselves in the Thames at Waterloo Bridge,
under the notion that they are washing themselves, were swimming about in a
backwater of the great river, regardless of cat-fish, mud, and fever.
General Pillow proceeded on shore after breakfast, and we
mounted the coarse cart-horse chargers which were in waiting at the jetty to
receive us. It is scarcely worth while to transcribe from my diary a
description of the works which I sent over at the time to England. Certainly, a
more extraordinary maze could not be conceived, even in the dreams of a sick
engineer — a number of mad beavers might possibly construct such dams. They
were so ingeniously made as to prevent the troops engaged in their defence from
resisting the enemy's attacks, or getting away from them when the assailants
had got inside — most difficult and troublesome to defend, and still more
difficult for the defenders to leave, the latter perhaps being their chief
merit.
The General ordered some practice to be made with round shot
down the river. An old forty-two pound carronade was loaded with some
difficulty, and pointed at a tree about 1700 yards — which I was told, however,
was not less than 2500 yards — distant. The General and his staff took their
posts on the parapet to leeward, and I ventured to say, “I think, General, the
smoke will prevent your seeing the shot.” To which the General replied, “No,
sir,” in a tone which indicated, “I beg you to understand I have been wounded
in Mexico, and know all about this kind of thing.” “Fire!” The string was
pulled, and out of the touch-hole popped a piece of metal with a little
chirrup. “Darn these friction tubes! I prefer the linstock and match,” quoth
one of the staff, sotto voce, “but General Pillow will have us use
friction tubes made at Memphis, that ar’n’t worth a cuss.” Tube No. 2, however,
did explode, but where the ball went no one could say, as the smoke drifted
right into our eyes.
The General then moved to the other side of the gun, which
was fired a third time, the shot falling short in good line, but without any
ricochet. Gun No. 3 was next fired. Off went the ball down the river, but off
went the gun, too, and with a frantic leap it jumped, carriage and all, clean
off the platform. Nor was it at all wonderful, for the poor old-fashioned
chamber carronade had been loaded with a charge and a solid shot heavy enough
to make it burst with indignation. Most of us felt relieved when the firing was
over, and, for my own part, I would much rather have been close to the target
than to the battery.
Slowly winding for some distance up the steep road in a
blazing sun, we proceeded through the tents which are scattered in small
groups, for health's sake, fifteen and twenty together, on the wooded plateau
above the river. The tents are of the small ridge-pole pattern, six men to
each, many of whom, from their exposure to the sun, whilst working in these
trenches, and from the badness of the water, had already been laid up with
illness. As a proof of General Pillow's energy, it is only fair to say he is
constructing, on the very summit of the plateau, large cisterns, which will be
filled with water from the river by steam power.
The volunteers were mostly engaged at drill in distinct
companies, but by order of the General some 700 or 800 of them were formed into
line for inspection. Many of these men were in their shirt sleeves, and the
awkwardness with which they handled their arms showed that, however good they
might be as shots, they were bad hands at manual platoon exercise; but such
great strapping fellows, that, as I walked down the ranks there were few whose
shoulders were not above the level of my head, excepting here and there a weedy
old man or a growing lad: They were armed with old pattern percussion muskets,
no two clad alike, many very badly shod, few with knapsacks, but all provided
with a tin water-flask and a blanket. These men have been only five weeks
enrolled, and were called out by the State of Tennessee, in anticipation of the
vote of secession.
I could get no exact details as to the supply of food, but
from the Quartermaster-General I heard that each man had from ¾ lb. to 1¼ lb.
of meat, and a sufficiency of bread, sugar, coffee, and rice daily; however,
these military Olivers “asked for more.” Neither whiskey nor tobacco was served
out to them, which to such heavy consumers of both, must prove one source of
dissatisfaction. The officers were plain, farmerly planters, merchants,
lawyers, and the like — energetic, determined men, but utterly ignorant of the
most rudimentary parts of military science. It is this want of knowledge on the
part of the officer which renders it so difficult to arrive at a tolerable
condition of discipline among volunteers, as the privates are quite well aware
they know as much of soldiering as the great majority of their officers.
Having gone down the lines of these motley companies, the
General addressed them in a harangue in which he expatiated on their
patriotism, on their courage, and the atrocity of the enemy, in an odd farrago
of military and political subjects. But the only matter which appeared to
interest them much was the announcement that they would be released from work
in another day or so, and that negroes would be sent to perform all that was
required. This announcement was received with the words, “Bully for us!” and “That's
good.” And when General Pillow wound up a florid peroration by assuring them, “When
the hour of danger comes I will be with you,” the effect was by no means equal
to his expectations. The men did not seem to care much whether General Pillow
was with them or not at that eventful moment; and, indeed, all dusty as he was
in his plain clothes he did not look very imposing, or give one an idea that he
would contribute much to the means of resistance. However, one of the officers
called out, “Boys, three cheers for General Pillow.”
What they may do in the North I know not, but certainly the
Southern soldiers cannot cheer, and what passes muster for that jubilant sound
is a shrill ringing scream with a touch of the Indian war-whoop in it. As these
cries ended, a stentorian voice shouted out, “Who cares for General Pillow?” No
one answered; whence I inferred the General would not be very popular until the
niggers were actually at work in the trenches.
We returned to the steamer, headed up stream, and proceeded
onwards for more than an hour, to another landing, protected by a battery,
where we disembarked, the General being received by a guard dressed in uniform,
who turned out with some appearance of soldierly smartness. On my remarking the
difference to the General, he told me the corps encamped at this point was
composed of gentlemen planters, and farmers. They had all clad themselves, and
consisted of some of the best families in the State of Tennessee.
As we walked down the gangway to the shore, the band on the
upper deck struck up, out of compliment to the English element in the party,
the unaccustomed strains of “God save the Queen!” and I am not quite sure that
the loyalty which induced me to stand in the sun, with uncovered head, till the
musicians were good enough to desist, was appreciated. Certainly a gentleman,
who asked me why I did so, looked very incredulous, and said “That he could
understand it if it had been in a church; but that he would not broil his skull
in the sun, not if General Washington was standing just before him.” The
General gave orders to exercise the battery at this point, and a working party
was told off to firing drill. ’Twas fully six minutes between the giving of the
orders and the first gun being ready.
On the word “fire” being given, the gunner pulled the
lanyard, but the tube did not explode; a second tube was inserted, but a strong
jerk pulled it out without exploding; a third time one of the General's fuses
was applied, which gave way to the pull, and was broken in two; a fourth time
was more successful — the gun exploded, and the shot fell short and under the
mark — in fact, nothing could be worse than the artillery practice which I saw
here, and a fleet of vessels coming down the river might, in the present state
of the garrisons, escape unhurt.
There are no disparts, tangents, or elevating screws to the
gun, which are laid by eye and wooden chocks. I could see no shells in the
battery, but was told there were some in the magazine.
Altogether, though Randolph's Point and Fort Pillow afford
strong positions, in the present state of the service, and equipment of guns
and works, gunboats could run past them without serious loss, and, as the river
falls, the fire of the batteries will be even less effective.
On returning to the boats the band struck up “The
Marseillaise” and “Dixie's Land.” There are two explanations of the word Dixie
— one is that it is the general term for the Slave States, which are, of
course, south of Mason and Dixon's line; another, that a planter named Dixie,
died long ago, to the intense grief of his animated property. Whether they were
ill-treated after he died, and thus had reason to regret his loss, or that they
had merely a longing in the abstract after Heaven, no fact known to me can
determine; but certain it is that they long much after Dixie, in the land to
which his spirit was supposed by them to have departed, and console themselves
in their sorrow by clamorous wishes to follow their master, where probably the
revered spirit would be much surprised to find himself in their company. The
song is the work of the negro melodists of New York.
In the afternoon we returned to Memphis. Here I was obliged
to cut short my Southern tour, though I would willingly have stayed, to have
seen the most remarkable social and political changes the world has probably
ever witnessed. The necessity of my position obliged me to return northwards —
unless I could write, there was no use in my being on the spot at all. By this
time the Federal fleets have succeeded in closing the ports, if not
effectually, so far as to render the carriage of letters precarious, and the
route must be at best devious and uncertain.
Mr. Jefferson Davis was, I was assured, prepared to give me
every facility at Richmond to enable me to know and to see all that was most
interesting in the military and political action of the New Confederacy; but of
what use could this knowledge be if I could not communicate it to the journal I
served?
I had left the North when it was suffering from a political
paralysis, and was in a state of coma in which it appeared conscious of the
coming convulsion but unable to avert it. The sole sign of life in the body
corporate was some feeble twitching of the limbs at Washington, when the
district militia were called out, whilst Mr. Seward descanted on the merits of
the Inaugural, and believed that the anger of the South was a short madness,
which would be cured by a mild application of philosophical essays.
The politicians, who were urging in the most forcible manner
the complete vindication of the rights of the Union, were engaged, when I left
them arguing, that the Union had no rights at all as opposed to those of the
States. Men who had heard with nods of approval of the ordinance of secession
passed by State after State were now shrieking out, “Slay the traitors!”
The printed rags which had been deriding the President as
the great “rail-splitter,” and his Cabinet as a collection of ignoble fanatics,
were now heading the popular rush, and calling out to the country to support
Mr. Lincoln and his Ministry, and were menacing with .war the foreign States
which dared to stand neutral in the quarrel. The declaration of Lord John
Russell that the Southern Confederacy should have limited belligerent rights
had at first created a thrill of exultation in the South, because the
politicians believed that in this concession was contained the principle of
recognition; while it had stung to fury the people of the North, to whom it
seemed the first warning of the coming disunion.
Much, therefore, as I desired to go to Richmond, where I was
urged to repair by many considerations, and by the earnest appeals of those
around me, I felt it would be impossible, notwithstanding the interest attached
to the proceedings there, to perform my duties in a place cut off from all
communication with the outer world; and so I decided to proceed to Chicago, and
thence to Washington, where the Federals had assembled a large army, with the
purpose of marching upon Richmond, in obedience to the cry of nearly every
journal of influence in the Northern cities.
My resolution was mainly formed in consequence of the
intelligence which was communicated to me at Memphis, and I told General Pillow
that I would continue my journey to Cairo, in order to get within the Federal
lines. As the river was blockaded, the only means of doing so was to proceed by
rail to Columbus, and thence to take a steamer to the Federal position; and so,
whilst the General was continuing his inspection, I rode to the telegraph
office, in one of the camps, to order my luggage to be prepared for departure
as soon as I arrived, and thence went on board the steamer, where I sat down in
the cabin to write my last despatch from Dixie.
So far I had certainly no reason to agree with Mr. Seward in
thinking this rebellion was the result of a localized energetic action on the
part of a fierce minority in the seceding States, and that there was in each a
large, if inert, mass opposed to secession, which would rally round the Stars
and Stripes the instant they were displayed in their sight. On the contrary, I
met everywhere with but one feeling, with exceptions which proved its unanimity
and its force. To a man the people went with their States, and had but one
battle cry, “States’ rights, and death to those who make war against them!”
Day after day I had seen this feeling intensified by the
accounts which came from the North of a fixed determination to maintain the
war; and day after day I am bound to add, fine impression on my mind was
strengthened that “States’ rights” meant protection to slavery, extension of
slave territory, and free-trade in slave produce with the outer world; nor was
it any argument against the conclusion that the popular passion gave vent to
the most vehement outcries against Yankees, abolitionists, German mercenaries,
and modern invasion. I was fully satisfied in my mind also that the population
of the South, who had taken up arms, were so convinced of the righteousness of
their cause, and so competent to vindicate it, that they would fight with the
utmost energy and valor in its defence and successful establishment.
The saloon in which I was sitting afforded abundant evidence
of the vigor with which the South are entering upon the contest. Men of every
variety and condition of life had taken up arms against the cursed Yankee and
the Black Republican — there was not a man there who would not have given his
life for the rare pleasure of striking Mr. Lincoln's head off his shoulders,
and yet to a cold European the scene was almost ludicrous.
Along the covered deck lay tall Tennesseans, asleep, whose
plumed felt hats were generally the only indications of their martial calling,
for few indeed had any other signs of uniform, except the rare volunteers, who
wore stripes of red and yellow cloth on their trousers, or leaden buttons, and
discolored worsted braid and facings on their jackets. The afterpart of the
saloon deck was appropriated to General Pillow, his staff, and officers. The
approach to it was guarded by a sentry, a tall, good-looking young fellow in a
gray flannel shirt, gray trousers, fastened with a belt and a brass buckle,
inscribed U. S., which came from some plundered Federal arsenal, and a black
wide-awake hat, decorated with a green plume. His Enfield rifle lay beside him
on the deck, and, with great interest expressed on his face, he leant forward
in his rocking-chair to watch the varying features of a party squatted on the
floor, who were employed in the national game of “Euchre.” As he raised his
eyes to examine the condition of the cigar he was smoking, he caught sight of
me, and by the simple expedient of holding his leg across my chest, and calling
out, "Hallo! where are you going to?" brought me to a standstill —
whilst his captain who was one of the happy euchreists, exclaimed, “Now, Sam,
you let nobody go in there.”
I was obliged to explain who I was, whereupon the sentry started
to his feet, and said, “Oh! indeed, you are Russell that's been in that war
with the Rooshians. Well, I'm very much pleased to know you. I shall be off
sentry in a few minutes; I'll just ask you to tell me something about that
fighting.” He held out his hand, and shook mine warmly as he spoke. There was not
the smallest intention to offend in his manner; but, sitting down again, he nodded
to the captain, and said, “It's all right; it's Pillow's friend — that's
Russell of the London ‘Times.’” The game of euchre was continued — and indeed
it had been perhaps all night — for my last recollection on looking out of my
cabin was of a number of people playing cards on the floor and on the tables
all down the saloon, and of shouts of “Eu-kerr!” “Ten dollars, you don't!” “I'll
lay twenty on this!” and so on; and with breakfast the sport seemed to be fully
revived.
There would have been much more animation in the game, no
doubt, had the bar on board the Ingomar been opened; but the intelligent
gentleman who presided inside had been restricted by General Pillow in his
avocations; and when numerous thirsty souls from the camps came on board, with
dry tongues and husky voices, and asked for “mint-juleps,” “brandy smashes,” or “whiskey
cocktails,” he seemed to take a saturnine pleasure by saying, “The General
won't allow no spirit on board, but I can give you a nice drink of Pillow's own
iced Mississippi water,” an announcement which generally caused infinite
disgust and some unhandsome wishes respecting the General's future happiness.
By and by, a number of sick men were brought down on
litters, and placed here and there along the deck. As there was a considerable
misunderstanding between the civilian and military doctors, it appeared to be
understood that the best way of arranging it was not to attend to the sick at
all, and unfortunate men suffering from fever and dysentery were left to roll
and groan, and lie on their stretchers, without a soul to help them. I had a
medicine chest on board, and I ventured to use the lessons of my experience in
such matters, administered my quinine, James's Powder, calomel, and opium, secundum
meam artem, and nothing could be more grateful than the poor fellows were
for the smallest mark of attention. “Stranger, remember, if I die,” gasped one
great fellow, attenuated to a skeleton by dysentery, “That I am Robert Tallon,
of Tishimingo county, and that I died for States' rights; see, now, they put
that in the papers, won't you? Robert Tallon died for States’ rights,” and so
he turned round on his blanket.
Presently the General came on board, and the Ingomar
proceeded on her way back to Memphis. General Clarke, to whom I mentioned the
great neglect from which the soldiers were suffering, told me he was afraid the
men had no medical attendance in camp. All the doctors, in fact, wanted to
fight, and as they were educated men, and generally connected with respectable
families, or had political influence in the State, they aspired to be colonels
at the very least, and to wield the sword instead of the scalpel.
Next to the medical department, the commissariat and
transport were most deficient; but by constant courts-martial, stoppages of
.pay, and severe sentences, he hoped these evils would be eventually somewhat
mitigated. As one who had received a regular military education, General Clarke
was probably shocked by volunteer irregularities; and in such matters as
guard-mounting, reliefs, patrols, and picket duties, he declared they were enough
to break one's heart; but I was astonished to hear from him that the Germans
were by far the worst of the five thousand troops under his command, of whom
they formed more than a fifth.
Whilst we were conversing, the captain of the steamer
invited us to come up into his cabin on the upper deck; and as railway
conductors, steamboat captains, bar-keepers, hotel clerks, and telegraph
officers are among the natural aristocracy of the land, we could not disobey
the invitation, which led to the consumption of some of the captain’s private
stores, and many warm professions of political faith.
The captain told me it was rough work aboard sometimes, with
“sports” and chaps of that kind; but “God bless you!” said he, “the river now
is not what it used to be a few years ago, when we'd have three or four
difficulties of an afternoon, and maybe now and then a regular free fight all
up and down the decks, that would last a couple of hours, so that when we came
to a town we would have to send for all the doctors twenty miles round, and
maybe some of them would die in spite of that. It was the rowdies used to get
these fights up; but we've put them pretty well down. The citizens have hunted
thom out, and they's gone away west” “Well, then, captain, one's life was not
very safe on board sometimes.” “Safe! Lord bless you!” said the captain; “if
you did not meddle, just as safe as you are now, if the boiler don't collapse.
You must, in course, know how to handle your weepins, and be pretty spry in
taking your own part.” “Ho, you Bill!” to his colored servant, “open that
clothes-press.” “Now, here,” he continued, “is how I travel; so that I am
always easy in my mind in case of trouble on board.” Putting his hand under the
pillow of the bed close beside him, he pulled out a formidable looking
double-barrelled pistol at half-cock, with the caps upon it. “That's as purty a
pistol as Derringer ever made. I've got the brace of them — here's the other;”
and with that he whipped out pistol No. 2, in an equal state of forwardness,
from a little shelf over his bed; and then going over to the clothes-press, he
said, “Here's a real old Kentuck, one of the old sort, as light on the trigger
as gossamer, and sure as deeth. Why, law bless me, a child would cut a turkey's
head off with it at a hundred yards.” This was a huge lump of iron, about five
feet long with a small hole bored down the centre, fitted in a coarse
German-fashioned stock. “But,” continued he, “this is my main dependence; here
is a regular beauty, a first-rate, with ball or buckshot, or whatever you like
— made in London. I gave two hundred dollars for it; and it is so short and
handy, and straight shooting, I'd just as soon part with my life as let it go
to anybody;” and, with a glow of pride in his face, the captain handed round
again a very short double-barrelled gun, of some eleven or twelve bore, with
back-action locks, and an audacious “Joseph Manton, London,” stamped on the
plate. The manner of the man was perfectly simple and bonรข fide; very much as
if Inspector Podger were revealing to a simpleton the mode by which the London
police managed refractory characters in the station-house.
From such matters as these I was diverted by the more
serious subject of the attitude taken by England in this quarrel. The concession
of belligerent rights was, I found, misunderstood, and was considered as an
admission that the Southern States had established their independence before
they had done more than declare their intention to fight for it.
It is not within my power to determine whether the North is
as unfair to Great Britain as the South; but I fear the history of the people,
and the tendency of their institutions, are adverse to any hope of fair-play
and justice to the old country. And yet it is the only power in Europe for the
good opinion of which they really seem to care. Let any French, Austrian, or
Russian journal write what it pleases of the United States, it is received with
indifferent criticism or callous head-shaking. But let a London paper speak,
and the whole American press is delighted or furious.
The political sentiment quite overrides all other feelings;
and it is the only symptom statesmen should care about, as it guides the policy
of the country. If a man can put faith in the influence for peace of common
interests, of common origin, common intentions, with the spectacle of this
incipient war before his eyes, he must be incapable of appreciating the
consequences which follow from man being an animal. A war between England and
the United States would be unnatural; but it would not be nearly so unnatural
now as it was when it was actually waged in 1776 between people who were barely
separated from each other by a single generation; or in 1812-14, when the
foreign immigration had done comparatively little to dilute the Anglo-Saxon
blood. The Norman of Hampshire and Sussex did not care much for the ties of
consanguinity and race when he followed his lord in fee to ravage Guienne or
Brittany.
The general result of my intercourse with Americans is to
produce the notion that they consider Great Britain in a state of corruption
and decay, and eagerly seek to exalt France at her expense. Their language is
the sole link between England and the United States, and it only binds the
England of 1770 to the American of 1860.
There is scarcely an American on either side of Mason, and
Dixon's line who does not religiously believe that the colonies, alone and
single-handed, encountered the whole undivided force of Great Britain in the
Revolution, and defeated it. I mean, of course, the vast mass of the people;
and I do not think there is an orator or a writer who would venture to tell
them the truth on the subject. Again, they firmly believe that their petty
frigate engagements established as complete a naval ascendency over Great
Britain as the latter obtained by her great encounters with the fleets of
France and Spain. Their reverses, defeats and headlong routs in the first war,
their reverses in the second, are covered over by a huge Buncombe plaster, made
up of Bunker's Hill, Plattsburg, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
Their delusions are increased and solidified by the
extraordinary text-books of so-called history, and by the feasts and festivals
and celebrations of their every-day political life, in all of which we pass
through imaginary Caudine Forks; and they entertain towards the old country at
best very much the feeling which a high-spirited young man would feel towards
the guardian who, when he had come of age, and was free from all control,
sought to restrain the passions of his early life.
Now I could not refuse to believe that in New Orleans,
Montgomery, Mobile, Jackson, and Memphis there is a reckless and violent
condition of society, unfavorable to civilization, and but little hopeful for
the future. The most absolute and despotic rule, under which a man's life and
property are safe, is better than the largest measure of democratic freedom,
which deprives the freeman of any security for either. The state of legal
protection for the most serious interests of man, considered as a civilized and
social creature, which prevails in America, could not be tolerated for an
instant, and would generate a revolution in the worst governed country in
Europe. I would much sooner, as the accidental victim of a generally disorganized
police, be plundered by a chance diligence robber in Mexico, or have a fair
fight with a Greek Klepht, suffer from Italian banditti, or be garrotted by a
London ticket-of-leave man, than be bowie-knived or revolvered in consequence
of a political or personal difference with a man, who is certain not in the
least degree to suffer from an accidental success in his argument.
On our return to the hotel I dined with the General and his
staff at the public table, where there was a large assemblage of military men,
Southern ladies, their families, and contractors. This latter race has risen up
as if by magic, to meet the wants of the new Confederacy; and it is significant
to measure the amount of the dependence on Northern manufacturers by the
advertisements in the Southern journals, indicating the creation of new
branches of workmanship, mechanical science, and manufacturing skill.
Hitherto they have been dependent on the North for the very
necessaries of their industrial life. These States were so intent on gathering
in money for their produce, expending it luxuriously, and paying it out for
Northern labor, that they found themselves suddenly in the condition of a child
brought up by hand, whose nurse and mother have left it on the steps of the
poor-house. But they have certainly essayed to remedy the evil and are
endeavoring to make steam-engines, gunpowder, lamps, clothes, boots, railway
carriages, steel springs, glass, and all the smaller articles for which even
Southern households find a necessity.
The peculiar character of this contest develops itself in a
manner almost incomprehensible to a stranger who has been accustomed to regard
the United States as a nation. Here is General Pillow, for example, in the
State of Tennessee, commanding the forces of the State, which, in effect,
belongs to the Southern Confederacy; but he tells me that he cannot venture to
move across a certain geographical line, dividing Tennessee from Kentucky,
because the State of Kentucky, in the exercise of its sovereign powers and
rights, which the Southern States are bound specially to respect, in virtue of
their championship of States' rights, has, like the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, declared it will be neutral in the struggle; and Beriah
Magoffin, Governor of the aforesaid State, has warned off Federal and
Confederate troops from his territory.
General Pillow is particularly indignant with the cowardice
of the well-known Secessionists of Kentucky; but I think he is rather more
annoyed by the accumulation of Federal troops at Cairo, and their recent
expedition to Columbus on the Kentucky shore, a little below them, where they
seized a Confederate flag.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 309-21
