Traveled all night
Saturday night, having left Minden at dark, and all day Sunday; reached Vianna
about 10 o'clock Sunday morning; the road was pretty rough, lying mainly
through a hilly country, covered with large pines and red and white oak;
reached the dinner stand about 4 o'clock and found it a very neat and
comfortable place; was waited upon at the table by two young ladies. Had a
tedious and disagreeable ride from this place to Monroe, which place we reached
at 12 o'clock last night; took possession of the flatboat and rowed ourselves
across the river; found the hotel crowded and could not get a room; spread
down my blanket and slept on the piazza; got up this morning and wrote a letter
to my dear wife before breakfast; after breakfast walked down to see the Anna,
the boat we expected to go down the river in; found her a dirty little craft;
went to the quartermaster's office to find out when the boat would leave; he
could not tell for two or three hours yet; returned to the hotel; met Ormsby;
he is in the postoffice department; he has a thousand pounds of postage stamps and
is on his way to Texas.
I saw a very
interesting game of poker between Captain R——— and a professional gambler; it
was twenty dollars ante, and the pile grew fast and soon reached twenty-five
hundred dollars, and everybody went out of the game except Captain R——— and the
professional, who was a very rough looking customer, reminding me of
descriptions I have read of pirates in yellow covered novels; he was
weather-beaten and fierce looking; Capt. R——— was only about twenty years of
age, with a beardless face as smooth as a woman's. A dispute arose and each man
seized the pile (paper money) with his left hand and drew his pistol with his
right; they rose at arm's length and stood glaring at each other like tigers;
one looked like a black wolf, the other like a spotted leopard; the crowd
retired from the table; it was one of the most fearful and magnificent pictures
I ever saw. They were finally persuaded to lay their pistols and the money on
the table in charge of chosen friends; the door was locked and a messenger
was dispatched five miles in the country to bring Colonel ———, a noted local
celebrity—a planter who stood high in social as well as sporting circles. We
waited three hours; he came, and after hearing the testimony gave the pile to
"old rough and ready," and Captain Ryielded gracefully, a wiser but a
poorer man.
After dinner a
stranger named Peck gave me a letter to carry across the river and also enough
tobacco to smoke me to Natchez. I loafed about until the steamboat started at 5
o'clock in the afternoon; took passage in her to Trinity, costing me $15
besides transportation furnished by the Confederate States. I am now on boat
enjoying the beautiful scenery on the river; wish my dear wife was here to
participate in my pleasure; such a sunset! it is a vision for a poet.
SOURCE: John Camden
West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a
Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 31-3
