Showing posts with label Quadroons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quadroons. Show all posts

Friday, March 16, 2018

Captain Charles Wright Wills: October 3, 1863

Griffin's Landing, October 3, 1863.

To-day one of the pilots and engineers induced the colonel and me go with them over to the Arkansas side. We went over in the yawl, and after a walk of three miles came to a most delightful place owned by Worthington. His son and daughter, bright quadroons, did the honors of the house in his absence. They are the best educated persons of color I ever met. The young man was educated in France and the young woman in Oberlin, Ohio. She played the piano quite well and sings beautifully. A negro lady is something of a novelty, and if I did not conduct myself exactly right in her presence, I think I am somewhat excusable, for I could see the others were equally puzzled. She is well informed, sensible and talks with animation, using very pretty language. She furnished us with peach brandy and honey, a gentle mixture of which produced a very nice toddy. We then moved on some three miles further to the Bass plantation, where we found two of the regular snuff-dipping, swearing, Southern women, of the low, white-trash family. Had lots of fun with them. Got a couple of dozen chickens and a bushel of sweet potatoes of them and started back. Our road lay along a lake and at any minute we could get a shot at cranes, geese, ducks or turtles. A drove of wild turkeys also furnished us with a half dozen shots, but with all the expenditure of powder and lead, our consciences are clear of hurting anything. Got back to Worthington's for dinner at 3 p. m., and to the boat at dark. Altogether one of the most pleasant days I have passed in the army.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 195

Friday, April 8, 2016

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 11, 1861

At early dawn the steamer went its way through a broad bay of snags, bordered with drift-wood, and with steam-trumpet and calliope announced its arrival at the quay of Mobile, which presented a fringe of tall warehouses, and shops along-side, over which were names indicating Scotch, Irish, English, many Spanish, German, Italian, and French owners. Captain Maher at once set off to his plantation, and we descended the stories of the walled castle to the beach, and walked on towards the “Battle House,” so called from the name of its proprietor, for Mobile has not yet had its fight, like New Orleans. The quays, which usually, as we were told, are lined with stately hulls and a forest of masts, were deserted; although the port was not actually blockaded, there were squadrons of the United States ships at Pensacola, on the east, and at New Orleans, on the west.

The hotel, a fine building of the American stamp, was the seat of a Vigilance Committee, and as we put down our names in the book, they were minutely inspected by some gentlemen who came out of the parlor. It was fortunate they did not find traces of Lincolnism about us, as it appeared by the papers that they were busy deporting “Abolitionists” after certain preliminary processes supposed to —

“Give them a rise, and open their eyes
To a sense of their situation.”

The citizens were busy in drilling, marching, and drum-beating, and the Confederate flag flew from every spire and steeple. The day was so hot, that it was little more inviting to go out in the sun than it would be in the dogdays at Malaga, to which, by the by, Mobile bears some “kindersorter” resemblance; but, nevertheless, I sallied forth, and had a drive on a shell road by the head of the bay, where there were pretty villarettes in charming groves of magnolia, orange-trees, and lime-oaks. Wide streets of similar houses spring out to meet the country through sandy roads; some worthy of Streatham or Belham, and all surrounded in such vegetation as Kew might envy.

Many Mobilians called, and among them the mayor, Mr. Forsyth, in whom I recognized the most remarkable of the Southern Commissioners I had met at Washington. Mr. Magee, the acting British Consul, was also good enough to wait upon me, with offers of any assistance in his power. I hear he has most difficult questions to deal with, arising out of the claims of distressed British subjects, and disputed nationality. In the evening, the Consul and Dr. Nott, a savant, and physician of Mobile, well known to the ethnologists for his work on the “Types of Mankind,” written conjointly with the late Mr. Gliddon, dined with me, and I learned from them that, notwithstanding the intimate commercial relations between Mobile and the great Northern cities, the people here are of the most ultra-secessionist doctrines. The wealth and manhood of the city will be devoted to repel the “Lincolnite mercenaries” to the last.

After dinner we walked through the city, which abounds in oyster saloons, drinking-houses, lager-bier and wine shops, and gambling and dancing places. The market was well worthy of a visit — something like St. John's at Liverpool on a Saturday night, crowded with negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, and mestizos of all sorts, Spanish, Italian, and French, speaking their own tongues, or a quaint lingua franca, and dressed in very striking and pretty costumes. The fruit and vegetable stalls displayed very fine produce, and some staples, remarkable for novelty, ugliness, and goodness. After our stroll we went into one of the great oyster saloons, and in a room up-stairs had opportunity of tasting those great bivalvians in the form of natural fish puddings, fried in batter, roasted, stewed, devilled, broiled, and in many other ways, plus raw. I am bound to observe that the Mobile people ate them as if there was no blockade, and as' though oysters were a specific for political indigestions and civil wars; a fierce Marseillais are they — living in the most foreign-looking city I have yet seen in the States. My private room in the hotel was large, well-lighted with gas, and exceedingly well furnished in the German fashion, with French pendule and mirrors. The charge for a private room varies from £1 to £1 5s. a day; the bedroom and board are charged separately, from 10s. 6d. to 12s. 6d. a day, but meals served in the private room are all charged extra, and heavily too. Exclusiveness is an aristocratic taste which must be paid for.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 189-91