An active man would soon go mad if he were confined in
Cairo. A mudbank stretching along the course of a muddy river is not attractive
to a pedestrian; and, as is the case in most of the Southern cities, there is
no place round Cairo where a man can stretch his legs, or take an honest walk
in the country. A walk in the country! The Americans have not an idea of what
the thing means. I speak now only of the inhabitants of the towns of the States
through which I have passed, as far as I have seen of them. The roads are
either impassable in mud or knee-deep in dust. There are no green shady lanes,
no sheltering groves, no quiet paths through green meadows beneath umbrageous
trees. Off the rail there is a morass — or, at best, a clearing — full of
stumps. No temptations to take a stroll. Down away South the planters ride or
drive; indeed in many places the saunterer by the wayside would probably
encounter an alligator, or disturb a society of rattlesnakes. .
To-day I managed to struggle along the levee in a kind of
sirocco, and visited the works at the extremity, which were constructed by an
Hungarian named Waagner, one of the emigres who came with Kossuth to the
United States. I found him in a hut full of flies, suffering from camp
diarrhea, and waited on by Mr. O'Leary, who was formerly petty officer in our
navy, served in the Furious in the Black Sea, and in the Shannon Brigade in
India, now a lieutenant in the United States' army, where I should say he feels
himself very much out of place. The Hungarian and the Milesian were, however,
quite agreed about the utter incompetence of their military friends around
them, and the great merits of heavy artillery. “When I tell them here the way
poor Sir William made us rattle about them sixty-eight-pounder guns, the poor
ignorant creatures laugh at me — not one of them believes it,” “It is most
astonishing,” says the colonel, “how ignorant they are; there is not one of
these men who can trace a regular work. Of West Point men I speak not, but of
the people about here, and they will not learn of me — from me who know.”
However, the works were well enough, strongly covered, commanded both rivers,
and not to be reduced without trouble.
The heat drove me in among the flies of the crowded hotel,
where Brigadier Prentiss is planning one of those absurd expeditions against a
Secessionist camp at Commerce, in the State of Missouri, about two hours
steaming up the river, and some twelve or fourteen miles inland. Cairo abounds
in Secessionists and spies, and it is needful to take great precautions lest
the expedition be known; but, after all, stores must be got ready, and put on
board the steamers, and preparations must be made which cannot be concealed
from the world. At dusk 700 men, supported by a six-pounder field-piece, were put
on board the “City of Alton,” on which they clustered like bees in a swarm, and
as the huge engine labored up and down against the stream, and the boat swayed
from side to side, I felt a considerable desire to see General Prentiss chucked
into the stream for his utter recklessness in cramming on board one huge
tinder-box, all fire and touchwood, so many human beings, who, in event of an
explosion, or a shot in the boiler, or of a heavy musketry fire on the banks,
would have been converted into a great slaughter-house. One small boat hung
from her stern, and although there were plenty of river flats and numerous
steamers, even the horses belonging to the field-piece were crammed in among
the men along the deck.
In my letter to Europe I made, at the time, some remarks by
which the belligerents might have profited, and which at the time these pages
are reproduced may strike them as possessing some value, illustrated as they
have been by many events in the war. “A handful of horsemen would have been
admirable to move in advance, feel the covers, and make prisoners for political
or other purposes in case of flight; but the Americans persist in ignoring the
use of horsemen, or at least in depreciating it, though they will at last find
that they may shed much blood, and lose much more, before they can gain a
victory without the aid of artillery and charges after the retreating enemy.
From the want of cavalry, I suppose it is, the unmilitary practice of ‘scouting,’
as it is called here, has arisen. It is all very well in the days of Indian
wars for footmen to creep about in the bushes, and shoot or be shot by sentries
and pickets; but no civilized war recognizes such means of annoyance as firing
upon sentinels, unless in case of an actual advance or feigned attack on the
line. No camp can be safe without cavalry videttes and pickets; for the enemy
can pour in impetuously after the alarm has been given, as fast as the outlying
footmen can run in. In feeling the way for a column, cavalry are invaluable,
and there can be little chance of ambuscades or surprises where they are
judiciously employed; but ‘scouting’ on foot, or adventurous private
expeditions on horseback, to have a look at the enemy, can do, and will do,
nothing but harm. Every day the papers contain accounts of ‘scouts’ being
killed, and sentries being picked off. The latter is a very barbarous and
savage practice; and the Russian, in his most angry moments, abstained from it.
If any officer wishes to obtain information as to his enemy, he has two ways of
doing it. He can employ spies, who carry their lives in their hands, or he can
beat up their quarters by a proper reconnoissance on his own responsibility, in
which, however, it would be advisable not to trust his force to a railway
train.”
At night there was a kind of émeute in camp. The day, as I have said, was
excessively hot, and on returning to their tents and huts from evening parade
the men found the contractor who supplies them with water had not filled the
barrels; so they forced the sentries, broke barracks after hours, mobbed their
officers, and streamed up to the hotel, which they surrounded, calling out, “Water,
water,” in chorus. The General came out, and got up on a rail: “Gentlemen,”
said he, “it is not my fault you are without water. It's your officers who are
to blame; not me.” (“Groans for the Quartermaster,” from the men.) “If it is the
fault of the contractor, I’ll see that he is punished. I’ll take steps at once
to see that the matter is remedied. And now, gentlemen, I hope you'll go back
to your quarters;” and the gentlemen took it into their heads very
good-humoredly to obey the suggestion, fell in, and marched back two deep to
their huts.
As the General was smoking his cigar before going to bed, I
asked him why the officers had not more control over the men. “Well,” said he, “the
officers are to blame for all this. The truth is, the term for which these
volunteers enlisted is drawing to a close; and they have not as yet enrolled
themselves in the United States army. They are merely volunteer regiments of
the State of Illinois. If they were displeased with anything, therefore, they
might refuse to enter the service or to take fresh engagements; and the
officers would find themselves suddenly left without any men; they therefore
curry favor with the privates, many of them, too, having an eye to the votes of
the men when the elections of officers in the new regiments are to take place.”
The contractors have commenced plunder on a gigantic scale;
and their influence with the authorities of the State is so powerful, there is
little chance of punishing them. Besides, it is not considered expedient to
deter contractors, by too scrupulous an exactitude, in coming forward at such a
trying period; and the Quartermaster's department, which ought to be the most
perfect, considering the number of persons connected with transport and
carriage, is in a most disgraceful and inefficient condition. I told the
General that one of the Southern leaders proposed to hang any contractor who
was found out in cheating the men, and that the press cordially approved of the
suggestion. “I am afraid” said he, “if any such proposal was carried out here,
there would scarcely be a contractor left throughout the States.” Equal
ignorance is shown by the medical authorities of the requirements of an army.
There is not an ambulance or cacolet of any kind attached to this camp; and, as
far as I could see, not even a litter was sent on board the steamer which has
started with the expedition.
Although there has scarcely been a fought field or anything
more serious than the miserable skirmishes of Shenck and Butler, the pressure
of war has already told upon the people. The Cairo paper makes an urgent appeal
to the authorities to relieve the distress and pauperism which the sudden
interruption of trade has brought upon so many respectable citizens. And when I
was at Memphis the other day, I observed a public notice in the journals, that
the magistrates of the city would issue orders for money to families left in
distress by the enrolment of the male members for military service. When
General Scott, sorely against his will, was urged to make preparations for an
armed invasion of the seceded States in case it became necessary, he said it
would need some hundreds of thousands of men and many millions of money to
effect that object. Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Lincoln laughed pleasantly
at this exaggeration, but they have begun to find by this time the old general
was not quite so much in the wrong.
In reference to the discipline maintained in the camp, I
must admit that proper precautions are used to prevent spies entering the
lines. The sentries are posted closely and permit no one to go in without a
pass in the day and a countersign at night. A conversation with General
Prentiss in the front of the hotel was interrupted this evening by an Irishman,
who ran past us towards the camp, hotly pursued by two policemen. The sentry on
duty at the point of the lines close to us brought him up by the point of the
bayonet. “Who goes tere?” “A friend, shure your honor; I'm a friend.” “Advance
three paces and give the countersign.” “I don't know it, I tell you. Let me in,
let me in.” But the German was resolute, and the policemen now coming up in hot
pursuit, seized the culprit, who resisted violently, till General Prentiss rose
from his chair and ordered the guard, who had turned out, to make a prisoner of
the soldier and hand him over to the civil power, for which the man seemed to
be most deeply grateful. As the policemen were walking him off, he exclaimed, “Be
quiet wid ye, till I spake a word to the Giniral,” and then bowing and
chuckling with drunken gravity, he said, “an’ indeed, Giniral, I'm much
obleeged to ye altogither for this kindness. Long life to ye. We've got the
better of that dirty German. Hoora' for Giniral Prentiss.” He preferred a
chance of more whiskey in the police office and a light punishment to the work
in camp and a heavy drill in the morning. An officer who was challenged by a
sentry the other evening, asked him, “Do you know the countersign yourself?” “No,
sir, it's not nine o'clock, and they have not given it out yet.” Another sentry
stopped a man because he did not know the countersign. The fellow said, “I dare
say you don't know it yourself.” “That's a lie,” he exclaimed; “it’s
Plattsburgh.” “Pittsburgh it is, sure enough,” said the other, and walked on
without further parley.
The Americans, Irish, and Germans, do not always coincide in
the phonetic value of each letter in the passwords, and several difficulties
have occurred in consequence. An incautious approach towards the posts at night
is attended with risk; for the raw sentries are very quick on the trigger. More
fatal and serious injuries have been inflicted on the Federals by themselves
than by the enemy. “I declare to you, sir, the way the boys touched off their
irons at me going home to my camp last night, was just like a running fight
with the Ingins. I was a little ‘tight,’ and didn't mind it a cuss.”
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 341-5
