There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the men
in uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of goods, commissariat
stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, supplies for the volunteer army on Morris'
Island. I was amused by the names of the various corps, “Tigers,” “Lions,” “Scorpions,”
“Palmetto Eagles,” “Guards,” of Pickens, Sumter, Marion, and of various other
denominations, painted on the boxes. The original formation of these volunteers
is in companies, and they know nothing of battalions or regiments. The tendency
in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify the greatest vanity of the
greatest number. These companies do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong.
Some were “dandies,” and “swells,” and affected to look down on their neighbors
and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was difficulty in getting them to
obey orders at first, as each man had an idea that he was as good an engineer
as anybody else, “and a good deal better, if it came to that.” It was easy to
perceive it was the old story of volunteer and regular in this little army.
As we got on deck, the Major saw a number of rough, longhaired-looking
fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter buttons and worsted braid lying on
the hay-bales smoking their cigars. “Gentlemen,” quoth he, very courteously, “you'll
oblige me by not smoking over the hay. There's powder below.” “I don't believe
we're going to burn the hay this time, kernel,” was the reply, “and anyway,
we'll put it out afore it reaches the ’bustibles,” and they went on smoking.
The Major grumbled, and worse, and drew off.
Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belonging to
the New York and local papers. I saw a short time afterwards a description of
the trip by one of these gentlemen, in which he described it as an affair got
up specially for himself, probably in order to avenge himself on his military
persecutors, for he had complained to me the evening before, that the chief of
General Beauregard's staff told him to go to ----, when he applied at
head-quarters for some information. I found from the tone and looks of my
friends, that these literary gentlemen were received with great disfavor, and
Major Whiting, who is a bibliomaniac, and has a very great liking for the best
English writers, could not conceal his repugnance and antipathy to my
unfortunate confreres. “If I had my way, I would fling them into the water; but
the General has given them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who
have brought all this trouble on our country.”
The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I,
to my astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and deeper in the
South, and they are not accompanied by the signs of dread of its power which
exist in New York, where men speak of the chiefs of the most notorious journals
very much as people in Italian cities of past time might have talked of the
most infamous bravo or the chief of some band of assassins. Whiting comforted
himself by the reflection that they would soon have their fingers in a vice,
and then pulling out a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the
representative thereof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified
contradiction to most of the statements contained in “the full and accurate
particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter,” in the said journal,
which the person in question listened to with becoming meekness and contrition.
“If I knew who wrote it,” said the Major, “I'd make him eat it.”
I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the mass
of society on board, and, “after compliments,” as the Orientals say, I was
generally asked, in the first place, what I thought of the capture of Sumter,
and in the second, what England would do when the news reached the other side.
Already the Carolinians regard the Northern States as an alien and detested
enemy, and entertain, or profess, an immense affection for Great Britain.
When we had shipped all our passengers, nine tenths of them
in uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing, the whistle blew, and
the steamer sidled off from the quay into the yellowish muddy water of the
Ashley River, which is a creek from the sea, with a streamlet running into the head
waters some distance up.
The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant
and is low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of brilliant
vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with creeks, which divide it
into islands, so that passages out to sea exist between some of them for light
craft, though the navigation is perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a
spur or promontory between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and the land
behind it is divided in the same manner by similar creeks, and is sandy and
light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine crops, and trees of magnificent
vegetation. The steeples, the domes of public buildings, the rows of massive
warehouses and cotton stores on the wharves, and the bright colors of the houses,
render the appearance of Charleston, as seen from the river front, rather
imposing. From the mastheads of the few large vessels in harbor floated the
Confederate flag. Looking to our right, the same standard was visible, waving
on the low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged in reducing
Sumter.
That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of us
now, rising up out of the water near the middle of the passage out to sea
between James' Island and Sullivan's Island. It struck me at first as being
like one of the smaller forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much
diminished its importance; the material is brick, not stone, and the size of
the place is exaggerated by the low background, and by contrast with the sea-line.
The land contracts on both sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris'
Island, called “Cumming's Point,” running out on the left. There is a similar
promontory from Sullivan's Island, on which is erected Fort Moultrie, on the
right from the sea entrance. Castle Pinckney, which stands on a small island at
the exit of the Cooper River, is a place of no importance, and it was too far
from Sumter to take any share in the bombardment: the same remarks apply to
Fort Johnson on James' Island, on the right bank of the Ashley River below
Charleston. The works which did the mischief were the batteries of sand on
Morris' Island, at Cumming's Point, and Fort Moultrie. The floating battery,
covered with railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and could not have contributed
much to the result.
As we approached Morris' Island, which is an accumulation of
sand covered with mounds of the same material, on which there is a scanty
vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes, we could perceive a few tents
in the distance among the sandhills. The sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black
parpapet, with guns peering through port-holes as if from a ship's side, lay
before us. Around them men were swarming like ants, and a crowd in uniform were
gathered on the beach to receive us as we landed from the boat of the steamer,
all eager for news and provisions and newspapers, of which an immense flight
immediately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets crossed in a very odd sort of
manner, prevented any unauthorized persons from landing. They wore the
universal coarse gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow
facings, uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto-tree. Their
unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The soldiers lounging about were
mostly tall, well-grown men, young and old, some with the air of gentlemen;
others coarse, longhaired fellows, without any semblance of military bearing,
but full of fight, and burning with enthusiasm, not unaided, in some instances,
by coarser stimulus.
The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot wind
blew the fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in minute clouds inside
eyelids, nostrils, and clothing; but it was necessary to visit the batteries,
so on we trudged into one and out of another, walked up parapets, examined
profiles, looked along guns, and did everything that could be required of us.
The result of the examination was to establish in my mind the conviction, that
if the commander of Sumter had been allowed to open his guns on the island, the
first time he saw an indication of throwing up a battery against him, he could
have saved his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the opposite side,
could have been readily demolished by Sumter. The design of the works was
better than their execution — the sand-bags were rotten, the sand not properly
revetted or banked up, and the traverses imperfectly constructed. The barbette
guns of the fort looked into many of the embrasures, and commanded them.
The whole of the island was full of life and excitement. Officers
were galloping about as if on a field-day or in action. Commissariat carts were
toiling to and fro between the beach and the camps, and sounds of laughter and
revelling came from the tents. These were pitched without order, and were of
all shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude charcoal drawings
outside, and inscriptions such as “Live Tigers,” “Rattlesnake's-hole,” “Yankee
Smashers,” &c. The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable state, and
on calling the attention of the medical officer who was with me, to the danger
arising from such a condition of things, he said with a sigh, “I know it all.
But we can do nothing. Remember they're all volunteers, and do just as they
please.”
In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all
comers. Cases of champagne and claret, French pâtés, and the like,
were piled outside the canvas walls, when there was no room for them inside. In
the middle of these excited gatherings I felt like a man in the full possession
of his senses coming in late to a wine party. “Won't you drink with me, sir, to
the — (something awful) — of Lincoln and all Yankees?” “No! if you'll be good
enough to excuse me.” “Well, I think you're the only Englishman who won't.” Our
Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the Bobadil style —
hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they fondly believe to be theirs by
hereditary right. They assume that the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as
the Lord Chancellor sits on a pack of wool.
In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men,
opening claret, and mixing “cup” in large buckets; whilst others were helping
the servants to set out a table for a banquet to one of their generals. Such
heat, tobacco-smoke, clamor, toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of
friendship! Many were the excuses made for the more demonstrative of the Edonian
youths by their friends. “Tom is a little cut, sir; but he's a splendid fellow —
he's worth half-a-million of dollars.” This reference to a money standard of
value was not unusual or perhaps unnatural, but it was made repeatedly; and I
was told wonderful tales of the riches of men who were lounging round, dressed
as privates, some of whom at that season, in years gone by, were looked for at
the watering places as the great lions of American fashion. But Secession is
the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it; old ladies pray for it; young men
are dying to fight for it; old men are ready to demonstrate it. The founder of
the school was St. Calhoun. Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder
and fire. States' Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching, and the
Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its exposition. The utter
contempt and loathing for the venerated Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of
the very words United States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of
these people, cannot be conceived by any one who has not seen them. I am more
satisfied than ever that the Union can never be restored as it was, and that it
has gone to pieces, never to be put together again, in the old shape, at all
events, by any power on earth.
After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and
fine sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach, where we took
boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The Confederate flag rose above the
walls. On near approach the marks of the shot against the pain coupé, and the embrasures
near the salient were visible enough; but the damage done to the hard brickwork
was trifling, except at the angles: the edges of the parapets were ragged and
pock-marked, and the quay wall was rifted here and there by shot; but no injury
of a kind to render the work untenable could be made out. The greatest damage
inflicted was, no doubt, the burning of the barracks, which were culpably
erected inside the fort, close to the flank wall facing Cumming's Point.
As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall,
powerful-looking man came through the shattered gateway, and with uneven steps
strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which was waiting to receive him, and
into which he jumped and rowed off. Recognizing one of my companions as he
passed our boat he suddenly stood up, and with a leap and a scramble tumbled in
among us, to the imminent danger of upsetting the party. Our new friend was
dressed in the blue frock-coat of a civilian, round which he had tied a red
silk sash — his waistbelt supported a straight sword, something like those worn
with Court dress. His muscular neck was surrounded with a loosely-fastened silk
handkerchief; and wild masses of black hair, tinged with gray, fell from under
a civilian's hat over his collar; his unstrapped trousers were gathered up high
on his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with formidable brass spurs. But
his face was one not to be forgotten — a straight, broad brow, from which the
hair rose up like the vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows — a
mouth coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw —a thick argumentative
nose — a new growth of scrubby beard and mustache — these were relieved by eyes
of wonderful depth and light, such as I never saw before but in the head of a
wild beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright into the eye of
the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the keeper is coming round, you will
form some notion of the expression I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm —
with a well of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye pitiless in
anger, which now and then sought to conceal its expression beneath half-closed
lids, and then burst out with an angry glare, as if disdaining concealment.
This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then of
his own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator from Texas in the United
States — a good type of the men whom the institutions of the country produce or
throw off — a remarkable man, noted for his ready, natural eloquence; his
exceeding ability as a quick, bitter debater; the acerbity of his taunts; and
his readiness for personal encounter. To the last he stood in his place in the
Senate at Washington, when nearly every other Southern man had seceded, lashing
with a venomous and instant tongue, and covering with insults, ridicule, and
abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, and other Republicans: never
missing a sitting of the House, and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or
at gambling tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter was at its
height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost to silence, a small boat
put off from the shore, and steered through the shot and the splashing waters
right for the walls. It bore the Colonel and a negro oarsman. Holding up a
white handkerchief on the end of his sword, Wigfall landed on the quay,
clambered through an embrasure, and presented himself before the astonished
Federals with a proposal to surrender, quite unauthorized, and “on his own
hook,” which led to the final capitulation of Major Anderson.
I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been
paying his respects sans bornes to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he was
decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speech; but his head was quite
clear, and he was determined 1 should know all about his exploit. Major Whiting
desired to show me round the work, but he had no chance. “Here is where I got
in,” quoth Colonel Wigfall. “I found a Yankee standing here by the traverse,
out of the way of our shot. He was pretty well scared when he saw me, but I
told him not to be alarmed, but to take me to the officers. There they were,
huddled up in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells were tumbling
into the yard, and bursting like —” &c. (The Colonel used strong
illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.) Major Whiting shook his
military head, and said something uncivil to me, in private, in reference to
volunteer colonels and the like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial
Senator — I forgot to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of
having killed more than half a dozen men in duels — (I had an escape of being
another) —conducted me through the casemates with uneven steps, stopping at
every traverse to expatiate on some phase of his personal experiences, with his
sword dangling between his legs, and spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers'
blankets.
In my letter I described the real extent of the damage
inflicted, and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the batteries
thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the United States officers in
the fort were mightily amused at them, and anticipated easy work in enfilading,
ricocheting, and battering them to pieces, if they ever dared to open fire. One
morning, however, Capt. Foster, to whom really belongs the credit of putting
Sumter into a tolerable condition of defence with the most limited means, was
unpleasantly surprised by seeing through his glass a new work in the best
possible situation for attacking the place, growing up under the strenuous
labors of a band of negroes. “I knew at once,” he said, “the rascals had got an
engineer at last.” In fact, the Carolinians were actually talking of an
escalade when the officers of the regular army, who had “seceded,” came down
and took the direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very
different results.
There was a working party of volunteers clearing away the
rubbish in the place. It was evident they were not accustomed to labor. And on
asking why negroes were not employed, I was informed: “The niggers would blow
us all up, they're so stupid; and the State would have to pay the owners for
any of them who were killed and injured.” “In one respect, then, white men are
not so valuable as negroes?” “Yes, sir, — that's a fact.”
Very few shell craters were visible in the terreplein; the
military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously on the parapet platforms,
over which shells had been burst as heavily as could be, to prevent the manning
of the barbette guns. A very small affair, indeed, that shelling of Fort
Sumter. And yet who can tell what may arise from it? “Well, sir,” exclaimed one
of my companions, “I thank God for it, if it's only because we are beginning to
have a history for Europe. The universal Yankee nation swallowed us up.”
Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and trouble
more recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling themselves against the grim,
black future, as the Cavaliers under Rupert may have rushed against the grim,
black Ironsides. Will they carry the image farther? Well! The exploration of
Sumter was finished at last, not till we had visited the officers of the
garrison, who lived in a windowless, shattered room, reached by a crumbling
staircase, and who produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and
boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay. He said: “I have not
received a cent since I came to Charleston for this business.” But Major
Whiting, some days afterwards, told me he had not got a dollar on account of
his pay, though on leaving the United States army he had abandoned nearly all
his means of subsistence. These gentlemen were quite satisfied it would all be
right eventually; and no one questioned the power or inclination of the
Government, which had just been inaugurated under such strange auspices, to
perpetuate its principles and reward its servants.
After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we
were rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris' Island. The
original intention of the officers was to carry us over to Fort Moultrie, on
the opposite side of the Channel, and to examine it and the floating iron
battery; but it was too late to do so when we got off, and the steamer only ran
across and swept around homewards by the other shore. Below, in the cabin,
there was spread a lunch or quasi dinner; and the party of Senators, past and
present, aides-de-camp, journalists, and flaneurs, were not indisposed to join
it. For me there was only one circumstance which marred the pleasure of that
agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who had not sobered himself by
drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his exultation alluded to the assault on
Senator Sumner as a type of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with
the Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification of the
fashion in which they would bear their “whipping.” Thence, by a natural
digression, he adverted to the inevitable consequences of the magnificent
outburst of Southern indignation against the Yankees on all the nations of the
world, and to the immediate action of England in the matter as soon as the news
came. Suddenly reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose name he loaded with obloquy, he
spoke of Lord Lyons in terms so coarse, that, forgetting the condition of the
speaker, I resented the language applied to the English Minister, in a very
unmistakable manner; and then rose and left the cabin. In a moment I was
followed on deck by Senator Wigfall: his manner much calmer, his hair brushed
back, his eye sparkling. There was nothing left to be desired in his apologies,
which were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Manning, Major
Whiting, and Senator Chestnut, and others, to whom I expressed my complete
contentment with Mr. Wigfall's explanations. And so we returned to Charleston.
The Colonel and Senator, however, did not desist from his attentions to the
good — or bad — things below. It was a strange scene — these men, hot and
red-handed in rebellion, with their lives on the cast, trifling and jesting,
and carousing as if they had no care on earth — all excepting the gentlemen of
the local press, who were assiduous in note and food-taking. It was near
nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charleston. The city was indicated
by the blaze of lights, and by the continual roll of drums, and the noisy
music, and the yelling cheers which rose above its streets. As I walked towards
the hotel, the evening drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling through the
streets in all haste, in order to escape the patrol and the last peal of the
curfew bell, swept by me; and as I passed the guard-house of the police, one of
my friends pointed out the armed sentries pacing up and down before the porch,
and the gleam of arms in the room inside. Further on, a squad of mounted
horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a bystreet, and with jingling spurs and
sabres disappeared in the dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol. They
scour the country around the city, and meet at certain places during the night
to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus! these are signs of trouble.
“Integer vitӕ, scelerisque purus
Non eget Mauri jaculis neque
arcu,
Nec venenatis gravida, sagittis,
Fusce, pharetra”
But Fuscus is going to his club; a kindly, pleasant, chatty,
card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to an old white-woolled
negro steward or head-waiter — a slave — as a proof which I cannot accept, with
the curfew tolling in my ears, of the excellencies of the domestic institution.
The club was filled with officers; one of them, Mr. Ransome Calhoun,* asked me
what was the object which most struck me at Morris' Island; I tell him — as was
indeed the case — that it was a letter-copying machine, a case of official
stationery, and a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach, just landed and ready to
grow with the strength of the young independence.
But listen! There is a great tumult, as of many voices
coming up the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a speech-making from
the front of the hotel. Such an agitated, lively multitude! How they cheer the
pale, frantic man, limber and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and clinched
fists, who is perorating on the balcony! “What did he say?” “Who is he?” “Why
it's he again!” “That's Roger Pryor — he says that if them Yankee trash don't
listen to reason, and stand from under, we'll march to the North and dictate
the terms of peace in Faneuil Hall! Yes, sir — and so we will certa-i-n su-re!”
“No matter, for all that; we have shown we can whip the Yankees whenever we
meet them — at Washington or down here.” How much I heard of all this to-day —
how much more this evening! The hotel as noisy as ever — more men in uniform
arriving every few minutes, and the hall and passages crowded with tall,
good-looking Carolinians.
_______________
* Since killed in a duel by Mr. Rhett.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 101-11
