Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 Part 23

_10th July_ (Friday).--The drive from Hanc.o.c.k to c.u.mberland is a very mountainous forty-four miles--total distance from Hagerstown, sixty-six miles. We met with no further adventure on the road, although the people were very inquisitive, but I never opened my mouth. One woman in particular, who kept a toll-bar, thrust her ugly old head out of an upper window, and yelled out, "Air they a-fixin' for another battle out there?" jerking her head in the direction of Hagerstown. The driver replied that, although the bunch of rebels there was pretty big, yet he could not answer for their fixing arrangements, which he afterwards explained to me meant digging fortifications.

We arrived at c.u.mberland at 7 P.M. This is a great coal place, and a few weeks ago it was touched up by "Imboden," who burnt a lot of coal barges, which has rendered the people rabid against the Rebs. I started by stage for Johnstown at 8.30 P.M.

_11th July_ (Sat.u.r.day).--I hope I may never for my sins be again condemned to travel for thirty hours in an American stage on a used-up plank road. We changed carriages at Somerset. All my fellow-travellers were of course violent Unionists, and invariably spoke of my late friends as Rebels or Rebs. They had all got it into their heads that their Potomac army, not having been thoroughly thrashed, as it always has been hitherto, had achieved a tremendous victory; and that its new chief, General Meade, who in reality was driven into a strong position, which he had sense enough to stick to, is a wonderful strategist. They all hope that the remnants of Lee's army will not be allowed to ESCAPE over the Potomac; whereas, when I left the army two days ago, no man in it had a thought of escaping over the Potomac, and certainly General Meade was not in a position to attempt to prevent the pa.s.sage, if crossing had become necessary.

I reached Johnstown on the Pennsylvania Railway at 6 P.M., and found that town in a great state of excitement in consequence of the review of two militia companies, who were receiving garlands from the fair ladies of Johnstown in grat.i.tude for their daring conduct in turning out to resist Lee's invasion. Most of the men seemed to be respectable mechanics, not at all adapted for an early interview with the rebels.

The garlands supplied were as big and apparently as substantial as a s.h.i.+p's life-buoys, and the recipients looked particularly helpless after they had got them. Heaven help those Pennsylvanian braves if a score of Hood's Texans had caught sight of them!

Left Johnstown by train at 7.30 P.M., and, by paying half a dollar, I secured a berth in a sleeping-car--a most admirable and ingenious Yankee notion.

_12th July_ (Sunday).--The Pittsburg and Philadelphia Railway is, I believe, accounted one of the best in America, which did not prevent my spending eight hours last night off the line; but, being asleep at the time, I was unaware of the circ.u.mstance. Instead of arriving at Philadelphia at 6 A.M., we did not get there till 3 P.M. Pa.s.sed Harrisburg at 9 A.M. It was full of Yankee soldiers, and has evidently not recovered from the excitement consequent upon the late invasion, one effect of which has been to prevent the cutting of the crops by the calling out of the militia.

At Philadelphia I saw a train containing one hundred and fifty Confederate prisoners, who were being stared at by a large number of the _beau monde_ of Philadelphia. I mingled with the crowd which was chaffing them. Most of the people were good-natured, but I heard one suggestion to the effect that they should be taken to the river, "and every mother's son of them drowned there."

I arrived at New York at 10 P.M., and drove to the Fifth Avenue Hotel.

_13th July_ (Monday).--The luxury and comfort of New York and Philadelphia strike one as extraordinary after having lately come from Charleston and Richmond. The greenbacks seem to be nearly as good as gold. The streets are as full as possible of well-dressed people, and are crowded with able-bodied civilians capable of bearing arms, who have evidently no intention of doing so. They apparently _don't feel the war at all_ here; and until there is a grand smash with their money, or some other catastrophe to make them feel it, I can easily imagine that they will not be anxious to make peace.

I walked the whole distance of Broadway to the Consul's house, and nothing could exceed the apparent prosperity; the street was covered with banners and placards inviting people to enlist in various high-sounding regiments. Bounties of $550 were offered, and huge pictures hung across the street, on which numbers of ragged _greybacks_,[66] terror depicted on their features, were being pursued by the Federals.

On returning to the Fifth Avenue, I found all the shopkeepers beginning to close their stores, and I perceived by degrees that there was great alarm about the resistance to the draft which was going on this morning.

On reaching the hotel I perceived a whole block of buildings on fire close by: engines were present, but were not allowed to play by the crowd. In the hotel itself, universal consternation prevailed, and an attack by the mob had been threatened. I walked about in the neighbourhood, and saw a company of soldiers on the march, who were being jeered at and hooted by small boys, and I saw a negro pursued by the crowd take refuge with the military; he was followed by loud cries of "Down with the b----y n.i.g.g.e.r! Kill all n.i.g.g.e.rs!" &c. Never having been in New York before, and being totally ignorant of the state of feeling with regard to negroes, I inquired of a bystander what the negroes had done that they should want to kill them? He replied, civilly enough--"Oh sir, they hate them here; they are the innocent cause of all these troubles." Shortly afterwards, I saw a troop of citizen cavalry come up; the troopers were very gorgeously attired, but evidently experienced so much difficulty in sitting their horses, that they were more likely to excite laughter than any other emotion.

[66] The Northerners call the Southerners "Greybacks," just as the latter call the former "Bluebellies," on account of the colour of their dress.

_14th July_ (Tuesday).--At breakfast this morning two Irish waiters, seeing I was a Britisher, came up to me one after the other, and whispered at intervals in hoa.r.s.e Hibernian accents--"It's disgraceful, sir. I've been drafted, sir. I'm a Briton. I love my country. I love the Union Jack, sir." I suggested an interview with Mr Archibald, but neither of them seemed to care about going to the _Counsel_ just yet.

These rascals have probably been hard at work for years, voting as free and enlightened American citizens, and abusing England to their hearts'

content.

I heard every one talking of the total demoralisation of the Rebels as a certain fact, and all seemed to antic.i.p.ate their approaching destruction. All this sounded very absurd to me, who had left Lee's army four days previously as full of fight as ever--much stronger in numbers, and ten times more efficient in every military point of view, than it was _when it crossed the Potomac to invade Maryland a year ago_. In its own opinion, Lee's army has not lost any of its prestige at the battle of Gettysburg, in which it most gallantly stormed strong intrenchments defended by the whole army of the Potomac, which never ventured outside its works, or approached in force within half a mile of the Confederate artillery.

The result of the battle of Gettysburg, together with the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, seems to have turned everybody's head completely, and has deluded them with the idea of the speedy and complete subjugation of the South. I was filled with astonishment to hear people speaking in this confident manner, when one of their most prosperous States had been so recently laid under contribution as far as Harrisburg and Was.h.i.+ngton, their capital itself having just been saved by a fortunate turn of luck. Four-fifths of the Pennsylvanian spoil had safely crossed the Potomac before I left Hagerstown.

The consternation in the streets seemed to be on the increase; fires were going on in all directions, and the streets were being patrolled by large bodies of police followed by special constables, the latter bearing truncheons, but not looking very happy.

I heard a British captain making a deposition before the Consul, to the effect that the mob had got on board his vessel and cruelly beaten his coloured crew. As no British man-of-war was present, the French Admiral was appealed to, who at once requested that all British s.h.i.+ps with coloured crews might be anch.o.r.ed under the guns of his frigate.

The reports of outrages, hangings, and murder, were now most alarming, and terror and anxiety were universal. All shops were shut; all carriages and omnibuses had ceased running. No coloured man or woman was visible or safe in the streets, or even in his own dwelling. Telegraphs were cut, and railroad tracks torn up. The draft was suspended, and the mob evidently had the upper hand.

The people who can't pay $300 naturally hate being forced to fight in order to liberate the very race who they are most anxious should be slaves. It is their direct interest not only that all slaves should remain slaves, but that the free Northern negroes who compete with them for labour should be sent to the South also.

_15th July_ (Wednesday).--The hotel this morning was occupied by military, or rather by creatures in uniform. One of the sentries stopped me; and on my remonstrating to his officer, the latter blew up the sentry, and said, "You are only to stop persons in military dress--don't you know what military dress is?" "No," responded this efficient sentry--and I left the pair discussing the definition of a soldier. I had the greatest difficulty in getting a conveyance down to the water. I saw a stone barricade in the distance, and heard firing going on--and was not at all sorry to find myself on board the China.

_POSTSCRIPT._

During my voyage home in the China I had an opportunity of discussing with many intelligent Northern gentlemen all that I had seen in my Southern travels. We did so in a very amicable spirit, and I think they rendered justice to my wish to explain to them without exaggeration the state of feeling amongst their enemies. Although these Northerners belonged to quite the upper cla.s.ses, and were not likely to be led blindly by the absurd nonsense of the sensation press at New York, yet their ignorance of the state of the case in the South was very great.

The recent successes had given them the impression that the last card of the South was played. Charleston was about to fall; Mobile, Savannah, and Wilmington would quickly follow; Lee's army, they thought, was a disheartened, disorganised mob; Bragg's army in a still worse condition, fleeing before Rosecrans, who would carry everything before him. They felt confident that the fall of the Mississippian fortresses would prevent communication from one bank to the other, and that the great river would soon be open to peaceful commerce.

All these illusions have since been dispelled, but they probably still cling to the idea of the great exhaustion of the Southern _personnel_.

But this difficulty of recruiting the Southern armies is not so great as is generally supposed. As I have already stated, no Confederate soldier is given his discharge from the army, however badly he may be wounded; but he is employed at such labour in the public service as he may be capable of performing, and his place in the ranks is taken by a sound man hitherto exempted. The slightly wounded are cured as quickly as possible, and are sent back at once to their regiments. _The women take care of this._ The number actually killed, or who die of their wounds, are the only total losses to the State, and these form but a small proportion of the enormous butcher's bills, which seem at first so very appalling.

I myself remember, with General Polk's corps, a fine-looking man who had had both his hands blown off at the wrists by unskilful artillery-practice in one of the early battles. A currycomb and brush were fitted into his stumps, and he was engaged in grooming artillery-horses with considerable skill. This man was called an hostler; and, as the war drags on, the number of these handless hostlers will increase. By degrees the clerks at the offices, the orderlies, the railway and post-office officials, and the stage-drivers, will be composed of maimed and mutilated soldiers. The number of exempted persons all over the South is still very large, and they can easily be exchanged for worn veterans. Besides this fund to draw upon, a calculation is made of the number of boys who arrive each year at the fighting age. These are all "panting for the rifle," but have been latterly wisely forbidden the ranks until they are fit to undergo the hards.h.i.+ps of a military life. By these means, it is the opinion of the Confederates that they can keep their armies recruited up to their present strength for several years; and, if the worst comes to the worst, they can always fall back upon their negroes as a last resort; but I do not think they contemplate such a necessity as likely to arise for a considerable time.

With respect to the supply of arms, cannon, powder, and military stores, the Confederates are under no alarm whatever. Augusta furnishes more than sufficient gunpowder; Atlanta, copper caps, &c. The Tredegar works at Richmond, and other foundries, cast more cannon than is wanted; and the Federal generals have always. .h.i.therto proved themselves the most indefatigable purveyors of artillery to the Confederate Government, for even in those actions which they claim as drawn battles or as victories, such as Corinth, Murfreesborough, and Gettysburg, they have never failed to make over cannon to the Southerners without exacting any in return.

My Northern friends on board the China spoke much and earnestly about the determination of the North to crush out the Rebellion at any sacrifice. But they did not show any disposition to _fight themselves_ in this cause, although many of them would have made most eligible recruits; and if they had been Southerners, their female relations would have made them enter the army whether their inclinations led them that way or not.

I do not mention this difference of spirit by way of making any odious comparisons between North and South in this respect, because I feel sure that these Northern gentlemen would emulate the example of their enemy if they could foresee any danger of a Southern Butler exercising his infamous sway over Philadelphia, or of a Confederate Milroy ruling with intolerable despotism in Boston, by withholding the necessaries of life from helpless women with one hand, whilst tendering them with the other a hated and absurd oath of allegiance to a detested Government.

But the ma.s.s of respectable Northerners, though they may be willing to pay, do not very naturally feel themselves called upon to give their blood in a war of aggression, ambition, and conquest; for this war is essentially a war of conquest. If ever a nation did wage such a war, the North is now engaged, with a determination worthy of a more hopeful cause, in endeavouring to conquer the South; but the more I think of all that I have seen in the Confederate States of the devotion of the whole population, the more I feel inclined to say with General Polk--"How can you subjugate such a people as this?" and even supposing that their extermination were a feasible plan, as some Northerners have suggested, I never can believe that in the nineteenth century the civilised world will be condemned to witness the destruction of such a gallant race.

THE END.