The Civil War in America Part 2

APRIL 30, 1861.

NOTHING I could say can be worth one fact which has forced itself upon my mind in reference to the sentiments which prevail among the gentlemen of this State. I have been among them several days. I have visited their plantations, I have conversed with them freely and fully, and I have enjoyed that frank, courteous, and graceful intercourse which const.i.tutes an irresistible charm of their society. From all quarters have come to my ears the echoes of the same voice; it may be feigned, but there is no discord in the note, and it sounds in wonderful strength and monotony all over the country. Shades of George III., of North, of Johnson, of all who contended against the great rebellion which tore these colonies from England, can you hear the chorus which rings through the State of Marion, Sumter, and Pinckney, and not clap your ghostly hands in triumph? That voice says, "If we could only get one of the Royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content." Let there be no misconception on this point. That sentiment, varied in a hundred ways, has been repeated to me over and over again. There is a general admission that the means to such an end are wanting, and that the desire cannot be gratified. But the admiration for monarchical inst.i.tutions on the English model, for privileged cla.s.ses, and for a landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. With the pride of having achieved their independence is mingled in the South Carolinians'

hearts a strange regret at the result and consequences, and many are they who "would go back to-morrow if we could." An intense affection for the British connection, a love of British habits and customs, a respect for British sentiment, law, authority, order, civilization, and literature, preeminently distinguish the inhabitants of this State, who, glorying in their descent from ancient families on the three islands, whose fortunes they still follow, and with whose members they maintain not unfrequently familiar relations, regard with an aversion of which it is impossible to give an idea to one who has not seen its manifestations, the people of New England and the populations of the Northern States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure by the venom of "Puritanism." Whatever may be the cause, this is the fact and the effect. "The State of South Carolina was," I am told, "founded by gentlemen." It was not established by witch-burning Puritans, by cruel persecuting fanatics, who implanted in the North the standard of Torquemada, and breathed into the nostrils of their newly-born colonies all the ferocity of blood-thirstiness and rabid intolerance of the Inquisition. It is absolutely astounding to a stranger, who aims at the preservation of a decent neutrality, to mark the violence of these opinions.

"If that confounded s.h.i.+p had sunk with those ---- Pilgrim Fathers on board," says one, "we never should have been driven to these extremities!" "We could have got on with fanatics if they had been either Christians or gentlemen," says another; "for in the first case they would have acted with common charity, and in the second they would have fought when they insulted us; but there are neither Christians nor gentlemen among them!" "Anything on the earth!" exclaims a third, "any form of government, any tyranny or despotism you will; but"--and here is an appeal more terrible than the adjuration of all the G.o.ds--"nothing on earth shall ever induce us to submit to any union with the brutal, bigoted blackguards of the New England States, who neither comprehend nor regard the feelings of gentlemen! Man, woman, and child, we'll die first." Imagine these and an infinite variety of similar sentiments uttered by courtly, well-educated men, who set great store on a nice observance of the usages of society, and who are only moved to extreme bitterness and anger when they speak of the North, and you will fail to conceive the intensity of the dislike of the South Carolinians for the Free States. There are national antipathies on our side of the Atlantic which are tolerably strong, and have been unfortunately pertinacious and long-lived. The hatred of the Italian for the Tedesco, of the Greek for the Turk, of the Turk for the Russ, is warm and fierce enough to satisfy the Prince of Darkness, not to speak of a few little pet aversions among the allied Powers and the atoms of composite empires; but they are all mere indifference and neutrality of feeling compared to the animosity evinced by the "gentry" of South Carolina for the "rabble of the North."

The contests of Cavalier and Roundhead, of Vendean and Republican, even of Orangeman and Croppy, have been elegant joustings, regulated by the finest rules of chivalry, compared with those which North and South will carry on if their deeds support their words. "Immortal hate, the study of revenge," will actuate every blow, and never in the history of the world, perhaps, will go forth such a dreadful _vae victis_ as that which may be heard before the fight has begun. There is nothing in all the dark caves of human pa.s.sion so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees. That hatred has been swelling for years, till it is the very life-blood of the State. It has set South Carolina to work steadily to organize her resources for the struggle which she intended to provoke, if it did not come in the course of time.

"Incompatibility of temper" would have been sufficient ground for the divorce, and I am satisfied that there has been a deep-rooted design, conceived in some men's minds thirty years ago, and extended gradually year after year to others, to break away from the Union at the very first opportunity. The North is to South Carolina a corrupt and evil thing, to which for long years she has been bound by burning chains, while monopolists and manufacturers fed on her tender limbs. She has been bound in a Maxentian union to the object she loathes. New England is to her the incarnation of moral and political wickedness and social corruption. It is the source of everything which South Carolina hates, and of the torrents of free thought and taxed manufactures, of Abolitionism and of fillibustering, which have flooded the land. Believe a Southern man as he believes himself, and you must regard New England and the kindred States as the birthplace of impurity of mind among men and of unchast.i.ty in women--the home of Free Love, of Fourierism, of Infidelity, of Abolitionism, of false teachings in political economy and in social life; a land saturated with the drippings of rotten philosophy, with the poisonous infections of a fanatic press; without honor or modesty; whose wisdom is paltry cunning, whose valor and manhood have been swallowed up in a corrupt, howling demagogy, and in the marts of a dishonest commerce. It is the merchants of New York who fit out s.h.i.+ps for the slave-trade, and carry it on in Yankee s.h.i.+ps. It is the capital of the North which supports, and it is Northern men who concoct and execute, the fillibustering expeditions which have brought discredit on the Slave-holding States. In the large cities people are corrupted by itinerant and ignorant lecturers--in the towns and in the country by an unprincipled press. The populations, indeed, know how to read and write, but they don't know how to think, and they are the easy victims of the wretched impostors on all the 'ologies and 'isms who swarm over the region, and subsist by lecturing on subjects which the innate vices of mankind induce them to accept with eagerness, while they a.s.sume the garb of philosophical abstractions to cover their nastiness in deference to a contemptible and universal hypocrisy.

"Who fills the butchers' shops with large blue flies?"

a.s.suredly the New England demon who has been persecuting the South until its intolerable cruelty and insolence forced her, in a spasm of agony, to rend her chains asunder. The New Englander must have something to persecute, and as he has hunted down all his Indians, burnt all his witches, and persecuted all his opponents to the death, he invented Abolitionism as the sole resource left to him for the gratification of his favorite pa.s.sion. Next to this motive principle is his desire to make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly, and shabbily. He has acted on it in all his relations with the South, and has cheated and plundered her in all his dealings by villainous tariffs. If one objects that the South must have been a party to this, because her boast is that her statesmen have ruled the Government of the country, you are told that the South yielded out of pure good nature. Now, however, she will have free trade, and will open the coasting trade to foreign nations, and shut out from it the hated Yankees, who so long monopolized and made their fortunes by it. Under all the varied burdens and miseries to which she was subjected, the South held fast to her sheet anchor. South Carolina was the mooring ground in which it found the surest hold. The doctrine of State Rights was her salvation, and the fiercer the storm raged against her--the more stoutly demagogy, immigrant preponderance, and the blasts of universal suffrage bore down on her, threatening to sweep away the vested interests of the South in her right to govern the States--the greater was her confidence and the more resolutely she held on her cable. The North attracted "hordes of ignorant Germans and Irish," and the sc.u.m of Europe, while the South repelled them. The industry, the capital of the North increased with enormous rapidity, under the influence of cheap labor and manufacturing ingenuity and enterprise, in the villages which swelled into towns, and the towns which became cities, under the unenvious eye of the South. She, on the contrary, toiled on slowly, clearing forests and draining swamps to find new cotton-grounds and rice-fields, for the employment of her only industry and for the development of her only capital--"involuntary labor." The tide of immigration waxed stronger, and by degrees she saw the districts into which she claimed the right to introduce that capital closed against her, and occupied by free labor. The doctrine of squatter "sovereignty," and the force of hostile tariffs, which placed a heavy duty on the very articles which the South most required, completed the measure of injuries to which she was subjected, and the spirit of discontent found vent in fiery debate, in personal insults, and in acrimonious speaking and writing, which increased in intensity in proportion as the Abolition movement, and the contest between the Federal principle and State Rights, became more vehement. I am desirous of showing in a few words, for the information of English readers, how it is that the Confederacy which Europe knew simply as a political ent.i.ty has succeeded in dividing itself. The Slave States held the doctrine, or say they did, that each State was independent as France or as England, but that for certain purposes they chose a common agent to deal with foreign nations, and to impose taxes for the purpose of paying the expenses of the agency. We, it appears, talked of American citizens when there were no such beings at all. There were, indeed, citizens of the Sovereign State of South Carolina, or of Georgia or Florida, who permitted themselves to pa.s.s under that designation, but it was merely as a matter of personal convenience. It will be difficult for Europeans to understand this doctrine, as nothing like it has been heard before, and no such Confederation of Sovereign States has ever existed in any country in the world. The Northern men deny that it existed here, and claim for the Federal Government powers not compatible with such a.s.sumptions. _They_ have lived for the Union, they served it, they labored for and made money by it. A man as a New York man was nothing--as an American citizen he was a great deal. A South Carolinian objected to lose his ident.i.ty in any description which included him and a "Yankee clockmaker" in the same category. The Union was against him; he remembered that he came from a race of English gentlemen who had been persecuted by the representatives--for he will not call them the ancestors--of the Puritans of New England, and he thought that they were animated by the same hostility to himself. He was proud of old names, and he felt pleasure in tracing his connection with old families in the old country. His plantations were held by old charters, or had been in the hands of his fathers for several generations; and he delighted to remember that when the Stuarts were banished from their throne and their country, the burgesses of South Carolina had solemnly elected the wandering Charles king of their State, and had offered him an asylum and a kingdom. The philosophical historian may exercise his ingenuity in conjecturing what would have been the result if the fugitive had carried his fortunes to Charleston.

South Carolina contains 34,000 square miles and a population of 720,000 inhabitants, of whom 385,000 are black slaves. In the old rebellion it was distracted between revolutionary principles and the loyalist predilections, and at least one half of the planters were faithful to George III., nor did they yield till Was.h.i.+ngton sent an army to support their antagonists, and drove them from the colony.

In my next letter I shall give a brief account of a visit to some of the planters, as far as it can be made consistent with the obligations which the rites and rights of hospitality impose on the guest as well as upon the host. These gentlemen are well-bred, courteous, and hospitable. A genuine aristocracy, they have time to cultivate their minds, to apply themselves to politics and the guidance of public affairs. They travel and read, love field sports, racing, shooting, hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, are bold hors.e.m.e.n, and good shots. But, after all, their State is a modern Sparta--an aristocracy resting on a helotry, and with nothing else to rest upon. Although they profess (and I believe, indeed, sincerely) to hold opinions in opposition to the opening of the slave trade, it is nevertheless true that the clause in the Const.i.tution of the Confederate States which prohibited the importation of negroes was especially and energetically resisted by them, because, as they say, it seemed to be an admission that slavery was in itself an evil and a wrong. Their whole system rests on slavery, and as such they defend it. They entertain very exaggerated ideas of the military strength of their little community, although one may do full justice to its military spirit. Out of their whole population they cannot reckon more than 60,000 adult men by any arithmetic, and as there are nearly 30,000 plantations which must be, according to law, superintended by white men, a considerable number of these adults cannot be spared from the State for service in the open field. The planters boast that they can raise their crops without any inconvenience by the labor of their negroes, and they seem confident that the negroes will work without superintendence. But the experiment is rather dangerous, and it will only be tried in the last extremity.

SAVANNAH, GA., May 1, 1861.

It is said that "fools build houses for wise men to live in." Be that true or not, it is certain that "Uncle Sam" has built strong places for his enemies to occupy. To-day I visited Fort Pulaski, which defends the mouth of the Savannah River and the approaches to the city. It was left to take care of itself, and the Georgians quietly stepped into it, and have been busied in completing its defences, so that it is now capable of stopping a fleet very effectually. Pulaski was a Pole who fell in the defence of Savannah against the British, and whose memory is perpetuated in the name of the fort, which is now under the Confederate flag, and garrisoned by bitter foes of the United States. Among our party were Commodore Tattnall, whose name will be familiar to English ears in connection with the attack on the Peiho Forts, where the gallant American showed the world that "blood was thicker than water,"

Brigadier-General Lawton, in command of the forces of Georgia, and a number of naval and military officers, of whom many had belonged to the United States regular service. It was strange to look at such a man as the Commodore, who for forty-nine long years had served under the Stars and Stripes, quietly preparing to meet his old comrades and friends, if needs be, in the battle-field--his allegiance to the country and to the flag renounced, his long service flung away, his old ties and connections severed--and all this in defence of the sacred right of rebellion on the part of "his State." He is not now, nor has he been for years, a slave-owner; all his family and familiar a.s.sociations connect him with the North. There are no naval stations on the Southern coasts except one at Pensacola, and he knows almost no one in the South. He has no fortune whatever, his fleet consists of two small river or coasting steamers, without guns, and as he said, in talking over the resources of the South, "My bones will be bleached many a long year before the Confederate States can hope to have a navy." "State Rights!" To us the question is simply inexplicable or absurd. And yet thousands of Americans sacrifice all for it. The river at Savannah is as broad as the Thames at Gravesend, and resembles that stream very much in the color of its waters and the level natures of its sh.o.r.es. Rice-fields bound it on either side, as far down as the influence of the fresh water extends, and the eye wanders over a flat expanse of mud and water and green oziers and rushes, till its search is arrested on the horizon by the unfailing line of forest. In the fields here and there are the whitewashed, square, wooden huts in which the slaves dwell, looking very like the beginnings of the camp in the Crimea. At one point a small fort, covering a creek by which gunboats could get up behind Savannah, displayed its "garrison" on the walls, and lowered its flag to salute the small blue ensign at the fore, which proclaimed the presence of the Commodore of the Naval Forces of Georgia on board our steamer. The guns on the parapet were mostly field-pieces, mounted on frameworks of wood instead of regular carriages. There is no mistake about the spirit of these people. They seize upon every spot of 'vantage ground and prepare it for defence. There were very few s.h.i.+ps in the river; the yacht Camilla, better known as the America, the property of Captain Deasy, and several others of those few sailing under British colors, for most of the cotton s.h.i.+ps are gone. After steaming down the river about twelve miles the sea opened out to the sight, and on a long, marshy, narrow island near the bar, which was marked by the yellowish surf, Fort Pulaski threw out the Confederate flag to the air of the Georgian 1st of May. The water was too shallow to permit the steamer to go up to the jetty, and the party landed at the wharf in boats. A guard was on duty at the landing--tall, stout young fellows, in various uniforms, or in rude mufti, in which the Garibaldian red s.h.i.+rt and felt slouched hats predominated. They were armed with smooth-bore muskets (date 1851), quite new, and their bayonets, barrels and locks were bright and clean.

The officer on duty was dressed in the blue frock-coat dear to the British Linesman in days gone by, with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, emblazoned with the arms of the State, a red silk sash, and glazed kepi, and straw-colored gauntlets. Several wooden huts, with flower-gardens in front, were occupied by the officers of the garrison; others were used as hospitals, and were full of men suffering from measles of a mild type. A few minutes' walk led us to the fort, which is an irregular pentagon, with the base line or curtain face inlands, and the other faces casemated and bearing on the approaches. The curtain, which is simply crenellated, is covered by a Redan surrounded by a deep ditch, inside the parapet of which are granite platforms ready for the reception of guns. The parapet is thick, and the scarp and counterscarp are faced with solid masonry. A drawbridge affords access to the interior of the Redan, whence the gate of the fort is approached across a deep and broad moat, which is crossed by another drawbridge. As the Commodore entered the Redan the guns of the fort broke out into a long salute, and the band at the gate struck up almost as noisy a welcome.

Inside, the parade presented a scene of life and animation very unlike the silence of the city we had left. Men were busy clearing out the casemates, rolling away stores and casks of ammunition and provisions, others were at work at the gin and shears, others building sand-bag traverses to guard the magazine doors, as though expecting an immediate attack. Many officers were strolling under the shade of an open gallery at the side of the curtain which contained their quarters in the lofty bomb-proof casemates. Some of them had seen service in Mexico or border warfare; some had travelled over Italian and Crimean battle-fields; others were West Point graduates of the regular army; others young planters, clerks, or civilians, who rushed with ardor into the First Georgian Regiment. The garrison of the fort is some six hundred and fifty men, and fully that number were in and about the work, their tents being pitched inside the Redan or on the terreplein of the parapets. The walls are exceedingly solid and well built of gray brick, strong as iron, and upward of six feet in thickness, the casemates and bomb-proofs being lofty, airy, and capacious as any I have ever seen, though there is not quite depth enough between the walls at the salient and the gun-carriages. The work is intended for one hundred and twenty-eight guns, of which about one fourth are mounted on the casemates. They are long 32's, with a few 42's, and columbiads. The armaments will be exceeding heavy when all the guns are mounted, and they are fast getting the ten-inch columbiads into position _en barbette_. Everything which could be required, except mortars, was in abundance--the platforms and gun carriages are solid and well made, the embrasures of the casemates are admirably constructed, and the ventilation of the bomb-proof carefully provided for. There are three furnaces for heating red-hot shot. Nor is discipline neglected, and the officers with whom I went round the works were as sharp in tone and manner to their men as volunteers well could be, though the latter often are enlisted for only three years by the State of Georgia. An excellent lunch was spread in the casemated bomb-proof, which served as the Colonel's quarter, and before sunset the party were steaming towards Savannah through a tideway full of leaping sturgeon and porpoises, leaving the garrison intent on the approach of a large s.h.i.+p, which had her sails aback off the bar and hoisted the Stars and Stripes, but which turned out to be nothing more formidable than a Liverpool cotton s.h.i.+p. It will take some hard blows before Georgia is driven to let go her grip of Fort Pulaski. The channel is very narrow, and pa.s.ses close to the guns of the fort. The means of completing the armament have been furnished by the stores of Norfolk Navy Yard, where between seven hundred and eight hundred guns have fallen into the hands of the Confederates; and, if there are no columbiads among them, the Merrimac and other s.h.i.+ps, which have been raised, as we hear, with guns uninjured, will yield up their Dahlgrens to turn their muzzles against their old masters.

MAY 2.--May-day was so well kept yesterday that the exhausted editors cannot "bring out" their papers, and consequently there is no news; but there is, nevertheless, much to be said concerning "Our President's"

Message, and there is a suddenness of admiration for pacific tendencies which can with difficulty be accounted for, unless the news from the North these last few days has something to do with it. Not a word now about an instant march on Was.h.i.+ngton! No more threats to seize on Faneuil Hall! The Georgians are by no means so keen as the Carolinians on their border--nay, they are not so belligerent to-day as they were a week ago. Mr. Jefferson Davis's Message is praised for its "moderation,"

and for other qualities which were by no means in such favor while the Sumter fever was at its height. Men look grave and talk about the interference of England and France, which "cannot allow this thing to go on." But the change which has come over them is unmistakable, and the best men begin to look grave. As for me, I must prepare to open my lines of retreat--my communications are in danger.

LETTER VII.

FACTS AND OPINIONS IN REGARD TO NORTH AND SOUTH.

MONTGOMERY, May 16, 1861.

ALTHOUGH I have written two letters since my arrival at Charleston, I have not been able to give an account of many things which have come under my notice, and which appeared to be noteworthy; and now that I am fairly on my travels once more, it seems only too probable that I shall be obliged to pa.s.s them over altogether. The roaring fire of the revolution is fast sweeping over the prairies, and one must fly before it or burn. I am obliged to see all that can be seen of the South at once, and then, armed with such safeguards as I can procure, to make an effort to recover my communications. Bridges broken, rails torn up, telegraphs pulled down--I am quite in the air, and air charged with powder and fire.

One of the most extraordinary books in the world could be made out of the cuttings and parings of the newspapers which have been published within the last few days. The judgments, statements, a.s.severations of the press, everywhere necessarily hasty, ill-sifted, and off-hand, do not aspire to even an ephemeral existence here. They are of use if they serve the purpose of the moment, and of the little boys who commence their childhood in deceit, and continue to adolescence in iniquity, by giving vocal utterance to the "sensation" headings in the journals they retail so sharply and curtly. Talk of the superst.i.tion of the Middle Ages, or of the credulity of the more advanced periods of rural life; laugh at the Holy Coat of Treves, or groan over the Lady of Salette; deplore the faith in winking pictures, or in a _communique_ of the _Moniteur_; moralize on the superst.i.tion which discovers more in the liquefaction of the ichor of St. Gennaro than a chemical trick; but if you desire to understand how far faith can see and trust among the people who consider themselves the most civilized and intelligent in the world, you will study the American journals, and read the telegrams which appear in them. One day the 7th New York regiment is destroyed for the edification of the South, and is cut up into such small pieces that none of it is ever seen afterward. The next day it marches into Was.h.i.+ngton, or Annapolis, all the better for the process. Another, in order to encourage the North, it is said that hecatombs of dead were carried out of Fort Moultrie, packed up, for easy travelling, in boxes.

Again, to irritate both, it is credibly stated that Lord Lyons is going to interfere, or that an Anglo-French fleet is coming to watch the ports, and so on through a wild play of fancy, inexact in line as though the batteries were charged with the aurora borealis or summer lightning, instead of the respectable, steady, manageable offspring of acid and metal, to whose staid deportment we are accustomed at a moderate price for entrance. As is usual in such periods, the contending parties accuse each other of inveterate falsehood, perfidy, oppression, and local tyranny and persecution. "Madness rules the hour."

It was only a day or two ago I took up a local journal of considerable influence, in which were two paragraphs which struck me as being inexpressibly absurd. In the first it was stated that a gentleman who had expressed strong Southern sentiments in a New York hotel, had been mobbed and thrown into the street, and the writer indulged in some fitting reflections on the horrible persecution which prevailed in New York, and on the atrocity of such tyrannical mob-lawlessness in a civilized community. In another column there was a pleasant little narrative how citizens of Opelika, in Georgia, had waited on a certain person, who was "suspected" of entertaining Northern views, and had deported him on a rustic conveyance, known as a rail, which was considered by the journalist a very creditable exercise of public spirit. Nay, more; in a _naive_ paragraph relative to an attempt to burn the huge hotel of Willard, at Was.h.i.+ngton, in which some hundreds of people were residing, the paper, to account satisfactorily for the attempt, and to a.s.sign some intelligible and laudable motive for it, adds, that he supposes it was intended to burn out the "Border ruffians"

who were lodged there--a reproduction of the excuse of our Anglo-Irish lord, who apologized for setting fire to a cathedral, on the ground that he imagined the Bishop was inside. The exultation of the South when the flag of the United States was lowered at Sumter, has been answered by a shout of indignation and a battle-cry from the North, and the excitement at Charleston has produced a reflex action there, the energy of which cannot be described. The apathy which struck me at New York, when I landed, has been succeeded by violent popular enthusiasm, before which all Laodicean policy has melted into fervent activity. The truth must be, that the New York population did not believe in the strength and unanimity of the South, and that they thought the Union safe, or did not care about it. I can put down the names of gentlemen who expressed the strongest opinions that the Government of the United States had no power to coerce the South, and who have since put down their names and their money to support the Government in the attempt to recover the forts which have been taken. As to the change of opinion in other quarters, which has been effected so rapidly and miraculously, that it has the ludicrous air of a vulgar juggler's trick at a fair, the public regard it so little, that it would be unbecoming to waste a word about it.

I expressed a belief in my first letter, written a few days after my arrival, that the South would never go back into the Union. The North thinks that it can coerce the South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong; but I am convinced that the South can only be forced back by such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can be made by the North, but success must destroy the Union as it has been const.i.tuted in times past.

A strong Government must be the logical consequence of victory, and the triumph of the South will be attended by a similar result, for which, indeed, many Southerners are very well disposed. To the people of the Confederate States there would be no terror in such an issue, for it appears to me they are pining for a strong Government exceedingly. The North must accept it, whether they like it or not. Neither party, if such a term can be applied to the rest of the United States and to those States which disdain the authority of the Federal Government, was prepared for the aggressive or resisting power of the other. Already the Confederate States perceive that they cannot carry all before them with a rush, while the North have learnt that they must put forth all their strength to make good a t.i.the of their lately uttered threats. But the Montgomery Government are now, they say, anxious to gain time, and to prepare a regular army. The North, distracted by apprehensions of vast disturbances in its complicated relations, is clamoring for instant action and speedy consummation. The counsels of the moderate men, as they were called, have been utterly overruled.

I am now, however, dealing with South Carolina, which has been the _fons et origo_ of the Secession doctrines, and their development into the full life of the Confederate States. The whole foundation on which South Carolina rests is cotton and a certain amount of rice, or rather she bases her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in Europe for those products of her soil, believing and a.s.serting, as she does, that England and France cannot and will not do without them. Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter enc.u.mbering the ground. Rice, without demand for it, is unsalable grain in store and on the field.

Cotton at ten cents a pound is boundless prosperity, empire, and superiority, and rice or grain need no longer be regarded. In the matter of slave labor, South Carolina argues pretty much in this way: England and France require our products. In order to meet their wants, we must cultivate our soil. There is only one way of doing so. The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of the year; he cannot work in the manner required by the crops. We must, therefore, employ a race suited to the labor, and that is a race which will only work when it is obliged to do so. That race was imported from Africa, under the sanction of the law, by our ancestors, when we were a British colony, and it has been fostered by us, so that its increase here has been as that of the most nouris.h.i.+ng people in the world. In other places where its labor was not productive, or imperatively essential, that race has been made free, sometimes with disastrous consequences to itself and to industry. But we will not make it free. We cannot do so. We hold that Slavery is essential to our existence as producers of what Europe requires; nay, more, we maintain it is in the abstract right in principle; and some of us go so far as to maintain that the only proper form of society, according to the law of G.o.d and the exigencies of man, is that which has Slavery as its basis. As to the slave, he is happier far in his state of servitude, more civilized and religious than he is or could be if free or in his native Africa.

I have already endeavored to describe the portion of the State through which I travelled, and the aspect of Charleston, and I will now proceed, at the risk of making this letter longer than it should be, to make a few observations on matters which struck me during my visit to one or two of the planters of the many who were kind enough to give me invitations to their residences in the State.

Early one fine morning I started in a coasting steamer to visit a plantation in the Pedee and Maccamaw district, in the Island coast of the State, north of Charleston. The only source of uneasiness in the mind of the party arose from the report that the United States squadron was coming to blockade the port, which would have cut off our line of retreat, and compelled us to make a long detour and a somewhat difficult journey by land, seeing that the roads are mere sand tracts, as the immense number of rivers and creeks offers excuse for not improving the means of land communication. Pa.s.sing Sumter, on which men are busily engaged, under the Confederate flag, in making good damages, and mounting guns, we put out a few miles to sea, and with the low sandy sh.o.r.e, dotted with soldiers, and guard-houses, and clumps of trees, on our left, in a few hours pa.s.s the Santee River, and enter an estuary into which the Pedee and Maccamaw Rivers run a few miles further to the northwest. The arid, barren, pine-covered sand-hills, which form the sh.o.r.es of this estuary, are guarded by rude batteries, mounted with heavy guns, and manned by the State troops, some of whom we can see strolling along the beach, or, with arms glancing in the sunlight, pacing up and down on their posts. On the left hand side there are said to be plantations, the sites of which are marked by belts of trees, and after we had proceeded a few miles from the sea, the steamer ran alongside a jetty and pier, which was crowded by men in uniform, waiting for the news, and for supplies of creature comforts.

Ladies were cantering along the fine hard beach, and some gigs and tax-carts, fully laden, rolled along very much as one sees them at Scarborough. The soldiers on the pier were all gentlemen of the county.

Some, dressed in gray tunics and yellow facings, in high felt hats and plumes, and jack-boots, would have done no discredit in face, figure, and bearing, to the gayest cavaliers who ever thundered at the heels of Prince Rupert. Their horses, full of Carolinian fire and metal, stood picketed under the trees along the margin of the beach. Among these men, who had been doing the duty of common troopers in patrolling the sea-coast, were gentlemen possessed of large estates and princely fortunes; and one who stood among them was pointed out to me as captain of a company for whose uses his liberality provided unbounded daily libations of champagne, and the best luxuries which French ingenuity can safely imprison in those well-known caskets, with which Crimean warriors were not unacquainted at the close of the campaign. They were eager for news, which was shouted out to them by their friends in the steamer, and one was struck by the intimate personal cordiality and familiar acquaintance which existed among them. Three heavy guns, mounted in an earthwork, defended by palisades, covered the beach and landing-place, and the garrison was to have been reenforced by a regiment from Charleston, which, however, had not got in readiness to go up on our steamer, owing to some little difficulties between the Volunteers, their officers, and the Quartermaster-general's department.

I mention these particulars to give an idea of the state of defence in which South Carolina holds itself, for, unless Georgetown, which lies at the head of this inlet, could be considered an object of attack, one seeks in vain for any reason to induce an enemy to make his appearance in this direction. A march on Charleston by land would be an operation of extreme difficulty, through a series of sand-hills, alternating with marshes, water-course, rivers, and flooded rice-fields. As to Georgetown, which we have now reached, nothing can be said by way of description more descriptive than the remark of its inhabitants, that it was a finished town a hundred years ago. It is a dosy, sleepy, sandy, lifeless, straggling village, with wooden houses drawn up in right lines on the margins of great, straight, gra.s.s-grown pathways, lined with trees, and known to the natives as streets.

As the Nina approaches the tumble-down wharf, two or three citizens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to receive the pa.s.sengers, while the negro boys and girls, who have been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding positions for the better observation of our proceedings. One or two small yachts and coasting schooners are moored by the banks of the broad, full stream, the waters of which we had previously crossed in our journey from the dismal swamp.

There is an air of quaint simplicity and old-fas.h.i.+oned quiet about Georgetown, refres.h.i.+ngly antagonistic to the bustle and tumult of most American cities, and one can, without much stretch of imagination, fancy the old loyal burghers in c.o.c.ked hats, small-swords, and long, square-cut sober suits, stalking solemnly down its streets, rejoicing in the progress of the city which recalled the name of the King and the old country, or hastening down to the river's side to hear the tidings brought from home by the Bristol bark that has just anch.o.r.ed in the stream. Instead thereof, however, there are the tall, square forms of eager citizens bowed over their newspapers in the shade before the bar-room, or the shuffling negro delighting in the suns.h.i.+ne, and kicking up the dust in the centre of the road as he goes on his errand.

While waiting for our vehicle, we enjoyed the hospitality of one of our friends, who took us into an old-fas.h.i.+oned angular wooden mansion, more than a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in its quaint wainscotings and the rigid framework of door and window, to the durability of its cypress timbers, and the preservative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was the crack house of the old settlement, and the residence of the founder of the female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it his halting-place when pa.s.sing to and fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose trees and flowering shrubs cl.u.s.tered before the porch, and filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty years ago.

At length we were ready for our journey, and, mounted in two light covered vehicles, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, led us to a cut, deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only broken by the cry of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, the boom of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For miles we pa.s.sed through the shades of this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome as we pa.s.sed. Not more than twice in a drive of two hours did we come upon any settlement or get a view of any white man's plantation, and then it was only when we had emerged from the wood and got out upon the broad, brown plains, where bunds, and water-d.y.k.es, and machinery for regulating the flooding of the lake indicated the scenes of labor. These settlements consisted of rows of some ten or twelve quadrangular wooden sheds, supported upon bricks, so as to allow the air, the children, and the chickens to play beneath; sometimes with brickwork chimneys at the side, occasionally with ruder contrivances of mud and woodwork to serve the same purpose.

Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and pa.s.sengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the ferryboats of Switzerland, ready for our reception. Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a fine grove of pine and live oak, which melts away into a shrubbery, guarded by a rustic gateway, pa.s.sing through which we are brought by a sudden turn into the planter's house, buried in trees, which dispute with the green sward, and with wild flower beds, every yard of the s.p.a.ce which lies between the hall-door and the waters of the Pedee; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields, just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice crops, marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown gliding, as it were, through the fields, indicate the existence of another navigable river still beyond.

Leaving with regret the veranda which commanded so enchanting a foreground of flowers, rare shrubbery, and bearded live oaks, with each graceful sylvan outline distinctly penciled upon the waters of the river, we enter the house, and are reminded by its low-browed, old-fas.h.i.+oned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ireland or the Scottish border, with additions made by the luxury and love of foreign travel of more than one generation of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy ill.u.s.trate the walls in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early Colonial Governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, of which Copley has left us too few exemplars, and one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An excellent library, filled with collections of French and English cla.s.sics, and with those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the Memoires pour Servir, books of travel and history, such as delighted our forefathers in the last century, and many works of American and general history, afford ample occupation for a rainy day. But alas! these, and all good things which the house affords, can be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on their shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity 'tis 'tis true, the old Madeira, garnered 'neath the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the full moon enhances, while softening, the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of hundreds of mocking-birds fills the grove.

Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be only found among the descendants of an ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, learned the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial ere the demon of odium had dried up their generous sources for ever. To these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the gallette, compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious b.u.t.ter and fruits, all good of their kind. What more is needed for one who agrees with Mr.

Disraeli in thinking bread and wine man's two first luxuries and his best? And is there anything bitter rising up from the bottom of the social bowl? My black friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries, and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night, when we retire, off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negrohood, which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his slaves.

But I have seen within the short time that I have been here in this part of the world several dreadful accounts of the murder and violence in which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something suspicious in the constant, never-ending statement, that "We are not afraid of our slaves." The curfew and the night patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations prove that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so with him.

These people are fed by their master. They have upward of half a pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry, and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master.

He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and mola.s.ses for the deserving. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield plentifully, for the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in, whenever the planters require it, by means of floodgates and small ca.n.a.ls, through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.

LETTER VIII.

FACTS AND OPINIONS AT THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL.

MONTGOMERY, CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES } OF AMERICA, May 8, 1861. }

IN my last letter I gave an account of such matters as pa.s.sed under my notice on my way to this city, which I reached, as you are aware, on the night of Sat.u.r.day, May 4. I am on difficult ground, the land is on fire, the earth is shaking with the tramp of armed men, and the very air is hot with pa.s.sion. My communications are cut off, or are at best accidental, and in order to re-open them I must get further away from them, paradoxical as the statement may appear to be. It is impossible to know what is going on in the North, and it is almost the same to learn what is doing in the South out of eyeshot; it is useless to inquire what news is sent to you to England. Events hurry on with tremendous rapidity, and even the lightning lags behind them. The people of the South at last are aware that the "Yankees" are preparing to support the Government of the United States, and that the Secession can only be maintained by victory in the field. There has been a change in their war policy. They now aver that "they only want to be let alone," and they declare that they do not intend to take Was.h.i.+ngton, and that it was merely as a feint they spoke about it. The fact is, there are even in the compact and united South men of moderate and men of extreme views, and the general tone of the whole is regulated by the preponderance of one or other at the moment. I have no doubt on my mind that the Government here intended to attack and occupy Was.h.i.+ngton--not the least that they had it much at heart to reduce Fort Pickens as soon as possible. Now some of their friends say that it will be a mere matter of convenience whether they attack Was.h.i.+ngton or not, and that, as for Fort Pickens, they will certainly let it alone, at all events for the present, inasmuch as the menacing att.i.tude of General Bragg obliges the enemy to keep a squadron of their best s.h.i.+ps there, and to retain a force of regulars they can ill spare, in a position where they must lose enormously from diseases incidental to the climate. They have discovered, too, that the position is of little value so long as the United States hold Tortugas and Key West. But the Confederates are preparing for the conflict, and when they have organized their forces, they will make, I am satisfied, a very resolute advance all along the line. They are at present strong enough, they suppose, in their domestic resources, and in the difficulties presented to a hostile force by the nature of the country, to bid defiance to invasion, or, at all events, to inflict a very severe chastis.e.m.e.nt on the invaders, and their excited manner of speech so acts upon the minds that they begin to think they can defy, not merely the United States, but the world. Thus it is that they declare they never can be conquered, that they will die to a man, woman, and child first, and that if fifty thousand, or any number of thousands of Black Republicans get one hundred miles into Virginia, not one man of them shall ever get out alive. Behind all this talk, however, there is immense energy, great resolution, and fixed principles of action. Their strategy consists in keeping quiet till they have their troops well in hand, in such numbers and discipline as shall give them fair grounds for expecting success in any campaign with the United States troops. They are preparing with vigor to render the descent of the Mississippi impossible, by erecting batteries on the commanding levees or embankments which hem in its waters for upward of eight hundred miles of bank, and they are occupying, as far as they can, all the strategical points of attack or defence within their borders. When everything is ready, it is not improbable that Mr. Jefferson Davis will take command of the army, for he is reported to have a high ambition to acquire reputation as a general, and in virtue of his office he is Generalissimo of the Armies of the Confederate States. It will be remarked that this plan rests on the a.s.sumption that the United States cannot or will not wage an offensive war, or obtain any success in their attempts to recover the forts and other property of the Federal Government. They firmly believe the war will not last a year, and that 1862 will behold a victorious, compact, slave-holding Confederate power of fifteen States under a strong government, prepared to hold its own against the world, or that portion of it which may attack it. I now but repeat the sentiments and expectations of those around me. They believe in the irresistible power of cotton, in the natural alliance between manufacturing England and France and the cotton producing Slave States, in the force of their simple tariff, and in the interest which arise out of a system of free-trade, which, however, by a rigorous legislation they will interdict to their neighbors in the Free States, and only open for the benefit of their foreign customers. Commercially, and politically, and militarily, they have made up their minds, and never was there such confidence exhibited by any people in the future as they have, or pretended to have, in their destiny. Listen to their programme.

It is intended to buy up all the cotton crop which can be brought into the market at an average price, and to give bonds of the Confederate States for the amount, these bonds being, as we know, secured by the export duty on cotton. The Government, with this cotton crop in its own hands, will use it as a formidable machine of war, for cotton can do anything, from the establishment of an empire to the securing of a s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.ton. It is at once king and subject, master and servant, captain and soldier, artilleryman and gun. Not one bale of cotton will be permitted to enter the Northern States. It will be made an offence punishable with tremendous penalties, among which confiscation of property, enormous fines, and even the penalty of death, are enumerated, to send cotton into the Free States. Thus Lowell and its kindred factories will be reduced to ruin, it is said, and the North to the direst distress. If Manchester can get cotton and Lowell cannot, there are good times coming for the mill-owners.