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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
In the summer of 1865, and in the following winter, I made two visits to the South, spending four months in eight of the principal States which had lately been in rebellion. I saw the most noted battle-fields of the war. I made acquaintance with officers and soldiers of both sides. I followed in the track of the destroying armies. I travelled by railroad, by steamboat, by stage-coach, and by private conveyance; meeting and conversing with all sorts of people, from high State officials to “low-do
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CHAPTER I. THE START.
CHAPTER I. THE START.
In the month of August, 1865, I set out to visit some of the scenes of the great conflict through which the country had lately passed. On the twelfth I reached Harrisburg,—a plain, prosaic town of brick and wood, with nothing especially attractive about it except its broad-sheeted, shining river, flowing down from the Blue Ridge, around wooded islands, and between pleasant shores. It is in this region that the traveller from the North first meets with indications of recent actual war. The Susque
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CHAPTER II. THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG.
CHAPTER II. THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG.
A mile south of the town is Cemetery Hill, the head and front of an important ridge, running two miles farther south to Round Top,—the ridge held by General Meade’s army during the great battles. The Rebels attacked on three sides,—on the west, on the north, and on the east; breaking their forces in vain upon this tremendous wedge, of which Cemetery Hill may be considered the point. A portion of Ewell’s Corps had passed through the town several days before, and neglected to secure that very comm
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CHAPTER III. A REMINISCENCE OF CHAMBERSBURG.
CHAPTER III. A REMINISCENCE OF CHAMBERSBURG.
Friday afternoon, August 18th, I left Gettysburg for Chambersburg, by stage, over a rough turnpike, which had been broken to pieces by Lee’s artillery and army wagons two years before, and had not since been repaired. We traversed a sleepy-looking wheat and corn country, so little stir was there, so few signs of life and enterprise were visible. Crossing the Blue Ridge, we passed through a more busy land later in the day, and entered the pleasant suburbs of Chambersburg at sunset. The few scatte
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CHAPTER IV. SOUTH MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER IV. SOUTH MOUNTAIN.
The next day I took the cars for Hagerstown; passed Sunday in that slow and ancient burg; and early on Monday morning set out by stage for Boonsboro’. Our course lay down the valley of the Antietam. We crossed the stream at Funk’s Town, a little over two miles from Hagerstown. “Stop at two miles and you won’t be here,” said the driver. The morning was fine; the air fresh and inspiring; and the fact that the country through which we passed had been fought over repeatedly during the war, added int
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CHAPTER V. THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM.
CHAPTER V. THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM.
At seven o’clock the next morning, light and jaunty Lewy Smith was snapping his whip again at the tavern-door; and I was soon riding out of the village by his side. Our course lay along the line of the Rebel retreat and of the advance of the right wing of our army. A pleasant road, under the edge of woods still wet with recent rain, brought us to Keedysville, a little cluster of brick and log houses, all of which, Lewy told me, were turned into hospitals after the great battle. At the farther en
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CHAPTER VI. DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER’S FERRY.
CHAPTER VI. DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER’S FERRY.
Sharpsburg is not a promising place to spend the night in, and I determined to leave it that evening. In search of a private conveyance, I entered a confectioner’s shop, and asked a young lady behind the counter if she knew any person who would take me to Harper’s Ferry. “Yes; Mr. Bennerhalls,” she replied; “I reckon ye can get him.” She gave me particular directions for finding his house, and I went up one of the broken pavements “fanged with murderous stones,” in search of him. To my surprise
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CHAPTER VII. AROUND HARPER’S FERRY.
CHAPTER VII. AROUND HARPER’S FERRY.
At Harper’s Ferry the Potomac and Shenandoah unite their waters and flow through an enormous gap in the Blue Ridge. The angle of land thus formed is a sort of promontory; around the base of which, just where the rivers meet, the curious little old town is built. Higher up the promontory lie Bolivar Heights. On the north, just across the Potomac from the Ferry, rise Maryland Heights; while on the east, across the Shenandoah, are Loudon Heights, an equally precipitous and lofty crag. With sublime
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CHAPTER VIII. A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN.
CHAPTER VIII. A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN.
One morning I took the train up the Valley to Charlestown, distant from Harper’s Ferry eight miles. The railroad was still in the hands of the government. There were military guards on the platforms, and about an equal mixture of Loyalists and Rebels within the cars. Furloughed soldiers, returning to their regiments at Winchester or Staunton, occupied seats with Confederate officers just out of their uniforms. The strong, dark, defiant, self-satisfied face typical of the second-rate “chivalry,”
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CHAPTER IX. A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
CHAPTER IX. A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
Late in the evening of the twenty-ninth of August I reached Washington. Nearly every reader, I suppose, is familiar with descriptions of the national capital;—its superb situation on the left bank of the Potomac; the broad streets, the still more spacious avenues crossing them diagonally, and the sweeping undulations of the plain on which it is built, giving to the city its “magnificent distances”; and those grand public buildings of which any country might be proud,—the Capitol especially, with
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CHAPTER X. BULL RUN.
CHAPTER X. BULL RUN.
Taking the train at Washington, and crossing the long railroad bridge which spans the Potomac, I entered again a portion of Virginia rendered celebrated and desolate by war. Running down to Alexandria, and making a short stop there, we rattled on towards Manassas. All the names throughout that region are historical, stamped and re-stamped upon the memory of America by the burning brand of war. The brakeman bawls in at the door of the car words which start you with a thrill of recollection. The m
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CHAPTER XI. A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON.
CHAPTER XI. A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON.
On a day of exceeding sultriness (it was the fourth of September) I left the dusty, stifled streets of Washington, and went on board the excursion steamer Wawaset, bound for Mount Vernon. Ten o’clock, the hour of starting, had nearly arrived. No breath of air was stirring. The sun beat down with torrid fervor upon the boat’s awnings, which seemed scarce a protection against it, and upon the glassy water, which reflected it with equal intensity from below. Then suddenly the bell rang, the boat sw
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CHAPTER XII. “STATE PRIDE.”
CHAPTER XII. “STATE PRIDE.”
Leaving Washington by steamer again, early on the morning of the twelfth of September, a breezy sail of three hours down the Potomac brought us to Acquia Creek. The creek was still there, debouching broad and placid into the river, for, luckily, destroying armies cannot consume the everlasting streams. The forests, which densely covered all that region before the war, had been cut away. Not a building of any kind was to be seen; and only the blackened ruins of half-burnt wharves, extending out i
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CHAPTER XIII. THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG.
Fredericksburg stands upon a ridge on the right bank of the river. Behind the town is a plain, with a still more elevated ridge beyond. From the summit of the last you obtain an excellent view of the battle-field; the plain below the town where Hooker fought; the heights on the opposite side of the river manned by our batteries; the fields on the left; and the plain between the ridge and the town, where the frightfullest slaughter was. Along by the foot of the crest, just where it slopes off to
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CHAPTER XIV. TO CHANCELLORSVILLE.
CHAPTER XIV. TO CHANCELLORSVILLE.
In conversation with my Rebel acquaintance at the Marye House, I had learned that his friend “’Lijah” sometimes conveyed travellers over the more distant battle-fields. Him, therefore, I sent to engage with his horse and buggy for the following day. Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning, when, as I chanced to look from my hotel-window, I saw a thin-faced countryman drive up to the door in an old one-horse wagon with two seats, and a box half filled with corn-stalks. I was admiring the ana
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CHAPTER XV. THE WILDERNESS.
CHAPTER XV. THE WILDERNESS.
The Battle of Bull Run in 1861, Pope’s campaign, and Burnside’s defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, and, lastly, Hooker’s unsuccessful attempt at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863, had shown how hard a road to Richmond this was to travel. Repeatedly, as we tried it and failed, the hopes of the Confederacy rose exultant; the heart of the North sank as often, heavy with despair. McClellan’s Peninsular route had resulted still more fatally. We all remember the anguish and anxiety of those days.
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CHAPTER XVI. SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE.
CHAPTER XVI. SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE.
Elijah wished to drive me the next day to Spottsylvania Court-House, and, as an inducement for me to employ him, promised to tackle up his mare. He also proposed various devices for softening the seats of his wagon. No ingenuity of plan, however, sufficed to cajole me. There was a livery-stable in Fredericksburg, and I had conceived a strong prejudice in its favor. The next morning, accordingly, there might have been seen wheeling up to the tavern-door a shining vehicle,—a bran-new buggy with th
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CHAPTER XVII. THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER XVII. THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA.
I walked on to the tavern where Richard H. Hicks was baiting his horse. The landlord took me to a lumber-room where he kept, carefully locked up, a very remarkable curiosity. It was the stump of a tree, eleven inches in diameter, which had been cut off by bullets—not by cannon-shot, but by leaden bullets—in the Spottsylvania fight. It looked like a colossal scrub-broom. “I had a stump twice as big as this, cut off by bullets in the same way, only much smoother; but some Federal officers took it
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CHAPTER XVIII. “ON TO RICHMOND.”
CHAPTER XVIII. “ON TO RICHMOND.”
At mid-day, on the fifteenth of September, I took the train at Fredericksburg for Richmond, expecting to make in three hours the journey which our armies were more than as many years in accomplishing. “On to Richmond! On to Richmond!” clattered the cars; while my mind recalled the horrors and anxieties of those years, so strangely in contrast with the swiftness and safety of our present speed. Where now were the opposing Rebel hosts? Where the long lines of bristling musketry, the swarms of cava
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CHAPTER XIX. THE BURNT DISTRICT.
CHAPTER XIX. THE BURNT DISTRICT.
Again that morning I visited the burnt district, of which I had taken but a cursory view the evening before. All up and down, as far as the eye could reach, the business portion of the city bordering on the river lay in ruins. Beds of cinders, cellars half filled with bricks and rubbish, broken and blackened walls, impassable streets deluged with débris , here a granite front still standing, and there the iron fragments of crushed machinery,—such was the scene which extended over thirty entire s
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CHAPTER XX. LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE.
CHAPTER XX. LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE.
Strolling along a street near the river, below the burnt district, I looked up from the dirty pavements, and from the little ink-colored stream creeping along the gutter, (for Richmond abounds in these villanous rills,) and saw before me a sign nailed to the corner of a large, gloomy brick building, and bearing in great black letters the inscription,— Passing the sentinel at the door, I entered. The ground-floor was partitioned off into offices and store-rooms, and presented few objects of inter
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CHAPTER XXI. FEEDING THE DESTITUTE.
CHAPTER XXI. FEEDING THE DESTITUTE.
As I was passing Castle Thunder, I observed, besieging the doors of the United States Commissary, on the opposite side of the street, a hungry-looking, haggard crowd,—sickly-faced women, jaundiced old men, and children in rags; with here and there a seedy gentleman who had seen better days, or a stately female in faded apparel, which, like her refined manners, betrayed the aristocratic lady whom the war had reduced to want. These were the destitute of the city, thronging to receive alms from the
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CHAPTER XXII. THE UNION MEN OF RICHMOND.
CHAPTER XXII. THE UNION MEN OF RICHMOND.
At the tent of the Union Commission, pitched near a fountain on Capitol Square, I met a quiet little man in laborer’s clothes, whom the agent introduced to me as “Mr. H——,” adding, “There were two votes cast against the ordinance of secession in this city: one of those votes was cast by Mr. H——. He is one of the twenty-one Union men of Richmond.” He looked to be near fifty years of age; but he told me he was only thirty-two. “I’ve been through such things as make a man look old!” He showed me hi
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CHAPTER XXIII. MARKETS AND FARMING.
CHAPTER XXIII. MARKETS AND FARMING.
The negro population of Richmond gives to its streets a peculiarly picturesque and animated appearance. Colored faces predominate; but of these not more than one in five or six shows unmixed African blood; and you are reminded less of an American city than of some town of Southern Europe. More than once I could have fancied myself in Naples, but that I looked in vain for the crowds of importunate beggars, and the dark-skinned lazzaroni lying all day in the sunshine on the street corners. I saw n
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CHAPTER XXIV. IN AND AROUND RICHMOND.
CHAPTER XXIV. IN AND AROUND RICHMOND.
If temples are a token of godliness, Richmond should be a holy city. It has great pride in its churches; two of which are noteworthy. The first is St. John’s Church, on Church Hill,—a large, square-looking wooden meeting-house, whose ancient walls and rafters once witnessed a famous scene, and reëchoed words that have become historical. Here was delivered Patrick Henry’s celebrated speech, since spouted by every schoolboy,—“Give me liberty or give me death!” Those shining sentences still hang li
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CHAPTER XXV. PEOPLE AND POLITICS.
CHAPTER XXV. PEOPLE AND POLITICS.
One day I dined at the house of a Union man of a different stamp from the twenty-one I have mentioned. He was one of the wealthy citizens of Richmond,—a man of timid disposition and conservative views, who had managed admirably to conceal his Union sentiments during the war. He had been on excellent terms with Jeff Davis and members of his cabinet; and he was now on excellent terms with the United States authorities. A prudent citizen, not wanting in kindness of heart; yet he could say of the Em
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CHAPTER XXVI. FORTIFICATIONS.—DUTCH GAP.—FAIR OAKS.
CHAPTER XXVI. FORTIFICATIONS.—DUTCH GAP.—FAIR OAKS.
At nine o’clock one fine morning, Major K——, the young Judge-Advocate of the Department of Virginia, called for me by appointment, accompanied by an orderly bringing a tall war-horse General Terry was so kind as to furnish for my use. I was soon mounted, and riding out of the city by the Major’s side,—down the long, hilly street, past the Rocketts, by the left bank of the river, taking the New-Market Road. First we came to a circle of detached forts surrounding the city; a few minutes’ ride fart
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CHAPTER XXVII. IN AND ABOUT PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXVII. IN AND ABOUT PETERSBURG.
On Wednesday, September 27th, I left Richmond for Petersburg. The railroad bridge having been burned, I crossed the river in a coach, and took the cars at Manchester. A ride of twenty miles through tracts of weeds and undergrowth, pine barrens and oaken woods, passing occasionally a dreary-looking house and field of “sorry” corn, brought us within sight of the “Cockade City.” [2] It was evening when I arrived. Having a letter from Governor Pierpoint to a prominent citizen, I sallied out by moonl
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CHAPTER XXVIII. JAMES RIVER AND FORTRESS MONROE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. JAMES RIVER AND FORTRESS MONROE.
The next day I proceeded to City Point by railroad,—riding in an old patched-up car marked outside “ U. S. Military R. R. ,” and furnished inside with pine benches for seats and boards nailed up in place of windows. There was nothing of interest on the road, which passed through a region of stumps and undergrowth, with scarce an inhabitant, save the few negro families that had taken up their abode in abandoned army huts. City Point itself was no less dull. Built on high and rolling ground, at th
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CHAPTER XXIX. ABOUT HAMPTON.
CHAPTER XXIX. ABOUT HAMPTON.
As it was my intention to visit some of the freedmen’s settlements in the vicinity, the General kindly placed a horse at my disposal, and I took leave of him. A short gallop brought me to the village of Hampton, distant from the Fortress something over two miles. “The village of Hampton,” says a copy of the “Richmond Examiner” for 1861, “is beautifully situated on an arm of the sea setting in from the adjacent roadstead which bears its name. The late census showed that the aggregate white and bl
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CHAPTER XXX. A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA.
CHAPTER XXX. A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA.
Called home from Fortress Monroe by an affair of business requiring my attention, I resumed my Southern tour later in the fall, passing through Central and South-western Virginia, and returning from the Carolinas through Eastern Virginia in the following February. I am warned by a want of space to omit the details of these transient journeys, and to compress my remaining notes on the State into as narrow a compass as possible. [5] Virginia was long a synonym for beauty and fertility. In the rich
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CHAPTER XXXI. THE “SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA.”
CHAPTER XXXI. THE “SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA.”
From the grassy hills and vales of Southwest Virginia, I passed over by railroad into East Tennessee. At first sight, the “Switzerland of America” is apt, I think, to disappoint one. It is a country of pleasant hills, bounded and broken into by mountains which do not remind you of the Alps. The cottages of the inhabitants lack the picturesque element. A few first-class farmers have comfortable-looking painted or brick houses; while scattered everywhere over the country are poverty-stricken, weat
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CHAPTER XXXII. EAST TENNESSEE FARMERS.
CHAPTER XXXII. EAST TENNESSEE FARMERS.
I found the East Tennesseeans a plain, honest, industrious, old-fashioned people. Only about four out of five can read and write. Men of the North and West would consider them slow. They are dressed, almost without exception, in coarse, strong “domestic,” as the home-manufactured cloth of the country is called. It is woven on hand-looms, which are to be found in nearly every farm-house. Domestic is, in fact, an institution, not of Tennessee alone, but of the entire Southern country. In the absen
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CHAPTER XXXIII. IN AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA.
CHAPTER XXXIII. IN AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA.
Two hundred and fifty miles from Knoxville, lying within a coil of the serpentine Tennessee, on its south bank, surrounded by mountains, is the town of Chattanooga. Here the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad connects with the Nashville and Chattanooga, and with the Western and Atlantic, making the place an important centre of railroad communications. The river is navigable for steamboats during eight months of the year. Here are shipped the principal exports of East Tennessee and of Southern
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CHAPTER XXXIV. LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER XXXIV. LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
The next morning General Gillem, in command at Chattanooga, supplied me with a horse, and gave me his orderly for an attendant, and I set out to make the ascent of Lookout Mountain. Riding out southward on one of the valley roads, we had hardly crossed Chattanooga Creek before we missed our way. Fortunately we overtook a farmer and his son, who set us right. They were laboring over the base of the mountain with a wagon drawn by a pair of animals that appeared to have been mated by some whimsical
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CHAPTER XXXV. THE SOLDIERS’ CEMETERY.
CHAPTER XXXV. THE SOLDIERS’ CEMETERY.
A mile and a quarter southeast from the town is the National Cemetery of Chattanooga. An area of seventy-five acres has there been set apart by the military authorities for the burial of the soldiers who died in hospitals or fell on battle-fields in that region renowned for sanguinary conflicts. It occupies a hill which seems to have been shaped by Providence for this purpose: its general form is circular, and it rises with undulations, showing a beautiful variety of curves and slopes, to a supe
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CHAPTER XXXVI. MISSION RIDGE AND CHICKAMAUGA.
CHAPTER XXXVI. MISSION RIDGE AND CHICKAMAUGA.
Accordingly, one cloudy December morning the chaplain, accompanied by two ladies of his household, took me up at my hotel, and drove us out of Chattanooga on the Rossville Road. Leaving the open valley behind us we crossed a bushy plain, and passed through a clump of oaken woods. Before us, on the east, rose Missionary Ridge, forest-covered, its steep sides all russet-hued with fallen leaves, visible through the naked brown trees. The chaplain who witnessed the scene, described to us the stormin
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CHAPTER XXXVII. FROM CHATTANOOGA TO MURFREESBORO’.
CHAPTER XXXVII. FROM CHATTANOOGA TO MURFREESBORO’.
The military operations, of which Chattanooga was so long the centre, have left their mark upon all the surrounding country. Travel which way you will, you are sure to follow in their track. There are fortifications at every commanding point. Every railroad bridge is defended by redoubts and block-houses; and many important bridges have been burned. The entire route to Atlanta is a scene of conflict and desolation: earthworks, like the foot-prints of a Titan on the march; rifle-pits extending fo
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. STONE RIVER.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. STONE RIVER.
After breakfast in a large dining-room which no fuel could heat, we went and stood by the hearth, turning ourselves on our heels, as the earth turns on its axis, warming a hemisphere at a time, until the wintry condition of our bodies gave place to a feeling of spring, half sunshine and half chill; then we clapped on our overcoats and mufflers; then two powerful war-horses of the General’s came prancing to the door, ready bridled and saddled; and we mounted. A vigorous gallop across the outskirt
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CHAPTER XXXIX. THE HEART OF TENNESSEE.
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE HEART OF TENNESSEE.
Having spent the remainder of the forenoon in riding over other portions of the field, we returned to Murfreesboro’; and at half-past three o’clock I took the train for Nashville. At Nashville I remained four days,—four eminently disagreeable days of snow, and rain, and fog, and slush, and mud. Yet I formed a not unfavorable impression of the city. I could feel the influence of Northern ideas and enterprise pulsating through it. Its population, which was less than twenty-four thousand at the las
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CHAPTER XL. BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH.
CHAPTER XL. BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH.
I left Nashville for Decatur on a morning of dismal rain The cars were crowded and uncomfortable, with many passengers standing. The railroad was sadly short of rolling-stock, having (like most Southern roads) only such as happened to be on it when it was turned over to the directors by the government. It owned but three first-class cars, only one of which we had with us. The rest of the passenger train was composed of box-cars supplied with rude seats. We passed the forts of the city; passed th
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CHAPTER XLI. ON HORSEBACK FROM CORINTH.
CHAPTER XLI. ON HORSEBACK FROM CORINTH.
Mounting a sober little iron-gray, I cantered out of Corinth, in a northeasterly direction, past the angles of an old fort overgrown with weeds, and entered the solitary wooded country beyond. A short ride brought me to a broken bridge, hanging its shaky rim over a stream breast-high to my horse. I paused on its brink, dubious; until I saw two ladies, coming to town on horseback to do their shopping (the fashion of the country), rein boldly down the muddy bank, gather their skirts together, hold
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CHAPTER XLII. ZEEK.
CHAPTER XLII. ZEEK.
“Didn’t I see your horse tied to Old Lee’s gate?” said Zeek. And that led to a discussion of the old hero’s character. “Is he a Union man?” “I kain’t say; but that’s the story they tell on him. One of the men he killed was one of our neighbors; a man we used to consider right respectable; but he tuke to thieving during the wa’, and got to be of no account. That was the way with a many I know. You may stop at a house now whur they’ll steal your horse, and like as not rob and murder ye.” Zeek told
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CHAPTER XLIII. ZEEK’S FAMILY.
CHAPTER XLIII. ZEEK’S FAMILY.
“Alight!” said Zeek, dismounting at the gate. I remonstrated against leaving the animals uncovered in the cold, but he said it was the way people did in that country; and it was not until an hour later that he found it convenient to give them shelter and food. We were met inside the gate by a sister of the young man’s, a girl of fifteen, in a native Bloomer dress that fell just below the knees. As I entered the space between the two divisions of the house, I noticed that doors on both sides were
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CHAPTER XLIV. A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE
CHAPTER XLIV. A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE
We went into the house, and gathered around the sitting-room fire for a social evening’s talk. As it grew dark, the doors were closed, and we sat in the beautiful firelight. And now I learned a fact, and formed a theory, concerning doors. The fact was this: not a door on the premises had either lock or bolt. Mule-pen, meat-house, and both divisions of the dwelling-house, were left every night without other fastening than the rude wooden latches of the country. This was a very common practice amo
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CHAPTER XLV. THE FIELD OF SHILOH.
CHAPTER XLV. THE FIELD OF SHILOH.
Daylight next morning shone in through the chinks of the bridal chamber (for window it had none), and I awoke refreshed, after sound sleep. The dawn was enlivened by pleasing old-time sounds,—the farmer chopping wood at the door, crowing cocks, gossiping geese, and the new-made fire snapping and crackling in the next room. The morning was very cold. The earth was covered with white frost, like snow. We had breakfast at the usual hour. “Farmers commonly get their breakfases by sun-up,” said mine
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CHAPTER XLVI. WAITING FOR THE TRAIN AT MIDNIGHT.
CHAPTER XLVI. WAITING FOR THE TRAIN AT MIDNIGHT.
Stopping occasionally to talk with the people along the road, and dining at a farm-house, I did not reach Corinth until sunset. The first thing I noticed, in passing the fortifications, was that the huts of the negro garrison were dismantled; and I found the citizens rejoicing over the removal of the troops. I returned to Mr. M——’s house, and was welcomed by Mrs. M——, who seemed almost to have forgotten that I was not only a Yankee, but a “bad Yankee” from Massachusetts. And here I may remark th
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CHAPTER XLVII. FROM CORINTH TO MEMPHIS.
CHAPTER XLVII. FROM CORINTH TO MEMPHIS.
At daylight we were running through the level lower counties of West Tennessee. This is by far the most fertile division of the State. Its soil is a rich black mould, adapted to the culture of cotton, tobacco, and grains, which are produced in great abundance. Occasionally in the dim dawn, and later in the forenoon, we passed out-door fires about which homeless negroes had passed the night, and around which they still sat or stood, in wretched plight, but picturesque and cheerful,—old men and wo
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CHAPTER XLVIII. FREEDMEN’S SCHOOLS AND THE FREEDMEN’S BUREAU.
CHAPTER XLVIII. FREEDMEN’S SCHOOLS AND THE FREEDMEN’S BUREAU.
By a census taken in June, 1865, there were shown to be 16,509 freedmen in Memphis. Of this number 220 were indigent persons, maintained, not by the city or the Bureau, but by the freed people themselves. During the past three years, colored benevolent societies in Memphis had contributed five thousand dollars towards the support of their own poor. There were three thousand pupils in the freedmen’s schools. The teachers for these were furnished, here as elsewhere, chiefly by benevolent societies
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CHAPTER XLIX. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER XLIX. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.
At Memphis I took passage in a first-class Mississippi steam-packet for Vicksburg. It was evening when I went on board. The extensive saloon, with its long array of state-rooms on each side, its ornamental gilt ceiling, and series of dazzling chandeliers, was a brilliant spectacle. A corps of light-footed and swift-handed colored waiters were setting the tables,—bringing in baskets of table-cloths, and spreading them; immense baskets of crockery, and distributing it; and trays of silver, which a
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CHAPTER L. IN AND ABOUT VICKSBURG.
CHAPTER L. IN AND ABOUT VICKSBURG.
On the afternoon of the third day we came in sight of Vicksburg,—four hundred miles from Memphis by water, although not more than half that distance in a straight line, so voluminous are the coils of the Great River. The town, seen across the intervening tongue of land as we approached it,—situated on a high bluff, with the sunlight on its hills and roofs and fortifications,—was a fine sight. It diverted my attention, so that I looked in vain for the famous canal cut across the tongue of land, w
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CHAPTER LI. FREE LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER LI. FREE LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI.
Colonel Thomas, Assistant-Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau for the State of Mississippi, stationed at Vicksburg, gave the negroes more credit for industry than they gave each other. In the large towns, to which vagrancy naturally gravitates, one in four was probably a fair estimate of the proportion of colored people unable or unwilling to earn an honest livelihood. “But I am confident,” said the Colonel, “there is no more industrious class of people anywhere than the freedmen who have litt
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CHAPTER LII. A RECONSTRUCTED STATE.
CHAPTER LII. A RECONSTRUCTED STATE.
It seemed impossible for the people of Mississippi—and the same may be said of the Southern people generally—to understand the first principle of the free-labor system. Their notions of it were derived from what they had seen of the shiftless poor whites about them, demoralized by an institution that rendered labor disreputable. They could not conceive of a man devoting himself voluntarily to hard manual toil, such as they had never seen performed except under the lash. Some compulsory system se
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CHAPTER LIII. A FEW WORDS ABOUT COTTON.
CHAPTER LIII. A FEW WORDS ABOUT COTTON.
The best cotton lands in the States lie between 31° and 36° north latitude. Below 31° the climate is too moist, causing the plant to run too much to stalk, and the fibre to rot. Above 36° the season is too short and too cold. The most fertile tracts for the cultivation of cotton are the great river bottoms. In the Mississippi Valley, twice or even three or four times as much may be raised to the acre as in Northern Alabama or Middle Tennessee. But in the Valley there is danger from floods and th
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CHAPTER LIV. DAVIS’S BEND.—GRAND GULF.—NATCHEZ.
CHAPTER LIV. DAVIS’S BEND.—GRAND GULF.—NATCHEZ.
Descending the Mississippi, the first point of interest you pass is Davis’s Bend, the former home of the President of the Confederacy. A curve of the river encircles a pear-shaped peninsula twenty-eight miles in circumference, with a cut-off across the neck seven hundred yards in length, converting it into an island. There is a story told of a man who, setting out to walk on the levee to Natchez, from Mr. Joe Davis’s plantation, which adjoins that of his brother Jeff, unwittingly made the circui
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CHAPTER LV. THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER LV. THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.
We were nearly all night at Natchez loading cotton. The next day, I noticed that the men worked languidly, and that the mate was plying them with whiskey. I took an opportunity to talk with him about them. He said,— “We have a hundred and eighty hands aboard, all told. Thar’s sixty deck-hands. That a’n’t enough. We ought to have reliefs, when we’re shipping freight day and night as we are now.” I remarked: “A gentleman who came up to Vicksburg in the ‘Fashion,’ stated, as an excuse for the long
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CHAPTER LVI. THE CRESCENT CITY.
CHAPTER LVI. THE CRESCENT CITY.
On the morning of January 1st, 1866, I arrived at New Orleans. It was midwinter; but the mild sunny weather that followed the first chill days of rain, made me fancy it May. The gardens of the city were verdant with tropical plants. White roses in full bloom climbed upon trellises or the verandas of houses. Oleander trees, bananas with their broad drooping leaves six feet long, and Japan plums that ripen in February, grew side by side in the open air. There were orange-trees whose golden fruit c
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CHAPTER LVII. POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR.
CHAPTER LVII. POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR.
Through the courtesy of the Mayor I became acquainted with some of the radical Union men of New Orleans. Like the same class in Richmond and elsewhere, I found them extremely dissatisfied with the political situation and prospects. “Everything,” they said, “has been given up to traitors. The President is trying to help the nation out of its difficulty by restoring to power the very men who created the difficulty. To have been a good Rebel is now in a man’s favor; and to have stood by the governm
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CHAPTER LVIII. THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY.
CHAPTER LVIII. THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY.
Leaving New Orleans for Mobile at half-past four o’clock, by the usual route, I reached Lake Ponchartrain by railroad in time to take the steamer and be off at sunset. The lake, with its low, dark-wooded shores, and its placid, glassy waters, unruffled by a breeze, outspread under the evening sky, was a scene of solitary and tranquil beauty. Here its breast was burnished with the splendors of a reflected cloud, which faded, leaving upon the darkening rim of the lake the most delicate belts of gr
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CHAPTER LIX. MOBILE.
CHAPTER LIX. MOBILE.
Above the forts the merchant fleet lies at anchor, twenty-five miles from Mobile,—the shallowness of the bay preventing at all times vessels drawing more than ten feet of water from going up to the city. The extensive gulf coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, presents not a single first-class harbor. The first you meet with is that of Pensacola. Steamers were plying between the ships and the city, receiving and delivering cargoes. We met or passed them as we kept on our course. Blueish
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CHAPTER LX. ALABAMA PLANTERS.
CHAPTER LX. ALABAMA PLANTERS.
The Alabama River steamers resemble those of the Mississippi, although inferior in size and style. But one meets a very different class of passengers on board of them. The Alabamians are a plain, rough set of men, not so fast as the Mississippi-Valley planters, but more sober, more solid, more loyal. They like their glass of grog, however, and some of them are very sincere in their hatred of the government. I found the most contradictory characters among them, which I cannot better illustrate th
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CHAPTER LXI. WILSON’S RAID.
CHAPTER LXI. WILSON’S RAID.
We had lovely weather, sailing up the Alabama River. The shores were low, and covered with cane-brakes, or with growths of water-oak, gum, sycamore, and cotton-wood trees, with here and there dark and shaggy swamps. Then plantations began to appear, each with its gin-house and cotton-press, planter’s house, corn-crib, and negro-quarters, on the river’s bank. The sycamores, with their white trunks covered all over with small black spots, and heavily draped with long moss, presented a peculiar app
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CHAPTER LXII. NOTES ON ALABAMA.
CHAPTER LXII. NOTES ON ALABAMA.
Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, and originally the capital of the Confederacy, is a town of broad streets and pleasant prospects, built on the rolling summits of high bluffs, on the left bank of the Alabama, one hundred miles above Selma. Before the war it had ten thousand inhabitants. Walking up the long slope of the principal street, I came to the Capitol, a sightly edifice on a fine eminence. On a near view, the walls, which are probably of brick, disguised to imitate granite, had a cheap
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CHAPTER LXIII. IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA.
CHAPTER LXIII. IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA.
The railroad runs eastward from Montgomery, forks at Opelika, and enters Georgia by two divergent routes,—the south branch crossing the Chattahoochee at Columbus, and the north branch at West Point. Wilson, the Raider, paid his respects to both these roads. The main body of his troops proceeded to Columbus, (one of the principal towns of Georgia,) which they carried by assault, with a loss of but thirty men, capturing fifteen hundred prisoners, twenty-four pieces of artillery, and immense milita
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CHAPTER LXIV. DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.
CHAPTER LXIV. DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.
As my first view of Atlanta was had on a dismal night, (if view it could be called,) so my last impression of it was received on a foggy morning, which showed me, as I sat in the cars of the Macon train, waiting at the depot, groups of rain-drenched negroes around out-door fires; the dimly seen trees of the Park; tall ruins looming through the mist; Masonic Hall standing alone (having escaped destruction); squat wooden buildings of recent, hasty construction, beside it; windrows of bent railroad
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CHAPTER LXV. ANDERSONVILLE.
CHAPTER LXV. ANDERSONVILLE.
Just across the railroad track below Macon, in a pleasant pine grove, is the Fair Ground, where was located that thing of misery known to us as the Macon Prison. It was the “Yankee Prison,” down here. I visited the spot one bright morning after a shower, when the breezes and the sunshine were in the pine-tops overhead. The ground was covered with a thin growth of brown grass, wet with the rain: stepping along which I came suddenly to a quadrangular space, as arid as the hill of Golgotha. No mark
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CHAPTER LXVI. SHERMAN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.
CHAPTER LXVI. SHERMAN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.
According to a tradition which I found current in Middle Georgia, General Sherman remarked, while on his grand march through the State, that he had his gloves on as yet, but that he should take them off in South Carolina. Afterwards, in North Carolina, I heard the counterpart of this story. As soon as he had crossed the State line, “Boys,” said he to his soldiers, “remember we are in the old North State now;” which was equivalent to putting his gloves on again. At the mere mention of these anecd
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CHAPTER LXVII. PLANTATION GLIMPSES.
CHAPTER LXVII. PLANTATION GLIMPSES.
In travelling through the South one sees many plantations ruined for some years to come by improper cultivation. The land generally washes badly, and where the hill-sides have been furrowed up and down, instead of being properly “horizontalized,” the rains plough them into gulleys, and carry off the cream of the soil. Or perhaps neglect, during four years of war, has led to the same result. Many worn-out plantations are in this condition, the gulleys cutting the slopes into ridges and chasms. In
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CHAPTER LXVIII. POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA.
CHAPTER LXVIII. POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA.
At Milledgeville,—a mere village (of twenty-five hundred inhabitants before the war), surrounded by a beautiful hilly and wooded country,—I saw something of the Georgia State Legislature. It was at work on a cumbersome and rather useless freedmen’s code, which, however, contained no very objectionable features. In intelligence and political views this body represented the State very fairly. I was told that its members, like the inhabitants of the State at large, were, with scarce an exception, b
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CHAPTER LXIX. SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA.
CHAPTER LXIX. SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA.
The track of the Central Railroad, one hundred and ninety-one miles in length, was destroyed with conscientious thoroughness by Sherman’s army. From Gordon, twenty miles below Macon, to Scarborough Station, nine miles below Millen, a distance of one hundred miles, there was still an impassable hiatus of bent rails and burnt bridges, at the time of my journey; and in order to reach Savannah from Macon, it was necessary to proceed by the Georgia road to Augusta, either returning by railroad to Atl
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CHAPTER LXX. A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH.
CHAPTER LXX. A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH.
On the 16th of November, 1864, Sherman began his grand march from Atlanta. In less than a month his army had made a journey of three hundred miles, consuming and devastating the country. On December 13th, by the light of the setting sun, General Hazen’s Division of the 15th Corps made it’s brilliant and successful assault on Fort McAlister on the Ogeechee, opening the gate to Savannah and the sea. On the night of the 20th, Savannah was hurriedly evacuated by the Rebels, and occupied by Sherman o
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CHAPTER LXXI. CHARLESTON AND THE WAR.
CHAPTER LXXI. CHARLESTON AND THE WAR.
The railroad from Savannah to Charleston, one hundred and four miles in length, running through a country of rice-plantations, was struck and smashed by Sherman in his march from the sea. As it never was a paying road before the war, I could see no prospect of its being soon repaired. The highway of the ocean supplies its place. There was little travel and less business between the two cities, two or three small steamers a week being sufficient to accommodate all. Going on board one of these inf
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CHAPTER LXXII. A VISIT TO FORT SUMTER.
CHAPTER LXXII. A VISIT TO FORT SUMTER.
One morning I went on board the government supply steamer “Mayflower,” plying between the city and the forts below. As we steamed down to the rows of piles, driven across the harbor to compel vessels to pass under the guns of the forts, I noticed that they were so nearly eaten off by worms that, had the war continued a year or two longer, it would have been necessary to replace them. There is in these Southern waters an insect very destructive to the wood it comes in contact with. It cannot live
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CHAPTER LXXIII. A PRISON AND A PRISONER.
CHAPTER LXXIII. A PRISON AND A PRISONER.
“Is this your first visit to Charleston?” I asked General S——, one day as we dined together. “My first visit,” he replied, “occurred in the summer of 1864, considerably against my inclination. I was lodged at the expense of the Confederate Government in the Work-House,—not half as comfortable a place as this hotel!” Both visits were made in the service of the United States Government; but under what different circumstances! Then, a helpless, insulted prisoner; now, he came in a capacity which br
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CHAPTER LXXIV. THE SEA ISLANDS.
CHAPTER LXXIV. THE SEA ISLANDS.
The plantation negro of the great cotton and rice-growing States is a far more ignorant and degraded creature than the negro of Virginia and Tennessee. This difference is traceable to a variety of causes. First, the farmers of the slave-breeding States were formerly accustomed to select, from among their servants, the most stupid and vicious class, to be sold in the Southern market. To the same destination went all the more modern importations of raw savages from the coast of Africa. The negro i
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CHAPTER LXXV. A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND.
CHAPTER LXXV. A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND.
A company of South Carolina planters, who were going over to look at their estates on James Island, and learn if any arrangements could be made with the freedmen, invited me to accompany them; and on the morning of the day appointed, I left my hotel for the purpose. Finding I was too early for the boat, I took a stroll along the wharves, and visited the colonies of homeless plantation negroes who had sought shelter under the open coal-sheds. There were at that time in Charleston fifteen hundred
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CHAPTER LXXVI. SHERMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
CHAPTER LXXVI. SHERMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
“The march of the Federals into our State,” says a writer in the “Columbia Phœnix,” “was characterized by such scenes of license, plunder, and conflagration as very soon showed that the threats of the Northern press, and of their soldiery, were not to be regarded as a mere brutum fulmen . Daily long trains of fugitives lined the roads, with wives and children, and horses and stock and cattle, seeking refuge from the pursuers. Long lines of wagons covered the highways. Half-naked people cowered f
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CHAPTER LXXVII. THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA.
CHAPTER LXXVII. THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA.
“It has pleased God,” says the writer in the “Daily Phœnix,” already quoted, “to visit our beautiful city with the most cruel fate which can ever befall states or cities. He has permitted an invading army to penetrate our country almost without impediment; to rob and ravage our dwellings, and to commit three fifths of our city to the flames. Eighty-four squares, out of one hundred and twenty-four which the city contains, have been destroyed, with scarcely the exception of a single house. The anc
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CHAPTER LXXVIII. NOTES ON SOUTH CAROLINA.
CHAPTER LXXVIII. NOTES ON SOUTH CAROLINA.
At a distance from the Sea Islands, the free-labor system in South Carolina, was fast settling down upon a satisfactory basis. General Richardson, commanding the Eastern District of the State,—comprising all the districts east of the Wateree and Santee, except Georgetown and Horry, on the coast,—assured me that there was going to be more cotton raised in those districts this year than ever before. In the districts west of the Wateree, the soil is not so well adapted to cotton, and the country ab
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CHAPTER LXXIX. THE RIDE TO WINNSBORO’.
CHAPTER LXXIX. THE RIDE TO WINNSBORO’.
For a distance of thirty miles north of Columbia, I had an interesting experience of staging over that portion of the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad destroyed by Sherman. Much of the way the stage route ran beside or near the track. Gangs of laborers were engaged in putting down new ties and rails, but most of the old iron lay where our boys left it. It was the Seventeenth Corps that did this little job, and it did it well. It was curious to note the different styles of the destroying par
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CHAPTER LXXX. A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE.
CHAPTER LXXX. A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE.
The next day I entered North Carolina. Almost immediately on crossing the State line, a change of scene was perceptible. The natural features of the country improved; the appearance of its farms improved still more. North Carolina farmers use manures, and work with their own hands. They treat the soil more generously than their South Carolina neighbors, and it repays them. That night I passed at the house of a Connecticut man, in a country village,—a warm and comfortable New-England home transpo
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CHAPTER LXXXI. CONCLUSIONS.
CHAPTER LXXXI. CONCLUSIONS.
I made but a brief stay in North Carolina, but passed on homeward, and reached the beautiful snowy hills and frosted forests of New England early in February. It now only remains for me to sum up briefly my answers to certain questions which are constantly put to me, regarding Southern emigration, the loyalty of the people, and the future of the country. The South is in the condition of a man recovering from a dangerous malady: the crisis is past, appetite is boundless, and only sustenance and p
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CHAPTER LXXXII.[24] THE WORK OF RESTORATION.
CHAPTER LXXXII.[24] THE WORK OF RESTORATION.
A Year later.—Hopes disappointed.—Position of the Whites of the South.—Treatment of Southern Unionists, Black and White.—Sections where the Hostility was most intense.—Honorable and Noble Exceptions to this State of Feeling.—The most Noisy Supporters of the Lost Cause.—The Effect of President Johnson’s Course in stimulating this Hostility.—Review of his Course so far as it relates to Reconstruction.—Interviews with Southern Men.—Organization of Provisional Governments.—Specimens of the Men appoi
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CHAPTER LXXXIII. RECONSTRUCTION.
CHAPTER LXXXIII. RECONSTRUCTION.
Condition of the Republican and Democratic Parties in Congress in December, 1866.—The District of Columbia Elective Franchise Bill passed: Its Provisions.—Mr. Johnson vetoes it, but it is passed over the Veto.—Territorial Franchise Bill passed.—Admission of Nebraska as a State, with the Elective Franchise Proviso.—Difficulties in Maturing satisfactorily the Reconstruction Act.—The Provisions of the House Bill.—It is materially changed in the Senate.—Further Modification in the House Provisions o
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VOTES OF STATE LEGISLATURES ON THE FOURTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
VOTES OF STATE LEGISLATURES ON THE FOURTEENTH CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Maine. —Senate, January 16, 1867, yeas 31, nays 0. House, January 11, 1867, yeas 126, nays 12. New Hampshire. —Senate. July 6, 1866, yeas 9, nays 3. House, June 28, 1866, yeas 207, nays 112. Vermont. —Senate, October 23, 1866, yeas 28, nays 0. House, October 30, 1866, yeas 199, nays 11. Massachusetts. —Senate, March 20, 1867, yeas 27, nays 6. House, March 14, 1867, yeas 120, nays 20. Rhode Island. —Senate, February 5, 1867, yeas 26, nays 2. House, February 7, 1867, yeas 60, nays 9. Connecticut.
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CHAPTER LXXXV. SOCIAL CONDITION.
CHAPTER LXXXV. SOCIAL CONDITION.
Suffering at the South among the Freedmen and Loyal Whites.—Causes.—The Discharge of the Freedmen by their Employers for Voting.—Good Conduct of the Freedmen.—Description of the Scenes at the Polls in Montgomery, Ala.—Negro Suffrage, North and South.—Reasons why it was indispensable that the Freedmen should have the Ballot.—Testimony to the Good Conduct of the Negroes at the South.—Southern White Loyalty.—The Competency of the Negro for the Exercise of Suffrage equal to that of the Poor Whites.—
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CHAPTER LXXXVI. IMPEACHMENT.
CHAPTER LXXXVI. IMPEACHMENT.
The determination of the President to proceed with his own plan of restoring the states lately in insurrection to their former status, in violation of all law, and of the rights of the Legislative branch of the Government, to whom this work had been confided by the constitution, as well as the defiant and hostile spirit he manifested toward all who opposed his course, led many of the members of both houses of Congress to feel that it would be necessary to check his career by impeachment. Still t
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SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GENERAL U. S. GRANT.
General Ulysses Simpson Grant (or, as he was originally named, Hiram Ulysses Grant) was born on the 27th of April, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Clement County, Ohio; and is a descendant, in the eighth generation, of Matthew Grant, who came from England, in 1630, and was a first settler of Dorchester, Mass., and subsequently of Windsor, Conn. His father, Jesse Root Grant, a tanner by trade, and his mother, Hannah Simpson, were both natives of Pennsylvania, who had removed to Ohio, and were there marr
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HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX.
HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX.
The universal popularity of Mr. Colfax, and the thorough confidence felt by all classes in his integrity, intellectual ability and capacity to fill the highest position in the gift of the nation, should he be called to it, are among the most remarkable circumstances of his life-history. He is not a military hero. His fame, wide-spread as it is, was not won on the tented field, nor in the fierce strife and din of battle. His triumphs have been of a more peaceful character. Though of a good and ho
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