Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field Part 40

During the conflict between France and England on the one hand, and Russia on the other, the journals of London and Paris sent their representatives to the Crimea. The London _Times,_ the foremost paper of Europe, gave Russell a reputation he will long retain. The "Thunderer's" letters from the camp before Sebastopol became known throughout the civilized world. A few years later, the East Indian rebellion once more called the London specials to the field. In giving the history of the campaigns in India, _The Times_ and its representative overshadowed all the rest.

Just before the commencement of hostilities in the late Rebellion, the leading journals of New York were well represented in the South. Each day these papers gave their readers full details of all important events that transpired in the South. The correspondents that witnessed the firing of the Southern heart had many adventures. Some of them narrowly escaped with their lives.

At Richmond, a crowd visited the Spottswood House, with the avowed intention of hanging a _Herald_ correspondent, who managed to escape through a back door of the building. A representative of _The Tribune_ was summoned before the authorities at Charleston, on the charge of being a Federal spy. He was cleared of the charge, but advised to proceed North as early as possible. When he departed, Governor Pickens requested him, as a particular favor, to ascertain the name of _The Tribune_ correspondent, on arrival in New York, and inform him by letter. He promised to do so. On reaching the North, he kindly told Governor Pickens who _The Tribune_ correspondent was.

A _Times_ correspondent, pa.s.sing through Harper's Ferry, found himself in the hands of "the Chivalry," who proposed to hang him on the general charge of being an Abolitionist. He was finally released without injury, but at one time the chances of his escape were small.

The New Orleans correspondent of _The Tribune_ came North on the last pa.s.senger-train from Richmond to Aquia Creek. One of _The Herald's_ representatives was thrown into prison by Jeff. Davis, but released through the influence of Pope Walker, the Rebel Secretary of War.

Another remained in the South until all regular communication was cut off. He reached the North in safety by the line of the "underground railway."

When the Rebellion was fairly inaugurated, the various points of interest were at once visited by the correspondents of the press.

Wherever our armies operated, the princ.i.p.al dailies of New York and other cities were represented. Washington was the center of gravity around which the Eastern correspondents revolved. As the army advanced into Virginia, every movement was carefully chronicled. The compet.i.tion between the different journals was very great.

In the West the field was broader, and the compet.i.tion, though active, was less bitter than along the Potomac. In the early days, St.

Louis, Cairo, and Louisville were the princ.i.p.al Western points where correspondents were stationed. As our armies extended their operations, the journalists found their field of labor enlarged. St.

Louis lost its importance when the Rebels were driven from Missouri.

For a long time Cairo was the princ.i.p.al rendezvous of the journalists, but it became less noted as our armies pressed forward along the Mississippi.

Every war-correspondent has his story of experiences in the field.

Gathering the details of a battle in the midst of its dangers; sharing the privations of the camp and the fatigues of the march; riding with scouts, and visiting the skirmishers on the extreme front; journeying to the rear through regions infested by the enemy's cavalry, or running the gauntlet of Rebel batteries, his life was far from monotonous. Frequently the correspondents acted as volunteer aids to generals during engagements, and rendered important service. They often took the muskets of fallen soldiers and used them to advantage.

On the water, as on land, they sustained their reputation, and proved that the hand which wielded the pen was able to wield the sword. They contributed their proportion of killed, wounded, and captured to the casualties of the war. Some of them accepted commissions in the army and navy.

During the campaign of General Lyon in Missouri, the journalists who accompanied that army were in the habit of riding outside the lines to find comfortable quarters for the night. Frequently they went two or three miles ahead of the entire column, in order to make sure of a good dinner before the soldiers could overtake them. One night two of them slept at a house three miles from the road which the army was following. The inmates of the mansion were unaware of the vicinity of armed "Yankees," and entertained the strangers without question.

Though a dozen Rebel scouts called at the house before daylight, the correspondents were undisturbed. After that occasion they were more cautious in their movements.

In Kentucky, during the advance of Kirby Smith upon Cincinnati, the correspondents of _The Gazette_ and _The Commercial_ were captured by the advance-guard of Rebel cavalry. Their baggage, money, and watches became the property of their captors. The correspondents were released, and obliged to walk about eighty miles in an August sun. A short time later, Mr. Shanks and Mr. Westfall, correspondents of _The Herald,_ were made acquainted with John Morgan, in one of the raids of that famous guerrilla. The acquaintance resulted in a thorough depletion of the wardrobes of the captured gentlemen.

In Virginia, Mr. Cadwallader and Mr. Fitzpatrick, of _The Herald_, and Mr. Crounse, of _The Times_, were captured by Mosby, and liberated after a brief detention and a complete relief of every thing portable and valuable, down to their vests and pantaloons. Even their dispatches were taken from them and forwarded to Richmond. A portion of these reports found their way into the Richmond papers. Stonewall Jackson and Stuart were also fortunate enough to capture some of the representatives of the Press. At one time there were five correspondents of _The Herald_ in the hands of the Rebels. One of them, Mr. Anderson, was held more than a year. He was kept for ten days in an iron dungeon, where no ray of light could penetrate.

I have elsewhere alluded to the capture of Messrs. Richardson and Browne, of _The Tribune_, and Mr. Colburn, of _The World_, in front of Vicksburg. The story of the captivity and perilous escape of these representatives of _The Tribune_ reveals a patience, a fort.i.tude, a daring, and a fertility of resource not often excelled.

Some of the most graphic battle-accounts of the war were written very hastily. During the three days' battle at Gettysburg, _The Herald_ published each morning the details of the fighting of the previous day, down to the setting of the sun. This was accomplished by having a correspondent with each corps, and one at head-quarters to forward the accounts to the nearest telegraph office. At Antietam, _The Tribune_ correspondent viewed the battle by day, and then hurried from the field, writing the most of his account on a railway train. From Fort Donelson the correspondents of _The World_ and _The Tribune_ went to Cairo, on a hospital boat crowded with wounded. Their accounts were written amid dead and suffering men, but when published they bore little evidence of their hasty preparation.

I once wrote a portion of a letter at the end of a medium-sized table.

At the other end of the table a party of gamblers, with twenty or thirty spectators, were indulging in "Chuck-a-Luck." I have known dispatches to be written on horseback, but they were very brief, and utterly illegible to any except the writer. Much of the press correspondence during the war was written in railway cars and on steamboats, and much on camp-chests, stumps, or other subst.i.tutes for tables. I have seen a half-dozen correspondents busily engaged with their letters at the same moment, each of them resting his port-folio on his knee, or standing upright, with no support whatever. On one occasion a fellow-journalist a.s.sured me that the broad chest of a slumbering _confrere_ made an excellent table, the undulations caused by the sleeper's breathing being the only objectionable feature.

Sometimes a correspondent reached the end of a long ride so exhausted as to be unable to hold a pen for ten consecutive minutes. In such case a short-hand writer was employed, when accessible, to take down from rapid dictation the story of our victory or defeat.

Under all the disadvantages of time, place, and circ.u.mstances, of physical exhaustion and mental anxiety, it is greatly to the correspondents' credit that they wrote so well. Battle-accounts were frequently published that would be no mean comparison to the studied pen-pictures of the famous writers of this or any other age. They were extensively copied by the press of England and the Continent, and received high praise for their vivid portrayal of the battle-field and its scenes. Apart from the graphic accounts of great battles, they furnished materials from which the historians will write the enduring records of the war. With files of the New York dailies at his side, an industrious writer could compile a history of the Rebellion, complete in all its details.

It was a general complaint of the correspondents that their profession was never officially recognized so as to give them an established position in the army. They received pa.s.ses from head-quarters, and could generally go where they willed, but there were many officers who chose to throw petty but annoying restrictions around them. As they were generally situated throughout the army, they were, to some extent, dependent upon official courtesies. Of course, this dependence was injurious to free narration or criticism when any officer had conducted improperly.

If there is ever another occasion for the services of the war correspondent on our soil, it is to be hoped Congress will pa.s.s a law establishing a position for the journalists, fixing their status in the field, surrounding them with all necessary restrictions, and authorizing them to purchase supplies and forage from the proper departments. During the Crimean war, the correspondents of the French and English papers had a recognized position, where they were subject to the same rules, and ent.i.tled to the same privileges, as the officers they accompanied. When Sir George Brown, at Eupatoria, forbade any officer appearing in public with unshaven chin, he made no distinction in favor of the members of the Press.

Notwithstanding their fierce compet.i.tion in serving the journals they represented, the correspondents with our army were generally on the most friendly terms with each other. Perhaps this was less the case in the East than in the West, where the rivalry was not so intense and continuous. In the armies in the Mississippi Valley, the representatives of competing journals frequently slept, ate, traveled, and smoked together, and not unfrequently drank from the same flask with equal relish. In the early days, "Room 45," in the St. Charles Hotel at Cairo, was the resort of all the correspondents at that point. There they laid aside their professional jealousies, and pa.s.sed their idle hours in efforts for mutual amus.e.m.e.nt. On some occasions the floor of the room would be covered, in the morning, with a confused ma.s.s of boots, hats, coats, and other articles of masculine wear, out of which the earliest riser would array himself in whatever suited his fancy, without the slightest regard to the owner.

"Forty-five" was the neutral ground where the correspondents planned campaigns for all the armies of the Union, arranged the downfall of the Rebellion, expressed their views of military measures and military men, exulted over successes, mourned over defeats, and toasted in full gla.s.ses the flag that our soldiers upheld.

Since the close of the war, many of the correspondents have taken positions in the offices of the journals they represented in the field. Some have established papers of their own in the South, and a few have retired to other civil pursuits. Some are making professional tours of the Southern States and recording the status of the people lately in rebellion. _The Herald_ has sent several of its _attaches_ to the European capitals, and promises to chronicle in detail the next great war in the Old World.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.

Scarcity of the Population,--Fertility of the Country.--Northern Men already in the South.--Kansas Emigrants Crossing Missouri.--Change of the Situation.--Present Disadvantages of Emigration.--Feeling of the People.--Property-Holders in Richmond.--The Sentiment in North Carolina.--South Carolina Chivalry.--The Effect of War.--Prospect of the Success of Free Labor.--Trade in the South.

The suppression of the Rebellion, and the restoration of peace throughout the entire South, have opened a large field for emigration.

The white population of the Southern States, never as dense as that of the North, has been greatly diminished in consequence of the war. In many localities more than half the able-bodied male inhabitants have been swept away, and everywhere the loss of men is severely felt.

The breaking up of the former system of labor in the cotton and sugar States will hinder the progress of agriculture for a considerable time, but there can be little doubt of its beneficial effect in the end. The desolation that was spread in the track of our armies will be apparent for many years. The South will ultimately recover from all her calamities, but she will need the energy and capital of the Northern States to a.s.sist her.

During the progress of the war, as our armies penetrated the fertile portions of the "Confederacy," many of our soldiers cast longing eyes at the prospective wealth around them. "When the war is over we will come here to live, and show these people something they never dreamed of," was a frequent remark. Men born and reared in the extreme North, were amazed at the luxuriance of Southern verdure, and wondered that the richness of the soil had not been turned to greater advantage.

It is often said in New England that no man who has once visited the fertile West ever returns to make his residence in the Eastern States.

Many who have explored the South, and obtained a knowledge of its resources, will be equally reluctant to dwell in the regions where their boyhood days were pa.s.sed.

While the war was in progress many Northern men purchased plantations on the islands along the Southern coast, and announced their determination to remain there permanently. After the capture of New Orleans, business in that city pa.s.sed into the hands of Northerners, much to the chagrin of the older inhabitants. When the disposition of our army and the topography of the country made the lower portion of Louisiana secure against Rebel raids, many plantations in that locality were purchased outright by Northern speculators. I have elsewhere shown how the cotton culture was extensively carried on by "Yankees," and that failure was not due to their inability to conduct the details of the enterprise.

Ten years ago, emigration to Kansas was highly popular. Aid Societies were organized in various localities, and the Territory was rapidly filled. Political influences had much to do with this emigration from both North and South, and many implements carried by the emigrants were not altogether agricultural in their character. The soil of Kansas was known to be fertile, and its climate excellent. The Territory presented attractions to settlers, apart from political considerations. But in going thither the emigrants crossed a region equally fertile, and possessing superior advantages in its proximity to a market. No State in the Union could boast of greater possibilities than Missouri, yet few travelers in search of a home ventured to settle within her limits.

The reason was apparent. Missouri was a slave State, though bounded on three sides by free soil. Few Northern emigrants desired to settle in the midst of slavery. The distinction between the ruling and laboring cla.s.ses was not as great as in the cotton States, but there was a distinction beyond dispute. Whatever his blood or complexion, the man who labored with his hands was on a level, or nearly so, with the slave. Thousands pa.s.sed up the Missouri River, or crossed the northern portion of the State, to settle in the new Territory of Kansas.

When political influences ceased, the result was still the same. The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway threw its valuable lands into the market, but with little success.

With the suppression of the late Rebellion, and the abolition of slavery in Missouri, the situation is materially changed. From Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana, there is a large emigration to Missouri.

I was recently informed that forty families from a single county in Ohio had sent a delegation to Missouri to look out suitable locations, either of wild land or of farms under cultivation. There is every prospect that the State will be rapidly filled with a population that believes in freedom and in the dignity of labor. She has an advantage over the other ex-slave States, in lying west of the populous regions of the North. Hitherto, emigration has generally followed the great isothermal lines, as can be readily seen when we study the population of the Western States. Northern Ohio is more New Englandish than Southern Ohio, and the parallel holds good in Northern and Southern Illinois. There will undoubtedly be a large emigration to Missouri in preference to the other Southern States, but our whole migratory element will not find accommodation in her limits. The entire South will be overrun by settlers from the North.

Long ago, _Punch_ gave advice to persons about to marry. It was all comprised in the single word, "DON'T." Whoever is in haste to emigrate to the South, would do well to consider, for a time, this brief, but emphatic counsel. No one should think of leaving the Northern States, until he has fairly considered the advantages and disadvantages of the movement. If he departs with the expectation of finding every thing to his liking, he will be greatly disappointed at the result.

There will be many difficulties to overcome. The people now residing in the late rebellious States are generally impoverished. They have little money, and, in many cases, their stock and valuables of all kinds have been swept away. Their farms are often without fences, and their farming-tools worn out, disabled, or destroyed. Their system of labor is broken up. The negro is a slave no longer, and the transition from bondage to freedom will affect, for a time, the producing interests of the South.

Though the Rebellion is suppressed, the spirit of discontent still remains in many localities, and will r.e.t.a.r.d the process of reconstruction. The teachings of slavery have made the men of the South bitterly hostile to those of the North. This hostility was carefully nurtured by the insurgent leaders during the Rebellion, and much of it still exists. In many sections of the South, efforts will be made to prevent immigration from the North, through a fear that the old inhabitants will lose their political rights.

At the time I am writing, the owners of property in Richmond are holding it at such high rates as to repel Northern purchasers. Letters from that city say, the residents have determined to sell no property to Northern men, when they can possibly avoid it. No encouragement is likely to be given to Northern farmers and artisans to migrate thither. A scheme for taking a large number of European emigrants directly from foreign ports to Richmond, and thence to scatter them throughout Virginia, is being considered by the Virginia politicians.

The wealthy men in the Old Dominion, who were Secessionists for the sake of secession, and who gave every a.s.sistance to the Rebel cause, are opposed to the admission of Northern settlers. They may be unable to prevent it, but they will be none the less earnest in their efforts.

This feeling extends throughout a large portion of Virginia, and exists in the other States of the South. Its intensity varies in different localities, according to the extent of the slave population in the days before the war, and the influence that the Radical men of the South have exercised. While Virginia is unwilling to receive strangers, North Carolina is manifesting a desire to fill her territory with Northern capital and men. She is already endeavoring to encourage emigration, and has offered large quant.i.ties of land on liberal terms. In Newbern, Wilmington, and Raleigh, the Northern element is large. Newbern is "Yankeeized" as much as New Orleans.

Wilmington bids fair to have intimate relations with New York and Boston. An agency has been established at Raleigh, under the sanction of the Governor of the State, to secure the immediate occupation of farming and mining lands, mills, manufactories, and all other kinds of real estate. Northern capital and sinew is already on its way to that region. The great majority of the North Carolinians approve the movement, but there are many persons in the State who equal the Virginians in their hostility to innovations.

In South Carolina, few beside the negroes will welcome the Northerner with open arms. The State that hatched the secession egg, and proclaimed herself at all times first and foremost for the perpetuation of slavery, will not exult at the change which circ.u.mstances have wrought. Her Barnwells, her McGraths, her Rhetts, and her Hamptons declared they would perish in the last ditch, rather than submit. Some of them have perished, but many still remain. Having been life-long opponents of Northern policy, Northern industry, and Northern enterprise, they will hardly change their opinions until taught by the logic of events.

Means of transportation are limited. On the railways the tracks are nearly worn out, and must be newly laid before they can be used with their old facility. Rolling stock is disabled or destroyed. Much of it must be wholly replaced, and that which now remains must undergo extensive repairs. Depots and machine-shops have been burned, and many bridges are bridges no longer. On the smaller rivers but few steamboats are running, and these are generally of a poor cla.s.s.

Wagons are far from abundant, and mules and horses are very scarce.

The wants of the armies have been supplied with little regard to the inconvenience of the people.

Corn-mills, saw-mills, gins, and factories have fed the flames.

Wherever our armies penetrated they spread devastation in their track.

Many portions of the South were not visited by a hostile force, but they did not escape the effects of war. Southern Georgia and Florida suffered little from the presence of the Northern armies, but the scarcity of provisions and the dest.i.tution of the people are nearly as great in that region as elsewhere.