Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 32

Under the Treaty of Paris, no blockade was _de facto_, or to be recognized, unless it was demonstrated to be effectual closing of the port, or ports, named. Now, in the South, were one or two ships, at most, before the largest ports; with an average of one vessel for every hundred miles of coast! And so inefficient was the early blockade of Charleston, Wilmington and New Orleans, that traders ran in and out, actually with greater frequency than before those ports were proclaimed closed. Their Government declared--and the southern people believed--that such nominal blockade would not be respected by European powers; and reliant upon the kingship of cotton inducing early recognition, both believed that the ships of England and France--disregarding the impotent paper closure--would soon crowd southern wharves and exchange the royal fleece for the luxuries, no less than the necessaries, of life.

When the three first commissioners to Europe--Messrs. Yancey, Rost and Mann--sailed from New Orleans, on March 31, '61, their mission was hailed as harbinger to speedy fruition of these delusive thoughts, to which the wish alone was father. Then--though very gradually--began belief that they had reckoned too fast; and doubt began to chill glowing hopes of immediate recognition from Europe. But there was none, as yet, relative to her ultimate action. The successful trial trip of the "Nashville," Captain Pegram, C.S.N.--and her warm reception by the British press and people--prevented that. And, after every victory of the South, her newspapers were filled with praise from the press of England. But gradually--as recognition did not come--first wonder, then doubt, and finally despair took the place of certainty.

When Mr. Yancey came back, in disgust, and made his plain statement of the true state of foreign sentiment, he carried public opinion to his side; and--while the Government could then do nothing but persist in effort for recognition, now so vital--the people felt that dignity was uselessly compromised, while their powerless representatives were kept abroad, to knock weakly at the back door of foreign intervention.

Slight reaction came, when Mason and Slidell were captured on the high seas, under a foreign flag. Mr. Seward so boldly defied the rampant Lion; Congress so promptly voted thanks to Captain Wilkes, for violating international law; the Secretary of the Navy--after slyly pulling down the blinds--so bravely patted him on the back--that the South renewed her hope, in the seeming certainty of war between the two countries. But she had calculated justly neither the power of retraction in American policy, nor Secretary Seward's vast capacity for eating his own words; and the rendition of her commissioners--with their perfectly quiet landing upon British soil--was, at last, accepted as sure token of how little they would accomplish. And, for over three years, those commissioners blundered on in thick darkness--that might not be felt; b.u.t.ting their heads against fixed policy at every turn; snubbed by subordinates--to whom alone they had access; yet eating, unsparingly and with seeming appet.i.te, the bountiful banquet of cold shoulder!

It is not supposable that the people of the South realized to the full that humiliation, to which their State Department was subjecting them.

Occasionally Mr. Mason, seeing a gleam of something which might some day be light, would send hopeful despatches; or before the hopeful eyes of Mr. Slidell, would rise roseate clouds of promise, light with bubbles of aid--intervention--recognition! Strangely enough, these would never burst until just after their description; and the secretary fostered the widest lat.i.tude in press-rumors thereanent, but deemed it politic to forget contradiction, when--as was invariably the case--the next blockade-runner brought flat denial of all that its precedent had carried.

Still, constant promises with no fulfillment, added to limited private correspondence with foreign capitals, begat mistrust in elusive theories, which was rudely changed to simple certainty.

Edwin DeLeon had been sent by Mr. Davis on a special mission to London and Paris, after Mr. Yancey's return; his action to be independent of the regularly established futility. In August, 1863, full despatches from him, to the southern President and State Department, were captured and published in the New York papers. These came through the lines and gave the southern people the full and clear expose of the foreign question, as it had long been fully and clearly known to their government.

This publication intensified what had been vague opposition to further retention abroad of the commissioners. The people felt that their national honor was compromised; and, moreover, they now realized that Europe had--and would have--but one policy regarding the Confederacy.

Diplomatically regarded, the position of the South was actually unprecedented. Europe felt the delicacy--and equally the danger--of interference in a family quarrel, which neither her theories nor her experience had taught her to comprehend. Naturally jealous of the growing power of the American Union, Europe may, moreover, have heard dictates of the policy of letting it exhaust itself, in this internal feud; of waiting until both sides--weakened, wearied and worn out--should draw off from the struggle and make intervention more nominal than needful. This view of "strict neutrality"--openly vaunted only to be practically violated--takes color from the fact of her permitting each side to hammer away at the other for four years, without one word even of protest!

Southern prejudice ever inclined more favorably toward France than England; the scale tilting, perhaps, by weight of Franco-Latin influence among the people, perhaps by belief in the suggested theories of the third Napoleon. Therefore, intimations of French recognition were always more welcomed than false rumors about English aid.

In the North also prevailed an idea that France might intervene--or even recognize the Confederacy--before colder England; but that did not cause impartial Jonathan to exhibit less bitter, or unreasoning, hatred of John Bull. Yet, as a practical fact, the alleged neutrality of the latter was far more operative against the South than the North.

For--omitting early recognition of a blockade, invalid under the Treaty of Paris--England denied _both_ belligerent navies the right to refit--or bring in prizes--at her ports. Now, as the United States had open ports and needed no such grace, while the South having no commerce thus afforded no prizes--every point of this decision was against her.

Equally favoring the North was the winking at recruiting; for, if men were not actually enlisted on British soil and under that flag, thousands of "emigrants"--males only; with expenses and bounty paid by United States recruiting agents--were poured out of British territory each month.

When France sent her circular to England and Russia, suggesting that the time had come for mediation, the former summarily rejected the proposition. Besides, England's treatment of the southern commissioners was coldly neglectful; and--from the beginning to the end of the Confederacy, the sole aid she received from England was personal sympathy in isolated instances. But British contractors and traders had tacit governmental permission to build ships for the rebels, or to sell them arms and supplies, at their own risks. And, spite of these well-known facts, northern buncombe never tired of a.s.sailing "the rebel sympathies" of England!

With somewhat of race sympathy between the two peoples, the French emperor's movements to feel the pulse of Europe, from time to time, on the question of mediation, kept up the popular delusion at the South.

This was shared, to a certain extent, even by her government; and Mr.

Slidell's highly-colored despatches would refan the embers of hope into a glow. But while Napoleon, the Little, may have had the subtlest head in Europe, he doubtless had the hardest; and the feeble handling by the southern commissioner, of that edged-tool, diplomacy, could have aroused only amus.e.m.e.nt in those subordinate officials, whom alone he reached.

The real policy of France was doubtless, from the beginning, as fixed as was that of England; and though she may have hesitated, for a time, at the tempting bait offered--monopoly of southern cotton and tobacco--the reasons coercing that policy were too strong to let her swallow it at last.

For the rest, Russia had always openly sympathized with the North; and other European nations had very vague notions of the merits of the struggle; less interest in its termination; and least of all, sympathy with what to them was mere rebellion.

And this true condition of foreign affairs, the Confederate State Department did know, in great part; should have known in detail; and owed it to the people to explain and promulgate. But for some occult reason, Mr. Benjamin refused to view the European landscape, except through the Claude Lorrain gla.s.s which Mr. Slidell persistently held up before him. The expose of Mr. Yancey, the few st.u.r.dy truths Mr. Mason later told; and the detailed resume sent by Mr. DeLeon and printed in the North--all these were ignored; and the wishes of the whole people were disregarded, that the line begun upon, should not be deviated from. There may have been something deeply underlying this policy; for Secretary Benjamin was clear-sighted, shrewd and well-informed. But what that something was has never been divulged; and the people--believing the Secretary too able to be deluded by his subordinate--revolted.

The foreign policy grew more and more into popular disfavor; the press condemned it, in no stinted terms; it permeated the other branches of the government and, finally, reacted upon the armies in the field. For the growing dislike of his most trusted adviser began to affect Mr.

Davis; his ready a.s.sumption of all responsibility at the beginning having taught the people to look direct to him for all of good, or of evil, alike.

As disaster followed disaster to southern arms; as one fair city after another fell into the lap of the enemy; as the blockade drew its coil tighter and tighter about the vitals of the Confederacy--the cry of the people was raised to their chief; demanding the cause of it all. The first warm impulses of patriotic and inflammable ma.s.ses had pedestaled him as a demiG.o.d. The revulsion was gradual; but, with the third year of unrelieved blockade, it became complete. And this was due, in part, to that proclivity of ma.s.ses to measure men by results, rather than by their means for accomplishment; it was due in greater part, perhaps, to the President's unyielding refusal to sacrifice either his convictions, or his favorites, to popular clamor, however re-enforced by argument, or reason.

Mr. Davis certainly seemed to rely more upon Mr. Benjamin than any member of his Cabinet; and the public laid at that now unpopular official's door all errors of policy--domestic as well as foreign.

Popular wrath ever finds a scape-goat; but in the very darkest hour Mr.

Benjamin remained placid and smiling, his brow unclouded and his sleek, pleasant manner deprecating the rumbling of the storm he had raised, by his accomplishments and sophistries. When his removal was clamorously demanded by popular voice, his chief closed his ears and moved on unheeding--grave--defiant!

Calm retrospect shows that the Confederacy's commissioners were, from first to last, only played with by the skilled sophists of Europe. And, ere the end came, that absolute conviction penetrated the blockade; convincing the South that her policy would remain one of strict non-intervention.

After each marked southern success, would come some revival of recognition rumors; but these were ever coupled, now, with an important "if!" If New Orleans had not fallen; if we had won Antietam; if Gettysburg had been a victory--then we _might_ have been welcomed into the family of nations. But over the ma.s.s of thinkers settled the dark conviction that Europe saw her best interest, in standing by to watch the sections rend and tear each other to the utmost. Every fiber either lost was so much subtraction from that balance of power, threatening to pa.s.s across the Atlantic. The greater the straits to which we reduce each other, said the South, the better will it please Europe; and the only faith in her at last, was that she hoped to see the breach permanent and irreconcilable, and with it all hopes of rival power die!

If the theory be correct, that it was the intent of the Great Powers to foster the chance of two rival governments on this continent, it seems short-sighted in one regard. For--had they really recognized the dire extremity, to which the South was at last brought, they should either have furnished her means, directly or indirectly, to prolong the strife; or should have intervened and established a broken and shattered duality, in place of the stable and recemented Union.

Nor can thinkers, on either side, cavil at Europe's policy during that war; calculating, selfish and cruel as it may seem to the sentimentalist. If corporations really have no bowels, governments can not be looked to for nerves. Interest is the life blood of their systems; and interest was doubtless best subserved by the course of the Great Powers. For the rumors of dest.i.tution and of disaffection in France and England--caused by the blockade-begotten "cotton famine"--that crept through the Chinese wall, were absurdly magnified, both as to their proportions and their results. And the sequel proved that it was far cheaper for either nation to feed a few thousand idle operatives--or to quell a few incipient bread riots--than to unsettle a fixed policy, and that at the risk of a costly foreign war.

There was bitter disappointment in the South, immediately succeeding dissipation of these rosy, but nebulous, hopes in the kingship of cotton. Then reaction came--strong, general and fruitful. St.u.r.dy "Johnny Reb" yearned for British rifles, shoes, blankets and bacon; but he wanted them most of all, to _win_ his own independence and to force its recognition!

There are optimists everywhere; and even the dark days of Dixie proved no exception to the rule. It was not unusual to hear prate of the vast benefits derived from the blockade; of the energy, resource and production, expressed under its cruel constriction! Such optimists--equally at fault as were their pessimistic opponents--pointed proudly to the powder-mills, blast-furnaces, foundries and rolling-mills, springing up on every hand. They saw the great truth that the internal resources of the South developed with amazing rapidity; that arms were manufactured and supplies of vital need created, as it were out of nothing; but they missed the true reason for that abnormal development, which was the dire stress from isolation. They rejoiced to very elation at a popular effort, spontaneous--unanimous--supreme! But they realized little that it was exhaustive as well.

Could these life-needs the South was compelled to create within, have been procured from without, they had not alone been far less costly in time, labor and money--but the many hands called from work equally as vital had not then been diverted from it. The South was self-supporting, as the hibernator that crawls into a stump to subsist upon its own fat.

But that stump is not sealed up, and Bruin--who goes to bed in autumn, sleek and round, to come out a skeleton at springtime--quickly reproduces lost tissue. With the South, material once consumed was gone forever; and the drain upon her people--material--mental--moral--was permanent and fatal.

One reason why the result of the blockade--after it became actually effective--was not earlier realized generally at the South, was that private speculation promptly utilized opportunities, which the Government had neglected. What appeared huge overstock of clothing and other prime necessities had been "run in," while there was yet time; and before they had advanced in price, under quick depreciation of paper money. Then profits doubled so rapidly that--spite of their enhanced risk from more effective blockade--private ventures, and even great companies formed for the purpose, made "blockade-breaking" the royal road to riches. Almost every conceivable article of merchandise came to southern ports; often in quant.i.ties apparently sufficient to glut the market--almost always of inferior quality and manufactured specially for the great, but cheap, trade now sprung up.

Earlier ventures were content with profit of one, or two hundred per cent.; calculating thus for a ship and cargo, occasionally captured.

But as such risk increased and Confederate money depreciated, percentage on blockade ventures ran up in compound ratio; and it became no unusual thing for a successful investment to realize from fifteen hundred to two thousand per cent. on its first cost.

Still, even this profit as against the average of loss--perhaps two cargoes out of five--together with the uncertain value of paper money, left the trade hazardous. Only great capital, ready to renew promptly every loss, could supply the demand--heretofore shown to have grown morbid, under lost faith in governmental credit. Hence sprung the great blockade-breaking corporations, like the Bee Company, Collie & Co., or Fraser, Trenholm & Co. With capital and credit unlimited; with branches at every point of purchase, reshipment and entry; with constantly growing orders from the departments--these giant concerns could control the market and make their own terms.

Their growing power soon became quasi dictation to Government itself; the national power was filtered through these alien arteries; and the South became the victim--its Treasury the mere catspaw--of the selfsame system, which clear sight and medium ability could so easily have averted from the beginning!

Even when pressure for supplies was most dire and Government had become almost wholly dependent for them upon the monopoly octopus--it would not move. Deaf to urgent appeals of its trusted officers, to establish a system of light, swift blockade-runners, the Department admitted their practical necessity, by entering into a limited partnership with a blockade-breaking firm. And, it must go without saying that the bargain driven was like the boy's: "You and I will each take half and the rest we'll give to Anne!"

As noted, in considering finance, the mania for exchanging paper money for something that could be enjoyed, grew apace as the war progressed.

Fancy articles for dress, table luxuries and frippery of all sorts came now into great demand. Their importation increased to such bulk as, at last, to exclude the more necessary parts of most cargoes; and not less to threaten complete demoralization of such minority as made any money.

It may seem a grim joke;--the starving, tattered--moribund Confederacy pa.s.sing sumptuary laws, as had Venice in her recklessness of riches!

But, in 1864, a law was necessitated against importation of all articles, not of utility; forbidden luxuries being named per schedule.

That its constant evasion--if not its open defiance--was very simple, may be understood; for the blockade firms had now become a power coequal with Government, and exceptions were listed, sufficient to become the rule.

And so the leeches waxed fat and flourished on the very life-blood of the cause, that represented to them--opportunity! And, whatever has been said of speculators at Richmond, they were far less culpable than these, their chiefs; for, without the arch-priests of greed, speculation would have died from inanition. The speculators were most hungry kites; but their maws were crammed by the great vultures that sat at the coast, blinking ever out over the sea for fresh gains; with never a backward glance at the gaunt, grim legions behind them--naked--worn--famished, but unconquered still!

Transportation needs have been noted, also. No department was worse neglected and mismanaged than that. The existence of the Virginia army wholly depended on a single line, close to the coast and easily tapped.

Nor did Government's seizure of its control, in any manner remedy the evil. Often and again, the troops around Richmond were without beef--once for twelve days at a time; they were often without flour, mola.s.ses or salt, living for days upon cornmeal alone! and the ever-ready excuse was want of transportation!

Thousands of bushels of grain would ferment and rot at one station; hundreds of barrels of meat stacked at another, while the army starved because of "no transportation!" But who recalls the arrival of a blockader at Charleston, Savannah, or Wilmington, when its ventures were not exposed at the auctions of Richmond, in time unreasonably short!

These facts are not recalled in carping spirit; nor to p.r.o.nounce judgment just where the blame for gross mismanagement, or favoritism should lie. They are recorded because they are historic truth; because the people, whom they oppressed and ruined--saw, felt and angrily proclaimed them so; because the blockade mismanagement was twin-destroyer with the finance, of the southern cause.

The once fair cities of Charleston, Savannah and Wilmington suffered most from the blockade, both in destruction of property and demoralization of their populations. The first--as "hot-bed of treason"

and equally from strategic importance--was early a point of Federal desire; but the fleet had been compelled to stand idly by and witness the bloodless reduction of Sumter. Later--when strengthened armaments threatened constant attack--Lee and Beauregard had used every resource to strengthen defenses of the still open port. What success they had, is told by the tedious and persistent bombardment--perhaps unexampled in the history of gunnery; surely so in devices to injure non-combatant inhabitants.

On the 30th January, '63, the two slow, clumsy and badly-built rams, under Captain Ingraham--of Martin Koszta fame--attacked the blockading squadron and drove the Union flag completely from the harbor; but re-enforced by iron-clads, it returned on the 7th of April. Again, after a fierce battle with the fort, the Federal fleet drew off, leaving the "Keokuk" monitor sunk; only to concentrate troops and build heavy batteries, for persistent attempt to reduce the devoted city. The history of that stubborn siege and defense, more stubborn still; of the woman-sh.e.l.ling "swamp-angel" and the "Greek-fire;" of the deeds of prowess that gleamed from the crumbling walls of Charleston--all this is too familiar for repet.i.tion. Yet, ever and again--through wooden mesh of the blockade-net and its iron links, alike--slipped a fleet, arrowy little blockader into port. And with what result has just been seen!

Wilmington--from long and shoal approach to her proper port--was more difficult still to seal up effectually. There--long after every other port was closed--the desperate, but wary, sea-pigeon would evade the big and surly watcher on the coast. Light draught, narrow, low in the water, swift and painted black--these little steamers were commanded by men who knew every inch of coast; who knew equally that on them depended life and death--or more. With banked fires and scarce-turning wheels, they would drop down the Cape Fear, at night, to within a hundred yards of the looming blockade giant. Then, putting on all steam, they would rush by him, trusting to speed and surprise to elude pursuit and distract his aim--and ho! for the open sea.

This was a service of keen excitement and constant danger; demanding clear heads and iron nerves. Both were forthcoming, especially from navy volunteers; and many were "the hair-breadth 'scapes" that made the names of Maffit, Wilkinson and their confreres, household words among the rough sea-dogs of Wilmington.

Savannah suffered least of the fair Atlantic sisterhood, from the blockade. The early capture of her river forts blocked access to her wharves, almost effectually; though occasional steamers still slipped up to them. Yet, she was in such easy reach of her more open neighbors, as to reap part of the bad fruits with which they were so over-stocked.