Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland Part 18

After a long, long, weary night and day, I arrived at an oil town, whose name I now forget. By great good fortune I secured a room, and by still greater luck I got acquainted the next morning at breakfast with three or four genial and gentlemanly men, all "speculators" like myself, who had come to spy into the plumpness and oiliness of the land. We hired a sleigh and went forth on an excursion among the oil-wells. It was in some respects the most remarkable day I ever spent anywhere.

For here was oil, oil, oil everywhere, in fountains flowing at the rate of a dollar a second (it brought 70 cents a gallon), derricks or scaffoldings at every turn over wells, men making fortunes in an hour, and beggars riding on blooded horses. I myself saw a man in a blue carter's blouse, carrying a black snake-whip, and since breakfast, for selling a friend's farm, he had received 1250,000 as commission (_i.e._, 50,000 pounds). When we stopped to dine at a tavern, there stood behind us during all the meal many country-fellows, all trying to sell oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made or lost incredible sums by gambling in oil-lands, borrowing recklessly, and failing as recklessly. Companies were formed here on the spot as easily as men get up a game of cards, and of this within a few days I witnessed many instances. Two men would meet. "Got any land over?"

(_i.e._, not "stocked"). "Yes, first-rate; geologer's certificate; can you put it on the market?" "That's my business. I've floated forty oil stocks already, terms half profits." So it would be floated forthwith.

Gambling by _millions_ was in the air everywhere; low common men held sometimes _thirty companies_, all their own, in one pocket, to be presently sprung in New York or elsewhere. And in contrast to it was the utterly bleak wretchedness and poverty of every house, and the miserable shanties, and all around and afar the dismal, dark, pine forests covered with snow.

I heard that day of a man who got a living by spiritually intuiting oil.

"Something told him," some Socratic demon or inner impulse, that there was "ile" here or there, deep under the earth. To pilot to this "ile" of beauty he was paid high fees. One of my new friends avowed his intention of at once employing this oil-seer as over-seer.

We came to some stupendous tanks and to a well which, as one of my friends said enviously and longingly, was running three thousand dollars a day in clear greenbacks. Its history was remarkable. For a very long time an engineer had been here, employed by a company in boring, but bore he never so wisely, he could get nothing. At last the company, tired of the expenditure and no returns, wrote to him ordering him to cease all further work on the next Sat.u.r.day. But the engineer had become "possessed" with the idea that he _must_ succeed, and so, unheeding orders, he bored away all alone the next day. About sunset some one going by heard a loud screaming and hurrahing. Hastening up, he found the engineer almost delirious with joy, dancing like a lunatic round a fountain of oil, which was "as thick as a flour-barrel, and rising to the height of a hundred feet." It was speedily plugged and made available.

All of this occurred only a very few days before I saw it.

That night I stopped at a newly-erected tavern, and, as no bed was to be had, made up my mind to sleep in my blanket on the muddy floor, surrounded by a crowd of noisy speculators, waggoners, and the like. I tell this tale vilely, for I omitted to say that I did the same thing the first night when I entered the oil-country, got a bed on the second, and that this was the third. But even here I made the acquaintance of a nice Scotchman, who found out another very nice man who had a house near by, and who, albeit not accustomed to receive guests, said he would give us two one bed, which he did. However, the covering was not abundant, and I, for all my blanket, was a-cold. In the morning I found a full supply of blankets hanging over the foot-board, but we had retired without a light, and had not noticed them. Our breakfast being rather poor, our host, with an apology, brought in a great cold mince-pie three inches thick, which is just the thing which I love best of all earthly food.

That he apologised for it indicated a very high degree of culture indeed in rural America, and, in fact, I found that he was a well-read and modest man.

It was, I think, at a place called Plummer that I made the acquaintance of two brothers named B---, who seemed to vibrate on the summit of fortune as two golden b.a.l.l.s might on the top of the oil-fountain to which I referred. One spoke casually of having at that instant a charter for a bank in one pocket, and one for a railroad in the other. They bought and sold any and all kinds of oil-land in any quant.i.ty, without giving it a thought. While I was in their office, one man exhibited a very handsome revolver. "How much did it cost?" asked B. "Fifty dollars" (10 pounds).

"I wish," replied B., "that when you go to Philadelphia you'd get me a dozen of them for presents." A man came to the window and called for him. "What do you want?" "Here are the two horses I spoke about yesterday." Hardly heeding him, and talking to others, B. went to the window, cast a casual glance at the steeds, and said, "What was it you said that you wanted for them?" "Three thousand dollars." "All right!

go and put 'em in the stable, and come here and get the money."

From Plummer I had to go ten miles to Oil City. If I had only known it, one of my very new friends, who was very kind indeed to a stranger, would have driven me over in his sleigh. But I did not know it, and so paid a very rough countryman ten dollars (2 pounds) to take me over on a _jumper_. This is the roughest form of a sledge, consisting of two saplings with the ends turned up, fastened by cross-pieces. The snow on the road was two feet deep, and the thermometer at zero. But the driver had two good horses, and made good time. I found it very difficult indeed to hold on to the vehicle and also to keep my carpet-bag.

Meanwhile my driver entertained me with an account of a great misfortune which had just befallen him. It was as follows:--

"Before this here oil-fever came along I had a little farm that cost me $150, and off that, an' workin' at carpentrin', I got a _mighty_ slim livin'. I used to keep all my main savin's to pay taxes, and often had to save up the cents to get a prospective drink of whisky. Well, last week I sold my farm for forty thousand dollars, and dern my skin ef the feller that bought it didn't go and sell it yesterday for a hundred and fifty thousand! Just like my derned bad luck!"

"See here, my friend," I said; "I have travelled pretty far in my time, but I never saw a country in which a man with forty thousand dollars was not considered rich."

"He may be rich anywhere else with it," replied the _nouveau riche_ contemptuously, "but it wouldn't do more than buy him a gla.s.s of whisky here in Plummer."

Having learned what I could of oil-boring, I went to Cincinnati, and then to Nashville by rail. It may give the reader some idea of what kind of a country and life I was coming into when I tell him that the train which preceded mine had been stopped by the guerillas, who took from it fifty Federal soldiers and shot them dead, stripping the other pa.s.sengers; and that the one which came after had a hundred and fifty bullets fired into it, but had not been stopped. We pa.s.sed by Mammoth Cave, but at full speed, for it was held by the brigands. All of which things were duly chronicled in the Northern newspapers, and read by all at home.

I got to Nashville. It had very recently been taken by the Federal forces under General Thomas, who had put it under charge of General Whipple, who was, in fact, the ruling or administrative man of the Southwest just then. I went to the hotel. Everything was dismal and dirty--nothing but soldiers and officers, with all the marks of the field and of warfare visible on them--citizens invisible--everything proclaiming a city camp in time of war--sixty thousand men in a city of twenty thousand, more or less. I got a room. It was so cold that night that the ice froze two inches thick in my pitcher in my room.

I expected to find the brothers Colton in Nashville. I went to the proper military authority, and was informed that their regiment was down at the front in Alabama, as was also the officer who had the authority to give them leave of absence. I was also informed that my only chance was to go to Alabama, or, in fact, into the field itself, as a civilian! This was a dreary prospect. However, I made up my mind to it, and was walking along the street in a very sombre state of mind, for I was going to a country like that described in "Sir Grey Stele"--

"Whiche is called the Land of Doubte."

And doubtful indeed, and very dismal and cold and old, did everything seem on that winter afternoon as I, utterly alone, went my way. What I wanted most of all things on earth was a companion. With my brother I would have gone down to the front and to face all chances as if it were to a picnic.

When ill-fortune intends to make a spring, she draws back. But good fortune, G.o.d bless her! does just the same. Therefore _si fortuna tonat_, _caveto mergi_--if fortune frowns, do not for that despond. Just as I was pa.s.sing a very respectable-looking mansion, I saw a sign over its office-door bearing the words: "Captain Joseph R. Paxton, Mustering- in and Disbursing Officer."

Joseph R. Paxton was a very intimate friend of mine in Philadelphia. He was still a young man, and one of the most remarkable whom I have ever known. He was a great scholar. He was more familiar with all the _rariora_, _curiosa_, and singular marvels of literature than any body I ever knew except Octave Delepierre, with whose works he first made me acquainted. He had translated Ik Marvel's "Reveries of a Bachelor" into French, and had been accepted by a Paris publisher. He had been a lawyer, an agent for a railroad, and had long edited in Philadelphia a curious journal ent.i.tled _Bizarre_, and written a work on gems. His whole soul, however, was in the French literature of the eighteenth century, and he always had a library which would make a collector's mouth water. Had he lived in London or Paris, he would have made a great reputation. And he was kind-hearted, genial, and generous to a fault. He had always some unfortunate friend living on him, some Bohemian of literature under a cloud.

I entered the office and found him, and great was his amazement! "_Que diable_, _mon ami_, _faistu ici dans cette galere_?" was his greeting. I explained the circ.u.mstances in detail. He at once exclaimed, "Come and live here with me. General Whipple is my brother-in-law, and he will be here in a few days and live with us. He'll make it all right." "Here, Jim!" he cried to a great six-foot man of colour--"run round to the hotel and bring this gentleman's luggage!"

There I remained for a very eventful month. Paxton had entered with the conquerors, and had just seized on the house. I may indeed say that _we_ seized on it, as regards any right--I being accepted as hail-fellow-well- met, and as a bird of the same feather. In it was a piano and a very good old-fashioned library. It was like Paxton to loot a library. He had had his pick of the best houses, and took this one, "n.i.g.g.e.rs included," for the servants, by some odd freak, preferred freedom with Paxton to slavery with their late owner. This gentleman was a Methodist clergyman, and Paxton found among his papers proofs that he had been concerned in a plot to burn Cincinnati by means of a gang of secret incendiaries.

Whenever the blacks realised the fact that a Northern man was a _gentleman_--they all have marvellous instincts for this, and a respect for one beyond belief--they took to him with a love like that of bees for a barrel of syrup. I have experienced this so often, and in many cases so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emanc.i.p.ated contraband. When the Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they were their "property" by law, the General replied by "confiscating" the property by what Germans call _Faustrecht_ (or fist-right) as "contraband of war."

This Jim, the general waiter and butler, was a character, shrewd, clever, and full of dry humour. When I was alone in the drawing-room of an evening, he would pile up a great wood-fire, and, as I sat in an arm-chair, would sit or recline on the floor by the blaze and tell me stories of his slave life, such as this:--

"My ole missus she always say to me, 'Jim, don' you ever have anything to do with dem Yankees. Dey're all pore miserable wile wretches. Dey lib in poverty an' nastiness and don' know nothin'.' I says to her, 'It's mighty quare, missus. I can't understan' it. Whar do all dem books come from? Master gits em from de Norf. Who makes all our boots an' clothes and sends us tea an' everythin'? Dey can't all be so pore an' ignoran'

ef dey writes our books an' makes everythin' we git.' 'Jim,' she says, 'you're a fool, an' don' understan' nothin'.' 'Wery good, missus,' says I, but I thinked it over. All we do is to raise cotton, an' dey make it into cloff, which we hav'n't de sense to do."

I believe that I give this word for word. And Jim, as I found, was a leading mind among the blacks.

I had a letter of introduction from Mr. Lea to Horace Harrison, who was the State Attorney for Tennessee. At this time his power was very great, for he had in his hands the disposition of all the estates of all the rebels in Tennessee. He was the type of a Southwestern gentleman. He reminded me very much of my old Princeton friends, and when I was in his office smoking a pipe, I felt as if I were in college again. I liked him very much. One morning I called, and after some deliberation he said, "You are a lawyer, are you not?" I replied that I had studied law under Judge Cadwallader.

"Then I should like to consult with you as a lawyer. I have a very difficult case to deal with. There is a law declaring that all property belonging to rebels shall be seized and held for one year. Now, here is a man whose estate I have held for six months, who has come in and declared his allegiance, and asks for his lands. And I believe that before long, unless he comes in now, they will be almost ruined. What shall I do?"

"It appears to me," I replied, "that if the disposal of these lands is in your hands, you must be supposed to exert some will and discretion. _Stat pro ratione voluntas_ is a good axiom here. We are not at all _in statu quo ante bellum_--in fact, the war is not at an end, nor decided. Your duty is to act for the good of the country, and not simply to _skin_ the enemy like a bushwhacker, but to pacify the people. _Victor volentes per populos dat jura_--laws should always be mildly interpreted. In your case, considering the very critical condition of the country, I should in equity give the man his property, and take his oath of allegiance. Severe measures are not advisable--_quod est violentum_, _non est durabile_."

This is, I believe, pretty accurately what I said. That evening, as I was sitting with General Whipple, he amazed me by addressing me exactly as Mr. Harrison had done in the morning.

"I say, Leland, you're a lawyer, and I want your advice. There are six warehouses here, and I want them badly for military stores. But Horace Harrison says that I can't have them, because he holds them for the United States. What am I to do?"

"General Whipple," I replied, "is this town under military occupation in time of war, or is it not?"

"Most decidedly it is."

"So I should think from the way your patrols bother me. And if such is the case, all things must yield to military wants. Where we have no legal principles or courts to decide, we must fall back on legal axioms.

And here the law is clear and explicit, for it says, _Inter arma leges silent_--the laws are suspended in warfare."

"A magnificent saying!" exclaimed the General admiringly. "Ah! you ought to be in the Supreme Court." And seizing a pen he wrote to the State Attorney:--

"SIR: This town, being but recently captured from the enemies of the United States, is, of course, under military occupation, which renders absolutely necessary for military purpose many temporary seizures and uses, such as that of the six warehouses referred to in our late correspondence. As regards legal precedent and principle, I need not remind one of your learning that--(I say, Leland, how do you spell that Latin?--_I-n-t-e-r_--yes, I've got it)--_Inter arma silent leges_."

I am afraid that Horace Harrison, when he got that letter, suspected that I had been acting as counsel for both sides. However, as I took no fee, my conscience was at rest. I think that I was of great use to General Whipple at that time, and, as he said one day, an unofficial secretary.

Great and serious matters pa.s.sed through our hands (for the General and Harrison were taking the lead in virtually reforming the whole frontier or debatable land), and these grand affairs were often hurried through "like hot cakes." My slender legal attainments were several times in requisition on occasions when the head of the Supreme Court would have been a more appropriate referee. I discovered, however, that there was really a department of law in which I might have done good work.

Questions of very serious importance were often discussed and disposed of among us three with very great economy of time and trouble. And here I may say--"excuse the idle word"--that I wonder that I never in all my life fell into even the most trifling diplomatic or civil position, when, in the opinion of certain eminent friends, I possess several qualifications for such a calling--that is, quickness in mastering the legal bearings of a question, a knowledge of languages and countries, readiness in drawing up papers, and an insatiable love of labour, which latter I have not found to be _always_ possessed by the accomplished gentlemen whom our country employs abroad.

I may here narrate a curious incident which touched and gratified me.

When all the slaves in Nashville were set free by the entrance of our troops, the poor souls, to manifest their joy, seized a church (n.o.body opposing), and for three weeks held heavy worship for twenty-four hours per diem. _But not a white soul was allowed to enter_--the real and deeply-concealed reason being that Voodoo rites (which gained great headway during the war) formed a part of their devotion. However, I was informed that an exception would be made in my case, and that I was free to enter. And why? Had Jim surmised, by that marvellous intuition of character which blacks possess, that I had in me "the mystery"? Now, to- day I hold and possess the black stone of the Voodoo, the possession of which of itself makes me a grand-master and initiate or adept, and such an invitation would seem as natural as one to a five-o'clock tea elsewhere; but I was not known to any one in Nashville as a "cunjerer,"

and the incident strikes me as very curious.

Apropos of marvels, many of the blacks can produce in their throats by some strange process sounds, and even airs, resembling those of the harmonicon, or musical box, one or the other or both. One evening in Nashville, in a lonely place, I heard exquisite music, which I thought must be that of a superior hand-organ from afar. But, to my amazement, I could discover none; there were only two black boys in the street. Alexis Paxton, the son of my host, explained to me that what I heard was unquestionably music made by those ebony flutes of boys, and that there were some wonderful performers in the city. I have listened to the same music at a public exhibition. I greatly wonder that I have never heard of this kind of music in Europe or the East. It is distinctly _instrumental_, not vocal in its tones. It has the obvious recommendation of economy, since by means of it a young lady could be performer and pianoforte all in one, which was indeed the beginning of the invention in Syrinx, who was made into a pan-pipe, which as a piano became the great musical curse (according to Heine) of modern times, and by which, as I conjecture, the fair Miss Reed or Syrinx revenges herself on male humanity. By the way, the best singer of "_Che faro senza Euridice_" whom I ever heard was a Miss Reed, a sister of Mrs. Paran Stevens.

I had a very pleasant time with Paxton, and I know right well that I was no burden on him, but a welcome friend. _Au reste_, there was plenty of room in the house, and abundant army stores to be had for asking, and one or two rare acquaintances. One of these was a Southern officer, now a general, who had come over to our side and fought, as the saying was, with a rope round his neck. He was terribly hated by the rebels, which hate he returned with red-hot double compound interest--for a renegade is worse than ten Turks. He was the very type of a grim, calm old Border moss-trooper. He lived in his boots, and never had an ounce of luggage.

One evening General Whipple (always humane and cultivated, though as firm as an iron bar) said to him before me, "I really don't know what to do with many of my rebel prisoners. They dress themselves in Federal uniforms for want of other clothes; they take them from the dead on the battlefield, and try to pa.s.s themselves off for Federals. It is very troublesome."

"No trouble to me," replied the other.

"And how do you do with them?"

"Shoot them as _spies_. Why, only last week I got four dozen of them, and in less than four minutes I had them all laid out stiff in the road."

The reader need not imagine that the general here romanced or exaggerated. At that very moment the ma.s.sacres and murders which were going on within three miles of us were beyond belief. The bands of _guerillas_ or bushwhackers which swept the country murdered in cold blood all who fell into their hands, and the Confederate soldiers often did the same. There resulted, of course, a deadly hatred on both sides, and the most unscrupulous retaliation.

I could fill a book with the very interesting observations which I made in Nashville. And here I call attention to a very strange coincidence which this recalls. During the previous year I had often expressed a great desire to be in some State during its transition from Confederacy to Unionism, that I might witness the remarkable social and political paradoxes and events which would result, and I had often specified Tennessee as the one above all others which I should prefer to visit for this purpose. And I had about as much idea that I should go to the moon as there. But prayers are strangely granted at strange hours--_plus impetravi quam fuissem ausus_--and I was placed in the very centre of the wheel. This very remarkable fulfilment of a wish, and many like it, though due to mere chance, naturally made an impression on me, for no matter how strong our eyesight may be, or our sense of truth, we are all dazed when coming out of darkness into light, and all the world is in that condition now. No matter how completely we exchange the gloom of supernaturalism for the sunlight of science, phantoms still seem to flit before our eyes, and, what is more bewildering still, we do not as yet know but what these phantoms may be physical facts. Perhaps the Voodoo stone _may_ have the power to awaken the faith which may move the vital or nervous force, which may act on hidden subtler forms of electricity and matter, atoms and molecules. Ah! we have a great deal to learn!

Through General Whipple's kind aid the brothers Colton were at once brought up from the front. With them and Captain Paxton we went to Murfreesboro, and at once called on the general in command, whose name I have forgotten. He struck me as a grim, brave old commander, every inch a soldier. While we conversed with him a sergeant entered, a man who looked as if he lived in the saddle, and briefly reported that a gang of guerillas were a.s.sembled at a certain place some miles away--I forget how far, but the distance was traversed in an incredibly short time. The general issued orders for a hundred cavalry to go at once and "get" them.