The Boys of '61 Part 6

Ascending the stone stairway to the third story of the building, entering a dark corridor and pa.s.sing along a few steps, I came to a room twelve or fifteen feet square, occupied by about twenty colored men. They were at their dinner of boiled beef and corn-cake. There was one old man sitting on the stone floor, silent and sorrowful. He had committed no crime. Around, standing, sitting, or lying, were the others, of all shades of color, from jet black to the Caucasian hue, the Anglo-Saxon hair and contour of features. They were from ten to fifty years of age; some were dressed decently, and others were in rags. One bright fellow of twenty had on a pair of trousers only, and tried to keep himself warm by drawing around him a tattered blanket. A little fellow ten years old was all in rags. There was no chair or bed in the room. They must stand, or sit, or lie upon the brick and granite floor. There was no mattress or bedding; each had his little bundle of rags, and that was all. They looked up inquiringly as I entered, as if to make out the object of my visit.

One bright, intelligent boy belonged to Captain Dunnington, captain of the Capitol police during Buchanan's administration, and then commanding a Rebel battery. When Dunnington went from Washington to join the Rebels he left the boy behind, and the police had arrested him under an old Maryland law, because he had no master, and kept him in jail five months.

There was an old man from Fairfax Court-House. When the army advanced to Falls Church, his master sold his wife and child, for fear they might escape. "You see, sir, that broke me all up. O, sir, it was hard to part with them, to see 'em chained up and taken off away down South to Carolina. My mind is almost gone. I don't want to die here; I sha'n't live long. When your army fell back to Washington after the battle of Bull Run, I came to Washington, and the police took me up because I was a runaway."

There was another, a free negro, imprisoned on the supposition that he was a fugitive, and kept because there was no one to pay his jail fees. Another had been a hand on a Ma.s.sachusetts schooner plying on the Potomac, and had been arrested in the streets on the suspicion that he was a slave.

Another had been employed on the fortifications, and government was his debtor. There was a little boy, ten years old, clothed in rags, arrested as a runaway. Women were there, sent in by their owners for safe keeping. There were about sixty chargeable with no crime whatever, incarcerated with felons, without hope of deliverance. They were imprisoned because negroes about town, without a master, always had been dealt with in that manner. The police, when the slaves had been reclaimed, had been sure of their pay, or if they were sold, their pay came from the auctioneer. When they saw me making notes, they imagined that I was doing something for their liberation, and with eagerness they crowded round, saying, "Please put down my name, sir," "I do want to get out, sir," and similar expressions. They followed me into the pa.s.sage, gazed through the grated door, and when I said "Good by, boys," there came a chorus of "Good byes" and "G.o.d bless yous."

Dec., 1861.

Seeking Senator Wilson's room, I informed him of what I had witnessed, and read the memoranda taken in the jail. The eyes of that true-hearted man flashed with righteous indignation. "We will see about this," said he, springing to his feet.

He visited the jail, saw the loathsome spectacle, heard the stories of the poor creatures, and the next day introduced a resolution into the Senate, which upset forever this system of tyranny, which had been protected by the national authority.

The year closed gloomily. There were more than six hundred thousand troops under arms ready to subdue the Rebellion, but General McClellan hesitated to move. But there were indications of an early advance in the West; therefore on the last days of December I left Washington to be an observer of whatever might happen in Kentucky.

Ellsworth Zouave drill.

CHAPTER IV.

AFFAIRS IN THE WEST.

Jan., 1862.

The church-bells of Louisville were ringing the new year in as with the early morning we entered that city. There was little activity in the streets. The breaking out of the war had stopped business. The city, with a better location than Cincinnati, has had a slow growth. Ca.s.sius M. Clay gave the reason, years ago.

"Why," he asked, "does Louisville write on an hundred of her stores 'To let,' while Cincinnati advertises 'Wanted'? There is but one answer,-Slavery." Many of the houses were tenantless. The people lounged in the streets. Few had anything to do. Thousands of former residents were away, many with the Southern army, more with the Union. There was division of feeling. Lines were sharply drawn. A dozen loyal Kentuckians had been killed in a skirmish on Green River; among them Captain Bacon, a prominent citizen of Frankfort. His body was at the Galt House. Loyal Kentuckians were feeling these blows. Their temper was rising; they were being educated by such adversity to make a true estimate of Secession. Everything serves a purpose in this world. Our vision is too limited to understand much of the governmental providence of Him who notices the fall of a sparrow, and alike controls the destiny of nations; but I could see in the emphatic utterances of men upon the street, that revenge might make men patriotic who otherwise might remain lukewarm in their loyalty.

A friend introduced a loyal Tennesseean, who was forced to flee from Nashville when the State seceded. The vigilance committee informed him that he must leave or take the consequences; which meant, a suspension by the neck from the nearest tree. He was offensive because of his outspoken loyalty. He was severe in his denunciations of the government, on account of its slowness to put down the Rebellion.

"Sir," said he, "this government is not going to put down the Rebellion, because it isn't in earnest. You of the North are white-livered. Excuse me for saying it. No; I won't ask to be excused for speaking the truth. You are afraid to touch the negro. You are afraid of Kentucky. The little province of the United States gets down on its knees to the nation of Kentucky. You are afraid that the State will go over to the Rebels, if anything is done about the negro. Now, sir, I know what slavery is; I have lived among it all my days. I know what Secession is,-it means slavery. I know what Kentucky is,-a proud old State, which has a great deal that is good about her and a great deal of sham. Kentucky politicians are no better or wiser than any other politicians. The State is living on the capital of Henry Clay. You think that the State is great because he was great. O, you Northern men are a brave set! (It was spoken with bitter sarcasm.) You handle this Rebellion as gingerly as if it were a gla.s.s doll. Go on, go on; you will get whipped. Buell will get whipped at Bowling Green, Butler will get whipped at New Orleans. You got whipped at Big Bethel, Ball's Bluff, and Mana.s.sas. Why? Because the Rebels are in earnest, and you are not. Everything is at stake with them. They employ n.i.g.g.e.rs, you don't. They seize, rob, burn, destroy; they do everything to strengthen their cause and weaken you, while you pick your way as daintily as a dandy crossing a mud-puddle, afraid of offending somebody. No, sir, you are not going to put down this Rebellion till you hit it in the tenderest spot,-the negro. You must take away its main support before it will fall."

General Buell was in command of the department, with his head-quarters at the Galt House. He had a large army at Mumfordville and other points. He issued his orders by telegraph, but he had no plan of operations. There were no indications of a movement. The Rebel sympathizers kept General Johnston, in command at Bowling Green, well informed as to Buell's inaction. There was daily communication between Louisville and the Rebel camp. There was constant illicit trade in contraband goods. The policy of General McClellan was also the policy of General Buell,-to sit still.

Events were more stirring in Missouri, and I proceeded to St. Louis, where General Halleck was in command,-a thick-set, dark-featured, black-haired man, sluggish, opinionated, and self-willed, arbitrary and cautious.

Soon after his appointment to this department he issued, on the 20th of November, his Order No. 3, which roused the indignation of earnest loyal men throughout the country. Thus read the doc.u.ment:-

"It has been represented that information respecting the numbers and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such persons be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any within our lines be immediately excluded therefrom."

General Schofield was in command of Northern Missouri, under General Halleck. The guerillas had burned nearly all the railroad bridges, and it was necessary to bring them to justice. The negroes along the line gave him the desired intelligence, and six of the leaders were in this way caught, tried by court-martial, and summarily shot. Yet General Halleck adhered to his infamous order. Diligent inquiries were made of officers in regard to the loyalty of the negroes, and no instance was found of their having given information to the enemy. In all of the slaveholding States a negro's testimony was of no account against a white man under civil law; but General Schofield had, under military law, inaugurated a new order of things,-a drum-head court, a speedy sentence, a quick execution, on negro testimony. The Secessionists and Rebel sympathizers were indignant, and called loudly for his removal.

The fine army which Fremont had commanded, and from which he had been summarily dismissed because of his anti-slavery order, was at Rolla, at the terminus of the southwest branch of the Pacific Railroad. This road, sixteen miles out from St. Louis, strikes the valley of the Maramec,-not the Merrimack, born of the White Hills, but a sluggish stream, tinged with blue and green, widening in graceful curves, with tall-trunked elms upon its banks, and acres of low lands, which are flooded in freshets. It is a pretty river, but not to be compared in beauty to the stream which the muse of Whittier has made cla.s.sic. Nearly all the residences in this section are Missourian in architectural proportions and features,-logs and clay, with the mammoth outside chimneys, cow-yard and piggery, an oven out of doors on stilts, an old wagon, half a dozen horses, hens, dogs, pigs, in front, and lean, cadaverous men and women peeping from the doorways, with arms akimbo, and pipes between the teeth. This is the prevailing feature,-this in a beautiful, fertile country, needing but the hand of industry, the energy of a free people, vitalized by the highest civilization, to make it one of the loveliest portions of the world.

At Franklin the southwestern branch of the Pacific Railroad diverges from the main stem. It is a new place, brought into existence by the railroad, and consists of a lime-kiln, a steam saw-mill, and a dozen houses. Behind the town is a picturesque bluff, with the lime-kiln at its base, which might be taken for a ruined temple of some old Aztec city. Near at hand two Iowa regiments were encamped. A squad of soldiers was on the plain, and a crowd stood upon the depot platform, anxiously inquiring for the morning papers. It was a supply station, provisions being sent up both lines. Two heavy freight trains, destined for Rolla, were upon the southwestern branch. To one of them pa.s.senger cars were attached, to which we were transferred.

When the branch was opened for travel in 1859, the directors run one train a day,-a mixed train of pa.s.senger and freight cars,-and during the first week their patronage in freight was immense,-it consisted of a bear and a pot of honey! On the pa.s.sage the bear ate the honey, and the owner of the honey brought a bill against the company for damages.

Beyond Franklin the road crosses the Maramec, enters a forest, winds among the hills, and finally by easy grades reaches a crest of land, from which, looking to the right or the left, you can see miles away over an unbroken forest of oak. Far to the east is the elevated ridge of land which ends in the Pilot k.n.o.b, toward the Mississippi, and becomes the Ozark Mountain range toward the Arkansas line. We looked over the broad panorama to see villages, church-spires, white cottages, or the blue curling smoke indicative of a town or human residence, but the expanse was primitive and unbroken. Not a sign of life could be discovered for many miles as we slowly crept along the line. The country is undulating, with the limestone strata cropping out on the hillsides. In the railroad cuttings the rock, which at the surface is gray, takes a yellow and reddish tinge, from the admixture of ochre in the soil. In one cutting we recognized the lead-bearing rocks, which abound through the southwestern section of the State.

We looked in vain to discover a school-house. A gentleman who was well acquainted with this portion of the State, said that he knew of only two school-houses,-one in Warsaw and the other in Springfield. In a ride of one hundred and thirteen miles we saw but two churches. As Aunt Ophelia found "Topsy" virgin soil, so will those who undertake to reconstruct the South find these wilds of Southwestern Missouri. And they are a fair specimen of the South.

It was evening when we reached Rolla. When we stepped from the car in the darkness, there was a feeling that the place was a mortar-bed and the inhabitants were preparing to make bricks. Our boots became heavy, and, like a man who takes responsibility, when we once planted our feet the tendency was for them to stay there. Guided by an acquaintance who knew the way, the hotel was reached. In the distance the weird camp-fires illumined the low-hanging clouds. From right and left there came the roll of drums and the bugle-call. A group of men sat around the stove in the bar. The landlord escorted us to the wash-room,-a s.p.a.cious, high-arched apartment, as wide as the east is from the west, as long as the north is from the south, as high-posted as the zenith, where we found a pail of water, a tin basin, and a towel, for all hands; and which all hands had used. After ablution came supper in the dining-hall, with bare beams overhead. Dinah waited upon us,-coal-black, tall, stately, worth a thousand dollars before the war broke out, but somewhat less just then, and Phillis, with a mob-cap on her head, bleached a little in complexion by Anglo-Saxon or Missourian blood.

We soon discovered that nothing was to be done by the army in this direction. The same story was current here as on the Potomac and in Kentucky,-"Not ready." General Sigel had sent in his resignation, disgusted with General Halleck. General Curtis had just arrived to take command. The troops were sore over the removal of Fremont: they idolized him. Among the forty thousand men in the vicinity were those who had fought at Wilson's Creek. The lines between Rebellion and Loyalty were more sharply drawn here than in any other section of the country. Men acted openly. The army was radical in its sentiments, believing in Fremont's order for the liberation of the slaves, which the President had set aside.

There was one other point which gave better promise of active operations,-Cairo. Therefore bidding adieu to Rolla, we returned to St. Louis and took the cars for Cairo.

It was an all-night ride, with a mixed company of soldiers and civilians. There were many ladies on their way to visit their husbands and brothers before the opening of the campaign. One woman had three children. "Their father wants to see them once more before he goes into battle," said the mother, sadly.

At last we found a place where men seemed to be in earnest. Cairo was alive. At the levee were numerous steamboats. Soldiers were arriving. There was a constant hammering and pounding on the gunboats, which were moored along the sh.o.r.e.

The mud cannot be put into the picture. There was thick mud, thin mud, sticky mud, slushy mud, slimy mud, deceptive mud, impa.s.sable mud, which appeared to the sight, to say nothing of the peculiarities that are understood by the nose; for within forty feet of our window were a horse-stable and pig-yard, where slops from the houses and washes from the sinks were trodden with the manure from the stables. Bunyan's Slough of Despond, into which all the filth and slime of this world settled, was nothing beside the slough of Cairo. There were sheds, shanties, stables, pig-stys, wood-piles, carts, barrels, boxes,-the debris of everything thrown over the area. Of animate things, water-carts,-two-horse teams, which were supplying the inhabitants with drinking water from the river. There were truckmen stuck in the mud. There were two pigs in irrepressible conflict; also two dogs. Twenty feet distant, soldiers in their blue coats, officers with swords, sash and belt, ladies, and citizens, were picking their way along the sticky sidewalks. This was Cairo. Delectable Cairo!

The prominent names before the country at that period, as commanders who were to lead our armies to victory, were McClellan, Buell, T. W. Sherman, then at Port Royal, Fremont, Rosecrans, Burnside, Butler, and Banks. William Tec.u.mseh Sherman was reputed to be flighty in the head. He had commanded the Department of the Ohio, but Buell had succeeded him. He was now a brigade commander at Paducah, under General C. F. Smith. There were several brigadiers at Cairo. General McClernand, who had been a member of Congress, a strong partisan of Senator Douglas, was most conspicuous. General Prentiss, who was ready to make a speech on any and every occasion, was also well known. The commander of the post was an obscure man. His name was Grant. At the beginning of the war he was in the leather business at Galena. He had been educated at West Point, where he stood well as a mathematician, but had left the service, and had become a hard-working citizen. He was Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois, and had been made a brigadier by the President. He was in charge of the expedition to Belmont, which, though successful in the beginning, had ended almost in disaster. Having credentials from the Secretary of War, I entered the head-quarters of the commanding officer, and found a man of medium stature, thick set, with blue eyes, and brown beard closely cropped, sitting at a desk. He was smoking a meerschaum. He wore a plain blue blouse, without any insignia of rank. His appearance was clerkly. General McClellan, in Washington, commanded in state, surrounded by brilliant staffs, men in fine broadcloth, gold braid, plumed hats, and wearing clanking sabres. Orderlies and couriers were usually numerous at head-quarters.

"Is General Grant in?" was the question directed to the clerk in the corner.

"Yes, sir," said the man, removing his meerschaum from his mouth, and spitting with unerring accuracy into a spittoon by his side.

"Will you be kind enough to give this letter to him."

But the clerk, instead of carrying it into an adjoining room, to present it to the commander-in-chief, opened it, ran his eye rapidly over the contents, and said, "I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir. Colonel Webster will give you a pa.s.s."

Such was my first interview with General Grant. I have seen him many times since,-in the hour of victory, at Donelson; in the shadow of the cloud, after Pittsburg Landing; during the fearful days of the Wilderness; in the last great hours of triumph, with Lee and his army paroled prisoners of war; and there has ever been the same quiet, gentlemanly deportment.

The large hall of the St. Charles Hotel was the general resort of officers, soldiers, guests, and citizens. I was conversing with a friend the same afternoon when a short, muscular, quick-walking man, in the prime of life, wearing a navy uniform, entered. His countenance would attract attention even in a crowd, it was so mild, peaceful, and pleasant. My friend introduced him as Commander Foote.

"I shall be pleased to see you at my office, which is on the wharf-boat. I usually take a little recreation after dinner," said he.

Calling upon him the next day, I found him at leisure, having despatched the business of the forenoon. There was a Bible on his table and a hymn-book, and in one corner of the office a large package of books, just received from the Sunday-School Union, directed to "Captain A. H. Foote, U. S. N."

Noticing my eyes turned in that direction, he said: "They are for the sailors; I want to do what I can for the poor fellows. They haven't any chaplain; I read the service on Sunday and visit the crews, and talk to them; but it is very little religious instruction which they receive. I don't allow any work, except what is absolutely necessary, on Sunday. I believe man and beast need rest one day in seven. I am trying to persuade the men to leave off their grog rations, with a fair chance of success."

General Grant.

He was at leisure, and talked freely of matters relating to the organization of the fleet. He had to contend with great difficulties. The department had rendered him but little service. He had done his best to obtain mortars; had despatched officers to Pittsburg, where they were cast, but they were all sent East for the New Orleans fleet. He regretted it exceedingly, for with good ordnance he thought it would not be a difficult matter to reach New Orleans, though, as he modestly remarked, quoting the Scriptural proverb, "It becomes not him who putteth on the harness to boast." He was lacking men. Recruiting officers had been sent to Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, and other lake ports, but they had signally failed, because the department did not pay any advance to those in the river service, while on the seaboard advances were made. He had not men enough to man his gunboats.

General Sherman.

The department had furnished him with but few new guns. He had been obliged to take those which were at Sackett's Harbor,-old guns far inferior to those with which Commodore Du Pont knocked Tybee and Hilton Head to pieces. He had to get gun-carriages manufactured in Cincinnati, other things at St. Louis, others at Pittsburg; but notwithstanding this, had organized a fleet which would throw a tremendous weight of metal. He was not ready to move, yet would move, whether ready or not, whenever the word was given. He believed in fighting at close quarters.

He spoke freely of the faults of the gunboats. They were too low in the water and the engines of too limited capacity. They would not be able to make much headway against the stream. He considered them an experiment, and, like all experiments, they were of course defective.

He was a close student, devoted to his profession, and bore the marks of severe thought in the wrinkles which were deepening on his brow. Time had begun to silver his hair and whiskers, but he walked with a firm step. He had rare conversational powers, and imparted information as if it were a pleasure. He was thoroughly conscientious, and had a deep sense of his responsibility. He was aware that his own reputation and standing as well as the interests of the public were at stake. He was greatly beloved by his men.

Two of the gunboats-the Ess.e.x and Louisville-were lying six or eight miles below Cairo, guarding the river. The Ess.e.x! How often in boyhood had I thrilled at the story of her brave fight with the Cherub and Phebe in the harbor of Valparaiso! How often I wished that Captain Porter could have had a fair chance in that terrible fight,-one of the fiercest ones fought on the sea. But there was another Ess.e.x commanded by another Captain Porter, son of him who refused to surrender his ship till he had lost all power to defend her.