Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 Part 9

sleep there. We then got into a railroad for sixteen miles, after which we were crammed into another stage.

Crossed the frontier into Louisiana at 11 A.M. I have therefore been nearly a month getting through the single state of Texas.

Reached Shrieveport at 3 P.M., and after washing for the first time in five days, I called on General Kirby Smith, who commands the whole country on this side of the Mississippi.

He is a Floridian by birth, was educated at West Point, and served in the United States cavalry. He is only thirty-eight years old; and he owes his rapid rise to a lieutenant-general to the fortunate fact of his having fallen, just at the very nick of time, upon the Yankee flank at the first battle of Mana.s.sas.[19]

He is a remarkably active man, and of very agreeable manners; he wears big spectacles and a black beard.

His wife is an extremely pretty woman, from Baltimore, but she had cut her hair quite short like a man's. In the evening, she proposed that we should go down to the river and fish for cray-fish. We did so, and were most successful, the General displaying much energy on the occasion.

He told me that M'Clellan might probably have destroyed the Southern army with the greatest ease during the first winter, and without running much risk to himself, as the Southerners were so much over-elated by their easy triumph at Mana.s.sas, and their army had dwindled away.

I was introduced to Governor Moore, of Louisiana, to the Lieutenant-Governor Hyams, and also to the exiled Governor of Missouri, Reynolds.

Governor Moore told me he had been on the Red River since 1824, from which date until 1840 it had been very unhealthy. He thinks that d.i.c.kens must have intended Shrieveport by "Eden."[20]

Governor Reynolds, of Missouri, told me he found himself in the unfortunate condition of a potentate exiled from his dominions; but he showed me an address which he had issued to his Missourians, promising to be with them at the head of an army to deliver them from their oppressors.

Shrieveport is rather a decent-looking place on the Red River. It contains about 3000 inhabitants, and is at present the seat of the Louisianian Legislature _vice_ Baton Rouge. But only twenty-eight members of the Lower House had arrived as yet, and business could not be commenced with less than fifty.

The river now is broad and rapid, and it is navigated by large steamers; its banks are low and very fertile, but reputed to be very unhealthy.

General Kirby Smith advised me to go to Munroe, and try to cross the Mississippi from thence; he was so uncertain as to Alexandria that he was afraid to send a steamer so far.

I heard much talk at his house about the late Federal raid into Mississippi,[21] which seems to be a copy of John Morgan's operations, except that the Federal raid was made in a thinly populated country, bereft of its male inhabitants.

[19] Called by the Yankees "Bull Run."

[20] I believe this is a mistake of Governor Moore. I have always understood Cairo was Eden.

[21] Grierson's raid.

_9th May_ (Sat.u.r.day).--Started again by stage for Munroe at 4.30 A.M. My companions were, the Mississippi planter, a mad dentist from New Orleans (called, by courtesy, doctor), an old man from Matagorda, buying slaves cheap in Louisiana, a wounded officer, and a wounded soldier.

The soldier was a very intelligent young Missourian, who told me (as others have) that, at the commencement of these troubles, both he and his family were strong Unionists. But the Lincolnites, by using coercion, had forced them to take one side or the other--and there are now no more bitter Secessionists than these people. This soldier (Mr Douglas) was on his way to rejoin Bragg's army. A Confederate soldier when wounded is not given his discharge, but is employed at such work as he is competent to perform. Mr Douglas was quite lame; but will be employed at mounted duties or at writing.

We pa.s.sed several large and fertile plantations. The negro quarters formed little villages, and seemed comfortable: some of them held 150 or 200 hands. We afterwards drove through some beautiful pine forests, and were ferried across a beautiful shallow lake full of cypresses, but not the least like European cypress trees.

We met a number more planters driving their families, their slaves, and furniture, towards Texas--in fact, everything that they could save from the ruin that had befallen them on the approach of the Federal troops.

At 5 P.M. we reached a charming little town, called Mindon, where I met an English mechanic who deplored to me that he had been such a fool as to naturalise himself, as he was in hourly dread of the conscription.

I have at length become quite callous to many of the horrors of stage travelling. I no longer shrink at every random shower of tobacco-juice; nor do I shudder when good-naturedly offered a quid. I eat voraciously of the bacon that is provided for my sustenance, and I am invariably treated by my fellow-travellers of all grades with the greatest consideration and kindness. Sometimes a man remarks that it is rather "mean" of England not to recognise the South; but I can always shut him up by saying, that a nation which deserves its independence should fight and earn it for itself--a sentiment which is invariably agreed to by all.

_10th May_ (Sunday).--I spent a very rough night in consequence of the badness of the road, the jolting of the carriage, and having to occupy a centre seat.

In the morning we received news from every one we met of the fall of Alexandria.

The road to-day was alive with negroes, who are being "run" into Texas out of Banks's way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.

On approaching Munroe, we pa.s.sed through the camp of Walker's division (8000 strong), which was on its march from Arkansas to meet Banks. The division had embarked in steamers, and had already started down the "Wachita" towards the Red River, when the news arrived of the fall of Alexandria, and of the presence of Federal gunboats in or near the Wachita itself. This caused the precipitate return and disembarkation of Walker's division. The men were well armed with rifles and bayonets, but they were dressed in ragged civilian clothes. The old Matagorda man recognised his son in one of these regiments--a perfect boy.

Munroe is on the "Wachita" (p.r.o.nounced Washtaw), which is a very pretty and wide stream. After crossing it we arrived at the hotel after dark.

Universal confusion reigned there; it was full of officers and soldiers of Walker's division, and no person would take the slightest notice of us.

In desperation I called on General Hebert, who commanded the post. I told him who I was, and gave him a letter of introduction, which I had fortunately brought from Kirby Smith. I stated my hard case, and besought an asylum for the night, which he immediately accorded me in his own house.

The difficulty of crossing the Mississippi appeared to increase the nearer I got to it, and General Hebert told me that it was very doubtful whether I could cross at all at this point. The Yankee gunboats, which had forced their way past Vicksburg and Port Hudson, were roaming about the Mississippi and Red River, and some of them were reported at the entrance of the Wachita itself, a small fort at Harrisonburg being the only impediment to their appearance in front of Munroe.

On another side, the enemy's forces were close to Delhi, only forty miles distant.

There were forty or fifty Yankee deserters here from the army besieging Vicksburg. These Yankee deserters, on being asked their reasons for deserting, generally reply,--"Our Government has broken faith with us.

We enlisted to fight for the Union, and not to liberate the G----d d----d n.i.g.g.e.rs." Vicksburg is distant from this place about eighty miles.

The news of General Lee's victory at Chancellorsville had just arrived here. Every one received it very coolly, and seemed to take it quite as a matter of course; but the wound of Stonewall Jackson was universally deplored.

_11th May_ (Monday).--General Hebert is a good-looking creole.[22] He was a West-Pointer, and served in the old army, but afterwards became a wealthy sugar-planter. He used to hold Magruder's position as commander-in-chief in Texas, but he has now been shelved at Munroe, where he expects to be taken prisoner any day; and, from the present gloomy aspect of affairs about here, it seems extremely probable that he will not be disappointed in his expectations. He is extremely down upon England for not recognising the South.[23]

He gave me a pa.s.sage down the river in a steamer, which was to try to take provisions to Harrisonburg; but, at the same time, he informed me that she might very probably be captured by a Yankee gunboat.

At 1 P.M. I embarked for Harrisonburg, which is distant from Munroe by water 150 miles, and by land 75 miles. It is fortified, and offers what was considered a weak obstruction to the pa.s.sage of the gunboats up the river to Munroe.

The steamer was one of the curious American river boats, which rise to a tremendous height out of the water, like great wooden castles. She was steered from a box at the very top of all, and this particular one was propelled by one wheel at her stern.

The river is quite beautiful; it is from 200 to 300 yards broad, very deep and tortuous, and the large trees grow right down to the very edge of the water.

Our captain at starting expressed in very plain terms his extreme disgust at the expedition, and said he fully expected to run against a gunboat at any turn of the river.

Soon after leaving Munroe, we pa.s.sed a large plantation. The negro quarters were larger than a great many Texan towns, and they held three hundred hands.

After we had proceeded about half an hour, we were stopped by a mounted orderly (called a courier), who from the bank roared out the pleasing information, "They're a-fighting at Harrisonburg." The captain on hearing this turned quite green in the face, and remarked that he'd be "dogged" if he liked running into the jaws of a lion, and he proposed to turn back; but he was jeered at by my fellow-travellers, who were all either officers or soldiers, wishing to cross the Mississippi to rejoin their regiments in the different Confederate armies.

One pleasant fellow, more warlike than the rest, suggested that as we had some Enfields on board, we should make "a little bit of a fight," or at least "make one b.u.t.t at a gunboat." I was relieved to find that these insane proposals were not received with any enthusiasm by the majority.

The plantations, as we went further down the river, looked very prosperous; but signs of preparations for immediate skedaddling were visible in most of them, and I fear they are all destined to be soon desolate and destroyed.

We came to a courier picket every sixteen miles. At one of them we got the information, "Gun-boats drove back," at which there was great rejoicing, and the captain, recovering his spirits, became quite jocose, and volunteered to give me letters of introduction to a "particular friend of his about here, called Mr Farragut;" but the next news, "Still a-fightin'," caused us to tie ourselves to a tree at 8 P.M., off a little village called Columbia, which is half-way between Munroe and Harrisonburg.

We then lit a large fire, round which all the pa.s.sengers squatted on their heels in Texan fashion, each man whittling a piece of wood, and discussing the merits of the different Yankee prisons at New Orleans or Chicago. One of them, seeing me, called out, "I reckon, Kernel, if the Yankees catch you with us, they'll say you're in d----d bad company;"

which sally caused universal hilarity.