Part 14 (1/2)
Within two miles of the city, however, the bay becomes very shallow, and the s.h.i.+p channel is both dangerous and tortuous. It is, moreover, obstructed by double rows of pine piles, and all sorts of ingenious torpedos, besides being commanded by carefully constructed forts, armed with heavy guns, and built either on islands or on piles.
Their names are Fort Pinto, Fort Spanish River, Apalache, and Blakeley.[33]
The garrisons of these forts complained of their being unhealthy, and I did not doubt the a.s.sertion. Before landing, we boarded two ironclad floating-batteries. The Confederate fleet at Mobile is considerable, and reflects great credit upon the energy of the Mobilians, as it has been constructed since the commencement of the war. During the trip, I overheard General Maury soliloquising over a Yankee flag, and saying, ”Well, I never should have believed that I could have lived to see the day in which I should detest that old flag.” He is cousin to Lieutenant Maury, who has distinguished himself so much by his writings, on physical geography especially. The family seems to be a very military one. His brother is captain of the Confederate steamer Georgia.
After landing, I partook of a hasty dinner with General Maury and Major c.u.mmins. I was then mounted on the General's horse, and was sent to gallop round the land defences with Brigadier-General Slaughter and his Staff. By great good fortune this was the evening of General Slaughter's weekly inspection, and all the redoubts were manned by their respective garrisons, consisting half of soldiers and half of armed citizens who had been exempted from the conscription either by their age or nationality, or had purchased subst.i.tutes. One of the forts was defended by a burly British guard, commanded by a venerable Captain Wheeler.[34]
After visiting the fortifications, I had supper at General Slaughter's house, and met there some of the refugees from New Orleans--these are now being huddled neck and crop out of that city for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Great numbers of women and children are arriving at Mobile every day; they are in a dest.i.tute condition, and they add to the universal feeling of exasperation. The propriety of raising the black flag, and giving no quarter, was again freely discussed at General Slaughter's, and was evidently the popular idea. I heard many anecdotes of the late ”Stonewall Jackson,” who was General Slaughter's comrade in the Artillery of the old army. It appears that previous to the war he was almost a monomaniac about his health.
When he left the U.S. service he was under the impression that one of his legs was getting shorter than the other; and afterwards his idea was that he only perspired on one side, and that it was necessary to keep the arm and leg of the other side in constant motion in order to preserve the circulation; but it seems that immediately the war broke out he never made any further allusion to his health. General Slaughter declared that on the night after the terrific repulse of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg, Stonewall Jackson had made the following suggestion:--”I am of opinion that we ought to attack the enemy at once; and in order to avoid the confusion and mistakes so common in a night-attack, I recommend that we should all strip ourselves perfectly naked.”[35] Blockade-running goes on very regularly at Mobile; the steamers nearly always succeed, but the schooners are generally captured. To-morrow I shall start for the Tennessean army, commanded by General Braxton Bragg.
[33] A description of either its sea or land defences is necessarily omitted.
[34] Its members were British subjects exempted from the conscription, but they had volunteered to fight in defence of the city.
[35] I always forgot to ask General Lee whether this story was a true one.
_26th May_ (Tuesday).--When I took Colonel Ewell's pa.s.s to the provost-marshal's office this morning to be countersigned, that official hesitated about stamping it, but luckily a man in his office came to my rescue, and volunteered to say that, although he didn't know me himself, he had heard me spoken of by others as ”a very respectable gentleman.” I was only just in time to catch the twelve o'clock steamer for the Montgomery railroad. I overheard two negroes on board discussing affairs in general; they were deploring the war, and expressing their hatred of the Yankees for bringing ”sufferment on us as well as our masters.” Both of them had evidently a great aversion to being ”run off,” as they called it. One of them wore his master's sword, of which he was very proud, and he strutted about in a most amusing and consequential manner.
I got into the railroad cars at 2.30 P.M.; the pace was not at all bad, had we not stopped so often and for such a long time for wood and water.
I sat opposite to a wounded soldier who told me he was an Englishman from Chelsea. He said he was returning to his regiment, although his wound in the neck often gave him great pain. The spirit with which wounded men return to the front, even although their wounds are imperfectly healed, is worthy of all praise, and shows the indomitable determination of the Southern people. In the same car there were several quite young boys of fifteen or sixteen who were badly wounded, and one or two were minus arms and legs, of which deficiencies they were evidently very vain.
The country through which we pa.s.sed was a dense pine forest, sandy soil, and quite desolate, very uninviting to an invading army. We travelled all night.
_27th May_ (Wednesday).--Arrived at Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, at daylight, and left it by another railroad at 5.30 A.M.
All State capitals appear to resemble one another, and look like bits cut off from great cities. One or two streets have a good deal of pretension about them; and the inevitable ”Capitol,” with its dome, forms the princ.i.p.al feature. A sentry stands at the door of each railway car, who examines the papers of every pa.s.senger with great strictness, and even after that inspection the same ceremony is performed by an officer of the provost-marshal's department, who accompanies every train.[36] The officers and soldiers on this duty are very civil and courteous, and after getting over their astonishment at finding that I am a British officer, they do all they can to make me comfortable. They ask all sorts of curious questions about the British army, and often express a strong wish to see _one of our regiments fight_. They can hardly believe that the Coldstream is really dressed in scarlet. To-day they entered gravely into a discussion amongst themselves, as to whether British troops would have taken the position at Fredericksburg. The arguments on both sides were very amusing, and opinion was pretty evenly divided. We met three trains crammed full of soldiers for Johnston's army. They belonged to Breckenridge's division of Bragg's army, and all seemed in the highest spirits, cheering and yelling like demons. In the cars to-day I fell in with the Federal doctor who was refused leave to pa.s.s through General Johnston's lines; he was now _en route_ for Richmond. He was in full Yankee uniform, but was treated with civility by all the Confederate soldiers. I had a long talk with him; he seemed a sensible man, and did not attempt to deny the universal enthusiasm and determination of the Southerners. He told me that General Grant had been very nearly killed at the taking of Jackson. He thought the war would probably terminate by a blow-up in the North.[37]
I had to change cars at West Point and at Atlanta. At the latter place I was crammed into a desperately crowded train for Chattanooga. This country, Georgia, is much more inhabited and cultivated than Alabama. I travelled again all night.
[36] This rigid inspection is necessary to arrest spies, and prevent straggling and absence without leave.
[37] Notwithstanding the exasperation with which every Southerner speaks of a Yankee, and all the talk about black flag and no quarter, yet I never saw a Federal prisoner ill treated or insulted in any way, although I have travelled hundreds of miles in their company.
_28th May_ (Thursday).--I arrived at Chattanooga (Tennessee) at 4.30 A.M., and fell in with Captain Brown again; his negro recognised me, and immediately rushed up to shake hands.
After breakfasting at Chattanooga, I started again at 7.30, by train, for Shelbyville, General Bragg's headquarters. This train was crammed to repletion with soldiers rejoining their regiments, so I was constrained to sit in the aisle on the floor of one of the cars. I thought myself lucky even then, for so great was the number of military, that all ”_citizens_” were ordered out to make way for the soldiers; but my grey shooting-jacket and youthful appearance saved me from the imputation of being a ”citizen.” Two hours later, the pa.s.sport officer, seeing who I was, procured me a similar situation in the ladies' car, where I was a little better off. After leaving Chattanooga the railroad winds alongside of the Tennessee river, the banks of which are high, and beautifully covered with trees--the river itself is wide, and very pretty; but from my position in the tobacco-juice I was unable to do justice to the scenery. I saw stockades at intervals all along the railroad, which were constructed by the Federals, who occupied all this country last year.
On arriving at Wartrace at 4 P.M., I determined to remain there, and ask for hospitality from General Hardee, as I saw no prospect of reaching Shelbyville in decent time. Leaving my baggage with the provost-marshal at Wartrace, I walked on to General Hardee's headquarters, which were distant about two miles from the railroad. They were situated in a beautiful country, green, undulating, full of magnificent trees, princ.i.p.ally beeches, and the scenery was by far the finest I had seen in America as yet.
When I arrived I found that General Hardee was in company with General Polk and Bishop Elliott of Georgia, and also with Mr Vallandigham. The latter (called the Apostle of Liberty) is a good-looking man, apparently not much over forty, and had been turned out of the North three days before. Rosecrans had wished to hand him over to Bragg by flag of truce; but as the latter declined to receive him in that manner, he was, as General Hardee expressed it, ”_dumped down_” in the neutral ground between the lines, and left there. He then received hospitality from the Confederates in the capacity of a dest.i.tute stranger. They do not in any way receive him officially, and it does not suit the policy of either party to be identified with one another. He is now living at a private house in Shelbyville, and had come over for the day, with General Polk, on a visit to Hardee. He told the generals, that if Grant was severely beaten in Mississippi by Johnston, he did not think the war could be continued on its present great scale.
When I presented my letters of introduction, General Hardee received me with the unvarying kindness and hospitality which I had experienced from all other Confederate officers. He is a fine soldierlike man, broad-shouldered and tall. He looks rather like a French officer, and is a Georgian by birth. He bears the reputation of being a thoroughly good soldier, and he is the author of the drill-book still in use by both armies. Until quite lately he was commanding officer of the military college at West Point. He distinguished himself at the battles of Corinth and Murfreesborough, and now commands the 2d _corps d'armee_ of Bragg's army. He is a widower, and has the character of being a great admirer of the fair s.e.x. During the Kentucky campaign last year he was in the habit of availing himself of the privilege of his rank and years, and insisted upon kissing the wives and daughters of all the Kentuckian farmers. And although he is supposed to have converted many of the ladies to the Southern cause, yet in many instances their male relatives remained either neutral or undecided. On one occasion General Hardee had conferred the ”accolade” upon a very pretty Kentuckian, to their mutual satisfaction, when, to his intense disgust, the proprietor produced two very ugly old females, saying, ”Now, then, general, if you kiss any you must kiss them all round,” which the discomfited general was forced to do, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of his officers, who often allude to this _contretemps_.
Another rebuff which he received, and about which he is often chaffed by General Polk, was when an old lady told him he ought really to ”leave off fighting _at his age_.” ”Indeed, madam,” replied Hardee, ”and how old do you take me for?” ”Why, about the same age as myself--seventy-five.” The chagrin of the stalwart and gallant general, at having twenty years added to his age, may be imagined.
Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk, Bishop of Louisiana, who commands the other _corps d'armee_, is a good-looking, gentlemanlike man, with all the manners and affability of a ”grand seigneur.” He is fifty-seven years of age--tall, upright, and looks much more the soldier than the clergyman. He is very rich; and I am told he owns seven hundred negroes.