University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV.

There was a large crowd around the pier staring at the
men in uniform on the boat, which was filled with bales of
goods, commissariat stores, trusses of hay, and hampers, supplies
for the volunteer army on Morris' Island. I was amused
by the names of the various corps, "Tigers," "Lions," "Scorpions,"
"Palmetto Eagles," "Guards," of Pickens, Sumter,
Marion, and of various other denominations, painted on the
boxes. The original formation of these volunteers is in companies,
and they know nothing of battalions or regiments.
The tendency in volunteer outbursts is sometimes to gratify
the greatest vanity of the greatest number. These companies
do not muster more than fifty or sixty strong. Some were
"dandies," and "swells," and affected to look down on their
neighbors and comrades. Major Whiting told me there was
difficulty in getting them to obey orders at first, as each man
had an idea that he was as good an engineer as anybody else,
"and a good deal better, if it came to that." It was easy to
perceive it was the old story of volunteer and regular in this
little army.

As we got on deck, the Major saw a number of rough, long-haired-looking
fellows in coarse gray tunics, with pewter buttons
and worsted braid lying on the hay-bales smoking their
cigars. "Gentlemen," quoth he, very courteously, "you'll
oblige me by not smoking over the hay. There's powder below."
"I don't believe we're going to burn the hay this time,
kernel," was the reply, "and anyway, we'll put it out afore it
reaches the 'bustibles," and they went on smoking. The Major
grumbled, and worse, and drew off.

Among the passengers were some brethren of mine belonging

to the New York and local papers. I saw a short time
afterwards a description of the trip by one of these gentlemen,
in which he described it as an affair got up specially for himself,
probably in order to avenge himself on his military persecutors,
for he had complained to me the evening before, that
the chief of General Beauregard's staff told him to go to—,
when he applied at head-quarters for some information. I
found from the tone and looks of my friends, that these literary
gentlemen were received with great disfavor, and Major Whiting,
who is a bibliomaniac, and has a very great liking for the
best English writers, could not conceal his repugnance and
antipathy to my unfortunate confrères. "If I had my way,
I would fling them into the water; but the General has given
them orders to come on board. It is these fellows who have
brought all this trouble on our country."

The traces of dislike of the freedom of the press, which I,
to my astonishment, discovered in the North, are broader and
deeper in the South, and they are not accompanied by the
signs of dread of its power which exist in New York, where
men speak of the chiefs of the most notorious journals very
much as people in Italian cities of past time might have talked
of the most infamous bravo or the chief of some band of assassins.
Whiting comforted himself by the reflection that they
would soon have their fingers in a vice, and then pulling out
a ragged little sheet, turned suddenly on the representative
thereof, and proceeded to give the most unqualified contradiction
to most of the statements contained in "the full and accurate
particulars of the Bombardment and Fall of Fort Sumter,"
in the said journal, which the person in question listened
to with becoming meekness and contrition. "If I knew who
wrote it," said the Major, "I'd make him eat it."

I was presented to many judges, colonels, and others of the
mass of society on board, and, "after compliments," as the
Orientals say, I was generally asked, in the first place, what
I thought of the capture of Sumter, and in the second, what
England would do when the news reached the other side.
Already the Carolinians regard the Northern States as an
alien and detested enemy, and entertain, or profess, an immense
affection for Great Britain.

When we had shipped all our passengers, nine tenths of
them in uniform, and a larger proportion engaged in chewing,
the whistle blew, and the steamer sidled off from the quay
into the yellowish muddy water of the Ashley River, which

is a creek from the sea, with a streamlet running into the
head waters some distance up.

The shore opposite Charleston is more than a mile distant
and is low and sandy, covered here and there with patches of
brilliant vegetation, and long lines of trees. It is cut up with
creeks, which divide it into islands, so that passages out to sea
exist between some of them for light craft, though the navigation
is perplexed and difficult. The city lies on a spur or
promontory between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers, and
the land behind it is divided in the same manner by similar
creeks, and is sandy and light, bearing, nevertheless, very fine
crops, and trees of magnificent vegetation. The steeples, the
domes of public buildings, the rows of massive warehouses
and cotton stores on the wharves, and the bright colors of the
houses, render the appearance of Charleston, as seen from the
river front, rather imposing. From the mastheads of the few
large vessels in harbor floated the Confederate flag. Looking
to our right, the same standard was visible, waving on the
low, white parapets of the earthworks which had been engaged
in reducing Sumter.

That much-talked-of fortress lay some two miles ahead of
us now, rising up out of the water near the middle of the
passage out to sea between James' Island and Sullivan's Island.
It struck me at first as being like one of the smaller
forts off Cronstadt, but a closer inspection very much diminished
its importance; the material is brick, not stone, and the
size of the place is exaggerated by the low background, and
by contrast with the sea-line. The land contracts on both
sides opposite the fort, a projection of Morris' Island, called
"Cumming's Point," running out on the left. There is a similar
promontory from Sullivan's Island, on which is erected
Fort Moultrie, on the right from the sea entrance. Castle
Pinckney, which stands on a small island at the exit of the
Cooper River, is a place of no importance, and it was too far
from Sumter to take any share in the bombardment: the same
remarks apply to Fort Johnson on James' Island, on the right
bank of the Ashley River below Charleston. The works
which did the mischief were the batteries of sand on Morris'
Island, at Cumming's Point, and Fort Moultrie. The floating
battery, covered with railroad-iron, lay a long way off, and
could not have contributed much to the result.

As we approached Morris' Island, which is an accumulation
of sand covered with mounds of the same material, on which

there is a scanty vegetation alternating with salt-water marshes,
we could perceive a few tents in the distance among the sandhills.
The sand-bag batteries, and an ugly black parpapet,
with guns peering through port-holes as if from a ship's side,
lay before us. Around them men were swarming like ants,
and a crowd in uniform were gathered on the beach to receive
us as we landed from the boat of the steamer, all eager for
news and provisions and newspapers, of which an immense
flight immediately fell upon them. A guard with bayonets
crossed in a very odd sort of manner, prevented any unauthorized
persons from landing. They wore the universal coarse
gray jacket and trousers, with worsted braid and yellow facings,
uncouth caps, lead buttons stamped with the palmetto-tree.
Their unbronzed firelocks were covered with rust. The
soldiers lounging about were mostly tall, well-grown men, young
and old, some with the air of gentlemen; others coarse, longhaired
fellows, without any semblance of military bearing, but
full of fight, and burning with enthusiasm, not unaided, in
some instances, by coarser stimulus.

The day was exceedingly warm and unpleasant, the hot
wind blew the fine white sand into our faces, and wafted it in
minute clouds inside eyelids, nostrils, and clothing; but it was
necessary to visit the batteries, so on we trudged into one and
out of another, walked up parapets, examined profiles, looked
along guns, and did everything that could be required of us.
The result of the examination was to establish in my mind the
conviction, that if the commander of Sumter had been allowed
to open his guns on the island, the first time he saw an indication
of throwing up a battery against him, he could have saved
his fort. Moultrie, in its original state, on the opposite side,
could have been readily demolished by Sumter. The design
of the works was better than their execution—the sand-bags
were rotten, the sand not properly revetted or banked up, and
the traverses imperfectly constructed. The barbette guns of
the fort looked into many of the embrasures, and commanded
them.

The whole of the island was full of life and excitement.
Officers were galloping about as if on a field-day or in action.
Commissariat carts were toiling to and fro between the beach
and the camps, and sounds of laughter and revelling came
from the tents. These were pitched without order, and were
of all shapes, hues, and sizes, many being disfigured by rude
charcoal drawings outside, and inscriptions such as "The

Live Tigers," "Rattlesnake's-hole," "Yankee Smashers," &c.
The vicinity of the camps was in an intolerable state, and on
calling the attention of the medical officer who was with me,
to the danger arising from such a condition of things, he said
with a sigh, "I know it all. But we can do nothing. Remember
they're all volunteers, and do just as they please."

In every tent was hospitality, and a hearty welcome to all
comers. Cases of champagne and claret, French pâtés, and
the like, were piled outside the canvas walls, when there was
no room for them inside. In the middle of these excited
gatherings I felt like a man in the full possession of his senses
coming in late to a wine party. "Won't you drink with me,
sir, to the—(something awful)—of Lincoln and all Yankees?"
"No! if you'll be good enough to excuse me."
"Well, I think you're the only Englishman who won't."
Our Carolinians are very fine fellows, but a little given to the
Bobadil style—hectoring after a cavalier fashion, which they
fondly believe to be theirs by hereditary right. They assume
that the British crown rests on a cotton bale, as the Lord
Chancellor sits on a pack of wool.

In one long tent there was a party of roystering young men,
opening claret, and mixing "cup" in large buckets; whilst
others were helping the servants to set out a table for a banquet
to one of their generals. Such heat, tobacco-smoke,
clamor, toasts, drinking, hand-shaking, vows of friendship!
Many were the excuses made for the more demonstrative of the
Edonian youths by their friends. "Tom is a little cut, sir;
but he's a splendid fellow—he's worth half-a-million of dollars."
This reference to a money standard of value was not
unusual or perhaps unnatural, but it was made repeatedly;
and I was told wonderful tales of the riches of men who were
lounging round, dressed as privates, some of whom at that
season, in years gone by, were looked for at the watering
places as the great lions of American fashion. But Secession
is the fashion here. Young ladies sing for it; old ladies pray
for it; young men are dying to fight for it; old men are ready
to demonstrate it. The founder of the school was St. Calhoun.
Here his pupils carry out their teaching in thunder and fire.
States' Rights are displayed after its legitimate teaching, and
the Palmetto flag and the red bars of the Confederacy are its
exposition. The utter contempt and loathing for the venerated
Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United
States, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these

people, cannot be conceived by any one who has not seen them.
I am more satisfied than ever that the Union can never be restored
as it was, and that it has gone to pieces, never to be put
together again, in the old shape, at all events, by any power
on earth.

After a long and tiresome promenade in the dust, heat, and
fine sand, through the tents, our party returned to the beach,
where we took boat, and pushed off for Fort Sumter. The
Confederate flag rose above the walls. On near approach the
marks of the shot against the pain coupé, and the embrasures
near the salient were visible enough; but the damage done to
the hard brickwork was trifling, except at the angles: the edges
of the parapets were ragged and pock-marked, and the quay
wall was rifted here and there by shot; but no injury of a
kind to render the work untenable could be made out. The
greatest damage inflicted was, no doubt, the burning of the
barracks, which were culpably erected inside the fort, close
to the flank wall facing Cumming's Point.

As the boat touched the quay of the fort, a tall, powerful-looking
man came through the shattered gateway, and with
uneven steps strode over the rubbish towards a skiff which
was waiting to receive him, and into which he jumped and
rowed off. Recognizing one of my companions as he passed
our boat he suddenly stood up, and with a leap and a scramble
tumbled in among us, to the imminent danger of upsetting
the party. Our new friend was dressed in the blue frock-coat
of a civilian, round which he had tied a red silk sash—his
waistbelt supported a straight sword, something like those
worn with Court dress. His muscular neck was surrounded
with a loosely-fastened silk handkerchief; and wild masses of
black hair, tinged with gray, fell from under a civilian's hat
over his collar; his unstrapped trousers were gathered up
high on his legs, displaying ample boots, garnished with formidable
brass spurs. But his face was one not to be forgotten
—a straight, broad brow, from which the hair rose up like the
vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows—a mouth
coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw—a thick argumentative
nose—a new growth of scrubby beard and mustache
—these were relieved by eyes of wonderful depth and
light, such as I never saw before but in the head of a wild
beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright
into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the
keeper is coming round, you will form some notion of the expression

I mean. It was flashing, fierce, yet calm—with a
well of fire burning behind and spouting through it, an eye
pitiless in anger, which now and then sought to conceal its
expression beneath half-closed lids, and then burst out with an
angry glare, as if disdaining concealment.

This was none other than Louis T. Wigfall, Colonel (then
of his own creation) in the Confederate army, and Senator
from Texas in the United States—a good type of the men
whom the institutions of the country produce or throw off—
a remarkable man, noted for his ready, natural eloquence; his
exceeding ability as a quick, bitter debater; the acerbity of his
taunts; and his readiness for personal encounter. To the last
he stood in his place in the Senate at Washington, when
nearly every other Southern man had seceded, lashing with a
venomous and instant tongue, and covering with insults,
ridicule, and abuse, such men as Mr. Chandler, of Michigan,
and other Republicans: never missing a sitting of the House,
and seeking out adversaries in the bar-rooms or at gambling
tables. The other day, when the fire against Sumter
was at its height, and the fort, in flames, was reduced almost
to silence, a small boat put off from the shore, and steered
through the shot and the splashing waters right for the walls.
It bore the Colonel and a negro oarsman. Holding up a white
handkerchief on the end of his sword, Wigfall landed on the
quay, clambered through an embrasure, and presented himself
before the astonished Federals with a proposal to surrender,
quite unauthorized, and "on his own hook," which led to the
final capitulation of Major Anderson.

I am sorry to say, our distinguished friend had just been
paying his respects sans bornes to Bacchus or Bourbon, for he
was decidedly unsteady in his gait and thick in speech; but his
head was quite clear, and he was determined I should know
all about his exploit. Major Whiting desired to show me
round the work, but he had no chance. "Here is where I got
in," quoth Colonel Wigfall. "I found a Yankee standing here
by the traverse, out of the way of our shot. He was pretty
well scared when he saw me, but I told him not to be alarmed,
but to take me to the officers. There they were, huddled up
in that corner behind the brickwork, for our shells were
tumbling into the yard, and bursting like—" &c. (The Colonel
used strong illustrations and strange expletives in narrative.)
Major Whiting shook his military head, and said something uncivil
to me, in private, in reference to volunteer colonels and the

like, which gave him relief; whilst the martial Senator—I forgot
to say that he has the name, particularly in the North, of having
killed more than half a dozen men in duels—(I had an escape
of being another)—conducted me through the casemates with
uneven steps, stopping at every traverse to expatiate on some
phase of his personal experiences, with his sword dangling
between his legs, and spurs involved in rubbish and soldiers'
blankets.

In my letter I described the real extent of the damage inflicted,
and the state of the fort as I found it. At first the batteries
thrown up by the Carolinians were so poor, that the United
States officers in the fort were mightily amused at them,
and anticipated easy work in enfilading, ricocheting, and battering
them to pieces, if they ever dared to open fire. One
morning, however, Capt. Foster, to whom really belongs the
credit of putting Sumter into a tolerable condition of defence
with the most limited means, was unpleasantly surprised by
seeing through his glass a new work in the best possible situation
for attacking the place, growing up under the strenuous
labors of a band of negroes. "I knew at once," he said, "the
rascals had got an engineer at last." In fact, the Carolinians
were actually talking of an escalade when the officers of the
regular army, who had "seceded," came down and took the
direction of affairs, which otherwise might have had very
different results.

There was a working party of volunteers clearing away
the rubbish in the place. It was evident they were not accustomed
to labor. And on asking why negroes were not employed,
I was informed: "The niggers would blow us all up,
they're so stupid; and the State would have to pay the owners
for any of them who were killed and injured." "In one respect,
then, white men are not so valuable as negroes?"
"Yes, sir,—that's a fact."

Very few shell craters were visible in the terreplein; the
military mischief, such as it was, showed most conspicuously
on the parapet platforms, over which shells had been burst as
heavily as could be, to prevent the manning of the barbette
guns. A very small affair, indeed, that shelling of Fort
Sumter. And yet who can tell what may arise from it?
"Well, sir," exclaimed one of my companions, "I thank God
for it, if it's only because we are beginning to have a history
for Europe. The universal Yankee nation swallowed us up."

Never did men plunge into unknown depth of peril and

trouble more recklessly than these Carolinians. They fling
themselves against the grim, black future, as the Cavaliers
under Rupert may have rushed against the grim, black Ironsides.
Will they carry the image farther? Well! The
exploration of Sumter was finished at last, not till we had visited
the officers of the garrison, who lived in a windowless,
shattered room, reached by a crumbling staircase, and who
produced whiskey and crackers, many pleasant stories and
boundless welcome. One young fellow grumbled about pay.
He said: "I have not received a cent since I came to Charleston
for this business." But Major Whiting, some days afterwards,
told me he had not got a dollar on account of his pay,
though on leaving the United States army he had abandoned
nearly all his means of subsistence. These gentlemen were
quite satisfied it would all be right eventually; and no one
questioned the power or inclination of the Government, which
had just been inaugurated under such strange auspices, to
perpetuate its principles and reward its servants.

After a time our party went down to the boats, in which we
were rowed to the steamer that lay waiting for us at Morris'
Island. The original intention of the officers was to carry us
over to Fort Moultrie, on the opposite side of the Channel,
and to examine it and the floating iron battery; but it was too
late to do so when we got off, and the steamer only ran across
and swept around homewards by the other shore. Below, in
the cabin, there was spread a lunch or quasi dinner; and the
party of Senators, past and present, aides-de-camp, journalists,
and flaneurs, were not indisposed to join it. For me there
was only one circumstance which marred the pleasure of that
agreeable reunion. Colonel and Senator Wigfall, who had not
sobered himself by drinking deeply, in the plenitude of his
exultation alluded to the assault on Senator Sumner as a type
of the manner in which the Southerners would deal with the
Northerners generally, and cited it as a good exemplification
of the fashion in which they would bear their "whipping."
Thence, by a natural digression, he adverted to the inevitable
consequences of the magnificent outburst of Southern indignation
against the Yankees on all the nations of the world, and
to the immediate action of England in the matter as soon as
the news came. Suddenly reverting to Mr. Sumner, whose
name he loaded with obloquy, he spoke of Lord Lyons in terms
so coarse, that, forgetting the condition of the speaker, I resented
the language applied to the English Minister, in a very

unmistakable manner; and then rose and left the cabin. In
a moment I was followed on deck by Senator Wigfall: his
manner much calmer, his hair brushed back, his eye sparkling.
There was nothing left to be desired in his apologies, which
were repeated and energetic. We were joined by Mr. Manning,
Major Whiting, and Senator Chestnut, and others, to
whom I expressed my complete contentment with Mr. Wigfall's
explanations. And so we returned to Charleston. The
Colonel and Senator, however, did not desist from his attentions
to the good—or bad—things below. It was a strange
scene—these men, hot and red-handed in rebellion, with their
lives on the cast, trifling and jesting, and carousing as if they
had no care on earth—all excepting the gentlemen of the
local press, who were assiduous in note and food-taking. It
was near nightfall before we set foot on the quay of Charleston.
The city was indicated by the blaze of lights, and by the
continual roll of drums, and the noisy music, and the yelling
cheers which rose above its streets. As I walked towards the
hotel, the evening drove of negroes, male and female, shuffling
through the streets in all haste, in order to escape the patrol
and the last peal of the curfew bell, swept by me; and as I
passed the guard-house of the police, one of my friends pointed
out the armed sentries pacing up and down before the porch,
and the gleam of arms in the room inside. Further on, a
squad of mounted horsemen, heavily armed, turned up a bystreet,
and with jingling spurs and sabres disappeared in the
dust and darkness. That is the horse patrol. They scour the
country around the city, and meet at certain places during the
night to see if the niggers are all quiet. Ah, Fuscus! these
are signs of trouble.
But Fuscus is going to his club; a kindly, pleasant, chatty,
card-playing, cocktail-consuming place. He nods proudly to
an old white-woolled negro steward or head-waiter—a slave
—as a proof which I cannot accept, with the curfew tolling
in my ears, of the excellencies of the domestic institution.
The club was filled with officers; one of them, Mr. Ransome
Calhoun,[1] asked me what was the object which most struck me
at Morris' Island; I tell him—as was indeed the case—that it
was a letter-copying machine, a case of official stationery, and
a box of Red Tape, lying on the beach, just landed and ready
to grow with the strength of the young independence.

But listen! There is a great tumult, as of many voices
coming up the street, heralded by blasts of music. It is a
speech-making from the front of the hotel. Such an agitated,
lively multitude! How they cheer the pale, frantic man, limber
and dark-haired, with uplifted arms and clinched fists, who
is perorating on the balcony! "What did he say?" "Who
is he?" "Why it's he again!" "That's Roger Pryor—he
says that if them Yankee trash don't listen to reason, and
stand from under, we'll march to the North and dictate the
terms of peace in Faneuil Hall! Yes, sir—and so we will
certa-i-n su-re!" "No matter, for all that; we have shown
we can whip the Yankees whenever we meet them—at
Washington or down here." How much I heard of all this
to-day—how much more this evening! The hotel as noisy
as ever—more men in uniform arriving every few minutes,
and the hall and passages crowded with tall, good-looking
Carolinians.