University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXX.

May 24th.—A great budget of news to-day, which, with
the events of the week, may be briefly enumerated. The
fighting has actually commenced between the United States
steamers off Fortress Monroe, and the Confederate battery
erected at Sewall's Point—both sides claim a certain success.
The Confederates declare they riddled the steamer, and that
they killed and wounded a number of the sailors. The captain
of the vessel says he desisted from want of ammunition,
but believes he killed a number of the rebels, and knows he
had no loss himself. Beriah Magoffin, Governor of the sovereign
State of Kentucky, has warned off both Federal and
Confederate soldiers from his territory. The Confederate
congress has passed an act authorizing persons indebted to the
United States, except Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri,
and the District of Columbia, to pay the amount of their
debts to the Confederate treasury. The State convention of
North Carolina has passed an ordinance of secession. Arkansas
has sent its delegates to the Southern congress. Several
Southern vessels have been made prizes by the blockading
squadron; but the event which causes the greatest
excitement and indignation here, was the seizure, on Monday,
by the United States marshals, in every large city throughout
the Union, of the telegraphic despatches of the last twelve
months.

In the course of the day, I went to the St. Charles Hotel,
which is an enormous establishment, of the American type,
with a Southern character about it. A number of gentlemen
were seated in the hall, and front of the office, with their legs
up against the wall, and on the backs of chairs, smoking, spitting,

and reading the papers. Officers crowded the bar. The
bustle and noise of the place would make it anything but an
agreeable residence for one fond of quiet; but this hotel is
famous for its difficulties. Not the least disgraceful among
them, was the assault committed by some of Walker's filibusters,
upon Captain Aldham of the Royal Navy.

The young artist, who has been living in great seclusion,
was fastened up in his room; and when I informed him that
Mr. Mure had despatches which he might take, if he liked,
that night, he was overjoyed to excess. He started off north
in the evening, and I saw him no more.

At half-past four, I went down by train to the terminus on
the lake, where I had landed, which is the New Orleans Richmond,
or rather, Greenwich, and dined with Mr. Eustis, Mr.
Johnson, an English merchant, Mr. Josephs, a New Orleans
lawyer, and Mr. Hunt. The dinner was worthy of the reputation
of the French cook. The terrapin soup excellent,
though not comparable, as Americans assert, to the best turtle.
The creature from which it derives its name, is a small
tortoise; the flesh is boiled somewhat in the manner of turtle,
but the soup abounds in small bones, and the black paws with
the white nail-like stumps projecting from them, found amongst
the disjecta membra, are not agreeable to look upon. The
bouillabaisse was unexceptionable, the soft crab worthy of
every commendation; but the best dish was, unquestionably,
the pompinoe, an odd fish, something like an unusually ugly
John Dory, but possessing admirable qualities in all that
makes fish good. The pleasures of the evening were enhanced
by a most glorious sunset, which cast its last rays
through a wilderness of laurel roses in full bloom, which
thronged the garden. At dusk, the air was perfectly alive
with fire-flies and strange beetles. Flies and coleopters
buzzed in through the open windows, and flopped among the
glasses. At half-past nine we returned home, in cars drawn
by horses along the rail.

May 25th.—Virginia has indeed been invaded by the Federals.
Alexandria has been seized. It is impossible to describe
the excitement and rage of the people; they take, however,
some consolation in the fact that Colonel Ellsworth, in
command of a regiment of New York Zouaves, was shot by
J. T. Jackson, the landlord of an inn in the city, called the
Marshall House. Ellsworth, on the arrival of his regiment in
Alexandria, proceeded to take down the Secession flag, which

had been long seen from the President's windows. He went out
upon the roof, cut it from the staff, and was proceeding with it
down-stairs, when a man rushed out of a room, levelled a double-barrelled
gun, shot Colonel Ellsworth dead, and fired the other
barrel at one of his men, who had struck at the piece, when
the murderer presented it at the Colonel. Almost instantaneously,
the Zouave shot Jackson in the head, and as he was
falling dead thrust his sabre bayonet through his body. Strange
to say, the people of New Orleans, consider Jackson was completely
right, in shooting the Federal Colonel, and maintain
that the Zouave, who shot Jackson, was guilty of murder.
Their theory is that Ellsworth had come over with a horde
of ruffianly abolitionists, or, as the "Richmond Examiner" has
it, "the band of thieves, robbers, and assassins, in the pay of
Abraham Lincoln, commonly known as the United States
Army," to violate the territory of a sovereign State, in order
to execute their bloody and brutal purposes, and that he was
in the act of committing a robbery, by taking a flag which did
not belong to him, when he met his righteous fate.

It is curious to observe how passion blinds man's reason, in
this quarrel. More curious still to see, by the light of this
event, how differently the same occurrence is viewed by
Northerners and Southerners respectively. Jackson is depicted
in the Northern papers as a fiend and an assassin; even
his face in death is declared to have worn a revolting expression
of rage and hate. The Confederate flag which was the
cause of the fatal affray, is described by one writer, as having
been purified of its baseness, by contact with Ellsworth's blood.
The invasion of Virginia is hailed on all sides of the North
with the utmost enthusiasm. "Ellsworth is a martyr hero,
whose name is to be held sacred forever."

On the other hand, the Southern papers declare that the invasion
of Virginia, is "an act of the Washington tyrants,
which indicates their bloody and brutal purpose to exterminate
the Southern people. The Virginians will give the world
another proof, like that of Moscow, that a free people, fighting
on a free soil, are invincible when contending for all that is
dear to man." Again—"A band of execrable cut-throats and
jail-birds, known as the Zouaves of New York, under that
chief of all scoundrels, Ellsworth, broke open the door of a
citizen, to tear down the flag of the house—the courageous
owner met the favorite hero of the Yankees in his own hall,
alone, against thousands, and shot him through the heart—he

died a death which emperors might envy, and his memory will
live through endless generations." Desperate, indeed, must
have been the passion and anger of the man who, in the fullest
certainty that immediate death must be its penalty, committed
such a deed. As it seems to me, Colonel Ellsworth, however
injudicious he may have been, was actually in the performance
of his duty when taking down the flag of an enemy.

In the evening I visited Mr. Slidell, whom I found at home,
with his family, Mrs. Slidell and her sister Madame Beauregard,
wife of the general, two very charming young ladies,
daughters of the house, and a parlor full of fair companions,
engaged, as hard as they could, in carding lint with their fair
hands. Among the company was Mr. Slidell's son, who had
just travelled from school at the North, under a feigned name,
in order to escape violence at the hands of the Union mobs
which are said to be insulting and outraging every Southern
man. The conversation, as is the case in most Creole domestic
circles, was carried on in French. I rarely met a man whose
features have a greater finesse and firmness of purpose than
Mr. Slidell's; his keen gray eye is full of life; his thin, firmly-set
lips indicate resolution and passion. Mr. Slidell, though
born in a Northern State, is perhaps one of the most determined
disunionists in the Southern Confederacy; he is not a
speaker of note, nor a ready stump orator, nor an able writer;
but he is an excellent judge of mankind, adroit, persevering,
and subtle, full of device, and fond of intrigue; one of those
men, who, unknown almost to the outer world, organizes and
sustains a faction, and exalts it into the position of a party—
what is called here a "wire-puller." Mr. Slidell is to the
South something greater than Mr. Thurlow Weed has been to
his party in the North. He, like every one else, is convinced
that recognition must come soon; but, under any circumstances,
he is quite satisfied, the government and independence of the
Southern Confederacy are as completely established as those
of any power in the world. Mr. Slidell and the members of
his family possess naïveté, good sense, and agreeable manners;
and the regrets I heard expressed in Washington
society, at their absence, had every justification.

I supped at the club, which I visited every day since I was
made an honorary member, as all the journals are there, and
a great number of planters and merchants, well acquainted
with the state of affairs in the South. There were two Englishmen
present, Mr. Lingam and another, the most determined

secessionists and the most devoted advocates of slavery
I have yet met in the course of my travels.

May 26th.—The heat to-day was so great, that I felt a
return of my old Indian experiences, and was unable to go,
as I intended, to hear a very eminent preacher discourse on
the war at one of the principal chapels.

All disposable regiments are on the march to Virginia. It
was bad policy for Mr. Jefferson Davis to menace Washington
before he could seriously carry out his threats, because the
North was excited by the speech of his Secretary at War to
take extraordinary measures for the defence of their capital;
and General Scott was enabled by their enthusiasm not only
to provide for its defence, but to effect a lodgment at Alexandria,
as a base of operations against the enemy.

When the Congress at Montgomery adjourned, the other
day, they resolved to meet on the 20th of July at Richmond,
which thus becomes the capital of the Confederacy. The
city is not much more than one hundred miles south of Washington,
with which it was in communication by rail and river;
and the selection must cause a collision between the two armies
in front of the rival capitals. The seizure of the Norfolk
navy yard by the Confederates rendered it necessary to
reinforce Fortress Monroe; and for the present the Potomac
and the Chesapeake are out of danger.

The military precautions taken by General Scott, and the
movements attributed to him to hold Baltimore and to maintain
his communications between Washington and the North,
afford evidence of judgment and military skill. The Northern
papers are clamoring for an immediate advance of their
raw levies to Richmond, which General Scott resists.

In one respect the South has shown greater sagacity than
the North. Mr. Jefferson Davis having seen service in the
field, and having been Secretary of War, perceived the dangers
and inefficiency of irregular levies, and therefore induced
the Montgomery congress to pass a bill which binds volunteers
to serve during the war, unless sooner discharged, and
reserves to the President of the Southern Confederacy the
appointment of staff and field officers, the right of veto to
battalion officers elected by each company, and the power of
organizing companies of volunteers into squadrons, battalions,
and regiments. Writing to the "Times," at this date, I observed:
"Although immense levies of men may be got together for
purposes of local defence or aggressive operations, it will be

very difficult to move these masses like regular armies. There
is an utter want of field-trains, equipage, and commissariat,
which cannot be made good in a day, a week, or a month.
The absence of cavalry, and the utter deficiency of artillery,
may prevent either side obtaining any decisive result in one
engagement; but there can be no doubt large losses will be
incurred whenever these masses of men are fairly opposed to
each other in the open field."

May 27th.—I visited several of the local companies, their
drill-grounds and parades; but few of the men were present,
as nearly all are under orders to proceed to the camp at Tangipao
or to march to Richmond. Privates and officers are
busy in the sweltering streets purchasing necessaries for their
journey. As one looks at the resolute, quick, angry faces
around him, and hears but the single theme, he must feel the
South will never yield to the North, unless as a nation which
is beaten beneath the feet of a victorious enemy.

In every State there is only one voice audible. Hereafter,
indeed, state jealousies may work their own way; but if
words means anything, all the Southern people are determined
to resist Mr. Lincoln's invasion as long as they have a man
or a dollar. Still, there are certain hard facts which militate
against the truth of their own assertions, "that they are united
to a man, and prepared to fight to a man." Only 15,000 are
under arms out of the 50,000 men in the State of Louisiana
liable to military service.

"Charges of abolitionism" appear in the reports of police
cases in the papers every morning; and persons found guilty,
not of expressing opinions against slavery, but of stating their
belief that the Northerners will be successful, are sent to
prison for six months. The accused are generally foreigners,
or belong to the lower orders, who have got no interest in the
support of slavery. The moral suasion of the lasso, of tarring
and feathering, head-shaving, ducking, and horseponds,
deportation on rails, and similar ethical processes are highly
in favor. As yet the North have not arrived at such an elevated
view of the necessities of their position.

The New Orleans papers are facetious over their new mode
of securing unanimity, and highly laud what they call "the
course of instruction in the humane institution for the amelioration
of the condition of Northern barbarians and abolition
fanatics, presided over by Professor Henry Mitchell," who, in
other words, is the jailer of the work-house reformatory.

I dined at the Lake with Mr. Mure, General Lewis, Major
Ranney, Mr. Duncan Kenner, a Mississippi planter, Mr.
Claiborne, &c., and visited the club in the evening. Every
night since I have been in New Orleans there have been one
or two fires; to-night there were three—one a tremendous
conflagration. When I inquired to what they were attributable,
a gentleman who sat near me, bent over, and looking me
straight in the face, said, in a low voice, "The slaves." The
flues, perhaps, and the system of stoves, may also bear some
of the blame. There is great enthusiasm among the town's-people
in consequence of the Washington artillery, a crack
corps, furnished by the first people in New Orleans, being ordered
off for Virginia.

May 28th.—On dropping in at the Consulate to-day, I
found the skippers of several English vessels who are anxious
to clear out, lest they be detained by the Federal cruisers.
The United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have
been for some days past blockading Pass á l'outre. One
citizen made a remarkable proposition to Mr. Mure. He
came in to borrow an ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron for
the purpose, he said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and
running down to have a look at the Yankee ships. Mr. Mure
had no flag to lend; whereupon he asked for a description
by which he could get one made. On being applied to, I asked
" whether the gentleman was a member of the Squadron?"
"Oh, no," said he, "but my yacht was built in England, and I
wrote over some time ago to say I would join the squadron."
I ventured to tell him that it by no means followed he was a
member, and that if he went out with the flag and could not
show by his papers he had a right to carry it, the yacht would
be seized. However, he was quite satisfied that he had an
English yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag, and went off
to an outfitter's to order a fac-simile of the squadron ensign,
and subsequently cruised among the blockading vessels.

We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union mob in
Tennessee, his luggage was broken open and plundered, and
he narrowly escaped personal injury. Per contra," charges
of abolitionism," continue to multiply here, and are almost as
numerous as the coroner's inquests, not to speak of the
difficulties which sometimes attain the magnitude of murder.

I dined with a large party at the Lake, who had invited me
as their guest, among whom were Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert,
Mr. Hunt, Mr. Norton, Mr, Fellows, and others. I observed

in New York that every man had his own solution of the cause
of the present difficulty, and contradicted plumply his neighbor
the moment he attempted to propound his own theory. Here
I found every one agreed as to the righteousness of the quarrel,
but all differed as to the best mode of action for the South
to pursue. Nor was there any approach to unanimity as the
evening waxed older. Incidentally we had wild tales of
Southern life, some good songs curiously intermingled with
political discussions, and what the Northerners call hyphileutin
talk.

When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tell and well-dressed,
but not very prepossessing-looking man, entered to speak to
Mr. Mure on business, and was introduced to me at his own
request. His name was mentioned incidentally to-night, and
I heard a passage in his life not of an agreeable character, to
say the least of it. A good many years ago there was a ball
at New Orleans, at which this gentleman was present; he paid
particular attention to a lady, who, however, preferred the
society of one of the company, and in the course of the evening
an altercation occurred respecting an engagement to
dance, in which violent language was exchanged, and a push
or blow given by the favored partner to his rival, who left
the room, and, as it is stated, proceeded to a cutler's shop,
where he procured a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with
this, he returned, and sent in a message to the gentleman
with whom he had quarrelled. Suspecting nothing, the latter
came into the antechamber, the assassin rushed upon him,
stabbed him to the heart, and left him weltering in his blood.
Another version of the story was, that he waited for his victim
till he came into the cloak-room, and struck him as he
was in the act of putting on his overcoat. After a long delay,
the criminal was tried. The defence put forward on his
behalf was that he had seized a knife in the heat of the moment
when the quarrel took place, and had slain his adversary
in a moment of passion; but evidence, as I understand, went
strongly to prove that a considerable interval elapsed between
the time of the dispute and the commission of the murder.
The prisoner had the assistance of able and ingenious counsel;
he was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to the
judicious disposition of a large sum of money; each juror,
when he retired to dinner previous to consulting over the ver
dict, was enabled to find the sum of 1000 dollars under his
plate; nor was it clear that the judge and sheriff had not participated

in the bounty; in fact, I heard a dispute as to the
exact amount which it is supposed the murderer had to pay.
He now occupies, under the Confederate Government, the
post at New Orleans which he lately held as representative
of the Government of the United States.

After dinner I went in company of some of my hosts to
the Boston Club, which has, I need not say, no connection
with the city of that name. More fires, the tocsin sounding,
and so to bed.

May 29th.—Dined in the evening with M. Aristide Miltenberger,
where I met His Excellency Mr. Moore, the Governor
of Louisiana, his military secretary, and a small party.

It is a strange country, indeed; one of the evils which
afflicts the Louisianians, they say, is the preponderance and
influence of South Carolinian Jews, and Jews generally, such
as Moise, Mordecai, Josephs, and Judah Benjamin, and others.
The Subtlety and keenness of the Caucasian intellect give
men a high place among a people who admire ability and
dexterity, and are at the same time reckless of means and
averse to labor. The Governor is supposed to be somewhat
under the influence of the Hebrews, but he is a man quite
competent to think and to act for himself,—a plain, sincere
ruler of a Slave State, and an upholder of the patriarchal institute.
After dinner we accompanied Madam Milten-berger
(who affords in her own person a very complete refutation of
the dogma that American women furnish no examples of the
charms which surround their English sisters in the transit
from the prime of life towards middle age), in a drive along
the shell road to the lake and canal; the most remarkable
object being a long wall lined with a glorious growth of orange trees:
clouds of mosquitoes effectually interfered with an enjoyment
of the drive.

May 30th.—Wrote in the heat of the day, enlivened by
my neighbor, a wonderful mocking-bird, whose songs and
imitations would make his fortune in any society capable of
appreciating native-born genius. His restlessness, courage,
activity, and talent, ought not to be confined to Mr. Mure's
cage, but he seems contented and happy. I dined with Madame
and M. Milten-berger, and drove out with them to visit
the scene of our defeat in 1815, which lies at the distance of
some miles down the river.

A dilapidated farm-house surrounded by trees and negro
huts, marks the spot where Pakenham was buried, but his

body was subsequently exhumed and sent home to England.
Close to the point of the canal which constitutes a portion of
the American defences, a negro guide came forth to conduct
us round the place, but he knew as little as most guides of the
incidents of the fight. The most remarkable testimony to the
severity of the fire to which the British were exposed, is
afforded by the trees in the neighborhood of the tomb. In
one live-oak there are no less than eight round shot embedded;
others contain two or three, and many are lopped, rent, and
scarred by the flight of cannon-ball. The American lines
extended nearly three miles, and were covered in the front by
swamps, marshes, and water cuts, their batteries and the vessels
in the river enfiladed the British as they advanced to the
attack.

Among the prominent defenders of the cotton bales was a
notorious pirate and murderer named Lafitte, who with his
band was released from prison on condition that he enlisted in
the defence, and did substantial service to his friends and
deliverers.

Without knowing all the circumstances of the case, it would
be rash now to condemn the officers who directed the assault;
but so far as one could judge from the present condition of
the ground, the position must have been very formidable, and
should not have been assaulted till the enfilading fire was subdued,
and a very heavy covering fire directed to silence the
guns in front. The Americans are naturally very proud of
their victory, which was gained at a most trifling loss to themselves,
which they erroneously conceive to be a proof of their
gallantry in resisting the assault. It is one of the events
which have created a fixed idea in their minds that they are
able to "whip the world."

On returning from my visit I went to the club, where I had
a long conversation with Dr. Rushton, who is strongly convinced
of the impossibility of carrying on government, or conducting
municipal affairs, until universal suffrage is put down.
He gave many instances of the terrorism, violence, and assassinations
which prevail during election times in New Orleans.
M. Milten-berger, on the contrary, thinks matters are very
well as they are, and declares all these stories are fanciful.
Incendiarism rife again. All the club windows crowded with
men looking at a tremendous fire, which burned down three or
four stores and houses.