From F. Macon Semmes, New York, to T. J. Semmes, New
Orleans.
“Dear Brother: I have called, as you requested, on
Mr. Charlton in regard to his real estate in New Orleans.
Let me give you some account of this man. He is taxed for
upwards of a million. He inherited a good part of this sum
from his wife, and she inherited it from a nephew, the late Mr.
Berwick, who inherited it from his infant daughter, and this
last from her mother. Mother, child, and father — the whole
Berwick family — were killed by a steamboat explosion on the
Mississippi some fifteen or sixteen years ago.
“In the lawsuit which grew out of the conflicting claims of
the relatives of the mother on the one side, and of the father
on the other, it was made to appear that the mother must have
been killed instantaneously, either by the inhalation of steam
from the explosion, or by a blow on the head from a splinter;
either cause being sufficient to produce immediate death. It
was then proved that the child, having been seen with her
nurse alive and struggling in the water, must have lived after
the mother, — thus inheriting the mother's property. But it
was further proved that the child was drowned, and that the
father survived the child a few hours; and thus the father's
heir became entitled to an estate amounting to upwards of a
million of dollars, all of which was thus diverted from the
Aylesford family (to whom the property ought to have gone),
and bestowed on a man alien in blood and in every other
respect to all the parties fairly interested.
“This fortunate man was Charlton. The scandal goes, that
even the wife from whom he derived the estate (and who died
before he got it) had received from him such treatment as to
alienate her wholly. The nearest relative of Mrs. Berwick,
née Aylesford, is a Mrs. Pompilard, now living with an aged
husband and with dependent step-children and grandchildren,
in a state of great impoverishment. To this aunt the large
property derived from her brother, Mr. Aylesford, ought to
have gone. But the law gave it to a stranger, this Charlton.
I mention these facts, because you ask me to inform you what
manner of man he is.
“Let one little anecdote illustrate. Mr. Albert Pompilard,
now some eighty years old, has been in his day a great operator
in Wall Street. He has made half a dozen large fortunes
and lost them. Five years ago, by a series of bold and fortunate
speculations, he placed himself once more on the top
round of the financial ladder. He paid off all his debts with
interest, pensioned off a widowed daughter, lifted up from the
gutter several old, broken-down friends, and advanced a handsome
sum to his literary son-in-law, Mr. Cecil Purling, who
had found, as he thought, a short cut to fortune. Pompilard
also bought a stylish place on the Hudson; and people supposed
he would be content to keep aloof from the stormy fluctuations
of Wall Street.
“But one day he read in the financial column of the newspaper
certain facts that roused the old propensity. His near
neighbor was a rich retired tailor, a Mr. Maloney, an Irishman,
who used to come over to play billiards with the venerable
stock-jobber. Pompilard had made a visit to Wall Street
the day before. He had been fired with a grand scheme of
buying up the whole of a certain stock (in which sellers at
sixty days at a low figure were abundant) and then holding
on for a grand rise. He did not find it difficult to kindle the
financial enthusiasm of poor Snip.
“Brief, the two simpletons went into the speculation, and
lost every cent they were worth in the world. Simultaneously
with their break-down, Purling, the son-in-law, managed to lose
all that had been confided to his hands. The widowed daughter,
Mrs. Ireton, gave up all the little estate her father had
settled on her. Poor Maloney had to go back to his goose;
and Pompilard, now almost an octogenarian, has been obliged,
he and his family, to take lodgings in the cottage of his late
gardener.
“The other day Mr. Hicks, a friend of the family, learning
that they were actually pinched in their resources, ventured to
call upon Charlton for a contribution for their relief. After
an evident inward struggle, Charlton manfully pulled out his
pocket-book, and tendered — what, think you? — why, a ten-dollar
bill! Hicks affected to regard the tender as an insult,
and slapped the donor's face. Charlton at first threatened a
prosecution, but concluded it was too expensive a luxury.
Thus you see he is a miser. It was with no little satisfaction,
therefore, that I called to communicate the state of his affairs
in New Orleans.
“He lives on one of the avenues in a neat freestone house,
such as could be hired for twenty-five hundred a year. There
is a stable attached, and he keeps a carriage. Soon after he
burst upon the fashionable world as a millionnaire, there was a
general competition among fashionable families to secure him
for one of the daughters. But Charlton, with all his wealth,
did not want a wife who was merely stylish, clever, and beautiful;
she must be rich into the bargain. He at last encountered
such a one (as he imagined) in Miss Dykvelt, a member
of one of the old Dutch families. He proposed, was accepted,
married, — and three weeks afterwards, to his consternation
and horror, he received an application from old D., the father-in-law,
for a loan of a hundred thousand dollars.
“Charlton, of course, indignantly refused it. He found that
he had been, to use his own words, `taken in and done for.'
Old Dykvelt, while he kept up the style of a prince, was on
the verge of bankruptcy. The persons to whom Charlton applied
for information, knowing the object of the inquiry and
the meanness of the inquirer, purposely cajoled him with stories
of Dykvelt's wealth. Charlton fell into the trap. Charlotte
Dykvelt, who was in love at the time with young Ireton (a
Lieutenant in the army and a grandson of old Pompilard),
yielded to the entreaties of her parents and married the man
she detested. She was well versed in the history of his first
wife, and resolved that her own heart, wrung by obedience to
parental authority, should be iron and adamant to any attempt
Charlton might make to wound it.
“He soon found himself overmatched. The bully and tyrant
was helpless before the impassive frigidity and inexorable determination
of that young and beautiful woman. He had a large
iron safe in his house, in which he kept his securities and coupons,
and often large sums of money. One day he discovered
he had been robbed of thirty thousand dollars. He charged the
theft upon his wife. She neither denied nor confessed it, but
treated him with a glacial scorn before which he finally cowered
and was dumb. Undoubtedly she had taken the money. She
forced him against his inclination to move into a decent house,
and keep a carriage; and at last, by a threat of leaving him,
she made him settle on her a liberal allowance.
“A loveless home for him, as you may suppose! One daughter,
Lucy Charlton, is the offspring of this ill-assorted marriage;
a beautiful girl, I am told, but who shrinks from her father's
presence as from something odious. Probably the mother's
impressions during pregnancy gave direction to the antipathies
of the child; so that before it came into the world it was fatherless.
“Well, I called on Charlton last Thursday. As I passed the
little sitting-room of the basement, I saw a young and lovely
girl putting her mouth filled with seed up to the bars of a cage,
and a canary-bird picking the food from her lips. A cat, who
seemed to be on excellent terms with the bird, was perched
on the girl's shoulder, and superintending the operation. So,
thought I, she exercises her affections in the society of these
dumb pets rather than in that of her father.
“I found Charlton sitting lonely in a sort of library scantily
furnished with books. A well-formed man, but with a face
haggard and anxious as if his life-blood were ebbing irrecoverably
with every penny that went from his pockets. On my
mentioning your name, his eyes brightened; for he inferred I
had come with your semiannual remittances. He was at once
anxious to know if rents in New Orleans had been materially
affected by the war. I told him his five houses near Lafayette
Square, excepting that occupied on a long lease by Mr. Carberry
Ratcliff, would not bring in half the amount they did last
year. He groaned audibly. I then told him that your semiannual
collections for him amounted to six thousand dollars, but
that you were under the painful necessity of assuring him that
the money would have to be paid all over to the Confederate
government.
“Charlton, completely struck aghast, fell back in his chair,
his face pale, and his lips quivering. I thought he had fainted.
“`Your brother would n't rob me, Mr. Semmes?' he gasped
forth.
“`Certainly not,' I replied; `but his obedience is due to the
authorities that are uppermost. The Confederate flag waves
over New Orleans, and will probably continue to wave. All
your real estate has been or will be confiscated.'
“`But it is worth two hundred thousand dollars!' he exclaimed,
in a tone that was almost a shriek.
“`So much the better for the Confederate treasury!' I replied.
“I then broached what you told me to in regard to his making
a bona fide sale of the property to you. I offered him twenty
thousand dollars in cash, if he would surrender all claim.
“`Never! never!' he exclaimed. `I 'll run my risk of the
city's coming back into our possession. I see through your
brother's trick.'
“`Please recall that word, sir,' I said, touching my wristbands.
“`Well, your brother's plan, sir. Will that suit you?'
“`That will do,' I replied. `My brother will pay your ten
thousand dollars over to the Confederacy. But I am authorized
to pay you a tenth part of that sum for your receipt in full
of all moneys due to you for rents up to this time.'
“`Ha! you Secessionists are not quite so positive, after all, as
to your fortune!' he exclaimed. `You 're a little weak-kneed
as to your ability to hold the place, — eh?'
“`The city will be burnt,' I replied, `before the inhabitants
will consent to have the old flag restored. You 'd better make
the most, Mr. Charlton, of your opportunity to compound for
a fractional part of the value of your Southern property.'
“It was all in vain. I could n't make him see it. He hates
the war and the Lincoln administration; but he won't sell
or compound on the terms you propose. And, to be frank, I
would n't if I were he. It would be a capital thing for us if he
could be made to do it. But as he is in no immediate need of
money, we cannot rely on the stimulus of absolute want to influence
him as we wish. I took my leave, quite disgusted with
his obstinacy.
“The fall of Sumter seems to have fired the Northern heart
in earnest. I fear we are going to have serious work with
these Yankees. Secretary Walker's cheerful promise of raising
the Confederate flag over Faneuil Hall will not be realized for
some time. Nevertheless, we are bound to prevail — I hope.
Of course every Southern man will die in the last ditch rather
than yield one foot of Southern soil to Yankee domination.
We must have Maryland and the Chesapeake, Fortress Monroe,
and all the Gulf forts, Western Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky,
Delaware, — every square inch of them. Not a rood
must we part with. We can whip, if we 'll only think so.
We 're the master race, and can do it. Can hold on to our
niggers into the bargain. At least, we 'll talk as if we
believed it. Perhaps the prediction will work its fulfilment.
Who knows?
“Fraternally yours,
F. M. S.”
