Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861

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"And our people believe that the States are independent and have a right
to recede from the Confederation without asking its leave. With few
exceptions, all agree on that; it is honest, common public opinion. The
South Carolinians sincerely think that they are exercising a right, and
you may depend that they will not be reasoned nor frightened out of it;
and if the North tries coercion, there will be war. I don't say this
defiantly, but sadly, and merely because I want you to know the truth.
War is abhorrent to my feelings,--especially a war with our own
brethren: and then _we_ are so poorly prepared for it!"

Such was the substance of several conversations. The reader may rely, I
think, on the justness of my friend's opinions, founded as they are on
his honesty of intellect, his moderation, and his opportunities for
studying his fellow-citizens. All told me the same story, but generally
with more passion, sometimes with defiance; defiance toward the
Government, I mean, and not toward me personally; for the better classes
of Charleston are eminently courteous. South Carolina had seceded
forever, defying all the hazards; she would accept nothing but
independence or destruction; she did not desire any supposable
compromise; she had altogether done with the Union. Yet her desire was
not for war; it was simply and solely for escape. She would forget all
her wrongs and insults, she would seek no revenge for the injurious
past, provided she were allowed to depart without a conflict. Nearly
every man with whom I talked began the conversation by asking if the
North meant coercion, and closed it by deprecating hostilities and
affirming the universal wish for _peaceable_ secession. In case of
compulsion, however, the State would accept the gage of battle; her
sister communities of the South would side with her, the moment they saw
her blood flow; Northern commerce would be devoured by privateers of all
nations under the Southern flag; Northern manufactures would perish for
lack of Southern raw material and Southern consumers; Northern banks
would suspend, and Northern finances go into universal insolvency; the
Southern ports would be opened forcibly by England and France, who must
have cotton; the South would flourish in the struggle, and the North
decay.

"But why do you venture on this doubtful future?" I asked of one
gentleman. "What is South Carolina's grievance? The Personal-Liberty
Bills?"

"Yes,--they constitute a grievance. And yet not much of one. Some of us
even--the men of the 'Mercury' school, I mean--do not complain of the
Union because of those bills. They say that it is the Fugitive-Slave Law
itself which is unconstitutional; that the rendition of runaways is
a State affair, in which the Federal Government has no concern; that
Massachusetts, and other States, were quite right in nullifying an
illegal and aggressive statute. Besides, South Carolina has lost very
few slaves."

"Is it the Territorial Question which forces you to quit us?"

"Not in its practical issues. The South needs no more territory; has not
negroes to colonize it. The doctrine of 'No more Slave States' is an
insult to us, but hardly an injury. The flow of population has settled
that matter. You have won all the Territories, not even excepting New
Mexico, where slavery exists nominally, but is sure to die out under the
hostile influences of unpropitious soil and climate. The Territorial
Question has become a mere abstraction. We no longer talk of it."

"Then your great grievance is the election of Lincoln?"

"Yes."

"And the grievance is all the greater because he was elected according
to all the forms of law?"

"Yes."

"If he had been got into the Presidency by trickery, by manifest
cheating, your grievance would have been less complete?"

"Yes."

"Is Lincoln considered here to be a bad or dangerous man?"

"Not personally. I understand that he is a man of excellent private
character, and I have nothing to say against him as a ruler, inasmuch as
he has never been tried. Mr. Lincoln is simply a sign to us that we are
in danger, and must provide for our own safety."

"You secede, then, solely because you think his election proves that the
mass of the Northern people is adverse to you and your interests?"

"Yes."

"So Mr. Wigfall of Texas hit the nail on the head, when he said
substantially that the South cannot be at peace with the North until the
latter concedes that slavery is right?"

"Well,--I admit it; that is precisely it."

I desire the reader to note the loyal frankness, the unshrinking honesty
of these avowals, so characteristic of the South Carolina _morale_.
Whenever the native of that State does an act or holds an opinion, it is
his nature to confess it and avow the motives thereof, without quibbling
or hesitation. It is a persuaded, self-poised community, strikingly like
its negative pole on the Slavery Question, Massachusetts. All those
Charlestonians whom I talked with I found open-hearted in their
secession, and patient of my open-heartedness as an advocate of the
Union, although often astonished, I suspect, that any creature capable
of drawing a conclusion from two premises should think so differently
from themselves.

"But have you looked at the platform of the Republicans?" I proceeded.
"It is not adverse to slavery in the States; it only objects to its
entrance into the Territories; it is not an Abolition platform."

"We don't trust in the platform; we believe that it is an incomplete
expression of the party creed,--that it suppresses more than it utters.
The spirit which keeps the Republicans together is enmity to slavery,
and that spirit will never be satisfied until the system is extinct."

"Finally,--yes; gradually and quietly and safely,--that is possible. I
suppose that the secret and generally unconscious _animus_ of the party
is one which will abolitionize it after a long while."

"When will it begin to act in an abolition sense, do you think?"

"I can't say: perhaps a hundred years from now; perhaps two hundred."

There was a general laugh from the half-dozen persons who formed the
group.

"What time do _you_ fix?" I inquired.

"Two years. But for this secession of ours, there would have been bills
before Congress within two years, looking to the abolition of slavery in
the navy-yards, the District of Columbia, etc. That would be only the
point of the wedge, which would soon assume the dimensions of an attack
on slavery in the States. Look how aggressive the party has been in the
question of the Territories."

"The questions are different. When Congress makes local laws for Utah,
it does not follow that it will do likewise for South Carolina. You
might as well infer, that, because a vessel sails from Liverpool to New
York in ten days, therefore it will sail overland to St. Louis in five
more."

Incredulous laughter answered me again. The South has labored under two
delusions: first, that the Republicans are Abolitionists; second, that
the North can be frightened. Back of these, rendering them fatally
effective, lies that other delusion, the imagined right of peaceable
secession, founded on a belief in the full and unresigned sovereignty of
the States. Let me tell a story illustrative of the depth to which
this belief has penetrated. Years ago, a friend of mine, talking to a
Charleston boy about patriotism, asked him, "What is the name of your
country?" "South Carolina!" responded the eight-year-old, promptly and
proudly. What Northern boy, what Massachusetts boy even, would not have
replied, "The United States of America"?

South Carolina, I am inclined to think, has long been a disunionist
community, or nearly so, deceived by the idea that the Confederation is
a bar rather than a help to her prosperity, and waiting only for a good
chance to quit it. Up to the election of Lincoln all timid souls were
against secession; now they are for it, because they think it less
dangerous than submission. For instance, when I asked one gentleman what
the South expected to gain by going out, he replied, "First, safety.
Our slaves have heard of Lincoln,--that he is a black man, or black
Republican, or black something,--that he is to become ruler of this
country on the fourth of March,--that he is a friend of theirs, and will
free them. We must establish our independence in order to make them
believe that they are beyond his help. We have had to hang some of them
in Alabama,--and we expect to be obliged to hang others, perhaps many."

This was not the only statement of the sort which I heard in Charleston.
Other persons assured me of the perfect fidelity of the negroes, and
declared that they would even fight against Northern invaders, if
needful. Skepticism in regard to this last comfortable belief is,
however, not wanting.

"If it comes to a war, you have one great advantage over us," said to me
a military gentleman, lately in the service of the United States. "Your
working-class is a fighting-class, and will constitute the rank and file
of your armies. Our working-class is not a fighting-class. Indeed, there
is some reason to fear, that, if it take up arms at all, it will be on
the wrong side."

My impression is, that a prevalent, though not a universal fear, existed
lest the negroes should rise in partial insurrections on or about the
fourth of March. A Northern man, who had lived for several years in
the back-country of South Carolina, had married there, and had lately
travelled through a considerable portion of the South, informed me that
many of the villages were lately forming Home Guards, as a measure of
defence against the slave population. The Home Guard is frequently a
cavalry corps, and is always composed of men who have passed the usual
term of military service; for it is deemed necessary to reserve the
youth of the country to meet the "Northern masses," the "Federal
mercenaries," on the field of possible battle. By letters from
Montgomery, Alabama, I learn that unusual precautions have been common
during the last winter, many persons locking up their negroes over
night in the quarters, and most sleeping with arms at hand, ready for
nocturnal conflict. Whoever considers the necessarily horrible nature
of a servile insurrection will find in it some palliation for Southern
violence toward suspected incendiaries and Southern precipitation in
matters of secession, however strongly he may still maintain that
lynch-law should not usurp the place of justice, nor revolution the
place of regular government If you live in a powder-magazine, you
positively must feel inhospitably inclined towards a man who presents
himself with a cigar in his mouth. Even if he shows you that it is but a
tireless stump, it still makes you uneasy. And if you catch sight of
a multitude of smokers, distant as yet, but apparently intent on
approaching, you will be very apt to rush toward them, deprecate their
advance, forbid it, or possibly threaten armed resistance, even at the
risk of being considered aggressive.

Are all the South Carolinians disunionists? It seemed so when I was
there in January, 1861, and yet it did not seem so when I was there in
1855 and '56. At that time you could find men in Charleston who held
that the right of secession was but the right of revolution, of
rebellion,--well enough, if successful, but inductive to hanging, if
unfortunate. Now those same men nearly all argue for the right of
peaceable secession, declaring that the State has a right to go out at
will, and that the Federal Government has no right to coerce or punish
it. These turncoats are the sympathetic, who are carried away by a
rush of popular enthusiasm, and the fearful or peaceable, who dread or
dislike violence. Let us see how a timid Unionist can be converted into
an advocate of the right of secession. Let us suppose a boat with three
men on board, which is hailed by a revenue-cutter, with a threat of
firing, if she does not come to. Two of these men believe that the
revenue-officer is performing a legal duty, and desire to obey him; but
the third, a reckless, domineering fellow, seizes the helm, lets the
sail fill, and attempts to run by, meantime declaring at the top of his
voice that the cutter has no business to stop his progress. The others
dare not resist him and cannot persuade him. Now, then, what position
will they take as to the right of the revenue-officer to fire? Ten to
one they will join their comrade whom they lately opposed; they will cry
out, that the pursuer was wrong in ordering them to stop, and ought not
to punish them for disobedience; in short, they will be converted by the
instinct of self-preservation into advocates of the right of peaceable
secession. I understand, indeed I know, that there are a few opponents
of disunion remaining In South Carolina; but, although they are wealthy
people and of good position, it is pretty certain that they have not an
atom of political influence.

Secession peaceable! It is what is most particularly desired at
Charleston, and, I believe, throughout the Cotton States. Certainly,
when I was there, the war-party, the party of the "Mercury," was not in
the ascendant, unless in the sense of having been "hoist with its own
petard" when it cried out for immediate hostilities. Not only Governor
Pickens and his Council, but nearly all the influential citizens, were
opposed to bloodshed. They demanded independence and Fort Sumter, but
desired and hoped to get both by argument. They believed, or tried to
believe, that at last the Administration would hearken to reason and
grant to South Carolina what it seemed to them could not be denied her
with justice. The battle-cry of the "Mercury," urging precipitation
even at the expense of defeat, for the sake of uniting the South, was
listened to without enthusiasm, except by the young and thoughtless.

"We shall never attack Fort Sumter," said one gentleman. "Don't you see
why? I have a son in the trenches, my next neighbor has one, everybody
in the city has one. Well, we shan't let our boys fight; we can't bear
to lose them. We don't want to risk our handsome, genteel, educated
young fellows against a gang of Irishmen, Germans, British deserters,
and New York roughs, not worth killing, and yet instructed to kill to
the best advantage. We can't endure it, and we shan't do it."

This repugnance to stake the lives of South Carolina patricians against
the lives of low-born, mercenaries was a feeling that I frequently heard
expressed. It was betting guineas against pennies, and on a limited
stock of guineas.

Other men, anti-secessionists even, assured me that war was inevitable,
that Fort Sumter would be attacked, that the volunteers were panting for
the strife, that Governor Pickens was excessively unpopular because of
his peaceful inclinations, and that he would soon be forced to give the
signal for battle. Once or twice I was seriously invited to stay a few
days longer, in order to witness the struggle and victory of South
Carolina. However, it was clear that the enthusiasm and confidence of
the people were no longer what they had been. Several dull and costly
weeks had passed since the passage of the secession ordinance.
Stump-speeches, torchlight-processions, fireworks, and other
jubilations, were among bygone things. The flags were falling to pieces,
and the palmettos withering, unnoticed except by strangers. Men had
begun to realize that a hurrah is not sufficient to carry out a great
revolution successfully; that the work which they had undertaken was
weightier, and the reward of it more distant, if not more doubtful, than
they had supposed. The political prophets had been forced, like the
Millerites, to ask an extension for their predictions. The anticipated
fleet of cotton-freighters had not arrived from Europe, and the expected
twelve millions of foreign gold had not refilled the collapsed banks.
The daily expenses were estimated at twenty thousand dollars; the
treasury was in rapid progress of depletion; and as yet no results. It
is not wonderful, that, under these circumstances, the most enthusiastic
secessionists were not gay, and that the general physiognomy of the city
was sober, not to say troubled. It must not be understood, however,
that there was any visible discontent or even discouragement. "We are
suffering in our affairs," said a business-man to me; "but you will
hear no grumbling." "We expect to be poor, very poor, for two or three
years," observed a lady; "but we are willing to bear it, for the sake of
the noble and prosperous end." "Our people do not want concessions,
and will never be tempted back into the Union," was the voice of every
private person, as well as of the Legislature. "I hope the Republicans
will offer no compromise," remarked one excellent person who has not
favored the revolution. "They would be sure to see it rejected: that
would humiliate them and anger them; then there would be more danger of
war."

Hatred of Buchanan, mingled with contempt for him, I found almost
universal. If any Northerner should ever get into trouble in South
Carolina because of his supposed abolition tendencies, I advise him to
bestow a liberal cursing on our Old Public Functionary, assuring him
that he will thereby not only escape tar and feathers, but acquire
popularity. The Carolinians called the then President double-faced
and treacherous, hardly allowing him the poor credit of being a
well-intentioned imbecile. Why should they not consider him false? Up to
the garrisoning of Fort Sumter he favored the project of secession full
as decidedly as he afterwards crossed it. Did he think that he was
laying a train to blow the Republicans off their platform, and leave off
his labor in a fright, when he found that the powder-bags to be exploded
had been placed under the foundations of the Union? The man who could
explain Mr. Buchanan would have a better title than Daniel Webster to be
called The Great Expounder.

During the ten days of my sojourn, Charleston was full of surprising
reports and painful expectations. If a door slammed, we stopped talking,
and looked at each other; and if the sound was repeated, we went to
the window and listened for Fort Sumter. Every strange noise was
metamorphosed by the watchful ear into the roar of cannon or the rush of
soldiery. Women trembled at the salutes which were fired in honor of the
secession of other States, fearing lest the struggle had commenced and
the dearly-loved son or brother in volunteer uniform was already under
the storm of the columbiads. One day, a reinforcement was coming to
Anderson, and the troops must attack him before it arrived; the next
day, Florida had assaulted Fort Pickens, and South Carolina was bound
to dash her bare bosom against Fort Sumter. The batteries were strong
enough to make a breach; and then again, the best authorities had
declared them not strong enough. A columbiad throwing a ball of one
hundred and twenty pounds, sufficient to crack the strongest embrasures,
was on its way from some unknown region. An Armstrong gun capable of
carrying ten miles had arrived or was about to arrive. No one inquired
whether Governor Pickens had suspended the law of gravitation in South
Carolina, in view of the fact that ordinarily an Armstrong gun will not
carry five miles,--nor whether, in such case, the guns of Fort Sumter
might not also be expected to double their range. Major Anderson was
a Southerner, who would surrender rather than shed the blood of
fellow-Southerners. Major Anderson was an army-officer, incapable by his
professional education of comprehending State rights, angry because he
had been charged with cowardice in withdrawing from Fort Moultrie, and
resolved to defend himself to the death.

In the mean time, the city papers were strangely deficient in local news
concerning the revolution,--possibly from a fear of giving valuable
military information to the enemy at Washington. Uselessly did I study
them for particulars concerning the condition of the batteries, and
the number of guns and troops,--finding little in them but mention
of parades, soldierly festivities, offers of service by enthusiastic
citizens, and other like small business. I thought of visiting the
islands, but heard that strangers were closely watched there, and that
a permit from authority to enter the forts was difficult to obtain.
Fortune, or rather, misfortune, favored me in this matter.

After passing six days in Charleston, hearing much that was
extraordinary, but seeing little, I left in the steamer Columbia for New
York. The main opening to the harbor, or Ship Channel, as it is called,
being choked with sunken vessels, and the Middle Channel little known,
our only resource for exit was Maffitt's Channel, a narrow strip of deep
water closely skirting Sullivan's Island. It was half-past six in the
morning, slightly misty and very quiet Passing Fort Sumter, then Fort
Moultrie, we rounded a low break-water, and attempted to take the
channel. I have heard a half-dozen reasons why we struck; but all I
venture to affirm is that we did strike. There was a bump; we hoped it
was the last:--there was another; we hoped again:--there was a third; we
stopped. The wheels rolled and surged, bringing the fine sand from
the bottom and changing the green waters to yellow; but the Columbia
remained inert under the gray morning sky, close alongside of the brown,
damp beach of Sullivan's Island. There was only a faint breeze, and a
mere ripple of a sea; but even those slight forces swung our stern far
enough toward the land to complete our helplessness. We lay broadside to
the shore, in the centre of a small crescent or cove, and, consequently,
unable to use our engines without forcing either bow or stern higher
up on the sloping bottom. The Columbia tried to advance, tried to back
water, and then gave up the contest, standing upright on her flat
flooring with no motion beyond an occasional faint bumping. The tugboat
Aid, half a mile ahead of us, cast off from the vessel which it was
taking out, and came to our assistance. Apparently it had been engaged
during the night in watching the harbor; for on deck stood a score of
volunteers in gray overcoats, while the naval-looking personage with
grizzled whiskers who seemed to command was the same Lieutenant Coste
who transferred the revenue-cutter Aiken from the service of the United
States to that of South Carolina. The Aid took hold of us, broke a large
new hawser after a brief struggle, and then went up to the city to
report our condition.

The morning was lowery, with driving showers running through it from
time to time, and an atmosphere penetratingly damp and cheerless. On the
beach two companies of volunteers were drilling in the rain, no doubt
getting an appetite for breakfast. Without uniforms, their trousers
tucked into their boots, and here and there a white blanket fastened
shawl-like over the shoulders, they looked, as one of our passengers
observed, like a party of returned Californians. Their line was uneven,
their wheeling excessively loose, their evolutions of the simplest and
yet awkwardly executed. Evidently they were newly embodied, and from the
country; for the Charleston companies are spruce in appearance and well
drilled. Half a dozen of them, who had been on sentinel duty during the
night, discharged their guns in the air,--a daily process, rendered
necessary by the moist atmosphere of the harbor at this season; and
then, the exercise being over, there was a general scamper for the
shelter of a neighboring cottage, low-roofed and surrounded by a veranda
after the fashion of Sullivan's Island. Within half an hour they
reappeared in idle squads, and proceeded to kill the heavy time
by staring at us as we stared at them. One individual, learned in
sea-phrase, insulted our misfortune by bawling, "Ship ahoy!" A fellow
in a red shirt, who looked more like a Bowery _bhoy_ than like a
Carolinian, hailed the captain to know if he might come aboard;
whereupon he was surrounded by twenty others, who appeared to
question him and confound him until he thought it best to disappear
unostentatiously. I conjectured that he was a hero of Northern birth,
who had concluded to run away, if he could do it safely.

When we tired of the volunteers, we looked at the harbor and its
inanimate surroundings. A ship from Liverpool, a small steamer from
Savannah, and a schooner or two of the coasting class passed by us
toward the city during the day, showing to what small proportions the
commerce of Charleston had suddenly shrunk. On shore there seemed to be
no population aside from the volunteers, Sullivan's Island is a summer
resort, much favored by Charlestonians in the hot season, because of its
coolness and healthfulness, but apparently almost uninhabited in winter,
notwithstanding that it boasts a village called Moultrieville. Its
hundred cottages are mostly of one model, square, low-roofed, a single
story in height, and surrounded by a veranda, a portion of which is in
some instances inclosed by blinds so as to add to the amount of shelter.
Paint has been sparingly used, when applied at all, and is seldom
renewed, when weather-stained. The favorite colors, at least those which
most strike the eye at a distance, are green and yellow. The yards are
apt to be full of sand-drifts, which are much prized by the possessors,
with whom it is an object to be secured from high tides and other
more permanent aggressions of the ocean. The whole island is but a
verdureless sand-drift, of which the outlines are constantly changing
under the influence of winds and waters. Fort Moultrie, once close to
the shore, as I am told, is now a hundred yards from it; while, half
a mile off, the sea flows over the site of a row of cottages not long
since washed away. Behind Fort Moultrie, where the land rises to its
highest, appears a continuous foliage of the famous palmettos, a low
palm, strange to the Northern eye, but not beautiful, unless to those
who love it for its associations. Compared with its brothers of the
East, it is short, contracted in outline, and deficient in waving grace.

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