Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 by Various
V >>
Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 | 18 |
19 |
20
The chill mist and drizzling rain frequently drove us under
cover. "While enjoying my cigar in the little smoking-room on the
promenade-deck, I listened to the talk of four players of euchre, two of
them Georgians, one a Carolinian, and one a pro-slavery New-Yorker.
"I wish the Cap'n would invite old Greeley on board his boat in New
York," said the Gothamite, "and then run him off to Charleston. I'd give
ten thousand dollars towards paying expenses; that is, if they could do
what they was a mind to with him."
"I reckon a little more'n ten thousand dollars'd do it," grinned
Georgian First.
"They'd cut him up into little bits," pursued the New-Yorker.
"They'd worry him first like a cat does a mouse," added the Carolinian.
"I'd rather serve Beecher or--what's his name?--Cheever, that trick,"
observed Georgian Second. "It's the cussed parsons that's done all the
mischief. Who played that bower? Yours, eh? My deal."
"I want to smash up some of these dam' Black Republicans," resumed the
New-Yorker. "I want to see the North suffer some. I don't care, if New
York catches it. I own about forty thousand dollars' worth of property
in ---- Street, and I want to see the grass growing all round it.
Blasted, if I can get a hand any way!"
"I say, we should be in a tight place, if the forts went to firing now,"
suggested the Carolinian. "Major Anderson would have a fair chance at
us, if he wanted to do us any harm."
"Damn Major Anderson!" answered the New-Yorker. "I'd shoot him myself,
if I had a chance. I've heard about Bob Anderson till I'm sick of it."
Of this fashion of conversation you may hear any desired amount at the
South, by going among the right sort of people. Let us take it for
granted, without making impertinent inquiry, that nothing of the kind
is ever uttered in any other country, whether in pot-house or parlor.
I suppose that such remarks seem very horrid to ladies and other
gentle-minded folk, who perhaps never heard the like in their lives,
and imagine, when they see the stuff on paper, that it is spoken with
scowling brows, through set teeth, and out of a heart of red-hot
passion. The truth is, that these ferocious phrases are generally
drawled forth in an _ex-officio_ tone, as if the speaker were rather
tired of that sort of thing, meant nothing very particular by it, and
talked thus only as a matter of fashion. It will be observed that the
most violent of these politicians was a New-Yorker. I am inclined to
pronounce, also, that the two Georgians were by birth New-Englanders.
The Carolinian was the most moderate of the company, giving his
attention chiefly to the game, and throwing out his one remark
concerning the worrying of Greeley with an air of simply civil assent
to the general meaning of the conversation, as an exchange of
anti-abolition sentiments. "If you will play that card," he seemed to
say, "I follow suit as a mere matter of course."
There was a second attempt to haul us off at sunset, and a third in the
morning, both unsuccessful. Each tide, though stormless, carried the
Columbia a little higher up the beach; and the tugs, trying singly
to move her, only broke their hawsers and wasted precious time.
Fortunately, the sea continued smooth, so that the ship escaped a
pounding. On Saturday, at eleven, twenty-eight hours after we struck,
all hope of getting off without discharging cargo having been abandoned,
we passengers were landed on Sullivan's Island, to make our way back
to Charleston. Our baggage was forwarded to the ferry in carts, and
we followed at leisure on foot. In company with Georgian First and a
gentleman from Brooklyn, I strolled over the sand-rolls, damp and
hard now with a week's rain, passed one or two of the tenantless
summer-houses, and halted beside the _glacis_ of Fort Moultrie. I do not
wonder that Major Anderson did not consider his small force safe within
this fortification. It is overlooked by neighboring sand-hills and by
the houses of Moultrieville, which closely surround it on the land side,
while its ditch is so narrow and its rampart so low that a ladder of
twenty-five feet in length would reach from the outside of the former to
the summit of the latter. A fire of sharp-shooters from the commanding
points, and two columns of attack, would have crushed the feeble
garrison. No military movement could be more natural than the retreat to
Fort Sumter. What puzzles one, especially on the spot, and what nobody
in Charleston could explain to me, is the fact that this manoeuvre could
be executed unobserved by the people of Moultrieville, few as they are,
and by the guard-boats which patrolled the harbor.
On the eastern side of the fort two or three dozen negroes were engaged
in filling canvas bags with sand, to be used in forming temporary
embrasures. One lad of eighteen, a dark mulatto, presented the very
remarkable peculiarity of chest-nut hair, only slightly curling. The
others were nearly all of the true field-hand type, aboriginal black,
with dull faces, short and thick forms, and an air of animal contentment
or at least indifference. They talked little, but giggled a great deal,
snatching the canvas bags from each other, and otherwise showing their
disbelief in the doctrine of all work and no play. When the barrows were
sufficiently filled to suit their weak ideal of a load, a procession of
them set off along a plank causeway leading into the fort, observing a
droll semblance of military precision and pomp, and forcing a passage
through lounging unmilitary buckras with an air of, "Out of de way, Ole
Dan Tucker!" We glanced at the yet unfinished ditch, half full of water,
and walked on to the gateway. A grinning, skipping negro drummer was
showing a new pair of shoes to the tobacco-chewing, jovial youth who
stood, or rather sat, sentinel.
"How'd you get hold of _them?_" asked the latter, surveying the articles
admiringly.
"Got a special order frum the Cap'm fur 'um. That ee way to do it. Won't
wet through, no matter how it rain. He, he! I'm all right now."
Here he showed ivory to his ears, cut a caper, and danced into the fort.
"D-a-m' nig-ger!" grinned the sentinel, approvingly, looking at us to
see if we also enjoyed the incident. Thus introduced to the temporary
guardian of the fort, we told him that we were from the Columbia, which
he was glad to bear of, wanting to know if she was damaged, how she went
ashore, whether she could get off, etc., etc. He was a fair specimen of
the average country Southerner, lounging, open to address, and fond of
talk.
"I've no authority to let you in," he said, when we asked that favor;
"but I'll call the corporal of the guard."
"If you please."
"Corporal of the guard!"
Appeared the corporal, who civilly heard us, and went for the lieutenant
of the guard. Presently a blonde young officer, with a pleasant face,
somewhat Irish in character, came out to us, raising his forefinger in
military salute.
"We should like to go into the fort, if it is proper," I said. "We ask
hospitality the more boldly, because we are shipwrecked people."
"It is against the regulations. However, I venture to take the
responsibility," was the obliging answer.
We passed in, and wandered unwatched for half an hour about the
irregular, many-angled fortress. One-third of the interior is occupied
by two brick barracks, covered with rusty stucco, and by other brick
buildings, as yet incomplete, which I took to be of the nature of
magazines. On the walls, gaping landward as well as seaward, are thirty
or thirty-five iron cannon, all _en barbette_, but protected toward the
harbor by heavy piles of sand-bags, fenced up either with barrels of
sand or palmetto-logs driven firmly into the rampart. Four eight-inch
columbiads, carrying sixty-four pound balls, pointed at Fort Sumter. Six
other heavy pieces, Paixhans, I believe, faced the neck of the harbor.
The remaining armament of lighter calibre, running, I should judge, from
forty-twos down to eighteens. Only one gun lay on the ground destitute
of a carriage. The place will stand a great deal of battering; for the
walls are nearly bidden by the sand-covered _glacis_, which would catch
and smother four point-blank shots out of five, if discharged from a
distance. Against shells, however, it has no resource; and one mortar
would make it a most unwholesome residence.
"What's this?" asked a volunteer, in homespun gray uniform, who, like
ourselves, had come in by courtesy.
"That's the butt of the old flag-staff," answered a comrade. "Cap'n
Foster cut it down before he left the fort, damn him I It was a dam'
sneaking trick. I've a great mind to shave off a sliver and send it to
Lincoln."
The idea of getting a bit of the famous staff as a memento struck
me, and I attempted to put it in practice; but the exceedingly tough
pitch-pine defied my slender pocket-knife.
"Jim, cut the gentleman a piece," said one of the volunteers, Jim drew a
toothpick a foot long and did me the favor, for which I here repeat my
thanks to him.
They were good-looking, healthy fellows, these two, like most of their
comrades, with a certain air of frank gentility and self-respect about
them, being probably the sons of well-to-do planters. It would be a
great mistake to suppose that the volunteers are drawn, to any extent
whatever, from the "poor white trash." The secession movement, like all
the political action of the State at all times, is independent of the
crackers, asks no aid nor advice of them, and, in short, ignores them
utterly.
"I was here when the Star of the West was fired on," the Lieutenant told
us. "We only had powder for two hours. Anderson could have put us out in
a short time, if he had chosen."
"How rapidly can these heavy guns be fired?"
"About ten times an hour."
"Do you think the defences will protect the garrison against a
bombardment?"
"I think the palmetto stockades will answer. I don't know about that
enormous pile of barrels, however. If a shot hits the mass on the top, I
am afraid it will come down, bags and barrels together, bury the gun and
perhaps the gunners."
"What if Sumter should open now?" I suggested.
"We should be here to help," answered the Georgian.
"We should be here to run away," amended my comrade from Brooklyn.
"Well, I suppose we should be of mighty little use, and might as well
clear out," was the sober second-thought of the Georgian.
Having satisfied our curiosity, we thanked the Lieutenant and left Fort
Moultrie. The story of our visit to it excited much surprise, when we
recounted it in the city. Members of the Legislature and other men high
in influence had desired the privilege, but had not applied for it,
expecting a repulse.
A walk down a winding street, bordered by scattered cottages, inclosed
by brown board-fences or railings, and tracked by a horse-railroad built
for the Moultrie House, led us to the ferry-wharf, where we found our
baggage piled together, and our fellow-passengers wandering about in a
state of bored expectation. Sullivan's Island in winter is a good spot
for an economical man, inasmuch as it presents no visible opportunities
of spending money. There were houses of refreshment, as we could see
by their signs; but if they did business, it was with closed doors
and barred shutters. After we had paid a newsboy five cents for the
"Mercury," and five more for the "Courier," we were at the end of our
possibilities in the way of extravagance. At half-past one arrived the
ferry-boat with a few passengers, mostly volunteers, and a deck-load of
military stores, among which I noticed Boston biscuit and several dozen
new knapsacks. Then, from the other side, came the "dam' nigger," that
is to say, the drummer of the new shoes, beating his sheepskin at the
head of about fifty men of the Washington Artillery, who were on their
way back to town from Fort Moultrie. They were fine-looking young
fellows, mostly above the middle size of Northerners, with spirited and
often aristocratic faces, but somewhat more devil-may-care in expression
than we are accustomed to see in New England. They poured down the
gangway, trailed arms, ascended the promenade-deck, ordered arms,
grounded arms, and broke line. The drill struck me as middling, which
may be owing to the fact that the company has lately increased to about
two hundred members, thus diluting the old organization with a large
number of new recruits. Military service at the South is a patrician
exercise, much favored by men of "good family," more especially at this
time, when it signifies real danger and glory.
Our rajpoots having entered the boat, we of lower caste were permitted
to follow. At two o'clock we were steaming over the yellow waters of the
harbor. The volunteers, like everybody else in Charleston, discussed
Secession and Fort Sumter, considering the former as an accomplished
fact, and the latter as a fact of the kind called stubborn. They talked
uniform, too, and equipments, and marksmanship, and drinks, and cigars,
and other military matters. Now and then an awkwardly folded blanket was
taken from the shoulders which it disgraced, refolded, packed carefully
in its covering of India-rubber, and strapped once more in its place,
two or three generally assisting in the operation. Presently a firing at
marks from the upper deck commenced. The favorite target was a conical
floating buoy, showing red on the sunlit surface of the harbor, some
four hundred yards away. With a crack and a hoarse whiz the minie-balls
flew towards it, splashing up the water where they first struck and then
taking two or three tremendous skips before they sank. A militiaman from
New York city, who was one of my fellow-passengers, told me that he
"never saw such good shooting." It seemed to me that every sixth ball
either hit the buoy full, or touched water but a few yards this side of
it, while not more than one in a dozen went wild.
"It is good for a thousand yards," said a volunteer, slapping his
bright, new piece, proudly.
A favorite subject of argument appeared to be whether Fort Sumter ought
to be attacked immediately or not. A lieutenant standing near me talked
long and earnestly regarding this matter with a civilian friend,
breaking out at last in a loud tone,--
"Why, good Heaven, Jim! do you want that place to go peaceably into the
hands of Lincoln?"
"No, Fred, I do not. But I tell you, Fred, when that fort is attacked,
it will be the bloodiest day,--the bloodiest day!--the bloodiest----!!"
And here, unable to express himself in words, Jim flung his arms wildly
about, ground his tobacco with excitement, spit on all sides, and walked
away, shaking his head, I thought, in real grief of spirit.
We passed close to Fort Pinckney, our volunteers exchanging hurrahs with
the garrison. It is a round, two-storied, yellow little fortification,
standing at one end of a green marsh known as Shute's Folly Island.
What it was put there for no one knows: it is too close to the city to
protect it; too much out of the harbor to command that. Perhaps it might
keep reinforcements for Anderson from coming down the Ashley, just as
the guns on the Battery were supposed to be intended to deter them from
descending the Cooper.
On the wharf of the ferry three drunken volunteers, the first that I had
seen in that condition, brushed against me. The nearest one, a handsome
young fellow of six feet two, half turned to stare back at me with a--
"How are ye, Cap'm? Gaw damn ye! Haw, haw, aw!"--and reeled onward,
brimful of spirituous good-nature.
Four days more had I in Charleston, waiting from tide to tide for a
chance to sail to New York, and listening from hour to hour for the guns
of Fort Sumter. Sunday was a day of excitement, a report spreading that
the Floridians had attacked Fort Pickens, and the Charlestonians feeling
consequently bound in honor to fight their own dragon. Groups of earnest
men talked all day and late into the evening under the portico and in
the basement-rooms of the hotel, besides gathering at the corners and
strolling about the Battery. "We must act." "We cannot delay." "We ought
not to submit." Such were the phrases that fell upon the ear oftenest
and loudest.
As I lounged, after tea, in the vestibule of the reading-room, an
eccentric citizen of Arkansas varied the entertainment. A short, thin
man, of the cracker type, swarthy, long-bearded, and untidy, he was
dressed in well-worn civilian costume, with the exception of an old
blue coat showing dim remnants of military garniture. Heeling up to a
gentleman who sat near me, he glared stupidly at him from beneath a
broad-brimmed hat, demanding a seat mutely, but with such eloquence of
oscillation that no words were necessary. The respectable person thus
addressed, not anxious to receive the stranger into his lap, rose and
walked away, with that air of not, having seen anything so common to
disconcerted people who wish to conceal their disturbance. Into the
vacant place dropped the stranger, stretching out his feet, throwing
his head back against the wall, and half closing his eyes with the
drunkard's own leer of self-sufficiency. During a few moments of
agonizing suspense the world waited. Then from those whiskey-scorched
and tobacco-stained lips came a long, shrill "Yee-p!"
It was his exordium; it demanded the attention of the company; and
though he had it not, he continued:--
"I'm an Arkansas man, _I_ am. I'm a big su-gar planter, _I_ am. All
right! Go a'ead! I own fifty niggers, _I_ do. Yee-p!"
He lifted both feet and slammed them on the floor energetically, pausing
for a reply. He had addressed all men; no one responded, and he went
on:--
"I'm for straightout, immedit shession, _I_ am. I go for 'staining
coursh of Sou' Car'lina, _I_ do. I'm ready to fight for Sou' Car'lina.
I'm a Na-po-le-on Bonaparte. All right! Go a'ead! Yee-p! Fellahs don't
know me here. I'm an Arkansas man, I am. Sou' Car'lina won't kill an
Arkansas man. I'm an immedit shessionist. Hurrah for Sou' Car'lina! All
right! Yee-p!"
There was a lingering, caressing accent on his "_I_ am," which told how
dear to him was his individuality, drunk or sober. He looked at no one;
his hat was drawn over his eyes; his hands were deep in his pockets;
his feet did all needful gesturing. I stepped in front of him to get
a fuller view of his face, and the action aroused his attention. He
surveyed my gray Inverness wrapper and gave me a chuckling nod of
approbation.
"How are ye, Bub? I like that blanket, _I_ do."
In spite of this noble stranger's goodwill and prowess, we still found
Fort Sumter a knotty question. In a country which for eighty years has
not seen a shot fired in earnest, it is not wonderful that a good
deal of ignorance should exist concerning military matters, and
that second-class plans should be hatched for taking a first-class
fortification. While I was in Charleston, the most popular proposition
was to bombard continuously for two whole days and nights, thereby
demoralizing the garrison by depriving it of sleep and causing it to
surrender at the first attempt to escalade. Another plan, not in general
favor, was to smoke Anderson out by means of a raft covered with burning
mixtures of a chemical and bad-smelling nature. Still another, with
perhaps yet fewer adherents, was to advance on all sides in such a vast
number of row-boats that the fort could not sink them all, whereupon
the survivors should land on the wharf and proceed to take such further
measures as might be deemed expedient. The volunteers from the country
always arrived full of faith and defiance. "We want to get a squint at
that Fort Sumter," they would say to their city friends. "We are going
to take it. If we don't plant the palmetto on it, it's because there's
no such tree as the palmetto." Down the harbor they would go in the
ferry-boats to Morris or Sullivan's Island. The spy-glass would be
brought out, and one after another would peer through it at the object
of their enmity. Some could not sight it at all, confounded the
instrument, and fell back on their natural vision. Others, more lucky,
or better versed in telescopic observations, got a view of the fortress,
and perhaps burst out swearing at the evident massiveness of the walls
and the size of the columbiads.
"Good Lord, what a gun!" exclaimed one man. "D'ye see that gun? What an
almighty thing! I'll be ----, if I ever put my head in front of it!"
The difficulties of assault were admitted to be very great, considering
the bad footing, the height of the ramparts, and the abundant store of
muskets and grenades in the garrison. As to breaches, nobody seemed to
know whether they could be made or not. The besieging batteries were
neither heavy nor near, nor could they be advanced as is usual in
regular sieges, nor had they any advantage over the defence except in
the number of gunners, while in regard to position and calibre they were
inferior. To knock down a wall nearly forty feet high and fourteen feet
thick at a distance of more than half a mile seemed a tough undertaking,
even when unresisted. It was discovered also that the side of the
fortification towards Fort Johnstone, its only weak point, had been
strengthened so as to make it bomb-proof by means of interior masonry
constructed from the stones of the landing-place. Then nobody wanted to
knock Fort Sumter down, inasmuch as that involved either the labor
of building it up again, or the necessity of going without it as a
harbor-defence. Finally, suppose it should be attacked and not taken?
Really, we unlearned people in the art of war were vastly puzzled as we
thought tins whole matter over, and we sometimes doubted whether our
superiors were not almost equally bothered with ourselves.
This fighting was a sober, sad subject; and yet at times it took a turn
toward the ludicrous. A gentleman told me that he was present when the
steamer Marion was seized with the intention of using her in pursuing
the Star of the West. A vehement dispute arose as to the fitness of the
vessel for military service.
"Fill her with men, and put two or three eighteen-pounders in her," said
the advocates of the measure.
"Where will you put your eighteen-pounders?" demanded the opposition.
"On the promenade-deck, to be sure."
"Yes, and the moment you fire one, you'll see it go through the bottom
of the ship, and then you'll have to go after it."
During the two days previous to my second and successful attempt to quit
Charleston, the city was in full expectation that the fort would shortly
be attacked. News had arrived that Federal troops were on their way with
reinforcements. An armed steamer had been seen off the harbor, both by
night and day, making signals to Anderson. The Governor went down
to Sullivan's Island to inspect the troops and Fort Moultrie. The
volunteers, aided by negroes and even negro women, worked all night on
the batteries. Notwithstanding we were close upon race-week, when the
city is usually crowded, the streets had a deserted air, and nearly
every acquaintance I met told me he had been down to the islands to
see the preparations. Yet the whole excitement, like others which had
preceded, ended even short of smoke. News came that reinforcements had
not been sent to Anderson; and the destruction of that most inconvenient
person was once more postponed. People fell back on the old hope that
the Government would be brought to listen to reason,--that it would
give up to South Carolina what it could not keep from her with justice,
--that it would grant, in short, the incontrovertible right of peaceable
secession. For, in the midst of all these labors and terrors, this
expense and annoyance, no one talked of returning into the Union, and
all agreed in deprecating compromise.
Once more, this time in the James Adger, I set sail from Charleston. The
boat lost one tide, and consequently one day, because at the last
moment the captain found himself obliged to take out a South Carolina
clearance. As I passed down the harbor, I counted fourteen square-rigged
vessels at the wharves, and one lying at anchor, while three others had
just passed the bar, outward-bound, and two were approaching from the
open sea. Deterred from the Ship Channel by the sunken schooners, and
from Maffitt's Channel by the fate of the Columbia, we tried the Middle
Channel, and glided over the bar without accident.
"Sailing to Charleston is very much like going foreign," I said to a
middle-aged sea-captain whom we numbered among our passengers. "What
with heaving the lead, and doing without beacons, and lying off the
coast o' nights, it makes one think of trading to new countries."
I had, it seems, unintentionally pulled the string which jerked him.
Springing up, he paced about excitedly for a few moments, and then broke
out with his story.
"Yes,--I know it,--I know as much about it as anybody, I reckon. I lay
off there nine days in a nor'easter and lost my anchors; and here I am
going on to New York to buy some more; and all for those cursed Black
Republicans!"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 | 18 |
19 |
20