CHAPTER XII.

“STATE PRIDE.”

Leaving Washington by steamer again, early on the morning of the twelfth of September, a breezy sail of three hours down the Potomac brought us to Acquia Creek.

The creek was still there, debouching broad and placid into the river, for, luckily, destroying armies cannot consume the everlasting streams. The forests, which densely covered all that region before the war, had been cut away. Not a building of any kind was to be seen; and only the blackened ruins of half-burnt wharves, extending out into the river, remained to indicate that here had been an important depot of supplies.

Taking the cars near an extemporized landing, we traversed a country of shaggy hills, completely clad in thick undergrowths which had sprung up where the ancient forests stood. At the end of two hours’ slow travel, through a tract almost exclusively of this character, we arrived at a hiatus in the railroad. The bridge over the Rappahannock not having been rebuilt since the war, it was necessary to cross to Fredericksburg by another conveyance than the cars. A long line of coaches was in waiting for the train. I climbed the topmost seat of the foremost coach, which was soon leading the rumbling, dusty procession over the hills toward the city.

From a barren summit we obtained a view of Fredericksburg, pleasantly situated on the farther bank of the river, with the high ridge behind it which Burnside endeavored in vain to take. We crossed the brick-colored Rappahannock (not a lovely stream to look upon) by a pontoon bridge, and ascending the opposite shore, rode through the half-ruined city.

Fredericksburg had not yet begun to recover from the effects of Burnside’s shells. Scarcely a house in the burnt portions had been rebuilt. Many houses were entirely destroyed, and only the solitary chimney-stacks remained. Of others, you saw no vestige but broken brick walls, and foundations overgrown with Jamestown-weeds, sumachs, and thistles. Farther up from the river the town had been less badly used; but we passed even there many a dwelling with a broken chimney, and with great awkward holes in walls and roofs. Some were windowless and deserted; but others had been patched up and rendered inhabitable again. High over the city soar the church-spires, which, standing between two artillery fires on the day of the battle, received the ironical compliments of both. The zinc sheathing of one of these steeples is well riddled and ripped, and the tipsy vane leans at an angle of forty-five degrees from its original perpendicular.

Sitting next me on the stage-top was a vivacious young expressman, who was in the battle, and who volunteered to give me some account of it. No doubt his description was beautifully clear, but as he spoke only of “our army,” without calling it by name, it was long before I could decide which army was meant. Sometimes it seemed to be one, then it was more likely the other; so that, before his account of its movements was ended, my mind was in a delightful state of confusion. A certain delicacy on my part, which was quite superfluous, had prevented me from asking him plainly at first on which side he was fighting. At last, by inference and indirection, I got at the fact;—“our army” was the Rebel army.

“I am a son of Virginia!” he told me afterwards, his whole manner expressing a proud satisfaction. “I was opposed to secession at first, but afterwards I went into it with my whole heart and soul. Do you want to know what carried me in? State pride, sir! nothing else in the world. I’d give more for Virginia than for all the rest of the Union put together; and I was bound to go with my State.”

This was spoken with emphasis, and a certain rapture, as a lover might speak of his mistress. I think I never before realized so fully what “State pride” was. In New England and the West, you find very little of it. However deep it may lie in the hearts of the people, it is not their habit to rant about it. You never hear a Vermonter or an Indianian exclaim, “I believe my State is worth all the rest of the Union!” with excited countenance, lip curved, and eye in fine frenzy rolling. Their patriotism is too large and inclusive to be stopped by narrow State boundaries. Besides, in communities where equality prevails there is little of that peculiar pride which the existence of caste engenders. Accustomed to look down upon slaves and poor whites, the aristocratic classes soon learn to believe that they are the people, and that wisdom will die with them.

In the case of Virginians, I think that the mere name of the State has also something to do with their pride in her. To hear one of them enunciate the euphonious syllables when asked to what portion of the Union he belongs, is wonderfully edifying; it is as good as eating a peach. “_V-i-r-g-i-n-i-a_,” he tells you, dwelling with rich intonations on the luscious vowels and consonants,—in his mind doubtless the choicest in the alphabet; and he seems proudly conscious, as he utters them, of having spoken a charm which enwraps him in an atmosphere of romance. Thenceforth he is unapproachable on that verdurous ground, the envy and despair of all who are so unfortunate as to have been born elsewhere. Thus a rich word surrounds itself with rich associations. But suppose a different name: instead of Virginia, Stubland, for example. It might indeed be the best State of all, yet, believe me, _Stubland_ would have in all its borders no soil fertile enough to grow the fine plant of State pride.

“I believe,” said I, “there is but one State as proud as Virginia, and that is the fiery little State of South Carolina.”

“I have less respect for South Carolina,” said he, “than for any other State in the Union. South Carolina troops were the worst troops in the Confederate army. It was South Carolina’s self-conceit and bluster that caused the war.”

(So, State pride in another State than Virginia was only “self-conceit.”)

“Yes,” said I, “South Carolina began the war; but Virginia carried it on. If Virginia had thrown the weight of her very great power in the Union against secession, resort to arms would never have been necessary. She held a position which she has forfeited forever, because she was not true to it. By seceding she lost wealth, influence, slavery, and the blood of her bravest sons; and what has she gained? I wonder, sir, how your State pride can hold out so well.”

“Virginia,” he replied, with another gleam, his eyes doing the fine frenzy again, “Virginia made the gallantest fight that ever was; and I am prouder of her to-day than I ever was in my life!”

“But you are glad she is back in the Union again?”

“To tell the truth, I am. I think more of the Union, too, than I ever did before. It was a square, stand-up fight; we got beaten, and I suppose it is all for the best. The very hottest Secessionists are now the first to come back and offer support to the government.” He tapped a little tin trunk he carried. “I have fifty pardons here, which I am carrying from Washington to Richmond, for men who, a year ago, you would have said would drown themselves sooner than take the oath of allegiance to the United States. It was a rich sight to see these very men crowding to take the oath. It was a bitter pill to some, and they made wry faces at it; but the rest were glad enough to get back into the old Union. It was like going home.”

“What astonishes me,” said I, “after all the Southern people’s violent talk about the last ditch,—about carrying on an endless guerrilla warfare after their armies were broken up, and fighting in swamps and mountains till the last man was exterminated,—what astonishes me is, that they take so sensible a view of their situation, and accept it so frankly; and that you, a Rebel, and I, a Yankee, are sitting on this stage talking over the bloody business so good-naturedly!”

“Well, it is astonishing, when you think of it! Southern men and Northern men ride together in the trains, and stop at the same hotels, as if we were all one people,—as indeed we are: one nation now,” he added, “as we never were before, and never could have been without the war.”

I got down at the hotel, washed and brushed away the dust of travel, and went out to the dining-room. There the first thing that met my eye was a pair of large wooden fans, covered with damask cloth which afforded an ample flap to each, suspended over the table, and set in motion by means of a rope dropped from a pulley by the door. At the end of the rope was a shining negro-boy about ten years old, pulling as if it were the rope of a fire-bell, and the whole town were in flames. The fans swayed to and fro, a fine breeze blew all up and down the table, and not a fly was to be seen. I noticed before long, however, that the little darkey’s industry was of an intermittent sort; for at times he would cease pulling altogether, until the landlady passed that way, when he would seem to hear the cries of fire again, and once more fall to ringing his silent alarm-bell in the most violent manner.

The landlady was the manager of the house; and I naturally took her to be a widow until her husband was pointed out to me,—a mere tavern lounger, of no account any way. It is quite common to find Virginia hotels kept in this manner. The wife does the work; the husband takes his ease in his inn. The business goes in her name;—he is the sleeping partner.

After dinner I went out to view the town. As I stood looking at the empty walls of the gutted court-house, a sturdy old man approached. He stopped to answer my questions, and pointing at the havoc made by shells, exclaimed,—

“You see the result of the vanity of Virginia!”

“Are you a Virginian!”

“I am; but that is no reason why I should be blind to the faults of my State. It was the vanity of Virginia, and nothing else, that caused all our trouble.”

(Here was another name for “State pride.”)

“You were not very much in favor of secession, I take it?”

“In favor of it!” he exclaimed, kindling. “Didn’t they have me in jail here nine weeks because I would not vote for it? If I hadn’t been an old man, they would have hung me. Ah, I told them how it would be, from the first; but they wouldn’t believe me. Now they see! Look at this ruined city! Look at the farms and plantations laid waste! Look at the complete paralysis of business; the rich reduced to poverty; the men and boys with one arm, one leg, or one hand; the tens of thousands of graves; the broken families;—it is all the result of vanity! vanity!”

He showed me the road to the Heights, and we parted on the corner.