Part 18

The portion of Tennessee traversed by the railroad is not very attractive, for it is nearly uncleared. In the sparse clearings were fields of Indian corn, growing amid blackened stumps of trees and rude log shanties, and the white population which looked out upon us was poorly housed at least, if not badly clad. At last we reached Corinth. It would have been scarcely recognizable by Mummius--even if he had ruined his old handiwork over again. This proudly-named spot consisted, apparently, of a grog-shop in wood, and three shanties of a similar material, with out-offices to match, and the Acro-Corinth was a grocery store, of which the proprietors had no doubt gone to the wars, as it was shut up, and their names were suspiciously Milesian. But, if Corinth was not imposing, Troy, which we reached after a long run through a forest of virgin timber, was still simpler in architecture and general design. It was too new for “_Troja fuit_,” and the general “fixins” would scarcely authorize one to say “_Troja fuerit_.”

The Dardanian Towers were represented by a timber house, and Helen the Second--whom we may take on this occasion to have been simulated by an old lady smoking a pipe, whom I saw in the verandah--could have set them on fire much more readily than did her interesting prototype ignite the city of Priam. The rest of the place, and of the inhabitants, as I saw it and them, might be considered as an agglomerate of three or four sheds, a few log huts, a saw-mill, and some twenty negroes sitting on a log and looking at the train. From Troy the road led to a cypress swamp, over which the engines bustled, rattled, tumbled, and hopped at a perilous rate along a high trestlework, and at last we came to “Union City,” which seemed to be formed by great aggregate meetings of discontented shavings which had been whirled into heaps out of the forest hard by. But here was the camp of the Confederates, which so many of our fellow passengers were coming out into the wilderness to see. Their white tents and plank huts gleamed out through the green of oak and elm, and hundreds of men came out to the platform to greet their friends, and to inquire for baskets, boxes, and hampers, which put me in mind of the quartermaster’s store at Balaklava. We have all heard of the unhappy medical officer who exhausted his resources to get up a large chest from that store to the camp, and who on opening it, in the hope of finding inside the articles he was most in need of, discovered that it contained an elegant assortment of wooden legs; but he could not have been so much disgusted as a youthful warrior here who was handed a wicker-covered jar from the luggage van, which he “tapped” on the spot, expecting to find it full of Bourbon whiskey, or something equally good. He raised the ponderous vessel aloft and took a long pull, to the envy of his comrades, and then spirting out the fluid with a hideous face exclaimed, “d----, etc. Why, if the old woman has not sent me syrup!” Evidently no joke, for the crowd around him never laughed, and quietly dispersed. It was fully two hours before the train got away from the camp, leaving a vast quantity of good things and many ladies, who had come on in the excursion train, behind them. There were about 6,000 men there, it is said, rude, big, rough fellows, with sprinklings of odd companies, composed of gentlemen of fortune exclusively. The soldiers, who are only entitled to the name in virtue of their carrying arms, their duty, and possibly their fighting qualities, lay under the trees playing cards, cooking, smoking, or reading the papers; but the camp was guarded by sentries, some of whom carried their firelocks under their arms like umbrellas, others by the muzzle, with the butt over the shoulder; one, for ease, had stuck his, with the bayonet in the ground, upright before him; others laid their arms against the trees, and preferred a sitting to an upright posture. In front of one camp there were two brass field-pieces, seemingly in good order. Many of the men had sporting rifles or plain muskets. There were several boys of fifteen and sixteen years of age among the men, who could scarcely carry their arms for a long day’s march; but the Tennessee and Mississippi infantry were generally the materials of good soldiers. The camps were not regularly pitched, with one exception; the tents were too close together; the water is bad, and the result was that a good deal of measles, fever, diarrhœa, and dysentery prevailed. One man who came on the train was a specimen of many of the classes which fill the ranks--a tall, very muscular, handsome man, with a hunter’s eye, about thirty-five years of age, brawny-shouldered, brown-faced, black-bearded, hairy-handed; he had once owned one hundred and ten negroes--equal, say, to £20,000--but he had been a patriot, a lover of freedom, a filibuster. First he had gone off with Lopez to Cuba, where he was taken, put in prison, and included among the number who received grace; next he had gone off with Walker to Nicaragua, but in his last expedition he fell into the hands of the enemy, and was only restored to liberty by the British officer who was afterward assaulted in New Orleans for the part he took in the affair. These little adventures had reduced his stock to five negroes, and to defend them he took up arms, and he looked like one who could use them. When he came from Nicaragua he weighed only one hundred and ten pounds, now he was over two hundred pounds--a splendid _bête fauve_; and, without wishing him harm, may I be permitted to congratulate American society on its chance of getting rid of a considerable number of those of whom he is a representative man. We learned incidentally that the district wherein these troops are quartered was distinguished by its attachment to the Union. By its last vote Tennessee proved that there are at least forty thousand voters in the state who are attached to the United States government. At Columbus the passengers were transferred to a steamer, which in an hour and a half made its way against the stream of the Mississippi to Cairo. There, in the clear light of a summer’s eve, were floating the stars and stripes--the first time I had seen the flag, with the exception of a glimpse of it at Fort Pickens, for two months. Cairo is in Illinois, on the spur of land which is formed by the junction of the Ohio River with the Mississippi, and its name is probably well known to certain speculators in England, who believed in the fortunes of a place so appropriately named and situated. Here is the camp of Illinois troops under General Prentiss, which watches the shores of the Missouri on the one hand, and of Kentucky on the other. Of them, and of what may be interesting to readers in England, I shall speak in my next letter. I find there is a general expression of satisfaction at the sentiments expressed by Lord John Russell in the speech which has just been made known here, and that the animosity excited by what a portion of the American press called the hostility of the foreign minister to the United States, has been considerably abated, although much has been done to fan the anger of the people into a flame, because England has acknowledged the Confederate States have _limited_ belligerent rights.

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CAIRO, ILLINOIS.

In my last letter I gave an account of what I saw on my way to the city of Memphis, and of my visit to the Secessionists’ camp, and brought up the narrative of the journey to my arrival at this place, which is the head-quarters of the brigade of Illinois troops employed in behalf of the Union to keep a watch and ward over the important point which commands the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Major-General Pillow, of Tennessee, blockades the current of the united rivers at Memphis; Brigadier-General Prentiss blockades both streams before they join at Cairo higher up. The former is in the midst of friends; the latter is surrounded by enemies--across the rivers, in his rear, below, behind, and above him--in his very camp there are Secessionist feelings, sentiments, and wishes, sometimes represented by actual force. There are in the larger states about this vast region conditions of opinion on the subject of Union or Secession which are like the electrical phenomena of a conductor, charged by induction. As the states approach or recede from the great slave agriculturists they become Secessionist, or divided, and finally Unionist. Western Virginia is rather federalist than otherwise; Southern Illinois is in several counties all but secessionist; East and West Tennessee differ in sentiment on the great question. Missouri is also distracted by federalist and disunionist.

It may be that this schism will not only break up the Union, but even split up the states, for the sovereignity of which one part of the republic is arrayed in arms against the other. The secessionists, however, stop short with their universal remedy at the borders of each state, and do not admit the right of separation to any portion of a state unless it be in their own favor. A Union man is very glad to observe discussion in a state when it is brought about by the friends of the government at Washington. A Northern man will endure any thing but the idea of the Union being broken up; he becomes intemperate and angry if it be hinted at. But, in whatever way the end may be worked out, it is clear the means used in doing so is the old-fashioned machine in vogue in the old world in the hands of despots, kings, and rulers; and that the majority in states which was the ruling power must be destroyed by the process. The argument of a self-governing people for the whole of the United States is now convenient enough; but we heard very different language when England demanded redress for the imprisonment of her subjects at Charleston, and when a British subject was seized in New York because he had destroyed a vessel in the service of the enemy. In fact, the whole of the philosophical abstractions on which the founders of the republic based their constitution, have given way before the pressure of events, and every step that is taken by the federal government in vindication of its rights or prerogatives is embarrassed by difficulties which in the end must be cut by the sword. The authorities can scarcely deal even with a rebel privateer; and in the case of the schooner taken by the United States brig Perry in all but flagrant piracy, with proofs abundant of her guilt, there is no court to condemn her, unless one be specially devised, inasmuch as she ought by law to be condemned in the United States court in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, where the United States processes at this moment are not of much effect. It is obvious that such an emergency as the present cannot be met by any constitutional devices. Republics in a crisis have always had recourse to dictators. If word-splitters, doctrine-mongers, and dodging politicians, at the forthcoming Congress at Washington, attempt to control the action of the executive by “constitutional” devices, motions, or resolutions, they will do more harm to the cause of the Union than all the militia captains of the enemy’s host.

A few hours took me out of the Southern camps to the Federalist position; but secession sentiments travelled on board the steamer. An English steward, who left his country so long ago that he forgets all the feelings of his countrymen, expressed his opinion that the South would hold its own on the slavery basis, and professed astonishment at the notion that slavery was not in itself a good thing, which he found prevalent in Great Britain. The passengers were rather Secessionist than Unionist, and I must say, from what I have seen, there is far more leniency and forbearance shown by the United States authorities to the rebels than the latter exhibit toward those who are in favor of federal principles, which are generally described down South as “abolitionist.” On landing at the levee of Cairo, the passengers went where they listed, and a very strong secessionist from New Orleans, who had travelled with me in the train going north on “business”--I suspect _tam Marte quam Mercurio_--was let go his way by General Prentiss after a brief detention. Regarded from the river, Cairo consists of a bank of mud running out in the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio, in the shape of a horizontal <. The tops of certain unimpressive wooden stores appear above the bank, and one tall hotel rises aloft near the sharp end, before which the United States flag floats with all its thirty-four stars. At the angle there is an earthwork, which is not yet complete, but which will soon be finished, in very good order. It is a redan, or rather a fleche, following the line of the banks, with a good profile and command--a regular ditch, scarp and counterscarp, and it owes its excellence probably to the skill of a Colonel Wagner, a Hungarian artillery officer, who is in charge of it. The hotel was crowded with men in uniform, and it was suggested by the landlord that one bed was large enough for two stout gentlemen--my friend and myself--the thermometer being at 100° or so in the shade; but there was a difference of opinion on that point, and finally we were quartered in a secluded little chamber, two-bedded, one-windowed, with a fine view into the back-yard. The delta is strongly occupied by Illinois volunteer forces, with two field batteries and several guns of position. On the opposite shore of the Mississippi, at a place called Bird’s Point, in the State of Missouri, is a detached post, with field intrenchments held by a regiment composed of Germans, Poles, and Hungarians, under Colonel Schuttner, about one thousand strong, and several pieces of light artillery. Posts are also established higher up on the banks of each river, but on the bank of the Ohio, opposite to Cairo, the soil is tabooed. There is the “sacred soil” of Kentucky, and Beriah Magoffin has warned the United States and Confederate States off his premises. It is my belief, however, that Columbus will not be long unoccupied. The Kentuckians opposite Cairo are very strong secessionists.

At the rear of the hotel, in the hollow between the levees and the rivers, is “Camp Defiance,” which must be the base of operations of any force proceeding down the Mississippi. On the morning of my arrival (June 20), I was introduced to General Prentiss, whom I found in a large room on the ground floor of the hotel, which is the head-quarters of the brigade. He is a man in the prime of life, about forty years of age, with a clear liquid blue eye, and very agreeable in manner; smooth-faced, except as to the chin, which is adorned by the _barbe d’Afrique_ or goatee, so much affected in America; over the middle height, slight and active figure, and speaking with what is called a slight western accent. Although he was aware I had just come from Memphis, the general had the good taste not to ask any questions respecting the position, which is more than I can say of all I met on either side. By his elbow was his acting aide-de-camp and military secretary, an Englishman named Binmore, who was formerly engaged as government stenographer at Washington, and has now sharpened his pencil into a sword. A number of officers were in the room, one of whom was a Hungarian, Milotsky; another a German, a third a Scotchman, a fourth an Englishman. In conversing on various matters, General Prentiss showed me, with a smile, a copy of a newspaper, published in Kentucky, which contained an “article” on himself that cannot readily meet with a parallel even in the journalism of this part of the world. For the benefit of your readers I send it, that they may judge what sort of a people it must be which tolerates the use of such language:

There is a man now vegetating at Cairo, by name Prentiss, who is in command of the forces at that point. His qualifications for the command of such a squad of villains and cut-throats are: He is a miserable hound, a dirty dog, a sociable fellow, a treacherous villain, a notorious thief, a lying blackguard, has served his regular five years in the penitentiary, and keeps his hide continually full of Cincinnati whisky, which he buys by the barrel to save money. In him are embodied all the leprous rascalities, and in this living sore the gallows has been cheated of its own. This Prentiss wants our scalp. We have no objection to his having it if he can get it; and we will propose a plan by which he may become possessed of that valuable article. It is this: Let him select one hundred and fifty of his best fighting men, or two hundred and fifty of the lager-beer Dutchmen, and we will select one hundred; then let both parties meet at a given point, where there will be no interruption of the scalping business, and then the longest pole will knock the “persimmon.” If he does not accept this proposal he is a coward. We think the above proposition fair and equal.

These gems are from a paper called _The Crescent_, printed at Columbus, Ky., and edited by “Colonel” L. G. Faxon of the “Tennessee Tigers,” a worthy and accomplished officer and gentleman, no doubt.

In the afternoon, General Prentiss was good enough to drive me round the camp in company with Mr. Washburne, member of Congress from Illinois, and several officers and gentlemen. Among them was Mr. Oglesby, colonel of a regiment of Illinois volunteers, and, as it shows of what material the commanding officers of these regiments, on whose individual action so much depends, are made, I may be pardoned for stating that this excellent, kindly, and shrewd old man, who was responsible for the position and efficiency of 1,000 men, is one who raised himself from obscurity to a competence by the drudgery of a lawyer’s office in spite of a defective education, and that he never handled a company in the field in his life. Apparently, he is selected to be a colonel because he can make good, homely, telling speeches to his men, and he may think he will be a good officer just as he may imagine he is an excellent artilleryman because the first time he ever laid and fired a gun the other day the ball hit the tree at which it was aimed. The bulk of the troops are encamped in wooden sheds, provided with berths like those in a ship, which are disposed longitudinally, so as to afford the maximum of sleeping room. These sheds run continuously along the inward side of the levees, the tops of which are broad enough to serve as carriage roads. They answer well enough for temporary purposes, but would not do for a lengthened residence. There can be no drainage, as the ground on which they stand is below the water level. The parade is spacious and level enough--the bottom of a swamp which the troops have cleared, cutting down trees and removing stumps with great diligence and labor. Our drive extended up the Mississippi shore, past two field guns in position and some infantry tents, up to the camp of a company of Chicago light artillery and of Hungarian and German volunteers, under Major Milotsky. The guns fired a salute on the arrival of the general, and the company were drawn up to receive him--an unequally-sized body of men, most of whom, however, were quite fit for any military duty. The captain, Mr. Smith, is, I should judge from his accent, a Scotchman, and he told me the men in his company represented a million and-a-half of dollars in property. The guns of the company (brass six-pounders), the horses and equipments were clean and in good order; the firing was well-timed. While seated in his tent several of the privates came forward outside and sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” “God Save the Queen” (to their own words), and other airs very pleasingly; but a severe reception awaited the guests on going outside, for the whole of the company were drawn up in line, and they then and there set up a shouting for “Washburne,” so that the honorable member was fain to comply and make a speech; and then General Prentiss made a speech under similar compulsion; and next Colonel Oglesby; and then your own correspondent, who has had quite enough of speaking in America, in his first and last effort, was forced to say he could not make a speech; and after other orations, in which the audience were always called “gentlemen!” we got off (with “three cheers”) to the Hungarians, who were waiting for their turn--a fine, soldierly-looking set of men, of whom our Kentucky editor writes as follows:

When the bow-legged, wooden-shoed, sourkrout-stinking, bologne-sausage-eating, hen-roost-robbing Dutch sons of ---- from Cairo had accomplished the brilliant feat of taking down the Secession flag on the river bank, they were pointed to another flag of the same sort, which was flying gloriously and defiantly about two squares distant (and which their guns did not cover), and defied, yea, double-big, black-dog dared (as we used to say at school) to take that flag down. The cowardly pups, the sheep-dogs, the sneaking skunks dare not do so, because those twelve pieces of artillery were not bearing upon it. And these are the people who are sent by Lincoln to “crush out” the South!

The officer in command put them through light infantry drill, advance of line of skirmishers, charge, rally, retreat, etc., all well done, and they marched back singing to camp and gave three good cheers for the general. In our way back the party stopped at another camp which was enlivened by the presence of ladies, who had come some hundreds of miles to see husbands and brothers, and in the evening the usual parade took place near the hotel. Four regiments of about seven hundred each were on the ground, and never, perhaps, did any force only a few weeks in the field look more like soldiers, march more steadily in line, or present a better appearance in the ranks. When drawn up in line the difference in uniform in various companies struck the eye as a disagreeable novelty--one with white cross-belts between two companies with black cross-belts, for example; but the line of bayonets was unwavering and uniformly sloped--all the ordinary work of a very ordinary regimental parade was performed by each with precision and rapidity, and the men were as fine fellows as could be seen in any infantry regiments of the line in any part of the world. The officers, however, did not seem very quick--orders were carried at a trot--the combined movements were slow, and a little clubbing took place in forming into line from columns of companies marching in echelon. Just as it was dark there came into camp, with a good band at their head, a remarkably stout-looking set of fellows, armed with rifle and bayonet, very tall, in heavy marching order, and stepping out like men who knew their business. Alas! that it should be so. But these are Colonel Schuttner’s “Dutchmen,” as they are called, who have been a little eccentric at Bird’s Point, going on scouting parties, and making themselves generally active either without or with the colonel’s sanction, and so they are marched to camp as a punishment for their want of discipline, and their place is taken by another battalion. I am informed the conduct of the troops on the whole has been very exemplary.