56

NORTHERNERS LIVING IN THE SOUTH. [1861.

mulatto. Yet the company was comparatively intelligent, and all its members live in a flourishing commercial metropolis. You may infer something of the knowledge of the North in rural districts, enlightened only by weekly visits from Secession newspapers!

We are enjoying that soft air "which comes caressingly to the brow, and produces in the lungs a luxurious delight." I notice, on the streets, more than one premonition of summer, in the form of linen coats. The yards and cemeteries, smiling with myriads of roses and pinks, are carpeted with velvet grass; the morning air is redolent of orange and clover blossoms, and nosegays abound, sweet with the breath of the tropics.

March 15.

Men of northern nativity are numerous throughout the Gulf States. Many are leading merchants of the cities, and a few, planters in the interior. Some have gone north to stay until the storm is over. A part of those who remain out-Herod the native fire-eaters in zeal for Secession. Their violence is suspicious; it oversteps the modesty of nature. I was recently in a mixed company, where one person was conspicuously bitter upon the border slave States, denouncing them as "playing second fiddle to the Abolitionists," and "traitors to southern rights."

"Who is he?" I asked of a southern gentleman beside me.

"He?" was the indignant reply; "why, he is a northerner, him! He is talking all this for effect. What does he care about our rights? He don't own slaves, and wasn't raised in the South; if it were fashionable, he would be an Abolitionist. I'd as soon trust a nigger-stealer as such a man!"

1861.] PREPARING AND TRANSMITTING CORRESPONDENCE. 57

CHAPTER IV.

"Tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.-KING HENRY IV.

THE city was measurably quiet, but arrests, and examinations of suspected Abolitionists, were frequent. In general, I felt little personal disquietude, except the fear of encountering some one who knew my antecedents; but about once a week something transpired to make me thoroughly uncomfortable for the moment.

I attended daily the Louisiana Convention, sitting among the spectators. I could take no notes, but relied altogether upon memory. In corresponding, I endeavored to cover my tracks as far as possible. Before leaving Cincinnati, I had encountered a friend just from New Orleans, and induced him to write for me one or two letters, dated in the latter city. They were copied, with some changes of style, and published. Hence investigation would have shown that The Tribune writer began two or three weeks before I reached the city, and thrown a serious obstacle in the way of identifying him.

My dispatches, transmitted sometimes by mail, sometimes by express, were addressed alternately to half a dozen banking and commercial firms in New York, who at once forwarded them to The Tribune editorial rooms. They were written like ordinary business letters, treating of trade and monetary affairs, and containing drafts upon supposititious persons, quite princely in amount. I never learned, however, that they appreciably enlarged the

58

GUARDING LETTERS AGAINST SCRUTINY.

[1861.

exchequer of their recipients. Indeed, they were a good deal like the voluminous epistles which Mr. Toots, in his school-boy days, was in the habit of writing to himself.

I used a system of cipher, by which all phrases between certain private marks were to be exactly reversed in printing. Thus, if I characterized any one as "patriot and an honest man," inclosing the sentence in brackets, it was to be rendered a "demagogue and a scoundrel." All matter between certain other marks was to be omitted. If a paragraph commenced at the very edge of a sheet, it was to be printed precisely as it stood. But beginning it half across the page indicated that it contained something to be translated by the cipher.

The letters, therefore, even if examined, would hardly be comprehended. Whether tampered with or not, they always reached the office. I never kept any papers on my person, or in my room, which could excite suspicion, if read.

In writing, I assumed the tone of an old citizen, sometimes remarking that during a residence of fourteen years in New Orleans, I had never before seen such a whirlwind of passion, etc. In recording incidents I was often compelled to change names, places, and dates, though always faithful to the fact. Toward the close of my stay, the correspondence appearing to pass unopened, I gave minute and exact details, designing to be in the North before the letters could return in print.

Two incidents will illustrate the condition of affairs better than any general description. Soon after Mr. Lincoln's election, a Philadelphian reached New Orleans, on a collecting tour. One evening he was standing in the counting-room of a merchant, who asked him :

1861.]

A PHILADELPHIAN AMONG THE REBELS.

59

"Well, now you Black Republicans have elected your President, what are you going to do next?"

"We will show you," was the laughing response. Both spoke in jest; but the bookkeeper of the house, standing by, with his back turned, belonged to the Minute Men, who, that very evening, by a delegation of fifty, waited on the Philadelphian at the St. James Hotel. They began by demanding whether he was a Black Republican. He at once surmised that he was obtaining a glimpse of the hydra of Secession, beside which the armed rhinoceros were an agreeable companion, and the rugged Russian bear a pleasant household pet. His face grew pallid, but he replied, with dignity and firmness:

"I deny your right to ask me any such questions."

The inquisitors, who were of good social position and gentlemanly manners, claimed that the public emergency was so great as to justify them in examining all strangers who excited suspicion; and that he left them only the alternative of concluding him an Abolitionist and an incendiary. At last he informed them truthfully that he had never sympathized with the Anti-Slavery party, and had always voted the Democratic ticket. They next inquired if the house which employed him was Black Republican.

"Gentlemen," he replied, "it is a business firm, not a political one. I never heard politics mentioned by either of the partners. I don't know whether they are Republicans or Democrats."

He cheerfully permitted his baggage to be searched by the Minute Men, who, finding nothing objectionable, bade him good-evening. But, just after they left, a mob of Roughs, attracted by the report that an Abolitionist was stopping there, entered the hotel. They

60

SECESSION VS. SINCERITY.

[1861.

were very noisy and profane, crying-"Let us see him; bring out the scoundrel!"

His friend, the merchant, spirited him out of the house through a back door, and drove him to the railway station, whence a midnight train was starting for the North. His pursuers, finding the room of their victim empty, followed in hot haste to the dépôt. The merchant saw them coming, and again conveyed him away to a private room. He was kept concealed for three days, until the excitement subsided, and then went north by a night train.

One of the clerks at the hotel where I was boarding had been an acquaintance of mine in the North ten years before. Though I now saw him several times a day, politics were seldom broached between us. But, whenever they came up, we both talked mild Secession. I did not believe him altogether sincere, and I presume he did me equal justice; but instinct is a great matter, and we were cowards on instinct.

During the next summer, I chanced to meet him unexpectedly in Chicago. After we exchanged greetings, his first question was—

"What did you honestly think of Secession while in New Orleans?"

"Do you know what I was doing there?" "On your way to Mexico, were you not?" "No; corresponding for The Tribune."

His eyes expanded visibly at this information, and he inquired, with some earnestness—

"Do you know what would have been done with you if you had been detected ?"

"I have my suspicions, but, of course, do not know. Do you?"

"Yes; you would have been hung!"