CAIRO, as the key to the lower Mississippi valley, is the most important strategic point in the West. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, it was occupied by our troops.

As a place of residence it was never inviting. To-day its offenses smell to heaven as rankly as when Dickens evoked it, from horrible obscurity, as the "Eden" of Martin Chuzzlewit. The low, marshy, boot-shaped site is protected from the overflow of the Mississippi and Ohio by levees. Its jet-black soil generates every species of insect and reptile known to science or imagination. Its atmosphere is never sweet or pure.

On the 13th of June, Major-General George B. McClellan, commander of all the forces west of the Alleghanies, reached Cairo on a visit of inspection. His late victories in Western Virginia had established his reputation for the time, as an officer of great capacity and promise, notwithstanding the high heroics of his ambitious proclamations. This was before Bull Run, and before the New York journals, by absurdly pronouncing him "the Young Napoleon," raised public expectation to an embarrassing and unreasonable hight.

In those days, every eye was looking for the Coming Man, every ear listening for his approaching footsteps,

142

A LITTLE SPEECH-MAKING.

[1861

which were to make the earth tremble. Men judged, by old standards, that the Hour must have its Hero. They had not learned that, in a country like ours, what'ever is accomplished must be the work of the loyal millions, not of any one, or two, or twenty generals and statesmen.

McClellan was enthusiastically received, and, to the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner," escorted to headquarters. There, General Prentiss, who had so decided a penchant for speech-making, that cynics declared he always kept a particular stump in front of his office for a rostrum, welcomed him with some rhetorical remarks:

* "My command are all anxious to taste those dangers which war ushers in-not that they court danger, but that they love their country. We have toiled in the mud, we have drilled in the burning sun. Many of us are ragged-all of us are poor. But we look anxiously for the order to move, trusting that we may be allowed to lead the division."

The soldiers applauded enthusiastically-for in those days the anxiety to be in the earliest battles was intense. The impression was almost universal throughout the North that the war was to be very brief. Officers and men in the army feared they would have no opportunity to participate in any fighting!

McClellan responded to Prentiss and his officers in the same strain:

*

* "We shall meet again upon the tented field; and Illinois, which sent forth a Flardin and a Bissell, will, I doubt not, give a good account of herself to her sister States. Her fame is world-wide: in your hands, gentlemen, I am sure it will not suffer. The advance is due to you."

Then there was more applause, and afterward a re view of the brigade.

1861.] PENALTY OF WRITING FOR THE TRIBUNE.

143

General McClellan is stoutly built, short, with light hair, blue eyes, full, fresh, almost boyish face, and lip tufted with a brown mustache. His urbane manner truly indicates the peculiar amiability of character and yielding disposition which have hurt him more than all other causes. An officer once assured me that McClellan had said to him: "My friends have injured me thousand times more than my enemies." It was certainly true.

Now, seeing his features the first time, I scanned them anxiously for lineaments of greatness. I saw a pleasant, mild, moony face, with one cheek distended by tobacco; but nothing which appeared strong or striking. Tinctured largely with the general belief in his military genius, I imputed the failure only to my own incapacity for reading "Nature's infinite book of secrecy.

One evening, at Cairo, a man, whose worn face, shaggy beard, matted locks, and tattered clothing marked him as one of the constantly arriving refugees, sought me and asked:

"Can you tell me the name of The Tribune correspondent who passed through Memphis last February?"

The

He was informed that that pleasure had been mine. "Then," said he, "I have been lying in jail at Memphis about fifty days chiefly on your account! three or four letters which you wrote from there were peculiarly bitter. Of course, I was not aware of your presence, and I sent one to The Tribune, which was also very emphatic. The Secessionists suspected me not only of the one which I did write, but also of yours. They pounced on me and put me in jail. After the disbanding of the Committee of Safety I was brought before the City Recorder, who assured me from the bench of his profound regrets that he could find no law for hang

144

A LOYAL GIRL'S ASSISTANCE.

[1861. ing me! I would have been there until this time, but for the assistance of a young lady, through whom I succeeded in bribing an officer of the jail, and making my escape. I was hidden in Memphis for several days, then left the city in disguise, and have worked my way, chiefly on foot, aided by negroes and Union families, through the woods of Tennessee and the swamps of Missouri up to God's country."

The refugee seemed to be not only in good health, but also in excellent spirits, and I replied:

"I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Reebls must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I."

Nearly four years later, this gentleman turned the tables on me very handsomely. After my twenty months imprisonment in Rebel hands, among a crowd of visitors he walked into my room at Cincinnati one morning, and greeted me warmly.

"You do not remember me, do you?" he asked.

"I recognize your face, but cannot recall your name. "Well, my name is Collins. Once, when I escaped from the South, you congratulated me at Cairo. Now, I congratulate you, and I can do it with all my heart, in exactly the same words. I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I!"

After our troops captured Memphis, I encountered the young lady who aided Mr. Collins in escaping. She was enthusiastically loyal, but her feeling had been repressed for nearly two years, when the arrival of our forces loosened her tongue. She began to utter her long-stifled Union views, and it is my deliberate opinion that she has not stopped yet. She is now the wife of an officer in the United States service.

1861.]

THE FASCINATIONS OF CAIRO.

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wise than forlorn,

CAIRO, May 29.

A drizzly, muddy, melancholy day. Never otherCairo is pre-eminently lugubrious during a mild rain. In dry weather, even when glowing like a furnace, you may find amusement in the contemplation of the high-water mark upon trees and houses, the stilted-plank sidewalks, the half-submerged swamps, and other diluvian features of this nondescript, saucerlike, terraqueous town. You may speculate upon the exact amount of fever and ague generated to the acre, or inquire whether the whisky saloons, which spring up like mushrooms, are indigenous or exotic.

In downright wet weather you may calculate how soon the streets will be navigable, and the effect upon the amphibious natives. It is difficult to realize that anybody was ever born here, or looks upon Cairo as home. Washington Irving records that the old Dutch. housewives of New York scrubbed their floors until many "grew to have webbed fingers, like unto a duck." suspect the Cairo babies must have fins.

Long-suffering, much-abused Cairo! What wounds hast thou not received from the Parthian arrows of tourists! "The season here," wrote poor John Phenix, bitterest of all, "is usually opened with great éclat by small-pox, continued spiritedly by cholera, and closed up brilliantly with yellow fever. Sweet spot!"

Theorists long predicted that the great metropolis of the Mississippi valley-the granary of the world—must ultimately rise here. Many proved their faith by pecuniary investments, which are likely to be permanent.

Possessed by a similar delusion, Illinois, for years, strove to legislate Alton into a vast commercial mart. But, in spite of their unequaled geographical positions, Cairo and Alton still languish in obscurity, while St.