1861.]

ABOLITION TENDENCIES OF KENTUCKLANS. 91

CHAPTER VII.

-Thou sure and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.-MACBETH.

THERE were two of my acquaintances (one very prominent in the Secession movement) with whom, while they had no suspicion of my real business, I could converse with a little frankness. One of them desired war, on the ground that it would unite the inhabitants of all the border slave States, and overpower the Union sentiment there.

"But," I asked, "will not war also unite the people of the North ?"

"I think not. We have a great many earnest and bold friends there."

"True; but do you suppose they could stand for a single week against the popular feeling which war would arouse ?"

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, thoughtfully, "but it never occurred to me before."

My other friend also talked with great frankness:

"We can get along very well with the New England Yankees who are permanently settled here. They make the strongest Secessionists we have; but the Kentuckians give us a great deal of trouble. They were born and raised where Slavery is unprofitable. They have strong proclivities toward Abolitionism. The constituents of Rozier and Roselius, who fought us so persistently in the Convention, are nearly all Kentuckians.

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TWO CHIEF CAUSES OF SECESSION.

[1861.

"Slavery is our leading interest. Right or wrong, we have it and we must have it. Cotton, rice, and sugar cannot be raised without it. Being a necessity, we do not mean to allow its discussion. Every thing which clashes with it, or tends to weaken it, must go under. Our large German population is hostile to it. About all these Dutchmen would be not only Unionists, but Black Republicans, if they dared."

Perhaps it is the invariable law of revolutions that, even while the revolters are in a numerical minority, they are able to carry the majority with them. It is certain that, before Sumter was fired on, a majority in every State, except South Carolina, was opposed to Secession. The constant predictions of the Rebel leaders that there would be no war, and the assertions of prominent New York journals, that any attempt at coercion on the part of the Government would be met with armed and bloody resistance in every northern city and State, were the two chief causes of the apparent unanimity of the South.

The masses had a vague but very earnest belief that the North, in some incomprehensible manner, had done them deadly wrong. Cassio-like, they remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore." The leaders were sometimes more specific.

"The South," said a pungent writer, "has endured a great many wrongs; but the most intolerable of all the grievances ever thrust upon her was the Census Report of 1860!" There was a great deal of truth in this remark. One day I asked my New Orleans friend:

"Why have you raised all this tempest about Mr. Lincoln's election ?"

"Don't deceive yourself," he answered. "Mr. Lin

1861.]

FUNDAMENTAL GRIEVANCE OF THE REBELS. 93

coln's election had nothing to do with it, beyond enabling us to rouse our people. Had Douglas been chosen, we should have broken up the Union just as quickly. Had Bell triumphed, it would have been all the same. Even if Breckinridge had been elected, we would have seceded before the close of his term. There is an essential incompatibility between the two sections. The South stands still, while the North has grown rich and powerful, and expanded from ocean to ocean."

This was the fundamental grievance. Very liberal in his general views, he had not apparently the faintest suspicion that Slavery was responsible for the decadence of the South, or that Freedom impelled the gigantic strides of the North.

Yet his theory of the Rebellion was doubtless correct. It arose from no man, or party, or political event, but from the inherent quarrel between two adverse systems, which the fullness of time had ripened into open warfare. His "essential incompatibility" was only another name for Mr. Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict" between two principles. They have since recorded, in letters of blood, not merely their incompatibility, but their absolute, aggressive, eternal antagonism.

During the second week in April, I began to find myself the object of unpleasant, not to say impertinent, curiosity. So many questions were asked, so many pointed and significant remarks made in my presence, as to render it certain that I was regarded with peculiar suspicion.

At first I was at a loss to surmise its origin. But one day I encountered an old acquaintance in the form of a son of Abraham, who had frequently heard me, in public addresses in Kansas, utter sentiments not absolutely pro

94

SUDDEN DEPARTURE FROM NEW ORLEANS. [1861 slavery; who knew that I once held a modest commission in the Free State army, and that I was a whilom correspondent of The Tribune.

He was by no means an Israelite without guile, for he had been chased out of the Pike's Peak region during the previous summer, for robbing one of my friends who had nursed him in sickness. Concluding that he might play the informer, I made an engagement with him for the next afternoon, and, before the time arrived, shook from my feet the dust of New Orleans. Designing to make a détour to Fort Pickens on my way, I procured a ticket for Washington. The sea was the safer route, but I was curious to take a final look at the interior.

On Friday evening, April 12th, I left the Crescent City. In five minutes our train plunged into the great swamp which environs the commercial metropolis of the Southwest. Deep, broad ditches are cut for draining, and you sometimes see an alligator, five or six feet long, and as large as the body of a man, lying lazily upon the edge of the green water.

The marshy ground is mottled with gorgeous flowers, and the palmetto is very abundant. It does not here attain to the dignity of a tree, seldom growing more than four feet high. Its flag, sword-shaped leaves branch out in flat semicircular clusters, resembling the fan palm. Its tough bulbous root was formerly cut into fine fragments by the Indians, then bruised to a pulp and thrown into the lake. It produced temporary blindness among the fishes, which brought them to the surface, where they were easily caught by hand.

With rare fitness stands the palmetto as the device of South Carolina. Indeed, it is an excellent emblem of Slavery itself; for, neither beautiful, edible, nor useful, it blinds the short-sighted fish coming under its influence.

1861.]

To them it is

THE-WAR SPIRIT IN MOBILE.

95

"The insane root,

Which takes the reason prisoner."

A ride of four miles brought us to Lake Pontchartrain, stretching away in the fading sunlight. Over the broad expanse of swelling water, delicate, foamy white caps were cresting the waves.

We were transferred to the propeller Alabama, and, when I woke the next morning, were lying at Mobile. With a population of thirty thousand, the city contains many pleasant residences, embowered in shade-trees, and surrounded by generous grounds. It is rendered attractive by its tall pines, live oak, and Pride-of-China trees. The last were now decked in a profusion of bluishwhite blossoms.

The war spirit ran high. Hand-bills, headed "Soldiers wanted," and "Ho! for volunteers," met the eye at every corner; uniforms and arms abounded, and the voice of the bugle was heard in the streets. All northern vessels were clearing on account of the impending crisis, though some were not more than half loaded.

Mobile was very radical. One of the daily papers urged the imposition of a tax of one dollar per copy upon every northern newspaper or magazine brought into the Confederacy!

The leading hotel was crowded with guests, including many soldiers en route for Bragg's army. It was my own design to leave for Pensacola that evening, and look at the possible scene of early hostilities. A Secession friend in New Orleans had given me a personal letter to General Bragg, introducing me as a gentleman of leisure, who would be glad to make a few sketches of proper objects of interest about his camps, for one of the New York illustrated papers. It added that he had known