April 18th.—It is as though we woke up in a barrack. No! There is the distinction, that in the passages slaves are moving up and down with cups of iced milk or water for their mistresses in the early morning, cleanly dressed, neatly clad, with the conceptions of Parisian millinery adumbrated to their condition, and transmitted by the white race, hovering round their heads and bodies. They sit outside the doors, and chatter in the passages; and as the Irish waiter brings in my hot water for shaving, there is that odd, round, oily, half-strangled, chuckling, gobble of a laugh peculiar to the female Ethiop, coming in through the doorway.
Later in the day, their mistresses sail out from the inner harbors, and launch all their sails along the passages, down the stairs, and into the long, hot, fluffy salle-à-manger, where, blackened with flies which dispute the viands, they take their tremendous meals. They are pale, pretty, svelte—just as I was about to say they were rather small, there rises before me the recollection of one Titanic dame—a Carolinian Juno, with two lovely peacock daughters—and I refrain from generalizing. Exceedingly proud these ladies are said to be—for a generation or two of family suffice in this new country, if properly supported by the possession of negroes and acres, to give pride of birth, and all the grandeur which is derived from raising raw produce, cereals, and cotton—suâ terrâ. Their enemies say that the grandfathers of some of these noble people were mere pirates and smugglers, who dealt in a cavalier fashion with the laws and with the flotsam and jetsam of fortune on the seas and reefs hereabouts. Cotton suddenly—almost unnaturally, as far as the ordinary laws of commerce are concerned, grew up whilst land was cheap, and slaves were of moderate price—the pirates, and piratesses had control of both, and in a night the gourd swelled and grew to a prodigious size. These are Northern stories. What the Southerners say of their countrymen and women in the upper part of this “blessed Union” I have written for the edification of people at home.
The tables in the eating-room are disposed in long rows, or detached so as to suit private parties. When I was coming down to Charleston, one of my fellow-passengers told me he was quite shocked the first time he saw white people acting as servants; but no such scruples existed in the Mills House, for the waiters were all Irish, except one or two Germans. The carte is much the same at all American hotels, the variations depending on local luxuries or tastes. Marvellous exceedingly is it to see the quantities of butter, treacle, and farinaceous matters prepared in the heaviest form— of fish, of many meats, of eggs scrambled or scarred or otherwise prepared, of iced milk and water, which an American will consume in a few minutes in the mornings. There is, positively, no rest at these meals—no repose. The guests are ever passing in and out of the room, chairs are for ever pushed to and fro with a harsh grating noise that sets the teeth on edge, and there is a continual clatter of plates and metal. Every man is reading his paper, or discussing the news with his neighbor. I was introduced to a vast number of people and was asked many questions respecting my views of Sumter, or what I thought “old Abe and Seward would do?” The proclamation calling out 75,000 men issued by said old Abe, they treat with the most profound contempt or unsparing ridicule, as the case may be. Five out of six of the men at table wore uniforms this morning.
Having made the acquaintance of several warriors, as well as that of a Russian gentleman, Baron Sternberg, who was engaged in looking about him in Charleston, and was, like most foreigners, impressed with the conviction that actum est de Republicâ, I went out with Major Whiting [now Confederate General] and Mr. Ward, the former of whom was anxious to show me Fort Moultrie and the left side of the Channel, in continuation of my trip yesterday. It was arranged that we should go off as quietly as possible, “so as to prevent the newspapers knowing anything about it.” The major has a great dislike to the gentlemen of the press, and General Beauregard had sent orders for the staff-boat to be prepared, so as to be quiet and private, but the fates were against us. On going down to the quay, we learned that a gentleman had come down with an officer and had gone off in our skiff, the boat-keepers believing they were the persons for whom it was intended. In fact, our Russian friend, Baron Sternberg, had stolen a march upon us.
After a time, the major succeeded in securing the services of the very smallest, most untrustworthy, and ridiculous-looking craft ever seen by mortal eyes. If Charon had put a two-horse power engine into his skiff, it might have borne some resemblance to this egregious cymbalus, which had once been a fiat-bottomed, open decked cutter or galley, into the midst of which the owner had forced a small engine and paddlewheels, and at the stern had erected a roofed caboose, or oblong pantry, sacred to oil-cans and cockroaches. The crew consisted of the first captain and the second captain, a lad of tender years, and that was all. Into the pantry we scrambled, and sat down knee to knee, whilst the engine was getting up its steam: a very obstinate and anti-caloric little engine it was—puffing and squeaking, leaking, and distilling drops of water, and driving out blasts of steam in unexpected places.
As long as we lay at the quay all was right. The major was supremely happy, for he could talk about Thackeray and his writings—a theme of which he never tired—nay, on which his enthusiasm reached the height of devotional fervor. Did I ever know any one like Major Pendennis? Was it known who Becky Sharp was? Who was the O’Mulligan? These questions were mere hooks on which to hang rhapsodies and delighted dissertation. He might have got down as far as Pendennis himself, when a lively swash of water flying over the preposterous little gunwales, and dashing over our boots into the cabin, announced that our bark was under weigh. There is, we were told, for several months in the year, a brisk breeze from the southward and eastward in and off Charleston Harbor, and there was to-day a small joggle in the water which would not have affected anything floating except our steamer; but as we proceeded down the narrow channel by Castle Pinckney, the little boat rolled as if she would capsize every moment, and made no pretence at doing more than a mile an hour at her best; and it became evident that our voyage would be neither pleasant, prosperous, nor speedy. Still the major went on between the lurches, and drew his feet up out of the water, in order to have “a quiet chat,” as he said, “about my favourite author.” My companion and myself could not condense ourselves or foreshorten our nether limbs quite so deftly.
Standing out from the shelter towards Sumter, the sea came rolling on our beam, making the miserable craft oscillate as if some great hand had caught her by the funnel—Yankeeicé, smokestack—and was rolling her backwards and forwards, as a preliminary to a final keel over. The water came in plentifully, and the cabin was flooded with a small sea: the latter partook of the lively character of the external fluid, and made violent efforts to get overboard to join it, which generally were counteracted by the better sustained and directed attempts of the external to get inside. The captain seemed very unhappy; the rest of the crew—our steerer—had discovered that the steamer would not steer at all, and that we were rolling like a log on the water. Certainly neither Pinckney, nor Sumter, nor Moultrie altered their relative bearings and distances towards us for half an hour or so, though they bobbed up and down continuously. “But it is,” said the major, “in the character of Colonel Newcome that Thackeray has, in my opinion, exhibited the greatest amount of power; the tenderness, simplicity, love, manliness, and —” Here a walloping muddy green wave came “all aboard,” and the cymbalus gave decided indications of turning turtle. We were wet and miserable, and two hours or more had now passed in making a couple of miles. The tide was setting more strongly against us, and just off Moultrie, in the tideway between its walls and Sumter, could be seen the heads of the sea-horses unpleasantly crested. I know not what of eloquent disquisition I lost, for the major was evidently in his finest moment and on his best subject, but I ventured to suggest that we should bout ship and return—and thus aroused him to a sense of his situation. And so we wore round—a very delicate operation, which, by judicious management in getting side bumps of the sea at favorable moments, we were enabled to effect in some fifteen or twenty minutes; and then we became so parboiled by the heat from the engine, that conversation was impossible.
How glad we were to land once more I need not say. As I gave the captain a small votive tablet of metal, he said, “I’m thinkin’ it’s very well yes turned back. Av we’d gone any further, devil aback ever we’d have come.” “Why didn’t you say so before?” “Sure I didn’t like to spoil the trip.” My gifted countryman and I parted to meet no more.
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Second and third editions and extras! News of Secession meetings and of Union meetings! Every one is filled with indignation against the city of New York, on account of the way in which the news of the reduction of Fort Sumter has been received there. New England has acted just as was expected, but better things were anticipated on the part of the Empire city. There is no sign of shrinking from a contest: on the contrary, the Carolinians are full-of eagerness to test their force in the field. “Let them come!” is their boastful mot d’ordre.
The anger which is reported to exist in the North only adds to the fury and animosity of the Carolinians. They are determined now to act on their sovereign rights as a state, cost what it may, and uphold the ordinance of secession. The answers of several State Governors to President Lincoln’s demand for troops, have delighted our friends. Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky, declares he won’t give any men for such a wicked purpose; and another gubernatorial dignitary laconically replied to the demand for so many thousand soldiers, “Nary one.” Letcher, Governor of Virginia, has also sent a refusal. From the North comes news of mass-meetings, of hauling down Secession colors, mobbing Secession papers, of military bodies turning out, banks subscribing and lending.
Jefferson Davis has met President Lincoln’s proclamation by a counter manifesto, issuing letters of marque and reprisal—on all sides preparations for war. The Southern agents are buying steamers, but they fear the Northern states will use their navy to enforce a blockade, which is much dreaded, as it will cut off supplies and injure the commerce, on which they so much depend. Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know anything of the feeling of the South, or he would not be so confident as he was that all would blow over, and that the states, deprived of the care and fostering influences of the general Government, would get tired of their Secession ordinances, and of their experiment to maintain a national life, so that the United States will be re-established before long,
I went over and saw General Beauregard at his quarters. He was busy with papers, orderlies, and despatches, and the outer room was crowded with officers. His present task, he told me, was to put Sumter in a state of defence, and to disarm the works bearing on it, so as to get their fire directed on the harbor approaches, as “the North in its madness” might attempt a naval attack on Charleston. His manner of transacting business is clear and rapid. Two vases filled with flowers on his table, flanking his maps and plans; and a little hand bouquet of roses, geraniums, and scented flowers lay on a letter which he was writing as I came in, by way of paper weight. He offered me every assistance and facility, relying, of course, on my strict observance of a neutral’s duty. I reminded him once more, that as the representative of an English journal, it would be my duty to write freely to England respecting what I saw; and that I must not be held accountable if on the return of my letters to America, a month after they were written, it was found they contained information to which circumstances might attach an objectionable character. The General said, “I quite understand you. We must take our chance of that, and leave you to exercise your discretion.”
In the evening I dined with our excellent Consul, Mr. Bunch, who had a small and very agreeable party to meet me. One very venerable old gentleman, named Huger (pronounced as Hugeë), was particularly interesting in appearance and conversation. He formerly held some official appointment under the Federal Government, but had gone out with his state, and had been confirmed in his appointment by the Confederate Government. Still he was not happy at the prospect before him or; his country. “I have lived too long, ” he exclaimed; “I should have died ere these evil days arrived.” What thoughts, indeed, must have troubled his mind when he reflected that his country was but little older than himself; for, he was one who had shaken hands with the framers of the Declaration of Independence. But though the tears rolled down his cheeks when he spoke of the prospect of civil war, there was no symptom of apprehension for the result, or indeed of any regret for the contest, which he regarded as the natural consequence of the insults, injustice, and aggression of the North against Southern rights.
Only one of the company, a most lively, quaint, witty old lawyer named Petigru, dissented from the doctrines of Secession; but he seems to be treated as an amiable, harmless person, who has a weakness of intellect or a “bee in his bonnet” on this particular matter.
It was scarcely very agreeable to my host or myself to find that no considerations were believed to be of consequence in reference to England except her material interests, and that these worthy gentlemen regarded her as a sort of appanage of their cotton kingdom. “Why, sir, we have only to shut off your supply of cotton for a few weeks, and we can create a revolution in Great Britain. There are four millions of your people depending on us for their bread, not to speak of the many millions of dollars. No, sir, we know that England must recognize us,” &c.
Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all Great Britain to the Southern eye. I confess the tone of my friends irritated me. I said so to Mr. Bunch, who laughed, and remarked, “You’ll not mind it when you get as much accustomed to this sort of thing as I am.” I could not help saying, that if Great Britain were such a sham as they supposed, the sooner a hole was drilled in her, and the whole empire sunk under water, the better for the world, the cause of truth, and of liberty.
These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists. Slavery perhaps has aggravated the tendency to look at all the world through parapets of cotton bales and rice bags, and though more stately and less vulgar, the worshippers here are not less prostrate before the “almighty dollar” than the Northerners. Again cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, grows its climax in the profession from nearly every one of the guests, that he would prefer a return to British rule to any reunion with New England. “The names in South Carolina show our origin— Charleston, and Ashley, and Cooper, &c. Our Gadsden, Sumter and Pinckney were true cavaliers,” &c. They did not say anything about Pedee, or Tombigbee, or Sullivan’s Island, or the like. We all have our little or big weaknesses.
I see no trace of cavalier descent in the names of Huger, Rose, Manning, Chesnut, Pickens; but there is a profession of faith in the cavaliers and their cause among them because it is fashionable in Carolina. They affect the agricultural faith and the belief of a landed gentry. It is not only over the wine glass—why call it cup?—that they ask for a Prince to reign over them; I have heard the wish repeatedly expressed within the last two days that we could spare them one of our young Princes, but never in jest or in any frivolous manner.
On my way home again I saw the sentries on their march, the mounted patrols starting on their ride, and other evidences that though the slaves are “the happiest and most contented race in the world,” they require to be taken care of like less favored mortals. The city watch-house is filled every night with slaves, who are confined there till reclaimed by their owners, whenever they are found out after nine o’clock, p.m., without special passes or permits. Guns are firing for the Ordinance of Secession of Virginia.
