Three Months in the Southern States–Lieut. Col. Fremantle, Coldstream Guards

5th May (Tuesday).—We breakfasted at Huntsville at 5.30 A.M. The Federal officers captured in the Harriet Lane are confined in the penitentiary there, and are not treated as prisoners of war. This seems to be the system now with regard to officers since the enlistment of negroes by the Northerners.

My fellow-travellers were mostly elderly planters or legislators, and there was one judge from Louisiana. One of them produced a pair of boots which had cost him $100; another showed me a common wideawake hat which had cost him $40. In Houston, I myself saw an English regulation infantry sword exposed for sale for $225 (£45).

As the military element did not predominate, my companions united in speaking with horror of the depredations committed in this part of the country by their own troops on a line of march.

We passed through a well-wooded country—pines and post oaks—the road bad: crossed the river Trinity at 12 noon, and dined at the house of a disreputable looking individual called a Campbellite minister, at 4.30 P.m. The food consisted almost invariably of bacon, corn bread, and buttermilk: a meal costing a dollar.

Arrived at Crockett at 9.30 P.m., where we halted for a few hours. A filthy bed was given to the Louisianian Judge and myself. The Judge, following my example, took to it boots and all, remarking, as he did so, to the attendant negro, that “they were a d—d sight cleaner than the bed.”

Before reaching Crockett, we passed through the encampment of Phillipps’s regiment of Texas Rangers, and we underwent much chaff. They were en route to resist Banks.

4th May (Monday). — General Scurry’s servant “John” had been most attentive since he had been told off to me. I made him a present of my evening clothes, which gratified him immensely; and I shook hands with him at parting, which seems to be quite the custom. The Southern gentlemen are certainly able to treat their slaves with extraordinary familiarity and kindness. John told me that the General would let him buy his freedom whenever he chose. He is a barber by trade, and was earning much money when he insisted on rejoining his master and going to the wars.

I left Houston by train for Navasoto at 10 A.M. A Captain Andrews accompanied me thus far: he was going with a troop of cavalry to impress one-fourth of the negroes on the plantations for the Government works at Galveston, the planters having been backward in coming forward with their darkies.

Arrived at Navasoto (70 miles) at 4 P.M., where I took a stage for Shrieveport (250 miles). I started at 4.30 P.M., after having had a little dispute with a man for a corner seat, and beating him.

It was the same sort of vehicle as the San Antonio one—eight people inside. During the night there was a thunderstorm.

3d May (Sunday).—I paid a long visit this morning to Mr Lynn the British Consul, who told me that he had great difficulty in communicating with the outer world, and had seen no British man-of-war since the Immortalité.

At 1.30 I saw Pyron’s regiment embark for Niblitt’s Bluff to meet Banks. This corps is now dismounted cavalry, and the procession was a droll one. First came eight or ten instruments braying discordantly, then an enormous Confederate flag, followed by about four hundred men moving by fours—dressed in every variety of costume, and armed with every variety of weapon; about sixty had Enfield rifles; the remainder carried shot-guns (fowling-pieces), carbines, or long rifles of a peculiar and antiquated manufacture. None had swords or bayonets—all had six-shooters and bowie knives. The men were a fine, determined-looking lot; and I saw amongst them a short stout boy of fourteen who had served through the Arizona campaign. I saw many of the soldiers take off their hats to the French priests, who seemed much respected in Galveston. This regiment is considered down here to be a very good one, and its colonel is spoken of as one of the bravest officers in the army. The regiment was to be harangued by Old Houston before it embarked.[1]

In getting into the cars to return to Houston I was nearly forced to step over the dead body of the horse shot by the soldier yesterday, and which the authorities had not thought necessary to remove.

I got back to General Scurry’s house at Houston at 4.30 P.m. The general took me out for a drive in his ambulance, and I saw innumerable negroes and negresses parading about the streets in the most outrageously grand costumes—silks, satins, crinolines, hats with feathers, lace mantles, &c, forming an absurd contrast to the simple dresses of their mistresses. Many were driving about in their masters’ carriages, or riding on horses which are often lent to them on Sunday afternoons; all seemed intensely happy and satisfied with themselves.

—— told me that old Sam Houston lived for several years amongst the Cherokee Indians, who used to call him “the Raven” or the “Big Drunk.” He married an Indian squaw when he was with them.

Colonel Ives, aide-de-camp to the President, has just arrived from Richmond, and he seems a very well-informed and agreeable man.

I have settled to take the route to Shrieveport tomorrow, as it seems doubtful whether Alexandria will or will not fall.

[1] At the outbreak of the war it was found very difficult to raise infantry in Texas, as no Texan walks a yard if he can help it. Many mounted regiments were therefore organised, and afterwards dismounted.

2d May (Saturday).—As the steamer had not arrived in the morning, I left by railroad for Galveston. General Scurry insisted upon sending his servant to wait upon me, in order that I might become acquainted with “an aristocratic negro.” “John” was a very smart fellow, and at first sight nearly as white as myself.

In the cars I was introduced to General Samuel Houston, the founder of Texan independence. He told me he was born in Virginia seventy years ago, that he was United States senator at thirty, and governor of Tennessee at thirty-six. He emigrated into Texas in 1832; headed the revolt of Texas, and defeated the Mexicans at San Jacinto in 1836. He then became President of the Republic of Texas, which he annexed to the United States in 1845. As Governor of the State in 1860, he had opposed the secession movement, and was deposed. Though evidently a remarkable and clever man, he is extremely egotistical and vain, and much disappointed at having to subside from his former grandeur. The town of Houston is named after him. In appearance he is a tall, handsome old man, much given to chewing tobacco, and blowing his nose with his fingers.[1]

I was also introduced to another “character,” Captain Chubb, who told me he was a Yankee by birth, and served as coxswain to the United States ship Java in 1827. He was afterwards imprisoned at Boston on suspicion of being engaged in the slave trade; but he escaped. At the beginning of this war he was captured by the Yankees, when he was in command of the Confederate States steamer Royal Yacht, and taken to New York in chains, where he was condemned to be hung as a pirate; but he was eventually exchanged. I was afterwards told that the slave-trading escapade of which he was accused consisted in his having hired a coloured crew at Boston, and then coolly selling them at Galveston.

At 1 P.M., we arrived at Virginia Point, a tete-de-pont at the extremity of the main land. Here Bates’s battalion was encamped—called also the “swamp angels,” on account of the marshy nature of their quarters, and of their predatory and irregular habits.

The railroad then traverses a shallow lagoon (called Galveston Bay) on a trestle-bridge two miles long; this leads to another tete-de-pont on Galveston island, and in a few minutes the city is reached.

In the train I had received the following message by telegraph from Colonel Debray, who commands at Galveston:—”Will Col. Fremantle sleep to-night at the house of a blockaded rebel?” I answered:—”Delighted;” and was received at the terminus by Captain Foster of the Staff, who conducted me in an ambulance to headquarters, which were at the house of the Roman Catholic bishop. I was received there by Colonel Debray and two very gentlemanlike French priests.

We sat down to dinner at 2 P.M., but were soon interrupted by an indignant drayman, who came to complain of a military outrage. It appeared that immediately after I had left the cars a semi-drunken Texan of Pyron’s regiment had desired this drayman to stop, and upon the latter declining to do so, the Texan fired five shots at him from his “six-shooter,” and the last shot killed the drayman’s horse. Captain Foster (who is a Louisianian, and very sarcastic about Texas) said that the regiment would probably hang the soldier for being such a disgraceful bad shot.

After dinner Colonel Debray took me into the observatory, which commands a good view of the city, bay, and gulf.

Galveston is situated near the eastern end of an island thirty miles long by three and a half wide. Its houses are well built; its streets are long, straight, and shaded with trees; but the city was now desolate, blockaded, and under military law. Most of the houses were empty, and bore many marks of the ill-directed fire of the Federal ships during the night of the 1st January last.

The whole of Galveston Bay is very shallow, except a narrow channel of about a hundred yards immediately in front of the now deserted wharves. The entrance to this channel is at the north-eastern extremity of the island, and is defended by the new works which are now in progress there. It is also blocked up with piles, torpedoes, and other obstacles.

The blockaders were plainly visible about four miles from land; they consisted of three gunboats and an ugly paddle steamer, also two supply vessels.

The wreck of the Confederate cotton steamer Neptune (destroyed in her attack on the Harriet Lane), was close off one of the wharves. That of the Westfield (blown up by the Yankee Commodore), was off Pelican Island.

In the night of the 1st January, General Magruder suddenly entered Galveston, placed his field-pieces along the line of wharves, and unexpectedly opened fire in the dark upon the Yankee war vessels at a range of about one hundred yards; but so heavy (though badly directed) was the reply from the ships, that the field-pieces had to be withdrawn. The attack by Colonel Cook upon a Massachusetts regiment fortified at the end of a wharf, also failed, and the Confederates thought themselves “badly whipped.” But after daylight the fortunate surrender of the Harriet Lane to the cotton boat Bayou City, and the extraordinary conduct of Commodore Renshaw, converted a Confederate disaster into the recapture of Galveston. General Magruder certainly deserves immense credit for his boldness in attacking a heavily armed naval squadron with a few field-pieces and two river steamers protected with cotton bales and manned with Texan cavalry soldiers.

I rode with Colonel Debray to examine Forts Scurry, Magruder, Bankhead, and Point. These works have been ingeniously designed by Colonel Sulokowski (formerly in the Austrian army), and they were being very well constructed by one hundred and fifty whites and six hundred blacks under that officer’s superintendence, the blacks being lent by the neighbouring planters.

Although the blockaders can easily approach to within three miles of the works, and although one shell will always “stampede” the negroes, yet they have not thrown any for a long time.[2]

Colonel Debray is a broad-shouldered Frenchman, and is a very good fellow. He told me that he emigrated to America in 1848; he raised a company in 1861, in which he was only a private; he was next appointed aide-de-camp to the Governor of Texas, with the rank of brigadier-general; he then descended to a major of infantry, afterwards rose to a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, and is now colonel.

Captain Foster is properly on Magruder’s Staff, and is very good company. His property at New Orleans had been destroyed by the Yankees.

In the evening we went to a dance given by Colonel Manly, which was great fun. I danced an American cotillon with Mrs Manly; it was very violent exercise, and not the least like anything I had seen before. A gentleman stands by shouting out the different figures to be performed, and every one obeys his orders with much gravity and energy. Colonel Manly is a very gentlemanlike Carolinian; the ladies were pretty, and, considering the blockade, they were very well dressed.

Six deserters from Banks’s army arrived here to-day. Banks seems to be advancing steadily, and overcoming the opposition offered by the handful of Confederates in the Teche country.

Banks himself is much despised as a soldier, and is always called by the Confederates Mr Commissary Banks, on account of the efficient manner in which he performed the duties of that office for “Stonewall” Jackson in Virginia. The officer who is supposed really to command the advancing Federals, is Weitzel; and he is acknowledged by all here to be an able man, a good soldier, and well acquainted with the country in which he is manœuvring.

[1] He is reported to have died in August 1863.

[2] Such a stampede did occur when the blockaders threw two or three shells. All the negroes ran, showing every sign of great dismay, and two of them, in their terror, ran into the sea, and were unfortunately drowned. It is now, however, too late for the ships to try this experiment, as some heavy guns are in position. A description of the different works is of course omitted here.

1st May (Friday).—I called on General Scurry, and found him suffering from severe ophthalmia. When I presented General Magruder’s letter, he insisted that I should come and live with him so long as I remained here. He also telegraphed to Galveston for a steamer to take me there and back.

We dined at 4 P.M.: the party consisted of Colonel and Judge Terrill (a clever and agreeable man), Colonel Pyron, Captain Wharton, Quartermaster-General, Major Watkins (a handsome fellow, and hero of the Sabine Pass affair), and Colonel Cook, commanding the artillery at Galveston (late of the U.S. navy, who enjoys the reputation of being a zealous Methodist preacher and a daring officer). The latter told me he could hardly understand how I could be an Englishman, as I pronounced my h’s all right. General Scurry himself is very amusing, and is an admirable mimic. His numerous anecdotes of the war were very interesting. In peace times he is a lawyer. He was a volunteer major in the Mexican war, and distinguished himself very much in the late campaigns in New Mexico and Arizona, and at the recapture of Galveston.

After dinner, the Queen’s health was proposed ; and the party expressed the greatest admiration for Her Majesty, and respect for the British Constitution. They all said that universal suffrage did not produce such deplorable results in the South as in the North; because the population in the South is so very scattered, and the whites being the superior race, they form a sort of aristocracy.

They all wanted me to put off going to Galveston till Monday, in order that some ladies might go; but I was inexorable, as it must now be my object to cross the Mississippi without delay.

All these officers despised sabres, and considered double-barrelled shot-guns and revolvers the best arms for cavalry.

30th April (Thursday).—I have to-day acquired my first experience of Texan railroads.

In this country, where every white man is as good as another (by theory), and every white female is by courtesy a lady, there is only one class. The train from Alleyton consisted of two long cars, each holding about fifty persons. Their interior is like the aisle of a church, twelve seats on either side, each for two persons. The seats are comfortably stuffed, and seemed luxurious after the stage.

Before starting, the engine gives two preliminary snorts, which, with a yell from the official of “all aboard,” warn the passengers to hold on; for they are closely followed by a tremendous jerk, which sets the cars in motion.

Every passenger is allowed to use his own discretion about breaking his arm, neck, or leg, without interference by the railway officials.

People are continually jumping on and off whilst the train is in motion, and larking from one car to the other. There is no sort of fence or other obstacle to prevent “humans” or cattle from getting on the line.

We left Alleyton at 8 A.M., and got a miserable meal at Richmond at 12.30. At this little town I was introduced to a seedy-looking man, in rusty black clothes and a broken-down “stove-pipe” hat. This was Judge Stockdale, who will probably be the next governor of Texas. He is an agreeable man, and his conversation is far superior to his clothing. The rival candidate is General Chambers (I think), who has become very popular by the following sentence in his manifesto:— “I am of opinion that married soldiers should be given the opportunity of embracing their families at least once a-year, their places in the ranks being taken by unmarried men. The population must not be allowed to suffer.”

Richmond is on the Brazos river, which is crossed in a peculiar manner. A steep inclined plane leads to a low, rickety, trestle bridge, and a similar inclined plane is cut in the opposite bank. The engine cracks on all steam, and gets sufficient impetus in going down the first incline to shoot across the bridge and up the second incline. But even in Texas this method of crossing a river is considered rather unsafe.

After crossing the river in this manner, the rail traverses some very fertile land, part of which forms the estate of the late Colonel Terry. There are more than two hundred negroes on the plantation. Some of the fields were planted with cotton and Indian corn mixed, three rows of the former between two of the latter. I saw also fields with cotton and sugar mixed.

We changed carriages at Harrisburg, and I completed my journey to Houston on a cotton truck.

The country near Houston is very pretty, and is studded with white wooden villas, which are raised off the ground on blocks like haystacks. I reached Houston at 4.30 P.m., and drove to the Fannin House hotel.

Houston is a much better place than I expected. The main street can boast of many well-built brick and iron houses. It was very full, as it now contained all the refugees from the deserted town of Galveston.

After an extremely mild supper, I was introduced to Lieutenant Lee, a wounded hero, who lost his leg at Shiloh; also to Colonel Pyron, a distinguished officer, who commands the regiment named after him.

The fat German, Mr Lee, and myself, went to the theatre afterwards.

As a great favour, my British prejudices were respected, and I was allowed a bed to myself; but the four other beds in the room had two occupants each. A captain, whose acquaintance I had made in the cars, slept in the next bed to me. Directly after we had got into bed a negro came in, who, squatting down between our beds, began to clean our boots. The Southerner pointed at the slave, and thus held forth: —”Well, Kernel, I reckon you’ve got servants in your country, but not of that colour. Now, sir, this is a real genuine African. He’s as happy as the day’s long; and if he was on a sugar plantation he’d be dancing half the night; but if you was to collect a thousand ot them together, and fire one bomb in amongst them, they’d all run like h—ll.” The negro grinned, and seemed quite flattered.

28th April (Tuesday).—We crossed the river Guadalupe at 5 A.M., and got a change of horses.

We got a very fair breakfast at Seguin at 7 A.M., which was beginning to be a well-to-do little place when the war dried it up.

It commenced to rain at Seguin, which made the road very woolly, and annoyed the outsiders a good deal.

The conversation turned a good deal upon military subjects, and all agreed that the system of election of officers had proved to be a great mistake. According to their own accounts, discipline must have been extremely lax at first, but was now improving. They were most anxious to hear what was thought of their cause in Europe; and none of them seemed aware of the great sympathy which their gallantry and determination had gained for them in England in spite of slavery.

We dined at a little wooden hamlet called Belmont, and changed horses again there.

The country through which we had been travelling was a good deal cultivated, and there were numerous farms. I saw cotton-fields for the first time.

We amused ourselves by taking shots with our revolvers at the enormous jack-rabbits which came to stare at the coach.

In the afternoon tobacco-chewing became universal, and the spitting was sometimes a little wild.

It was the custom for the outsiders to sit round the top of the carriage, with their legs dangling over (like mutes on a hearse returning from a funeral). This practice rendered it dangerous to put one’s head out of the window, for fear of a back kick from the heels, or of a shower of tobacco-juice from the mouths, of the Southern chivalry on the roof. In spite of their peculiar habits of hanging, shooting, &c, which seemed to be natural to people living in a wild and thinly-populated country, there was much to like in my fellow-travellers. They all had a sort of bonhommie honesty and straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good-nature, which was very agreeable. Although they were all very anxious to talk to a European—who, in these blockaded times, is a rara avis—yet their inquisitiveness was never offensive or disagreeable.

Any doubts as to my personal safety, which may have been roused by my early insight into Lynch law, were soon completely set at rest; for I soon perceived that if any one were to annoy me the remainder would stand by me as a point of honour.

We supped at a little town called Gonzales at 6.30.

We left it at 8 P.m. in another coach with six horses —big strong animals.

The roads being all natural ones, were much injured by the rains.

We were all rather disgusted by the bad news we heard at Gonzales of the continued advance of Banks, and of the probable fall of Alexandria.

The squeezing was really quite awful, but I did not suffer so much as the fat or long-legged ones. They all bore their trials in the most jovial good-humoured manner.

My fat vis-d-vis (in despair) changed places with me, my two bench-fellows being rather thinner than his, and I benefited much by the change into a back seat.

27th April (Monday).—Colonel Bankhead has given me letters of introduction to General Bragg, to General Leonidas Polk, and several others.

At 2 P.M. I called on Mrs Bankhead to say good-bye. She told me that her husband had two brothers in the Northern service—one in the army and the other in the navy. The two army brothers were both in the battles of Shiloh and Perryville, on opposite sides. The naval Bankhead commanded the Monitor when she sank.

—— introduced me to a German militia General in a beer-house this afternoon. These two had a slight dispute, as the latter spoke strongly in disapproval of “secret or night lynching.”

The recent escapade of Captain Peñaloso seems to have been much condemned in San Antonio. This individual (formerly a butcher) hanged one of his soldiers a short time ago, on his own responsibility, for desertion and stealing a musket. This event came off at 12 o’clock noon, in the principal placa of the city. The tree has been cut down, to show the feelings of the citizens.

There can be no doubt that the enforcement of the conscription has, as a general rule, been extremely easy throughout the Confederacy (except among the Germans); but I hear of many persons evading it, by getting into some sort of government employment—such as contractors, agents, or teamsters to the Rio Grande. To my extreme regret I took leave of my friend McCarthy this evening, whose hospitality and kindness I shall never forget.

I left San Antonio by stage for Alleyton at 9 P.M. The stage was an old coach, into the interior of which nine persons were crammed on three transverse seats, besides many others on the roof. I was placed on the centre seat, which was extremely narrow, and I had nothing but a strap to support my back. An enormously fat German was my vis-a-vis, and a long-legged Confederate officer was in my rear.

Our first team consisted of four mules; we afterwards got horses.

My fellow-travellers were all either military men, or connected with the Government.

Only five out of nine chewed tobacco during the night; but they aimed at the windows with great accuracy, and didn’t splash me. The amount of sleep I got, however, was naturally very trifling.