Chapter X: Introduction: By W. P. Trent (8)

“All was agreed, and the union took place. Now for the name? What
shall be done? It will never do to call it ‘New Philadelphia,’ nor
‘Yankee Town’: either scent too strong for ‘Georgy.’ I have it:
we will call it Montgomery, after the county. It was settled upon
without a dissenting voice, and to the great satisfaction of all
concerned, the name being equally dear to every American throughout
the land.”

On the other hand, the Montgomery _Republican_ of 1821 states very positively that the county was named after Lemuel Montgomery, who fell in the fight against the Creek Indians at Horseshoe, and the town after Richard Montgomery, who was killed at Quebec. Perhaps the river bluffs may have suggested to local pride the heights of Quebec, or possibly the true explanation is suggested in Klinck’s last sentence. It was a name equally satisfactory to all parties. Like a political platform, they all accepted it, and then interpreted it to suit their tastes. The origin of the city in the union of two towns may still be traced in the fact that the streets west of lower Court Street run at an angle to those east of it. Alabama Town stayed out of the consolidation, but the union town had superior resources. First the business, then the citizens, drifted over, and like the earlier Indian town it passed into the twilight of history.

With union came strength and bigger notions, and Montgomery, in the twenties, was a bustling little frontier town, full of enterprise and ambition. One writer, with fond enthusiasm, speaks of its “dense population.” The editor of its first newspaper wrote: “Montgomery, from its high and airy situation ... is considered peculiarly healthy; indeed, many resort to that section during the Summer months.... For an infant establishment, it may be called a pleasant, flourishing town.” In another issue he adds: “Its present population is about six hundred.”

There was a healthy demand for houses, as is shown by the advertisements in the newspaper. One man offers a gun and a rifle in exchange for planks and shingles, and another a saddle-horse for bricks and mortar. A wholesome respect, at least, was shown for learning in the prompt establishment of schools, and in the advertised arrival of such sturdy books as Murray’s _Grammar_, Webster’s _Speller_, Watts’s _Psalms and Hymns_, and (for lighter use) song and dream books. Town and country struggle amusingly in the ordinance that imposed a tax of fifty cents for every dog a family kept--_more than one_.

The Court-House stood in the centre of what is at present Court Square, and from it the houses extended mainly in two lines, one up what is now Dexter Avenue, toward Goat Hill, the other down Commerce Street toward the river. Perhaps a trace of the New England “Meeting-house” is to be found in the multifarious uses to which this building was put. Here law courts met with suggestive frequency during the week, and the congregation assembled on Sundays when notified by a special messenger that a preacher was in town, while celebrations, oratory, and even dancing, kept it lively at night.

A motley population rises before our eyes as we run through the list of their amusements. There is the speculator at the horse-races, the frontiersman at the Indian ball game, the vociferous patriot at the regular celebration of the Fourth of July and Washington’s Birthday, and even the spirits of defeated Indians and English seem to gaze grimly from the background at the hearty observance of Jackson Day. Yet among all these the most significant fact is the earnestness and delight with which the drama was cultivated. A company composed of local amateurs on December 17, 1822, presented Shakespeare’s play, _Julius Cæsar_, in the upper story of the old building still standing at the corner of Commerce and Tallapoosa Streets, and if we may believe the newspaper “it went down to the satisfaction of a numerous and splendid audience.” Of the actors, one afterwards became Governor of Alabama, another United States Senator, another a State Supreme Court Judge, and a fourth, Governor of Georgia.

It was a memorable day in the history of this little town when, on April 3, 1825, the great Frenchman Lafayette, then on his last visit to America, stopped here. The reception given him, though not without its amusing incidents, portrays vividly the eager and open-hearted temper of the citizens. Escorted by three hundred Alabamians and a number of Indians, he reached Montgomery on a beautiful spring morning, and was met by the entire population on what is now Capitol Hill. Captain Woodward, who was one of his escort, thus quaintly describes the scene:

“On Goat Hill, and near where Captain John Carr fell in the
well, stood Governor Pickens and the largest crowd I ever saw in
Montgomery. Some hundred yards east of the Hill was a sand flat,
where General Lafayette and his attendants quit carriages and horses,
formed a line and marched to the top of the hill. As we started,
the band struck up the old Scottish air, _Hail to the Chief_. As we
approached the Governor, Mr. Hill introduced the General to him. The
Governor tried to welcome him; but, like the best man the books give
account of, when it was announced that he was commander of the whole
American forces, he was scarcely able to utter a word. So it was with
Governor Pickens. As I have remarked before, Governor Pickens had no
superior in the State, but on that occasion he could not even make a
speech. But that did not prevent General Lafayette from discovering
that he was a great man.... The people of Montgomery did their duty.
Col. Arthur Hayne, who was a distinguished officer in the army in the
war of 1813, and who was the politest gentleman I ever saw, was the
principal manager. If the Earl of Chesterfield had happened there, he
would have felt, as I did the first time I saw a carpet on a floor,
and was asked to walk in. I declined, saying, ‘I reckon I have got in
the wrong place.’”

He was hospitably entertained at Colonel Edmonson’s, on Commerce Street, where he received with kindly grace the crowds that pressed around him. At night a grand ball was given him in the building now standing on the corner of Commerce and Tallapoosa Streets; and in the small hours “a large concourse of citizens escorted him through the darkness down to the landing, and bid him a hearty but mournful adieu amid torrents of tears.”

Frontier life conduces to early maturity in cities as well as in men, and Montgomery was no exception to the rule. The hard knocks that produce self-reliance were not slow in coming. In spite of disastrous freshets and destructive epidemics, the population increased, and with its growth came a new and rougher element. An old newspaper suggests drily: “It requires no stretch of art to put rubbish before a shop door; to take down a gingerbread-maker’s sign; to take the wheels from a lady’s carriage and put them on a silversmith’s shop; and make noise enough to disturb the slumbers of the sick by beating stirrups for triangles, and blowing conch-shells for French horns.” Drunkenness and gambling increased, and the same paper soon had occasion to add: “This is the third, if not the fourth, attempt at homicide in this place within a few months.” Such things were the first test of the city’s capacity for self-government, and were met by primitive but rigorous measures. Indecency of language or conduct was punished by a ducking in some neighboring pond, followed by a ride on a rail. There is a record of an outrageous scoundrel who attempted to steal and sell an Indian family, and was promptly whipped through the streets by the squaws while the citizens lined up and saw it well done. But the lawlessness increased until finally it destroyed the peace and threatened the existence of the town. Then it was that the law-abiding class rose in mass, and under the leadership of Colonel John H. Thorington put down the gang and cleaned out their haunts.

If they had at times been too lenient toward lawlessness, and at others too impatient to wait for legal formalities, a ready explanation may be found in their absorption in business cares and enterprises. A new country of unknown resources had to be developed. Other things must wait. Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, who visited Montgomery in 1833, was deeply--perhaps too deeply--impressed with this side of their life. He says:

“I found the fertile lands of Montgomery settled up with active,
intelligent, wealthy citizens, who had been drawn to it from the
old States by the great advantages which it afforded to those who
desired to increase their riches. The rapid accumulation of wealth
whetted the appetite for getting money, until the people could not be
satisfied with any quantity acquired. It was a subject of wondering
cogitation to me, who had for many years been constantly taken up
with the affairs of the government, and the strife of party politics,
to listen to my Montgomery friends talking without ceasing of cotton,
negroes, land and money.”

The hardest problem that the business man of those early times had to face was the question of transportation. Dry goods, groceries and manufactured articles had at first been brought from Savannah and Charleston by wagon or horseback. But the way was long, the roads wretched,--especially through the Creek territory,--and the Indians demanded exorbitant tolls at the bridges; so the method was anything but satisfactory, and other plans were soon tried. Barges and flatboats were laboriously poled up from Mobile. They bore the promising names, _Alabama Swan_, _Lady of the Lake_, _Cotton Patch_ and _Ready Money_, but consumed from fifty to seventy days on the trip. The local paper records the arrival of an “amphibious animal in the shape of a boat from East Tennessee.” It came down the Tennessee, was transported across thirty miles of land to the Coosa, and by that river reached its destination. After a journey of a thousand miles, it finally arrived with an amusing assortment of flour, whiskey, apple brandy, cider, dried fruit, feathers and a five-wheel carriage,--some of which must have been taken on board near the end of the trip.

Under such circumstances, the arrival of the first steamboat, the _Harriet_, on October 22, 1821, marked an epoch. Nor did the town fail to appreciate its importance. The entire population turned out to bid it welcome. The next day it carried an excursion up the river at the lively rate of six miles an hour. Steam was too precious to be wasted in whistling, so a gun was fired to signal its approach.

While the _Swans_ and the _Harriets_ were struggling for supremacy, a third rival destined to supplant them both made its modest appearance. The Montgomery Railroad, delayed by the panic of ’37, opened the first twelve miles of its line for business in 1840. It made no great display, and when the engine was out of fix horses were substituted without hesitation or serious loss of time. But it was the beginning of a system that soon put the city in close communication with the older Eastern States; and when President Davis came in 1861 over the same road, he traveled in a private car made in its own shops at Montgomery.

Business was the dominant interest during the first two decades of the city’s existence, and may have seemed to visitors like Governor Gilmer to exclude all other thoughts; yet beneath the surface there smouldered the Southern devotion to politics. The town was scarcely two years old when the Missouri question gave rise to an ardent discussion of State rights, which found frequent occasion for renewal in subsequent years; and at the public dinner prepared in celebration of the Fourth of July, 1826, there were two toasts whose sentiment seems strangely significant in the light of after events. They were:

“The Union of the States--The golden chain of our liberties;
dissolved into its minute links, the fabric falls into ruin.”

“States Rights--The ark of our safety; every attempt to violate them
should be regarded as highly obnoxious to the holy spirit of the
Constitution.”

Nor was their zest for politics a mere fondness for empty debate or idle personalities. It was an innate love for public affairs, a desire to discuss and to take part in whatever touched the public welfare. Now it was a question of State versus national power in the Creek region, and they with other Alabamians took such a lively hand in it that Francis S. Key, the author of _The Star Spangled Banner_, had to be sent down as special commissioner to smooth matters over. A year later it was Texas struggling against the absolutism of Santa Anna, and so keen was the interest felt at Montgomery that a mass-meeting was held in the theatre, funds were contributed, and a company of forty men under Captain Ticknor was raised in the immediate neighborhood. In addition to the princely pay of $8 a month, there was the uncertain promise of a square mile of land out there. They got just six feet of it; for they were massacred after surrender at Goliad. In 1840, their attention was engrossed by the picturesque “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign. Log cabins, coon-skins, and hard cider were seen on every hand, and the “Great ball,” which the Whig enthusiasts rolled through so many cities as a spectacular admonition to “keep the ball rolling,” passed through the streets inscribed with denunciations of the Nullifiers.

But, after all, the event which made politics a prominent feature of life at Montgomery was the removal thither of the State capital. Tuscaloosa, its location at that time, not being accessible enough, a constitutional amendment was adopted providing for its removal, and on January 28, 1846, the Legislature, after a hot contest, selected Montgomery as the site. Two days later, the Selma stage brought the news to the city. Next day there was a grand procession, and at night there were bonfires and a jollification that would have gladdened the soul of old Andrew Dexter. His desire was to be fulfilled, and the capitol was to stand on the very lot he had reserved for it on Goat Hill nearly thirty years before. The new building, erected by the city, was ready in the fall of ’47; the archives in one hundred and thirteen boxes were laboriously brought from Tuscaloosa in thirteen wagons, at a cost of $1325--figures as significant of poor transportation facilities as they are full of the magical number thirteen--and all was ready for the Legislature, which met in December. The effect on the city is vividly described in Garrett’s _Public Men_:

“The novelty of the occasion, together with the greater facilities to
reach the seat of government, brought together an immense concourse
of people.... The hotels were crowded to inconvenience, private
boarding-houses were increased and thronged, and every avenue to
the capitol presented at all hours of the day a stirring multitude.
Candidates for the various offices were as thick as blackbirds in a
fresh plowed field in spring.”

The new building was burned two years later, but was immediately rebuilt on substantially the same plan.

Immediately on becoming the seat of government, Montgomery of course became the most important place politically in the State, and during the stirring years before the Civil War was the scene of many events which connected its history more and more closely with that of the country at large, and paved the way for the conspicuous part it was to play in ’61.

The war with Mexico, like the struggle of Texas, aroused here more than a passing interest. In spite of the sad fate of Captain Ticknor’s men, its citizens enlisted again and went to the front under Captain Rush Elmore and Colonel J. J. Seibels; and during the first few weeks of its session in the new capitol the Legislature suspended routine work more than once to join in the enthusiastic receptions accorded such returning heroes as Generals Quitman and Shields.

From that time until the Confederacy was born in its midst, the little city, like a mountain lake, bore on its ruffled surface traces of every storm that passed over the land. No other city reflected more vividly the heated debates in Congress over the fatal territorial problems thrust on us by the Mexican War. Nowhere else was the attitude of the South on these burning questions stated so promptly and so emphatically as in the once famous Alabama Platform, first presented by Mr. Yancey, February 14, 1848, to a great political convention assembled in the capitol. The scene was historic, and is thus described by his biographer, Mr. DuBose:

“At this stage in the proceedings Mr. Yancey rose. The galleries
were crowded with ladies and their escorts; the floor, lobbies,
and rotunda were packed with men. He drew from his pocket his
own resolutions and read them.... He spoke at length.... A vote
was taken, and Yancey’s resolutions were adopted, without even
one opposing voice, amidst the most enthusiastic cheering on the
floor and in the lobbies, the ladies in the galleries waving their
handkerchiefs in the contagion of joy.”

It was a characteristic example of his keen political foresight and also of the wonderfully persuasive eloquence that set his hearers on fire. No orator ever combined more perfectly closeness of reasoning with the fire of earnestness and an irresistible personal magnetism. The capitol, old Estelle Hall, every public place in the city, rang with the mellow tones of his voice; his debates with Hilliard were attended by throngs never equaled in the State before or since; and the mention of his name at this day arouses in the memory of old residents a sense of ecstasy produced by no other. No better idea of his manner can be given than by quoting once more from his biography, this time from a letter of General H. D. Clayton, describing a subsequent impromptu debate with his great friend and opponent, Hilliard:

“Mr. Hilliard, being loudly called, took his stand, and made the
graceful speech he always does.... Then broke forth the deafening,
enthusiastic cry, ‘Yancey, Yancey.’ He came like a man conscious of
right should always come.... As with modesty becoming a maiden of
sixteen, he requested to be permitted to occupy the stand, ‘To the
stand,’ shouted an hundred voices.... Bowing low he began--Here I
must pause. I should despise my own presumption should I undertake
further description of what followed. First went the _Confederation_
newspaper, once in existence, now a dream, a shadow of things that
were, gone glimmering like a schoolboy’s tale. At every blow some
foe fell, broken in every bone. For just two hours this work of
destruction proceeded amidst deafening shouts from the throats of
what is admitted on all sides to have been at least two-thirds of the
crowded house, called to put Yancey down.”

THIS IS IN THE HANDWRITING OF GEN. THOS. R. R. COBB, WHO WAS A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE. TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINAL, WHICH IS IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. A. L. HULL, ATHENS, GA.]

In the debates and speeches of those days the men and the measures of the last decade before the war are preserved with a vividness that seems almost magical. Estelle Hall echoes with fierce discussions of the great Compromise of 1850. What a vista of history opens before the mind as the streets resound to the tramp of Colonel Buford’s men on their vain errand to Kansas! And what a sobering sense of reality it brings to read his card in the papers! “I wish to raise three hundred industrious, sober, discreet, reliable men, capable of bearing arms; not prone to use them wickedly or unnecessarily, but willing to protect their section in every real emergency.”

But interesting as these incidents are to the student, they were historically only preliminary to the dramatic events connected with the secession of the State and the organization of the Confederate Government. The course of South Carolina and the propositions for compromise had been watched with the greatest eagerness, and when the Alabama Convention assembled in the capitol on January 7, 1861, the excitement was intense. Hotels were crowded, lobbies thronged, the factions were busy caucusing, and so close did the estimate of votes run that a delegate who was opposed to secession exclaimed: “Mr. Yancey can save the Union by the wave of his hand.” When the convention finally, on January 11th, came to a vote, the scene was a solemn and impressive one. Mr. Yancey, as chairman of the committee to draw up the ordinance of secession, rose to close the debate. The majority of the committee, he said, preferred that the ordinance should state simply that the State resumed its original sovereignty by its own act, without adding anything that might seem an apology; but for harmony they had yielded to the desire of the minority and agreed to a preamble and certain resolutions. The question was put and the vote stood 61 to 39. Alabama had declared her independence.

AS REPORTED BY COMMITTEE AND AMENDED BY CONGRESS, IS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DAUGHTER OF ALEX. B. CLITHERALL, MRS. A. C. BIRCH, MONTGOMERY, ALA.]

The scenes that followed are best described in the next day’s newspaper:

“THE RUBICON IS CROSSED.”

“Yesterday will form a memorable epoch in the history of Alabama.
On that day our gallant little State resumed her sovereignty, and
became free and independent. So soon as it was announced that the
ordinance of secession had passed, the rejoicing commenced and the
people seemed wild with excitement. At the moment the beautiful flag
presented by the ladies to the convention was run up on the capitol,
... the cannon reverberated through the city, the various church
bells commenced ringing, and shout after shout might have been heard
along the principal streets.”

At night the capitol and other buildings were “most beautifully illumined,” and fireworks and speeches gave vent to feelings long pent up.

But in the excited crowd were sad hearts as well as gay. Many who heartily believed in the right of secession deemed it inexpedient at the time. A few caught some vision of the dreadful days to come; and one house at least amidst the general rejoicing was draped in mourning.

All hesitation was, however, soon swept away by the contagious excitement of the speedy assembling of the Confederate Congress. South Carolina had suggested Montgomery as the place of meeting, partly because of its central location, partly because of the conspicuous part it had already played. The idea met with favor, and the Alabama convention gave the proper formal invitation.

The little city, so soon to become the storm centre of the South, was at that time a town of some twelve thousand inhabitants, but made the proud boast of being the richest for its size in the country. A newspaper writer of the day thus describes it:

“The principal streets are wide and well improved, the stores and
other houses for the transaction of business are large, commodious
and handsome.... In regard to the private residences of the
well-to-do portion of the population, too much cannot be said in
their praise. A large number of them present much architectural skill
and beauty, surrounded by capacious grounds, handsomely ornamented
with the rarest shrubbery known to the South.”

Another visitor was impressed with the numerous

“residences of gentlemen who own plantations in the hotter and less
healthful parts of the State. Many of these have been educated in the
older States, and with minds enlarged and liberalized by travel, they
form, with their families, a cultivated and attractive society.”

Here assembled, on February 4, 1861, the delegates from the Southern States that had seceded, and, amidst scenes still familiar to all Americans, they proceeded to organize the Confederate Government. The excitement culminated with the arrival and inauguration of Mr. Davis. An enormous crowd escorted him from the depot to the Exchange Hotel, where he was welcomed by Mr. Yancey in an apt little speech containing the famous words “The man and the hour have met.” The ceremony of inauguration took place February 18th in front of the capitol. The enthusiasm was unbounded. One who was present declared years afterwards: “I never before or since that hour so experienced the ecstasy of patriotism.” At 10 o’clock in the morning Mr. Davis left the Exchange in a carriage drawn by six white horses. A vast throng escorted him up Dexter Avenue to the capitol.

“After he took his seat on the platform in front of the capitol,”
wrote an eye-witness, “and a short prayer had been offered, he read
a very neat little speech, not making many promises, but hoping by
God’s help to be able to fulfill all expectations. He took the oath
amidst the deepest silence; and when he raised his hand and his eyes
to heaven, and said ‘so help me God,’ I think I never saw any scene
so solemn and impressive.”

Years have gone by since those brave days. The scenes that so stirred not only Montgomery but the entire land have passed into the pages of history. The eager throng that crowded Capitol Hill, and hung breathlessly on every word of the brief inaugural address; the ringing cheers and the roar of cannon that welcomed the news of Virginia’s secession; the groups of leaders planning earnestly laws and constitutions and deep schemes of public policy; the soldiers in gray marching by with high hopes and light step; the sad day when the Confederate Government packed its archives and took its departure for Richmond--these memories and a thousand others that cluster about them will always be kept alive by the tender sentiment that clings to the Lost Cause.

But Montgomery, true to the spirit of its history, does not look backward. Business enterprise has adapted itself to new surroundings. It is to-day a city of the New South. On the site of the old Indian town, Ecunchatty, stands a great modern factory. The change is typical. Far over the wide stretches of field and river float the long streamers of smoke, the banners of the modern army of industry, in striking but friendly contrast to the white dome on Capitol Hill, the centre of Montgomery’s past and present political life.

NEW ORLEANS

“THE CRESCENT CITY”

BY GRACE KING

Sail across the blue waters of the Gulf and make your way up the mighty current of the Mississippi, like the leisurely traveler of yore, if you wish to approach New Orleans in the proper way and spirit; unless--which also furnishes a proper way and spirit--you wind your way down the mighty current, from some far northern starting-point. And for guidance provide not yourself with an up-to-date map of the United States, crisscrossed with railroads, and speckled with illegibly printed names of swarming towns. The pilot chart of the steamboat is the true informant here if you are not the fortunate possessor or borrower of some old print of the last century, one of those happy combinations of fact and imagination issued by the ancient cartographer in the effort to compromise old theories with new discoveries; charts tracked by the foot of the pioneer, not by the wheel of the locomotive, graded by the paddle of the canoe, not by that of the steamer; charts that bear record to the history as well as geography of a country and chronicle its ever-clearer and ever-increasing vastness and importance. Upon such a map was the name New Orleans first written down. Naught to the north but Canada and the Great Lakes; to the east, the Atlantic seaboard with its mere fringe of English settlements fenced in by impassable mountains; to the west, mountains again, and illimitable prairies, covered over by bounding buffalo. South, lay the Gulf of Mexico with Florida on the one side, Mexico on the other. From one of the Great Lakes at the north, Lake Michigan, to the Gulf of Mexico at the south, comes through the blank expanse of paper, the huge, black serpent line of the Mississippi twisting and curving through, a triumph of the artist, its great valley, pictured from mountain range to mountain range, teeming with Indian villages, fields of waving corn, droves of innumerable deer, and illimitable forests. At the head of navigation lay the little village of Chicagou, about midway the little stronghold of St. Louis, at the terminus New Orleans; the three names linking together across the distance two hundred years ago even as to-day.

De Soto first conceived the project of founding a settlement upon the Mississippi River, his Rio Grande. As he lay stricken with fever upon its banks within sight of its majestic currents, his mind dwelt upon the glory of annexing the great stream and its territory to Spain, the souls of its peoples to the Catholic Church. From his couch, he urged forward the building of the ships to be sent to Havana for the necessary supplies; with dying ears he listened to the sound of the busy axes and hammers, and with dying voice he charged upon his men the accomplishment of what would turn all the suffering and loss of their expedition into brilliant success and ensure his fame and theirs to all time.

But the Spaniards, sinking the body of their commander beneath the turbid waters of the Mississippi, sank there too his plans and ambitions, and, turning their backs upon the river, recked not that Spain should gain or lose it.

Over the burial spot of the Spanish explorer floated, a century and a half later, the boats of La Salle, the Canadian explorer. As he paddled his way down the gigantic stream, the like of which he had never dreamed existed in the world, he was, in thought, making that map of the country described above. And by the time his boats came into view of the Gulf, his scheme for affixing the great river and valley to France lay as clear in his mind as the blue expanse before his eyes. He would first build strongholds, settle colonies, and mass friendly Indians at the mouth of each tributary. French traders, _coureurs de bois_, and missionaries, with a free and secure route before them, would then ply their canoes backwards and forwards between Lake Michigan and the Gulf, where French vessels would be lying at anchor in the sheltered harbor of the commodious city he purposed to build. The French flag once securely established on the Gulf coast of the continent meant nothing less than the gradual elbowing of the English out of the country on the Atlantic side, and the capture of the Mexican gold mines from Spain whenever opportunity offered.

Like De Soto, La Salle proved only a forerunner in history. The brilliant scheme he conceived and failed to execute was carried to success ten years after his death by Iberville. He discovered the river from the Gulf, and, entering it, explored its course until he identified it as the river discovered from the Lakes by La Salle. And he it was who selected the site for the future city upon the Mississippi, the possession of which meant, to any power that held it, domination of the Gulf of Mexico and of the great waterway, the life artery of the American continent. When Iberville selected that site upon the narrow neck of land lying between the river and an equally navigable chain of lakes, he wrote the history of his city in advance.

The first year of the eighteenth century saw France indeed mistress of the Mississippi and of the Gulf of Mexico, but Iberville, like De Soto and La Salle, was cut off in the prime of life and activity, and his work was left to another for accomplishment--to Bienville, his young brother.

One cannot think of New Orleans without Bienville, nor of Bienville without New Orleans. From the time he came into the country, a mere stripling, midshipman to Iberville, until he left it, a middle-aged man, the city upon the Mississippi was the star by which he guided all his hopes and ambitions, all his colonial ventures. For eighteen years, during which the seat of government was shifted from Biloxi to Mobile and from Mobile back again to Biloxi, through changes of king and ministry, and through all the personal political vicissitudes of an official dependant of those troublous times, he never ceased to urge upon the home authorities the founding of the city, all the while setting aside with unwearied patience the baffling objections against it in his own council-boards.

His opportunity came at last, in 1718, when Louisiana was made over by contract to John Law and the Company of the West; then, as Governor, he had full authority to act with men and money at his disposal. He himself brought his axemen to the spot, saw the land cleared and laid off in lots, according to the map prepared by the royal engineers. A handsome little city it was to be according to this map; with fair, square sides, straight streets; with a _place d’armes_, parish church, cemetery, barracks; all complete, even to the naming of the streets--Chartres, Condé, Royal, Bourbon, Dauphine, Burgundy, Conti, St. Louis, Toulouse, St. Peter, Orleans, St. Anne. No nicknames were to be allowed here to chance and illiteracy, no plebeian “Broads,” “Mains,” “Highs”--a right royal little city it was designed to be from the first, and one worthy its princely godfather, Law’s patron, the Duke of Orleans.

Bienville himself piloted the first royal vessel of provisions and immigrants through the mouth of the river, and made the first landing at the levee bank, crowded to-day with commerce and shipping. Finally, in 1723, Bienville removed thither all the government offices and stores, and made New Orleans the capital of the colony. In a year, the city was in full tide of progress, and attaining its majority as a city among the oldest cities of the continent.

History and romance carry on the chronicle of its life, for it is a place whose history has become romance, romance history, in our literature. The neat little square checker-board prepared by Bienville’s engineers, has grown out of all regularity of proportion; unwieldy and awkward enough it is now upon paper, with its streets that vainly strive to run straight, as they follow the bend of the river, or “Crescent” as it is called. But the first map still represents the centre, the heart of the city, the source of its tradition and sentiment. And to the children of the city--or, we should say, the descendants of the children of the first-born of the city, there has been no change in this “mother” spot, save that of harmonious growth and age;--at least so they think in tender reverence as they saunter through the old thoroughfares with the high-sounding names.

The _place d’armes_ has become Jackson Square; the public market, the French market; the parish church, the Cathedral; the Ursulines Convent, the Archbishopric; the cemetery is now the old St. Louis--beyond Rampart Street, instead of outside the Ramparts, as it used to be called. The _vieu carré_--as the original city is affectionately called--has suffered its share of the vicissitudes of cities. More than once, tornadoes and fires have swept whole quarters of it bare of dwellings. Epidemics of yellow fever--then as now said to be brought in from Havana--decimated the inhabitants at recurrent intervals; while the river ever and anon rose up and overflowed its banks, producing a steady crop of domestic fevers. But the gay-hearted inhabitants--then, even as now--seemed to draw from their misfortunes only zest for greater energy of work and greater pleasure in life.

Every ship that arrived brought accessions to the population--accessions, not immigrants, and therefore reckoned by quality, not quantity. Gay sprigs of the nobility were sent out to “la Nouvelle Orleans” to mend their morals; thrifty ones, to mend their fortunes; ambitious sons of the bourgeoisie came seeking opportunity for acquiring landed estate; old officers remained when their terms of service expired; new officers willingly grew into old ones in a place so near akin in society and elegance to Paris. For Paris was the arbiter and model of New Orleans, and never had the great city by the Seine an apter pupil than the little city by the Mississippi.

Social elegance and pleasure reached its standard height under the administration of the Marquis de Vaudreuil--“le grand Marquis,” as he was called. His entertainments, banquets, balls, theatrical performances, his manners, dress, conversation, his etiquette, civil and military, furnished the code which, in a way, still governs social practice in the city.

When, in 1763, France, by the Treaty of Paris, signed away all her possessions east of the Mississippi to England, she yet retained her grasp on the jugular vein of the North American continent by reserving the Island of Orleans, as it was denominated--that is, the mouth of the Mississippi. And now the city, by right and title the sole French metropolis of North America, made so rapid and so great a stride forward in wealth, population, and commercial activity, that even its easy-going, pleasure-loving citizens began to feel the exhilarating reality of the possibilities of their geographical and political situation in the country; of their importance, not alone to France, but to the American continent. But the awakening of the people to the consciousness of their political virility was no better than an awakening by the hand of an executioner.

On a bright day in October, 1764, the men of the city were called together in the _place d’armes_, to listen to the royal edict that transferred them, their families, and property; in short, all the territory and subjects yet possessed by France in America, to Spain. The consternation of the people, their indignation and excitement, their public meetings, address to the King, their repudiation of Spanish authority and Spanish government, the bloody punishment by O’Reilly, executing six and imprisoning in Havana five of the conspirators, as he called them, and, finally, the forcing of the colony under the domination of Spain--all of this can but be enumerated here, but it forms a chapter in the history of New Orleans, the omission of which can be justified only by necessity.

The city became Spanish in language, law, manner, dress,--in all externals, but its heart remained firmly French, as after events proved. It is ever acknowledged, however, in the history of the city, that the Spanish rule was a wise and just one; and, as is well said by all chroniclers, the Spanish found the city a city of wooden one-story houses, and left it a city of brick mansions.

It was during the Spanish domination that the great conflagration of 1788 took place--when the heart of the _vieu carré_ was left a mere heap of rubbish and ashes. Bienville himself had not a barer spot before him when he laid out the first streets in his clearing than Don Andres Almonester, the Alferez Real had when, in the midst of the public sorrow and grief over the disaster, he offered to rebuild the religious and civil official edifices. His tombstone in the Cathedral gives the list of his claims upon the gratitude of posterity: founder and donor of the Holy Cathedral Church, founder of the Royal Hospital of St. Charles (the present Charity Hospital), founder of the hospital for lepers, of the Church of the Ursulines Convent, of a public school; of the Casa-Curiel (Court-House)--in virtue of which munificence, Don Andres lies buried under the altar of the Cathedral, and a prayer is said for the repose of his soul every day at Vespers.

Following the example of the edifices of Don Andres, private buildings were constructed on a style grandiose beyond any that the city had seen before, and the manner of living imitated the manner of building. And now, under the well-regulated, ponderous monotony of the Spanish domination, the city might have enjoyed a repose as immutable as that of her pious benefactor, had it not been for the great stream rolling past her to the Gulf.

No longer did the Upper Mississippi flow through virgin forests and savage villages. Out of the independence of the United colonies was born the “West,”--the great West as it was then and is still called, teeming with energy and hardihood, with fruitfulness and prosperity. Before the day of railroads rivers furnished the only outlet to commerce. The Mississippi, gathering up with the waters of its tributaries the harvests of their valleys, bore down to New Orleans a continuous line of flatboats laden to the edge. The cargoes found ready sale and were soon the main food supply of the city, and the sturdy flatboatmen returning to their farms were ever better and better satisfied with their market, and more and more discontented with the foreign ownership of it. In their parlance, the valley owned the river, and the river owned the mouth. Spanish obstinacy and American temper, concessions and evasions, threats and brawls, kept the city for a score of years filled to the brim with political excitement. Outside the wall and canal--the Canal Street of to-day--lay a new city, an American city, populated by flatboatmen and produce traders, against which the gates of the Spanish city were carefully closed and sentinels set at nightfall.

But it were as well to attempt to hold back the current of the river itself as the current of popular determination that flowed down with it from its great valley. As it came, so, by secret compact, the Spanish flag went--to be replaced not by the old Fleur-de-Lys, but by the Tricolor; the new and glorious banner of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It was easily made at home in a city whose republicanism under the pruning of Spanish rule had only rooted itself the more deeply.

For a short space, popular joy rioted in wild rejoicings. But it was only for a moment that the French flag fluttered over the _place d’armes_, a bare three weeks. Then it descended its staff and the American flag rose in its place. In the Casa Real, the seat of the Spanish Cabildo, the ceremony of the cession of Louisiana to the United States took place, the most important event, judged by results, that has taken place in the history of the Republic, enlarging the United States in domain by a territory three and a half times as great as its original size, raising it in political sovereignty to parity with the greatest European powers. The Spanish walls were demolished, but the American domination made slow impression upon the _vieu carré_. It has never really altered the type. There was, correctly speaking, no American domination in the _vieu carré_ until the term ceased to be used, when Louisiana was admitted as a State into the Union.

The memorable discussion in Congress over the admission of Louisiana need be recalled here only to introduce the next important event in her history,--the great and glorious victory of the Battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815. That victory was the vindication of Louisiana’s right to Statehood in the Union;--it was New Orleans’s dower gift to the Nation’s history.

The American quarter, the new town, built by the flatboatmen outside the wall of the old town, is still called the American quarter by the old inhabitants. In architecture and physiognomy, in material prosperity and educational progress, it rightfully and justly represents the American domination. But for art, poetry, romance, sentiment, and inspiration the denizens of the new city flee into the old mother quarter as into a sanctuary, where in the quiet and gloom, it may be, of the past, they find refuge from the glare and incessant pursuit of activities of the present. It is the quarter that strangers love. Upon any one of the fine days of a New Orleans winter, a score or more of these visitors may be seen, strolling through the aisles of the Cathedral, or the halls of the old Cabildo, or sitting in the sun on the benches of Jackson Square watching the leisurely, picturesque procession of passers-by, as the soft bells of the Cathedral mark the no less leisurely procession of the hours.

“Orleans, Gentilly,
D’Artaguette, Marigny,
Bourbon! Bourbon!
Gayoso, Galvez, Bouligny,
Casacalvo, Derbigny,
Don Almonester’s bells intone;
For Bienville and for Serigny,
For d’Iberville, for d’Assigny
They make incessant moan.
Orleans, Gentilly
D’Artaguette, Marigny,
Bourbon! Bourbon!”

VICKSBURG

THE CITY ON THE WALNUT HILLS

BY H. F. SIMRALL

Vicksburg has no colonial traditions. The Walnut Hills on which it stands, near the northern margin of that portion of Mississippi which was successively under the sway of France, Great Britain and Spain, could not be settled and improved until long after the region about Natchez. The city is, in fact, of modern origin. The county of Warren was not organized until 1809, and Vicksburg had no real existence until it became in 1836, second after Warrenton, the county-seat.

To understand the late origin of the town, one should study the colonial history of Mississippi. By the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi in 1680-82, France claimed all the territory drained by the river and its affluents from the source to the mouth, and also all territory east and west drained by streams that entered the Gulf of Mexico. The French colony was planted at Biloxi on the Gulf coast, which was made the capital. Shortly afterwards the capital was transferred to Mobile and finally located at New Orleans. Settlements spread slowly along the shores of the Gulf and up the Mississippi River, penetrating but a short distance inland on account of the contiguity of hostile Indians.

During the eighteen years of British control that followed the French and Indian War, an impulse was given to emigration from Great Britain, and from the older colonies some settlers came who desired to avoid participation in the Revolutionary War. In 1779-80 Spain drove Great Britain out of the territory west of the Mississippi, acquired by the treaty which closed the French and Indian War, and held and controlled the same for fifteen or more years, with the colonial seat of authority at Natchez. By the treaty of peace with Great Britain at the close of the Revolutionary War, the Mississippi River on the west and the 31st parallel on the south were declared the boundaries of the United States.

(FROM AN ACTUAL SKETCH MADE ON THE SPOT BY ONE OF THE SPECIAL ARTISTS OF “FRANK LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER,” NOW IN THE COLLECTION OF MAJOR GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM.)]

During the Spanish possession and control of the lower Mississippi River, serious protests and diplomatic representations had been made to Spain against the onerous exactions and tributes which she imposed on commerce from the upper valley and imports through New Orleans. To haul the tobacco, wheat, corn, pork and other bulky products of the region across the mountains over dirt roads to Baltimore, the nearest seaport and market, was hardly possible. The Mississippi River was the quick and easy highway to New Orleans and tide-water. Spain was under treaty obligation to allow free navigation of the Mississippi, and to deal liberally at New Orleans with commerce from the upper valley, but she shamefully set at nought her obligations, until, in sheer exasperation, the people of Kentucky and Tennessee were on the point of fitting out a military force with which to open the river to free navigation and commerce and to drive Spain from New Orleans. The Federal Government rose to the emergency, and Spain, obliged to choose between war or cession, concluded in 1795 a treaty of cession, by which she surrendered the territory in question and agreed to retire within six months after ratification of the treaty.

Georgia, claiming that her colonial limits by the charter of 1735 extended by parallel lines westward to the Mississippi River, in 1785 organized in southwest Mississippi a county called Bourbon, and appointed justices of the peace, who, however, never attempted to exercise their functions. In 1795, the year the treaty was made with Spain, Georgia sold to four of the speculation land companies enormous acreages of land in what is now Alabama and Mississippi.

The first relief, permanent and secure, from all the discouragements to emigration was furnished when the Congress of the United States, in 1798, organized a territorial government for Mississippi and applied to it all the benefits, advantages and privileges of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, except the clause of the sixth article, which prohibited slavery. Georgia in turn promptly yielded up her territorial and political claims to the United States for pecuniary and other considerations.

From the date of organized authority, population rapidly poured in. The Bayou, Pearl and the Big Black ceased to be the outer confines of the new settlers. They spread rapidly over all the lands which the Indians had ceded. As settlements were carried east of the Walnut Hills a town at that point became a necessity for trade. A town was laid off on the plantations of William Vick and John Lane into blocks or squares by parallel streets north and south, east and west. The building of a town on the bluff at the southern extremity of the delta and of easy access to the uplands eastward was a natural response to the needs of commerce. Its growth and development have kept pace with the increase of agricultural production of the region tributary to it. The Vicksburg of to-day is specially adapted to the manufacture of cotton, lumber and metals into finished goods. Raw material is abundant and available. Transportation by water and rail to home and foreign markets is adequate to meet the largest demands. When the Isthmian Canal shall have been constructed, the ports on the Gulf will be nearer the Orient than the ports on the Atlantic, and unusual impulse will be given to manufactures and agriculture.

Large plants for the utilization of cotton seed are in full operation at Vicksburg; match and furniture factories are actively at work. Other enterprises are slowly building up, and the natural and economic advantages of the city for manufactures are becoming more apparent.

The public buildings of Vicksburg--Court-House, Post Office, churches, schoolhouses, and hotels--are typical and creditable. The Court-House, situated on one of the highest eminences, towers above the surrounding buildings and is pleasing to the eye from every point of view. The tradition is that it was planned and designed by a slave belonging to the contractor who built it. The United States building is handsome and commodious. The city abounds in churches. It is provided with an excellent system of waterworks and electric street-railway service. The system recently adopted of free education for both races has from time to time been so enlarged as to its curriculum of studies and improved as to its methods, that it has superseded private schools, except an educational establishment for both sexes under the control of the Roman Catholic Church.

Vicksburg has been the home of several of the State’s ablest men, who have proved large factors in making history. S. S. Prentiss was an orator of national reputation and an eminent lawyer. Others worthy of mention are: Judge W. L. Sharkey, one of the most learned jurists of the Southwest; Governor John J. Guion; Governor McNutt; Walter Brooks; United States Senator George Yerger; a great lawyer, Joseph Holt, in later life Attorney-General of the United States. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, Senator in Congress and a gallant and distinguished soldier, lived the greater part of his life in Warren County, a few miles south of the city.

We now come to that period in the history of Vicksburg, when, during the Civil War, for a time the even current of commercial and business life gave place to a series of events, perhaps the most notable and far-reaching in influence on the shifting fortunes and results of the great conflict. The bluffs at Vicksburg are of pre-eminent importance as a strategic point to the complete control of the great river which almost divides the continent from south to north, penetrates the upper valley nearly to the great chain of lakes, and with its affluents affords about fifteen thousand miles of navigation. No object contributing to the final issue of the war could have presented itself to the great leaders on both sides of the conflict as of more urgent need than the possession and control of the Mississippi. In 1862, movements were begun against the fortifications which the Confederates had placed on the Cumberland and Tennessee and the upper Mississippi. So important and urgent did this appear as a necessary means to a speedy and successful close of the war that operations were begun very early to drive the Confederates from the river, and were conducted both from above and from its mouth. The close of the year 1862 found the Federal naval and military forces dominating the river from the north as far south as Vicksburg, and from the south as far north as Port Hudson. A campaign, supported by the fleet, was undertaken on the east side of the river. The Federal forces moved from the Yazoo River along the banks of the Chickasaw Bayou with a view of gaining a foothold on the bluffs above the city. A battle, stubbornly contested, was fought, and resulted in the defeat and repulse of the Union forces. It demonstrated the impracticability of capturing the city by attacking the army entrenched on the bluffs.