Chapter V: Life During the CIVIL War and Its Sequence. 1862-1866 (2)

This summer at Cape May I made the acquaintance of a very remarkable man named Solomon. He was a Jew, and we became intimate. One evening he said to me: "You know so much about the Jews that I have even learned something from you about them. But I can teach you something. Can you tell the difference between the _Aschkenazim_ and the _Sephardim_ by their eyes? No! Well, now, look!" Just then a Spanish-looking beauty from New Orleans passed by. "There is Miss Inez Aguado; observe that the corners of her eyes are long with a peculiar turn. Wait a minute; now, there is Miss Lowenthal--Levi, of course--of Frankfort. Don't you see the difference?"

I did, and asked him to which of the classes he belonged. He replied--

"To neither. I am of the sect of the ancient Sadducees, who took no part in the Crucifixion."

Then I replied, "You are of the _Karaim_."

"No; that is still another sect or division, though very ancient indeed. We never held to the Halacha, and we laugh at the Mishna and Talmud and all that. We do not believe or disbelieve in a God--Yahveh, or the older Elohim. We hold that every man born knows enough to do what is right; and that is religion enough. After death, if he has acted up to this, he will be all right should there be a future of immortality; and if he hasn't, he will be none the worse off for it. We are a very small sect. We call ourselves the _Neu Reformirte_. We have a place of worship in New York."

This was the first agnostic whom I had ever met. I thought of the woman in Jerusalem who ran about with the torch to burn up heaven and the water to extinguish hell-fire. Yes, the sect was very old. The Sadducees never denied anything; they only inquired as to truth. Seek or _Sikh_!

I confess that Mr. Solomon somewhat weakened the effect of his grand free- thought philosophy by telling me in full faith of a Rabbi in New York who was so learned in the Cabala that by virtue of the sacred names he could recover stolen goods. Whether, like Browning's sage, he also received them, I did not learn. But _c'est tout comme chez nous autres_. The same spirit which induces a man to break out of orthodox humdrumness, induces him to love the marvellous, the forbidden, the odd, the wild, the droll--even as I do. It is not a fair saying that "atheists are all superstitious, which proves that a man must _believe_ in something." No; it is the spirit of nature, of inquiry, of a desire for the new and to penetrate the unknown; and under such influence a man may truly be an atheist as regards what he cannot prove or reconcile with universal love and mercy, and yet a full believer that magic and ghosts may possibly exist among the infinite marvels and mysteries of nature. It is admitted that a man may believe in God without being superstitious; it is much truer that he may be "superstitious" (whatever that means) without believing that there is an anthropomorphic _bon Dieu_. However this may be, Mr. Solomon made me reflect often and deeply for many a long year, until I arrived to the age of Darwin.

I also made at Cape May the acquaintance of a very remarkable man, whom I was destined to often meet in other lands in after years. This was Carrol (not as yet General) Tevis. We first met thus. The ladies wanted seats out on the lawn, and there was not a chair to be had. He and I were seeking in the hotel-office; all the clerks were absent, and all the chairs removed; but there remained a solid iron sofa or settee, six feet long, weighing about 600 pounds. Tevis was strong, and a great fencer; there is a famous _botte_ which he invented, bearing his name; perhaps Walter H. Pollock knows it. I gave the free-lance or _condottiero_ a glance, and proposed to prig the iron sofa and lay waste the enemy. It was a deed after his Dugald Dalgetty heart, and we carried it off and seated the ladies.

In the autumn there was a vast Sanitary Fair for the benefit of the army hospitals held in Philadelphia. I edited for it a daily newspaper called _Our Daily Fare_, which often kept me at work for eighteen hours per diem, and in doing which I was subjected to much needless annoyance and mortification. At this Fair I saw Abraham Lincoln.

It was about this time that the remarkable oil fever, or mania for speculating in oil-lands, broke out in the United States. Many persons had grown rich during the war, and were ready to speculate. Its extent among all classes was incredible. Perhaps the only parallel to it in history was the Mississippi Bubble or the South Sea speculations, and these did not collectively employ so much capital or call out so much money as this petroleum mania. It had many strange social developments, which I was destined to see in minute detail.

My first experience was not very pleasant. A publisher in New York asked me to write him a humorous poem on the oil mania. It was to be large enough to make a small volume. I did so, and in my opinion wrote a good one. It cost me much time and trouble. When it was done, the publisher _refused to take it_, saying that it was not what he wanted. So I lost my labour or _oleum perdidi_.

I had two young friends named Colton, who had been in the war from the beginning to the end, and experienced its changes to the utmost. Neither was over twenty-one. William Colton, the elder, was a captain in the regular cavalry, and the younger, Baldwin, was his orderly. It was a man in the Captain's company, named Yost, who furnished the type of Hans Breitmann as a soldier. The brothers told me that one day in a march in Tennessee, not far from Murfreesboro', they had found petroleum in the road, and thought it indicated the presence of oil-springs. I mentioned this to Mr. Joseph Lea, a merchant of Philadelphia. He was the father of Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, who has since become a very distinguished artist, well known in England, being the first lady painter from whom the British Government ever bought a picture. Mr. Lea thought it might be worth some expense to investigate this Tennessee oil. I volunteered to go, if my expenses were paid, and it was agreed to. It is difficult at the present day to give any reader a clear idea of the dangers and trouble which this undertaking involved, and I was fully aware beforehand what they would be. The place was on the border, in the most disorganised state of society conceivable, and, in fact, completely swarming with guerillas or brigands, _sans merci_, who simply killed and stripped everybody who fell into their hands. All over our border or frontier there are innumerable families who have kept up feuds to the death, or _vendettas_, in some cases for more than a century; and now, in the absence of all civil law, these were engaged in wreaking their old grudges without restraint, and assuredly not sparing any stranger who came between them.

I had a friend in C. A. Dana, the Assistant-Secretary of War, and another in Colonel Henry Olcott, since known as the theosophist. The latter had just come from the country which I proposed to visit. I asked him to aid me in getting military passes and introductions to officers in command. He promised to do so, saying that he would not go through what I had before me for all the oil in America. {274} And, indeed, one could not take up a newspaper without finding full proof that Tennessee was at that time an _inferno_ or No-man's Land of disorder.

I went to it with my eyes wide open. After so many years of work, I was as poor as ever, and the seven years of harvest which I had prophesied had come, and I was not gathering a single golden grain. My father regarded me as a failure in life, or as a literary ne'er-do-weel, destined never to achieve fortune or gain an _etat_, and he was quite right. My war experience had made me reckless of life, and speculation was firing every heart. I bought myself a pair of long, strong, overall boots and blanket, borrowed a revolver, arranged money affairs with Mr. Lea, who always acted with the greatest generosity, intelligence, and kindness, packed my carpet-bag, and departed. It was midwinter, and I was destined for a wintry region, or Venango County, where, until within the past few months, there had been many more bears and deer than human beings. For it was in Venango, Pennsylvania, that the oil-wells were situated, and Mr. Lea judged it advisable that I should first visit them and learn something of the method of working, the geology of the region, and other practical matters.

My brother accompanied me to the station, and I left at about 8 p.m. After a long, long, weary night and day, I arrived at an oil town, whose name I now forget. By great good fortune I secured a room, and by still greater luck I got acquainted the next morning at breakfast with three or four genial and gentlemanly men, all "speculators" like myself, who had come to spy into the plumpness and oiliness of the land. We hired a sleigh and went forth on an excursion among the oil-wells. It was in some respects the most remarkable day I ever spent anywhere.

For here was oil, oil, oil everywhere, in fountains flowing at the rate of a dollar a second (it brought 70 cents a gallon), derricks or scaffoldings at every turn over wells, men making fortunes in an hour, and beggars riding on blooded horses. I myself saw a man in a blue carter's blouse, carrying a black snake-whip, and since breakfast, for selling a friend's farm, he had received 1250,000 as commission (_i.e._, 50,000 pounds). When we stopped to dine at a tavern, there stood behind us during all the meal many country-fellows, all trying to sell oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made or lost incredible sums by gambling in oil-lands, borrowing recklessly, and failing as recklessly. Companies were formed here on the spot as easily as men get up a game of cards, and of this within a few days I witnessed many instances. Two men would meet. "Got any land over?" (_i.e._, not "stocked"). "Yes, first-rate; geologer's certificate; can you put it on the market?" "That's my business. I've floated forty oil stocks already, terms half profits." So it would be floated forthwith. Gambling by _millions_ was in the air everywhere; low common men held sometimes _thirty companies_, all their own, in one pocket, to be presently sprung in New York or elsewhere. And in contrast to it was the utterly bleak wretchedness and poverty of every house, and the miserable shanties, and all around and afar the dismal, dark, pine forests covered with snow.

I heard that day of a man who got a living by spiritually intuiting oil. "Something told him," some Socratic demon or inner impulse, that there was "ile" here or there, deep under the earth. To pilot to this "ile" of beauty he was paid high fees. One of my new friends avowed his intention of at once employing this oil-seer as over-seer.

We came to some stupendous tanks and to a well which, as one of my friends said enviously and longingly, was running three thousand dollars a day in clear greenbacks. Its history was remarkable. For a very long time an engineer had been here, employed by a company in boring, but bore he never so wisely, he could get nothing. At last the company, tired of the expenditure and no returns, wrote to him ordering him to cease all further work on the next Saturday. But the engineer had become "possessed" with the idea that he _must_ succeed, and so, unheeding orders, he bored away all alone the next day. About sunset some one going by heard a loud screaming and hurrahing. Hastening up, he found the engineer almost delirious with joy, dancing like a lunatic round a fountain of oil, which was "as thick as a flour-barrel, and rising to the height of a hundred feet." It was speedily plugged and made available. All of this occurred only a very few days before I saw it.

That night I stopped at a newly-erected tavern, and, as no bed was to be had, made up my mind to sleep in my blanket on the muddy floor, surrounded by a crowd of noisy speculators, waggoners, and the like. I tell this tale vilely, for I omitted to say that I did the same thing the first night when I entered the oil-country, got a bed on the second, and that this was the third. But even here I made the acquaintance of a nice Scotchman, who found out another very nice man who had a house near by, and who, albeit not accustomed to receive guests, said he would give us two one bed, which he did. However, the covering was not abundant, and I, for all my blanket, was a-cold. In the morning I found a full supply of blankets hanging over the foot-board, but we had retired without a light, and had not noticed them. Our breakfast being rather poor, our host, with an apology, brought in a great cold mince-pie three inches thick, which is just the thing which I love best of all earthly food. That he apologised for it indicated a very high degree of culture indeed in rural America, and, in fact, I found that he was a well-read and modest man.

It was, I think, at a place called Plummer that I made the acquaintance of two brothers named B---, who seemed to vibrate on the summit of fortune as two golden balls might on the top of the oil-fountain to which I referred. One spoke casually of having at that instant a charter for a bank in one pocket, and one for a railroad in the other. They bought and sold any and all kinds of oil-land in any quantity, without giving it a thought. While I was in their office, one man exhibited a very handsome revolver. "How much did it cost?" asked B. "Fifty dollars" (10 pounds). "I wish," replied B., "that when you go to Philadelphia you'd get me a dozen of them for presents." A man came to the window and called for him. "What do you want?" "Here are the two horses I spoke about yesterday." Hardly heeding him, and talking to others, B. went to the window, cast a casual glance at the steeds, and said, "What was it you said that you wanted for them?" "Three thousand dollars." "All right! go and put 'em in the stable, and come here and get the money."

From Plummer I had to go ten miles to Oil City. If I had only known it, one of my very new friends, who was very kind indeed to a stranger, would have driven me over in his sleigh. But I did not know it, and so paid a very rough countryman ten dollars (2 pounds) to take me over on a _jumper_. This is the roughest form of a sledge, consisting of two saplings with the ends turned up, fastened by cross-pieces. The snow on the road was two feet deep, and the thermometer at zero. But the driver had two good horses, and made good time. I found it very difficult indeed to hold on to the vehicle and also to keep my carpet-bag. Meanwhile my driver entertained me with an account of a great misfortune which had just befallen him. It was as follows:--

"Before this here oil-fever came along I had a little farm that cost me $150, and off that, an' workin' at carpentrin', I got a _mighty_ slim livin'. I used to keep all my main savin's to pay taxes, and often had to save up the cents to get a prospective drink of whisky. Well, last week I sold my farm for forty thousand dollars, and dern my skin ef the feller that bought it didn't go and sell it yesterday for a hundred and fifty thousand! Just like my derned bad luck!"

"See here, my friend," I said; "I have travelled pretty far in my time, but I never saw a country in which a man with forty thousand dollars was not considered rich."

"He may be rich anywhere else with it," replied the _nouveau riche_ contemptuously, "but it wouldn't do more than buy him a glass of whisky here in Plummer."

Having learned what I could of oil-boring, I went to Cincinnati, and then to Nashville by rail. It may give the reader some idea of what kind of a country and life I was coming into when I tell him that the train which preceded mine had been stopped by the guerillas, who took from it fifty Federal soldiers and shot them dead, stripping the other passengers; and that the one which came after had a hundred and fifty bullets fired into it, but had not been stopped. We passed by Mammoth Cave, but at full speed, for it was held by the brigands. All of which things were duly chronicled in the Northern newspapers, and read by all at home.

I got to Nashville. It had very recently been taken by the Federal forces under General Thomas, who had put it under charge of General Whipple, who was, in fact, the ruling or administrative man of the Southwest just then. I went to the hotel. Everything was dismal and dirty--nothing but soldiers and officers, with all the marks of the field and of warfare visible on them--citizens invisible--everything proclaiming a city camp in time of war--sixty thousand men in a city of twenty thousand, more or less. I got a room. It was so cold that night that the ice froze two inches thick in my pitcher in my room.

I expected to find the brothers Colton in Nashville. I went to the proper military authority, and was informed that their regiment was down at the front in Alabama, as was also the officer who had the authority to give them leave of absence. I was also informed that my only chance was to go to Alabama, or, in fact, into the field itself, as a civilian! This was a dreary prospect. However, I made up my mind to it, and was walking along the street in a very sombre state of mind, for I was going to a country like that described in "Sir Grey Stele"--

"Whiche is called the Land of Doubte."

And doubtful indeed, and very dismal and cold and old, did everything seem on that winter afternoon as I, utterly alone, went my way. What I wanted most of all things on earth was a companion. With my brother I would have gone down to the front and to face all chances as if it were to a picnic.

When ill-fortune intends to make a spring, she draws back. But good fortune, God bless her! does just the same. Therefore _si fortuna tonat_, _caveto mergi_--if fortune frowns, do not for that despond. Just as I was passing a very respectable-looking mansion, I saw a sign over its office-door bearing the words: "Captain Joseph R. Paxton, Mustering- in and Disbursing Officer."

Joseph R. Paxton was a very intimate friend of mine in Philadelphia. He was still a young man, and one of the most remarkable whom I have ever known. He was a great scholar. He was more familiar with all the _rariora_, _curiosa_, and singular marvels of literature than any body I ever knew except Octave Delepierre, with whose works he first made me acquainted. He had translated Ik Marvel's "Reveries of a Bachelor" into French, and had been accepted by a Paris publisher. He had been a lawyer, an agent for a railroad, and had long edited in Philadelphia a curious journal entitled _Bizarre_, and written a work on gems. His whole soul, however, was in the French literature of the eighteenth century, and he always had a library which would make a collector's mouth water. Had he lived in London or Paris, he would have made a great reputation. And he was kind-hearted, genial, and generous to a fault. He had always some unfortunate friend living on him, some Bohemian of literature under a cloud.

I entered the office and found him, and great was his amazement! "_Que diable_, _mon ami_, _faistu ici dans cette galere_?" was his greeting. I explained the circumstances in detail. He at once exclaimed, "Come and live here with me. General Whipple is my brother-in-law, and he will be here in a few days and live with us. He'll make it all right." "Here, Jim!" he cried to a great six-foot man of colour--"run round to the hotel and bring this gentleman's luggage!"

There I remained for a very eventful month. Paxton had entered with the conquerors, and had just seized on the house. I may indeed say that _we_ seized on it, as regards any right--I being accepted as hail-fellow-well- met, and as a bird of the same feather. In it was a piano and a very good old-fashioned library. It was like Paxton to loot a library. He had had his pick of the best houses, and took this one, "niggers included," for the servants, by some odd freak, preferred freedom with Paxton to slavery with their late owner. This gentleman was a Methodist clergyman, and Paxton found among his papers proofs that he had been concerned in a plot to burn Cincinnati by means of a gang of secret incendiaries.

Whenever the blacks realised the fact that a Northern man was a _gentleman_--they all have marvellous instincts for this, and a respect for one beyond belief--they took to him with a love like that of bees for a barrel of syrup. I have experienced this so often, and in many cases so touchingly, that I cannot refrain from recording it. Among others who thus took to me was the giant Jim, who was unto Paxton and me as the captive of our bow and spear, albeit an emancipated contraband. When the Southerners defied General Butler to touch their slaves, because they were their "property" by law, the General replied by "confiscating" the property by what Germans call _Faustrecht_ (or fist-right) as "contraband of war."

This Jim, the general waiter and butler, was a character, shrewd, clever, and full of dry humour. When I was alone in the drawing-room of an evening, he would pile up a great wood-fire, and, as I sat in an arm-chair, would sit or recline on the floor by the blaze and tell me stories of his slave life, such as this:--

"My ole missus she always say to me, 'Jim, don' you ever have anything to do with dem Yankees. Dey're all pore miserable wile wretches. Dey lib in poverty an' nastiness and don' know nothin'.' I says to her, 'It's mighty quare, missus. I can't understan' it. Whar do all dem books come from? Master gits em from de Norf. Who makes all our boots an' clothes and sends us tea an' everythin'? Dey can't all be so pore an' ignoran' ef dey writes our books an' makes everythin' we git.' 'Jim,' she says, 'you're a fool, an' don' understan' nothin'.' 'Wery good, missus,' says I, but I thinked it over. All we do is to raise cotton, an' dey make it into cloff, which we hav'n't de sense to do."

I believe that I give this word for word. And Jim, as I found, was a leading mind among the blacks.

I had a letter of introduction from Mr. Lea to Horace Harrison, who was the State Attorney for Tennessee. At this time his power was very great, for he had in his hands the disposition of all the estates of all the rebels in Tennessee. He was the type of a Southwestern gentleman. He reminded me very much of my old Princeton friends, and when I was in his office smoking a pipe, I felt as if I were in college again. I liked him very much. One morning I called, and after some deliberation he said, "You are a lawyer, are you not?" I replied that I had studied law under Judge Cadwallader.

"Then I should like to consult with you as a lawyer. I have a very difficult case to deal with. There is a law declaring that all property belonging to rebels shall be seized and held for one year. Now, here is a man whose estate I have held for six months, who has come in and declared his allegiance, and asks for his lands. And I believe that before long, unless he comes in now, they will be almost ruined. What shall I do?"

"It appears to me," I replied, "that if the disposal of these lands is in your hands, you must be supposed to exert some will and discretion. _Stat pro ratione voluntas_ is a good axiom here. We are not at all _in statu quo ante bellum_--in fact, the war is not at an end, nor decided. Your duty is to act for the good of the country, and not simply to _skin_ the enemy like a bushwhacker, but to pacify the people. _Victor volentes per populos dat jura_--laws should always be mildly interpreted. In your case, considering the very critical condition of the country, I should in equity give the man his property, and take his oath of allegiance. Severe measures are not advisable--_quod est violentum_, _non est durabile_."

This is, I believe, pretty accurately what I said. That evening, as I was sitting with General Whipple, he amazed me by addressing me exactly as Mr. Harrison had done in the morning.

"I say, Leland, you're a lawyer, and I want your advice. There are six warehouses here, and I want them badly for military stores. But Horace Harrison says that I can't have them, because he holds them for the United States. What am I to do?"

"General Whipple," I replied, "is this town under military occupation in time of war, or is it not?"

"Most decidedly it is."

"So I should think from the way your patrols bother me. And if such is the case, all things must yield to military wants. Where we have no legal principles or courts to decide, we must fall back on legal axioms. And here the law is clear and explicit, for it says, _Inter arma leges silent_--the laws are suspended in warfare."

"A magnificent saying!" exclaimed the General admiringly. "Ah! you ought to be in the Supreme Court." And seizing a pen he wrote to the State Attorney:--

"SIR: This town, being but recently captured from the enemies of the
United States, is, of course, under military occupation, which renders
absolutely necessary for military purpose many temporary seizures and
uses, such as that of the six warehouses referred to in our late
correspondence. As regards legal precedent and principle, I need not
remind one of your learning that--(I say, Leland, how do you spell
that Latin?--_I-n-t-e-r_--yes, I've got it)--_Inter arma silent
leges_."

I am afraid that Horace Harrison, when he got that letter, suspected that I had been acting as counsel for both sides. However, as I took no fee, my conscience was at rest. I think that I was of great use to General Whipple at that time, and, as he said one day, an unofficial secretary. Great and serious matters passed through our hands (for the General and Harrison were taking the lead in virtually reforming the whole frontier or debatable land), and these grand affairs were often hurried through "like hot cakes." My slender legal attainments were several times in requisition on occasions when the head of the Supreme Court would have been a more appropriate referee. I discovered, however, that there was really a department of law in which I might have done good work. Questions of very serious importance were often discussed and disposed of among us three with very great economy of time and trouble. And here I may say--"excuse the idle word"--that I wonder that I never in all my life fell into even the most trifling diplomatic or civil position, when, in the opinion of certain eminent friends, I possess several qualifications for such a calling--that is, quickness in mastering the legal bearings of a question, a knowledge of languages and countries, readiness in drawing up papers, and an insatiable love of labour, which latter I have not found to be _always_ possessed by the accomplished gentlemen whom our country employs abroad.

I may here narrate a curious incident which touched and gratified me. When all the slaves in Nashville were set free by the entrance of our troops, the poor souls, to manifest their joy, seized a church (nobody opposing), and for three weeks held heavy worship for twenty-four hours per diem. _But not a white soul was allowed to enter_--the real and deeply-concealed reason being that Voodoo rites (which gained great headway during the war) formed a part of their devotion. However, I was informed that an exception would be made in my case, and that I was free to enter. And why? Had Jim surmised, by that marvellous intuition of character which blacks possess, that I had in me "the mystery"? Now, to- day I hold and possess the black stone of the Voodoo, the possession of which of itself makes me a grand-master and initiate or adept, and such an invitation would seem as natural as one to a five-o'clock tea elsewhere; but I was not known to any one in Nashville as a "cunjerer," and the incident strikes me as very curious.

Apropos of marvels, many of the blacks can produce in their throats by some strange process sounds, and even airs, resembling those of the harmonicon, or musical box, one or the other or both. One evening in Nashville, in a lonely place, I heard exquisite music, which I thought must be that of a superior hand-organ from afar. But, to my amazement, I could discover none; there were only two black boys in the street. Alexis Paxton, the son of my host, explained to me that what I heard was unquestionably music made by those ebony flutes of boys, and that there were some wonderful performers in the city. I have listened to the same music at a public exhibition. I greatly wonder that I have never heard of this kind of music in Europe or the East. It is distinctly _instrumental_, not vocal in its tones. It has the obvious recommendation of economy, since by means of it a young lady could be performer and pianoforte all in one, which was indeed the beginning of the invention in Syrinx, who was made into a pan-pipe, which as a piano became the great musical curse (according to Heine) of modern times, and by which, as I conjecture, the fair Miss Reed or Syrinx revenges herself on male humanity. By the way, the best singer of "_Che faro senza Euridice_" whom I ever heard was a Miss Reed, a sister of Mrs. Paran Stevens.

I had a very pleasant time with Paxton, and I know right well that I was no burden on him, but a welcome friend. _Au reste_, there was plenty of room in the house, and abundant army stores to be had for asking, and one or two rare acquaintances. One of these was a Southern officer, now a general, who had come over to our side and fought, as the saying was, with a rope round his neck. He was terribly hated by the rebels, which hate he returned with red-hot double compound interest--for a renegade is worse than ten Turks. He was the very type of a grim, calm old Border moss-trooper. He lived in his boots, and never had an ounce of luggage. One evening General Whipple (always humane and cultivated, though as firm as an iron bar) said to him before me, "I really don't know what to do with many of my rebel prisoners. They dress themselves in Federal uniforms for want of other clothes; they take them from the dead on the battlefield, and try to pass themselves off for Federals. It is very troublesome."

"No trouble to me," replied the other.

"And how do you do with them?"

"Shoot them as _spies_. Why, only last week I got four dozen of them, and in less than four minutes I had them all laid out stiff in the road."

The reader need not imagine that the general here romanced or exaggerated. At that very moment the massacres and murders which were going on within three miles of us were beyond belief. The bands of _guerillas_ or bushwhackers which swept the country murdered in cold blood all who fell into their hands, and the Confederate soldiers often did the same. There resulted, of course, a deadly hatred on both sides, and the most unscrupulous retaliation.

I could fill a book with the very interesting observations which I made in Nashville. And here I call attention to a very strange coincidence which this recalls. During the previous year I had often expressed a great desire to be in some State during its transition from Confederacy to Unionism, that I might witness the remarkable social and political paradoxes and events which would result, and I had often specified Tennessee as the one above all others which I should prefer to visit for this purpose. And I had about as much idea that I should go to the moon as there. But prayers are strangely granted at strange hours--_plus impetravi quam fuissem ausus_--and I was placed in the very centre of the wheel. This very remarkable fulfilment of a wish, and many like it, though due to mere chance, naturally made an impression on me, for no matter how strong our eyesight may be, or our sense of truth, we are all dazed when coming out of darkness into light, and all the world is in that condition now. No matter how completely we exchange the gloom of supernaturalism for the sunlight of science, phantoms still seem to flit before our eyes, and, what is more bewildering still, we do not as yet know but what these phantoms may be physical facts. Perhaps the Voodoo stone _may_ have the power to awaken the faith which may move the vital or nervous force, which may act on hidden subtler forms of electricity and matter, atoms and molecules. Ah! we have a great deal to learn!

Through General Whipple's kind aid the brothers Colton were at once brought up from the front. With them and Captain Paxton we went to Murfreesboro, and at once called on the general in command, whose name I have forgotten. He struck me as a grim, brave old commander, every inch a soldier. While we conversed with him a sergeant entered, a man who looked as if he lived in the saddle, and briefly reported that a gang of guerillas were assembled at a certain place some miles away--I forget how far, but the distance was traversed in an incredibly short time. The general issued orders for a hundred cavalry to go at once and "get" them. They "got" them, killing many, and the next morning, on looking from my window, I saw the victors ride into the courtyard, many of them with their captives tied neck and heels, like bags of corn, over the cruppers of the horses. A nice night's ride they must have had! But the choice was between death and being cruppered, and they preferred the latter to coming a cropper. Strange that the less a man has to live for the more he clings to life.

The general thought that if he gave us a corporal and four men, and if we were well armed, that we _might_ go out on the Bole Jack road and return unharmed, "unless we met with any of the great gangs of bushwhackers." But he evidently thought, as did General Whipple, who did not heed a trifle by any means, that we were going into the lion's jaws. So the next morning, _equo iter ingredi_, I rode forth. I had some time before been appointed aide-de-camp to Governor Pollock, of Pennsylvania, with the rank of colonel, and had now two captains and a corporal with his guard. It was a rather small regiment.

We heard grim stories that morning as to what had taken place all around us within almost a few hours. Three Federal pickets had been treacherously shot while on guard the night before; the troops had surprised a gang of bushwhackers holding a ball, and firing through the windows, dropped ten of them dead while dancing; two men had been murdered by --- --- and his gang. This was a noted guerilla, who was said to have gone south with the Confederate army, but who was more generally believed to have remained in hiding, and to have committed most of the worst outrages and murders of late.

At the first house where we stopped in the woods there lay a wounded man, one of the victims of the dance the night before. The inmates were silent, but not rude to us. I offered a man whisky, but he replied, "I don't use it." We rode on. Once there was an alarm of "bushwhackers." I should have forgotten it but for the memory of the look of Baldwin Colton's eyes, the delighted earnestness of a man or of a wild creature going to fight. He and his brother had hunted and fought guerillas a hundred times, perhaps much oftener, for it was a regular daily service at the front. Once during a retreat, Baldwin (eighteen or nineteen years of age) fell out of rank so often to engage in hand-to-hand sword conflicts with rebel cavalrymen, that his brother detached four to take him prisoner and keep him safe. Daring spirits among our soldiers often became very fond of this kind of duelling, in which the rebs were not a whit behind them, and two of the infantry on either side would, under cover of the bushes, aim and pop away at one another perhaps for hours, like two red Indians.

I have forgotten whether it was with extra whisky, coffee, or money that we specially gratified our corporal and guard; but Baldwin, who was "one of 'em," informed me that they enjoyed this little outing immensely, just like a picnic, and had a good time. From which it may be inferred that men's ideas of enjoyment are extremely relative. It could not have been in the dodging of guerillas--to that they were accustomed; perhaps it was the little extra ration, or the mystery of the excursion, for they were much puzzled to know what I wanted, why I examined the road and rocks, and all so strangely, and went into the very worst place in all the land to do so. Baldwin Colton himself had been so knocked about during the war, and so starved as a prisoner in Southern hands, that he looked back on a sojourn in that _ergastulum_, Libby Prison, as rather an oasis in his sad experiences. "It wasn't so bad a place as some, and there was good company, and always _something to eat_." The optimist of Candide was a Mallock in mourning compared to this.

That night we came to somebody's plantation. I forget his name, but he was a Union man, probably a _very_ recent acquisition, but genial. He had read the _Knickerbocker_, and knew my name well, and took good care of us. In the morning I offered him ten dollars for our night's lodging, which was, in the opinion of my two captains, stupendously liberal, as soldiers never paid. Our host declined it like a Southern planter, on the ground that he never sold his hospitality. So I put the money into the hand of one of his pretty children as a present. But as we rode forth we were called back, and reminded that we had forgotten to pay for the _soldiers_! I gave another five-dollar greenback and rode away disgusted. And at the gate a negro girl begged us to give her a "dalla" (dollar) to buy a fish-line. It all came from my foolish offer to pay. Gratitude is a sense of further benefits to be bestowed.

The place where the oil had been seen was near a conical rocky hill called Grindstone Knob. We examined carefully and found no trace of it. The geology of the country was unfavourable, much flint and conglomerate, if I remember, and wanting in the signs of coal, shales, &c., and "faults" or ravines. I may be quite wrong, but such was my opinion. No one who lived thereabout had ever heard of "ile." Once I asked a rustic if any kind of oil was found in the neighbourhood in springs. His reply was, "What! _ile_ come up outer the ground like water! H---! I never heard of sitch a thing." _There was no oil_.

At the foot of Grindstone Knob was a rather neat, small house, white, with green blinds. We were somewhat astonished to learn from a negro boy, who spoke the most astonishingly bad English, that this was the home of Mas' --- ---. Yes, this was the den of the wolf himself, and I had no doubt that he was not far off. There was a small cotton plantation round about.

We entered, and were received by a good-looking, not unladylike, but rather fierce-eyed young woman and her younger sister. It was Mrs. ---. The two had been to a lady's seminary in Nashville, and played the piano for us. I felt that we were in a strange situation, and now and then walked to the window and looked out, listening all the time suspiciously to every sound. It was easy enough for Mrs. ---, the brigand's wife, to perceive from my untanned complexion that I had not been in the field, and was manifestly no soldier. "_You_ look like an officer," she said to Captain Colton, "and so does _that_ one, but what is _he_?" meaning me by this last. We had dinner--roast kid--and when we departed I gave the dame five dollars, having the feeling that I could not be indebted to thieves for a dinner.

We had gone but a little distance when we saw two bushwhackers with guns, and gave chase, but they disappeared in the bushes, much to the grief of our men, who would have liked either to shoot them or to bring them in. Then the corporal told us that while we were at dinner's "faithful blacks" had informed his men that "Mas' had been at home ever since Crismas"; that at eleven o'clock every night they assembled at the house and thence went out marauding and murdering.

I paused, astonished and angry. It was almost certain that the bushwhacker had been during dinner probably in the cellar under our feet. The guerillas had great fear of our regular soldiers; two of the latter were a match at any time for half-a-dozen of the former, as was proved continually. Should I go back and hang --- up over his own door? I was dying to do it, but we had before us a very long ride through the Cedar Barrens, the sun was sinking in the west, and we had heard news which made it extremely likely that a large band of guerillas would be in the way.

That resolve to go actually saved our lives, for I heard the next day that a hundred and fifty of these free murderers had gone on our road just after us. This fact was at once transferred to the Northern newspapers, that "on --- a hundred and fifty bushwhackers passed over the Bole Jack road." Which was read by my wife and father, who knew that on that very day I was on that road, to their great apprehension.

I never shall forget the dismal appearance of the Cedar Barrens. The soil was nowhere more than two inches deep, and the trees which covered it by millions had all died as soon as they attained a height of fifteen or twenty feet. Swarms of ill-omened turkey-buzzards were the only living creatures visible "like foul _lemures_ flitting in the gloom."

Riding over the battlefield the Coltons and Paxton pointed out many things, for they had all been in it severely. At one place, Major Rosengarten, a brother of my old Paris fellow-student, had had a sabre- fight with a rebel, and they told me how Rosengarten's sword, being one of the kind which was issued by contract in the earlier days of the war, bent and broke like a piece of tin. Hearing a ringing sound Baldwin jumped from his horse, picked up a steel ramrod and gave it to me for a cane.

As we approached Murfreesboro' I met a genial, daring soldier, one Major Hill, whom I had seen before. He had with him a hundred and fifty cavalry. "Where are you going so late by night?" I said.

He replied, "I am after that infernal scoundrel, --- ---. My scouts have found out pretty closely his range. I am going to divide my men into tens and scatter them over the country and then close in."

"Major," I replied, "I will tell you just where to lay your hand at once, heavy on him. Do you know Grindstone Knob and a white house with green windows at its foot?"

"I do."

"Well, be there at exactly eleven to-night, and you'll get him. I have been there and learned it from the niggers."

"Well, I declare that you are a good scout, Mr. Leland!" cried the Major in amazement. "What can I do to thank you?"

"Well, Major Hill," I said, "I have one thing to request: that is, if you get ---, don't parole him. _Shoot him at once_; he is a red-handed murderer."

"I _will_ shoot him," said the Major, and rode forth into the night with his men. But whether he ever got --- I never knew, though according to the calculations of the Coltons, who were extremely experienced in such matters, "Massa ---" had not more than one chance in a thousand to escape, and Hill was notoriously a good guerilla-hunter and a man of his word.

I believe that at the plantation our men had camped out. At Murfreesboro' we returned them to the general, and I took the Coltons to a hotel, which was so very rough that I apologised for it, while Baldwin said it seemed to him to be luxurious beyond belief, and that it was the first night for eighteen months in which he had slept in a bed. In the morning I wanted a spur, having lost one of mine, and there was brought to me a large boxful of all kinds of spurs to choose from, which had been left in the house at one time or another during the war.

I did not remain long in Nashville after returning thither. I had instructions to go to Louisville, Kentucky, and there consult with a certain merchant as to certain lands. General Whipple accompanied me to the "depot," which was for the time and place as much of an honour as if Her Majesty were to come to see me off at Victoria Station. There was many and many a magnate in those days and there, who would have given thousands to have had his ear as Paxton and I had it.

One night we were in the side private box at the theatre in Nashville. Couldock, whom I had known well many years before, was on the stage. The General was keeping himself deeply in the shade to remain unseen. He remarked to Paxton that he wanted a house for his family, who would soon arrive, and could not find one, for they were all occupied. This one remark shows the man. I wonder how long General Butler would have hesitated to move anybody!

Captain Paxton knew everything and everybody. With a quick glance from his keen dark eyes he exclaimed--

"I've got it! Do you see that fat man laughing so heartily in the pit? He has a splendid house; it would just suit you; and he's a d---d old rebel. I know enough about him to hang him three times over. He has" (here followed a series of political iniquities). "_Voila votre affaire_."

"And how is it that he has kept his house?" asked the General.

"He sent the quartermaster a barrel of whisky, or something of that sort."

The General looked thoughtfully at the fat man as the latter burst into a fresh peal of laughter. I thought that if he had known what was being said in our box that laugh would have died away.

I do not know whether the General took the house. I think he did. I left for Louisville. There I saw the great merchant, who invited me to his home to supper and consulted with me. His daughters were rebels and would not speak to me. He had a great deal of property in Indiana, which _might_ be oil-lands. If I would visit it and report on it, he would send his partner with me to examine it. I consented to go.

This partner, Mr. W., was a young man of agreeable, easy manners. With him I went to Indianapolis, and thence by "stages," waggons, or on horseback through a very dismal country in gloomy winter into the interior of the State. I can remember vast marshy fields with millions of fiddler crabs scuttling over them, and more mud than I had ever seen in my life. The village streets were six inches deep in soft mud up to the doors and floors of the houses. At last we reached our journey's end at a large log-house on a good farm.

I liked the good man of the house. He said to us, after a time, that at first he thought we were a couple of stuck-up city fellows, but had found to his joy that we were old-fashioned, sensible people. There was no sugar at his supper-table, but he had three substitutes for it--"tree-sweetnin', bee-sweetnin', and sorghum"--that is, maple sugar, honey, and the molasses made from Chinese maize. Only at a mile's distance there was a "sugar-camp," and we could see the fires and hear the shouts of the people engaged night and day in making sugar from the trees.

He told me that on the hills in sight a mysterious light often wandered. During the Revolutionary war some one had buried a barrelful of silver plate and money, and over it flitted the quivering silver flame, but no one could ever find the spot.

The next day I examined the land. There was abundance of fossiliferous limestone, rich in petrifactions of tertiary shells, also cartloads of beautiful _geodes_ or round flint balls, which often rattled, and which, when broken, were encrusted with white or purple amethystine crystals. I decided that there were places where oil might be found, though there was certainly no indication of it. I believe that my conjecture subsequently proved to be true, and that Indiana has shown herself to be a wise virgin not without oil.

On the afternoon of the next day, riding with my guide, I found that I had left my blanket at a house miles behind. I offered the man a large price to return and bring it, which he did. While waiting by the wood, in a dismal drizzle, I saw a log cabin and went to it for shelter. Its only inmate was a young woman, who, seeing me coming, hastily locked the door and rushed into the neighbouring woods. When the guide returned I expressed some astonishment at the flight; _he_ did not. With a very grave expression he asked me, "Don't the gals in _your_ part of the country allays break for the woods when they see _you_ a-coming?" "Certainly not," I replied. To which he made answer, "Thank God, our gals here hev got better morrils than yourn."

We returned to St. Louis. There I was shown the immensely long tomb of Porter the Kentucky giant. This man was nine feet in height! I had seen him alive long before in Philadelphia. I made several interesting acquaintances in St. Louis, the Athens of the West. But I must hurry on.