Chapter I

I will go on the slightest errand now to the antipodes that
you can desire to send me on.--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Early in 1861, I felt a strong desire to look at the Secession movement for myself; to learn, by personal observation, whether it sprang from the people or not; what the Revolutionists wanted, what they hoped, and what they feared.

But the southern climate, never propitious to the longevity of Abolitionists, was now unfavorable to the health of every northerner, no matter how strong his political constitution. I felt the danger of being recognized; for several years of roving journalism, and a good deal of political speaking on the frontier, had made my face familiar to persons whom I did not remember at all, and given me that large and motley acquaintance which every half-public life necessitates.

Moreover, I had passed through the Kansas struggle; and many former shining lights of Border Ruffianism were now, with perfect fitness, lurid torches in the early bonfires of Secession. I did not care to meet their eyes, for I could not remember a single man of them all who would be likely to love me, either wisely or too well. But the newspaper instinct was strong within me, and the journalist who deliberates is lost. My hesitancy resulted in writing for a roving commission to represent THE TRIBUNE in the Southwest.

[Sidenote: THE MANAGING EDITOR.]

A few days after, I found the Managing Editor in his office, going through the great pile of letters the morning mail had brought him, with the wonderful rapidity which quick intuition, long experience, and natural fitness for that most delicate and onerous position alone can give. For the modern newspaper is a sort of intellectual iron-clad, upon which, while the Editorial Captain makes out the reports to his chief, the public, and entertains the guests in his elegant cabin, the leading column, and receives the credit for every broadside of type and every paper bullet of the brain poured into the enemy,--back out of sight is an Executive Officer, with little popular fame, who keeps the ship all right from hold to maintop, looks to every detail with sleepless vigilance, and whose life is a daily miracle of hard work.

The Manager went through his mail, I think, at the rate of one letter per minute. He made final disposition of each when it came into his hand; acting upon the great truth, that if he laid one aside for future consideration, there would soon be a series of strata upon his groaning desk, which no mental geologist could fathom or classify. Some were ruthlessly thrown into the waste-basket. Others, with a lightning pencil-stroke, to indicate the type and style of printing, were placed on the pile for the composing-room. A few great packages of manuscript were re-enclosed in envelopes for the mail, with a three-line note, which, while I did not read, I knew must run like this:--

"MY DEAR SIR--Your article has unquestionable merit; but by
the imperative pressure of important news upon our columns,
we are very reluctantly compelled," etc.

[Sidenote: PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS.]

There was that quick, educated instinct, which reads the whole from a very small part, taking in a line here and a key-word there. Two or three glances appeared to decide the fate of each; yet the reader was not wholly absorbed, for all the while he kept up a running conversation:

"I received your letter. Are you going to New Orleans?"

"Not unless you send me."

"I suppose you know it is rather precarious business?"

"O, yes."

"Two of our correspondents have come home within the last week, after narrow escapes. We have six still in the South; and it would not surprise me, this very hour, to receive a telegram announcing the imprisonment or death of any one of them."

"I have thought about all that, and decided."

"Then we shall be very glad to have you go."

"When may I start?"

"To-day, if you like."

"What field shall I occupy?"

"As large a one as you please. Go and remain just where you think best."

"How long shall I stay?"

"While the excitement lasts, if possible. Do you know how long you _will_ stay? You will be back here some fine morning in just about two weeks."

"Wait and see."

Pondering upon the line of conduct best for the journey, I remembered the injunction of the immortal Pickwick: "It is always best on these occasions to do what the mob do!" "But," suggested Mr. Snodgrass, "suppose there are two mobs?" "_Shout with the largest_," replied Mr. Pickwick. Volumes could not say more. Upon this plan I determined to act--concealing my occupation, political views, and place of residence. It is not pleasant to wear a padlock upon one's tongue, for weeks, nor to adopt a course of systematic duplicity; but personal convenience and safety rendered it an inexorable necessity.

[Sidenote: A RIDE THROUGH KENTUCKY.]

On Tuesday, February 26th, I left Louisville, Kentucky, by the Nashville train. Public affairs were the only topic of conversation among the passengers. They were about equally divided into enthusiastic Secessionists, urging in favor of the new movement that negroes already commanded higher prices than ever before; and quasi Loyalists, reiterating, "We only want Kentucky to remain in the Union as long as she can do so honorably." Not a single man declared himself unqualifiedly for the Government.

A ride of five hours among blue, dreamy hills, feathered with timber; dense forests, with their drooping foliage and log dwellings, in the doors of which women and little girls were complacently smoking their pipes; great, hospitable farm-houses, in the midst of superb natural parks; tobacco plantations, upon which negroes of both sexes--the women in cowhide brogans, and faded frocks, with gaudy kerchiefs wrapped like turbans about their heads--were hoeing, and following the plow, brought us to Cave City.

I left the train for a stage-ride of ten miles to the Mammoth Cave Hotel. In the midst of a smooth lawn, shaded by stately oaks and slender pines, it looms up huge and white, with a long, low, one-story offshoot fronted by a deep portico, and known as "the Cottages."

[Sidenote: THE CURIOSITIES OF WHITE'S CAVE.]

Several evening hours were spent pleasantly in White's Cave, where the formations, at first dull and leaden, turn to spotless white after one grows accustomed to the dim light of the torches. There are little lakes so utterly transparent that your eye fails to detect the presence of water; stone drapery, hanging in graceful folds, and forming an exquisitely beautiful chamber; petrified fountains, where the water still trickles down and hardens into stone; a honey-combed roof, which is a very perfect counterfeit of art; long rows of stalactites, symmetrically ribbed and fluted, which stretch off in a pleasing colonnade, and other rare specimens of Nature's handiwork in her fantastic moods. Many of them are vast in dimension, though the geologists declare that it requires _thirty_ years to deposit a formation no thicker than a wafer! Well says the German proverb "God is patient because he is eternal."

With another visitor I passed the next day in the Mammoth Cave. "Mat," our sable cicerone, had been acting in the capacity of guide for twenty-five years, and it was estimated that he had walked more than fifty thousand miles under ground. The story is not so improbable when one remembers that the passages of the great cavern are, in the aggregate, upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in length, and that it has two hundred and twenty-six known chambers. The outfit consisted of two lamps for himself and one for each of us. Cans of oil are kept at several interior points; for it is of the last importance that visitors to this labyrinth of darkness should keep their lamps trimmed and burning.

[Sidenote: THE MAMMOTH CAVE.--LUNG COMPLAINTS.]

The thermometer within stands constantly at fifty-nine Fahrenheit; and the cave "breathes just once a year." Through the winter it takes one long inspiration, and in summer the air rushes steadily outward. Its vast chambers are the lungs of the universe.

In 1845, a number of wood and stone cottages were erected in the cavern, and inhabited by consumptive patients, who believed that the dry atmosphere and equable temperature would prove beneficial. After three or four months their faces were bloodless; the pupils of their sunken eyes dilated until the iris became invisible and the organs appeared black, no matter what their original color. Three patients died in the cave; the others expired soon after leaving it.

Mat gave a vivid description of these invalids flitting about like ghosts--their hollow coughs echoing and reechoing through the cavernous chambers. It must have looked horrible--as if the tomb had oped its ponderous and marble jaws, that its victims might wander about in this subterranean Purgatory. A cemetery would seem cheerful in comparison with such a living entombment. Volunteer medical advice, like a motion to adjourn, is always in order. My own panacea for lung-complaints would be exactly the opposite. Mount a horse or take a carriage, and ride, by easy stages at first, across the great plains to the Rocky Mountains or California, eating and sleeping in the open air. Nature is very kind, if you will trust her fully; and in the atmosphere, which is so dry and pure that fresh meat, cut in strips and hung up, will cure without salting or smoking, and may be carried all over the world, her healing power seems almost boundless.

The walls and roof of the cave were darkened and often hidden by myriads of screeching bats, at this season of the year all hanging torpid by the claws, with heads downward, and unable to fly away, even when subjected to the cruel experiment of being touched by the torches.

[Sidenote: METHODIST CHURCH.--FAT MAN'S MISERY.]

The Methodist Church is a semi-circular chamber, in which a ledge forms the natural pulpit; and logs, brought in when religious service was first performed, fifty years ago, in perfect preservation, yet serve for seats. Methodist itinerants and other clergymen still preach at long intervals. Worship, conducted by the "dim religious light" of tapers, and accompanied by the effect which music always produces in subterranean halls, must be peculiarly impressive. It suggests those early days in the Christian Church, when the hunted followers of Jesus met at midnight in mountain caverns, to blend in song their reverent voices; to hear anew the strange, sweet story of his teachings, his death, and his all-embracing love.

Upon one of the walls beyond, a figure of gypsum, in bass-relief, is called the American Eagle. The venerable bird, in consonance with the evil times upon which he had fallen, was in a sadly ragged and dilapidated condition. One leg and other portions of his body had seceded, leaving him in seeming doubt as to his own identity; but the beak was still perfect, as if he could send forth upon occasion his ancient notes of self-gratulation.

Minerva's Dome has fluted walls, and a concave roof, beautifully honey-combed; but no statue of its mistress. The oft-invoked goddess, wearied by the merciless orators who are always compelling her to leap anew from the brain of Jove, has doubtless, in some hidden nook, found seclusion and repose.

We toiled along the narrow, tortuous passage, chiseled through the rock by some ancient stream of water, and appropriately named the Fat Man's Misery; wiped away the perspiration in the ample passage beyond, known as the Great Relief; glanced inside the Bacon Chamber, where the little masses of lime-rock pendent from the roof do look marvelously like esculent hams; peeped down into the cylindrical Bottomless Pit, which the reader shall be told, confidentially, _has_ a bottom just one hundred and sixty feet below the surface; laughed at the roof-figures of the Giant, his Wife, and Child, which resemble a caricature from Punch; admired the delicate, exquisite flowers of white, fibrous gypsum, along the walls of Pensacola Avenue; stood beside the Dead Sea, a dark, gloomy body of water; crossed the Styx by the natural bridge which spans it, and halted upon the shore of Lethe.

[Sidenote: A RIDE DOWN THE LETHE.]

Then, embarking in a little flat-boat, we slowly glided along the river of Oblivion. It was a strange, weird spectacle. The flickering torches dimly revealed the dark inclosing walls, which rise abruptly a hundred feet to the black roof. Our sable guide looked, in the ghastly light, like a recent importation from Pluto's domain; and stood in the bows, steering the little craft, which moved slowly down the winding, sluggish river. The deep silence was only broken by drops of water, which fell from the roof, striking the stream like the tick of a clock, and the sharp _ylp_ of the paddle, as it was thrust into the wave to guide us. When my companion evoked from his flute strains of slow music, which resounded in hollow echoes through the long vault, it grew so demoniac, that I almost expected the walls to open and reveal a party of fiends, dancing to infernal music around a lurid fire. I never saw any stage effect or work of art that could compare with it. If one would enjoy the most vivid sensations of the grand and gloomy, let him float down Lethe to the sound of a dirge.

[Sidenote: THE STAR CHAMBER.--MAGNIFICENT DISTANCES.]

We first saw the Star Chamber with the lights withdrawn. It revealed to us the meaning of "darkness visible." We seemed to _feel_ the dense blackness against our eye-balls. An object within half an inch of them was not in the faintest degree perceptible. If one were left alone here, reason could not long sustain itself. Even a few hours, in the absence of light, would probably shake it. In numberless little spots, the dark gypsum has scaled off, laying bare minute sections of the white limestone roof, resembling stars. When the chamber was lighted the illusion became perfect. We seemed in a deep, rock-walled pit, gazing up at the starry firmament. The torch, slowly moved to throw a shadow along the roof, produced the effect of a cloud sailing over the sky; but the scene required no such aid to render it one of marvelous beauty. The Star Chamber is the most striking picture in all this great gallery of Nature.

My companion had spent his whole life within a few miles of the cave, but now visited it for the first time. Thus it is always; objects which pilgrims come half across the world to see, we regard with indifference at our own doors. Persons have passed all their days in sight of Mount Washington, and yet never looked upon the grand panorama from its brow. Men have lived from childhood almost within sound of the roar of Niagara, without ever gazing on the vast fountain, where mother Earth, like Rachel, weeps for her children, and will not be comforted. We appreciate no enjoyment justly, until we see it through the charmed medium of magnificent distances.

[Sidenote: POLITICAL FEELING IN KENTUCKY.]

Throughout Kentucky the pending troubles were uppermost in every heart and on every tongue. One gentleman, in conversation, thus epitomized the feeling of the State:--

"We have more wrongs to complain of than any other slave community, for Kentucky loses more negroes than all the cotton States combined. But Secession is no remedy. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire."

Another, whose head was silvered with age, said to me:--

"When I was a boy here in this county, some of our neighbors started for New Orleans on a flat-boat. As we bade them good-by, we never expected to see them again; we thought they were going out of the world. But, after several months, they returned, having come on foot all the way, through the Indian country, packing[1] their blankets and provisions. Now we come from New Orleans in five days. I thank God to have lived in this age--the age of the Railroad, the Telegraph, and the Printing Press. Ours was the greatest nation and the greatest era in history. But that is all past now. The Government is broken to pieces; the slave States can not obtain their rights; and those which have seceded will never come back."

[1] Vernacular for carrying a load upon the back of a man or animal.

An old farmer "reckoned," as I traveled a good deal, that I might know better than he whether there was any hope of a peaceable settlement. If the North, as he believed, was willing to be just, an overwhelming majority of Kentuckians would stand by the Union. "It is a great pity," he said, very earnestly, in a broken voice, "that we Americans could not live harmoniously, like brethren, instead of always quarreling about a few niggers."

My recollections of Nashville, Tennessee, include only an unpalatable breakfast in one of its abominable hotels; a glimpse at some of its pleasant shaded streets and marble capitol, which, with the exception of that in Columbus, Ohio, is considered the finest State-house on the continent.

Continuing southward, I found the country already "appareled in the sweet livery of spring." The elm and gum trees wore their leafy glory; the grass and wheat carpeted the ground with swelling verdure, and field and forest glowed with the glossy green of the holly. The railway led through large cotton-fields, where many negroes, of both sexes, were plowing and hoeing, while overseers sat upon the high, zig-zag fences, armed with rifles or shot-guns. On the withered stalks snowy tufts of cotton were still protruding from the dull brown bolls--portions of the last year's crop, which had never been picked, and were disappearing under the plow.

[Sidenote: COTTON-FIELDS.--AN INDIGNANT ALABAMIAN.]

A native Kentuckian, now a young merchant in Alabama, was one of my fellow-passengers. He pronounced the people aristocratic. They looked down upon every man who worked for his living--indeed, upon every one who did not own negroes. The ladies were pretty, and often accomplished, but, he mildly added, he would like them better if they did not "dip." He insisted that Alabama had been precipitated into the revolution.

"We were _swindled_ out of our rights. In my own town, Jere Clemens--an ex-United States senator, and one of the ablest men in the State--was elected to the convention on the strongest public pledges of Unionism. When the convention met, he went completely over to the enemy. The leaders--a few heavy slaveholders, aided by political demagogues--dared not submit the Secession ordinance to a popular vote; they knew the people would defeat them. They are determined on war; they will exasperate the ignorant masses to the last degree before they allow them to vote on any test question. I trust the Government will put them down by force of arms, no matter what the cost!"

The same evening, crossing the Alabama line, I was in the "Confederate States of America." At the little town of Athens, the Stars and Stripes were still floating; as the train left, I cast a longing look at the old flag, wondering when I should see it again.

[Sidenote: "OUR CORRESPONDENT" AS A NEW MEXICAN.]

The next person who took a seat beside me went through the formula of questions, usual between strangers in the South and the Far West, asking my name, residence, business, and destination. He was informed, in reply, that I lived in the Territory of New Mexico, and was now traveling leisurely to New Orleans, designing to visit Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico before returning home. This hypothesis, to which I afterward adhered, was rendered plausible by my knowledge of New Mexico, and gave me the advantage of not being deemed a partisan. Secessionists and Unionists alike, regarding me as a stranger with no particular sympathies, conversed freely. Aaron Burr asserts that "a lie well stuck to is good as the truth;" in my own case, it was decidedly better than the truth.

My querist was a cattle-drover, who spent most of his time in traveling through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. He declared emphatically that the people of those States had been placed in a false position; that their hearts were loyal to the Union, in spite of all the arts which had been used to deceive and exasperate them.

At Memphis was an old friend, whom I had not met for many years, and who was now commercial editor of the leading Secession journal. I knew him to be perfectly trustworthy, and, at heart, a bitter opponent of Slavery. On the morning of my arrival, he called upon me at the Gayoso House. After his first cordial greeting, he asked, abruptly:

[Sidenote: A HOT CLIMATE FOR ABOLITIONISTS.]

"What are you doing down here?"

"Corresponding for _The Tribune_."

"How far are you going?"

"Through all the Gulf States, if possible."

"My friend," said he, in his deep bass tones, "do you know that you are on very perilous business?"

"Possibly; but I shall be extremely prudent when I get into a hot climate."

"I do not know" (with a shrug of the shoulders) "what you call a hot climate. Last week, two northerners, who had been mobbed as Abolitionists, passed through here, with their heads shaved, going home, in charge of the Adams' Express. A few days before, a man was hung on that cottonwood tree which you see just across the river, upon the charge of tampering with slaves. Another person has just been driven out of the city, on suspicion of writing a letter for _The Tribune_. If the people in this house, and out on the street in front, knew you to be one of its correspondents, they would not leave you many minutes for saying your prayers."

After a long, minute conversation, in which my friend learned my plans and gave me some valuable hints, he remarked:

[Sidenote: AIMS AND ANIMUS OF SECESSIONISTS.]

"My first impulse was to go down on my knees, and beg you, for God's sake, to turn back; but I rather think you may go on with comparative safety. You are the first man to whom I have opened my heart for years. I wish some of my old northern friends, who think Slavery a good thing, could witness the scenes in the slave auctions, which have so often made my blood run cold. I knew two runaway negroes absolutely starve themselves to death in their hiding-places in this city, rather than make themselves known, and be sent back to their masters. I disliked Slavery before; now I hate it, down to the very bottom of my heart." His compressed lips and clinched fingers, driving their nails into his palms, attested the depth of his feeling.