Chapter XXX

A kind of excellent, dumb discourse.--TEMPEST.

It did not require many days of captivity to teach us the infinite expressiveness and trustworthiness of the human eye. We began to recognize Union people by their friendly look before they spoke a word.

[Sidenote: A WORD WITH A UNION WOMAN.]

Our train stopped for dinner at a secluded Mississippi tavern. At the door of the long dining-room stood the landlady, an intelligent woman of about thirty-five. When I handed her a twenty-dollar Rebel note, she inquired--

"Have you nothing smaller than this?"

"No Confederate money," I answered.

"State currency will answer just as well."

"I have none of that--nothing but this bill and United States Treasury Notes."

The indifferent face instantly kindled into friendliness and sympathy.

"Are you one of the prisoners?"

"Yes, madam."

"Just from Vicksburg?"

"Yes."

"What do you think of the prospect?"

"Grant is certain to capture the city."

"Of course he will" (with great earnestness), "if he only tries! The force there is incapable of resisting him."

Other passengers coming within hearing, I moved away, but I would unhesitatingly have trusted that woman with my liberty or my life.

[Sidenote: GRIERSON'S GREAT MISSISSIPPI RAID.]

Grierson's raid, then in progress, was the universal theme of conversation and wonder. That dashing cavalier, selecting his route with excellent judgment, evaded all the large forces which opposed him, and defeated all the small ones, while he rode leisurely the entire length of Mississippi, tearing up railroads and burning bridges. Occasionally he addressed the people in humorous harangues. To one old lady, who tremblingly begged that her property might not be destroyed, he replied:--

"You shall certainly be protected, madam. It is not my object to hurt any body. It is not generally known, but the truth is, I am a candidate for Governor, and am stumping the State."

Our slow progress enabled us to converse much with the people, constantly preaching to them the gospel of the Union. But they had so long heard only the gospel according to Jefferson Davis, that they paid little heed to our threatenings of the judgment which was certain to come.

In the dense woods which the railways traversed, the pine, the palm and the magnolia, grew side by side, festooned with long, hairy tufts of Spanish moss. On the plantations, the young cotton, three inches high, looked like sprouting beans.

[Sidenote: AN ENRAGED TEXAN OFFICER.]

Colburn's solemn waggery was constantly cropping out. In our car one day he had a long discussion with a brawny Texan officer, who declared with great bitterness that he had assisted in hanging three Abolitionists upon a single blackjack,[16] in sight of his own door. He concluded with the usual assertion:--

[16] A species of Southern oak.

"We will fight to the last man! We will die in the last ditch!"

"Well, sir," replied Colburn, with the utmost gravity, "if you should do that and all be killed, we should regret it extremely!"

Like most Southerners, the Texan was insensible to satire. Understanding this to be perfectly sincere, he reiterated:--

"We shall do it, sir! We shall do it!"

"Well, sir, as I said before, if you do, and all happen to _get_ killed, including the very last man himself, of course we of the North shall be quite heart-broken!"

Once comprehended, the mock condolence enraged the huge Texan fearfully. For a few seconds his eyes were the most wicked I ever saw. He looked ready to spring upon Colburn and tear him in pieces; but it was the last we heard of his bravado.

One of our fellow-prisoners had manifested great trepidation while we lay disabled in front of Vicksburg. He was probably no more frightened than the rest of us, but had less self-control, running to and fro on the burning barge, wringing his hands, and shrieking: "My God! my God! We shall all be killed!"

[Sidenote: WAGGERY OF A CAPTURED SCRIBE.]

Three or four days later, Colburn asked him--

"Were you ever under fire before Sunday night?"

"Never," he replied, with uneasy, questioning looks.

"Well, sir," solemnly continued the satirist, "I think, in view of that fact, that you behaved with more coolness than any man I ever saw!"

While we preserved our gravity with the utmost difficulty, the victim scrutinized his tormentor very suspiciously. But that serious, immovable face told no tales, and he finally received the compliment as serious. From that time, it was Colburn's daily delight, to remark, with ever-increasing admiration:--

"Mr. ----, I cannot help remembering how marvelously self-possessed you were during those exciting minutes. I never saw your coolness equaled by a man under fire for the first time."

Before we reached Richmond, the new-fledged hero received his praises with complacent and serene condescension. He will, doubtless, tell his children and grandchildren of the encomium his courage won from companions, who, "born and nursed in Danger's path, had dared her worst."

At Demopolis, Alabama, we encountered a planter removing from Mississippi, where Grierson and Grant were rapidly depreciating slave property. He had with him a long gang of negroes, some chained together in pairs, with handcuffs riveted to their wrists.

While the train stopped, a young fellow from Kentucky, captain and commissary in the Confederate army, took me up to his room, on pretext of "a quiet drink."

"When I went into the war," said he, "I thought it would be a nice little diversion of about two weeks, with a good deal of fun and no fighting. Now, I would give my right arm to escape from it; but there is no such good fortune for me. When you reach the North, write to my friends at home, giving them my love, and saying that I wish I had followed their advice."

A benevolent lady was at the station, with her carriage, distributing cakes among the Rebel soldiers and the Union prisoners.

At Selma, a new officer took charge of our party. The post commandant instructed him how to treat the privates, and, pointing to the two officers and the three journalists, added:--

[Sidenote: THE ALABAMA RIVER AND MONTGOMERY.]

"You will consider these gentlemen not under your guard, but under your escort."

We took a steamer up the Alabama River. As we sat looking out upon the beautiful stream, it was amusing to hear the comments of the negro chamber-maids:--

"How mean the Southern soldiers look! But just see those Yankees! Anybody might know that they are God's own people!"

The pilot of the boat, a native Alabamian, took me aside, stating that he was an unconditional Union man, and inquiring eagerly about the North, which, he feared, might abandon the contest.

We spent Sunday, May 11th, in the pleasant city of Montgomery: strolling at pleasure through the shaded streets, and at evening taking a bath in the Alabama, swimming round a huge Rebel ram, then nearly completed. We gained some knowledge of its character and dimensions, which, after reaching Richmond, we succeeded in transmitting to the Government.

The officer in charge of our party spent the night in camp with his men, but we slept at the Exchange Hotel. When we registered our names, the bystanders, with their broad-brimmed hats, long pipes, and heavy Southern faces, manifested a good deal of curiosity to see what they termed "two of old Greeley's correspondents." They asked us many questions of the North, and of our army experiences. Several said emphatically that, ere long, the people would "take this thing out of the hands of politicians, and settle it themselves."

[Sidenote: ATLANTA EDITORS ADVOCATE HANGING US.]

Reaching Atlanta, we were placed in the filthy, vermin-infested military prison. Encouraged by the courtesies we had received from Rebel journals, we sent, through the commandant, a card to one of the newspaper offices, asking for a few exchanges. The blundering messenger took it to the wrong establishment, leaving it at the office of an intensely bitter sheet called _The Confederate_. The next morning we were not allowed to purchase newspapers. Learning that _The Confederate_ commented upon our request, we induced an _attaché_ of the prison to smuggle a copy to us, and found the following leader:--

"Last evening some correspondents of _The New York World_
and _New York Tribune_ were brought here among a batch of
prisoners captured at Vicksburg a few days ago. They had not
been here a half hour before the impudent scamps got one
of the sentinels guarding the barracks to go around to the
newspaper offices in this city with their 'card,' requesting
the favor of some exchange-papers to read. Their impudence is
beyond comprehension, upon any other consideration than that
they belong to the Yankee press-gang. Yankees are everywhere
more impudent than any honest race of people can be, and a
Yankee newspaper-man is the quintessence of all impudence. We
thought we had seen and understood something of this Yankee
accomplishment in times gone by (some specimens of it have
been seen in the South); but the unheard-of effrontery that
prompted these villains, who, caught in company with the
thieving, murdering vandals who have invaded our country,
despoiled our homes, murdered our citizens, destroyed our
property, violated our wives, sisters, and daughters, to
boldly claim of the press of the South the courtesies and
civilities which gentlemen of the press usually extend to
each other, is above and beyond all the unblushing audacity
we ever imagined. They had come along with Northern vandals,
to chronicle their rapes, arsons, plunders, and murders, and
to herald them to the world as deeds of heroism, greatness,
and glory. They are our vilest and most unprincipled
enemies--far more deeply steeped in guilt, and far more
richly deserving death, than the vilest vandal that ever
invaded the sanctity of our soil and outraged our homes and
our peace. We would greatly prefer to assist in hanging these
enemies to humanity, than to show them any civilities or
courtesies. The common robber, thief, and murderer, is more
respectable, in our estimation, than these men; for he never
tries to make his crimes respectable, but always to conceal
them. These men, however, have come into our country with the
open robbers and murderers of our people, for the express
purpose of whitewashing their hellish deeds, and presenting
them to the world as great deeds of virtuous heroism. They
deserve a rope's end, and will not receive their just deserts
till their crimes are punished with death."

[Sidenote: A PAIR OF RENEGADE VERMONTERS.]

The Rebel authorities were very sensitive to newspaper censure. With unusual rigor, they now refused us permission to go outside the prison for meals, though offering to have them sent in, at our expense, from the leading hotel. They told us that _The Confederate_ was edited by two renegade Vermonters.

"I am not very fond of Yankees, myself," remarked Hunnicutt, the heavy-jawed, broad-necked, coarse-featured lieutenant commanding the prison. "I am as much in favor of hanging them as anybody; but these Vermonters, who haven't been here six months, are a little too violent. They don't own any niggers. 'Tisn't natural. There's something wrong about them. If I were going to hang Yankees at a venture, I think I would begin with them."

An Irish warden brought us, from a Jew outside, three hundred Confederate dollars, in exchange for one hundred in United States currency. For a fifty-dollar Rebel note he procured me a cap of southern manufacture, to replace my hat, which had been snatched from my head by a South Carolina officer, passing upon a railroad train meeting our own. The new cap, of grayish cotton, a marvel of roughness and ugliness, elicited roars of laughter from my comrades.

On the journey thus far, we had gone almost wherever we pleased, unguarded and unaccompanied. But from Atlanta to Richmond we were treated with rigor and very closely watched. A Rebel officer begged of "Junius" his fine pearl-handled pocket knife. Receiving it, he at once conceived an affection for a gold ring upon the prisoner's finger. Even the courtesy of my colleague was not proof against this second impertinence, and he contemptuously declined the request.

[Sidenote: TREATED WITH UNUSUAL RIGOR.]

The captain in charge of us stated that his orders were imperative to keep all newspapers from us; and on no account to permit us to leave the railway carriage. But, finding that we still obtained the daily journals from fellow-passengers, he made a virtue of necessity, and gracefully acquiesced. At last, he even allowed us to take our meals at the station, upon being invited to participate in them at the expense of his prisoners.