The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession

“I am unable to answer, sir.”

“That is strange, as the Bible so plainly and explicitly informs us. We are told that Noah went forth out of the ark; therefore three must have preceded him.”

The General’s wit “set the table in a roar.” As soon as the mirth had subsided, I addressed the General:

“It is my turn to ask a question. Do you know, sir, where the witch of Endor lived?”

“I did know, but really I have forgotten.”

“Well, sir, she lived at Endor.”

The laugh was now against him, but he joined in it heartily himself.

Knowing that General Nelson had visited every quarter of the globe, I asked him whether he had ever seen any of the modern Greeks.

“I never saw any of the ancient Greeks,” was his curt reply.

General Nelson was regarded as a brave and skilful officer. He has done good service in his country’s cause. At Shiloh his promptness and efficiency contributed greatly to retrieve the disaster which befell General Grant on the first day of the battle. His rencontre with General Davis, which resulted in his own death, is greatly to be regretted, though his own ungovernable temper and inexcusable conduct caused his tragic end.

I once visited his headquarters late in the afternoon. On my arrival, he informed me that I would confer a great favour upon him by guiding a company of cavalry on an expedition to the south-eastern part of the county, to which I consented. I rode in front with the officer in command. When we had reached a point beyond the pickets, my companion informed me that we would meet no more Federals; if we met any soldiers while outward bound, we might take it for granted that they were rebels. After riding about an hour longer, we encountered a company of cavalry, and were ordered to halt by the officer in command. My companion, stating that they must be rebels, rode up and gave the countersign. I felt somewhat uneasy at the head of that company at this time, not knowing the moment that bullets would be whistling around us. They proved however to be Federals, returning from an extended scouting expedition. I conducted our company to the house of a Union man, whom we aroused from his bed; and learning that we were Federals, he took my place, and I returned to General Nelson. The General now desired me to go as a spy, to obtain information as to the number of troops stationed at Norman’s Bridge, which spanned Big Bear Creek. I replied that I had ridden sixty miles without sleep, but that I would send two Union men of my acquaintance in my stead. This was satisfactory, and my Union friends returned with accurate information as to the number of rebel troops stationed at the bridge, and the best points of attack. The attack was made on the next day after receiving the information, and the rebels were surprised and totally defeated; but few escaped death or capture.

GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN

On the day that General Sherman reached Rienzi, I supped with him at the house of a friend. At table the following dialogue took place between us.

“Are you the person from whom Sherman’s battery took its name?”

“I am, sir.”

“Many gentlemen in this county,” said I, “and among them my father-in-law, have pipes made of the fragments of the gun-carriages of Sherman’s battery, which was captured at Manassas by the Confederates.”

“Sherman’s battery was not captured at Manassas,” replied the General.

“The honour of capturing Sherman’s battery is generally accorded to the second regiment of Mississippi volunteers, which went from this county and the adjoining county of Tippah, though several regiments claim it, and many of my friends declare that they have seen Sherman’s battery since its capture.”

“I assure you, sir, Sherman’s battery was not captured – so far from this, it came out of the battle of Manassas Plains with two pieces captured from the enemy, having itself lost none.”

At this moment Colonel Fry, who killed Zollikoffer, rode up for orders. While receiving them, the horses attached to a battery halted in front of us. “There,” said the General, “is every piece of Sherman’s battery. I ought to know that battery, and I assure you there is not a gun missing.”

The pipes, canes, and trinkets supposed to be made of the wood of Sherman’s battery, if collected, would form a vast pile; and were you to inform the owners of those relics that they were spurious, you would be politely informed that you might “tell that tale to the marines,” as their sons and their neighbours’ sons were the honoured captors of that battery; a fact, concerning the truth of which they entertained not even the shadow of a doubt.

CHAPTER IX.

CONDITION OF THE SOUTH

Cause of the Rebellion – Prevalence of Union Sentiment in the South – Why not Developed – Stevenson’s Views – Why Incorrect – Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens – How the Rebels employ Slaves – Slaves Whipped and sent out of the Federal Lines – Resisting the Conscript Law – Kansas Jayhawkers – Guarding Rebel Property – Perfidy of Secessionists – Plea for Emancipation – The South Exhausted – Failure of Crops – Southern Merchants Ruined – Bragg Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending of Intoxicating Liquors – Its Salutary Effect.

The following is the substance of addresses delivered by me on October 22d and 25th, 1862, at Cooper’s Institute, New York, and before the Synod of New York and New Jersey, at its session in Brooklyn.

I will confine myself to rendering answers to various questions which have been asked me since my escape to the North. I have viewed the rebellion from a southern stand-point; have been conversant with its whole history; have been behind the curtains, and have learned the motives which impel its instigators in their treasonable designs against the Government.

Slavery I believe to have been the sole cause of the rebellion. It is true that the slaveholders of the South were becoming strongly anti-republican. Rule or ruin was their determination, and they would not have listened to any compromise measure after the election of Mr. Lincoln; but this feeling, this opposition to republicanism, and lust of power, is the offspring of slavery. In 1856 I heard Jeff. Davis declare that the people of the North and the South were not homogeneous, and that therefore he advocated secession. The reason he assigned for this want of homogeneousness was found in the fact that the South held slaves; the North did not.

Men accustomed to exercise arbitrary power over their fellow-men, will not cease their encroachments upon the rights of all with whom they are associated, politically or otherwise, and a temporary suspension of the control of the government is regarded by them as a casus belli. Slavery may therefore be justly regarded as the parent of secession. Whilst this cause exists, the South will be the hot-bed of treason. Slavery has produced its legitimate fruit, and treason is its name. With slavery intact, no compromise, if accepted by the South, would prevent another outbreak in a few years.

The question has been asked, is there any Union sentiment in the South? I reply that there is a strong Union sentiment, even in Mississippi. This sentiment is not found amongst the slaveholders, for, as a class, they are firmly united in their hostility to the Government. The middle and lower classes are not only opposed to secession, but also to slavery itself. Eleven years’ association with the southern people has enabled me to form a correct opinion, and to know whereof I affirm. I make this statement without fear of successful contradiction, that the majority of the white inhabitants of the South are Union-loving men. The slaveholders have long ruled both the blacks and the whites in the South. When the rebellion was determined upon, the slaveholders had the organized force to compel acquiescence upon the part of those who favoured the Union, yet wished to remain neutral. Their drafts and conscriptions swept them into the army, and when once there, they must obey their officers upon pain of death. To desert and join the Union army, was to abandon their homes and families, and all their youthful associations. Yet many have done it, and are now doing good service in their country’s cause.

The rebels punished with death any who declared himself in favour of the Union. In my presence at Tupelo, they were taken out daily and shot for the expression of sentiments adverse to the rebellion. If the Union troops at any time occupied a place, and the people expressed any favourable sentiments to their cause, upon the evacuation of that position, those who sided with the Union troops were cruelly treated. All these causes, and many others which I might mention, have prevented the full development of the true sentiments of the people. I could name many localities within the rebel lines where the great majority of the people bitterly denounce the Southern Confederacy and all connected with it. I could name many individuals who have declared to me that they would prefer death to a dishonourable compliance with the conscript law. I could name localities within the rebel lines where armed resistance to the conscript law has been made; but the safety of those loyal citizens forbids it.

I know that there are some who assert that there is no Union feeling in the South; but they are mistaken. The author of “Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army” found but little. His situation was not favourable for its discovery. He informs us in his work, that after he had been compelled to volunteer, he regarded his oath (an oath much more honoured in the breach than in the observance,) of such force that he sought to obtain information, rather than to desert. He passed from one post of preferment to another, till at length he was on duty under the eye of Breckinridge himself, who complimented him upon his alacrity in bearing dispatches; and this was truly great, as he rode at one time sixty miles in seven hours, and at another, fourteen miles in less than fifty minutes. He also exhibited a guarded zeal for the secession cause. Who would have gone to an officer who was apparently aiding and abetting the rebellion, ably and assiduously, to communicate his Union sentiments? Any who would thus betray themselves could not be sure that they would not be shot in twenty-four hours. Had Mr. Stevenson been with me in Tupelo, and looked upon those seventy or eighty prisoners who were incarcerated for their adherence to the Union – had he witnessed the daily execution of some of them who preferred death to volunteering to defend a cause which they did not hesitate to denounce at the peril of their lives – had he been with me while in the midst of a host of Union citizens of Mississippi, who at the noon of night had assembled in the deep glens and on the high hills, for the purpose of devising means to resist the hated conscript law – he would have come to a far different conclusion. I have seen the cavalry go out to arrest Union men. I was at a Mr. William Herron’s, in South Carroll, Carrol county, Tennessee, and while there, several companies of cavalry came up from Jackson to destroy the loyal citizens of that vicinity, and they did destroy some of them and much property. They passed within two hundred yards of fortifications hastily thrown up to resist them, and would have been fired on had they come within range. Before completing their mission, a messenger came to inform them that Fort Henry was beleagured. They hastened to the fort just in time to take part in the action. After the surrender of the fort, they retreated to Fort Donelson, and were all captured at the reduction of that fort, to the great joy of those Union citizens whom they had driven from their homes, and whose property they had destroyed.

The slaves add greatly to the strength of the rebellion. Slave labour is extensively employed in the military department. They are the sappers and miners, the cooks, the teamsters, the artisans; and there are instances where they are forced to shoulder the musket and go into the ranks. I have seen and conversed with slave soldiers who have fought in every battle from Manassas to Shiloh.

Many strong secession counties send more soldiers to the rebel army than there are voters in those counties. The slaves who remain at home, labour to raise provisions for the sustenance of the families of the soldiers, and a surplus for the army; hence every white man is available for service in the field. Were this slave labour diverted to some other channel, the result would follow, that a great proportion of the rebel soldiers would be forced to return home to care for their families, or those families must perish. In order to divert this labour, it would be only necessary to encourage the negroes to leave their masters. Wherever the Federal army has advanced in the southwest, the slaves have crowded into their lines by hundreds, and only desisted upon learning, much to their regret, that they would not be received, many of them being tied up and whipped, and then sent southward beyond the limits of the Federal army. Some who had travelled seventy miles upon the underground railroad, to reach the Union army, being asked by their fellow-servants upon their return, how they liked the Yankees, replied that “General Nelson sort o’ hinted that he didn’t want us.” Upon being urged to be more explicit, and to state more fully what was the nature of the hint which led them to infer that General Nelson did not want them, their spokesman replied: “Well, if we must tell, we must. General Nelson tied us up and gave us fifty apiece, and sent us off, sw’arin’ he’d guv us a hundred ef we didn’t go right straight back home to our masters. He said this wa’n’t no war got up to set the niggers free.”

The Kansas Jayhawkers liberate all the slaves with whom they come in contact. I passed four regiments of their cavalry last August, on their way to Rienzi, Mississippi. They had about two thousand slaves with them, of every age and sex. Those slaves groomed their horses, drove their wagons, cooked their victuals, and made themselves useful in a variety of ways, leaving every white man free to go into the battle when the hour of contest arrived.

Slavery is a strong prop to the rebellion. Four millions of labourers are able to furnish supplies for eight millions. Subtract that vast resource from the rebellion, add it to the support of the Government, and its stunning effect would be speedily demonstrated in the complete paralysis of the Southern Confederacy. In order to supply the loss of the slaves, half the soldiers in the army must return, or famine would sweep both the army and the families of the soldiers from the face of the earth. One cause of the long continuance of the war is, that the Union army has endeavoured to conciliate the South, rather than crush the rebellion. They have guarded the property of the rebels; they have returned promptly their fugitive slaves; they have put down servile insurrection with an iron hand, and in every possible way have shown clemency instead of severity. But their kindness has been abused, their clemency regarded as evidence of imbecility, and the humane policy of the Government totally misconstrued. Captain John Rainey, of Cambridge, Ohio, while on duty at Corinth, Mississippi, received an application from a notorious secessionist for a guard to protect his premises, which was obtained for him from the colonel, three soldiers being detached for that purpose, who proceeded to the station assigned them. About four o’clock in the afternoon they saw the owner of the premises they were guarding, mount his horse and ride off. Supposing him to be going on some ordinary errand, they took no further notice of it. About nine o’clock, one of the guard who had strayed into the orchard, some three hundred yards from the house, heard an unusual sound, as of cavalry approaching. Concealing himself, he saw, by the bright moonlight, this secessionist ride up with seven or eight rebel cavalrymen, who, seizing his two companions, rode off with them as prisoners. The ingrate who committed this base and perfidious act then went into his house and retired to rest. As speedily as possible the third picket returned to his company, and informed them of the occurrence. Fired with indignation, twenty men volunteered to visit summary punishment upon the perpetrator of this villany. Hastening to his house, they aroused him from his slumbers, and in a few minutes suspended him by the neck between the heavens and the earth. On their return they reported to their companions what they had done, and, through fear of punishment, took every precaution to prevent the act reaching the colonel’s ears. It was reported to the colonel, however, whose reply to his informant was, “Served him right!” This policy of guarding rebel property by Union troops must be abandoned, or the war will never terminate. The Union army has been attacked by the rebels when large numbers of the soldiers were absent as guards to protect the plantations and all the interests of secessionists. Such gingerly warfare must end, or the days of the Republic are numbered. Carrying the war into the enemy’s country has thus far proved a mere farce. The retreating rebels destroyed tenfold more property than the pursuing Federals. I would not counsel cruelty. I would not advise the unnecessary destruction of life or property, for all wanton destruction tends to weaken rather than to strengthen the cause of those who perpetrate it. Vandalism is everywhere reprehensible. The proper policy I believe to be this: Let the Union army be supplied with provisions, so far as practicable, from the territory occupied. Let the slaves find protection and employment on their arrival within the Union lines. Despise not their valuable services. Let it be proclaimed that for every Union citizen of the South who is slain for his adherence to the old flag, a rebel prisoner shall be executed, and that the confiscated property of Union men shall be restored, at the cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. Let these necessary measures be carried out, and no well-informed person can doubt that the war will cease before the end of six months. With slavery, the rebels are powerful; without it, they are powerless. With slavery, every white man between the ages of eighteen and sixty is available as a soldier, and vast supplies are procured by servile labour. Abolish slavery, and the army would be immediately reduced one-half, and supplies would be diminished to a destructive extent. Slaves armed and drilled would make effective soldiers. With a perfect knowledge of the country, with an intense desire to liberate themselves and their brethren from bondage, with an ardent hatred of their cruel masters and overseers, (and the majority of them are cruel,) they would render a willing and powerful aid in crushing the great rebellion. After the war is ended, give them as much land as their necessities require, either in New Mexico or Arizona, and they will furnish more sugar, rice, and cotton, than were extorted from them by compulsory labour in the house of bondage.

The desire for freedom on the part of the slaves is universal. It is, according to my observation and full belief, a rule without exception. These aspirations are constantly increasing as the rigours of slavery are increased, and the slaves are as well prepared for freedom as they would be a hundred years hence. The Iron Furnace of slavery does not tend to the elevation of its victims. There are better methods of elevating a race than by enslaving it. The moral elevation of the slave is no part of the reason why he is held in bondage; but the convenience and profit of the master is the sole end and aim of the peculiar institution. All attempts on the part of the slaves to obtain their liberty are resisted by the slaveholders, by the infliction of appalling and barbarous cruelties. Thirty-two negroes were executed at Natchez, Mississippi, recently, because they expressed a determination “to go to Lincoln.” Six were hanged in Hoxubee county, and one burned in the streets of Macon. The southern papers state that Hon. Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, attempted to drive his slaves into the interior, to prevent their escaping to the Yankees, and upon their refusal to go, he ordered them to be driven at the point of the bayonet, and in the execution of the order, fifty of them were slain. There are instances in which the slave is greatly attached to his master’s family, but his love of liberty is greater than that attachment. It often transcends his love for his own family, which he abandons for its sake, risking his life on the underground railroad, and enduring the rigours of a Canadian winter, that he may enjoy his inalienable rights.

The southwest is already nearly exhausted. The troops which first went into the service were well supplied with clothing, provisions, and money; but the conscripts were poorly clad, and received their wages in Confederate bonds, which have so depreciated, that ten dollars in gold will purchase one hundred dollars of the bonds. Great suffering is the consequence, and desertions are of daily occurrence. While I was in prison at Tupelo, eighty-seven of the Arkansas infantry deserted in a body. One hundred cavalry were sent to arrest them, but they defeated the cavalry in a fair fight, and went on their way rejoicing. Tennesseeans and Kentuckians could not be trusted on picket duty, their proclivity for desertion being notorious. They suffered no opportunity to escape them, and often went off in squads. Many of them being forced into the service, did not consider their involuntary oath binding.

The wheat crop of 1862, in the southwest, was almost totally destroyed by the rust, and the corn crop by the drought. Salt could not be obtained at any cost, and every marketable commodity had reached a fabulous price. Southern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the commencement of the war they had made large purchases in the North, mainly on credit. The rebel Congress passed a law that all who were indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the amount of their indebtedness to the Southern Confederacy. This the merchants did. They then sold their goods, taking cotton and Confederate money in pay. The cotton was destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the Confederate scrip is worthless, and the Federal generals are enforcing the payment of Northern claims. This fourfold loss will beggar every southern merchant subjected to it.

At the commencement of the war, strong drink was abundant, and it was freely used by the soldiers. Drunkenness was fearfully prevalent. This vice increased to such a degree that the army was rapidly becoming demoralized. A large amount of grain was wasted in the manufacture of liquor. At this juncture the rebel government wisely prohibited the manufacture and sale of all that would intoxicate. Soon the wisdom of this measure was apparent. For a time this contraband article was smuggled in, yet it was only in limited quantities, and at the present time a drunken soldier is a rara avis in the army. At the first promulgation of the law, a cunning countryman perforated a large number of eggs, withdrew the contents, filled the shells with whiskey, closed them up, and carrying them to the camp at Rienzi, sold them at an exorbitant price. Others resorted to filling coffee-pots with whisky, stopping up the bottom of the spout, filling it with buttermilk, and if asked by the guards what they had for sale, would pour out some of the milk in the spout, and by this deception gain an entrance to the camp, and supply the soldiers with liquor. But all these tricks were discovered, and since the manufacture, as well as the sale, was prohibited, the supply on hand became exhausted, and drunkenness ceased.

CHAPTER X.

BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH

Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners – The Fratricide – Grant Defeated – Saved by Gunboats – Buell’s Advance – Railroad Disaster – The South Despondent – General Rosecrans – Secession will become Odious even in the South – Poem.

BATTLE OF LEESBURG

The battle of Leesburg was fought on the 21st of October, 1861. The southern accounts of this battle were so contradictory, that I will not give the various versions. One statement, however, all concur in – that when the Federal troops retreated to the river, after being overpowered by superior numbers, and had thrown down their arms, calling for quarter, no mercy was shown them. Hundreds were bayoneted, or forced into the river and drowned. The rebels clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains of many while kneeling at their feet and imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian who boasted that he had bayoneted seven Yankee prisoners captured on that occasion.