The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

He was delighted to see me, and after I told him I was going home, and might never see him again, I took his hand warmly in mine, and said:

'Scip, I have heard of the disgrace that was near being put upon you on my account, and I feel deeply the disinterested service you did to me; now, I can not go away without doing something for you—showing you in some way that I appreciate and like you.'

'I likes you, massa,' he replied, the tears coming to his eyes; 'I tuk ter you de bery fuss day I seed you, 'case, I s'pose'—and he wrung my hand till it ached—'you pitied de pore brack man. But you karnt do nuffin fur me, massa; I doan't want nuffin; I doan't want ter leab har, 'case de Lord dat put me har arn't willin' I shud gwo. But you kin do suffin, massa, fur de pore brack man, an' dat'll be doin' it fur me, 'case my heart am all in dat. You kin tell dem folks up dar, whar you lib, massa, dat we'm not like de brutes, as dey tink we is. Dat we's got souls, an' 'telligence, an' feelin's, an' am men like demselfs. You kin tell 'em, too, massa—'case you's edication, and kin talk—how de pore wite man am kep' down har; how he'm ragged, an' starvin', an' ob no account, 'case de brack man am a slave. How der chil'ren can't get no schulein', how eben de grow'd-up ones doan't know nuffin—not eben so much as de pore brack slave, 'case de 'stockracy want dar votes, an cudn't get 'em ef dey 'low'd 'em larnin'. Ef your folks know'd all de truf—ef dey know'd how boff de brack an' de pore w'ite man, am on de groun', an' can't git up, ob demselfs—dey'd do suffin—dey'd break de Constertution—dey'd do suffin ter help us. I doan't want no one hurted, I doan't want no one wronged; but jess tink ob it, massa, four million ob bracks, an' nigh so many pore w'ites, wid de bressed Gospil shinin' down on 'em, an' dey not knowin' on it. All dem—ebry one ob 'em—made in de image ob de great God, an' dey driven roun' an' 'bused wuss dan de brutes. You's seed dis, massa, wid your own eyes, an' you kin tell 'em on it; an' you will tell 'em on it, massa;' and again he took my hand while the tears rolled down his cheeks; 'an' Scip will bress you fur it, massa—wid his bery lass breaf he'll bress you; an' de good Lord will bress you, too, massa; he will foreber bress you, for he'm on de side ob de pore an' de 'flicted; his own book say dat, an' it am true, I knows it, fur I feels it har;' and he laid his hand on his heart, and was silent.

I could not speak for a moment. When I mastered my feelings, I said: 'I will do it Scip; as God gives me strength, I will.'

Reader, I am keeping my word.

This is not a work of fiction. It is a record of facts, and therefore the reader will not expect me to dispose of its various characters on artistic principles—that is, lay them away in one of those final receptacles for the creations of the romancer—the grave and matrimony. Death has been among them, but nearly all are yet doing their work in this breathing, busy world.

The characters I have introduced are real. They are not drawn with the pencil of fancy, nor, I trust, colored with the tints of prejudice. The scenes I have described are true. I have taken some liberties with the names of persons and places, and, in a few instances, altered dates; but the events themselves occurred under my own observation. No one acquainted with the section of country I have described, or familiar with the characters I have delineated, will question this statement. Lest some one who has not seen the slave and the poor white man of the South, as he actually is, should deem my picture overdrawn, I will say that 'the half has not been told!' If the whole were related—if the Southern system, in all its naked ugliness, were fully exposed—the truth would read like fiction, and the baldest relation of fact like the wildest dream of romance.

The overseer was never taken. A letter which I received from Colonel J–, shortly prior to the stoppage of the mails, informed me that Moye had succeeded in crossing the mountains into Tennessee, where, in an interior town, he disposed of the horse, and then made his way by an inland route to the free States. The horse the Colonel had recovered, but the overseer he never expected to see. Moye is now, no doubt, somewhere in the North, and is probably at this present writing a zealous Union man, of somewhat the same 'stripe' as the conductors of the New-York Herald and the Boston Courier.

I have not heard directly from Scipio, but one day last July, after a long search, I found on one of the wharves of South street a coasting captain who knew him well, and who had seen him the month previous at Georgetown. He was at that time pursuing his usual avocations, and was as much respected and trusted as when I met him.

A few days after the tidings of the fall of Sumter were received in New-York, and when I had witnessed the spontaneous and universal uprising of the North which followed that event, I dispatched letters to several of my Southern friends, giving them as near as I could an account of the true state of feeling here, and representing the utter madness of the course the South was pursuing. One of these letters went to my Union acquaintance whom I have called, in the preceding pages, 'Andy Jones.'

He promptly replied, and a pretty regular correspondence ensued between us, which has continued, at intervals, even since the suspension of intercourse between the North and the South.

Andy has stood firmly and nobly by the old flag. At the risk of every thing, he has boldly expressed his sentiments every where. With his life in his hand and—a revolver in each of his breeches-pockets, he walked the streets of Wilmington when the secession fever was at its hight, openly proclaiming his undying loyalty to the Union, and 'no man dared gainsay him.'

But with all his patriotism, Andy keeps a bright eye on the 'main chance.' Like his brother, the Northern Yankee, whom he somewhat resembles and greatly admires, he never omits an opportunity of 'turning an honest penny.' In defiance of custom-house regulations and of our strict blockade, he has carried on a more or less regular traffic with New-York and Boston (via Halifax and other neutral ports) ever since North-Carolina seceded. His turpentine, while it was still his property, has been sold in the New-York market, under the very eyes of the government officials, and, honest reader, I have known of it.

By various roundabout means, I have recently received letters from him. His last, dated in April, and brought to a neutral port by a shipmaster whom he implicitly trusts, has reached me since the previous chapters were written. It covers six pages of foolscap, and is written in defiance of all grammatical and orthographical principles; but as it conveys important intelligence in regard to some of the persons mentioned in this narrative, I will transcribe a portion of it.

It gave me the melancholy tidings of the death of Colonel J–. He had joined the Confederate army, and fell, bravely meeting a charge of the Massachusetts troops, at Roanoke.

On receiving the news of his friend's death, Andy rode over to the plantation, and found Madam P– plunged in the deepest grief. While he was there, a letter arrived from Charleston, with intelligence of the dangerous illness of her son. This second blow crushed her. For several days she was delirious and her life despaired of; but throughout the whole, the noble corn-cracker, neglecting every thing, remained beside her.

When she returned to herself, and had in a measure recovered her strength, she learned that the Colonel had left no will; that she was still a slave, and soon to be sold, with the rest of the Colonel's personal property, according to law.

This is what Andy writes about the affair. I give the letter as he wrote it, merely correcting the punctuation and enough of the spelling to make it intelligible:

'W'en I hard thet th' Cunnel hadent leff no wil, I was hard put what ter dew; but arter thinkin' on it over a spell, I knowed shede har on it sumhow; so I 'cluded to tell har miseff. She tuk on d–d hard at fust, but arter a bit, grew more calm like, and then she sed it war God's wil, an' she wudent komplane. Ye knows I've got a wife, but w'en the ma'am sed thet, she luk'd so like an angel, thet d–d eff I cud help puttin' my arms round har, an' huggin' on har, till she a'moste screeched. Wal, I toled har I'd stan' by har, eff evrithing went ter h–l, an' I wil, by–.

'I made up mi minde to onst what ter dew. It war darned harde work tur bee 'way from hum jess then, but I war in fur it; soe I put ter Charleston, ter see th' Cunnel's 'oman. Wal, I seed har, an' I toled har how th' ma'am felte, an' how mutch shede dun at makein' th' Cunnel's money, (she made nigh th' hul on it, 'case he war alers keerles, an' tuk no 'count uv things; eff 't'aden't been fur thet, hede made a wil,) an' I axed har ter see thet the ma'am had free papers ter onst. An' whot der ye s'poze she sed? Nuthin', by –, 'cept she dident no nuthin' 'bout bisniss, an' leff all uv sech things ter har loryer. Wal, then I went ter him—he ar one on them slick, ily, seceshun houn's who'd sell thar soles fur a kountterfit dollar—an' he toled me th' 'ministratur hadent sot yit, an' he cudent dew nuthin' till he hed. Ses I: 'Ye mean th' 'oman's got ter gwo ter th' hi'est bider?' 'Yas,' he sed, 'the Cunnel's got dets, an' the've got ter bee pade, an' th' persoonal prop'ty muste bee sold ter dew it.' Then I sed, 'twud bee sum time 'fore thet war dun, an' the 'oman's 'most ded an uv no use now; 'what'll ye hire har tur me fur.' He said a hun'red fur sicks months. I planked down the money ter onst, an' put off.

'I war bilin' over, but it sumhow cum inter my hed thet the Cunnel's 'oman cudn't bee all stun; so I gose thar agin, an' I toled har what the loryer sed, an' made a reg'lar stump-'peal tew har bettur natur. I axed har ef she'd leff the 'oman who'd made har husban's fortun', who war the muther uv his chil'ren, who fur twenty yar hed nussed him in sickness an' cheered him in healtf, ef shede let thet 'oman bee auckyund off ter th' hi'est bider. I axed al thet, an' what der ye think she sed? Why, jest this. 'I doan't no nuthin' 'bout it, Mister Jones. Ye raily must talke ter mi loryer; them matters I leaves 'tirely ter him.' Then I sed I s'posed the niggers war ter bee advertist. 'O yas!' she sed, (an' ye see she know'd a d–d site 'bout thet,) 'all on 'em muss bee solde, 'case ye knows I never did luv the kuntry; 'sides I cuden't karry on the plantashun, no how.' Then sed I: 'The Orleans traders 'ill be thar, an' she wun't sell fur but one use, fur she's hansum yit; an' ma'am, ye wun't leff a 'oman as white as you is, who fur twenty yar hes ben a tru an' fatheful wife tar yer own ded husban', (I shudn't hev put thet in, but d–d ef I cud help it,) ye wun't put har up on the block, an' hev har struck down ter the hi'est bider, ter bee made a d–d – on?'

'Wal, I s'pose she haden't forgot thet fur more'n twelve yar the Cunnel hed luv'd t'other 'oman an' onely liked har; fur w'en I sed thet, har ize snapped like h–l, an' she screetched eout thet she dident 'low no sech wurds in har hous', an' ordurd me ter leave. Mitey sqeemish thet, warn't it? bein' as shede been fur so mony yar the Cunnel's –, an' th' tuther one his raal wife.

'Wal, I did leav'; but I leff a piece of mi mind ahind. I toled har I'de buy thet ar 'oman ef she cost all I war wuth and I had ter pawne my sole ter git the money; an' I added, jest by way uv sweet'nin' the pill, thet I owed all I hed ter har husband, an' dident furget my dets ef she did hern, an' ef his own wife disgraced him, I'd be d–d ef I wud.

'Wal, I've got th' ma'am an' har boy ter hum, an' my 'oman hes tuk ter har a heep. I doan't no w'en the sale's ter cum off, but ye may bet hi' on my bein' thar, an' I'll buy har ef I hev ter go my hull pile on har, an' borrer th' money fur ole Pomp. But he'll go cheap, 'case the Cunnel's deth nigh dun him up. It clean killed Ante Lucey. She never held her hed up arter she heerd 'Masser Davy' war ded, fur she sot har vary life on him. Don't ye feel consarned 'bout the ma'am—I knows ye sot hi' on har. I'll buy har shore. Thet an' deth ar th' onely things thet I knows on, in this world, jess now, that ar Sartin.'

Such is Andy's letter. Misspelled and profane though it be, I would not alter a word or a syllable of it. It deserves to be written in characters of gold and hung up in the sky, where it might be read by all the world. And it is written in the sky—in the great record book—and it will be read when you and I, reader, meet the assembled universe, to give account of what we have done and written. God grant that our record may show some such deed as that!

SOUTHERN RIGHTS

The right to poison bullets,The right to rifle graves,To cut our prisoners' gullets,Or treat them like our slaves;The right to use the savageTo aid us in our fight,To freely scalp and ravage,Each is a Southern right.Call not these claims Satanic,They're far beyond your ken:How can a low mechanicKnow aught of gentlemen?

MACCARONI AND CANVAS

VI

ON THE PINCIO

With that wise foresight, shared by all European rulers, the Roman Pincio was undoubtedly wedded to its purpose of keeping the idle ones very busy at the very time of day when revolutionary plots find the best hearing—before dinner. Whirling around its walks in carriages, or gently promenading under trees, among rose-bushes, and by fountains, while a large band of musicians play with spirit fine selections from the last operas, or favorite airs from old ones; the eye gratified by the sight of pleasant faces, or dwelling enraptured on the beautiful landscape spread before it—how can the brain disengage itself to think of Liberty, won through toil and battle, only to be preserved by self-denial and moral strength?

But the traveler who travels only to travel, and has the means and spirit to find pleasure wherever he goes, thinking only of what he sees, enjoys to its fullest extent the luxurious seat of the hired, white-damask-lined carriage, drawn by stalwart, heavy-limbed, coal-black horses, with sweeping tails, the white foam flying from the champed silver bits, the whole turn-out driven by a handsome, white-gloved, black-coated Roman. In solemn state and swiftly, he winds up the zig-zag road leading from the piazza Popolo, (so-called from popolo, a poplar-tree, and not as the English will have it, from popolo, the people,) and at last reaches the summit of Roman ambition—the top of the Pincian hill. He passes other carriages filled with other strangers like himself, or with titled and fashionable Romans, and finally, his carriage drawn up to one side of the broad drive in front of the semi-circle where the band plays, he descends, to walk around and chat with the friends he may find there.

Toward sunset the scene is full of animation. The sabres of the cavalry soldiers, on guard to prevent infraction of rules, gleam brightly; the old infantry soldiers are darting here and there, chasing away sundry ownerless dogs, who always make it a point to promenade the Pincio; the Italian nurses from Albano, or at least dressed in Albanese costume, shine conspicuous in their crimson-bodiced dresses; Englishmen going through their constitutional; Frenchmen mourning for the Champs Elysées; artists in broad-brim hats smoking cigars; Americans observing Italy, so as to be like Italians; ladies of all nations commanding the attention of mankind as they sweep along the hard-rolled gravel-walks; smiles, bows, looks of love, indignation, affection, coquetry; faces reflective of great deeds and greater dinners … every face bright in the lambent amber light that streams from the sun dipping his head preparatory to putting on his night-cap, and bidding Rome felicissima notte! a most happy night.

Over the irregular walls of the subdued white and mellow gray houses and palaces, beyond the Tiber running red in the dying sunlight, over the round-walled castle of San Angelo, the dome of Saint Peter's rises full in the midst of the twinkling, hazy, red and golden light. Passing the stone-pines crowning Monte Mario, there gleam away to the left the far waters of the sea, over which the purple mist of young night tenderly, softly falls. Once thoughtfully noted, you will remember this glowing scene years after sublimer and wilder views are lost to memory or grown so faint that they are to you but as dull colors seen in dreams of old age compared to the flashing brightness of those presented to the closed eyes of youth.

As the sun sets and those in carriages and on foot slowly leave the hights of the Pincio, and descend once more to the old city, you will hear, as the evening star shines brighter and brighter, the first liquid, thrilling notes of the nightingales; then as you lean over the stone parapet, dreamily looking into the dense foliage of trees and shrubs beneath you, you will feel the beauty of those lines:

Seek the nightingale's sequestered tower,Who with her love-lorn melodySo bewitched thee in the vernal hour:When she ceased to love, she ceased to be.

It is from the months of May to November, when travelers have left Rome, and the city is in the hands of the Romans, that your walks on the Pincio will prove something more than a mere repetition of a stroll in Baden-Baden, or a revival of ideas common to the Prado or Prater. No longer the little prettinesses of the Medicean Venus flirt by you in the nervous silks that flutter along these walks, but something nobly womanly, of a solid past, slow and stately, moves solemnly, by. We know the lives of these copies of the Venus of Milos, we know its most commonplace and vulgar attributes, but we know, too, its strength! The city of Rome holds in its women the mothers of heroes, when Providence shall withdraw the black veil now hung over their rude minds, and let in the light of knowledge. We who laugh at their sad ignorance, think what we would be without liberty—our minds enslaved, geography tabooed! Egypt is a paradise compared to Rome.

The advantages of foreign travel to an intelligent American are to teach him … the disadvantages of living any where save in America. And though the artistic eye dwells with such loving repose on the soothing colors of Italy, and particularly on the subdued white and gray tones of Roman ruins and palaces, walls and houses, yet the owner of that artistic eye should restrain his wrath at the fiery red bricks of our own cities, for let him reflect that this color goads him on, as it doth a bull, to make valorous efforts—to do something!

Looking down from the stone balustrade of the Pincio on the piazza Popolo, we note two churches, one on either side of the Corso; their architecture is neither more nor less hideous than nine tenths of the other three hundred and odd churches of Rome; the same heavy, half-cooked look about doors and windows, suggesting cocked-hats of the largest size on the heads of dwarfs of no size at all; the same heavy scroll-work, reminding one of the work of a playful giant of a green-grocer who has made a bouquet of sausages and cabbages, egg-plants and legs of mutton, and exhibits it to a thick-headed public as a—work of art. O Roman Plebs! lay this nattering unction to your soul—we did not do that!

The history of all nations seem to indicate successive ages of grub and butterfly-life; certainly Rome has been a grub long enough. Let us hope the sun of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Gallant Men, will hasten the time when the Romans shall wing their way to the light of Liberty. These mockeries of architecture shall then stand as warning fingers to the Romans of the sad days that were; the days when mind and body were enslaved, and the grinning monkey held the dove tight-clutched in his brutal grasp. Through sword and fire public taste must pass before it is purified: the mountain-stream, dashing along with bounding steps, is clear and sparkling, but in the long stretch of level pastureland or prairie it is still and—dirty.

It may be well to descend and wander through those close and narrow streets where the waste-water of old Roman aqueducts makes green and damp the foundation stories of gloomy houses, and where the carefully-nurtured traveler sees sights of smoked interiors, dirt and rubbish in the streets, that terrify him; but let him remember that in the worst of these kennels the inhabitants have never forgotten that they had a Past, and the 'I am a Roman Citizen!' still rings in their ears, eats into their hearts, and is at their tongue's end. Monsieur About was in Rome when Caper was there; he saw these Romans through Napoleonic spectacles: while one foot was trying to stamp on Antonelli gently, the other was daintily ascending the shining steps leading to the temple of Gallic fame. He is impressed with the idea that the Romans are hangers-on of hangers-on to patricians, from which we are to infer, if the patricians are ever hung, there will be a heavy weight to their feet!

Rocjean, one afternoon, after a walk on the Pincio, was returning to his studio, when, as he descended to the Via Babuino, he met a Roman artist named Attonito, who cultivated the English.

'Ow arr you toe-day, my dear?' he asked Rocjean.

'Quite well, except a slight attack of bad English, from which I hope to recover in a few minutes.'

'Pray tell unto me th-hat weech is bad Englis.'

'Haven't you been on the Pincio?'

'Yas, I tak' consteetutionails up there avery afternoons; it is a costume Englis' th-hat I vary moche cotton to.'…

'W-hat! Cotton to? Why, that is a clear Americanism; where did you pick it up?'

'Meester Caper of Noo-York, he told unto me it am more elegant as to say, I love, or I affection. Bote, 'ave you saw that bu-tee-fool creechure with 'air of flags?'…

'What!'

''Air of flags; 'ow you name eet? Capellatura di lino?'

'Oh! you mean tow-head?'

'Toe! no, no! I mean lino.'

'Ah! yes, flaxen hair.'

'Benissimo! Vary well, flagson 'air and blue eyze. Shhe was in carri-adge with Lady Blumpudy. I go avery afternoons to inspect her as she takes the airs on the Pincio, Eet would gife me great pleasures to ally myself to her in marriage compact, bote I do not know eef she has a fortune. Do you know any theengs?'

'Yes, a great many; one of which is that it is my dinner-time, and as I turn down the Condotti—good afternoon.'

'Goo-ood by, my dear,' answered Attonito, as he slowly wandered up the Piazza di Spagna.

Another example of the beneficial effects of the Pincio on the bourgeoise, thought Rocjean. When will the alarm-bell in the clock of Roman time ring out its awaking peal?

ROME BY NIGHT

If one would realize the romantic side of Rome in all its stately grandeur, and receive a solemn and ineffaceable impression of its beauty, by all means let him, like Quevedo's hero, sleep 'a-daytime' and do his sight-seeing by moonlight or star-light; for, save in some few favored quarters, its inspection by gaslight would be difficult. Remember, too, that all that is grandly beautiful of Rome, the traveler has seen before he reaches the Imperial City—with the eyes of understanding, with the eyes of others—in books.

Nothing but a heap of old stones, bricks, and mortar is there here for the illiterate tourist—he can have six times as jolly a time in Paris for half the money that he pays 'in that old hole where a fellow named Culius Jæsar used to live.'

As if the night were not sufficiently dark in this city, there are always those who stand ready with the paint-brush of fancy to make it even of a darker hue; whisperings among the travelers in hotels of certain Jim Joneses or Bill Smiths who have been robbed. Yes, sir, early in the evening, right there in the Corso: grabbed his watch and chain, struck him on the head. You know he was a powerfully built man; but they came behind him, and if he hadn't have done so and so, the rascally Italians would have killed him, and so forth.

'Re-al-ly; well, you won't catch me out at nights!'

There rises up, as I write, the figure of a slim young man, of the day-time negro-minstrel style of beauty, who once dwelt three weeks in Rome. I know that he was profound in knowledge of trick and vice, and that he had an impediment in his speech—he could never speak the truth. He told a fearful tale of a midnight robbery in the Piazza di Spagna—himself the victim. It was well told, and I ought to know, for I read it years before in a romance, only the scene was, in type, laid in Venice. According to this negro-minstrel style of youth, he had been seized from behind, held, robbed of watch and elegant gold chain, red coral shirt-studs, onyx sleeve-buttons, and a porte-monnaie containing fifty scudi, etc., etc. He was the theatrical hero of the hotel for two days, and the recipient of many drinks. Time, the cater of things, never digested this falsehood, and months after the youth had left, I learned that he had lost all his jewelry and money at—twenty-deck poker.