The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

I thought I had read something very like the speaker's sentiments in that morning's Mercury, but didn't say so. I thought also of the existence of another class at the South besides the two so favorably characterized, of which I had seen a good representative in a coarse, half-inebriated, shabbily dressed individual, who, just after breakfast, had reeled through the crowd always assembled in the large hall of the hotel to exchange and discuss the news, boasting that a son of his had 'cut a man's throat the other day, down on the island,' and admiringly wondering whether it was the paternal or maternal side that he got his bravery from. I deemed it, however, advisable to be reticent on this head. And my reward followed.

'Come, Mr.–, you have been in most of the Mississippi States, I believe, but were never in the Carolinas before, so you don't know how we old-fashioned folks live on our plantations. Suppose you pay me a visit at my place on – Island, and see? I come of English blood, myself; my grandfather was a Tory in the Revolution'—with a laugh—'and you'll find us a good deal more British than you think possible here in America. England and South Carolina are mother and daughter, you know; and under the influence of free trade, we're bound to be very intimate. All we of the South ask is that our institutions shall speak for themselves, and I can trust a Britisher's proverbial love of fair play to report us as he finds us. What do you say? I'm going down to the island for a week on Wednesday; will you spend your Christmas with me?'

The invitation was given with an offhand cordiality decidedly prepossessing. Expressing my thanks, I at once accepted it in the spirit it was offered.

'That's right! you're my guest, then;' and the Colonel—he had been presented to me by that military designation—shook me by the hand. 'Will you walk?' And we strolled out together into the hall before mentioned.

If I were writing an article on Charleston in Secession time, now, here was an opportunity for description. What a strange, what a memorable period it was! involuntarily reminding one of an historic parallel in the roseate aspect presented by the early days of the first French revolution, when everybody had hailed as the dawning of a celestial morrow the putrescent glow of old corruption blending into the lurid fire of the coming sans-culottic hell. In this case also an infernal ignis fatuus had arisen to tempt its deluded followers toward a selfish fool's paradise, only to be obtained by wading through seas of fratricidal blood. And how they believed in this impossible future in 'the cradle of the rebellion!' Only a minority of darker conspirators apprehended—hoped for—war, thinking it necessary to precipitate the remainder of the Southern States into revolution, and the establishment of a separate nationality; the great majority of South Carolinians accepting Secession with an enthusiasm (or rather self-exaltation) and confidence astounding to witness. There would be no collision; the North could not and dared not push it to the extreme issue; she must endure the punishment due to her 'fanaticism' in inevitable bankruptcy and beggary, while the South, the seat of 'a great, free, and prosperous people, whose renown must spread throughout the civilized world, and pass down to the remotest ages' (I quote from the ordinance of Secession), had infinite possibilities before it. Jack Cade's commonwealth, Panurge's 'world, in which all men shall be debtors and borrowers,' Gonzalo's imaginary kingdom in the Tempest, were not a whit more extravagant than what was hourly talked of and expected from this longed-for slaveholding confederacy at this time in Charleston. But enough of digression on a subject merely incidental to this narrative.

Three days after my conversation with the Colonel, when the city was jubilant with the passage of the act of Secession, I accompanied him to the plantation spoken of. It involved a little steamboat journey, sundry rides in chaise or buggy, and the crossing of more than one of the many creeks or rivers intersecting the low, sandy, swampy coast. I purposely abstain from particularizing the locality. It was toward the close of a mild, humid day when we reached the Colonel's residence.

Suppose an old-fashioned two-story house, one of a very common pattern in this region, built of wood, and standing on an open foundation of brick, with a tall, formal chimney projecting at either end, a broad piazza, and a great flight of wooden steps in front and rear, the latter looking seaward. Like the house of Chaucer's Reeve, in summer it must have been all 'yshadowed with greene trees,' the cedar, the cottonwood, the liveoak, fig, mulberry, and magnolia, growing in the sand or light soil accruing from vegetable decomposition; and as the evergreens predominated, its winter aspect was yet pleasant and rural, notwithstanding a certain air of dilapidation and decay, so common in Southern dwellings that the inhabitants seem to be unconscious of it. Adjacent, beyond the short avenue of orange trees by which we had approached, was a double row of negro huts, with little gardens between them, forming a rustic lane; farther on, corn and cotton fields. The geography of the island might be stated as follows: interior woods, girdled by plantations, with houses on the seaboard or shores of the river or inlets; a road circumscribing it, and one running across it.

We were welcomed by the appearance of two or three decently clad house-servants, mulattoes, and an athletic negro, of average nigritude,2 every tooth in whose head glistened, as his black face rippled into a laugh, when his master favored him with some familiar and approving jocularity. Officiously taking charge of the horse and buggy, he conveyed them to a spacious but dilapidated stable (the door of which, I remarked, hung only by its lower hinge), while the servants were equally zealous in transporting what little baggage we had into the house. There the Colonel presented me to his daughters, two tall and rather handsome girls of the ages of eighteen and twenty, dressed in deep mourning (their mother had died but recently), their aunt, a staid, elderly matron, who seemed installed as housekeeper, and a fat, careless gentleman in shirt sleeves, with a cigar in his mouth, who impressed me as an indolent and improvident poor relation of my host, as, indeed, he proved. There was present, also, the child of a neighbor, a little fair-haired girl, called Nelly, who, hearing my nationality mentioned, would not approach me, which the Colonel accounted for by surmising that she had received 'Tory' impressions of Britisher's from her parent's negroes.

A sincere, if a quiet welcome, and an excellent dinner, comprising fish, game, chickens, bacon, hominy, corn and wheaten bread, and sweet potatoes of a succulence and flavor only attainable in Dixie, all served by decorous and attentive negroes, made me feel very contented with my position. Nor were the surroundings inharmonious. We sat by a wood fire, burning in a fireplace which contained, instead of a grate, old-fashioned iron dogs: most of the furniture, with the exception of a handsome piano, was ancient, and the room ornamented with books, pictures, and mineral curiosities. Among the former I noticed a row of volumes of British parliamentary debates in old print, contemporary with the age succeeding Johnson. Really, as my host had boasted, his household gods were decidedly English—colonial English; and I began to understand the peculiar, ante-revolutionary, patrician characteristics on which he and his class evidently prided themselves. He showed me a portrait of an ancestor who had held high office in the days of Governor Oglethorpe, an old-fashioned miniature on ivory, charmingly painted, in the style of Malbone, and one could easily recognize in it the features of his descendant. In conversing, too, on the early history of the State, of which he had much to say that I found interesting, he always assumed that a popular, democratic form of government was rather a mistake than otherwise,3 and, without absolutely condemning the Revolution, implied that South Carolina had been moved to her limited share in it against her direct interests, by a high-spirited patriotism and sympathy with the at present ungrateful and venal North. I do not think that the fact of my nationality influenced him in this; he evidently spoke his convictions.

The ladies were at first reserved, acting, I believe, under the impression that their father's brief knowledge of me hardly warranted my introduction to his family; indeed, I am sure it was exceptional, from all I have since learned of South Carolinian society. The casual mention, however, of the names of a few mutual acquaintances, of unexceptional 'blue blood,' and the fact that both ladies had visited Europe, establishing topics of conversation, they presently warmed into cordiality. I found them well informed and agreeable, less demonstrative in their self-assertion than their Northern sisterhood, but latently wilful, and assumptive of a superior elevation hardly justified by their general air of languid refinement. It reminded me, on the whole, of what I had heard complacently eulogized in Charleston as a tendency toward 'Orientalism' on the part of the women, of which the characteristics were repose, fastidiousness, and exclusiveness—one of the many admirable results of the fundamental institution.

The ladies were, of course, ardent secessionists, expressing themselves with a bitterness, an acrimony, an unreasonableness, which might have astonished me, had I been capable of such a feeling on the subject. Inevitably we slid on to it, when I learnt that their only brother was away doing military duty on Sullivan's Island, and so zealous in the discharge of his assumed obligations that he intended to spend his Christmas in camp, not, as usual, upon the plantation.

'You'll be sorry to hear that, Pomp,' said the Colonel to an evidently favorite servant, who had waited upon us most assiduously, and who was then kneeling before the fat gentleman, and putting a pair of slippers on his feet. He, by the way, had contributed very little to the conversation, only assenting, smiling, and looking the picture of ease and good humor, as he sat lazily beaming behind a tumbler full of Bourbon whiskey and water.

'Yes, sar!' the negro answered, 'too bad, mass' Philip not come home for de holidays. All de people 'spect him.'

'That's a first-rate boy,' said his master, as the negro left the room to fetch something; 'I wouldn't take two thousand dollars for him.' (Every one familiar with the South, must have heard similar encomiums hundreds of times: each household appears to pride itself on the possession of some singularly admirable negro, whose capacity, honesty, and fidelity are vaunted with an air of conscious magnanimity edifying to witness. The desired inference is that the institution, productive of so much mutual appreciation, must be excellent. It never seems to occur to the eulogists that the good is exceptional, or that the praised characteristics might be alleged as an argument for emancipation.)

'That boy has been North with me,' the Colonel continued, 'to Washington, Philadelphia, and as far as New York. The abolitionists got hold of him at the last place, and wanted to run him off to Canada, but Pomp preferred old Carolina. You don't want to be free, do you, Pomp?'

This was a leading question. The slave hesitated a moment, grinned, and evaded it,

''Pears like de colored people at de Norf was mostly a mis'able set,' he answered: 'can't shum!/'

'You can't see it!' said his master, delighted, and translating a very popular negro phrase for my benefit. And incontinently he launched into a defence and eulogium of slavery, which I shall not oblige my readers to skip by recording. The topic is one on which Southerners are never wearied; and a more uneasy people on the subject than South Carolinians it would be impossible to imagine: long before Secession, they existed in a state of chronic distrust and suspicion about it amounting to monomania.

Next day I accompanied the Colonel over his plantation. It was a large one, somewhat over seven hundred acres, inclusive of forest land, about two thirds being reclaimed upland swamp soil growing seaisland cotton. An old family estate, most of the negroes belonging to it had been born there or in the immediate vicinity; there were about two hundred of them, some living near their master's house, as has been mentioned, the rest in a sort of colony at the other end of the plantation, under the eye of the overseer. These negro settlements merit a paragraph of description.

Their huts were of wood, separate, and standing in little gardens, in which each family enjoyed the privilege of cultivating patches of corn, sweet potatoes, and such vegetables as they chose, a street of about a hundred feet wide dividing the houses. Midway, under the shade of a magnificent liveoak, whose branches were mournful with the funereal moss (always suggestive to my fancy of the 'little old woman,' whose employment in the nursery legend is 'to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky,' having executed her task in a slovenly manner), was a simple apparatus for grinding corn, consisting of two heavy circular stones, placed horizontally in a rude frame under a shed, to be worked by manual power, by upright wooden handles. This served as a mill for the entire negro population.

Entering their huts, you were first conscious of a large brick fireplace, in which a fire was almost constantly burning, though it scarcely lit up the generally dark interior, always much, more picturesque than comfortable, for negroes have little if any notion of ventilation, and can hardly be too warm: they will kindle great blazing fires to lie down by or to heat their food, in the open fields in summer. A few roughly fashioned seats and tables, and a ladder staircase, leading upward to an attic or cockloft, completes the inventory of the interior.

We had passed the inhabitants of these huts, at work in the fields, under the direction of the overseer, a strong, spare man, in a suit of homespun, who rode about among them on horseback, carrying in his hand a cowhide whip, which he had exhibited to me with a smile, and the remark that 'that was the thing the Yankees made so much noise about.' It was a sufficient instrument of punishment, I thought and said, adding that I trusted he found infrequent occasion for the exercise of it.

'Well, they're a pretty well behaved lot generally,' he answered, with that peculiar accent derived from almost exclusive association with negroes common throughout the South; 'but sometimes it 'pears as if the devil had got in among 'em, and I has to lay on all round. A nigger will be a nigger, you know.'

The subjects of this ethical remark were rather raggedly dressed, the men in coarse jackets and trousers, the women in soiled and burnt gowns of indefinite color, generally reefed up about the hips for convenience in working. (Their dilapidation, it may be remarked, was due to the close of the year; they would get new clothes, the Colonel remarked, at Christmas.) They seemed, however, well fed, not too hardly tasked, and, from a sensual point of view, happy and contented. The Colonel spoke to those nearest him patronizingly, asked after absent or sick members of their families, joked about the coming Christmas, and the 'high time' impending, and inquired how many marriages were to come off on the occasion—the negroes generally deferring their nuptials till the great holiday of the year. He was answered by a perfect shout of negro laughter, hearty, infectious, irresistible.

'Come, how many is there to be?' he repeated, joining in their mirth.

'Six!' the overseer responded, seeing that the negroes did not reply except by continued guffaws.

'Yes, sa! ya! ya bound to have a high old Secesshum time dis Christmas! ya! ya!' added a gray-headed old darky, quite overcome with merriment.

'Why, you'll ruin the young ladies in finding frocks for the girls!' said the Colonel; 'who are these future happy couples, eh?'

'Sal's Joe, sa!' 'Polly's Sue!' 'Big Sam!' 'Pinckney!' 'Cal!' 'Peter!' 'Jule!' and a variety of names were shouted out, not by the owners of them. With a great deal of shyness and simpering and half-suppressed grinning, and real or affected modesty on the part of the women, and equal mirth and awkward self-consciousness on that of the aspirant bridegrooms, the candidates for matrimony—or at least such of them as were present, one couple and a 'boy' being away—were got together and ranged in a row before us, hoes in hand, where they stood, to their own and the boisterous delight of their colaborers. They appeared generally young, healthy, and well-looking negroes, some of them handsome in an African sense. The Colonel surveyed them with much good nature and satisfaction; he was evidently gratified at the prospect of so many marriages among his own negroes; unions 'off the plantation' being looked on with disfavor by proprietors, for obvious reasons.

'Well,' he said, after addressing a few remarks to them, individually; 'I must talk with the young ladies, and see what we can do for you. If Bones (the sobriquet of a negro-preacher, belonging to the estate) won't be jealous, I think I'll try and get Mr. – over, to marry the whole batch of you in high style, eh?'

The prospect of a white clergyman, an honor generally reserved only for the marriages of favorite house-servants, seemed to afford unmitigated satisfaction to the field hands. They laughed again, thanked their master, assured him of the perfect willingness of their colored pastor to resign his functions for the time being, in view of the superior dignity accruing to the occasion from the presence of Mr.–, and we rode off amid a chorus of jubilations.

'What would an abolitionist say to that scene, do you think?' asked the Colonel, as we galloped homeward to dinner.

'Probably he'd admit that slavery has its pleasant side, but insist on looking at both,' I answered.

WHO BEAT?

But warlike casuists can't discuss,If we beat them, or they beat us;We swear we beat, they swear we lie—We'll tell you more on't by and by!

THE CAUSES OF THE REBELLION

When Jefferson Davis and his coadjutors so defiantly and with so much apparent confidence entered on the path of rebellion, they probably did not foresee the abyss into which they were about to plunge. They rushed eagerly forward at the first call to battle; but they hardly paused to consider how fearful a thing it is to light the flames of civil war among a people long accustomed to peace and security; to marshal opposing armies drawn from the late happy dwellings of the same community, arraying in deadly conflict father against son, and brother against brother; to add fiery devastation and reckless destruction of property horrid carnage and the saddest bereavements of all kinds; and to replace brotherhood of a common country, a common ancestry, and a glorious history, with the relentless enmities engendered by rebellion and revolution. What wrongs and sufferings, endured by our brethren of the South, or likely to imposed on them by the National Government, would have been sufficient to steel their hearts against the heavy calamities they have encountered and inflicted, or to justify the immense waste desolation already suffered in both sections, in consequence of this most unnatural and fratricidal war? The most ordinary charity would lead to the belief, that if the mighty woes which have followed in the bloody path of the rebellion could have been anticipated, even the bold, bad leaders, and still more the infatuated people, would have suffered much and hesitated long before assuming the dread responsibility. Hate itself, though reënforced and supported by all other passions of a fiendish nature, would have stood aghast at the overwhelming avalanche of horrors which hung ready to be precipitated on our unhappy country. It is hardly within the limits of human depravity, that evils of such magnitude, attended by such world-wide results, should be attributable to the deliberate will and arbitrary action of even the worst members of the human family. For the credit of our common humanity, let it be admitted that the authors of the fatal movement did really believe In their avowed doctrine of peaceable secession, and that they could not have had the least idea of the immense proportions the civil war was destined to assume, nor of the extent of ruin and misery it would necessarily drag in its horrid train. And if the prominent leaders did not intend all the sad consequences of their wicked act of treason, still less can they be considered personally responsible for the fatal popular enthusiasm which has so thoroughly sustained them in their section. Though full of hate and animated by a spirit of infernal mischief, they had not the capacity to stir a nation so profoundly, except from the fact that they were dealing with minds already well prepared for their impassioned appeal, and with elements which had been wrought into discord by causes long preëxisting.

In the midst of this stupendous conflict, individuals seem to be as insignificant and powerless to control it, as if they stood, awed and subdued by the warring elements of nature, and compelled to wait until these should expend their fury and of themselves subside. Thirty millions of people have been suddenly and unexpectedly divided, and the sundered parts have been thrown into fierce and deadly antagonism. Belligerent passions rage and boil among them with all the ungovernable power of the angry waves when the sea is lashed by the destructive tempest. The throes of the suffering nation are as terrible as those of the trembling earth, when, by some internal convulsion, its very foundations seem to be rocked on the fiery waves of the central abyss, and every living creature on its surface becomes agitated with profound dismay. States have been temporarily but rudely torn from their long and peaceful connections with sister States, and great rents in the political soil, filled with the bodies of slaughtered citizens, mark the lines of separation. Vast armies have been assembled and organized, and have met each other in the shock of battle, on fields made slippery with fraternal blood, where tens of thousands have fallen to rise no more—swept down by the relentless storm of iron hail with which brother has greeted brother in this most unholy war. The measured tramp of the armed hosts has shaken the continent; and the vengeful cries of the unnatural strife have disturbed the inmost peaceful recesses of its great central plains and mountains. From California to Texas; from Colorado to New Mexico; from Maine to New Orleans; from the great lakes to the coasts of the Carolinas; and along the measureless length of 'the father of waters' and his great tributaries, the gathering armies have marched or sailed, and swarmed to the beat of the drum and the sound of the trumpet. More than a million of men, on both sides, have been engaged in these tremendous movements, which unhappily correspond too well in their unexampled magnitude with the physical character of our magnificent country. Civil war has sacrilegiously usurped the mighty instrumentalities of modern peaceful life; and the bloody and destructive work of these vast armies is not less gigantic in scale than have been the ordinary operations of our wonderful industry and our ever-increasing commerce. The sacrifice of life, the destruction of property, the desolation of extensive regions of beautiful and fertile country, the vast expenditure of public means, all concur to characterize this as the grandest and most terrible phenomenon of the kind that has ever occurred in the history of man. To us, who are in the midst of it, and destined to be involved in its results, whatever they may be, it is a subject of deep and awful interest; and while the scenes of the momentous drama are continually shifting around us and presenting new spectacles of slaughter and disaster every day, it is hardly possible to maintain the calmness necessary for an impartial appreciation of the causes which have been sufficiently powerful to turn the destructive energies of so great a nation upon itself, causing it to rend and destroy its own body politic, so recently rejoicing in unexampled prosperity and happiness. Some gigantic power, wielding strength enough to produce the tremendous results already visible, must be somewhere hidden at the source of these grand phenomena. In the physical world, a small quantity of water or a few kegs of powder, flashing into steam or gas by the application of heat, may be used to overthrow the most stupendous material fabrics which the labor and genius of men have ever been able to erect. What fatal means of destruction, and what traitorous hand have been employed to drill and charge the solid columns, or to mine the deep foundations of that beautiful and majestic structure of liberty, which our fathers reared for us with so much labor and sacrifice?