Four Years in Rebel Capitals. T. C. De Leon
to pass bills and ratify acts, the inspiration for which it derived from the clearest and coolest brain in the South.
The crisis had called in plain terms that it was time for the leading spirit of the revolution to take its management; and he had risen to the occasion and faced the responsibilities, before which the chosen of the new nation had hitherto cowered.
And naturally, under the iron hand, things began to work more smoothly than they had under the King-Log reign of a few weeks previous; and the country felt the change from the Potomac to the Gulf. True, politicians still grumbled, but less loudly; for even they found something to do, where everybody began to be busy. The great crowd that at first collected had thinned greatly, from assignments to duty in divers quarters; and that portion of it left in Montgomery began to settle into a regular routine.
The ladies of the executive mansion held occasional receptions, after the Washington custom, at which were collected the most brilliant, the most gallant and most honored of the South. But the citizens still held aloof from general connection with the alien crowd. They could not get rid of their idea that Sodom had come to be imposed on them; and to their prejudiced nostrils there was an odor of sulphur in everything that savored of Washington society. And yet, while they grumbled—these older people of Montgomery—they wrought, heart and soul for the cause; yielded their warerooms for government use, contributed freely in money and stores, let their wives and daughters work on the soldiers' clothing like seamstresses, and put their first-born into the ranks, musket on shoulder.
Early on the morning of the 18th of April, a salute of seven guns rang out from the street before the public building. The telegraph had brought the most welcome news that, on the evening before, Virginia had passed the ordinance of secession.
Wild was the rejoicing at the southern Capital that day!
The Old Dominion had long and sedately debated the question; had carefully considered the principles involved and canvassed the pros and cons, heedless alike of jeers from without and hot-headed counsels within her borders.
She had trembled long in the balance so tenderly adjusted, that the straining eyes of the South could form no notion how it would lean; but now she turned deliberately and poured the vast wealth of her influence, of her mineral stores and her stalwart and chivalric sons into the lap of the Confederacy.
The victory of the week before paled before this; and men looked at each other with a hope in their eyes that spoke more than the braying of a thousand bands.
And the triumph was a double one; for great as was the accession to the South in boundary, in men and means, greater far was the blow to the Union, when its eldest and most honored daughter divorced herself from the parent hearth and told the world, that looked on with deep suspense, that the cause of her sisters must in future be her own!
CHAPTER V.
A SOUTHERN RIVER BOAT RACE.
"Hurry, my boy! Pack up your traps and get ready for the boat," cried Styles Staple, bursting into my room in his usual sudden fashion the day we got the news from Virginia. "All's fixed. The colonel, you and I are to have a trip of a week, stop at Mobile and then run down t' Orleans!"
So by sundown we were quietly smoking our cigars on the topmost deck of the "Southern Republic."
Nowhere in the world can be found just such boats as those that navigate our south-western rivers. Great three or four-storied constructions, built upon mere flats of the lightest possible draught, with length and breadth of beam sufficient to allow storage room for an immense number of cotton bales and barrels upon the lowest deck; with their furnaces, boilers and machinery all above the water line, they look like up-country hotels that, having got out of their element, contemplate a down-trip for the benefit of their health—or cuisine.
The "Southern Republic" was a new boat, built after the most approved plan, on a scale of size and magnificence unequaled on the river. Sitting flat and square upon the water, her four decks rising one above the other—with the thousand doors and windows of her state-rooms seeming to peer like eyes over the balconies around them—she seemed more like some fabled marine monster than a vessel meant for speed and comfort. Her length was immense, and her draught necessarily very light—not four feet when full loaded; for the Alabama is subject to many vagaries and what was a clear channel yesterday may be only a two-foot shoal to-day. Of course, with solidity and strength sacrificed to this extreme lightness, when the powerful engines are put to any strain, the high, thin fabric thrills from stem to stern with their every puff, like a huge card-house.
The speed of a first-class high-pressure boat is very great in the longer "reaches;" but, the Alabama is a most tortuous stream. Often you stand by the pilot-house and see, right under the quarter, a gleaming streak of water across a neck of land over which you might toss a stone; and yet you may steam on miles around the point that juts ahead, before you get into it.
The "Southern Republic," from her immense size and unusually handsome equipment, was a novelty even to the river people; and each afternoon of her starting, crowds came aboard to bid farewell to friends and roam over the vessel, or collected on the bluffs above to see her swing out to the shrill notes of her "calliope," the best and least discordant on the river. A few evenings before we left, a large party had collected in honor of General Earl Van Dorn. He had recently resigned; and the commission as colonel of the only regiment of regular cavalry in the Confederacy was tendered him. Now, on the eve of departure for his well-known expedition to Texas—then considered a momentous and desperate one—numbers of fair women thronged the bluffs to catch a glimpse of the hero of the hour, while friends gathered round to grasp the hand, than which no firmer ever drew blade!
Few men had started in the war with brighter auspices and more ardent well-wishings—none could have had a sadder ending! I remember well the last sight I ever had of his neat but powerfully-knit figure, as he stood with one hand resting on the rail of the upper deck and the other raising his broad sombrero over the clear, sharp features, with the peaked moustache and beard of the cuirassier. A brilliant and handsome staff surrounded him; from the bluffs, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs and the men their hats; the wild notes of the calliope echoed back the "Marseillaise;" but in memory's photograph of the scene, his figure alone—the proud swell of the thin nostril and the deep, smothered flame in the cold gray eye—stands out clear and sharp.
We are aboard the "Southern Republic;" the last bell has sounded, the last belated trunk has been trundled over the plank; and we are off, the calliope screaming "Dixie" like ten thousand devils, the crowds on the bank waving us bon voyage!
The main saloon of the boat was a spacious apartment, a hundred feet long by thirty in breadth, gorgeously decorated with modern paint and brilliantly lighted; the galleries leading to the state-rooms rising tier upon tier entirely around it, while above, a skylight of tinted glass shed a soft, warm light.
There were offices, card-rooms, bar-rooms aboard all these boats; and as the down-trip occupies from forty-eight to one hundred hours—according to the stage of the river and the luck in running aground, a performance to be expected once in each trip—we become quite a mutual amusement community by the time it is over.
This trip the boat was very crowded, and at supper the effect of the line of small tables, filled with officers in uniform, ladies tastefully dressed and a sprinkling of homespun coats—all reflected in the long mirror—was very bright and gay. After meals, there is generally a promenade on the upper deck, where people talk, smoke, inspect each other and flirt. They then adjourn to state-room, saloon or card-room, to lounge or read to kill time; for the Alabama is anything but a picturesque stream, with its low, marshy banks only varied by occasional "cotton slides" and "negro quarters."
This night was splendidly clear, the moon bright as day, and Staple and I with our cigars staid on deck to scrape acquaintance with the pilot and the small, seedy Frenchman who officiated at the calliope. He was an original in his way—"the Professor"—his head