The Iron Furnace, or Slavery and Secession Part 9

I hope that you will soon pa.s.s south of Tupelo; but in your march to the Gulf, may you fare better than I did in my journey to this place.

Green corn eaten raw, berries, and stagnant water, would soon cause you to present the emaciated appearance that I do. On your route, call upon the secession sympathizers, and compel them to furnish you with better and more substantial food. My horse I left at Tupelo. He is a valuable animal. The rebel General Hardee, in the true spirit of secession, appropriated--that is, stole--him. However, I did not call to demand him when I left. Being in haste, I did not choose to spare the time, and leaving in the night, I did not wish to disturb the slumbers of the Tupelonians. He is a bright bay. If you meet with him, you may have him for nothing. I would much prefer that he serve the Federal army.

If you take General Jordan prisoner, send me word, and I will furnish you with the iron bands that he put on me, by which you may secure him till he meets the just award of his crimes, which would be death, for destroying the lives of so many Union men.

I hope that you may soon plant the stars and stripes on the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Mexico, and play the "Star-spangled Banner" within hearing of its vertiginous billows, after having conquered every foe to the permanence of the glorious Union. I close with the sentiment of the immortal Jackson, which I wish you to bear constantly in mind, in your victorious progress--"The Federal Union--it must and shall be preserved!" Relying upon the G.o.d of battles, rest a.s.sured that the right cause will triumph, and that after having secured the great object of your warfare, the preservation of the Union, your children and your children's children will rise up and call you blessed, rejoicing in the enjoyment of a free, united, and happy country.

Wis.h.i.+ng you abundant success, I beg leave to retire.

On Sat.u.r.day, the 2d of August, 1862, we left Rienzi, _en route_ for the North, in company with William H. Hubbard, Esq., and family, who were also refugees. From the moment I reached the Federal lines I experienced nothing but kindness. I could not mention all who are deserving of thanks from myself and family. I am under special obligations to Generals Nelson, Rosecrans, Granger, Davis, and Asboth; also to Colonel Bryner and Lieutenant Colonel Thrush, of the Forty-seventh Illinois, and Surgeon Lucas, of same regiment, and to Dr. Holley, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois Volunteers; to Josiah King, Esq., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Dr.

McCook, of Steubenville, Ohio; also Mrs. Ann Wheelwright, of Newburyport, Ma.s.sachusetts, whose kind letter will ever be remembered, and whose "material aid" ent.i.tles her to lasting grat.i.tude; and to Rev. George Potts, D. D., of New York; and Mr. William E. Dubois, of Philadelphia; Rev. Dr. Sprole, Newburgh, New York; Rev. N. Hewitt, D. D., Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Rev. F. N. Ewing, Chicago, Illinois; Rev. J. M. Krebs, D.

D., New York; Rev. A. D. Smith, D. D., New York; and Rev. F. Reck Harbaugh, Philadelphia, and many others.

Before closing this chapter I would mention the following incident:

On Wednesday evening, November 19th, I addressed the citizens of Philadelphia at the Sixth Presbyterian Church, (Rev. F. Reck Harbaugh's.) A report of this address found its way into the city papers. Two days afterwards, while in conversation with Mr. Martien, at his book-store, two soldiers entered, one of whom approached, and thus addressed me:

"Do you know me, sir?"

I replied: "Your face is familiar, but I do not remember your name. It is my misfortune not to be able to remember proper names."

"I read the report of your address in the newspaper, and through the aid of my comrade, I have succeeded in finding you. We have met before, at Tupelo."

At the mention of Tupelo, I immediately recognised in the speaker the man who, after labouring with the others in sundering my chain, engaged the guard, who sat in the doorway, in conversation, while I watched an opportunity to disappear under the prison. Grasping him warmly by the hand, I said: "I now recognise you. You are Mr. Howell Trogdon, of Missouri, late my fellow-prisoner in Tupelo. How and when did you succeed in leaving that prison?"

"Being a Federal prisoner, I was removed from Tupelo to Mobile, and there parolled on the 26th of August last."

"When was I missed after my escape, and how did the officers act when they learned that I was gone?"

"You were missed at roll-call, the next morning, and in a short time, many officers came into the prison. They were greatly enraged at this, your second flight. The prisoners were closely questioned as to their complicity in your escape, but they denied all knowledge of the matter.

Soon all the prison-guards on duty during the night, thirty-three in number, were brought into the prison in chains. The cavalry was ordered out in search of you, and directed to shoot you down wherever found. The mode of your escape was not discovered, and the officers were of the opinion that you had bribed the guards. _From that time, the officers became more cruel than ever, and in two weeks, thirty-two of our fellow-prisoners were taken out and shot!_ We never learned whether you had succeeded in escaping to the Union lines. We feared that you were overtaken and shot, or that you perished in the swamps from hunger, thirst, and fatigue. I hope soon to see McHatten, Speer, De Grummond, and Soper, who are also parolled, and they will rejoice to learn that you still live. During the night of your escape, we slept but little, through fear that _our chaplain_ might be shot by the guards, and I a.s.sure you many fervent prayers ascended to Heaven for your safety."

CHAPTER VII.

SOUTHERN CLa.s.sES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.

Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of Living--Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the Cars--Superst.i.tion--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardsh.e.l.l Sermon--Causes which lead to the Degradation of this Cla.s.s--Efforts to Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Peculiar Inst.i.tution--The Slaveholding Cla.s.s--The Middle Cla.s.s--Northern Isms--Incident at a Methodist Minister's House--Question asked a Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern Hatred toward the North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and Cruelties of Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at Whipping-post--Advertis.e.m.e.nt of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid of Free Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South.

The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded appearance of a cla.s.s of people called by the slaveholders, "poor white folks," and "the tallow-faced gentry," from their pallid complexion. They live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause their peculiar complexion. Their children, at a very early age, form this filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar to that occasioned by chronic ague and fever.

Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in fifty of this cla.s.s is exempt from the disgusting habit. The method is this: The female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with her saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all about her mouth, and into the interstices of her teeth, where she allows it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, _a la quid_ of tobacco, and suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary avocations; while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men.

In the absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably resorted to as a subst.i.tute. Oriental betel-chewing, and the j.a.panese fas.h.i.+on of blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the height of elegance compared with snuff-dipping. The habit leads to a speedy decay of the teeth, and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those who indulge in it become haggard at a very early age.

The _Petersburg_ (Va.) _Express_ estimates the number of women in that State as one hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thousand of whom are snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of snuff per day; that is, to the hundred thousand dippers, two thousand five hundred pounds a day, amounting, in one year, to the enormous quant.i.ty of nine hundred and twelve thousand pounds. This practice prevails generally, it says, among the poor whites, though some females of the higher cla.s.ses are guilty of it.

The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as far as practicable, in the primitive aboriginal mode, viz., by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. When these methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a truck-patch, and some of them raise a bale or two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of which they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few necessary articles. When all other methods fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of them are addicted from choice, as well as from necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. Indolence is a prevailing vice, and its lamentable effects are everywhere visible. They fully obey the scriptural injunction, take no thought for the morrow. A present supply, sufficient to satisfy nature's most urgent demands, being obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse into listless inactivity.

They herd together upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the country, which the rich slaveholder will not purchase, for which reason, they are sometimes called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their children, and their children's children, through successive generations, in the same deplorable condition of wretchedness and degradation.

They are exceedingly ignorant; not one adult in fifty can write; not one in twenty can read. They can scarcely be said to speak the English language, using a patois which is scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus related an incident of which her daughter "_Sal_" was the heroine. "My darter Sal yisterday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I ever seed in my born days." I once called to make some inquiry about the road, at a small log tenement, inhabited by a sand-hiller and family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall, containing the portraits of the Presidents of the United States. I remarked to the lady of the house that those were, I believed, the pictures of the Presidents.

"Yes!" she replied; "they is, and I've hearn tell of 'em a long time. They must be gittin' mighty old, ef some of 'em aint dead. That top one," she continued, "is Gineral Was.h.i.+ngton. I've hearn of him ever sence I was a gal. He must be gittin' up in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral Jackson fit the British and Tories at New Orleans, and whipped 'em, too."

She seemed to pride herself greatly on her historical knowledge.

One of these geniuses once informed me of a peculiar kind of book "he'd hearn tell on," that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its name, but thus described it: "It told the day of the week the month come in on. It told when we was a gwine to have rain, and what kind of wether we was gwine to have in gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book."

I replied that I had heard of the book, and I believed that it was called an Almanac.

"You've said it now," remarked the man. "It's a alminick, and I'd give half I's wuth to have one. I'd no when to take a umberell, and if I haddent nary one, I'd no when I could go a huntin' without gittin' wet."

Two of these semi-savages had resolved to remove to the West, in hope of bettering their condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, the other to Texas. The wife of the former wished to go to Texas, the latter to Arkansas. The husbands were desirous of gratifying their spouses, but could devise no plan that seemed likely to prove satisfactory, till one day when hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down upon a log, when the following dialogue took place:

"Kit, I'm sort o' pestered about Dilsie. She swars to Rackensack she'll go, and no whar else. I allers had a hankerin' arter Texas. Plague take Rackensack, I say! Ef a man war thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed shake him out on it quicker en nothin'."

"When a woman's set on a gwine anywhar, they're a gwine. It's jest no use to talk. I've coaxed Minnie more'n a little to go long with me to Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more she wont go."

"Well, Kit, 'sposen we swap women."

"Well, Sam, what trade'll ye gin?"

"Oh! a gentleman's trade, of course!"

"Shucks, Sam! 'sposen I had a young filly, and you a old mar, ye wouldn't ax an even trade, would ye?"

"No; it 'ud be too hard. I tell you what I'll do, Kit. Here's a shot-gun that's wuth ten dollars, ef it's wuth a red. I'll give it and that ar b'ar-skin hangin' on the side of my shanty, to boot, and say it's a trade."

"Nuff sed, ef the women's agreed."

Home they went, and stated the case to the women, who, _after due deliberation_, acceded to the proposition, having also made a satisfactory arrangement about the children, and they all soon went on their way rejoicing to their respective destinations in that

"American's haven of eternal rest, Found a little farther West."

On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to witness the pa.s.sing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place to the railroad. The exodus left the parson almost alone in his glory.

The pa.s.sing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their life.

Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these people coming to see the "_elephant_." They came so near, that I overheard their conversation. One young la.s.s, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: "O, dad! what a long piece of iron!" Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.

Superst.i.tion prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out witches. In sickness, charms and incantations are used to drive away disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month.

When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin, or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams.

Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them--those sages whose comprehensive view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.

They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of G.o.d.

Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares, "Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin." The sad effects on posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if the law of G.o.d does not condemn it, physiological law does.

These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote.