The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-06 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICiI:

_________-

(From the Special Correspondeßt of the Times.)
THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.
MONTGOMERY, MAY 6.

Although 1 have written two letters since my
arrival at Charleston, I have not been able to give
an account of many things which have come under
my notice, and which appeared to he noteworthy ;
and now that I am fairly ou my travels once more
it seems only too probable that I shall be obliged to
pass them over altogether. The roaring fire of the
revolution is fast sweeping over the prairie, and one
must fly before it or burn. I am obliged to see all
that can be seen of the South at once, and then,
armed with such safeguards as I can procure, to
make an effort to recover my communications.
.Fridges broken, rails torn up, telegraphs pulled
down—l am quite in the air, and air charged with
powder and fire. One of the most extraordinary
books in the world could be made out of the cuttings
and parings of the newspapers which have been pub-
lished within the last few days. The judgments,
statements, asseverations of the press everywhere
necessarily hasty, ill-sifted, and off-hand, do not aspire
to even an ephemeral existence here. They are of
use if they serve the purpose of the moment, and of
the little boys who commence their childhood in
deceit and continue to adolescence in iniquity by
giving vocal utterance to the " sensation" headings
of the journals they retail so sharply and curtly.
Talk of the superstition of the Middle Ages, or of
the credibility of the more advanced periods of rural
life; laugh at the 11)1y Coat of Treves, or groan
over the Lady of Salette ; deplore the faith in wink-
ing pictures, or in a communique of the Dionzteur ;
moralise on the superstition which discovers more
in the liquefaction of the ichor of St. Gennaro than
a chemical trick, but if you desire to understand
how far faith can see and trust among the people
who consider themselves the most civilised and in-
telligent in the world, you will study the American
journals and read the telegrams which appear in
them. One day the 7th New York Regiment is
destroyed for the edification of the South, and is
cut up into such small pieces that none of it is ever
seen afterwards. The next day it marches into
Washington or Annapolis all the better for the pro-
CUSS. Another, in order to encourage the North, it
is said that hecatombs of dead were carried out of
Fort Moultrie packed up for easy travelling in boxes.
Again, to irritate both, it is credibly stated that
Lord Lyons is going to interfere, or that an Anglo-
French fleet is coming to watch the ports, and so
on through a wild play of fancy, inexact in line as
though the batteries were charged with the aurora
borealis or summer lightning, instead of the respec-
table, steady, manageable offspring of acid and
metal, to whose staid deportment we are accustomed
at a moderate price for entrance. As usual in such
periods, the contending parties accuse each other of
inveterate falsehood, perfidy, oppression, and local
tyranny and persecution. " Madness rules the
hour." It was only a day ago I took up, a local jour-
nal of considerable influence, in which were two
paragraphs that struck me as being inexpressibly
absurd. In the first it was stated that a gentleman
who had expressed strong Southern sentiments in
a New York hotel had been mobbed and thrown
into the street, and the writer indulged in some fit-
ting reflections on the horrible persecution which pre-
vailed in New York, and on the atrocity of such
tyrannical mob-lawlessness in a civilised community.
In another column there was a pleasant little narra-
tive how citizens of Opelika, in Georgia, had waited
on a certain person, who was "suspected" of enter-
taining Northern views, and had deported him on a
rustic conveyance known as a rail, which was con-
sidered by the journalist a very creditable exercise
of public spirit. Nay, more ; in a naive paragraph
relative to an attempt to burn the huge hotel of
Willard, at Washington, in which some hundreds of
people were residing, the paper, to account satisfac-
torily for the attempt, and to assign some intelli-
gible and laudable motive for it, adds, that he sup-
poses it was intended to burn out the "Border
ruffians" who were lodging there—a reproduction of
the excuse of our Anglo-Irish Lord, who apologised
for setting fire to a cathedral on the ground that he
imagined the Bishop was inside. The exultation of
the South when the flag of the United States was
lowered at Sumter has been answered by a shout of
indignation and a battle cry from the North, and
the excitement at Charleston has produced a reflex
action there, the energy of which cannot be de-
scribed. The apathy which struck me at New York
when I landed has been succeeded by a violent
popular enthusiasm, before which all Laodicean
policy has melted into fervent activity. The truth
must be that the New York population did not be-
lieve in the strength and unanimity of the South,
and that they thought the Union safe, or did not care
about it. I can put down the names of gentlemen
who expressed the strongest opinions that the Go-
vernment of the United States had no power to
coerce the South, and who have since put down
their names and their money to support the Govern-
ment in the attempt to recover the forts which have
been taken. As to the change of opinion in other
quarters, which has been effected so rapidly and
miraculously that it has the ludicrous air of a vulgar
jug gler's trick at a fair, the public regard it so little
that it would be unbecoming to waste a -word
about it.

I expressed a belief in my first letter, written a
few days after my arrival, that the 'South would
never go back into the Union. The North thinks
that it can coerce the South, and I am not prepared
to say they are right or wrong ; but I am convinced
that the South can only be forced back by such a-
conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the
feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can
be made by the North, but success must destroy
the Union as it has been constituted in times past.
A. strong Government must be the logical conse•
quence of victory, and the triumph of the South
will be attended by a similar result, for which, in-
deed, many southerners are very well disposed. To
the people of the Confederate States there would be
no terror in such an issue, for it appears to me they
are pining for a strong Government exceedingly.
The North must accept it, whether they like it or
not. Neither party, if such a term can be applied
to the rest of the United States and to these States
which disclaim the authority of the Federal Go-
vernment, was prepared for the aggressive or resist-
ing power.of the other. Already the Confederate
States perceive that they cannot carry all before
them with a rush, while the North have learnt that
they must put forth all their strength to make good
a tithe of their lately uttered threats. But the
Montgomery Government are now, they say, an-
xious to gain time, and to prepare a regular army.
The North, distracted by apprehensions of vast dis-
turbance in its complicated relations, is clamouring
for instant action and speedy consummation. The
counsels of the moderate men, as they were called,
have been utterly overruled.
I am now, however, dealing with South Carolina,
which hE.s been the funs et °rig° of the Secession
doctrines and their development into the full life
of the Conferate States. The whole founda-
tion on which South Carolina rests is cotton and
a certain amount of rice, or rather she bases
her whole fabric on the necessity which exists
in Europe for those products of her soil, believ-
ing and asserting, as she does, that England and
France can not andl will not do without them.
Cotton without a market is so much flocculent
matter encumbering the ground. Rice without
demand fix it is unsaleable grain in store and on the
field. CrAton at 10 cents. a pound is boundless
Prosperity, empire, and superiority, and rice or
grain need no longer be regarded. In the matter of
slave labour South Carolina argues pretty much in
this way ;—England and France require our pro-
ducts. In order to meet their wants we must cul-
tivate our soil. There is only one way of doing so.
The whitsman cannot live on our land at certain
seasons of the Sear; he cannot work in the manner
required bl the crops. lie must, therefore, employ
a race suite d to the -tabour, and that is a race which
will only 'w ork when it is obliged to do so. That
race was im ported from Africa under the sanction
of the law, by our ancestors, v:„,1 we were a
British color )y, and it has been fostered
by u
that its inc7:ease here has been as great as that, soot*
the most flourishing people in the world. In other.
places wt tare its labour was not productive or
imperatively essential that race has been made

free, sometimes with disastrous consequences to
itself and to industry. But we will not make it
free. We cannot do so. We hold that slavery is
essential to our existence as producers of what
Europe requires ; nay more, we maintain it is in
the abstract right in principle ; and some of us go
so far as to maintain that the only proper form of
society, according to the law of God and the
exigencies of man, is that which has slavery as its
basis. As to the slave, he is happier far in his state
of servitude, more civilized and religious, than he is
or could be if free or in his native Africa.

I have already endeavoured to describe the por-
tion of the State through which I travelled, and the
aspect of Charlestown, and I will now proceed, at
the risk of making this letter longer than it should
be, to make a few observations on matters which
struck me during my visit to one or two of the
planters of the many who were kind enough to
give me invitations to their residences in the State.
Early one fine morning I started in a coasting
steamer to visit a plantation in thd Pedee and
Maccamaw district, in the island coast of the State,
north of Charleston. The only source of uneasi-
ness in the minds of the party arose from the report
that the United States squadron was coming to block-
ade the port, which would have cut off our line of

retreat and compelled us to make a long detour and
a somewhat difficult journey by landing, seeing that
the roads are mere sand tracks, as the immense
number of rivers and creeks offers some excuse for
not improving the means of land communication.

Passing Sumter, on which men are busily engaged,

under the Confederate flag, in making good damages
and mounting guns, we put out a few miles to sea,
and with the low sandy shore, dotted with soldiers,
and guard-houses, and clumps of trees, on our left,
in a few hours pass the Santee river and enter an
estuary into which the Peedee and Maccamaw rivers
run a few miles further to the north-west. The arid,
barren, pine-covered sandhills which form the shores
of this estuary are guarded by rude batteries
mounted with heavy guns and manned by the State
troops, some of whom we can see strolling along
the beach, or, with arms glancing in the sunlight,
pacing up and down on their posts. On the left-
hand side there are said to be plantations, the sites
of-which are marked by belts of trees, and after we
had proceeded a few miles from the sea the steamer

ran alongside a jetty and a pier, which was crowded
by men in uniform waiting for the news and for
supplies of creature comforts. Ladies were canter-
ing along the fine hard beach, and some gigs and
taxcarts fully laden rolled along very much as one
sees them at Scarborough. The soldiers on the
pier were all gentlemen of the county. Some,
dressed in gray tunics and yellow facings, in high
felt hats and plumes and jack boots, would have
done no discredit in face, figure, and bearing to
the gayest cavaliers who ever thundered at the
heels of Prince Rupert. Their horses, full of Caro-
linan fire and mettle, stood picketed under the
trees along the margin of the beach. Among these
men who had been doing the duty of common
troopers in patrolling the seacoast were gentlemen
possessed of large estates and princely fortunes;
and one who stood among them was pointed out
to me as captain of a company for whose uses his
liberality provided unbounded daily libations of
champagne and the best luxuries which French
ingenuity can safely imprison in those well-known
caskets with which Crimean warriors were not un-
acquainted at the close of the campaign. They
were eager for news, which was shouted out to them
by their friends in the steamer, and one was struck
by the intimate personal cordiality and familiar
acquaintance which existed among them. Three
heavy guns, mounted in an earthwork defended by
palisades, covered the beach and the landing-place,
and the garrison was to have been reinforced by a
regiment from Charleston, which, however, had not
got in readiness to go up on our steamer, owing to
some little difficulties between the volunteers,
their officers, and the Quartermaster• General's de-
partment.

I mention these particulars to give an idea of the
state of defence in which South Carolina holds
itself, for, unless Georgetown, which lies at the
head of this inlet, could be considered an object of
attack, one seeks in vain for any reason to induce
an enemy to make his appearance in this direction.
A march on Charleston by land would be an opera-
tion of extreme difficulty, through a series of sand-
hills, alternating with marshes, water-courses, rivers,
and flooded ricefields. As to Georgetown, which we
have now reached, nothing can be said by way of

description more descriptive than the remark of its
inhabitants, that it was a finished town 100 years
ago. It is a dosy, sleepy, sandy, lifeless, strag-
gling village, with wooden houses drawn up in
right lines on the margins of great, straight, grass-
grown pathways, lined with trees, and known to
the natives as streets.

As the Nana approaches the tumbledown wharf
two or three citizens advance from the shade of
shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country
vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from
the same shelter to receive the passengers, while
the negro boys and girls who have been playing
upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice which
represent the trade of the place on the wharf,
take up commanding positions for the better ob-
servation of our proceedings. One or two small
yachts and coasting schooners are moored by the
banks of the broad full stream, the waters of
which we had previously crossed in our journey
from the dismal swamp. There is an air of quaint
simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about George-
town, refreshingly antagonistic to the bustle and

tumult of most American cities, and one can, with-
out much stretch of imagination, fancy the old
loyal burghers in cocked hats, smallswords, and
long square-cut sober suits, stalking solemnly down
its streets, rejoicing in the progress of the city
which recalled the name of the King and the old
country, or hastening down to the river's side to
hear the tidings brought from home by the Bristol
barque that has just entered in the stream. Instead
thereof, however, there are tall, spare forms of
eager citizens bowed over their newspapers in the
shade before the bar-room, or the shuffling negro
delighting in the sunshine and kicking up the dust
in the centre of the road as he goes on his errand.
While waiting for our vehicle we enjoyed the hos-
pitality of one of our friends, who took us into an
old-fashioned angular wooden mansion more than
a century old, still sound in every timber and testi-
fying, in its quaint wainscotings and the rigid
framework of door and window, to the durability
of its cypress timbers and the preservative cha-
racter of the atmosphere. In early days it was the
crack house of the old settlement, and the resi-
dence of the founder of the female branch of the
family of our host, who now only makes it his
halting-place when passing to and fro between
Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year
round in charge of an old servant and her grand-
child. Rosetrees and flowering shrubs clustered
before the porch and filled the
garden in front,
and the establishment gave one a good idea of a
London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hun-
dred and fifty years ago.

lAt length we were ready for our journey, an d
mounted in two light covered vehicles, proceeded '
along the sandy track which, after a while, led us
to a cut, deep in the bosom of the woods, where
silence_ was only broken by the cry of a woodpecker,
the boom of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the
jay. For miles we passed through the shades of
this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles con-
taining female planterdom on little excursions of
pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome as
we passed. Not more than twice in a drive of
two hours did we come upon any settlement, or
get a view of any white man's plantation, and then
it was only when we had emerged from the wood
and got out upon the broad brown plains where
bunds and water-dykes and machinery for regulat-
ing the flooding of the land indicated the scenes of
labour. 'These settlements consisted of rows of
some ten or twelve quadrangular wooden sheds
supported upon bricks, so as to allow the air, the
children, and the chickens to play beneath ; some-:
times with brickwork chimneys at the side, occa-
sionally with ruder contrivances of mud and wood-
work to serve the same purpose.
Arrived at a deep chocolate-coloured stream,
called Dlaek River, full of fish and alligators,
we find a flat large ~nourgit to accommodate i
vehicles and passengers, and' propelled by two

negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the
manner usual in the ferryboats in Switzerland,
ready for our reception. Another drive through a
more open country, and we reach a fine grove of
pine and olive oak, which melts away into a shrub-
bery, guarded by a rustic gateway, passing through
which we are brought by a sudden turn into
the planter's house, buried in trees which dispute
with the green sward, and with wild flower-beds 1
every yard of the space which lies between the hall-
door and the waters of the Pedee ; and in a few
minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields, just
tinged with green by the first life of the early rice
crops, marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded
by a fringe of unceasing forest, the chimneys of the
steamer we had left at Georgetown gliding, as it
were, through the fields, indicate the existence
of another navigable river still beyond. Leav-
ing with regret the verandah which commanded
so enchanting a foreground of flowers, rare shrub-
bery, and bearded live oaks, with each grace-
ful sylvan outline distinctly pencilled upon the
waters of the river, we enter the house and are re-
minded by its low-brewed, old-fashioned rooms of
the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ire-
land, or on the Scottish border, with additions
made by the luxury and love of foreign travel of
more than one generation of educated Southern
planters. Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls
in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of
early Colonial Governors and their lovely woman-
kind, limned with no uncertain hand, and full of
the vigour of touch and naturalness of drapery of
which Copley has left us too few exemplars, and
one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such
honour as his own pencil can give. An excellent
library filled with collections of French and English
classics, and with those ponderous editions of Vol-
taire, Rousseau, the " Memoires pour Servir," books
of travel and history such as delighted our fore-
fathers in the last century, and many works of
American and general history afford ample occupa-
tion for a rainy day. But, alas ! these, and all
things good which else the house affords can be
enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has
expanded every charm, developed every grace, and
clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened
flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation,
on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes
borno to the home of the white man, and he must
fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on
their shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded,
and, pity 'tis 'tis true, the old Madeira garnered
'neath the roof settles down for a fresh lease of life,
and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer
flavour for the infrequent lips of its banished master
and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least,
that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale re-
peated to us beneath the porch when the full moon
enhances, while softening, the loveliness of the
scene, and the rich melody of hundreds of mocking-
birds fills the grove.
Within these hospitable doors Horace might ban-
quet better than he did with Nasidienus, and drink
such wine as can be only found among the descen-
dants of an ancestry who, improvident enough in all
else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual
and Sercial ere the demon of °Miura had dried up
their generous sources for ever. To these must be
added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the
galette, compounded now of rice and now of Indian
meal, delicious butter and fruits, all good of their
kind. What more is needed for one who agrees with
Mr. Disraeli in thinking bread and wine man's two
first luxuries and his best ? And is there anything
better rising up from the bottom of the social bowl ?
My black friends who attend on me are grave as
Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in
liveries, and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves.
At night, when we retire, off they go to their outer
darkness in the small settlement of negrohood,
which is separated from our house by a wooden
palisado. Their fidelity is undoubted. The house
breathes an air of security. The doors and win-
dows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fow-
ling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts
has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen
within the short time I have been in this part of
the world several dreadful accounts of murder and
violence, in which masters suffered at the hands of
their slaves. There is something suspicious in the
constant never-ending statement "We are not
afraid of our slaves." The curfew and the night
patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses,
and the police regulations prove that strict super-
vision, at all events, is needed and necessary, My
host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves
are happy anywhere they should be so with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have
upwards of half-a-pound per diem of fat pork, and
corn in abundance. They rear poultry, and sell
their chickens and eggs to the house. They are
clothed by their master. He keeps them in sick-
ness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of
tobacco and molasses to the deserving. There wAs
little labour going on in the fields, for the rice has
been just exerting itself to get its head above
water. These fields yield plentifully ; for the
waters of the river are fat, and they are let in
whenever the planter requires it by means of flood-
gates and small canals through which the flats can
carry their loads of grain to the river for loading
the steamers.