Sight-seeing in San Antonio—Auctioning off Some Excess Luggage—Confederate Officers Nearly Always Propose the Queen’s Health—Off by Stage to Alleyton—Dodging Tobacco Juice—Pot Shots at Jack Rabbits—The Spitting Gets a Little Wild—Eighteen People in One Stagecoach—My First Experience with Texas Railroads—Houston Is Better Than I Expected—Getting to Know an “Aristocratic Negro”—An Encounter with Sam Houston—Inspecting Galveston’s Defenses—I Dance an American Cotillion
25th April (Saturday)—San Antonio is prettily situated on both banks of the river of the same name. It should contain about 10,000 inhabitants, and is the largest place in Texas, except Galveston.
The houses are well built of stone, and they are generally only one or two stories high. All have verandas in front.
Before the war San Antonio was very prosperous, and rapidly increasing in size; but trade is now almost at a complete standstill. All the male population under forty are in the military service, and many necessary articles are at famine prices. Coffee costs $7 a pound.
Menger’s hotel is a large and imposing edifice, but its proprietor (a civil German) was on the point of shutting it up for the present.
During the morning I visited Colonel Bankhead, a tall, gentlemanlike Virginian, who was commanding officer of the troops here. He told me a great deal about the Texan history, the Jesuit missions, and the Louisiana purchase, &c. He alarmed me by doubting whether I should be able to cross the Mississippi if Banks had taken Alexandria.
I also made the acquaintance of Major Minter, another Virginian, who told me he had served in the 2d cavalry in the old United States Army. The following officers in the Confederate Army were in the same regiment—viz., General A.S. Johnson (killed at Shiloh), General Lee, General Van Dorn, General Hardee, General Kirby Smith, and General Hood.*
By the advice of M’Carthy, I sent my portmanteau and some of my heavy things to be sold by auction, as I could not possibly carry them with me.
I took my place by the stage for Alleyton (Houston): it cost $40; in old times it was $13.1
I dined with M’Carthy and young Duff at 3 P.M. The latter would not hear of my paying my share of the expenses of the journey from Brownsville. Mrs. M’Carthy was thrown into a great state of agitation and delight by receiving a letter from her mother, who is in Yankeedom. Texas is so cut off that she only hears once in many months.
Colonel and Mrs. Bankhead called for me in their ambulance at 5 P.M., and they drove me to see the source of the San Antonio, which is the most beautiful clear spring I ever saw. We also saw the extensive foundations for a tannery now being built by the Confederate government.
The country is very pretty, and is irrigated in an ingenious manner by ditches cut from the river in all directions. It is thus in a great degree rendered independent of rain.
At San Antonio spring we were entertained by a Major Young, a queer little naval officer—why a major I couldn’t discover.
Mrs. Bankhead is a violent Southerner. She was twice ordered out of Memphis by the Federals on account of her husband’s principles; but she says that she was treated with courtesy and kindness by the Federal General Sherman, who carried out the orders of his government with regret.
None of the Southern people with whom I have spoken entertain any hopes of a speedy termination of the war. They say it must last all Lincoln’s presidency, and perhaps a good deal longer.
In the neighborhood of San Antonio, one third of the population is German, and many of them were at first by no means loyal to the Confederate cause. They objected much to the conscription, and some even resisted by force of arms; but these were soon settled by Duff’s regiment, and it is said they are now reconciled to the new regime.
My portmanteau, with what was in it—for I gave away part of my things—sold for $323. Its value in England couldn’t have been more than £8 or £9. The portmanteau itself, which was an old one, fetched $51; a very old pair of butcher boots, $32; five shirts, $42; an old overcoat, $25.
26th April (Sunday)—At 11:30 A.M., M’Carthy drove me in his buggy to see the San Pedro spring, which is inferior in beauty to the San Antonio spring. A troop of Texan cavalry was bivouacked there.
We afterwards drove to the “missions” of San José and San Juan, six and nine miles from the town. These were fortified convents for the conversion of the Indians, and were built by the Jesuits about one hundred and seventy years ago. They are now ruins, and the architecture is of the heavy Castilian style, elaborately ornamented. These missions are very interesting, and there are two more of them, which I did not see.
In the afternoon I saw many Negroes and Negresses parading about in their Sunday clothes—silks and crinolines—much smarter than their mistresses.
At 5 P.M. I dined with Colonel Bankhead, who gave an entertainment, which in these hard times must have cost a mint of money. About fourteen of the principal officers were invited. One of them was Captain Mason (cousin to the London commissioner), who had served under Stonewall Jackson in Virginia. He said that officer was by no means popular at first.
I spent a very agreeable evening, and heard many anecdotes of the war. One of the officers sang the abolition song, “John Brown,” together with its parody, “I’m bound to be a soldier in the army of the South,” a Confederate marching song, and another parody, which is a Yankee marching song, “We’ll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree.” 2
Whenever I have dined with Confederate officers, they have nearly always proposed the Queen’s health, and never failed to pass the highest eulogiums upon her majesty.
27th April (Monday)—Colonel Bankhead has given me letters of introduction to General Bragg, to General Leonidas Polk, and several others.
At 2 P.M. I called on Mrs. Bankhead to say good-by. She told me that her husband had two brothers in the Northern service—one in the army and the other in the navy. The two army brothers were both in the battles of Shiloh and Perryville, on opposite sides. The naval Bankhead commanded the Monitor when she sank.
—— introduced me to a German militia general in a beerhouse this afternoon. These two had a slight dispute, as the latter spoke strongly in disapproval of “secret or night lynching.”
The recent escapade of Captain Peñaloso seems to have been much condemned in San Antonio. This individual (formerly a butcher) hanged one of his soldiers a short time ago, on his own responsibility, for desertion and stealing a musket. This event came off at 12 o’clock noon, in the principal plaza of the city. The tree has been cut down, to show the feelings of the citizens.
There can be no doubt that the enforcement of the conscription has, as a general rule, been extremely easy throughout the Confederacy (except among the Germans); but I hear of many persons evading it, by getting into some sort of government employment—such as contractors, agents, or teamsters to the Rio Grande.3
To my extreme regret, I took leave of my friend M’Carthy this evening, whose hospitality and kindness I shall never forget.
I left San Antonio by stage for Alleyton at 9 P.M. The stage was an old coach, into the interior of which nine persons were crammed on three transverse seats, besides many others on the roof. I was placed on the center seat, which was extremely narrow, and I had nothing but a strap to support my back. An enormously fat German was my vis-à-vis, and a long-legged Confederate officer was in my rear. Our first team consisted of four mules; we afterwards got horses.
My fellow travelers were all either military men, or connected with the government.
Only five out of nine chewed tobacco during the night; but they aimed at the windows with great accuracy, and didn’t splash me. The amount of sleep I got, however, was naturally very trifling.
28th April (Tuesday)—We crossed the river Guadalupe at 5 A.M., and got a change of horses.
We got a very fair breakfast at Seguin, at 7 A.M., which was beginning to be a well-to-do little place when the war dried it up. It commenced to rain at Seguin, which made the road very woolly, and annoyed the outsiders a good deal.
The conversation turned a good deal upon military subjects, and all agreed that the system of election of officers had proved to be a great mistake. According to their own accounts, discipline must have been extremely lax at first, but was now improving.4
They were most anxious to hear what was thought of their cause in Europe; and none of them seemed aware of the great sympathy which their gallantry and determination had gained for them in England in spite of slavery. We dined at a little wooden hamlet called Belmont, and changed horses again there.
The country through which we had been traveling was a good deal cultivated, and there were numerous farms. I saw cotton fields for the first time.
We amused ourselves by taking shots with our revolvers at the enormous jack rabbits which came to stare at the coach.
In the afternoon tobacco-chewing became universal, and the spitting was sometimes a little wild.
It was the custom for the outsiders to sit round the top of the carriage, with their legs dangling over (like mutes on a hearse returning from a funeral). This practice rendered it dangerous to put one’s head out of the window, for fear of a back kick from the heels, or of a shower of tobacco juice from the mouths of the Southern chivalry on the roof.
In spite of their peculiar habits of hanging, shooting, &c., which seemed to be natural to people living in a wild and thinly populated country, there was much to like in my fellow travelers. They all had a sort of bon-hommie honesty and straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good nature, which was very agreeable. Although they were all very anxious to talk to a European—who, in these blockaded times, is a rara avis—yet their inquisitiveness was never offensive or disagreeable.
Any doubts as to my personal safety, which may have been roused by my early insight into lynch law, were soon completely set at rest. I soon perceived that if any one were to annoy me the remainder would stand by me as a point of honor.
We supped at a little town called Gonzales at 6:30.
We left it at 8 P.M. in another coach with six horses—big, strong animals.
The roads, being all natural ones, were much injured by the rains.
We were all rather disgusted by the bad news we heard at Gonzales of the continued advance of Banks, and of the probable fall of Alexandria.
The squeezing was really quite awful, but I did not suffer so much as the fat or long-legged ones. They all bore their trials in the most jovial good-humored manner.
My fat vis-à-vis (in despair) changed places with me, my two bench-fellows being rather thinner than his, and I benefited much by the change into a back seat.
29th April (Wednesday)—Exhausted as I was, I managed to sleep wonderfully well last night. We breakfasted at a place called Hallettsville at 7 A.M., and changed carriages again.
Here we took in four more Confederate soldiers as outsiders, and we were now eighteen in all. Nowhere but in this country would such a thing be permitted.
Owing to the great top weight, the coach swayed about like a ship in a heavy sea, and the escapes of a capsize were almost miraculous. It is said that at the end of a Texan journey the question asked is not, “Have you been upset?” but, “How many times have you been upset?”
The value of the Negroes working in the fields was constantly appraised by my fellow travelers; and it appeared that, in Texas, an able-bodied male fetched $2500, whilst a well-skilled seamstress was worth $3500.
Two of my companions served through the late severe campaign in New Mexico, but they considered forty-eight hours in a closely packed stage a greater hardship than any of their military experiences.
We passed many cotton fields and beautiful Indian corn, but much of the latter had been damaged by the hail.
I was told that one third of the land formerly devoted to cotton is still sown with that article, the remainder being corn, &c** 5
We also passed through some very pretty country, full of fine post-oak and cotton trees, and we met many Mexican cotton teams—some of the wagons with fourteen oxen or twelve mules, which were being cruelly ill-treated by their drivers.
We crossed several rivers with steep and difficult banks, and dined at a farmhouse at 2:30 P.M.
I have already discovered that, directly the bell rings, it is necessary to rush at one’s food and bolt it as quickly as possible, without any ceremony or delay. Otherwise it all disappears, so rapacious and so voracious are the natives at their meals whilst traveling. Dinner, on such occasions, in no case lasts more than seven minutes.
We reached Columbus at 6 P.M., and got rid of half our passengers there. These Texan towns generally consist of one large plaza, with a well-built courthouse on one side and a hotel opposite, the other two sides being filled up with wooden stores. All their budding prosperity has been completely checked by the war; but every one anticipates a great immigration into Texas after the peace.
We crossed the Colorado River, and reached Alleyton, our destination, at 7 P.M.
This little wooden village has sprung into existence during the last three years, owing to its being the present terminus to the railroad. It was crammed full of travelers and cotton speculators; but, as an especial favor, the fat German and I were given a bed between us. I threw myself on the bed with my clothes on (bien entendu), and was fast asleep in five minutes. In the same room there were three other beds, each with two occupants.
The distance from San Antonio to Alleyton is 140 miles—time, forty-six hours.
30th April (Thursday)—I have today acquired my first experience of Texan railroads.6
In this country, where every white man is as good as another (by theory), and every white female is by courtesy a lady, there is only one class. The train from Alleyton consisted of two long cars, each holding about fifty persons. Their interior is like the aisle of a church, twelve seats on either side, each for two persons. The seats are comfortably stuffed, and seemed luxurious after the stage.
Before starting, the engine gives two preliminary snorts, which, with a yell from the official of “all aboard,” warn the passengers to hold on; for they are closely followed by a tremendous jerk, which sets the cars in motion.
Every passenger is allowed to use his own discretion about breaking his arm, neck, or leg, without interference by the railway officials.
People are continually jumping on and off whilst the train is in motion, and larking from one car to the other. There is no sort of fence or other obstacle to prevent “humans” or cattle from getting on the line.
We left Alleyton at 8 A.M., and got a miserable meal at Richmond at 12:30. At this little town I was introduced to a seedy-looking man, in rusty black clothes and a broken-down “stovepipe” hat. This was Judge Stockdale, who will probably be the next governor of Texas. He is an agreeable man, and his conversation is far superior to his clothing.
The rival candidate is General Chambers (I think), who has become very popular by the following sentence in his manifesto: “I am of opinion that married soldiers should be given the opportunity of embracing their families at least once a year, their places in the ranks being taken by unmarried men. The population must not be allowed to suffer.”
Richmond is on the Brazos River, which is crossed in a peculiar manner. A steep inclined plane leads to a low, rickety, trestle bridge, and a similar inclined plane is cut in the opposite bank. The engine cracks on all steam, and gets sufficient impetus in going down the first incline to shoot across the bridge and up the second incline. But even in Texas, this method of crossing a river is considered rather unsafe.
After crossing the river in this manner, the rail traverses some very fertile land, part of which forms the estate of the late Colonel Terry. There are more than two hundred Negroes on the plantation. Some of the fields were planted with cotton and Indian corn mixed, three rows of the former between two of the latter. I saw also fields of cotton and sugar mixed.
We changed carriages at Harrisburg, and I completed my journey to Houston on a cotton truck.
The country near Houston is very pretty, and is studded with white wooden villas, which are raised off the ground on blocks like haystacks. I reached Houston at 4:30 P.M., and drove to the Fannin House hotel.
Houston is a much better place than I expected. The main street can boast of many well-built brick and iron houses. It was very full, as it now contained all the refugees from the deserted town of Galveston.
After an extremely mild supper, I was introduced to Lieutenant Lee, a wounded hero who lost his leg at Shiloh; also to Colonel Pyron, a distinguished officer who commands the regiment named after him.
The fat German, Mr. Lee, and myself went to the theater afterwards.
As a great favor, my British prejudices were respected, and I was allowed a bed to myself; but the four other beds in the room had two occupants each. A captain, whose acquaintance I had made in the cars, slept in the next bed to me. Directly after we had got into bed a Negro came in, who, squatting down between our beds, began to clean our boots. The Southerner pointed at the slave, and thus held forth:
“Well, Kernel, I reckon you’ve got servants in your country, but not of that color. Now, sir, this is a real genuine African. He’s as happy as the day’s long; and if he was on a sugar plantation he’d be dancing half the night; but if you was to collect a thousand of them together, and fire one bomb in amongst them, they’d all run like h—ll.” The Negro grinned, and seemed quite flattered.
1st May (Friday)—I called on General Scurry, and found him suffering from severe ophthalmia. When I presented General Magruder’s letter, he insisted that I should come and live with him so long as I remained here. He also telegraphed to Galveston for a steamer to take me there and back.
We dined at 4 P.M. The party consisted of Colonel and Judge Terrill (a clever and agreeable man), Colonel Pyron, Captain Wharton, quartermaster general, Major Watkins (a handsome fellow, and hero of the Sabine Pass affair), and Colonel Cook, commanding the artillery at Galveston (late of the U.S. Navy, who enjoys the reputation of being a zealous Methodist preacher and a daring officer). The latter told me he could hardly understand how I could be an Englishman, as I pronounced my h’s all right.
General Scurry himself is very amusing, and is an admirable mimic. His numerous anecdotes of the war were very interesting. In peace times he is a lawyer. He was a volunteer major in the Mexican War, and distinguished himself very much in the late campaigns in New Mexico and Arizona, and at the recapture of Galveston.7
After dinner, the Queen’s health was proposed; and the party expressed the greatest admiration for Her Majesty, and respect for the British Constitution. They all said that universal suffrage did not produce such deplorable results in the South as in the North; because the population in the South is so very scattered, and the whites being the superior race, they form a sort of aristocracy.
They all wanted me to put off going to Galveston till Monday, in order that some ladies might go; but I was inexorable, as it must now be my object to cross the Mississippi without delay. All these officers despised sabers, and considered double-barreled shotguns and revolvers the best arms for cavalry.
2d May (Saturday)—As the steamer had not arrived in the morning, I left by railroad for Galveston. General Scurry insisted upon sending his servant to wait upon me, in order that I might become acquainted with “an aristocratic Negro.” “John” was a very smart fellow, and at first sight nearly as white as myself.
In the cars I was introduced to General Samuel Houston, the founder of Texan independence. He told me he was born in Virginia seventy years ago, that he was United States senator at thirty, and governor of Tennessee at thirty-six. He emigrated into Texas in 1832; headed the revolt of Texas, and defeated the Mexicans at San Jacinto in 1836. He then became President of the Republic of Texas, which he annexed to the United States in 1845. As governor of the state in 1860, he had opposed the secession movement, and was deposed. Though evidently a remarkable and clever man, he is extremely egotistical and vain, and much disappointed at having to subside from his former grandeur. The town of Houston is named after him. In appearance he is a tall, handsome old man, much given to chewing tobacco, and blowing his nose with his fingers.***8
I was also introduced to another “character,” Captain Chubb, who told me he was a Yankee by birth, and served as coxswain to the United States ship Java in 1827. He was afterwards imprisoned at Boston on suspicion of being engaged in the slave trade; but he escaped. At the beginning of this war he was captured by the Yankees, when he was in command of the Confederate States steamer Royal Yacht, and taken to New York in chains, where he was condemned to be hung as a pirate; but he was eventually exchanged. I was afterwards told that the slave-trading escapade of which he was accused consisted in his having hired a colored crew at Boston, and then coolly selling them at Galveston.
At 1 P.M. we arrived at Virginia Point, a tête-de-pont at the extremity of the mainland. Here Bates’s battalion was encamped—called also the “swamp angels,” on account of the marshy nature of their quarters, and of their predatory and irregular habits.
The railroad then traverses a shallow lagoon (called Galveston Bay) on a trestle bridge two miles long; this leads to another tête-de-pont on Galveston island, and in a few minutes the city is reached.
In the train I had received the following message by telegraph from Colonel Debray, who commands at Galveston: WILL COL. FREMANTLE SLEEP TONIGHT AT THE HOUSE OF A BLOCKADED REBEL? I answered: DELIGHTED; and was received at the terminus by Captain Foster of the staff, who conducted me in an ambulance to headquarters, which were at the house of the Roman Catholic bishop. I was received there by Colonel Debray and two very gentlemanlike French priests.
We sat down to dinner at 2 P.M., but were soon interrupted by an indignant drayman, who came to complain of a military outrage. It appeared that immediately after I had left the cars, a semi-drunken Texan of Pyron’s regiment had desired this drayman to stop, and upon the latter declining to do so, the Texan fired five shots at him from his six-shooter, and the last shot killed the drayman’s horse. Captain Foster (who is a Louisianian, and very sarcastic about Texas) said that the regiment would probably hang the soldier for being such a disgraceful bad shot.
After dinner Colonel Debray took me into the observatory, which commands a good view of the city, bay, and gulf.
Galveston is situated near the eastern end of an island thirty miles long by three and a half wide. Its houses are well built; its streets are long, straight, and shaded with trees; but the city was now desolate, blockaded, and under military law. Most of the houses were empty, and bore many marks of the ill-directed fire of the Federal ships during the night of the 1st of January last.
The whole of Galveston Bay is very shallow, except a narrow channel of about a hundred yards immediately in front of the now deserted wharves. The entrance to this channel is at the northeastern extremity of the island, and is defended by the new works which are now in progress there. It is also blocked up with piles, torpedoes, and other obstacles.
The blockaders were plainly visible about four miles from land. They consisted of three gunboats and an ugly paddle steamer, also two supply vessels.
The wreck of the Confederate cotton steamer Neptune (destroyed in her attack on the Harriet Lane) was close off one of the wharves. That of the Westfield (blown up by the Yankee Commodore) was off Pelican Island.
In the night of the 1st of January, General Magruder suddenly entered Galveston, placed his fieldpieces along the line of wharves, and unexpectedly opened fire in the dark upon the Yankee war vessels at a range of about one hundred yards. But so heavy (though badly directed) was the reply from the ships that the fieldpieces had to be withdrawn. The attack by Colonel Cook upon a Massachusetts regiment, fortified at the end of a wharf, also failed, and the Confederates thought themselves “badly whipped.” But after daylight the fortunate surrender of the Harriet Lane to the cotton boat Bayou City, and the extraordinary conduct of Commodore Renshaw, converted a Confederate disaster into the recapture of Galveston.
General Magruder certainly deserves immense credit for his boldness in attacking a heavily armed naval squadron with a few fieldpieces and two river steamers protected with cotton bales and manned with Texan cavalry soldiers.
I rode with Colonel Debray to examine Forts Scurry, Magruder, Bankhead, and Point. These works have been ingeniously designed by Colonel Sulokowski (formerly in the Austrian Army), and they were being very well constructed by one hundred and fifty whites and six hundred blacks under that officer’s superintendence, the blacks being lent by the neighboring planters.
Although the blockaders can easily approach to within three miles of the works, and although one shell could easily start a stampede, yet they have not thrown any for a long time.
Colonel Debray is a broad-shouldered Frenchman, and is a very good fellow. He told me that he emigrated to America in 1848. He raised a company in 1861, in which he was only a private. He was next appointed aid-de-camp to the governor of Texas, with the rank of brigadier general. He then descended to a major of infantry, afterwards rose to a lieutenant colonel of cavalry, and is now colonel.
Captain Foster is properly on Magruder’s staff, and is very good company. His property at New Orleans had been destroyed by the Yankees.
In the evening we went to a dance given by Colonel Manly, which was great fun. I danced an American cotillion with Mrs. Manly. It was very violent exercise, and not the least like anything I had seen before. A gentleman stands by shouting out the different figures to be performed, and every one obeys his orders with much gravity and energy.9
Colonel Manly is a very gentlemanlike Carolinian. The ladies were pretty, and, considering the blockade, they were very well dressed. Six deserters from Banks’s army arrived here today. Banks seems to be advancing steadily, and overcoming the opposition offered by the handful of Confederates in the Teche country.
Banks himself is much despised as a soldier, and is always called by the Confederates Mr. Commissary Banks, on account of the efficient manner in which he performed the duties of that office for “Stonewall” Jackson in Virginia. The officer who is supposed really to command the advancing Federals is Weitzel. He is acknowledged by all here to be an able man, a good soldier, and well acquainted with the country in which he is maneuvering.10
3d May (Sunday)—I paid a long visit this morning to Mr. Lynn the British Consul, who told me that he had great difficulty in communicating with the outer world, and had seen no British man-of-war since the Immortalité.
At 1:30 I saw Pyron’s regiment embark for Niblitt’s Bluff to meet Banks. This corps is now dismounted cavalry, and the procession was a droll one. First came eight or ten instruments braying discordantly, then an enormous Confederate flag, followed by about four hundred men moving by fours—dressed in every variety of costume, and armed with every variety of weapon. About sixty had Enfield rifles; the remainder carried shotguns (fowling pieces), carbines, or long rifles of a peculiar and antiquated manufacture. None had swords or bayonets—all had six-shooters and bowie knives.
The men were a fine, determined-looking lot; and I saw among them a short stout boy of fourteen, who had served through the Arizona campaign. I saw many of the soldiers take off their hats to the French priests, who seemed much respected in Galveston. This regiment is considered down here to be a very good one, and its colonel is spoken of as one of the bravest officers in the army. The regiment was to be harangued by Old Houston before it embarked.****
In getting into the cars to return to Houston, I was nearly forced to step over the dead body of the horse shot by the soldier yesterday, and which the authorities had not thought necessary to remove.
I got back to General Scurry’s house at Houston at 4:30 P.M.
The general took me out for a drive in his ambulance, and I saw innumerable Negroes and Negresses parading about the streets in the most outrageously grand costumes—silks, satins, crinolines, hats with feathers, lace mantles, &c., forming an absurd contrast to the simple dresses of their mistresses. Many were driving about in their master’s carriages, or riding on horses which are often lent to them on Sunday afternoons. All seemed intensely happy and satisfied with themselves.
—— told me that old Sam Houston lived for several years amongst the Cherokee Indians, who used to call him “the Raven” or the “Big Drunk.” He married an Indian squaw when he was with them.
Colonel Ives, aid-de-camp to the President, has just arrived from Richmond, and he seems a very well-informed and agreeable man.
I have settled to take the route to Shreveport tomorrow, as it seems doubtful whether Alexandria will or will not fall.
* Also the Federal Generals Thomas and Stoneman.
** It is only in Texas that so much cotton is still grown.
*** He is reported to have died in August, 1863.
**** At the outbreak of the war it was found very difficult to raise infantry in Texas, as no Texan walks a yard if he can help it. Many mounted regiments were therefore organized, and afterwards dismounted.