Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

  CHAPTER IX.

  FROM NEW BOSTON TO NEW ORLEANS, VIA FORT JACKSON.

  "By" (this and that)! swore Colonel Carter to himself when, twenty-fourhours out from Sandy Hook, he opened his sealed orders in the privacy ofhis state-room. "Butler has got an expedition to himself. We are in fora round of Big Bethels as sure as" (this and that and the other.)

  I wish it to be understood that I do not endorse the above criticism onthe celebrated proconsul of Louisiana. I am not sketching the life ofGeneral Butler, but of Colonel Carter--I am not trying to show howthings really were, but only how the Colonel looked at them.

  Carter opened the door and looked into the cabin. There stood aparticularly clean soldier of the Tenth, his uniform carefully brushed,his shoes, belts, cartridge-box and cap-pouch blacked, his buttons andbrasses shining like morning suns, white cotton gloves on his hands, andhis bayonet in its scabbard, but without a musket. Being the neatest manof all those detailed for guard that morning, he had been selected bythe Adjutant as the Colonel's orderly. He saluted his commander bycarrying his right hand open to his fore-piece, then well out to theright, then dropping it with the little finger against the seam of histrousers, meanwhile standing bolt upright with his heels well together.The Colonel surveyed him from top to toe with a look of approbation.

  "Very well, orderly," said he. "Very clean and soldierly. Been in theold army, I see."

  Here he gratified himself with another full-length inspection of thisstatue of neatness and speechless respect.

  "Now go to the captain of the vessel," he added, "give him mycompliments, and request him to step to my state-room."

  The orderly saluted again, faced about as if on a pivot, and walkedaway.

  "Here, come back, sir," called the Colonel. "What did I tell you?"

  "You told me, sir, to give your compliments to the captain of thevessel, and request him to step to your state-room," replied thesoldier.

  "My God! he understood the first time," exclaimed the Colonel. "Been inthe old army, I see. Quite right, sir; go on."

  In a few minutes the marine functionary was closeted with the militarypotentiality.

  "Sit down, Captain," said the Colonel. "Take a glass of wine."

  "No, thank you, Colonel," said the Captain, a small, brown,quiet-mannered, taciturn man of forty-five, his iron-grey lockscarefully oiled and brushed, and his dark-blue morning-suit as neat aspossible. "I make it a rule at sea," he added, "never to take any thingbut a bottle of porter at dinner."

  "Very good: never get drunk on duty--good rule," laughed the Colonel."Well, here are our orders. Look them over, Captain, if you please."

  The Captain read, lifted his eyebrows with an air of comprehension, putthe paper back in the envelope, returned it to the Colonel, andremarked, "Ship Island."

  "It would be best to say nothing about it at present," observed Carter."Some accident may yet send us back to New York, and then the thingwould be known earlier than the War Department wants."

  "Very good. I will lay the proper course, and say nothing."

  And so, with a little further talk about cleaning quarters and cookingrations, the interview terminated. It was not till the transport was offthe beach of Ship Island that the Tenth Barataria became aware of itsdestination. Meantime, taking advantage of a run of smooth weather,Carter disciplined his green regiment into a state of cleanliness, orderand subserviency, which made it a wonder to itself. He had two dailyinspections with regard to personal cleanliness, going through thecompanies himself, praising the neat and remorselessly punishing thedirty. "What do you mean by such hair as that, sir?" he would say,poking up a set of long locks with the hilt of his sabre. "Have it offbefore night, sir. Have it cut short and neatly combed by to-morrowmorning."

  For offences which to the freeborn American citizen seemed peccadilloesor even virtues, (such as saying to a second-lieutenant, "I am as goodas you are,") men were seized up by the wrists to the rigging with theirtoes scarcely touching the deck. The soldiers had to obey orders withouta word, to touch their caps to officers, to stop chaffing the sentinels,to keep off the quarter-deck, and out of the cabin.

  "By (this and that) I'll teach them to be soldiers," swore the Colonel."They had their skylarking in Barataria. They are on duty now."

  The men were not pleased; freeborn Americans could not at first begratified with such despotism, however salutary; but they wereintelligent enough to see that there was a hard, practical sense at thebottom of it: they not only feared and obeyed, but they respected. EveryAmerican who is true to his national education regards withconsideration a man who knows his own business. Whenever the Colonelwalked on the main deck, or in the hold where the men were quartered,there was a silence, a quiet standing out of the way, a rising to thefeet, and a touching of fore-pieces. To his officers Carter was distantand authoritative, although formally courteous. It was, "Lieutenant,have the goodness to order those men down from the rigging, and to keepthem down;" and when the officer of the day reported that the job wasdone, it was, "Very well, Lieutenant, much obliged to you." Even theprivate soldiers whom he berated and punished were scrupulouslyaddressed by the title of "Sir."

  "My God, sir! I ought not to be obliged to speak to the enlisted men atall," he observed apologetically to the captain of the transport. "Acolonel in the old army was a little deity, a Grand Lama, who neveropened his mouth except on the greatest occasions. But my officers, yousee, don't know their business. I am as badly off as you would be ifyour mates, sailors and firemen were all farmers. I must attend tothings myself."

  "Captain Colburne," he said on another occasion, "how about yourproperty returns? Have the goodness to let me look at them."

  Colburne brought two packets of neatly folded papers, tied up in thefamous, the historical, the proverbial red tape, and endorsed; the one,"Return of Ordnance and Ordnance Stores appertaining to Co. I, 10thRegt. Barataria Vols., for the quarter ending December 31st, 1861;" theother, "Return of Clothing and Camp and Garrison Equipage appertainingto Co. I, 10th Regt. Barataria Vols., for the quarter ending Dec. 31st,1861." Carter glanced over the footings, the receipts and the invoiceswith the prompt and accurate eye of a bank accountant.

  "Correct," said he. "Very much to your credit, Captain.--Orderly! givemy compliments to all the commandants of companies, and request them tocall on me immediately in the after cabin."

  One after another the captains walked in, saluted, and took seats inobedience to a wave of the Colonel's hand.

  "Gentlemen," he began, "those of you who have finished your propertyreturns for the last quarter will send them in to the adjutant thisafternoon for examination. Those who have not, will proceed to completethem immediately. If you need any instructions, you will apply toCaptain Colburne. His papers are correct. Gentlemen, the United StatesArmy Regulations are as important to you as the United States ArmyTactics. Ignorance of one will get you into trouble as surely asignorance of the other. Such parts of the Regulation as refer to thearmy accountability system are of especial consequence to your pockets.Neglect your returns, and you will get your pay stopped. This is notproperly my business. You are responsible for yourselves directly to theWar Department. But I wish to set you on the right path. You ought totake a pride, gentlemen, in learning the whole of your profession, evenif you are sure that the war will not last three months. If a thing isworth learning at all it should be learned well, if only for the good ofa man's own soul. Never do a duty by halves. No man of any self-respectwill accept an officer's pay without performing the whole of anofficer's duty. And this accountability system is worth study. It is themost admirable system of bookkeeping that ever was devised. John C.Calhoun perfected it when he was Secretary of War and at the top of hisintellectual powers. I have no hesitation in saying that a man who canaccount truthfully and without loss for all the public property in acompany, according to this system, is able to master the business of anymercantile house or banking establishment. The system is as minute andinexorable as a balance-sheet. When
I was a boy, just out of West Pointand in command of a company on the Indian frontier, I took part in askirmish. I was as vain over my first fight as a kitten over its firstmouse. I thought the fame of it must illuminate Washington and dazzlethe clerks in the department offices. In my next return I accounted forthree missing ball-screws as lost in the engagement of Trapper's Bluff.I supposed the army accountability system would bow to asecond-lieutenant who had been under fire. But, gentlemen, it did nosuch thing. I got a letter from the Chief of Ordnance informing me thatI must state circumstantially and on honor _how_ the three ball-screwswere lost. I couldn't do it, couldn't make out a satisfactorycertificate, and had them taken out of my pay. I, the hero of anengagement, who had personally shot a Pawnee, was charged thirty-ninecents for three ball-screws."

  Emboldened by the Colonel's smiles of grim humor the audience burst intoa laugh.

  "I knew another case," he proceeded. "A young fellow was appointedquartermaster at Puget Sound. About a year after he had sent in hisfirst return he was notified by the Quartermaster General that it didnot properly account for certain cap letters, value five cents.Indignant at what he considered such small-beer fault-finding, heimmediately mailed five cents to Washington, with a statement that itwas intended to cover the deficiency. Six months later he received asharp note from the Quartermaster General, returning him his five cents,informing him that the department was not accustomed to settle accountsin that manner, and directing him to forward the proper papersconcerning the missing property under penalty of being reported to theAdjutant General. The last I knew of him he was still corresponding onthe subject, and hoping that the rebels would take enough of Washingtonto burn the quartermaster's department. Now, gentlemen, this is notnonsense. It is business and sense, as any bank cashier will tell you.Red-Tape means order, accuracy, honesty, solvency. A defalcation of fivecents is as bad in principle as a defalcation of a million. I tell youthese stories to give you an idea of what will be exacted of you sometime or other, it may be soon, but certainly at last. I wish you tocomplete your returns as soon as possible. They ought to have gone inlong since. That is all, gentlemen."

  "I talked to them like a Dutch uncle," said Carter to the captain of thetransport, after relating the above interview. "The fact is that in theregular army we generally left the returns to the first sergeants. WhenI was in command of a company I gave mine the ten dollars monthly foraccountability, and hardly ever saw my papers except when I signed them,all made up and ready to forward. But here the first sergeants, confoundthem! don't know so much as the officers. The officers must do everything personally, and I must set them the example."

  So much at present for Carter as chief of a volunteer regiment which itwas his duty and pride to transform into a regiment of regulars.Professionally if not personally, as a soldier if not as a man, he hadan imperious conscience; and his aristocratic breeding and tolerablyhard heart enabled him to obey it in this matter of discipline withouthesitation or pity. And now, in the calm leisure of this winter voyageover summer seas, let us go back a little in his history, and see whatkind of a life his had been outside of the regulations and devoirs ofthe army.

  "How rapidly times change!" he said to Colburne in a moment of unusualcommunicativeness. "Three years ago I expected to take a regiment or soacross this gulf on a very different errand. I was, by (this and that) afilibuster and pro-slavery champion in those days; at least byintention. I was closeted with the Lamars and the Soules--the Governorof South Carolina and the Governor of Mississippi and the Governor ofLouisiana--the gentlemen who proposed to carry the auction-block offreedom into Yucatan, Cuba, the island of Atalantis, and the moon. Iexpected to be a second Cortez. Not that I cared much about theirpro-slavery projects and palaverings. I was a soldier of fortune, onlyanxious for active service, pay and promotion. I might have been monarchof all I surveyed by this time, if the world had turned as we expected.But this war broke up my prospects. They saw it coming, and decided thatthey must husband their resources for it. It was necessary to take sidesfor a greater struggle than the one we wanted. They chose their party,and I chose mine."

  These confessions were too fragmentary and guarded to satisfy thecuriosity of Colburne; but he subsequently obtained information in theSouth from which he was able to piece out this part of Carter's history;and the facts are perhaps worth repeating as illustrative of the man andhis times. Our knowledge is sufficiently complete to enable us to decidethat the part which he played in the filibustering conspiracy was notthat of a Burr, but of a Walker, which indeed might be inferred from thefact that he was not intellectually capable of making himself head of acabal which included some of the cleverest of the keen-sighted (thoughnot far-sighted) statesmen of the south. It is no special reflection onthe Colonel's brains to say that they were not equal to those of Souleand Jefferson Davis. Moreover a soldier is usually a poor intriguer,because his profession rarely leads him to appeal to any other influencethan open authority: he is not obliged to learn the politician'sessential arts of convincing, wheedling and circumventing; he simplysays to his man Go, and he goeth. Carter, then, was to be the commanderof the regiment, or brigade, or division, or whatever might be theproposed force of armed filibusters. There appears to have been no doubtin the minds of the ringleaders as to his fidelity. He was a Virginianborn, and of a family which sat in the upper seats of the southernoligarchy. Furthermore, he had married a wife and certain appertaininghuman property in Louisiana; and although he had buried the first, anddissolved the second (as Cleopatra did pearls) in the wine cup, it wasreasonable to suppose that they had exercised an establishing influenceon his character; for what Yankee even was ever known to remain anabolitionist after having once tasted the pleasure of living by thelabor of others? Moreover he had become agent and honorary stockholderof a company which had a new patent rifle to dispose of; and it was anitem of the filibustering bargain that the expeditionary force shouldbe armed with ordnance furnished by this Pennsylvania manufactory.Finally, having melted down his own and his wife's patrimony in thecrucible of pleasure, and been driven by debts to resign his lieutenancyfor something which promised, but did not provide, a better income, hewas known to be dreadfully in need of money.

  It is impossible to make the whole conspiracy a matter of plain andpositive history. Colburne thought he had learned that at least two orthree thousand men were sworn in as officers and soldiers, and that theGovernors of several Southern States had pledged themselves to supportit, even at the risk of being obliged to bully the venerable publicfunctionary who then occupied the White House. It is certain thatcouncils of state and war were held in the Mills House at Charleston andin the St. Charles Hotel at New Orleans. It is even asserted that adistinguished southern divine was present at some of these sessions, andgave his blessing to the plan as one of the most hopeful missionaryenterprises of the day; and the story, ironical as it may seem tomisguided Yankees, becomes seriously credible when we remember thatcertain devout southerners advocated the slave-trade itself as a meansof christianizing benighted Africans. Where the expedition was to go andwhen it was to sail are still points of uncertainty. Carter himselfnever told, and perhaps was not let into the secret. His part was todraw over as many of his old comrades as possible; to organize theenlisted men into companies and regiments, and to command the force whenit should once be landed. Concerning the causes of the failure of theenterprise we know nothing more than what he stated to Colburne. Thearch conspirators foresaw the election of Lincoln, and resolved to savethe material and enthusiasm of the South for war at home. It is prettycertain, however, that they sought to bring Carter's courage andprofessional ability into the new channel which they had resolved toopen for such qualities; and we can only wonder that a man of suchdesperate fortunes, apparently such a mere Dugald Dalgetty, was notseduced into treason by their no doubt earnest persuasions andflattering promises. He may have resisted their blandishments merelybecause he knew that the other side was the strongest and richest; butif we are charitable we will
concede that it argued in him some stilluneradicated roots of military honor and patriotism. At all events, herehe was, confident, cheerful and jealous, going forth to fight for hisold flag and his whole country. This vague and unsatisfactory story ofthe conspiracy would not have been worth relating did it not shed somecloudy light on the man's dubious history and contradictory character.

  We may take it for granted that Captain Colburne devoted much of histime during this voyage to meditations on Miss Ravenel. But lovers'reveries not being popular reading in these days, I shall omit all theinteresting matter thus offered, notwithstanding that the young man hasmy earnest sympathies and good wishes.

  One summer-like March morning the steam transport, black with men, laybowing to the snow-like sand-drifts of Ship Island; and by sunset theregiment was ashore, the camp marked out, tents pitched, rationscooking, and line formed for dress-parade; an instance of militarypromptness which elicited the praises of Generals Phelps and Butler.

  It is well known that the expedition against New Orleans started fromShip Island as its base. Over the organization of the enterprise, thebattalion and brigade drills on the dazzling sands, the gun-boat fightsin the offing with rebel cruisers from Mobile, the arrival of Farragut'sfrigates and Porter's bomb-schooners, and the grand review of theexpeditionary force, I must hurry without a word of description,although I might make up a volume on these subjects from the newspapersof the day, and from three or four long and enthusiastic letters whichColburne wrote to Ravenel. But these matters do not properly come withinthe scope of this narrative, which is biographical and not historical.Parenthetically it may be well to remark that neither Carter norColburne ever referred to Miss Ravenel in their few and briefinterviews. The latter was not disposed to talk of her to that listener;and the former was too much occupied with his duties to give muchthought to an absent Dulcinea. The Colonel was no longer in thatyouthfully tender stage when absence increases affection. To make himlove it was necessary to have a woman in pretty close personalpropinquity.

  In a month or two from the arrival of the Tenth Barataria at Ship Islandit was again on board a transport, this time bound for New Orleans _via_Fort Jackson.

  "This part of Louisiana looks as the world must have looked in themarsupial period," says Colburne in a letter to the Doctor written fromthe Head of the Passes. "There are two narrow but seemingly endlessantennae of land; between them rolls a river and outside of them spreadsan ocean. Dry land there is none, for the Mississippi being unusuallyhigh the soil is submerged, and the trees and shrubs of these longribbons of underwood which enclose us have their boles in the water. Ido not understand why the ichthyosauri should have died out inLouisiana. It certainly is not fitted, so far as I can see, for humanhabitation. May it not have been the chaos (_vide_ Milton) through whichSatan floundered? Miss Ravenel will, I trust, forgive me for thishypothesis when she learns that it is suggested by your theory thatLucifer was and is and ever will be peculiarly at home in this part ofthe world."

  In a subsequent passage he gives a long account of the famousbombardment of the forts, which I feel obliged to suppress as notstrictly biographical, he not being under fire but only an eye-witnessand ear-witness of the cannonade. One paragraph alone I deem it worthwhile to copy, being a curious analysis of the feelings of theindividual in the presence of sublime but monotonous circumstance.

  "Here we are, in view of what I am told is the greatest bombardmentknown in marine, or, as I should call it, amphibious warfare. You takeit for granted, I suppose, that we are in a state of constant and nobleexcitement; but the extraordinary truth is that we are in a condition ofwearisome _ennui_ and deplorable _desoeuvrement_. We are too ignorant ofthe great scientific problems of war to take an intelligent interest inthe fearful equation of fleets=forts. We got tired a week ago of themere auricular pleasure of the incessant bombing. We got tired a day ortwo afterward of climbing to the crosstrees to look at the fading globesof smoke left aloft in the air by the bursting shells. We are totallytired of the monotonous flow of the muddy river, and the interminableparallel curves of its natural levees and the glassy stretches of oceanwhich seem to slope upwards toward the eastern and western horizon. Wepass our time in playing cards, smoking, grumbling at our wretched fare,exchanging dull gossip and wishing that we might be allowed to dosomething. Happy is the man who chances once a day to find a clear spaceof a dozen feet on the crowded deck where he can take a constitutional.Waiting for a belated train, alone, in a country railroad station, isnot half so wearisome."

  But in a subsequent page of the same letter he makes record of startlingevents and vivid emotions.

  "The fleet has forced the passage of the forts. We have had a day and anight of almost crazy excitement. A battle, a victory, a glorious featof arms has been achieved within our hearing, though beyond our sightand range of action. A submerged iron-clad, one of the wrecks of theenemy's fleet, drifted against our cable, shook us over the edge ofeternity, and then floated by harmlessly. Blazing fire-ships have passedus, lighting up the midnight river until its ripples seemed of flame."

  In another part of the letter he says, "The forts have surrendered, andwe are steaming up the Mississippi in the track of that amazingFarragut. As I look around me with what knowledge of science there is inmy eyes, I feel as if I had lived a few millions of years sinceyesterday; for within twenty-four hours we have sailed out of themarsupial period into the comparatively modern era of fluvial depositsand luxuriant vegetation. Give my compliments to Miss Ravenel, and tellher that I modify my criticisms on the scenery of Louisiana. On eitherside the land is a living emerald. The plantation houses are emboweredin orange groves--in a glossy mass of brilliant, fragrant verdure. I donot know the names of a quarter of the plants and trees which I see; butI pass the livelong day in admiring and almost adoring their tropicalbeauty. We are no welcome tourists, at least not to the whiteinhabitants; very few of them show themselves, and they do not answerour cheering, nor hardly look at us; they walk or ride grimly by, withfaces set straight forward, as if they could thereby ignore ourexistence. But to the negroes we evidently appear as friends andredeemers. Such joyous gatherings of dark faces, such deep-chestedshouts of welcome and deliverance, such a waving of green boughs andwhite vestments, and even of pickaninnies--such a bending of knees andvisible praising of God for his long-expected and at last realizedmercy, salutes our eyes from morn till night, as makes me grateful toHeaven for this hour of holy triumph. How glorious will be that time,now near at hand, when our re-united country will be free of the shameand curse of slavery!"

  Miss Ravenel spit in her angry pussy-cat fashion when her father read toher this passage of the letter.

  "We are in New Orleans," proceeds Colburne towards the close of thisprodigious epistle. "Our regiment was the first to reach the city and towitness the bareness of the once-crowded wharves, the desertion of thestreets and the sullen spite of the few remaining inhabitants. I suspectthat your aristocratic acquaintances have all fled at the approach ofthe Vandal Yankees, for I see only negroes, poor foreigners, and rowdiesmore savage-looking than the tribes of the Bowery. The spirit ofimpotent but impertinent hate in this population is astonishing. Theragged news-boys will not sell us a paper--the beggarly restaurants willnot furnish us a dinner. Wherever I walk I am saluted by mutterings of'Damned Yankee!'--'Cut his heart out!' &c. &c. I once more professallegiance to your theory that this is where Satan's seat is. But theevil spirits who inhabit this city of desolation only grimace andmumble, without attempting any manner of injury. If Miss Ravenel fearsthat there will be a popular insurrection and a consequent burning ofthe city, assure her from me that she may dismiss all such terrors."

  And here, from mere lack of space rather than of interesting matter, Imust close my extracts from this incomparably elongated letter. Iquestion, by the way, whether Colburne would have covered so much paperhad he not been reasonably justified in imagining a pretty familypicture of the Doctor reading and Miss Ravenel listening.