by John Babb
“What does your brother do, now that the road is finished?”
Galileo pointed out the window. “See there at the edge of the rail bed. He lies underneath one of those crosses.”
B. F. flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. . . .”
“The Americans started work on the railroad in 1850. They said it could be built for one million dollars, and it would take no more than six months—after all, it was only forty-seven miles long. But it took five years and over seven million dollars.”
“Why did it take so long?”
“They underestimated the jungle and the swampland. The engineers recommended starting the railroad at San Lorenzo. There was at least twenty-five miles of dry land running inland from there. But several wealthy families wanted top dollar for their land near San Lorenzo, so the brilliant railroad men moved about ten miles further south to what is now Colón, and started their road. From Colón, the land was cheap, but very little of it was dry enough on which to build their road. All they found in their path was mangrove thickets, snakes, mosquitoes, alligators, endless rain, and sickness.
“Everything they needed besides dirt and railroad ties had to be shipped from the United States. The people who lived here in Panama were not accustomed to such physical labor. So they brought in Irish and Chinese workers, even slaves from the American south. None were able to work here. They all died in terrible numbers.
“In the years before the railroad reached dry land, they had no way to bury the bodies. Many were left to rot, or be eaten by the alligators and panthers. But the company found ways to make money, even on the dead. They began putting bodies in large barrels and pickling them to be sold to medical schools and hospitals around the world. Thankfully, when my brother died that business was over, and he was buried on dry land.
“Finally the company came to the conclusion that Negroes from the West Indies were the ideal workers for the railroad. They had lived their lives in the heat of the tropics. They had been exposed many times to the same kinds of diseases that awaited them in Panama, and they must have developed some sort of resistance. When over a thousand of them were brought in, the work finally began to make real progress.”
“But I thought the railroad was built by Americans?”
“It was planned by American engineers, paid for with American dollars, and the project was led by an American—that much is true. But few American laborers stayed alive long enough to see it reach beyond a few miles from Colón, let alone to see it finished. There is a poem you should hear that explains this land far better than I, called Beyond the Chagres.”
Galileo began to recite a James Stanley Gilbert poem from memory:
Beyond the Chagres River are paths that lead to death
To the fever’s deadly breezes, to malaria’s poisonous breath!
Beyond the tropic foliage, where the alligator waits,
Are the mansions of the devil, his original estates.
Beyond the Chagres River are paths fore’er unknown,
With a spider ’neath each pebble, a scorpion ’neath each stone.
’Tis here the boa-constrictor, his fatal banquet holds,
And to his slimy bosom, his hapless guest enfolds!
Beyond the Chagres River lurks the cougar in his lair,
And ten hundred thousand dangers hide in the noxious air.
Behind the trembling leaflets, beneath the fallen reeds,
Are ever-present perils of a million different breeds!
Beyond the Chagres River tis said—the story’s old—
Are paths that lead to mountains of purest virgin gold!
But ’tis my firm conviction, whatever tales they tell,
That beyond the Chagres River, all paths lead straight to hell!
“I see what you mean. That poem makes it all very real. Tell me about yourself, Galileo. You seem to be a very educated man.”
“Ah, there is little to tell. I was born in the Cape Verde Islands. My father was a Portuguese trader and my mother was his housekeeper. They never married, but they lived together for almost twenty years until she died. I went to school in Lisbon until I was twelve and then in London until I was sixteen. I had to leave school when my father died and came here to be near my brother. I was able to see him only twice before he died. The second time he was already very sick. I tried to get him to leave the swamps, but he would not hear me.
For the last six years I have worked for a shipping company in Panama City. But I tire of hearing only English and Spanish. I need to speak the tongue of my father. It is hard to explain.”
He paused for a moment in his own thoughts. “And what of you, Señor? Where are you from?”
“Compared to you, I have not been very many places. I lived in Indiana with my father and stepmother, and ran away from home and went to California by wagon train. But I wasn’t a gold miner, I was just a barber. For eleven years, I worked in two mining towns in California and for a while in San Francisco. Now I’m on my way to South America.”
“Wait a minute. You worked in mining towns for eleven years? How old were you when you left home?”
“Eight.”
“Eight? Señor, we shall have dinner when we arrive in Colón. I must hear this story.”
The train ride was no faster than a trotting horse, requiring five hours to travel the forty-seven and a half miles, as it was unlikely that the track bed, built over so much muck and mire, could have withstood the strain of a fast train. Over the course of the trip, the train passed across three hundred bridges and culverts from Pacific to Atlantic.
The city of Colón was built on Manzanillo Island and functioned as the base of operations for the railroad. Activity in Colón was every bit as busy as that in Panama City, except that the chief activity here was unloading ships from the American east coast, and then loading those supplies and passengers on the train. On the Pacific side, most passenger and freight traffic were outbound rather than inbound.
Their dinner that evening occurred in the seaside villa of a female friend of Galileo. There were numerous smokepots positioned around the house, and the windows, although opened to take advantage of the ocean breezes, were covered with a fine netting that successfully prevented thousands of insistent mosquitoes from intruding on their meal. As the evening passed by, it became obvious that the dark-eyed woman who lived there, Señorita Maria de la Casada, was far more than just a friend to Galileo.
As they enjoyed a delicious caramelized pudding, the Señorita decided to explore this young American. “So what do you plan to do in South America, Señor B. F.? Do you have friends there?”
“I don’t know a soul there. But from all indications there is about to be a war in the United States, and I believe there is money to be made in the shipping of goods.”
“Forgive me for saying this,” Galileo interjected, “but you have no contacts and you do not speak any of the languages?”
“This is true. But I’ve learned a bit about buying and selling—particularly when there are shipping problems. The more difficult it is to ship goods, the more you can charge.”
Maria looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“When I lived in Indiana, flour was easy to get, and it was two cents a pound. When I reached the beginning of the Indian Territory, flour had to arrive there by steamboat, and it was fifteen cents a pound. When I finally got to California, flour had to come by ship all the way around South America, and it was a dollar a pound. The flour was the same in California as it was in Indiana. The only difference was the shipping.
If there is war, then the southern states will be desperate to sell their tobacco and cotton—probably at a reduced price—and England, France, and all of Europe will want to buy it—possibly at an inflated price—because the supply will be much diminished. Whoever is able to ship it from one to the other can make a lot of money.”
Galileo’s arm encircled Maria’s narrow waist when he spoke. “I happen to know men engaged in the shipping
business in New Orleans, Galveston, Mobile, and New York in America; São Luís and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; São tomé Island in the Cape Verdes; Havana, Cuba; Lisbon in Portugal; Cadiz in Spain; and Portsmouth or Plymouth in England. I speak three languages. I know many ship captains.” He nodded toward Maria. “Do you seek partners, Señor?”
They were awake until almost sunrise but had the framework of a plan. B. F. would act as their representative to the southern states, and he would travel immediately to the southern ports of Brownsville, Sabine Pass, Mobile, and Pensacola to make appropriate contacts with sales agents. Galileo and Maria would travel to São Luís in Brazil to find a vessel and a ship’s captain. Gali, as he asked to be called, would also make arrangements to transfer goods to a shipping company in Brazil which owned ocean-going ships.
They theorized that they would need a rather small vessel, a sloop perhaps, with three masts, but one that could move in as little as six feet of water while loaded with as much as three hundred bales of cotton. The ship would also be powered by a steam engine in case greater speed was required. Such a ship could move into shallow draft ports and rivers that might not draw the attention of warships. Their sloop would then race across the Gulf of Mexico, skirt the northern coastline of South America, and transfer its load to a larger ship in São Luís or a closer port.
Their plan was to buy cotton at the lowest price in America and sell it at significant profit in a safe port in Brazil. The middleman would then ship across the Atlantic under a Portuguese flag to Portugal, Spain, or England, where a ready buyer could be found—again at a profit. Their assumption was that the price of cotton in America would drop like a stone because of the war, while in Europe it would be sky high because of the decreased availability, yet continued demand from English and French mills.
B. F. was in a hotel lobby in Mobile, talking to Winston Palmer, a local cotton merchant, on April 14, when a man rushed in. “They done it, boys. They done took Fort Sumter yesterday from the Yankees. I reckon old Abraham will be wonderin’ what hit him!”
Mr. Palmer spoke up. “What about Virginia? Any news that they’ve decided to come with us?”
“Nothing in this telegraph, but I bet they’ll be coming now.”
B. F. spoke quietly to Mr. Palmer, a man possessing an exuberant, reddish-brown beard and eyebrows that must have been at least an inch thick. “It appears that we will indeed do business, sir. I will make contact with you in this place in exactly three weeks, despite the American warship that we encountered just west of Mobile, near Dauphin Island. Please be prepared to act at that time. For our part, we will deliver fifty thousand pounds of sugar, and I won’t forget your case of the best dark rum to be found in the Caribbean.”
Five days later, B. F. was making similar arrangements in Pensacola Bay when another telegram was read in public. President Lincoln had declared a naval blockade of the states engaged in insurrection, effective April 19. In his announcement, he gave all foreign ships fifteen days to get out of southern ports. All ships found in southern ports after that date would be stopped, boarded by the American Navy, and “sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize.”
This plan was the brainchild of General Winfield Scott, who referred to his idea as the Anaconda Plan. In reality, the Anaconda initially had no teeth, as the Navy only had three ships dedicated to the blockade of a coastline that reached from the Chesapeake Bay, which separated Virginia and Maryland, to the Florida Keys on the Atlantic, and from there to the Texas border with Mexico in the Gulf. However, by December 1861, there would be 160 Navy ships designated to the blockade, and by December 1864, there would be a total of four hundred seventy Union ships so deployed.
The telegram carried one more bit of news. Virginia had seceded on April 17. If you pull enough teeth, eventually you can no longer chew—or so the South hoped.
Thirty-Three
We’ve Just Risked Our Lives This Night
The Gulf of Mexico 1861
The Rei de la Amazon (the Amazon King) was a fast, three-masted sloop of 210 feet that could be powered by either steam or wind—or both. It appeared to ride low in the water, although with an empty hold it only required a draft of four feet in which to maneuver. Even with a full load, they were promised the vessel would need no more than five feet of water—perfect for their purposes. The ship was mastered by Captain Pedro Pesca and manned by a crew of twelve capable sailors. The Rei proudly flew the flag of Portugal.
Although Gali and B. F. had debated the wisdom of carrying guns, B. F.’s argument that they may have to outmaneuver pirates, let alone the Yankee Navy, carried the day, and the ship had kept its six twelve-pounders on board. However, under maritime law, the ship’s crew would be regarded as pirates and would face the death penalty if they were captured after firing on an American warship. With that sentence in mind, there was little appetite among the blockade-runners to engage in a gun fight with the Union Navy.
From the viewpoint of the common sailor onboard a U.S. Navy ship, there was plenty of motivation to take over a blockade running ship without sinking her. It was common practice in the American Navy to sell all of the contraband on board a captured vessel, and split the proceeds among the crew of the victorious ship. Even with a sailor’s small percentage of the money, it was not uncommon for the lowest paid men on a Navy ship to receive $2,000 after the successful capture of a loaded blockade-runner.
The cedar sides of the ship had been painted a light gray color by the crew, with the aim of camouflaging the vessel so that it might blend in with mist and seawater. Although the Rei had originally been constructed with a crew quarters and six small staterooms, the ship had been renovated to maximize the amount of cargo it could carry. Hence, only two staterooms remained.
The crew slept in hammocks below the main deck that were strung three high, so that each of the twelve men had a sleeping space six feet long and three feet wide, with only six or eight inches separating his face from the bottom of the bunk above him. After visiting the crew’s quarters once, Gali said he had no idea that anything could smell so bad. Obviously, the crew agreed with that analysis, as they took every advantage of moderate weather to move their blankets up to the rear deck to sleep as far away as possible from the foul air of the hold.
When given a couple of hours of relatively calm water, Gomez the cook, could produce a fairly decent meal of enchiladas stuffed with egg, cheese, bacon, tomato, onion, and various chili peppers. Of course, Gomez could really only cook the one thing, whether for breakfast or supper, with the only dietary variation being the addition or subtraction of an ingredient or two from time to time.
The crew was composed of a mixture of nationalities found in the Caribbean, but no matter their language of preference, all were required to speak Portuguese. Captain Pesca reasoned that he wanted no misunderstanding or delay when he barked out his orders.
B. F. had insisted on being on board for the maiden voyage, and on the evening of May 5, the ship lay about five miles to the west of the entrance to Mobile Bay. In the hold were fifty thousand pounds of Cuban sugar, and snuggled safely in the midst of that cargo was a case of fine dark rum.
Just after 10:30, Captain Pesca guided the ship into the estuary, and then entered the bay. B. F. had already entered the city via rowboat and was sitting in the Palace Hotel with Palmer. He had embellished the truth somewhat, telling Palmer that they had paid a spotter to signal them when the Navy warship had moved off to the east. In reality, they had seen no sign of the ship, but the price of cotton was dependent on the perceptions of the seller and the buyer, that shipping was a very dangerous business.
A bale of cotton weighed approximately five hundred ten pounds but was squeezed into almost a cubical shape by a cotton press to reduce its required storage space. Gali had told B. F. that the cotton price in London in December had been thirty-two cents a pound. That figure would indicate that a bale of cotton would bring $163 on the docks in Europe’s
seaports.
They could agree on thirty cents a pound for the sugar, but argued about the price of two hundred fifty bales of cotton. Because of the danger to shipping in the Gulf, Gali had told B. F. that he should pay no more than seventy dollars a bale in Mobile. After all, they would have to sell the cotton to a dealer in Brazil who would then have to ship to Europe, and still be able to make a profit.
Palmer wanted eighty dollars, B. F. offered sixty-five dollars and they could make no headway. “Sir, I believe we have just risked our lives, our ship, our cargo—and your case of rum—for nothing tonight. I believe we will have to seek another buyer. Perhaps a few more months of the blockade and we can come to terms on your cotton.” He stood up, very conscious that he had no one to guard his back in what was now a foreign country. He lightly rested the heel of his hand on the butt of his Colt and stepped backward toward the door.
“Hold on, suh.” Palmer spread his hands. “Perhaps we can find a middle ground in our, uh, discussion.”
“That depends, sir. What do you propose?”
“Seventy-five dollars a bale, suh.”
B. F. sensed an advantage. “I can’t pay you a nickel over seventy. But if you don’t agree, I must depart. For we must be loaded and out to sea before daybreak.”
The bushy eyebrows seemed to fuse together with Palmer’s frown of resignation.
“Agreed.”
“Let’s hurry, shall we Mr. Palmer?”
It was difficult to unload fifty thousand pounds of sugar and load over sixty tons of cotton in a hold only seven feet high and twelve feet wide at its widest point. But the dockworkers and seamen worked quickly. B. F. was relieved to see a seaman standing by each of the three cannons that were on the dockside of the vessel. He didn’t know if Palmer noticed or not, but he wanted no surprises when everybody seemed to be preoccupied in moving freight.
With less than an hour to go before dawn, B. F. handed Palmer his case of rum and one hundred twenty-five double eagles to make up the deficit in the trade. “Just to be sure we understand one another . . . all our business will be in gold or silver. There will be no banknotes or paper script—from either side.”