The South As It Is: 1865–1866

Chapter 34

XXXIV VICKSBURG, MISS., March 8, 1866 I SET out from Baton Rouge for Vicksburg and the North on the steamboat Columbian. At the place where I went aboard, as at most other points, she followed the fashion of Mississippi steamboats , and made the landing with more haste than ceremony. It was pleasant to look on one Southern scene full of business-like activity and bustle-the bow scraped the bank, gangway planks were instantly pushed out, freight was rolled ashore in a hurry, people crowded aboard, jostling each other to beg a late newspaper from the clerk; the steam, all the time roaring and hissing, made the boat itself seem impatient to be off, and at the end of five minutes we were making for the middle stream. The few passengers were mostly Northerners bound for St. Louis. One reads of the strange characters, of the gambling and hard drinking on these river boats, and I looked for something of the kind, but saw nothing of it; everything was orderly and commonplace . We were going up "against a rise," I was told, so that the water was thicker than usual with mud, and great quantities of driftwood were carried past us on the strong current, but our rate of speed was nearly eight miles an hour. Let the traveller forget that not unlikely he may be scalded to death or blown to pieces, and a voyage up the river is pleasant travelling, if only because one is constantly astonished at the grandeur and immensity of the stream, recognizes the river as a wonder of nature, and because, as he sails for days after days on into the heart of a continent, he is forced to see the vastness of the country and to think of its wealth and strength in the future. 346 The South As It Is: 1865-1866 347 I became acquainted with but one of my fellow-passengers. He was a man from Maine, and was then on his way home again from Texas, whither he had gone at the end of the war. He had been a photographer, he said, in Austin, and away down there that was a very profitable occupation; pictures commanded big prices. He'd have liked to stay there if the people had been a little more reasonable ; but they were so down on Yankees that he was a little afraid to risk it, and, as he had been offered a good price for his gallery, he decided to sell out and get away. The soldiers were there now, but nobody knew how long they'd remain; as soon as they should go, all the Yankees that didn't want to turn rebels would have to go too. A regular Yankee soon finds out how he's looked down on, and he do'n't trust them. He himself had learned to carry a pistol all the time; everybody had to do it, and a Yankee in particular ought to go armed. Here was an example of the way in which they felt: One day he was in his back room, finishing a picture, and a couple of ladies walked into the reception room and began to examine the specimens. It so happened that he had photographed a good many of the officers, and he heard one lady say, "Why it's a regular Yankee concern. 'Most every picture is some beast of a Yank." That was a kind of talk that always made him mad; he'd heard about enough of it, so he stepped out and said, "Madam, if those officers are Yankees, they are all gentlemen." The women walked off disgusted, and wouldn't have anything done. It was that style of thing that disgusted him with the Southerners. At one time they were decent, comparatively. "We're whipped," you'd hear 'em say-"fightin' 's played." But after the women folks got hold of them the men gave up all that, and now men and women were about alike-more disloyal than they were in '60. The niggers were going to have a good time. This person's view of these matters was the same with that of an intelligent Northerner, whom I met in Baton Rouge. He had been travelling from Ohio to Louisiana, to seek for the remains of some unfortunate friends of his who had perished miserably in a steamboat explosion, and whose bodies, it was possible, might be found at some point between Vicksburg...