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John Esten Cooke, Wearing of the Gray: Being Personal Portraits, Scenes, and Adventures of War., Roslyn and the White house: before and after. (search)
lry had scattered themselves in search of edibles. These were found in profusion, from barrels of excellent hams, and crackers and cakes, to the luxuries so costly in the Confederate capital, of candy and comfits, lemons and oranges, bottles of Jamaica ginger, and preserved fruits. There was no little interest in a walk through that debris of sutlerdom. You knocked in the head of a barrel, entirely ignorant whether hard bread or candy, pork or preserved strawberries, would greet your curiouswere panting with the combined heat of the weather and the great conflagration. Under such circumstances, the reader may understand that it was far from unpleasant to discover a cool spring beneath the bank; to take water and ice and lemons and Jamaica ginger, and make a drink for the gods! Of this pandemonium of strange sights and sounds and smells --of comic or tragic, amusing or disgusting.details — I shall mention but one other subject; one, however, which excited in me, I remember, at
Lt.-Colonel Arthur J. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, June, 1863. (search)
subject, but I am perfectly aware that many influential men in the South feel humiliated and annoyed with several of the incidents connected with slavery; and I think that if the Confederate States were left alone, the system would be much modified and amended, although complete emancipation cannot be expected; for the Southerners believe it to be as impracticable to cultivate cotton on a large scale in the South, without forced black labor, as the British have found it to produce sugar in Jamaica; and they declare that the example the English have set them of sudden emancipation in that island is by no means encouraging. They say that that magnificent colony, formerly so wealthy and prosperous, is now nearly valueless — the land going out of cultivation — the Whites ruined — the Blacks idle, slothful, and supposed to be in a great measure relapsing into their primitive barbarism. At twelve o'clock I called by appointment on Captain Tucker, on board the Chicora. I have omitte<
John James Geer, Beyond the lines: A Yankee prisoner loose in Dixie, Chapter 17: (search)
; all gained homes, and, at night, scarcely an idler was to be seen. To state that sudden emancipation would create disorder and distress to those you mean to serve, is not reason, but the plea of all men adverse to abolition. On the 1st of August, 1834, the government of Great Britain emancipated the slaves in all her colonies, of which she had twenty, viz., seventeen in the West Indies, and three in the East Indies. The numerical superiority of the negroes in the West was great. In Jamaica, there were three hundred and thirty-one thousand slaves, and only thirty-seven thousand whites. Even by the clumsy apprenticeship system, where the stimulus of the whip was removed without being replaced by the stimulus of wages, the negroes were a little improved. They knew they would not be lashed if they did not work, and that if they did work they would not be paid for it. Yet, under such disadvantages as these, there occurred no difficulty, excepting in three of the islands, and
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Chapter 4: up the St. John's. (search)
an interview on the matter with Major-General Hunter, then commanding the Department. Hilton Head, in those days, seemed always like some foreign military station in the tropics. The long, low, white buildings, with piazzas and verandas on the waterside; the general impression of heat and lassitude, existence appearing to pulsate only with the sea-breeze; the sandy, almost impassable streets; and the firm, level beach, on which everybody walked who could get there: all these suggested Jamaica or the East Indies. Then the Headquarters at the end of the beach, the Zouave sentinels, the successive anterooms, the lounging aids, the good-natured and easy General,--easy by habit and energetic by impulse,--all had a certain air of Southern languor, rather picturesque, but perhaps not altogether bracing. General Hunter received us, that day, with his usual kindliness; there was a good deal of pleasant chat; Miles O'Reilly was called in to read his latest verses; and then we came to t
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Chapter 12: the negro as a soldier. (search)
uliar temperament of the races, in their religious faith, and in the habit of patience that centuries had fortified. The shrewder men all said substantially the same thing What was the use of insurrection, where everything was. against them? They had no knowledge, no money, no arms, no drill, no organization,--above all, no mutual confidence. It was the tradition among them that all insurrections were always betrayed by somebody. They had no mountain passes to defend like the Maroons of Jamaica, -no impenetrable swamps, like the Maroons of Surinam. Where they had these, even on a small scale, they had used them,--as in certain swamps round Savannah and in the everglades of Florida, where they united with the Indians, and would stand fire-so I was told by General Saxton, who had fought them there — when the Indians would retreat. It always seemed to me that, had I been a slave, my life would have been one long scheme of insurrection. But I learned to respect the patient self-
Varina Davis, Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America, A Memoir by his Wife, Volume 1, Chapter 28: the Oregon question. (search)
e and slave blacks under conditions most favorable to emancipation. Does it warrant the desire on the part of any friend of that dependent race to hasten upon them responsibilities, for which they have shown themselves so unequal? If any shall believe that the sorrow, the suffering, the crime which they witness among the free blacks of the North have resulted from their degradation by comparison with the white race around them, to such I would answer: Does the condition of St. Domingo, of Jamaica give higher evidence? Or, do the recent atrocities in Martinique encourage better hopes? Sir, this problem is one which must bring its own solution. Leave natural causes to their full effect, and when the time shall arrive at which emancipation is proper, those most interested will be most anxious to effect it. But as the obligation is mutual, so must the action be joint; and it is quite within the range of possibility that the masters may desire it when the slaves will object, as wa
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events, Diary from December 17, 1860 - April 30, 1864 (ed. Frank Moore), 1861, August (search)
sidence opposite to the court house, owned by R. Aull, Esq., of St. Louis, and occupied by T. Crittenden, Esq., (temporarily absent in Kentucky,) were shelled and burned. The impression was that the former contained powder designed for the use of the Confederates. Another attack was threatened.--(Doc. 16.) This evening a peace meeting which was to have been held at Newtown, L. I., was indefinitely postponed, and in its place a spirited Union demonstration came off. Delegations from Jamaica, Flushing, Williamsburg, and the surrounding districts came in, until there was a very large concourse assembled, when a meeting was organized, the Hon. John D. Townsend in the chair. The proceedings were opened by a patriotic address by Richard Busteed, followed by Daniel Northup, of Brooklyn, and resolutions indorsing the Administration in the prosecution of the war, were passed. An effigy of Jeff. Davis was produced and hung on a tree; afterward it was cut down and placed in a large co
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events, Diary from December 17, 1860 - April 30, 1864 (ed. Frank Moore), 1862, January (search)
mberland River. About one hundred and fifty rebel prisoners were taken, and ten guns, about one hundred wagons, upwards of twelve hundred horses and mules, large quantities of small arms, with subsistence and hospital stores captured. Besides these a large number of flags were taken on the field of battle, and in the deserted entrenchments.--(Doc. 16.) This evening the United States gunboat Itasca captured the schooner Lizzie Weston, of Apalachicola, Fla., loaded with two hundred and ninety-three bales of cotton, one hundred and fifty-two thousand five hundred pounds, bound for Jamaica or a market. She was sent in charge of a prize crew to Philadelphia. Colonel Williams' regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry passed through Louisville, Ky., on their way to Munfordville, where they will take a position a few miles beyond Green River. They are well supplied with arms, though their horses are not generally up to the requirements of active service.--Louisville Journal, January 20.
Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events, Diary from December 17, 1860 - April 30, 1864 (ed. Frank Moore), 1862, July (search)
whole of this day, ceasing at ten o'clock at night.--At Port Royal Ferry, S. C., a skirmish took place between a party of National pickets and a body of rebels, resulting in the defeat of the latter. Governors Bradford, of Maryland, and Curtin, of Pennsylvania, issued proclamations calling upon the citizens of their States for their quota of troops, under the call of the President for three hundred thousand men. The British schooner Richard O'Brien, laden with medicines and a general cargo, from Jamaica, and bound for Matamoras, Texas, was this day run ashore near San Luis Pass, and captured by the United States steamer Rhode Island, under the command of Captain S. D. Trenchard. A skirmish took place near Grand Haze, on the White River, Ark., between a body of rebel guerrillas and the Thirteenth Illinois regiment of Gen. Curtis's army.--The rebel gunboat Teazer was this day captured in a bend of the James River, Va., by the United States steamer Maratanza.--(Doc. 145.)
Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Volume 4., The Confederate cruisers. (search)
; presumably for the Italian Government. She was a duplicate of the gun-vessels of the English navy. The construction of the vessel proceeded without interruption during the fall and winter of 1861-62. The American Minister, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, twice called the attention of the Foreign Office to her suspected character, and pro forma inquiries were set on foot, but they failed to show evidence of her real destination. The Oreto therefore cleared without difficulty for Palermo and Jamaica, a Liverpool merchant, representing the Palermo firm, having sworn that he was the owner, and an English captain having been appointed to the command. On the 22d of March the vessel sailed from Liverpool. At the same time the steamer Bahama left Hartlepool for Nassau, carrying the Oreto's battery. The new cruiser arrived at Nassau April 28th, consigned to Adderly & Co., the Confederate agents at that port, and a few days later she was joined by the Bahama. The consignees immediately s
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