April 28, 1861. |
April 23. |
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example.1 At Decatur we were met by still more alarming rumors, underlying which there was evidently some truth, and we thought it prudent to turn our faces northward.
Had we not been detained at Grand Junction, we should then have been in Virginia, possibly in Washington or Baltimore, subjected to the annoyances of that distressing week when the National Capital was cut off from all communication with the States north and east of it. We spent Sunday in Columbia, Tennessee; Monday, at Nashville; and at four o'clock on Tuesday morning,
departed for Louisville.
At Columbia we received the first glad tidings since we left New Orleans.
There we met a bulletin from the Nashville Union and American, containing news of the great uprising in the Free-labor States--the rush of men to arms, and the munificent offers of money from city corporations, banking institutions, and private citizens, all over the country.
Our faith in the patriotism of the people was amazingly strengthened; and when, on the following day, at Franklin and one or two other places, Pillow, who was our fellow-passenger, repeated his disreputable harangue at Grand Junction, and talked of the poverty, the perfidy, the acquisitiveness, and the cowardice, of the “Northern hordes of Goths and Vandals,” he seemed like a mere harlequin, with cap and bells, trying to amuse the people with cunning antics.
And so the people seemed to think, for at Franklin, where there was quite a large gathering, there was not a single response to his foolish speech.
Nobody seemed to be deceived by it.
Pillow was again our fellow-passenger on Tuesday morning, when we left Nashville.
We had been introduced to him the day before, and he was our traveling-companion, courteous and polite, all the way to Louisville.
When we crossed the magnificent railway bridge that then spanned the Green River at Mumfordsville, in Kentucky, he leaned out of the car window and viewed it with great earnestness.
I spoke of the beauty and strength of the structure, when he replied: “I am looking at it with a military eye, to see how we may destroy it, to prevent Northern troops from invading Tennessee.”
He seemed to be persuaded that a vast host were mustering on the Ohio border.
He was evidently on his way to Louisville to confer, doubtless by appointment, with leading secessionists of Kentucky, on the subject of armed rebellion.
The register of the “Galt House”
in that city showed that Pillow, Governor Magoffin, Simon B. Buckner, and other secessionists were at that house on that evening.2
We did not stop at Louisville, but immediately crossed the Ohio River to Jeffersonville, and took passage in a car for Cincinnati.
The change was wonderful.
For nearly three weeks we had not seen a National flag, nor heard a National air, nor scarcely felt a thrill produced by a loyal sentiment audibly uttered; now the Stars and Stripes were seen everywhere, National melodies were heard on every hand, and the air was resonant with the shouts
1 These dispatches produced the greatest exultation throughout the South and Southwest. Salvos of cannon and the ringing of bells attested the general joy. The editor of the Natchez Free Trader said, after describing the rejoicings there, “The pen fails to make the record a just one. We are hoarse with shouting and exalted with jubilancy.”
2 Letter of General Leslie Coombs to the author.
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