Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field | Page 5

slave State that lay in my route, I found
every thing comparatively quiet. In St. Joseph, on the day of my arrival,
the election for delegates to the State Convention was being held. There
was no disorder, more than is usual on election days in small cities.
Little knots of people were engaged in discussion, but the discussions
partook of no extraordinary bitterness. The vote of the city was
decidedly in favor of keeping the State in the Union.
Between the 7th of December and the 12th of April, the Northern blood
warmed slowly. The first gun at Sumter quickened its pulsations. When
the President issued his call for seventy-five thousand men for three
months, to put down insurrection, the North woke to action.
Everywhere the response was prompt, earnest, patriotic. In the
Northern cities the recruiting offices were densely thronged. New York
and Massachusetts were first to send their favorite regiments to the
front, but they were not long in the advance. Had the call been for four
times seventy-five thousand, and for a service of three years, there is
little doubt the people would have responded without hesitation.
For a short time after my arrival at the East, I remained in a small town
in Southern New Hampshire. A few days after the first call was issued,
a friend invited me to a seat in his carriage for a ride to Portsmouth, the
sea-port of the State. On reaching the city we found the war spirit fully
aroused. Two companies of infantry were drilling in the public square,
and the citizens were in a state of great excitement. In the course of the
afternoon my friend and myself were arrested, by a committee of
respectable citizens, who suspected us of being Southern emissaries. It
was with great difficulty we convinced them they had made a slight
mistake. We referred them to the only acquaintances we had in the city.
They refused to consider the truth established in the mouths of two
witnesses, and were not induced to give us our liberty until all
convenient proof of our identity had been adduced.
To be arrested within twenty miles of home, on suspicion of being
delegated from Charleston or Montgomery, was one of my most

amusing experiences of the war. The gentleman who accompanied me
was a very earnest believer in coercion. His business in Portsmouth on
that occasion was to offer his services in a regiment then being formed.
A few months later he received a commission in the army, but did not
obtain it through any of our temporary acquaintances at Portsmouth.
Our captors were the solid men of the city, any one of whom could
have sat for the portrait of Mr. Turveydrop without the slightest
alteration. On taking us into custody, they stated the grounds on which
they arrested us. Our dark complexions and long beards had aroused
suspicions concerning the places of our nativity. Suspicion was reduced
to a certainty when one of them heard me mention my presence in
Missouri on the day of choosing candidates for the Convention. Our
purpose was divined when I asked if there was any activity at the Navy
Yard. We were Rebel emissaries, who designed to lay their Navy Yard
in ashes!
On our release and departure we were followed to our homes, that the
correctness of our representations might be ascertained. This little
occurrence, in the center of New England, where the people claim to be
thoroughly quiet and law-abiding, indicated that the war spirit in that
part of the North was more than momentary.
The West was not behind the Eastern States in the determination to
subdue the Rebellion. Volunteers were gathering at Cairo, and
threatening to occupy points further down the Mississippi. At St. Louis
the struggle was active between the Unionists and the Secessionists.
A collision was a mere question of time, and of short time at the best.
As I visited The Herald office for final instructions, I found that the
managing editor had determined upon a vigorous campaign. Every
point of interest was to be covered, so that the operations of our armies
would be fully recorded from day to day. The war correspondents had
gone to their posts, or were just taking their departure. One
correspondent was already on the way to Cairo. I was instructed to
watch the military movements in Missouri, and hastened to St. Louis as
fast as steam could bear me.

Detained twelve hours at Niagara, by reason of missing a railway train,
I found that the opening war gave promise of affecting that locality.
The hotel-keepers were gloomy at the prospect of losing their Southern
patronage, and half feared they would be obliged to close their
establishments. There were but few visitors, and even these were not of