Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 | Page 2

master, and having a fair wind, we passed in like a flash
of lightning, and landed at the miserable village of Bagdad, on the
Mexican bank of the Rio Grande.
The bar was luckily in capital order--3-1/2 feet of water, and smooth. It
is often impassable for ten or twelve days together: the depth of water
varying from 2 to 5 feet. It is very dangerous, from the heavy surf and
under-current; sharks also abound. Boats are frequently capsized in
crossing it, and the Orlando lost a man on it about a month ago.
Seventy vessels are constantly at anchor outside the bar; their cotton
cargoes being brought to them, with very great delays, by two small
steamers from Bagdad. These steamers draw only 3 feet of water, and
realise an enormous profit.
Bagdad consists of a few miserable wooden shanties, which have
sprung into existence since the war began. For an immense distance
endless bales of cotton are to be seen.
Immediately we landed, M'Carthy was greeted by his brother
merchants. He introduced me to Mr Ituria, a Mexican, who promised to
take me in his buggy to Brownsville, on the Texan bank of the river
opposite Matamoros. M'Carthy was to follow in the evening to
Matamoros.
The Rio Grande is very tortuous and shallow; the distance by river to
Matamoros is sixty-five miles, and it is navigated by steamers, which
sometimes perform the trip in twelve hours, but more often take
twenty-four, so constantly do they get aground.
The distance from Bagdad to Matamoros by land is thirty-five miles;
on the Texan side to Brownsville, twenty-six miles.
I crossed the river from Bagdad with Mr Ituria, at 11 o'clock; and as I

had no pass, I was taken before half-a-dozen Confederate officers, who
were seated round a fire contemplating a tin of potatoes. These officers
belonged to Duff's cavalry (Duff being my Texan's partner). Their dress
consisted simply of flannel shirts, very ancient trousers, jack-boots with
enormous spurs, and black felt hats, ornamented with the "lone star of
Texas." They looked rough and dirty, but were extremely civil to me.
The captain was rather a boaster, and kept on remarking, "We've given
'em h----ll on the Mississippi, h----ll on the Sabine" (pronounced
Sabeen), "and h----ll in various other places."
He explained to me that he couldn't cross the river to see M'Carthy, as
he with some of his men had made a raid over there three weeks ago,
and carried away some "renegadoes," one of whom, named
Mongomery, they had left on the road to Brownsville; by the smiles of
the other officers I could easily guess that something very disagreeable
must have happened to Mongomery. He introduced me to a skipper
who had just run his schooner, laden with cotton, from Galveston, and
who was much elated in consequence. The cotton had cost 6 cents a
pound in Galveston, and is worth 36 here.
Mr Ituria and I left for Brownsville at noon. A buggy is a light gig on
four high wheels.
The road is a natural one--the country quite flat, and much covered with
mosquite trees, very like pepper trees. Every person we met carried a
six-shooter, although it is very seldom necessary to use them.
After we had proceeded about nine miles we met General Bee, who
commands the troops at Brownsville. He was travelling to Boca del Rio
in an ambulance,[1] with his Quartermaster-General, Major Russell. I
gave him my letter of introduction to General Magruder, and told him
who I was.
He thereupon descended from his ambulance and regaled me with beef
and beer in the open. He is brother to the General Bee who was killed
at Manassas. We talked politics and fraternised very amicably for more
than an hour. He said the Mongomery affair was against his sanction,

and he was sorry for it. He said that Davis, another renegado, would
also have been put to death, had it not been for the intercession of his
wife. General Bee had restored Davis to the Mexicans.
Half an hour after parting company with General Bee, we came to the
spot where Mongomery had been left; and sure enough, about two
hundred yards to the left of the road, we found him.
He had been slightly buried, but his head and arms were above the
ground, his arms tied together, the rope still round his neck, but part of
it still dangling from quite a small mosquite tree. Dogs or wolves had
probably scraped the earth from the body, and there was no flesh on the
bones. I obtained this my first experience of Lynch law within three
hours of landing in America.
I understand that this Mongomery was a man of very bad character, and
that, confiding in the neutrality of the Mexican