Among Such Classes In The Western States The
Men Are Always Better Than The Women.
The men are dirty and civil,
the women are dirty and uncivil.
On the following day we visited the camp, going out in an ambulance
and returning on horseback. We were accompanied by the general's
aid-de-camp, and also, to our great gratification, by the general's
daughter. There had been a hard frost for some nights, but though
the cold was very great there was always heat enough in the middle
of the day to turn the surface of the ground into glutinous mud;
consequently we had all the roughness induced by frost, but none of
the usually attendant cleanliness. Indeed, it seemed that in these
parts nothing was so dirty as frost. The mud stuck like paste and
encompassed everything. We heard that morning that from sixty to
seventy baggage wagons had "broken through," as they called it, and
stuck fast near a river, in their endeavor to make their way on to
Lebanon. We encountered two generals of brigade, General Siegel, a
German, and General Ashboth, a Hungarian, both of whom were waiting
till the weather should allow them to advance. They were extremely
courteous, and warmly invited us to go on with them to Lebanon and
Springfield, promising to us such accommodation as they might be
able to obtain for themselves. I was much tempted to accept the
offer; but I found that day after day might pass before any forward
movement was commenced, and that it might be weeks before
Springfield or even Lebanon could be reached. It was my wish,
moreover, to see what I could of the people, rather than to
scrutinize the ways of the army. We dined at the tent of General
Ashboth, and afterward rode his horses through the camp back to
Rolla, I was greatly taken with this Hungarian gentleman. He was a
tall, thin, gaunt man of fifty, a pure-blooded Magyar a I was told,
who had come from his own country with Kossuth to America. His camp
circumstances were not very luxurious, nor was his table very richly
spread; but he received us with the ease and courtesy of a
gentleman. He showed us his sword, his rifle, his pistols, his
chargers, and daguerreotype of a friend he had loved in his own
country. They were all the treasures that he carried with him - over
and above a chess-board and a set of chessmen, which sorely tempted
me to accompany him in his march.
In my next chapter, which will, I trust, be very short, I purport to
say a few words as to what I saw of the American army, and therefore
I will not now describe the regiments which we visited. The tents
were all encompassed by snow, and the ground on which they stood was
a bed of mud; but yet the soldiers out here were not so wretchedly
forlorn, or apparently so miserably uncomfortable, as those at
Benton Barracks. I did not encounter that horrid sickly stench, nor
were the men so pale and woe-begone. On the following day we
returned to St. Louis, bringing back with us our friend the German
aid-de-camp. I stayed two days longer in that city, and then I
thought that I had seen enough of Missouri; enough of Missouri at
any rate under the present circumstances of frost and secession. As
regards the people of the West, I must say that they were not such
as I expected to find them. With the Northerns we are all more or
less intimately acquainted. Those Americans whom we meet in our own
country, or on the continent, are generally from the North, or if
not so they have that type of American manners which has become
familiar to us. They are talkative, intelligent, inclined to be
social, though frequently not sympathetically social with ourselves;
somewhat soi-disant, but almost invariably companionable. As the
traveler goes southward into Maryland and Washington, the type is
not altered to any great extent. The hard intelligence of the
Yankee gives place gradually to the softer, and perhaps more
polished, manner of the Southern. But the change thus experienced
is not great as is that between the American of the Western and the
American of the Atlantic States. In the West I found the men gloomy
and silent - I might almost say sullen. A dozen of them will sit for
hours round a stove, speechless. They chew tobacco and ruminate.
They are not offended if you speak to them, but they are not
pleased. They answer with monosyllables, or, if it be practicable,
with a gesture of the head. They care nothing for the graces or -
shall I say - for the decencies of life. They are essentially a
dirty people. Dirt, untidiness, and noise seem in nowise to afflict
them. Things are constantly done before your eyes which should be
done and might be done behind your back. No doubt we daily come
into the closest contact with matters which, if we saw all that
appertains to them, would cause us to shake and shudder. In other
countries we do not see all this, but in the Western States we do.
I have eaten in Bedouin tents, and have been ministered to by Turks
and Arabs. I have sojourned in the hotels of old Spain and of
Spanish America. I have lived in Connaught, and have taken up my
quarters with monks of different nations. I have, as it were, been
educated to dirt, and taken out my degree in outward abominations.
But my education had not reached a point which would enable me to
live at my ease in the Western States. A man or woman who can do
that may be said to have graduated in the highest honors, and to
have become absolutely invulnerable, either through the sense of
touch, or by the eye, or by the nose. Indifference to appearances
is there a matter of pride.
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