We Were Still Bent Upon Army Inspection, And With This Purpose Went
Back From Cairo To Louisville, In Kentucky.
I had passed through
Louisville before, as told in my last chapter, but had not gone
south from Louisville toward the Green River, and had seen nothing
of General Buell's soldiers.
I should have mentioned before that
when we were at St. Louis, we asked General Halleck, the officer in
command of the Northern army of Missouri, whether he could allow us
to pass through his lines to the South. This he assured us he was
forbidden to do, at the same time offering us every facility in his
power for such an expedition if we could obtain the consent of Mr.
Seward, who at that time had apparently succeeded in engrossing into
his own hands, for the moment, supreme authority in all matters of
government. Before leaving Washington we had determined not to ask
Mr. Seward, having but little hope of obtaining his permission, and
being unwilling to encounter his refusal. Before going to General
Halleck, we had considered the question of visiting the land of
"Dixie" without permission from any of the men in authority. I
ascertained that this might easily have been done from Kentucky to
Tennessee, but that it could only be done on foot. There are very
few available roads running North and South through these States.
The railways came before roads; and even where the railways are far
asunder, almost all the traffic of the country takes itself to them,
preferring a long circuitous conveyance with steam, to short
distances without. Consequently such roads as there are run
laterally to the railways, meeting them at this point or that, and
thus maintaining the communication of the country. Now the railways
were of course in the hands of the armies. The few direct roads
leading from North to South were in the same condition, and the by-
roads were impassable from mud. The frontier of the North,
therefore, though very extended, was not very easily to be passed,
unless, as I have said before, by men on foot. For myself I confess
that I was anxious to go South; but not to do so without my coats
and trowsers, or shirts and pocket-handkerchiefs. The readiest way
of getting across the line - and the way which was, I believe, the
most frequently used - was from below Baltimore, in Maryland, by boat
across the Potomac. But in this there was a considerable danger of
being taken, and I had no desire to become a state-prisoner in the
hands of Mr. Seward under circumstances which would have justified
our Minister in asking for my release only as a matter of favor.
Therefore, when at St. Louis, I gave up all hopes of seeing "Dixie"
during my present stay in America. I presume it to be generally
known that Dixie is the negro's heaven, and that the Southern slave
States, in which it is presumed that they have found a Paradise,
have since the beginning of the war been so named.
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