L that state from seceding. Mr. Wigfall came up to Mr. Johnson and asked him to go out on the platform with him. Wigfall at once addressed the mob and urged them to give Mr. Johnson a hearing, which they did. The latter commenced his speech by saying, ‘I am a Union man!' and he talked to them until the train moved off, holding their attention as though they were spellbound. His last words were, 'I am a Union man!'. and the last cry we heard from the crowd was, 'Hang him!' On relating the foregoing incident to Mr. George A. Trenholm, then Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, I expressed the opinion that it was one of the greatest exhibitions of courage I had ever witnessed; but Mr. Trenholm cast a damper on my enthusiasm by saying, 'My son, I have known Mr. Johnson since we were young men. He rode into prominence on the shoulders of just such a mob as you saw at Lynchburg, and no man knows how to handle such a crowd better than Mr. Johnson. Had he weakened, they probably would have hung him.' It was the same Andrew Johnson, afterwards President of the United States, who granted Mr. Trenholm amnesty and a pardon in 1866. II Continuing my journey, I at last arrived at Montgomery, Alabama, capital of the Confederate States. My fears that the war would be over before I got there were somewhat allayed, for I had been told positively that it would not last six weeks before the South finished it victoriously. I found the new capital in a ferment of excitement. Nobody seemed to know exactly what it was about, but it was the fashion to be excited. From every house containing a piano the soul-stirring strains of the Marseillaise floated out of open win dows. At the hotel where I stopped, champagne flowed like water. The big parlor was crowded with men dressed in uniforms designed to the taste of the wearer, so that it looked like a gathering for a fancy-dress ball. On the chairs and window-sills were bottles of wine and glasses, while at the piano sat a burly German who, of course, crashed out the everlasting Marseillaise while his enthusiastic audience sang it. A more ridiculous sight than a lot of native-born Americans, not understanding a word of French, beating their breasts as they howled what they flattered themselves were the words of the song, it was never before my bad fortune to witness. There was a moment's halt in the music while some one made a war speech. The tired and sweating German musician took advantage of the respite to get a little air also, and, as he stood beside me, I heard him mutter, 'Dom the Marseillaise!' The morning after my arrival, I went to the Capitol to offer my services, and the sword I intended to buy, to the government. There were numbers of employees rushing about the building in a great state of excitement, but with nothing to do. None of them could tell me where I could find the Secretary of the Navy. At last I ran across an intelligent official who informed me that "There warn't no such person.' It appeared to be the custom of the attachés, when in doubt, to refer the stranger to Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, the Pooh Bah' of the Confederate government, then Secretary of State. He informed me that there was not as yet any Confederate Navy, and further humiliated me by calling me 'sonny.' However, he was very kind and took me into the private office of President Jefferson Davis, who was kindness personified and told me to go home and tell my parents that, as soon as the government established a Naval School, I should have one of the first appointments. I left the presence of the great man crestfallen and convinced that the Confederacy was doomed. I had come to fight, not to go to school. I had just left the greatest naval school in the world - and here the best they could offer me was a place in some makeshift academy to be erected in the dim future! I felt that I had been deceived and badly treated, and I mentally comforted myself with the assurance that I knew more about drill and tactics than the whole mob of civilian generals and colonels who thronged the Capitol's corridors. But Mr. Davis did not know this. I was a full-blown pessimist by the time I reached my hotel, where I was greeted by the sounds of the everlasting 'Enfants de la patrie,' being hiccoughed as usual in the parlor; and for the rest of the day I iterated and reiterated the German's prayer, 'Dom the Marseillaise!' The only way to get from Montgomery to Mobile was by steamboat; and all the boats had been seized by the government for the transportation of troops. After much urging, the captain of one of the transports, as a favor, allowed me to pay for my passage to Mobile on condition that I would sleep on the deck, if I could find a place, and supply my own provisions. The boat would start when he received orders, but he did not know when that would be. A two days' wait followed, during which I stayed on the boat so as to be sure that I would not be left and consequently lose the price of my passage. That was important, as my finances were running low. Confederate money had not yet made its appearance, and gold was even then being hoarded. I had already lost quite a sum exchanging one state's money for another, as even the paper money issued in one county did not pass at par in the next (if accepted at all); but everybody was jubilant over the fact that the Confederate Congress had appropriated fifteen millions of dollars to carry the war on to a successful termination. Finally, after endless delay, a swarm of volunteers took possession of the boat and we were off. The transport carried no guns, but she was armed with an instrument of torture called a 'calliope,' or steam piano, and as she backed out into the river it broke loose, shrieking an imitation of the Marseillaise, which, with few intermissions, was kept up during the two days and nights it took us to reach Mobile. When the calliope did stop, it was very soothing to hear the negro deck-hands break into song with their tuneful melodies. The volunteers were composed of fresh youthful-looking men, and almost every one of them was accompanied by a 'body servant,' as negro valets were called in the South. They were also accompanied by a great number of baskets of champagne and boxes of brandy. Few aristocrats in those days ever drank whiskey, which was supposed to be a vulgar tipple. They also had huge hampers containing roasted turkeys, chickens, hams, and all sorts of good things, with which they were very generous. Every private also had from one to three trunks containing his necessary wardrobe. I saw some of these same young men in the muddy trenches in front of Richmond in 1865, when they were clothed partially in rags, and were gnawing ears of hard corn, and would gladly have exchanged half a dozen negroes or a couple of hundred acres of land for a square meal or a decent bed to sleep on. III My record of those crowded days is so voluminous that I pass over the events of the next few months, which led to my definite appointment as midshipman in the Confederate Navy. After having a hand in the desperate fighting at Island No. 10 in the Mississippi,' I was transferred for a short time to the James River, near Richmond, for gunboat duty, and then sent, by doctor's orders, to Charleston. With all my state pride, I must acknowledge that the article of chills and fever handed to me on the James River was superior to the brand on the lower Mississippi, and complicated by chronic dysentery, it so sapped my strength that the doctor ordered me to show myself at the Navy Department and ask for orders to some other station. Commodore French Forrest was chief of the Bureau of Orders and Detail, and I really thought he had some sympathy for my condition when he looked me over. He asked me where I would like to be ordered to, and I quickly said that I should be delighted if I was sent to the naval battery at Port Hudson. The Commodore then asked if I had relatives near there, and on my assuring him that my mother and sisters were refugees and were staying at the plantation of General Carter, only a few miles distant, he turned to a clerk and said, ‘Make out an order for Midshipman Morgan to report to Commodore Ingraham at Charleston, South Carolina. I don't believe in having young 1 For many years I have treasured a copy of an epitaph (evidently written by an unreconstructed rebel') which appears on a headstone in the Methodist Cemetery, St. Louis: Here lize a stranger braiv, Who died while fightin the Suthern Confeder acy to save, Piece to his dust. Braive Suthern friend From iland 10 You reached a Glory us end. We plase these flowrs above the stranger's hed, In honor of the shiverlus ded. Sweet spirit rest in Heven -THE AUTHOR. officers tied to their mothers' apronstrings.' And so to Charleston I went. Commodore Ingraham, to whom I reported, was the man who, some years previously, when in command of the little sloop-of-war St. Louis, in the port of Smyrna, had bluffed an Austrian frigate and compelled her to surrender Martin Kotza, a naturalized American citizen, whom they held as a prisoner. This act made Ingraham the idol of the people at that time; if repeated in this day (1916), it would cost an officer his commission. Commodore Ingraham also commanded the Confederate gunboats when they drove the Federal blockading fleet away from Charleston. I was assigned to the Chicora, a little ironclad that was being built between two wharves which served as a navy yard. She was not nearly completed, so I was forced to hunt for quarters on shore. Being directed to a miserable boarding-house, which was fourth-rate, and consequently supposed to be cheap, I found that the cheapest board to be had was at the rate of forty-five dollars a month, so I did not see exactly how I could manage it, as my shore pay was only forty. However, the generous hotel proprietor, when the situation was explained, consented to let me stay for that sum, on condition that I would make up the other five dollars if my friends at home sent me any money. The man was certainly taking a long chance. Where were my friends, and where was my home? My mother and sisters were refugees. As for my home, it was a wreck. Lieutenant Warley, with whom I had served on the McRae, was the only human being I knew in Charleston, and the great difference in our ranks, as well as our ages, precluded the possibility of my making a companion of him; so, a lonely boy, I roamed the streets of the quaint old city. Evidently the war as yet had had no effect on the style kept up by the old blue-bloods, for I was amazed to see handsome equipages, with coachmen in livery on the box, driving through the town. Little did their owners dream that before very long those same fine horses would be hauling artillery and commissary wagons, and those proud liveried servants would be at work with pick and spade throwing up breastworks! To my great delight, George Hollins, a son of my dearly loved old Commodore, a boy of about my own age with whom I had been shipmate on the Mississippi River, arrived in town, and the boarding-house man consented to allow him to share my little room at the same rate charged me. George had been in Charleston only a few days when yellow fever became epidemic. It was the latter part of August and the heat was something fearful. I had no fear of the fever, as I had been accustomed to its frequent visits to my old home; but with Hollins, a native of Baltimore, it was different. One afternoon he came into our room and complained of a headache and a pain in his back. The symptoms were familiar to me, so I persuaded him to go to bed and covered him with the dirty rag of a blanket. I then went quickly downstairs and asked the wife of the proprietor to let me have some hot water for a foot-bath, and also to give me a little mustard. The woman was shocked at my presumption, but consented to give me the hot water; at parting with the mustard she demurred. As I was about to leave her kitchen, she demanded to know what I wanted with hot water, and when I told her that my friend had the yellow fever, there was a scene in which she accused me of trying to ruin the reputation of the house, and threatened me with dire punishment from her husband. I made Hollins put his feet in the hot water and then I went to a nearby drug gist, telling him the situation, and asking him if he would credit me for the mustard, explaining that neither Hollins nor myself had any money. The kindly apothecary gave me the mustard and told me I could have any medicines needed, and also advised me to go at once and see Doctor Lebby, who, he was sure, would attend to the case without charge. The doctor came and did all that was possible. Poor George grew rapidly worse; he seemed to cling to me as his only friend, and could not bear to have me leave him for an instant. We slept that night huddled up together in the narrow bed. The next morning a strange negro man, very well dressed, and carrying a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bundle in the other, entered the room and proceeded to make himself very much at home. When asked what his business was, he said he was a yellow-fever nurse. I told him that we had no money and could not pay a nurse, at which he burst into a broad grin and said that he did not want any money; that he belonged to Mr. Trenholm, who had sent him there. Through the day all sorts of delicacies continued to arrive, and to every inquiry as to whom they came from, the reply was, 'Mr. Trenholm.' The second night of his illness, George was taken with the black vomit, which, as I held him in my arms, saturated my clothes. A shiver passed through his frame and without a word he died. Leaving my friend's body in charge of the nurse, I went in search of Lieutenant Warley, who told me not to worry about the funeral as Mr. Trenholm would make all arrangements. George Hollins was buried in the beautiful Magnolia Cemetery, and immediately after the funeral, Mr. Warley told me that I was not to go back to the boarding-house, but was for the present to share his room at the Mills House, a fashionable hotel, IV A few days after the funeral, as I was walking down Broad Street with Mr. Warley, we saw coming toward us a tall and very handsome man with silvery hair. Mr. Warley told me that he was Mr. Trenholm, and that I must thank him for all his kindness to my friend. Mr. Trenholm said that he was only sorry that he could not have done more for the poor boy, and, turning to the lieutenant, said, 'Warley, can't you let this young gentleman come and stay at my house? There are some young people there, and we will try to make it pleasant for him.' I thanked Mr. Trenholm, and told him that I had recently been sleeping in the same bed with my friend, who had died of the most virulent form of yellow fever, and of course I could not go into anybody's house for some time to come; but the generous gentleman assured me that his family had no fears of the fever and insisted on my accepting his kind invitation. However, I did not think it right to go, and did not accept at that time; but a day or two afterwards, I again met him, with Mr. Warley, and he said, 'Warley, I am sorry this young gentleman won't accept my invitation: we would try to make it pleasant for him.' Mr. Warley turned to me, saying, "Youngster, you pack your bag and go up to Mr. Trenholm's house.' That settled it and I went, arriving at the great mansion shortly before the dinner-hour. I did not, however, take a bag with me. If I had owned one, I should have had nothing to put in it. I will not attempt to describe Mr. Trenholm's beautiful home. For more than half a century now it has been pointed out to tourists as one of the show places of Charleston, and has long since passed into the hands of strangers. I must confess that, as I opened the iron gate and walked through the well-kept grounds to the front door, I was a little awed by the imposing building, with its great columns supporting the portico. I could not but feel some misgivings as to the reception I would get, stranger as I was, from the family, whom I never had met. Still, I did not dare run away, and so I timidly rang the bell. A slave, much better dressed than I, and with the manners of a Chesterfield, appeared and showed me into the parlor; it was all very grand, but very lonely, as there was no one there to receive me. I took a seat and made myself comfortable; it had been a long time since I had sat on a luxurious sofa. In a few minutes, two young ladies entered. Of course I had never seen either of them before, but the idea instantly flashed into my mind that I was going to marry the taller of the two, who came toward me and introduced herself as Miss Trenholm. While we were chatting, there arrived a Frenchman, a Colonel Le Mat, the inventor of the 'grapeshot revolver,' a horrible contraption, the cylinder of which revolved around a section of a gun-barrel. The cylinder contained ten bullets, and the grapeshot barrel was loaded with buckshot which, when fired, would almost tear the arm off a man with its recoil. Le Mat's English vocabulary was limited, and his only subject of conversation was his invention, so he used me to explain to the young ladies how the infernal machine worked. Now that sounds all very easy, but one must remember that Le Mat was a highly imaginative Gaul and insisted on posing me to illustrate his lecture. This was embarrassing, especially as he considered it polite to commence over again as each new guest entered the room. At last relief came when Mr. Trenholm arrived with a beautiful lady, well past middle-age, leaning on his arm; and I was intro |