Columbus was just behind us, so there was a good deal saidabout the famous battle of Belmont. Several of the boat'sofficers had seen active service in the Mississippi war-fleet. Igathered that they found themselves sadly out of their elementin that kind of business at first, but afterward got accustomedto it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it.
One of our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmontfight, as a pilot on a boat in the Confederate service.
I had often had a curiosity to know how a green hand might feel,in his maiden battle, perched all solitary and alone on highin a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dick and Harry, and nobody athis elbow to shame him from showing the white feather when mattersgrew hot and perilous around him; so, to me his story was valuable--it filled a gap for me which all histories had left tillthat time empty.
THE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLEHe said--It was the 7th of November. The fight began at seven in the morning.
I was on the 'R. H. W. Hill.' Took over a load of troops from Columbus.
Came back, and took over a battery of artillery. My partner said he was goingto see the fight; wanted me to go along. I said, no, I wasn't anxious,I would look at it from the pilot-house. He said I was a coward, and left.
That fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made his men striptheir coats off and throw them in a pile, and said, 'Now follow meto hell or victory!' I heard him say that from the pilot-house;and then he galloped in, at the head of his troops. Old General Pillow,with his white hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too, leading histroops as lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased the rebels back,and here they came! tearing along, everybody for himself and Devil takethe hindmost! and down under the bank they scrambled, and took shelter.
I was sitting with my legs hanging out of the pilot-house window.
All at once I noticed a whizzing sound passing my ear.
Judged it was a bullet. I didn't stop to think about anything,I just tilted over backwards and landed on the floor, and staid there.
The balls came booming around. Three cannon-balls went through the chimney;one ball took off the corner of the pilot-house; shells were screamingand bursting all around. Mighty warm times--I wished I hadn't come.
I lay there on the pilot-house floor, while the shots came faster and faster.
I crept in behind the big stove, in the middle of the pilot-house.
Presently a minie-ball came through the stove, and just grazed my head,and cut my hat. I judged it was time to go away from there. The captainwas on the roof with a red-headed major from Memphis--a fine-looking man.
I heard him say he wanted to leave here, but 'that pilot is killed.'
I crept over to the starboard side to pull the bell to set her back;raised up and took a look, and I saw about fifteen shot holesthrough the window panes; had come so lively I hadn't noticed them.
I glanced out on the water, and the spattering shot were like a hailstorm.
I thought best to get out of that place. I went down the pilot-house guy,head first--not feet first but head first--slid down--before I struckthe deck, the captain said we must leave there. So I climbed up the guyand got on the floor again. About that time, they collared my partnerand were bringing him up to the pilot-house between two soldiers.
Somebody had said I was killed. He put his head in and saw me on the floorreaching for the backing bells. He said, 'Oh, hell, he ain't shot,'
and jerked away from the men who had him by the collar, and ran below.
We were there until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then got away allright.
The next time I saw my partner, I said, 'Now, come out, be honest,and tell me the truth. Where did you go when you went to see that battle?'
He says, 'I went down in the hold.'
All through that fight I was scared nearly to death.
I hardly knew anything, I was so frightened; but you see,nobody knew that but me. Next day General Polk sent for me,and praised me for my bravery and gallant conduct.
I never said anything, I let it go at that. I judged it wasn't so,but it was not for me to contradict a general officer.
Pretty soon after that I was sick, and used up, and had to gooff to the Hot Springs. When there, I got a good manyletters from commanders saying they wanted me to come back.
I declined, because I wasn't well enough or strong enough;but I kept still, and kept the reputation I had made.
A plain story, straightforwardly told; but Mumford told methat that pilot had 'gilded that scare of his, in spots;'
that his subsequent career in the war was proof of it.
We struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went belowand fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man,with easy carriage and an intelligent face. We were approachingIsland No. 10, a place so celebrated during the war.
This gentleman's home was on the main shore in its neighborhood.
I had some talk with him about the war times; but presentlythe discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of the Southhas the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longerbetween warring families, than in this particular region.
This gentleman said--'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but Ireckon the worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons.
Nobody don't know now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago;the Darnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,which I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a cow--anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of no consequence--none in the world--both families was rich. The thing could have beenfixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough words had been passed;and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that. That horseor cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing and crippling!
Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other; and as fastas one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud and keptit a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting each other,year in and year out--making a kind of a religion of it, you see--till they'd done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever aDarnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em was goingto get hurt--only question was, which of them got the drop on the other.
They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of the family.
They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,they puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men.
A man shot a boy twelve years old--happened on him in the woods,and didn't give him no chance. If he HAD 'a' given him a chance,the boy'd 'a' shot him. Both families belonged to the same church(everybody around here is religious); through all this fifty orsixty years' fuss, both tribes was there every Sunday, to worship.
They lived each side of the line, and the church was at a landingcalled Compromise. Half the church and half the aisle was in Kentucky,the other half in Tennessee. Sundays you'd see the families drive up,all in their Sunday clothes, men, women, and children, and file up the aisle,and set down, quiet and orderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the churchand the other on the Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their gunsup against the wall, handy, and. then all hands would join in with the prayerand praise; though they say the man next the aisle didn't kneel down,along with the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don't know;never was at that church in my life; but I remember that that's what usedto be said.
'Twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of the feud familiescaught a young man of nineteen out and killed him.
Don't remember whether it was the Darnells and Watsons,or one of the other feuds; but anyway, this young man rode up--steamboat laying there at the time--and the first thinghe saw was a whole gang of the enemy. He jumped down behinda wood-pile, but they rode around and begun on him, he firing back,and they galloping and cavorting and yelling and banging awaywith all their might. Think he wounded a couple of them;but they closed in on him and chased him into the river;and as he swum along down stream, they followed along the bankand kept on shooting at him; and when he struck shore he was dead.
Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw it. He was captainof the boat.
'Years ago, the Darnells was so thinned out that the old manand his two sons concluded they'd leave the country. They startedto take steamboat just above No. 10; but the Watsons got wind of it;and they arrived just as the two young Darnells was walking upthe companion-way with their wives on their arms. The fightbegun then, and they never got no further--both of them killed.
After that, old Darnell got into trouble with the man that runthe ferry, and the ferry-man got the worst of it--and died.
But his friends shot old Darnell through and through--filled himfull of bullets, and ended him.'
The country gentleman who told me these things had been rearedin ease and comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred.
His loose grammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance.
This habit among educated men in the West is not universal, but itis prevalent--prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities;and to a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at.
I heard a Westerner who would be accounted a highly educated manin any country, say 'never mind, it DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, anyway.'
A life-long resident who was present heard it, but it made no impressionupon her. She was able to recall the fact afterward, when reminded of it;but she confessed that the words had not grated upon her ear at the time--a confession which suggests that if educated people can hear suchblasphemous grammar, from such a source, and be unconscious of the deed,the crime must be tolerably common--so common that the general ear hasbecome dulled by familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longersensitive to such affronts.
No one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one hasever written it--NO one, either in the world or out of it(taking the Scriptures for evidence on the latter point);therefore it would not be fair to exact grammatical perfectionfrom the peoples of the Valley; but they and all other peoplesmay justly be required to refrain from KNOWINGLY and PURPOSELYdebauching their grammar.
I found the river greatly changed at Island No. 10.
The island which I remembered was some three miles longand a quarter of a mile wide, heavily timbered, and laynear the Kentucky shore--within two hundred yards of it,I should say. Now, however, one had to hunt for it witha spy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an insignificantlittle tuft, and this was no longer near the Kentucky shore;it was clear over against the opposite shore, a mile away.
In war times the island had been an important place,for it commanded the situation; and, being heavily fortified,there was no getting by it. It lay between the upper and lowerdivisions of the union forces, and kept them separate, until ajunction was finally effected across the Missouri neck of land;but the island being itself joined to that neck now, the wide riveris without obstruction.
In this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee,back into Missouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into Tennessee again.
So a mile or two of Missouri sticks over into Tennessee.
The town of New Madrid was looking very unwell;but otherwise unchanged from its former condition and aspect.
Its blocks of frame-houses were still grouped in the sameold flat plain, and environed by the same old forests.
It was as tranquil as formerly, and apparently had neither grownnor diminished in size. It was said that the recent high waterhad invaded it and damaged its looks. This was surprising news;for in low water the river bank is very high there (fifty feet), andin my day an overflow had always been considered an impossibility.
This present flood of 1882 Will doubtless be celebratedin the river's history for several generations before a delugeof like magnitude shall be seen. It put all the unprotectedlow lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth; it broke downthe levees in a great many places, on both sides of the river;and in some regions south, when the flood was at its highest,the Mississippi was SEVENTY MILES wide! a number of liveswere lost, and the destruction of property was fearful.
The crops were destroyed, houses washed away, and shelterless menand cattle forced to take refuge on scattering elevations hereand there in field and forest, and wait in peril and sufferinguntil the boats put in commission by the national and localgovernments and by newspaper enterprise could come and rescue them.
The properties of multitudes of people were under water for months,and the poorer ones must have starved by the hundred if succorhad not been promptly afforded.
interesting description of the great flood, written on boardof the New Orleans TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S relief-boat, see AppendixA]> The water had been falling during a considerable time now,yet as a rule we found the banks still under water.
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