Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the historiesof several Christian nations, but this is almost the only onethat can be found in American history; perhaps it is the only onewhich rises to a size correspondent to that huge and somber title.
We have the 'Boston Massacre,' where two or three people were killed;but we must bunch Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellowto the Fort Pillow tragedy; and doubtless even then we must travelback to the days and the performances of Coeur de Lion, that fine'hero,' before we accomplish it.
More of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel usedto strike above Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towardsIsland 39. Afterward, changed its course and went fromBrandywine down through Vogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow,to Island 39--part of this course reversing the old order;the river running UP four or five miles, instead of down,and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles of distance.
This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial Island.
There is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abidingplaces of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang.' This was a colossalcombination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and counterfeiters,engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty years ago.
While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was inprogress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history;for he had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri,and was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers.
Cheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these,he was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed.
It was a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;in cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general andcomprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superiorin some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale.
James's modest genius dreamed of no loftier flight than the planningof raids upon cars, coaches, and country banks; Murel projectednegro insurrections and the capture of New Orleans; and furthermore,on occasion, this Murel could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation.
What are James and his half-dozen vulgar rascals compared with thisstately old-time criminal, with his sermons, his meditated insurrectionsand city-captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men,sworn to do his evil will!
Here is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator,from a now forgotten book which was published half a century ago--He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain.
When he traveled, his usual disguise was that of an itinerant preacher;and it is said that his discourses were very 'soul-moving'--interestingthe hearers so much that they forgot to look after their horses,which were carried away by his confederates while he was preaching.
But the stealing of horses in one State, and selling them in another,was but a small portion of their business; the most lucrativewas the enticing slaves to run away from their masters, that theymight sell them in another quarter. This was arranged as follows;they would tell a negro that if he would run away from his master,and allow them to sell him, he should receive a portion of the moneypaid for him, and that upon his return to them a second time they wouldsend him to a free State, where he would be safe. The poor wretchescomplied with this request, hoping to obtain money and freedom;they would be sold to another master, and run away again, to their employers;sometimes they would be sold in this manner three or four times,until they had realized three or four thousand dollars by them;but as, after this, there was fear of detection, the usual custom wasto get rid of the only witness that could be produced against them,which was the negro himself, by murdering him, and throwing his body intothe Mississippi. Even if it was established that they had stolen a negro,before he was murdered, they were always prepared to evade punishment;for they concealed the negro who had run away, until he was advertised,and a reward offered to any man who would catch him. An advertisementof this kind warrants the person to take the property, if found.
And then the negro becomes a property in trust, when, therefore,they sold the negro, it only became a breach of trust, not stealing;and for a breach of trust, the owner of the property can only have redressby a civil action, which was useless, as the damages were never paid.
It may be inquired, how it was that Murel escaped Lynch law undersuch circumstances This will be easily understood when it is statedthat he had MORE THAN A THOUSAND SWORN CONFEDERATES, all ready ata moment's notice to support any of the gang who might be in trouble.
The names of all the principal confederates of Murel were obtainedfrom himself, in a manner which I shall presently explain.
The gang was composed of two classes: the Heads or Council, as theywere called, who planned and concerted, but seldom acted; they amountedto about four hundred. The other class were the active agents,and were termed strikers, and amounted to about six hundred and fifty.
These were the tools in the hands of the others; they ran all the risk,and received but a small portion of the money; they were in the powerof the leaders of the gang, who would sacrifice them at any time by handingthem over to justice, or sinking their bodies in the Mississippi.
The general rendezvous of this gang of miscreants was on the Arkansasside of the river, where they concealed their negroes in the morasses andcane-brakes.
The depredations of this extensive combination were severely felt;but so well were their plans arranged, that although Murel,who was always active, was everywhere suspected, there was no proofto be obtained. It so happened, however, that a young man of the nameof Stewart, who was looking after two slaves which Murel had decoyedaway, fell in with him and obtained his confidence, took the oath,and was admitted into the gang as one of the General Council.
By this means all was discovered; for Stewart turned traitor,although he had taken the oath, and having obtained every information,exposed the whole concern, the names of all the parties, and finallysucceeded in bringing home sufficient evidence against Murel,to procure his conviction and sentence to the Penitentiary(Murel was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment); so manypeople who were supposed to be honest, and bore a respectablename in the different States, were found to be among the listof the Grand Council as published by Stewart, that every attemptwas made to throw discredit upon his assertions--his characterwas vilified, and more than one attempt was made to assassinate him.
He was obliged to quit the Southern States in consequence.
It is, however, now well ascertained to have been all true;and although some blame Mr. Stewart for having violated his oath,they no longer attempt to deny that his revelations were correct.
I will quote one or two portions of Murel's confessions toMr. Stewart, made to him when they were journeying together.
I ought to have observed, that the ultimate intentions of Mureland his associates were, by his own account, on a very extended scale;having no less an object in view than RAISING THE BLACKS AGAINSTTHE WHITES, TAKING POSSESSION OF, AND PLUNDERING NEW ORLEANS,AND MAKING THEMSELVES POSSESSORS OF THE TERRITORY. The following area few extracts:--'I collected all my friends about New Orleans at one of our friends'
houses in that place, and we sat in council three days before wegot all our plans to our notion; we then determined to undertakethe rebellion at every hazard, and make as many friends as wecould for that purpose. Every man's business being assigned him,I started to Natchez on foot, having sold my horse in New Orleans,--with the intention of stealing another after I started.
I walked four days, and no opportunity offered for me to get a horse.
The fifth day, about twelve, I had become tired, and stopped at a creekto get some water and rest a little. While I was sitting on a log,looking down the road the way that I had come, a man came in sightriding on a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him, I wasdetermined to have his horse, if he was in the garb of a traveler.
He rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler.
I arose and drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount.
He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,and ordered him to walk before me. He went a few hundred yardsand stopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself,all to his shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me.
He said, 'If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to praybefore I die,' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned aroundand dropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head.
I ripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the creek.
I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars and thirty-sevencents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to examine.
I sunk the pocket-book and papers and his hat, in the creek.
His boots were brand-new, and fitted me genteelly; and I putthem on and sunk my old shoes in the creek, to atone for them.
I rolled up his clothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they werebrand-new cloth of the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as everI straddled, and directed my course for Natchez in much better stylethan I had been for the last five days.
'Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four goodhorses and started for Georgia. We got in company with a youngSouth Carolinian just before we got to Cumberland Mountain,and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. He had beento Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but when he got there porkwas dearer than he calculated, and he declined purchasing.
We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I understoodhis idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I never had;we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passednear a great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw askedme for my whip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handedit to him, and he rode up by the side of the South Carolinian,and gave him a blow on the side of the head and tumbled himfrom his horse; we lit from our horses and fingered his pockets;we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw saidhe knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him under his arms,and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the browof the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of sight;we then tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which wasworth two hundred dollars.
'We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend wentto a little village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised(a negro in our possession), and a description of the two men of whomhe had been purchased, and giving his suspicions of the men.
It was rather squally times, but any port in a storm:
we took the negro that night on the bank of a creek which runsby the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw shot him through the head.
We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.
'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River for upwardsof five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him into the handof his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled the tragic scene,and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of secrecy; as a game of thatkind will not do unless it ends in a mystery to all but the fraternity.
He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly two thousand dollars,and then put him for ever out of the reach of all pursuers; and they cannever graze him unless they can find the negro; and that they cannot do,for his carcass has fed many a tortoise and catfish before this time,and the frogs have sung this many a long day to the silent reposeof his skeleton.'
We were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed byits people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the Civil War.
Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part in that fight:
Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the union fleet, and Montgomery, Commodore of theConfederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of active service during the war,and achieved high reputations for pluck and capacity.
As we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to staywith the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We wereso pleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change.
I had an errand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas,but perhaps I could manage it without quitting the 'Gold Dust.'
I said as much; so we decided to stick to present quarters.
The boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. It is abeautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking the river.
The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved in a way to incitedistempered admiration. No, the admiration must be reserved for the town'ssewerage system, which is called perfect; a recent reform, however, for itwas just the other way, up to a few years ago--a reform resulting fromthe lesson taught by a desolating visitation of the yellow-fever. Inthose awful days the people were swept off by hundreds, by thousands;and so great was the reduction caused by flight and by death together,that the population was diminished three-fourths, and so remained for a time.
Business stood nearly still, and the streets bore an empty Sunday aspect.
Here is a picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time,drawn by a German tourist who seems to have been an eye-witnessof the scenes which he describes. It is from Chapter VII,of his book, just published, in Leipzig, 'Mississippi-Fahrten, vonErnst von Hesse-Wartegg.'--'In August the yellow-fever had reached its extremest height.
Daily, hundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic.
The city was become a mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the populationhad deserted the place, and only the poor, the aged and the sick,remained behind, a sure prey for the insidious enemy.
The houses were closed: little lamps burned in front of many--a sign that here death had entered. Often, several laydead in a single house; from the windows hung black crape.
The stores were shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead.
'Fearful evil! In the briefest space it struck down and swept awayeven the most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hourof fever, then the hideous delirium, then--the Yellow Death !
On the street corners, and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtakenby the disease; and even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed.
Meat spoiled in a few hours in the fetid and pestiferous air,and turned black.
'Fearful clamors issue from many houses; then after a seasonthey cease, and all is still: noble, self-sacrificing men comewith the coffin, nail it up, and carry it away, to the graveyard.
In the night stillness reigns. Only the physicians and thehearses hurry through the streets; and out of the distance,at intervals, comes the muffled thunder of the railway train,which with the speed of the wind, and as if hunted by furies,flies by the pest-ridden city without halting.'
But there is life enough there now. The population exceeds forty thousandand is augmenting, and trade is in a flourishing condition. We droveabout the city; visited the park and the sociable horde of squirrels there;saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other ways enticing to the eye;and got a good breakfast at the hotel.
A thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi:
has a great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops;and manufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil;and is shortly to have cotton mills and elevators.
Her cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand bales last year--an increase of sixty thousand over the year before. Out fromher healthy commercial heart issue five trunk lines of railway;and a sixth is being added.
This is a very different Memphis from the one which the vanishedand unremembered procession of foreign tourists used to putinto their books long time ago. In the days of the nowforgotten but once renowned and vigorously hated Mrs. Trollope,Memphis seems to have consisted mainly of one long street oflog-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkled around rearwardtoward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end of mud.
That was fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel.
Plainly it was not the one which gave us our breakfast.
She says--'The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full.
They ate in perfect silence, and with such astonishing rapiditythat their dinner was over literally before ours was begun;the only sounds heard were those produced by the knives and forks,with the unceasing chorus of coughing, ETC.'
'Coughing, etc.' The 'etc.' stands for an unpleasant word there,a word which she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes prints.
You will find it in the following description of a steamboat dinnerwhich she ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters;wealthy, well-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usualharmless military and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shamsand windy pretense--'The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table;the voracious rapidity with which the viands were seizedand devoured; the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation;the loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which itwas absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightfulmanner of feeding with their knives, till the whole bladeseemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightfulmanner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife,soon forced us to feel that we were not surroundedby the generals, colonels, and majors of the old world;and that the dinner hour was to be anything rather than anhour of enjoyment.'
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