Newspaper Page Text
Southern Field and Fireside.
VOL. 1.
We are very sorry that the omission of
an entire line in the “Bugle Song” of Mr. Simms,
and several other typographical errors that ap
pear in it, as published on our first page last
week, compel us, in justice to the author, to re
publish the poem in this number. It will be
found, correctly printed, below.
[For the Southern Field and Fireside.] *.
MOUNTAIN BUGLE SONG FOB BATTLE.
BT WM. OILMOKB SIMMS.
Let the Bugle blow alfug the mountain—
Bugle blow! Shrilly blow 1
We must leave the pleasant grove and fountain;
Arm for battle speedily, and go!
For the storm is gathering on the highlands;
It has swept with Are the plains below,
And up, from green savannas and fair islands.
Pours the so the cruel foe 1
Bugle blow for battle—shrilly blow 1
We must meet the foe—the hateful foe!
Blow fearlessly and fast, O! mountain bugle, blow]
Blow! blow!
See, as blows the Bugle, how they gather!
Bugle blow! bugle blow!
There rides up the old and bearded father
And the son is speeding from below!
We mustdye in purple this green heather,
We must free the country from the foe;
Though we ride abroad in fearful weather,
And o'er mountain summits clad in snow.
Bugle blow for battle—shrilly blow!
Though we perish, wo must strike the foe!
Blow fearlessly and fast, 0! mountain bugle, blow!
Blow! blow!
Lo! they come—the bands from Canasauga!
Bugle blow! bugle blow!
And the rugged hunters of Watauga—
P.ifles ready shotted for the foe!
From the vales of Cumberland they gather,
And from slopes of green Saluda, lo!
There the beardless son and bearded father,
Eager all to grapple with the foe!
Bugle blow for battle—bugle blow!
We must crush the foe—the insolent foe!
Blow fearlessly and fast, O! mountain" bugle, blow I
Blow! blow!
[For the Southern Field and Fireside.]
ARROWS
FROM A TOURIST’S QUIVER;
08,
Scenes and Incidents of a Tour
From New Orleans to New Yorlr.
BV ONE OP TUB PARTY,
ARROW XI.
A cup of “traveler’s coffee” at Grand Junction—Bad ef
fects of early morning air—The way Tim and Mr. Poyns
obtained seats in the cars—An interior view of cars
between daylight and breakfast—A new kind of travel
ers’ looking-glass—The great rail-road lines—when
completed, will make, fifty years hence, a city of the
State—” Dipping”—a disgusting, unlady-like, demor
alizing, ruinous habit—who “dip”—two “dippora”—
story of a wife that “dipped”—dipping should be very
strongly discountenanced in female schools—Good
breakfast at Corinth—Huntsville a beautiful, elegant
city—refined population—Fine scenery on tho Tennes
see —Lookout mountain—Providence, in the formation
of this country, had the establishment of rail-roads
especially in view—Poor hotel at Chattanooga—Mr.
Poyns ascends Lookout Mountain—He thinks the coup
d'oeil really sublime.
Chattanooga, Tenn., Dec. 6th, ’59.
This 11 arrow ’’ should have been drawn from
my quiver at Nashville, which city lies on our
proposed route to New York, and where
Major Bedott now is waiting for my arrival, and
doubtless exceedingly happy to be delayed for
a couple of days or more in that charming me
tropolis. How I come to make this detour in
this direction, forty miles south-eastwardly out
of my route, will be duly explained by and by.
My last Arrow, launched from Grand Junc
tion, (which is no junction , only a cross-way of
iron-road,) informed you of my intention to re
sume my voyage au chemin defer', the following
morning.
After a cup of vile Portuguese coffee, which
Tim has not inappropriately re-labeled “ travel
ers’ coffee," and which gave me the dyspepsia
for a hundred miles, we took the Memphis and
Charleston train at six o’clock. It was filled
with passengers, although it left Memphis fifty
miles distant at half-past two the same morn
ing. It was a raw, chilly, misty morning, with
a thick fog covering the marshy lands, making
them look, through the dim dawn, like low
lakes. What a shiver it gives one to have to be
called before day, to dress in haste and poke
one’s way to a car amid rain and coldl I have a
nervous horror of the hour between dawn and
sun-rise I There is no aesthetic enjoyment to me
in the “ amber-hued and pale, amethystine east,”
the silly poets write about just for the sake of
stringing picturesque words together! I would
advocate hanging criminals at day-break, were
I savage enough to wish unnecessarily to in
crease their tortures of despair! It takes all
courage out of a man, this dull dawn, with its
night (Jpws all over the earth, its mists that
permeate the bones and marrow, its cold gray
t JANIES GARDNER, i
I Proprietor. f
skies, its general aspect of desolation and ab
sence of comfort. If a man has any ill humor
in him, it will come out then. Os course we al
ways try to put our most amiable side out on
such occasions; as the tried man-at-arms turns
his buckler to the side most vulnerable in his
coat of mail.
When we reached the cars, we found the first
one (the smoking lamps of which were just go
ing out) filled with sleeping and half-awake bi
peds in all sorts of natural attitudes and with
inane and stupid visages. The close smell was
appalling to any one but a Laplander.
“ Let us push on, Poyns," said Tim, “ there’s
too much human heat here for me 1 Paugh 1”
It was necessary to “ push on,” as there was
no spare seat 1 The next car presented no more
inviting advantages! Though not half filled
with passengers, every double seat was inge
niously occupied by one person spreading him
self, feet, arms and corpus, to keep off intruders!
Some of these artful travelers were half closing
their eyes and playing “possum” until the
“ new-comers ” had got seated. At length, after
traversing four long cars and absolutely finding
no place in which to seat ourselves, and not one
person offering us the civility of a seat, (travel
ing men show out all the bear and bull in them,
who keep glovos on their paws and horns at
home where they are known,) we resolved to
make war!
I approached a stout person with great whis
kers and blue spectacles, who had two whole
benches, his left leg over the arm and his right
leg over the cushion of the one before him,
nopolizing three sittings besides his own.
“Allow me, sir, to be seated!” 1 said blandly.
“ Plenty o’ other seats! what do you single
me out for ?” was the gruff rejoinder of the im
moveable.
“Now look here, stranger,” said my young
friend Tim, medical student, 4c., drawing from
his belt a bowie knife half a cubit in length—
“l intend to cut you up, so you can be packed
like a hog, legs, arms and all, on one seat; for
Poyns and I mean to occupy two of these pla
ces, certain 1”
Suiting the action to the word, the slender
and daring Barritarian caught the big man by
the collar, who at once sprang up, pale as death,
(for there was murder in Tim’s steely blue
eyes!) and cried,
“ Gracious heavens, you are not in earnest I
Keep off! You would not kill a man for a seat!”
and he was in the aisle in a moment, leaving the
field to Tim.
“No, I woulda’t and didn’t mean to kill you,”
answered Tim, dryly: “ for I knew a fellow
who’d act as you do when gentlemen come into
a car, are cowards, and yield at once at the
sight of a Colt or Bowie •, so there is no danger
of a man having to put such varmints to death.
Didn’t intend to kill you—knew you’d run!” he
added, sarcastically, as he replaced his weapon
and took the vacant seat, while I sat by his sfde,
having left Caesar, my colored man, to get a
place as he could in the after car. “ Here’s
plenty room, if you’ll take a seat again," said
the medical student to the discomfited man.
But the fellow (dressed like a gentleman) had
slunk away, amid the laughter of all about us,
after having been taught a healthy lesson in civ
ility by a mere boy.
How stupid every body looked—just waking
up. First one and then another would yawn!
Another would take out his pocket-comb to
smooth his roughened locks, and one would be
searching for a hat or cap fallen off while asleep.
A country woman took down her long, black
hair, and combed and twisted it, keeping the
comb in her teetiv when not in articulo usus, and
fairly made her toilet, and for a mirror actually
peering from time to time in the large, black
eyes of her baby, held in her father’s lap I I
recollect, when a boy, playing “look at babies”
in pretty little girls’ eyes, but I never expected
to see such a practical service made of the hu
man eye as to use it as a miniature looking-glass
traveling in the cars 1 It certainly was an orig
inal idea.
The rising sun, in all his glory, poured his
beams through the car-windows, and roused and
put new life into everybody, and breakfast began
to be thought of and discussed by hungry bi
peds around us.
At length we reached the breakfast station,
Corinth, a small town three or four years old,
at the point where the great Mobile and Ohio
Railroad will intersect the Memphis and Charles
ton. That railroad is forcing its way northward
with rapid progress, and in a few months will
meet the M. 4 0., and crossing it, advance
through Tennessee until it strikes the mouth
of the Ohio, much of the intermediate portion
being already* constructed in Tennessee and
Kentucky. When completed, the great trunk
system of Southern railroads (save the line
from Vicksburg to Montgomery) will be fin
ished, presenting wonderful facilities of travel
in all directions from New Orleans, Memphis,
Mobile, and Charleston. The completion of
these roads will create a marked revolution in
social customs in the South, and give more
unity to *U parts of each particular State. The
railroad will destroy remoteness and the rustic
ity associated hitherto with distance from cities.
The people who live two hundred miles in the
AUGUSTA. GA., SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1860.
interior will shop in the metropolis, and the in
tercourse of town and country will be so con
stant and uninterrupted that the planters farm
ing on the banks of the Chataloosa amid prime
val forests, the echoes of which the trumpet of
the locomotive daily awakens, will talk of Dau
phin street or St. Charles 'Street, and their bril
liant shops, of the parties and gaitiea in the city,
of people and news, of gossip and the last play,
and all other things, as if they were living
within the metropolitan corporation. All the
country will become suburban. Then intelli
gence, refinement, fashion and social feeling will
be increased until, in half a-century hence, the
railroad will make a whole State as one city.
Linsey-woolsey and Kentucky jeans and Tennes
see brimstone breeches will disppear, and be
replaced by broadcloth and its correlatives.—
It is to be hoped that “ dipping," that vulgar
habit of a certain illiterate class of our Sonthem
and Western married women, will also disappear
before the refinements of metropolitan customs.
In the seat before me sat a thin, parchment
faced young woman of about five and twenty,
a section of stove-pipe covered with blue and
yellow calico, and bordered by half a yard
more in a cape upon her hedd, and an althea
stick in her mouth. This white althea stick,
which was about the size of a lead pencil, she
had chewed at one end until it was like a soft
brush. This extempore brush she would now
and then dip into a brown paper of snuff which
stood open upon her lap, and out of which,
every once in a while, au old woman, between
the forceps of whose nose and chin a large hick
ory nut could have been firmly held, would take
a huge pinch and stuff into her toothless mouth!
The young woman, however, carried her dip
stick full of snuffto her mouth, and commenced
alternately eating it and rubbing her dirty teeth
with it. Bah 1 It nearly sickened me to see
her! Ere long she began to look stupid and
tipsy, and actually grew so drunk that she
would mouth and 101 l out her tongue at the old
woman in trying to tell her not to eat all her
snuff up, but smoke her pipe, some.
“The critter won’t let me!” she answered, al
luding to the ‘ gentlemanly conductor.’ “He
says nary body must smoke in the kear. So I
has to eat snuff, chil’. When I was a young
gal and had teeth, I could dip as well as you or
nigh any woman I ever seed; but old folks as
can’t dip has to chsw or smoke. I wonder when
we’ll git to that breakfast cabin, whar I can git
out on the yearth an’ light up and smoke 1”
Ah, what demon who hates woman because
he lost Eve, apple and all, at last thought of dip
ping and gave the althea-stick and snuff pouch
to the weaker sex in the Paradise of the West!
He was a wily devil 1 He tempts the men with
whiskey, and by and by gets them soul and
body; but as women are not, by nature, given
to imbibihg, and have a horror of “ old rye,” he
he has tempted them in the subtler form of dip
ping t
Although I have not seen, among the hun
dreds of women who are under the influence of
the tobacco intemperance (a worse intoxication
and dissipation for her, considering her sex, than
rum intemperance on the part of her husband)
but a very few, whom good society would call
‘ladies,’|who use the althea-stick, yet so preva
lent is this custom among women who call them
selves ladies, and would be ladies, but for this
accursed and unlady-like habit, I cannot for
bear expressing here my abhorrence of the nas
ty custom 1 It is vastly probable (your paper
has so respectable a circulation) that not one
woman who will read this indulges in the “ in
toxicating bowl of snuff;’’ yet should, by chance,
there be one, I hope that she will be benefitted
by these remarks; and believe the writer when
he says, that in expressing his disgust of
the thing, he expresses the opinion of every
gentleman in the land.
But' of all .evils is the introduction of the
althea-stick and snufl'-bladder into our female
colleges and schools without rebuke! Their
use should be a grave offence in all schools. No
girl of any delicacy or refinement would be
guilty of it I firmly believe the habit is formed
in three cases out of five at our miscellaneous
schools. Because their mothers dip, the daugh
ters are not excused 1 The age advances in re
finement, or ought to do so. I recollect au in
stance where a president of a female college
forbade a very clever girl in his school the use
of the althea, with or without snuff, (for thqjast
leads to the former) when she pertly answered,
“My mother and my grand-ma dip I” The girl
reported at home that the teacher said ‘ dipping’
was ‘ unlady-like ’ and her parents took her
away. _
A young and beautiful C e, Ten
nessee, formed this habit at a school and con
cealed it (instinctively knowing it was vulgar)
from her husband until after marriage, when one
day he found an althea-stick upon her bureau.
“ What, Anna, do you &p?” he cried with angry
surprise. His tone, hre looks, all told how he
abhored the nauseous custom; and with a blush
of guilt, she, instead of confessing it, told him a
falsehood 1
No," was her reply. “ This must have been
left here by that old driveller, Mrs. , who
was here this morning.” Now anything which
has to be concealed by a lie, is wrong 1 _
“ I am glad to hear it," he answered, “ for I
said, before I was married, that if I had a wife
who dipped, I would apply for a divorce from
her to-morrow I”
Now the duty of the lady would have been, to
have told the young merchant, her husband, the
truth and promised to abandon' the low habit,
which in a wife is far worse than drinking in a
husband, and (if anything can afford an apology)
would be a good excuse for his dram-drinking.
But she felt she could not give it up! The habit
was confirmed. What devices, arts, tricks, con
cealments sho adopted after this to prevent be
trayal 1 What cosmetics, washes, perfumes,
(falsehoods in ordors) she U3ed, to prevent his
discovery of her infamous secret 1 How utterly
wretched she was! Her life was a torture. At
length she became so nervous and miserable
that she called to see her minister and related
to him all, and asked his advice. He told her
she ought to tell her husband and trust to nis
generosity to pardon her, anl, aided by him,
struggle to break off the habit that was ruining
her body and soul, and wrecking her domestic
peace: for no woman can be happy who keeps
a secret from a generous husband which he
ought to know I Where love and confidence
are, there are no secrets!
She had not the resolution (though she prom
ised) to confess. Weeks and months passed.
Her anxieties increased. The very habit which
was her curse, she now constantly resorted to
for stupefaction, like the drunkard in remorse to
his dram. At length concealment was no lon
ger possible. The husband, who had begun to
suspect the truth, came home one night and
found her snuff-drunk, lying on the floor, with*
her infant under her/ almost suffocated. I
draw a veil over the particulars of the tragic
end, adding that Death soon mercifully divoroed
the unhappy pair; for the wife, what with shame
and the loss of her husband’s love and esteem
and her own wrecked health, after a few weeks
lingering, died.
But enough on this vice of althea-stick drunk
enness, in itself too vulgar and disgusting to be
dwelt upon in a respectable and refined journal
like yours, but which, at last, can be corrected
by the combined ridicule and oensurd of the
press, and tho prevalence of refinement, intelli
gence, and Christianity.
But to return to our breakfast at Corinth, I
think the place is called; though conductors al
ways speak so fast and curtly, currente pede
through the cars, a poor inquirer can hardly be
sure he hears aright For cleanness, good bis
cuits, nice coffee, (not vile pole-cat—not base
Brazilian —not foul Portugee,) but honest Java,
and fresh milk, light, hot buckwheats, charming
loaf-bread, and crisply-fried chicken and beef
steak ala mode John Bull, I have never seen
a bettor hotel by railroad iron! lam not much
given to talk about what I eat, what I drink,
and wherewithal I am clothed when I travel,
but when a “ voyageur”, as the French call us
all, ‘by wood or by water’ iu his travels, finds a
pleasant place to eat, it is his duty to “ make a
note of it,” as Mr. McCawber would do, that
others half fapished coming on the way,
“Seeing his record,
May take heart again."
I have no idea how many embryo little bor
oughs tied to the railroad like a fleet of oyster
craft anchored along a bi-valve shore, we
passed—names Indian, Roman, Greek, and
Pagan. I recollect I-uka, which is written
hyphened, but which did not prevent a boy
who came in to sell five shrivelled apples, placed
in a basket that would have held himself, from
answering, “Uiky, sir,” to my inquiry as to the
name. The broad, prairie-like country, for a
hundred miles, delighted the eye. At one time
we flew along across a comer of Mississippi, at
another were rolling along within the borders
pf Tennessee, and then again thundering amid
the noble forests and through the pleasant vales
of Alabama. We dined, I think, at Tuscumbia,
an old tumble-down looking town, once cele
brated for its wealth and intelligence, but now
not able to pay any minister of the gospel five
huudred dollars a year (a fair criterion); the
chief citizens having moved to Texas and the
West Decatur is another town on the broad
and swift-flowing Tennessee, remarkable only
for its noble railroad bridge. At length
we reached Huntsville, a lovely city, bearing
evidences of refinement, taste, and opulence,
and boasting the most cultivated population in
Alabama. It is the residence of Rev. Dr. Lay.
recently elected Bishop of Arkansas and the
Southwest. The people have just erected an
Episcopal church which cost $32,000. They
are a liberal Southern people, and “happy is the
man who has his dwelling among them.” Bish
op Lay makes great sacrifices to go from the so
cial amenities and delightful society of Hunts
ville to encounter the rude scenes and hardships
of the apostolic missionary’s life in the West.
There are lovely mountain swells, dark blue,
and grand in size, in the environs of Huntsville,
and here it was hoped the University of the
South would have been located, as it was the
favorite spot of a large majority of the friends
of this popular Southern movement. Four
hours from Huntsville, we reached Stevenson,
in a wild, broken country. are sever®
taverns and stores and a depot, where passen-
f Two Dollars Per Annum, I
I Always In Advance. I
gers change cars who go to Nhshville, nine
hours distant, while those for Charleston and
Augusta keep their seats and continue on in the
train in which they left Memphis.
I had, however* met in our train a friend and
his family going to Charleston, and having
some important business to talk over in refer
ence to an affair of a mutual friend in New Or
leans, I conduced to keep on with him to Chat
tanooga (38 miles) and return in the next train
for Nashville going right through 1 My young
friend Tim, the medical student, however, con
tinued on, in order to relieve the apprehensions
of the Major, whose anxieties at our non-arrival
would doubtless have been very lively, unless
the fair widow so absorbed his thoughts that
he could think of nobody bat her. *
How shall I describe the ride in the train to
Chattanooga I tow give an idea of the dizzy
bridges built of trestle work, frail as a spider’s
web to the eye, a hundred and fifty feet in
depth; of fearful height,along which we wormed
our winding way; of stupendous cuts in the
mountain side, cliff on one side and precipices
and river on the other, where an accident would
be certain destruction! How shall I describe
the sublime scenenr of the Tennessee, with its
great mountain waif of the Cumberland heights;
with us romantic winding amid magnificent
vallies, and among the wildest rocky promonto
ries ; ti e vast scopes of view between gorges of
gigantic hills sod torrents roaring with the
same hoarse voices which God gave them at the
creation! Above all, how can I describe the
wonderful natmftl shelf around “Look out
Mountain ” where k over-hange the
“ Tawny Hood of the mighty Tennessee,"
and but for which ledge around this elevated
mountain side, no railroad could have found its
way into the valley of this river 1 It is about
two hundred feet above the water, just wide
enough for a single track, and is three or four
miles in extent I This-singular shelf, which art
and labdr have but here and there finished and
made more perfect for the iron, could only have
been placed there by the foresight of Him who
created “ all things for the use of man," and who
gave rivers their courses and mountains their
ranges; for it has been well remarked by a
great civil engineer “ that the arrangements by
the surface of the earth are so well adapted to
rail-roads that their introduction was evidently
provided for by its Creator 1" What is more
wonderful than to see how the road winds in
and out through the Blue-ridge and Alleghe
nies, finding almost aHevel where a little devia
tion in the angles at which the mountains lie,
would have barred forever all continuous com
munication between the East and the West 1
Jl s we drow near this place, wo hadthapleas
ure of a full view of the great brow of “ Old
Lookout,” frowning in solemn majesty down up
on the valley of the Tennessee, and the strag
gling town upon its banks.
We stopped at a house, which I shall long re
member for the indifference with which our par
ty was treated, the absence of all civility on
the part of the three or four young men who
seem to be its keepers, and for the poor fare,
certainly the worst I have met with anywhere 1
I am told, however, they are rich, and are so
used to people coming (who have to come there
anyhow) they cease to notice them, save when
they call for their money. It is to be regretted
that a hotel, so largely visited, cannot change
hands. I could got no information for asking,
and seeing the gentlemen had no wish to be
troubled by strangers, I ceased to trouble my
self to inquire about anything. The ladies, how
ever, say that they could praise one thing, and
that is, the best and most civil chambermaid
they ever met with.
No doubt landlords get callous and indiffer
ent seeing so many faces, and as one said: “ his
smiles were out, using ’em so muchbut smiles
to a landlord are bank notes, and let him get a
smiling “Mason,” if he cannot afford to be civil
himself. But there is no excuse for a wretched
table, not even respectable in its appointments,
or its waiters, or what is put upon it.
As for scenery “Lookout” is always visible
and always grand. The town covers a great
space, but ill-built, yet with some handsome
houses. I remained here one day to ascend
Lookout mountain, the summit of which can be
gained by a two hours ride in a buggy, in sum
mer by an omnibus. The view is inexpressibly
vast. Seven States are visible in the sublime
coup-d’oeiL There is a hotel and several resi
dences upon the summit At this season there
are no visitors, and the coldness of the bright
clear December day, soon compelled me to de
scend, after enjoying the fine view.
It was at one time proposed to place the Uni
versity of the South on this mountain. If it
must go on a high mountain, this would have
been a suitable place; but why on a mountain
top, secluded from civilization and in a climate
which, by elevation, gives a high northern lati
tude to the ? As to Sewanee, I have
never seen it; but the friends of the University
have bad to be talked into the fitness of the site,
to be all convinced that it 'is the best locality.
Wherever it is to be placed, I wish it prosperi
ty, and believe that it will be an immortal mon
ument to its distinguished originators. Au re
voir.
} NO. 43.