To the great West remains an enormous territory, of which, however, the population is as yet but scanty; though perhaps no portion of the world has increased so fast in population as have these western States. The list is as follows: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas,--to which I would add Missouri, and probably the western half of Virginia. We have then to account for the two already admitted States on the Pacific, California and Oregon, and also for the unadmitted Territories, Dacotah, Nebraska, Washington, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Neveda. I should be refining too much for my present very general purpose, if I were to attempt to marshal these huge but thinly populated regions in either rank. Of California and Oregon it may probably be said that it is their ambition to form themselves into a separate division;--a division which may be called the further West.
I know that all statistical statements are tedious, and I believe that but few readers believe them. I will, however, venture to give the populations of these States in the order I have named them, seeing that power in America depends almost entirely on population.
The census of 1860 gave the following results:--
In the North.
Maine 619,000 New Hampshire 326,872 Vermont 325,827 Ma.s.sachusetts 1,231,494 Rhode Island 174,621 Connecticut 460,670 New York 3,851,563 Pennsylvania 2,916,018 New Jersey 676,034 ---------- Total 10,582,099
In the South--the population of which must be divided into free and slave.
FREE. SLAVE. TOTAL.
Texas 415,999 184,956 600,955 Louisiana 354,245 312,186 666,431 Arkansas 331,710 109,065 440,775 Mississippi 407,051 479,607 886,658 Alabama 520,444 435,473 955,917 Florida 81,885 63,809 145,694 Georgia 615,366 467,461 1,082,827 South Carolina 308,186 407,185 715,371 North Carolina 679,965 328,377 1,008,342 Tennessee 859,578 287,112 1,146,690 --------- --------- --------- Total 4,574,429 3,075,231 7,649,660
In the West.
Ohio 2,377,917 Indiana 1,350,802 Illinois 1,691,238 Michigan 754,291 Wisconsin 763,485 Minnesota 172,796 Iowa 682,002 Kansas 143,645 Missouri *1,204,214 --------- Total 9,140,390
*Of which number, in Missouri, 115,619 are slaves.
In the doubtful States.
FREE. SLAVE. TOTAL.
Maryland 646,183 85,382 731,565 Delaware 110,548 1,805 112,353 Virginia 1,097,373 495,826 1,593,199 Kentucky 920,077 225,490 1,145,567 --------- ------- --------- Total 2,774,181 808,503 3,582,684
To these must be added to make up the population of the United States, as it stood in 1860.
The separate district of Columbia, in which is included Washington, the seat of the Federal Government 75,321 California 384,770 Oregon 52,566 The Territories of Dacotah 4,839 Nebraska 28,892 Washington 11,624 Utah 49,000 New Mexico 93,024 Colorado 34,197 Neveda 6,857 ------- Total 741,090
And thus the total population may be given as follows:--
North 10,582,099 South 7,649,660 West 9,140,390 Doubtful 3,582,684 Outlying States and Territories 741,090 ---------- Total 31,695,923
Each of the three interests would consider itself wronged by the division above made, but the South would probably be the loudest in a.s.serting its grievance. The South claims all the slave States, and would point to secession in Virginia to justify such claim,--and would point also to Maryland and Baltimore, declaring that secession would be as strong there as at New Orleans, if secession were practicable. Maryland and Baltimore lie behind Washington, and are under the heels of the northern troops, so that secession is not practicable; but the South would say that they have seceded in heart.
In this the South would have some show of reason for its a.s.sertion; but, nevertheless, I shall best convey a true idea of the position of these States by cla.s.sing them as doubtful. When secession shall have been accomplished,--if ever it be accomplished,--it will hardly be possible that they should adhere to the South.
It will be seen by the above tables that the population of the West is nearly equal to that of the North, and that therefore western power is almost as great as northern. It is almost as great already, and as population in the West increases faster than it does in the North, the two will soon be equalized. They are already sufficiently on a par to enable them to fight on equal terms, and they will be prepared for fighting--political fighting, if no other--as soon as they have established their supremacy over a common enemy.
Whilst I am on the subject of population, I should explain--though the point is not one which concerns the present argument--that the numbers given, as they regard the South, include both the whites and the blacks, the free men and the slaves. The political power of the South is of course in the hands of the white race only, and the total white population should therefore be taken as the number indicating the southern power. The political power of the South, however, as contrasted with that of the North, has, since the commencement of the Union, been much increased by the slave population. The slaves have been taken into account in determining the number of representatives which should be sent to Congress by each State. That number depends on the population, but it was decided in 1787, that in counting up the number of representatives to which each State should be held to be ent.i.tled, five slaves should represent three white men. A Southern population, therefore, of five thousand free men and five thousand slaves would claim as many representatives as a Northern population of eight thousand free men, although the voting would be confined to the free population. This has ever since been the law of the United States.
The western power is nearly equal to that of the North, and this fact, somewhat exaggerated in terms, is a frequent boast in the mouths of western men. "We ran Fremont for President," they say, "and had it not been for northern men with southern principles, we should have put him in the White House instead of the traitor Buchanan. If that had been done, there would have been no secession." How things might have gone had Fremont been elected in lieu of Buchanan, I will not pretend to say; but the nature of the argument shows the difference that exists between northern and western feeling. At the time that I was in the West, General Fremont was the great topic of public interest. Every newspaper was discussing his conduct, his ability as a soldier, his energy, and his fate. At that time General Maclellan was in command at Washington on the Potomac, it being understood that he held his power directly under the President,--free from the exercise of control on the part of the veteran General Scott, though at that time General Scott had not actually resigned his position as head of the army. And General Fremont, who some five years before had been "run" for President by the Western States, held another command of nearly equal independence in Missouri. He had been put over General Lyon in the western command, and directly after this General Lyon had fallen in battle at Springfield, in the first action in which the opposing armies were engaged in the West. General Fremont at once proceeded to carry matters with a very high hand.
On the 30th of August, 1861, he issued a proclamation by which he declared martial law at St. Louis, the city at which he held his head quarters, and indeed throughout the State of Missouri generally. In this proclamation he declared his intention of exercising a severity beyond that ever threatened, as I believe, in modern warfare. He defines the region presumed to be held by his army of occupation, drawing his lines across the State, and then declares "that all persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within those lines shall be tried by Court Martial, and if found guilty will be shot." He then goes on to say that he will confiscate all the property of persons in the State who shall have taken up arms against the Union, or who shall have taken part with the enemies of the Union, and that he will make free all slaves belonging to such persons. This proclamation was not approved at Washington, and was modified by the order of the President. It was understood also that he issued orders for military expenditure, which were not recognized at Washington, and men began to understand that the army in the West was gradually a.s.suming that irresponsible military position, which in disturbed countries and in times of civil war has so frequently resulted in a military dictatorship. Then there arose a clamour for the removal of General Fremont. A semi-official account of his proceedings, which had reached Washington from an officer under his command, was made public; and also the correspondence which took place on the subject between the President and General Fremont"s wife. The officer in question was thereupon placed under arrest, but immediately released by orders from Washington. He then made official complaint of his General, sending forward a list of charges in which Fremont was accused of rashness, incompetency, want of fidelity of the interests of the Government, and disobedience to orders from head quarters. After a while the Secretary of War himself proceeded from Washington to the quarters of General Fremont at St. Louis, and remained there for a day or two, making or pretending to make inquiry into the matter. But when he returned he left the General still in command. During the whole month of October the papers were occupied in declaring in the morning that General Fremont had been recalled from his command, and in the evening that he was to remain. In the mean time they who befriended his cause, and this included the whole West, were hoping from day to day that he would settle the matter for himself and silence his accusers, by some great military success.
General Price held the command opposed to him, and men said that Fremont would sweep General Price and his army down the valley of the Mississippi into the sea. But General Price would not be so swept, and it began to appear that a guerilla warfare would prevail; that General Price, if driven southwards, would reappear behind the backs of his pursuers, and that General Fremont would not accomplish all that was expected of him with that rapidity for which his friends had given him credit. So the newspapers still went on waging the war, and every morning General Fremont was recalled, and every evening they who had recalled him were shown up as having known nothing of the matter.
"Never mind; he is a pioneer man, and will do a"most anything he puts his hand to," his friends in the West still said. "He understands the frontier." Understanding the frontier is a great thing in Western America, across which the vanguard of civilization continues to march on in advance from year to year. "And it"s he that is bound to sweep slavery from off the face of this Continent. He"s the man, and he"s about the only man." I am not qualified to write the life of General Fremont, and can at present only make this slight reference to the details of his romantic career. That it has been full of romance, and that the man himself is indued with a singular energy and a high romantic idea of what may be done by power and will, there is no doubt. Five times he has crossed the continent of North America from Missouri to Oregon and California, enduring great hardships in the service of advancing civilization and knowledge. That he has considerable talent, immense energy, and strong self-confidence, I believe. He is a frontier man; one of those who care nothing for danger, and who would dare anything with the hope of accomplishing a great career. But I have never heard that he has shown any practical knowledge of high military matters. It may be doubted whether a man of this stamp is well fitted to hold the command of a nation"s army for great national purposes. May it not even be presumed that a man of this cla.s.s is of all men the least fitted for such a work? The officer required should be a man with two specialities--a speciality for military tactics, and a speciality for national duty. The army in the West was far removed from head quarters in Washington, and it was peculiarly desirable that the General commanding it should be one possessing a strong idea of obedience to the control of his own Government. Those frontier capabilities, that self-dependent energy for which his friends gave Fremont,--and probably justly gave him,--such unlimited credit are exactly the qualities which are most dangerous in such a position.
I have endeavoured to explain the circ.u.mstances of the Western command in Missouri, as they existed at the time when I was in the North-Western States, in order that the double action of the North and West may be understood. I, of course, was not in the secret of any official persons, but I could not but feel sure that the Government in Washington would have been glad to have removed Fremont at once from the command, had they not feared that by doing so they would have created a schism, as it were, in their own camp, and have done much to break up the integrity or oneness of Northern loyalty.
The western people almost to a man desired abolition. The States there were sending out their tens of thousands of young men into the army with a prodigality as to their only source of wealth which they hardly recognized themselves, because this to them was a fight against slavery. The western population has been increased to a wonderful degree by a German infusion;--so much so that the western towns appear to have been peopled with Germans. I found regiments of volunteers consisting wholly of Germans. And the Germans are all abolitionists. To all the men of the West the name of Fremont is dear. He is their hero, and their Hercules. He is to cleanse the stables of the southern king, and turn the waters of emanc.i.p.ation through the foul stalls of slavery. And, therefore, though the Cabinet in Washington would have been glad for many reasons to have removed Fremont in October last, it was at first scared from committing itself to so strong a measure. At last, however, the charges made against him were too fully substantiated to allow of their being set on one side, and early in November, 1861, he was superseded. I shall be obliged to allude again to General Fremont"s career as I go on with my narrative.
At this time the North was looking for a victory on the Potomac; but they were no longer looking for it with that impatience which in the summer had led to the disgrace at Bull"s Run. They had recognized the fact that their troops must be equipped, drilled, and instructed; and they had also recognized the perhaps greater fact, that their enemies were neither weak, cowardly, nor badly officered. I have always thought that the tone and manner with which the North bore the defeat at Bull"s Run was creditable to it. It was never denied, never explained away, never set down as trifling. "We have been whipped!"
was what all Northerners said,--"We"ve got an almighty whipping, and here we are." I have heard many Englishmen complain of this, saying that the matter was taken almost as a joke,--that no disgrace was felt, and the licking was owned by a people who ought never to have allowed that they had been licked. To all this, however, I demur.
Their only chance of speedy success consisted in their seeing and recognizing the truth. Had they confessed the whipping and then sat down with their hands in their pockets,--had they done as second-rate boys at school will do,--declare that they had been licked, and then feel that all the trouble is over,--they would indeed have been open to reproach. The old mother across the water would in such case have disowned her son. But they did the very reverse of this. "I have been whipped," Jonathan said, and he immediately went into training under a new system for another fight.
And so all through September and October the great armies on the Potomac rested comparatively in quiet, the Northern forces drawing to themselves immense levies. The general confidence in Maclellan was then very great, and the cautious measures by which he endeavoured to bring his vast untrained body of men under discipline were such as did at that time recommend themselves to most military critics. Early in September the northern party obtained a considerable advantage by taking the fort at Cape Hatteras, in North Carolina, situated on one of those long banks which lie along the sh.o.r.es of the Southern States; but towards the end of October they experienced a considerable reverse in an attack which was made on the Secessionists by General Stone, and in which Colonel Baker was killed. Colonel Baker had been senator for Oregon, and was well known as an orator.
Taking all things together, however, nothing material had been done up to the end of October; and at that time northern men were waiting--not perhaps impatiently, considering the great hopes, and perhaps great fears which filled their hearts, but with eager expectation for some event of which they might talk with pride.
The man to whom they had trusted all their hopes was young for so great a command. I think that at this time (October 1861) General Maclellan was not yet thirty-five. He had served early in life in the Mexican war, having come originally from Pennsylvania, and having been educated at the military college at West Point. During our war with Russia he was sent to the Crimea by his own Government in conjunction with two other officers of the United States army, that they might learn all that was to be learned there as to military tactics, and report especially as to the manner in which fortifications were made and attacked. I have been informed that a very able report was sent in by them to the Government, on their return, and that this was drawn up by Maclellan. But in America a man is not only a soldier or always a soldier; nor is he always a clergyman if once a clergyman. He takes a spell at anything suitable that may be going. And in this way Maclellan was for some years engaged on the Central Illinois Railway, and was for a considerable time the head manager of that concern. We all know with what suddenness he rose to the highest command in the army immediately after the defeat at Bull"s Run.
I have endeavoured to describe what were the feelings of the West in the autumn of 1861 with regard to the war. The excitement and eagerness there were very great, and they were perhaps as great in the North. But in the North the matter seemed to me to be regarded from a different point of view. As a rule, the men of the North are not abolitionists. It is quite certain that they were not so before secession began. They hate slavery as we in England hate it; but they are aware, as also are we, that the disposition of four million of black men and women forms a question which cannot be solved by the chivalry of any modern Orlando. The property invested in these four million slaves forms the entire wealth of the South. If they could be wafted by a philanthropic breeze back to the sh.o.r.es of Africa,--a breeze of which the philanthropy would certainly not be appreciated by those so wafted--the South would be a wilderness. The subject is one as full of difficulty as any with which politicians of these days are tormented. The Northerners fully appreciate this, and as a rule are not abolitionists in the western sense of the word. To them the war is recommended by precisely those feelings which animated us when we fought for our colonies,--when we strove to put down American independence. Secession is rebellion against the Government: and is all the more bitter to the North because that rebellion broke out at the first moment of northern ascendancy. "We submitted," the North says, "to southern Presidents, and southern statesmen, and southern councils, because we obeyed the vote of the people. But as to you--the voice of the people is nothing in your estimation! At the first moment in which the popular vote places at Washington a President with northern feelings, you rebel. We submitted in your days; and by heaven, you shall submit in ours! We submitted loyally; through love of the law and the Const.i.tution. You have disregarded the law, and thrown over the Const.i.tution. But you shall be made to submit, as a child is made to submit to its governor."
It must also be remembered that on commercial questions the North and the West are divided. The Morrill tariff is as odious to the West as it is to the South. The South and West are both agricultural productive regions, desirous of sending cotton and corn to foreign countries and of receiving back foreign manufactures on the best terms. But the North is a manufacturing country--a poor manufacturing country as regards excellence of manufacture--and therefore the more anxious to foster its own growth by protective laws. The Morrill tariff is very injurious to the West, and is odious there. I might add that its folly has already been so far recognized even in the North, as to make it very generally odious there also.
So much I have said endeavouring to make it understood how far the North and West were united in feeling against the South in the autumn of 1861, and how far there existed between them a diversity of interests.
CHAPTER IX.
FROM NIAGARA TO THE MISSISSIPPI.
From Niagara we went by the Canada Great Western Railway to Detroit, the big city of Michigan. It is an American inst.i.tution that the States should have a commercial capital, or what I call their big city, as well as a political capital, which may as a rule be called the State"s central city. The object in choosing the political capital is average nearness of approach from the various confines of the State; but commerce submits to no such Procrustean laws in selecting her capitals, and consequently she has placed Detroit on the borders of Michigan, on the sh.o.r.e of the neck of water which joins Lake Huron to Lake Erie through which all the trade must flow which comes down from Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron, on its way to the eastern States and to Europe. We had thought of going from Buffalo across Lake Erie to Detroit; but we found that the better cla.s.s of steamers had been taken off the waters for the winter. And we also found that navigation among these lakes is a mistake whenever the necessary journey can be taken by railway. Their waters are by no means smooth; and then there is nothing to be seen. I do not know whether others may have a feeling, almost instinctive, that lake navigation must be pleasant,--that lakes must of necessity be beautiful. I have such a feeling; but not now so strongly as formerly. Such an idea should be kept for use in Europe, and never brought over to America with other travelling gear. The lakes in America are cold, c.u.mbrous, uncouth, and uninteresting--intended by nature for the conveyance of cereal produce, but not for the comfort of travelling men and women. So we gave up our plan of traversing the lake, and pa.s.sing back into Canada by the suspension bridge at Niagara, we reached the Detroit river at Windsor by the Great Western line, and pa.s.sed thence by the ferry into the city of Detroit.
In making this journey at night we introduced ourselves to the thoroughly American inst.i.tution of sleeping-cars;--that is, of cars in which beds are made up for travellers. The traveller may have a whole bed, or half a bed, or no bed at all as he pleases, paying a dollar or half a dollar extra should he choose the partial or full fruition of a couch. I confess I have always taken a delight in seeing these beds made up, and consider that the operations of the change are generally as well executed as the manoeuvres of any pantomime at Drury Lane. The work is usually done by negroes or coloured men; and the domestic negroes of America are always light-handed and adroit. The nature of an American car is no doubt known to all men. It looks as far removed from all bedroom accommodation, as the baker"s barrow does from the steam-engine into which it is to be converted by Harlequin"s wand. But the negro goes to work much more quietly than the Harlequin, and for every four seats in the railway car he builds up four beds, almost as quickly as the hero of the pantomime goes through his performance. The great glory of the Americans is in their wondrous contrivances,--in their patent remedies for the usually troublous operations of life. In their huge hotels all the bell-ropes of each house ring on one bell only, but a patent indicator discloses a number, and the whereabouts of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, pa.s.sage, hall, and cupboard,--and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers;--though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that when once turned on it cannot be turned off again by any human energy. Everything is done by a new and wonderful patent contrivance; and of all their wonderful contrivances that of their railroad beds is by no means the least. For every four seats the negro builds up four beds,--that is, four half-beds or accommodation for four persons. Two are supposed to be below on the level of the ordinary four seats, and two up above on shelves which are let down from the roof. Mattresses slip out from one nook and pillows from another. Blankets are added, and the bed is ready. Any over particular individual--an islander, for instance, who hugs his chains--will generally prefer to pay the dollar for the double accommodation. Looking at the bed in the light of a bed,--taking as it were an abstract view of it,--or comparing it with some other bed or beds with which the occupant may have acquaintance, I cannot say that it is in all respects perfect. But distances are long in America; and he who declines to travel by night will lose very much time. He who does so travel will find the railway bed a great relief.
I must confess that the feeling of dirt on the following morning is rather oppressive.
From Windsor on the Canada side we pa.s.sed over to Detroit in the State of Michigan by a steam ferry. But ferries in England and ferries in America are very different. Here on this Detroit ferry, some hundred of pa.s.sengers who were going forward from the other side without delay, at once sat down to breakfast. I may as well explain the way in which disposition is made of one"s luggage as one takes these long journeys. The traveller when he starts has his baggage checked. He abandons his trunk--generally a box studded with nails, as long as a coffin and as high as a linen chest,--and in return for this he receives an iron ticket with a number on it. As he approaches the end of his first instalment of travel, and while the engine is still working its hardest, a man comes up to him, bearing with him suspended on a circular bar an infinite variety of other checks. The traveller confides to this man his wishes; and if he be going further without delay, surrenders his check and receives a counter-check in return. Then while the train is still in motion, the new destiny of the trunk is imparted to it. But another man, with another set of checks, also comes the way, walking leisurely through the train as he performs his work. This is the minister of the hotel-omnibus inst.i.tution. His business is with those who do not travel beyond the next terminus. To him, if such be your intention, you make your confidence, giving up your tallies and taking other tallies, by way of receipt; and your luggage is afterwards found by you in the hall of your hotel. There is undoubtedly very much of comfort in this; and the mind of the traveller is lost in amazement as he thinks of the futile efforts with which he would struggle to regain his luggage were there no such arrangement. Enormous piles of boxes are disclosed on the platform at all the larger stations, the numbers of which are roared forth with quick voice by some two or three railway denizens at once. A modest English voyager with six or seven small packages, would stand no chance of getting anything if he were left to his own devices. As it is I am bound to say that the thing is well done.
I have had my desk with all my money in it lost for a day, and my black leather bag was on one occasion sent back over the line. They, however, were recovered; and on the whole I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those "light fixings" might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re-entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that she ought to do without a bonnet-box. The ten, however, went on, and were always duly protected. I must add, however, that articles requiring tender treatment will sometimes reappear a little the worse from the hardships of their journey.
I have not much to say of Detroit; not much, that is, beyond what I have to say of all the North. It is a large well-built half-finished city, lying on a convenient water way, and spreading itself out with promises of a wide and still wider prosperity. It has about it perhaps as little of intrinsic interest as any of those large western towns which I visited. It is not so pleasant as Milwaukee, nor so picturesque as St. Paul, nor so grand as Chicago, nor so civilized as Cleveland, nor so busy as Buffalo. Indeed Detroit is neither pleasant nor picturesque at all. I will not say that it is uncivilized, but it has a harsh, crude, unprepossessing appearance. It has some 70,000 inhabitants, and good accommodation for shipping. It was doing an enormous business before the war began, and when these troublous times are over will no doubt again go ahead. I do not, however, think it well to recommend any Englishman to make a special visit to Detroit, who may be wholly uncommercial in his views and travel in search of that which is either beautiful or interesting.
From Detroit we continued our course westward across the State of Michigan through a country that was absolutely wild till the railway pierced it. Very much of it is still absolutely wild. For miles upon miles the road pa.s.ses the untouched forest, showing that even in Michigan the great work of civilization has hardly more than been commenced. As one thinks of the all but countless population which is before long to be fed from these regions, of the cities which will grow here, and of the amount of government which in due time will be required, one can hardly fail to feel that the division of the United States into separate nationalities is merely a part of the ordained work of creation, as arranged for the well-being of mankind. The States already boast of thirty millions of inhabitants,--not of unnoticed and unnoticeable beings, requiring little, knowing little, and doing little, such as are the Eastern hordes which may be counted by tens of millions; but of men and women who talk loudly and are ambitious, who eat beef, who read and write, and understand the dignity of manhood. But these thirty millions are as nothing to the crowds which will grow sleek and talk loudly, and become aggressive on these wheat and meat producing levels. The country is as yet but touched by the pioneering hand of population. In the old countries agriculture, following on the heels of pastoral patriarchal life, preceded the birth of cities. But in this young world the cities have come first. The new Jasons, blessed with the experience of the old world adventurers, have gone forth in search of their golden fleeces armed with all that the science and skill of the East had as yet produced, and in settling up their new Colchis have begun by the erection of first-cla.s.s hotels and the fabrication of railroads. Let the old world bid them G.o.d speed in their work. Only it would be well if they could be brought to acknowledge from whence they have learned all that they know.
Our route lay right across the State to a place called Grand Haven on Lake Michigan, from whence we were to take boat for Milwaukee, a town in Wisconsin on the opposite or western sh.o.r.e of the lake. Michigan is sometimes called the Peninsular State from the fact that the main part of its territory is surrounded by Lakes Michigan and Huron, by the little Lake St. Clair, and by Lake Erie. It juts out to the northward from the main land of Indiana and Ohio, and is circ.u.mnavigable on the east, north, and west. These particulars refer, however, to a part of the State only, for a portion of it lies on the other side of Lake Michigan, between that and Lake Superior. I doubt whether any large inland territory in the world is blessed with such facilities of water carriage.
On arriving at Grand Haven we found that there had been a storm on the lake, and that the pa.s.sengers from the trains of the preceding day were still remaining there, waiting to be carried over to Milwaukee. The water, however,--or the sea as they all call it,--was still very high, and the captain declared his intention of remaining there that night. Whereupon all our fellow-travellers huddled themselves into the great lake steam-boat, and proceeded to carry on life there as though they were quite at home. The men took themselves to the bar-room and smoked cigars and talked about the war with their feet upon the counter, and the women got themselves into rocking-chairs in the saloon and sat there listless and silent, but not more listless and silent than they usually are in the big drawing-rooms of the big hotels. There was supper there, precisely at six o"clock, beefsteaks, and tea, and apple jam, and hot cakes, and light fixings, to all which luxuries an American deems himself ent.i.tled, let him have to seek his meal where he may. And I was soon informed with considerable energy, that let the boat be kept there as long as it might by stress of weather, the beefsteaks and apple jam, light fixings and heavy fixings, must be supplied at the cost of the owners of the ship. "Your first supper you pay for," my informant told me, "because you eat that on your own account. What you consume after that comes of their doing, because they don"t start; and if it"s three meals a day for a week, it"s their look out." It occurred to me that under such circ.u.mstances a captain would be very apt to sail either in foul weather or in fair.
It was a bright moonlight night, moonlight such as we rarely have in England, and I started off by myself for a walk, that I might see of what nature were the environs of Grand Haven. A more melancholy place I never beheld. The town of Grand Haven itself is placed on the opposite side of a creek, and was to be reached by a ferry. On our side, to which the railway came and from which the boat was to sail, there was nothing to be seen but sandhills which stretched away for miles along the sh.o.r.e of the lake. There were great sand mountains, and sand valleys, on the surface of which were scattered the debris of dead trees, scattered logs white with age, and boughs half buried beneath the sand. Grand Haven itself is but a poor place, not having succeeded in catching much of the commerce which comes across the lake from Wisconsin, and which takes itself on eastwards by the railway. Altogether it is a dreary place, such as might break a man"s heart, should he find that inexorable fate required him there to pitch his tent.
On my return I went down into the bar-room of the steamer, put my feet upon the counter, lit my cigar, and struck into the debate then proceeding on the subject of the war. I was getting West, and General Fremont was the hero of the hour. "He"s a frontier man, and that"s what we want. I guess he"ll about go through. Yes, sir." "As for relieving General Fre-mont,"--with the accent always strongly on the "mont,"--"I guess you may as well talk of relieving the whole West. They won"t meddle with Fre-mont. They are beginning to know in Washington what stuff he"s made of." "Why, sir, there are 50,000 men in these States who will follow Fre-mont, who would not stir a foot after any other man." From which, and the like of it in many other places, I began to understand how difficult was the task which the statesmen in Washington had in hand.
I received no pecuniary advantage whatever from that law as to the steam-boat meals which my new friend had revealed to me. For my one supper of course I paid, looking forward to any amount of subsequent gratuitous provisions. But in the course of the night the ship sailed, and we found ourselves at Milwaukee in time for breakfast on the following morning.
Milwaukee is a pleasant town, a very pleasant town, containing 45,000 inhabitants. How many of my readers can boast that they know anything of Milwaukee, or even have heard of it? To me its name was unknown until I saw it on huge railway placards stuck up in the smoking-rooms and lounging halls of all American hotels. It is the big town of Wisconsin, whereas Madison is the capital. It stands immediately on the western sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan, and is very pleasant. Why it should be so, and why Detroit should be the contrary, I can hardly tell; only I think that the same verdict would be given by any English tourist. It must be always borne in mind that 10,000 or 40,000 inhabitants in an American town, and especially in any new western town, is a number which means much more than would be implied by any similar number as to an old town in Europe. Such a population in America consumes double the amount of beef which it would in England, wears double the amount of clothes, and demands double as much of the comforts of life. If a census could be taken of the watches it would be found, I take it, that the American population possessed among them nearly double as many as would the English; and I fear also that it would be found that many more of the Americans were readers and writers by habit. In any large town in England it is probable that a higher excellence of education would be found than in Milwaukee, and also a style of life into which more of refinement and more of luxury had found its way. But the general level of these things, of material and intellectual well being--of beef, that is, and book learning--is no doubt infinitely higher in a new American than in an old European town. Such an animal as a beggar is as much unknown as a mastodon. Men out of work and in want are almost unknown. I do not say that there are none of the hardships of life--and to them I will come by-and-by; but want is not known as a hardship in these towns, nor is that dense ignorance in which so large a proportion of our town populations is still steeped. And then the town of 40,000 inhabitants is spread over a surface which would suffice in England for a city of four times the size. Our towns in England,--and the towns, indeed, of Europe generally,--have been built as they have been wanted. No aspiring ambition as to hundreds of thousands of people warmed the bosoms of their first founders. Two or three dozen men required habitations in the same locality, and cl.u.s.tered them together closely. Many such have failed and died out of the world"s notice. Others have thriven, and houses have been packed on to houses till London and Manchester, Dublin and Glasgow have been produced. Poor men have built, or have had built for them, wretched lanes; and rich men have erected grand palaces. From the nature of their beginnings such has, of necessity, been the manner of their creation. But in America, and especially in Western America, there has been no such necessity and there is no such result. The founders of cities have had the experience of the world before them.
They have known of sanitary laws as they began. That sewerage, and water, and gas, and good air would be needed for a thriving community has been to them as much a matter of fact as are the well understood combinations between timber and nails, and bricks and mortar. They have known that water carriage is almost a necessity for commercial success, and have chosen their sites accordingly. Broad streets cost as little, while land by the foot is not as yet of value to be regarded, as those which are narrow; and therefore the sites of towns have been prepared with n.o.ble avenues, and imposing streets. A city at its commencement is laid out with an intention that it shall be populous. The houses are not all built at once, but there are the places allocated for them. The streets are not made, but there are the s.p.a.ces. Many an abortive attempt at munic.i.p.al greatness has so been made and then all but abandoned. There are wretched villages with huge straggling parallel ways which will never grow into towns. They are the failures,--failures in which the pioneers of civilization, frontier men as they call themselves, have lost their tens of thousands of dollars. But when the success comes; when the happy hit has been made, and the ways of commerce have been truly foreseen with a cunning eye, then a great and prosperous city springs up, ready made, as it were, from the earth. Such a town is Milwaukee, now containing 45,000 inhabitants, but with room apparently for double that number; with room for four times that number, were men packed as closely there as they are with us.