November 12, 1861, The New York Herald

Southern Bombast

The people are carried away with the flush of the partial successes of the rebels, and more than ever vaunted is the vast superiority of Southerners over Yankees. Oh, how I have longed to see a check given to this bravado by a triumph of the national arms, which would bring these people to their senses. I think that one grand battle and decisive victory in Virginia would burst the bubble, dispel the insanity that has seized upon the popular mind in the South, disorganize their immense army and lead to a speedy restoration of peace, order and obedience to law. But every little check that our arms sustain is magnified by these boasters, and is an additional obstacle in the way of peace. Every party of Union soldiers that is paraded through the streets of Richmond on their way to prison appears to these American Gascons incontestable evidence of their great superiority over the men of the North. Captivity itself is hard to bear, but the sting is made doubly severe by the taunts of the women and negroes, and by the feeling that every one of those unavoidable incidents of war is taken as proof of Southern valor. I have often thought that the negroes, with the cunning of their race, make a show of hostility to Northern prisoners only the better to ward off suspicion from themselves, and gain the good will and confidence of the white folks.

Hotels

The hotels are doing a thriving business, as I said. They have increased their rates for board from twenty-five to fifty per cent. The Exchange and Ballard— which constitute really but one establishmentcharge two and a half dollars per day, and the Spottswood, which is now the resort of the elite of Southern society, three dollars. The American used to be the headquarters of the Western anti-secession members of the Convention, but now it is among the most pronounced of rebel establishments. Little secession flags flutter from every window, while larger ones are displayed from all the principal buildings in the city. Payments are all made in Virginia and Tennessee currency; and change given in the shape of shinplasters, of one of which, for twenty-five cents, I give you a copy:

Twenty-Five Cent Shinplaster

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25 RICHMOND, L No. 11,281. Aug. 1, 1861. 25

THE

METROPOLITAN SAVINGS BANK

Will pay the

bearer Twenty five Cents in current funds, when presented in

sums of five dollars or its multiple. Nat. W. Hart, for Cashier.

W. P. PUHING, for Pres.

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Some of these promises to pay descend to the low figure of five cents—the lowest coin that practically circulates in the South, for copper and nickel cents are entirely beneath notice. But all specie circulation has really ceased, and nothing but paper passes from hand to hand. Won’t there be a universal smash up in the South when the hour of redemption—in a financial as well as a political sense—arrives? But I verily believe that it is one of the delusions of the hour which have got hold of the public mind here and which encourages this rebellion, that when the pipe of peace comes to be smoked, Uncle Sam will be liberal enough to pay the piper on all sides, and consequently that they who hold sheaves of worthless paper money will, at the end of the war, find them converted into shining heaps of gold and silver.

Postal Affairs

The handsome edifice erected by the general government a few years ago in Main street, Richmond, for the purposes of a post office, is still applied to the use for which it was designed. Postal arrangements in the South, although sadly shorn of their former completeness, still preserve an air of regular existence. To be sure it sometimes takes the mail from Memphis a week or ten days to reach Richmond; but then the answer to the grumblers is that even in the North the regularity of the mails is, at present and on account of the war, sadly deranged. There is still an apparent postal system in the South. Many of the contractors for carrying the United States mails continue to perform their contracts under the Confederate government, receiving bonds in payment. Others have thrown up their contracts rather than take such problematical remuneration, and besides that, a large proportion of the mail routes have been discontinued. Perhaps there is no deprivation resulting from this war which the people of the South regret and miss more than they do the mail system. But recklessness and an utter disregard of the future rule everywhere. The Southern mind seems to have resolved itself into this one idea, "After us, the deluge." It was that improvidence and reckless disposition that drove them into this rebellion, and it is the same that will retain them in the hostile attitude which they have assumed. It would be idle and ridiculous to say that the prudent, sensible, conservative men of the South do not deplore the secession movement, and wish in their hearts that it were rushed, never to rise again; but it would be equally foolish for the national government to calculate to any extent on that sentiment. The war is no longer a matter of sentiment. It has long ago passed that point. It is now a trial of strength between two giants, and the one who has most power, most energy, and most endurance, will succeed.

Good-Bye to Richmond

Now I think I have told you all about Richmond. I may have omitted some little points, for I write with a running pen. It does just now occur to me that I have not said that the numerous and extensive flour mills that stand along the James river are in constant work; that flour is but $10 per barrel, which, considering the fifteen per cent discount on paper currency, and the closing of the Southern ports, is not very high; that other provisions are scarce, particularly fresh beef, butter and bacon; that soldiers' rations are very scant and inferior; that the basements of churches are used for the manufacture and storage of military equipments and supplies; that the large cotton factories at Manchester, on the opposite side of the river, are running day and night, making cloth—a sort of linsey-woolsey—for the army; that the ladies are industrious in knitting mittens and socks for the soldiers; that small arms are manufactured at Fayette, N. C., that shoe factories have been established in large numbers all along Main street; that there is no such thing as beer or ale to be had in the restaurants; that the tariff of other drinks is put up to fifteen cents; that strict discipline is maintained among the soldiers, and drunkenness guarded against by the most stringent regulations; that the style of drill differs from that practised among the Northern troops, by being more slow, steady and solid—resembling therein the old European style: than to that regularity of movement of Southern cohorts is as cribed by some the repulse of our impetuous soldiers at Bull Run; that it is yet a disputed point whether that victory is to be credited to Johnson or Beauregard, as also whether Jeff. Davis was on the field at all that day; that there was great dissatisfaction at the failure of the Southern troops to follow up their success by the occupation of Washington; that they are now fortifying Warrenton junction, some eight or ten miles southwest of Manassas; that ammunition was beginning to fall short—although there are two powder mills at work in the South—till the arrival of the steamer Bermuda, which ran the blockade at Charleston, with a most valuable and immense cargo of supplies and munitions of war, and that it is the settled conviction in the minds of the people that France and England are about to recognise the confederacy and break the blockade. I also fancied that I observed a diminution in the number of persons of color in Richmond and ascribed it to the fact of their being employed as laborers in the intrenchments on York river and other points. The Richmond papers often publish extracts from the NEW YORK HERALD, and I recollect how intense was their astonishment when they found in your journal a full and complete register of their army. No passes are given to any person to go northward, except in some very special cases, and even in those cases an oath has to be taken that no Southern secrets, nothing damaging to the cause of the rebellion, will be divulged. I got no pass, took no oath, made my way into the loyal States by my own energy, perseverance and devices, and just so I expect to find myself once more in the regions of Secessia, huzzaing for Jeff. Davis, loudly maledicting the federal baboonas they often call Mr. Lincoln—and inwardly cursing the madness and the devilishness that have got possession of the people of the South.