Chapter 8:
Author proceeds to Montgomery, and reports to the New Government, and is dispatched northward, on a special mission.
on the evening of the 16th of February, the day after I had resigned my commission, I took a sorrowful leave of my family, and departed for Montgomery, by the way of Fredericksburg and Richmond. Virginia and North Carolina had not yet seceded, and anxious debates were going on, on the all-absorbing question, in each town and village in these two States, through which I passed. It was easy to see, that the great majority of the people were with the extreme South, in this her hour of need, but there were some time-servers and trimmers, who still talked of conciliation, and of guarantees. They inquired eagerly after news from Washington, at all the stations at which the train stopped, and seemed disappointed when they found we had nothing more to tell them, than they had already learned through the telegraph.On the evening of the 18th, I entered the level tract of pine lands between West Point, and Montgomery. The air had become soft, and balmy, though I had left a region of frosts, and snow, only two days before. The pine woods were on fire as we passed through them, the flames now and then running up a lightwood tree, and throwing a weird and fitful glare upon the passing train. The scene was peculiarly Southern, and reminded me that I was drawing near my home, and my people, and I mechanically repeated to myself the words of the poet:
And my heart, which up to that moment, had felt as though a heavy weight were pressing upon it, began to give moreBreathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
