States during the early period of
the American Civil War. His letters thence, published later as
"Pictures of Southern Life," are full of graphic descriptions
of scenes and feelings in the Confederate States during the era
of enthusiasm and hopefulness, before the war had borne its
harvest of doubt and misery. It is not our purpose, however, to
give his experiences in this special field. It is travel, not
war, with which we are concerned, and we confine ourself to an
account of a visit to a plantation in the vicinity of
Charleston. A short preliminary sketch of the ebb and flow of
rumor in war times, however, may be of interest.]

The rolling fire of the revolution is fast sweeping over the prairie,
and one must fly before it or burn. I am obliged to see all that can be
seen of the South at once, and then, armed with such safeguards as I can
procure, to make an effort to recover my communications. Bridges broken,
rails torn up, telegraphs pulled down,--I am quite in the air, and air
charged with powder and fire. One of the most extraordinary books in the
world could be made out of the cuttings and parings of the newspapers
which have been published within the last few days. The judgments,
statements, asseverations of the press, everywhere necessarily hasty,
ill-sifted, and off-hand, do not aspire to even an ephemeral existence
here. They are of use if they serve the purpose of the moment, and of
the little boys who commence their childhood in deceit, and continue to
adolescence in iniquity, by giving vocal utterance to the "sensation"
headings of the journals they retail so sharply and so curtly.

Talk of the superstition of the Middle Ages, or of the credulity of the
more advanced period of rural life; laugh at the Holy Coat of Treves, or
groan over the Lady of Salette; deplore the faith in winking pictures,
or in a _communique_ of the _Moniteur_; moralize on the superstition
which discovers more in the liquefaction of the ichor of St. Gennaro
than a chemical trick; but if you desire to understand how far faith can
see and trust among the people who consider themselves the most
civilized and intelligent in the world, you will study the American
journals, and read the telegrams which appear in them.

One day the Seventh New York Regiment is destroyed for the edification
of the South, and is cut up into such small pieces that none of it is
ever seen afterwards. The ne