its factories. The
Liberty Bell
would be landing before long.
Past the northern suburb of Baden steamed the sternwheeler. Over there, black roustabouts carried cargo off barges and small steamers. Douglass warmed to see men of his own color once more, even if those men were doing labor of a sort their brethren still in bondage might have performed at lonely little landing stations along the Confederate-held reaches of the southern Mississippi.
Then across the water came the ingenious curses of the white men who bossed those roustabouts. Douglass’ mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. He’d had curses like those fall on his own head back in the days when he was property, before he became a human being of his own. He’d also known the lash then. That, at least, these bosses, unlike the overseers still plying their trade in the CSA, were forbidden. Perhaps the prohibition made their curses sharper.
Other Negroes floated on the Mississippi in rowboats. Douglass watched one of them draw a fish into his boat: the day’s supper, or part of it. Blacks and whites both plied larger skiffs, in which they went after the driftwood that always fouled the river. They would not make much money from their gleanings, but none of them, it was likely, would ever make, or expect to make, much money till the end of his days.
St. Louis sprawled for miles along the riverbank. The riverbank had long been its
raison d’être
. On the Mississippi, close to the joining of that river with the Missouri and not too far above the joining with the Ohio, it was at the center of a commerce stretching from Minnesota to New Orleans, from the Appalachians to the Rockies. Railroads had only added to its importance. Smoke belching from the stack of its locomotive, a loaded train chugged north. The engineer blew a long blast on his whistle, apparently from nothing more than high spirits.
Not even the rupture of the Union had for long interrupted St. Louis’ riverine commerce. Many of the steamers chained up at the landing-stages along the stone-fronted levee—no regular wharves here, not with the Mississippi’s level liable to fluctuate so drastically—were Confederate boats, with names like
Vicksburg
Belle, New Orleans Lightning
, and
Albert Sidney Johnston
. The Stars and Bars fluttered proudly at their steins. As they had in the days before the war, they carried tobacco and cotton and rice and indigo up the river, trading them sometimes for wheat and corn, sometimes for iron ore, and sometimes for the products into which that ore was eventually made. The Confederate States had their own factories these days (some of them, to Douglass’ unending mortification, with Negro slaves as labor), but their demand remained greater than their own industry could meet.
Names were not the only way to tell Confederate steamboats from their U.S. counterparts. None of the boats from the United States posted armed guards on deck to keep parts of their crews from escaping. The welcome newly fled blacks would receive in St. Louis was no warmer than anywhere else in the United States, but that did not keep some from trying their luck.
To Douglass’ mingled pride and chagrin, the
Liberty Bell
pulled in alongside one of those Confederate boats, an immense sidewheeler emblazoned with the name
N.B. Forrest
. The escaped slave wondered how his brethren still trapped felt about sailing in a vessel named for a dealer in human flesh who had also proved a successful officer in the war.
One of the guards aboard the
Forrest
, looking over to watch the
Liberty Bell
tie up at the landing-stage, saw Douglass standing at the upper-deck rail. He gaped at the spectacle of a colored man there rather than on the main deck, where the poor and the engine crew spread their blankets. Douglass sent an unpleasant smile his way. The guard was close enough to recognize it as unpleasant. He scowled back, then spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the equally brown Mississippi.
Berthed
Liberty Bell
would be landing before long.
Past the northern suburb of Baden steamed the sternwheeler. Over there, black roustabouts carried cargo off barges and small steamers. Douglass warmed to see men of his own color once more, even if those men were doing labor of a sort their brethren still in bondage might have performed at lonely little landing stations along the Confederate-held reaches of the southern Mississippi.
Then across the water came the ingenious curses of the white men who bossed those roustabouts. Douglass’ mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. He’d had curses like those fall on his own head back in the days when he was property, before he became a human being of his own. He’d also known the lash then. That, at least, these bosses, unlike the overseers still plying their trade in the CSA, were forbidden. Perhaps the prohibition made their curses sharper.
Other Negroes floated on the Mississippi in rowboats. Douglass watched one of them draw a fish into his boat: the day’s supper, or part of it. Blacks and whites both plied larger skiffs, in which they went after the driftwood that always fouled the river. They would not make much money from their gleanings, but none of them, it was likely, would ever make, or expect to make, much money till the end of his days.
St. Louis sprawled for miles along the riverbank. The riverbank had long been its
raison d’être
. On the Mississippi, close to the joining of that river with the Missouri and not too far above the joining with the Ohio, it was at the center of a commerce stretching from Minnesota to New Orleans, from the Appalachians to the Rockies. Railroads had only added to its importance. Smoke belching from the stack of its locomotive, a loaded train chugged north. The engineer blew a long blast on his whistle, apparently from nothing more than high spirits.
Not even the rupture of the Union had for long interrupted St. Louis’ riverine commerce. Many of the steamers chained up at the landing-stages along the stone-fronted levee—no regular wharves here, not with the Mississippi’s level liable to fluctuate so drastically—were Confederate boats, with names like
Vicksburg
Belle, New Orleans Lightning
, and
Albert Sidney Johnston
. The Stars and Bars fluttered proudly at their steins. As they had in the days before the war, they carried tobacco and cotton and rice and indigo up the river, trading them sometimes for wheat and corn, sometimes for iron ore, and sometimes for the products into which that ore was eventually made. The Confederate States had their own factories these days (some of them, to Douglass’ unending mortification, with Negro slaves as labor), but their demand remained greater than their own industry could meet.
Names were not the only way to tell Confederate steamboats from their U.S. counterparts. None of the boats from the United States posted armed guards on deck to keep parts of their crews from escaping. The welcome newly fled blacks would receive in St. Louis was no warmer than anywhere else in the United States, but that did not keep some from trying their luck.
To Douglass’ mingled pride and chagrin, the
Liberty Bell
pulled in alongside one of those Confederate boats, an immense sidewheeler emblazoned with the name
N.B. Forrest
. The escaped slave wondered how his brethren still trapped felt about sailing in a vessel named for a dealer in human flesh who had also proved a successful officer in the war.
One of the guards aboard the
Forrest
, looking over to watch the
Liberty Bell
tie up at the landing-stage, saw Douglass standing at the upper-deck rail. He gaped at the spectacle of a colored man there rather than on the main deck, where the poor and the engine crew spread their blankets. Douglass sent an unpleasant smile his way. The guard was close enough to recognize it as unpleasant. He scowled back, then spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the equally brown Mississippi.
Berthed
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