The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crisis, Volume 7, by Winston Churchill

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Title: The Crisis, Volume 7

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5394]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRISIS, VOLUME 7 ***

Produced by David Widger

THE CRISIS

By Winston Churchill

Volume 7.

CHAPTER VII

WITH THE ARMIES OF THE WEST

We are at Memphis,--for a while,--and the Christmas season is approaching
once more. And yet we must remember that war recognizes no Christmas, nor
Sunday, nor holiday. The brown river, excited by rains, whirled seaward
between his banks of yellow clay. Now the weather was crisp and cold, now
hazy and depressing, and again a downpour. Memphis had never seen such
activity. A spirit possessed the place, a restless spirit called William
T. Sherman. He prodded Memphis and laid violent hold of her. She groaned,
protested, turned over, and woke up, peopled by a new people. When these
walked, they ran, and they wore a blue uniform. They spoke rapidly and
were impatient. Rain nor heat nor tempest kept them in. And yet they
joked, and Memphis laughed (what was left of her), and recognized a bond
of fellowship. The General joked, and the Colonels and the Commissary and
the doctors, down to the sutlers and teamsters and the salt tars under
Porter, who cursed the dishwater Mississippi, and also a man named Eads,
who had built the new-fangled iron boxes officially known as gunboats.
The like of these had never before been seen in the waters under the
earth. The loyal citizens--loyal to the South--had been given permission
to leave the city. The General told the assistant quartermaster to hire
their houses and slaves for the benefit of the Federal Government.
Likewise he laid down certain laws to the Memphis papers defining
treason. He gave out his mind freely to that other army of occupation,
the army of speculation, that flocked thither with permits to trade in
cotton. The speculators gave the Confederates gold, which they needed
most, for the bales, which they could not use at all.

The forefathers of some of these gentlemen were in old Egypt un