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Johnny proposed that while waiting they do some alligator hunting. They got out their canvas and rigged up a regular camp. Dick wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper, addressed it "Mr. Edward Barstow," and fastened it on a palmetto tree, in such a way that no one passing along the trail could fail to see it.
"Southern rights at all hazards," was the substance of many mottoes, and the palmetto and the rattlesnake were favorite emblems. There was neither mistaking nor avoiding the strong undercurrent of treason and rebellion here manifested, and the Governor's proclamation had doubtless been largely based upon it.
Their shoulders had that noble giving droop which only women show who have reached the sublimity of nurturing many children at their breasts. They were all moving palmetto fans with the serene air of fat, ugly old goddesses who had passed out of the desire of man and had now returned to their own woman's sanity. "Squire, I don't like them goings on in thar!" "What you talkin' about?"
Only there was no gold: nothing but a little copper and stinging swarms of flies, gray clouds of midges and black ooze that sucked the Spaniards to their thighs, and the clatter of scrub palmetto leaves on their iron shirts like the sound of wooden swords, as the Indians wound them in and out of trails that began in swamps and arrived nowhere.
Davis was at Macon and Palmetto, but on the 27th I received a printed copy of his speech made at Macon on the 22d, which was so significant that I ordered it to be telegraphed entire as far as Louisville, to be sent thence by mail to Washington, and on the same day received this dispatch: WASHINGTON, D. C., September 27, 1864-9 a.m.
At length we came in sight of a line of sand-hills, with palmetto, pine, and live-oak growing at their summits, while below was a glittering beach, stretching away to the south; and close in front, low banks, over which the white-crested breakers dashed with a fury which made us careful not to get amongst them.
That it did no good was evident, for in its underlying psychology it was closely associated with a double crime that was now to be committed. In April, Sam Hose, a Negro who had brooded on the happenings at Palmetto, not many miles from the scene killed a farmer, Alfred Cranford, who had been a leader of the mob, and outraged his wife.
I should never have thought about obliterating our trail in the pine needles, yet now saw that it was a very necessary thing to do, for men can not crawl on their stomachs without mussing the ground if it is at all soft. In the morning those fellows would see our tracks leading from the palmetto patch and, to a certainty, be waiting for us when we returned.
The possession of Atlanta by us narrowed the territory of the enemy very materially and cut off one of his two remaining lines of roads from east to west. A short time after the fall of Atlanta Mr. Davis visited Palmetto and Macon and made speeches at each place. He spoke at Palmetto on the 20th of September, and at Macon on the 22d.
From the limbs hang graceful pennons of Spanish moss, festooned at the sides, waved by every wind, changing in every light. Grapevines with stems six inches in diameter climb into the huge oaks and swing from tree to tree, linking limb with limb: the tree-tops are purple with great fruit-clusters. To the whole scene the dwarf palmetto gives a semi-tropic aspect.
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