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PARTISAN REVIEW
to Jackson. On January 8, 1861, Mississippi passed the Ordinance of
Secession. Gilbert had opposed secession, writing to Cass: "The fools,
there is not a factory for arms in the state. Fools not to have prepared
themselves if they have foreseen the trouble. Fools,
if
they have not
foreseen it, to act thus in the face of facts. Fools not to temporize now
and, if they must, prepare themselves to strike a blow. I have told
responsible men to prepare. All fools." To which Cass replied: "I
pray much for peace." But later, he wrote: "I have talked with Mr.
French, who is, as you know, the Chief of Ordnance, and he says that
they have only old muskets for troops, and those but flintlocks. The
agents have scraped the state for shotguns, at the behest of Governor
Pettus. Shotguns, Mr. French said, and curled his lips. And what shot–
guns, he added, and then told me of a weapon contributed to the
cause, an old musket barrel strapped with metal to a piece of cypress
rail crooked at one end. An old slave gave this treasure to the cause,
and does one laugh or weep?" (One can guess what Gilbert would
have done, reading the letter.) Mter Jefferson Davis had come back
to Mississippi, having resigned from the Senate, and had accepted the
command of the troops of Mississippi with the rank of Major-General,
G;ass called upon him, at the request of Gilbert. He wrote to Gilbert:
"The General says that they have given him 10,000 men, but not a
stand of modern rifles. But the General also said, they have given me
a very fine coat with fourteen brass buttons in front and a black vel–
vet collar. Perhaps we can use the buttons in our shotguns, he said,
and smiled."
Cass saw Mr. Davis once more, for he was with Gilbert on the
steamboat
Natchez
which carried the new President of the Con–
federacy on the first stage of his journey from his plantation, ."Brier–
field," to Montgomery. "We were on old Mr. Tom Leather's boat,"
Cass wrote in the journal, "which had been supposed to pick up the
President at a landing a few miles below Brierfield. But Mr. Davis
was delayed in leaving his house and was rowed out to us. I leaned on
the rail and saw the little black skiff proceeding toward us over the red
water. A man waved from the skiff to us. The captain of the
Natchez
observed the signal, and gave a great blast of his boat's whistle which
made our ears tingle and shivered out over the expanse of waters. Our
boat stopped and the skiff approached. Mr. Davis was received on
board.
As
the steamboat moved on, Mr. Davis looked back and lifted
his hand in salute to the negro servant (Isaiah Montgomery whom I
had known at Brierfield) who stood in the skiff, which rocked in the
wash of the steamboat, and waved his farewell. Later, as we proceeded
upriver toward the bluffs of Vicksburg, he approached my brother,
