CHAPTER IV


1857

SOUTHERN TOUR

In 1857 Miss Mitchell made a tour in the South, having under her charge
the young daughter of a Western banker.

"March 2, 1857. I left Meadville this morning at six o'clock, in a
stage-coach for Erie. I had, early in life, a love for staging, but it
is fast dying out. Nine hours over a rough road are enough to root out
the most passionate love of that kind.

"Our stage was well filled, but in spite of the solid base we
occasionally found ourselves bumping up against the roof or falling
forward upon our opposite neighbors.

"Stage-coaches are, I believe, always the arena for political debate.
To-day we were all on one side, all Buchanan men, and yet all
anti-slavery. It seemed reasonable, as they said, that the South should
cease to push the slave question in regard to Kansas, now that it has
elected its President.

"When I took the stage out to Meadville on the 'mud-road,' it was filled
with Fremont men, and they seemed to me more able men, though they were
no younger and no more cultivated.