Said Rais born in 1986
About the lot N° 427
A Rare 1867 Diary Penned by Texas Pioneer, Spruce McCoy Baird, diary of a journey from Serbin, Bastrop Co., Texas to Trinidad, Colorado Territory, 1867. 95pp.
In 1867, S. M. Baird (as he is identified in the diary) was a resident of the German colony of Serbin, Texas, who thought he would find brighter prospects for the future in the Colorado Territory. The author of this diary is probably Spruce McCoy Baird (1814-1872), a jurist originally from Glasgow, Ky. In 1848, Spruce Baird was appointed judge of Santa Fe County (now New Mexico), where he earned the nickname El China Tejano (Curly-haired Texan) for his flaming red hair. Still in New Mexico, near Albuquerque, when the Civil War broke out, Baird loudly supported the Confederacy, for which he was designated a traitor when the federal army reasserted control. Forced to flee, Baird left all of his property and possessions behind, and moved to Texas, where he raised and commanded Baird's 4th Texas Cavalry Regiment of the Arizona Brigade. The war that started out badly for him ended no better. Facing the hardships of post-war Texas, Baird elected to remove himself to Trinidad, Colorado Territory, to build a law practice. He died in Cimarron, New Mexico, in 1872, leaving behind his wife Emmacette Bowdry (whom he married in 1848).
Baird's diary is a fascinating piece of history in several respects: as a description of post-Civil War South, as a window onto the attitudes of a bitter Confederate firebrand observing the consequences of secession, and as a colorful and occasionally brilliant piece of travel writing. Certainly, the descriptions can be evocative, such as his account of walking onto the wharf at Galveston as his trip commenced in June:
there are twenty three sea turtles aboard all flat on their backs with their faces turned up to the hot broiling sun -- their great paddle feet pierced with holes and tied together -- some with their eyes closed, others half closed and others wide awake rooling their eyes, no tragical, stage like and oratorical frenzy. If the gourmand and epicure of feeling heart could see their misery his 'hasty plate' of turtle soup costs these poor creatures he would certainly dispense with that favorite beverage. Without doubt, however, Baird's motives for moving and feelings about the war and his former enemies were never far from the surface. Bitter toward Yankees? You bet!
There was a lot of Yankees from Brownsville and the Rio Grande, he wrote,
men and their wives, strong minded women of the male persuasion and among them an amazon with short hair, a man's hat or mostly so, sunburned face and sun burnt back, black sack of seedy cloth and dowdy white dress -- she was traveling alone and seemed at first to congregate with no one.... Another of these 'strong minded' had a menagerie of prairie dogs and rabbits, a trifling looking husband in U.S.A. uniform and no baby. There were some others of the Yankee school not sufficiently different from christian women of the French persuasion to attract special remark except that for corn they said 'kern.' For water they said 'wat-ter' giving these as the sound it takes in 'fat' and the mother of a cow they called 'gnow' but talking always when they talked at all, (and their silence was the exception to the rule), sharp, pert, and quick, as though they all had crackers to their tongues. This disposes of the yankee part of the 'voyageurs,' at the head of whom I have placed myself and the turtles, that they, the Yankees might have no pretext for saying, we, that is I and the turtles, were prejudiced against them... From Galveston, Baird traveled through New Orleans and up the Mississippi, passing burned out sugar plantations on the way, the recent ruins of war.
In the lower part of the city I noticed the smoked walls of a formerly large and splendid church (Catholic I suppose) -- On passing up and down the river a year ago I noted, the broken levies unrepaired, the lone chimneys, fences gone, plantations growing up in young cotton woods and the idle negroes when seen at all hovering round the steamboat landings and Rai-Road stations -- the former city of Bayou Sara no longer exists -- its former site is lonely marked by a few shanties extemporized from the rubbish left by the vandal -- The Yankee incendiaries and plunderers. The city of Grand Gulf at which Grant's army crossed the river the flank Vicksburg is marked by its river only -- not a living soul, nor a house remains there and in this connection I will note that the well authenticated reports and statistics show that during the war these same people who have the presumption to send missionaries to all parts of the world burned within the southern states twelve hundred churches of all denominations... Everywhere in Mississippi, destruction loomed, the city of Jackson, Miss., entirely
burned by the army of a people professing to be Christian and our brethren, and in Grenada, Miss., he wrote:
The former depot buildings cars and other Rail Road appurtenances had then and there, these fiends [Yankees], being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil and silver spoons and other like plunder and not having the fear of God before their eyes, been ruthlessly destroyed. Rail road iron-car wheels and the iron skeletons of the cars lay in confused heaps on every side... Bitterness reigned as Baird continued on his way, aimed at any and all who failed the Lost Cause.
The Tennesseans seemed unanimously embittered against [Gov. William G.] Brownlow and against him with absolute horror. What a farce it is to pretend that he is governor of Tennessee by the votes or will of the people. It is the meanest burlesque on the republican form of government of which Americans have been in former years so justly proud... From Memphis he passed into Kentucky (
my native state of which I used to be proud, but her unjustifiable vacillation during the war dampened my ardor for her), then by steamboat to Cairo, Ill. (a vivid description of desolate place), on to St. Louis, steamboat to Kansas City. His account is simply fine travel writing, and he provides a fascinating, detailed description of the country through which he passes, the hotels in which he stays, his companions, the trains, and more. Typical of the diary, he began chatting the captain of the boat:
he stated that his boat had been pressed into the service and forced to sent up the Yazoo River and was there when Sherman returned from his raid into Mississippi -- that the officers brought back gunny sacks full of gold and silver plate -- that they had also collected a large number of negroes from the plantation that they were encamped or crowded on a space of ground about four acres, nearly or quite as close as they could be packed. That they were without a single exception pure blacks -- that the soldiers perpetrated the most shameful outrages upon them in open day, the oldest not excepted and notwithstanding their entreaties to be let alone. Of these negroes he said mostly every one died from hardships, hunger and maltreatment. After closing his statement and seemingly falling into a reverie he quickly added 'This was no war. It was nothing but a great big plunder and robbery.' From St. Louis onward, Baird sees signs of the wild west he had known from the 1840s. Boats laden with buffalo robes and bear, deer, antelope, elk, and beaver skins, and next to them, a sign of the future in the shape of one of the finest ships on the Mississippi:
I stepped on the cabin deck and looked down the hall and observed (the only thing about her peculiar), that she had a row of Gothic columns (colonnades) extending the whole length of the hall and each side apparently one in front of the partition of each stateroom -- They looked very pretty, but when I reflected that this was all Yankee ostentation and ,1867
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Price: 10 575.00 USD
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Estimate (low-high) :
4000 USD-6000.0 USD
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Cowan's Auctions, auctioneer
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Sale date : 12 Apr 2008
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Sale Reference : Live Sale
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