Note: This particular article–a document written in 1861–includes terms and topics that may be offensive to many today. No attempt will be made to censor or edit 19th century material to today’s standards.
Southern Confederacy
[Atlanta, Ga],
July 26, 1861
Approach to Huntsville — A city set on a hill — Female colleges — Female education in Georgia — Texas progress — The penitentiary — Number of convicts — State and foreign representation in the “institution” — The everlasting nigger has the best record — Solitary confinement — Old Sam Houston to take the field in the Confederate Army.
Huntsville, Texas, June 17, 1861.
Editors Southern Confederacy: On yesterday evening I arrived at this place, about which a good deal of interest is sometimes manifested in the Lone Star State, as being that particular locality at which our State prison is situated. As you approach the town upon the North, and first get a view of it, you fully realize the truth that Christ uttered upon the Mount, that a city set upon “a hill cannot be hid.” While you are yet a little distance from it, you have a much better prospect than you can ever get of it again, and your opinion of its beauty is much better than when you enter the very heart of the town itself. The principal buildings make a very good appearance, and one would suppose he were drawing near quite a city; but, without having the census, or the necessary statistics before me, I would set the number of inhabitants down at fifteen hundred.
There is a very good female college here; but what number of students it has, I have not been able to ascertain — but the condition of the institution is represented as very flourishing. The want and scarcity of female colleges in the State, are generally recognized as the most serious obstacles to the progress of Texas; and, although there may be more institutions of this kind than I am apprised of, yet I think there are only three places that can boast of female colleges, and they are Huntsville, Chapel Hill and Fairfield, which last place is in Freestone county, and adjoining Limestone. There are doubtless several excellent schools for ladies in the State; but, if my recollection serves me correctly, there are none of them, except those mentioned, that rise in dignity and importance sufficiently high to be called colleges.
The condition of Georgia at the present time, and the high intellectual culture of her fair daughters, attest the powerful influence that institutions endowed for female education have upon the career and destiny of a people.
But it could not be expected that in such a short time, Texas should be able to rival the older States in the number and excellence of her schools. It was only in 1845 that she established her State Constitution, and, in the same year, she united herself with the United States, which are now the “ilium fuit” of such political dreamers as Seward and Lincoln. In that length of time, she has made rapid strides in civilization and prosperity and wealth are acknowledged facts in political economy. Her railroads are being extended into the heart and center of the State — her towns are rising here and there, dotting the beautiful prairies like “Sea Cybeles, fresh from ocean,” and her common schools are numerous, and of the best character.
But another institution has risen at this place, which also may be set down, in some measure, as a necessary consequence of growth and expansion, and slightly referred to before. I mean the Penitentiary. A great many curious facts may be collated from the reports of the Directors and Superintendents of the several State prisons, and, as Texas is, and has been, the resort of all “nativities,” a few of these curiosities (not natural, animal or vegetable) may possess a passing interest with your readers.
The gentlemanly Superintendent informed me that there were 216 convicts at present.—This is a larger number than in any year since its foundation. Up to the 31st of August, 1859, there had been 412 convicts, in all, since the year 1850, which makes the very decent average of 45 2/3 per year for the said years.Georgia is an enterprising, energetic State — the Empire State of the South — and Georgians may be curious to know if they have a fair proportion of representatives in this department of the Government — and I am very sorry to say they have. But I think it can be accounted for upon a very rational hypotheses — perhaps I should call it a fact
— that they are a people who have progressive notions, upward, onward, keeping pace with the “star of empire;” and this characteristic has led more Georgians than almost any other class of people to come to the “far distant West.” This same characteristic, perhaps, has landed 23 of them in the State prison of Texas; Alabama, ditto; Texas ditto; and Tennessee has outstripped all her sister Southern States, and has 33, (which is a better numerical representation than she used to have in the old United States Congress,) while Kentucky and Virginia, not so high in the pictures, have each 16 here.
— The puritanic States of the North are pretty fairly represented, and doubtless the only reason why they have not more here, is because they think it would not be profitable, as they never embark in any enterprise that won’t pay; for they are “indociles paupericue puti,” and for this much, an honest confession would commend them.
It is not to be understood that the States mentioned have the above number of citizens in the penitentiary at the present time, but have had, (including those now in confinement) since 1850. Nearly all the States of the old Union have more or less “nativities” here. Mexico, with her low flung greasers, and her rare and high-strung hidalgoes, has had 92 subjects in the State building, and, to see them as they are, looking so contented, one would imagine that they never had strung their harps and sung such words as these:
“Ay de mi! un ano felice
Parece un soplo ligero;
Pero sin dicha un instante
Ees un siglo de torment.”
But, passing on, Ireland, next to Mexico, numerically, has 26 Paddies, “all the way from the bogs of ould Ireland;” Germany has 16 dear lovers of sour krout, and sable Africa has only one in the “Huntsville Brick House.”
There was one convict who had been sentenced to solitary confinement for life; but the last Legislature, at its regular term, repealed the law, so far as to allow the Governor, upon a proper representation of the case, to commute the punishment to “hard labor in the penitentiary for life,” which speaks highly for the humanity of that august representative body. Col. Caruthers, the Superintendent, informed me that, by his intercession with the old hero, Sam Houston, (while Sam was Governor,) he succeeded in having the solitary confinement commuted, as the law so wisely prescribes.
There was one convict who had been sentenced to solitary confinement for life; but the last Legislature, at its regular term, repealed the law, so far as to allow the Governor, upon a proper representation of the case, to commute the punishment to “hard labor in the penitentiary for life,” which speaks highly for the humanity of that august representative body. Col. Caruthers, the Superintendent, informed me that, by his intercession with the old hero, Sam Houston, (while Sam was Governor,) he succeeded in having the solitary confinement commuted, as the law so wisely prescribes.
There are many things of interest to be seen and found here, the details of which would weary you; but this I may be permitted to say, that the financial condition of the penitentiary is as good, or better, under old Sam’s administration than it has been for a long time. It could not be otherwise when such efficient officers have been appointed; and this is not written for the purposes of disparaging others that have administered the “machine,” but to do justice. By the way, an intimate friend of his told me that old San Jacinto had written him a letter, in which he said that they would doubtless soon meet in the Southern army in defence [sic] of their common country, and all he (Sam) asked of his bitter foes was to keep up with him, and turn a little of that malignity they had harbored for him against the enemy of our institutions and liberties.
Old Sam will redeem his pledge to take the field. He is a powerful friend, but, if an enemy, he is to be dreaded.
Adios.
L. J. Farrar.