We reached Petersburgh at 3 A.M., and had to get out and
traverse this town in carts, after which we had to lie down in the road until
some other cars were opened. We left Petersburgh at 5 A.M. and arrived at
Richmond at 7 A.M., having taken forty-one hours coming from Charleston. The railroad
between Petersburgh and Richmond is protected by extensive field-works, and the
woods have been cut down to give range. An irruption of the enemy in this
direction has evidently been contemplated; and we met a brigade of infantry half-way
between Petersburgh and Richmond on its way to garrison the latter place, as
the Yankees are reported to be menacing in that neighbourhood.
The scenery near Richmond is very pretty, and rather
English-looking. The view of the James River from the railway bridge is quite
beautiful, though the water is rather low at present. The weather was extremely
hot and oppressive, and, for the first time since I left Havana, I really
suffered from the heat.
At 10 A.M. I called on General Cooper, Adjutant-General to
the Confederate forces, and senior general in the army. He is brother-in-law to
Mr Mason, the Southern Commissioner in London. I then called upon Mr Benjamin,
the Secretary of State, who made an appointment with me to meet him at his
house at 7 P.M. The public offices are handsome stone buildings, and seemed to
be well arranged for business. I found at least as much difficulty in gaining
access to the great men as there would be in European countries; but when once
admitted, I was treated with the greatest courtesy. The anterooms were crowded
with people patiently waiting for an audience.
The streets of Richmond are named and numbered in a most
puzzling manner, and the greater part of the houses are not numbered at all It
is the most hilly city I have seen in America, and its population is
unnaturally swollen since the commencement of the war. The fact of there being
abundance of ice appeared to me an immense luxury, as I had never seen any
before in the South; but it seems that the winters are quite severe in Northern
Virginia.
I was sorry to hear in the highest quarters the gloomiest
forebodings with regard to the fate of Vicksburg. This fortress is in fact given
up, and all now despair of General Johnston's being able to effect anything
towards its relief.
I kept my appointment with Mr Benjamin at 7 o'clock. He is a
stout dapper little man, evidently of Hebrew extraction, and of undoubted
talent. He is a Louisianian, and was senator for that state in the old United
States Congress, and I believe he is accounted a very clever lawyer and a
brilliant orator. He told me that he had filled the onerous post of Secretary
of War during the first seven months of the Secession, and I can easily believe
that he found it no sinecure. We conversed for a long time about the origin of
secession, which he indignantly denied was brought about, as the Yankees
assert, by the interested machinations of individuals. He declared that, for
the last ten years, the Southern statesmen had openly stated in Congress what
would take place; but the Northerners never would believe they were in earnest,
and had often replied by the taunt, “The South was so bound to, and dependent
on, the North, that she couldn't be kicked out of the Union.”
He said that the Southern armies had always been immensely
outnumbered in all their battles, and that until recently General Lee could
never muster more than 60,000 effective men. He confessed that the Southern
forces consisted altogether of about 350,000 to 400,000 men; and when I asked
him where they all were, he replied that, on account of the enormous tract of
country to be defended, and the immense advantages the enemy possessed by his
facilities for sea and river transportation, the South was obliged to keep
large bodies of men unemployed, and at great distances from each other,
awaiting the sudden invasions or raids to which they were continually exposed.
Besides which, the Northern troops, which numbered (he supposed) 600,000 men,
having had as yet but little defensive warfare, could all be employed for
aggressive purposes.
He asserted that England has still, and always had had it,
in her power to terminate the war by recognition, and by making a commercial
treaty with the South; and he denied that the Yankees really would dare to go
to war with Great Britain for doing so, however much they might swagger about
it: he said that recognition would not increase the Yankee hatred of England,
for this, whether just or unjust, was already as intense as it could possibly
be. I then alluded to the supposed ease with which they could overrun Canada,
and to the temptation which its unprotected towns must offer to the large
numbers of Irish and German mercenaries in the Northern armies. He answered, “They
probably could not do that so easily as some people suppose, and they know
perfectly well that you could deprive them of California (a far more serious
loss) with much greater ease.” This consideration, together with the certainty
of an entire blockade of their ports, the total destruction of their trade, and
an invasion on a large scale by the Southern troops, in reality prevents the
possibility of their declaring war upon England at the present time, any more
than they did at the period of their great national humiliation in the
Mason-Slidell affair.
Mr Benjamin told me that his property had lately been
confiscated in New Orleans, and that his two sisters had been turned, neck and
crop, into the streets there, with only one trunk, which they had been forced
to carry themselves. Every one was afraid to give them shelter, except an
Englishwoman, who protected them until they could be got out of the city.
Talking of the just admiration which the English newspapers
accorded to Stonewall Jackson, he expressed, however, his astonishment that
they should have praised so highly his strategic skill in outmanoeuvring Pope
at Manassas, and Hooker at Chancellorsville, totally ignoring that in both
cases the movements were planned and ordered by General Lee, for whom (Mr Benjamin
said) Jackson had the most “childlike reverence.”
Mr Benjamin complained of Mr Russell of the “Times” for
holding him up to fame as a “gambler” — a story which he understood Mr Russell
had learnt from Mr Charles Sumner at Washington. But even supposing that this
was really the case, Mr Benjamin was of opinion that such a revelation of his
private life was in extremely bad taste, after Mr Russell had partaken of his
(Mr Benjamin's) hospitality at Mongomery.
He said the Confederates were more amused than annoyed at
the term “rebel,” which was so constantly applied to them; but he only wished
mildly to remark, that in order to be a “rebel,” a person must rebel against
some one who has a right to govern him; and he thought it would be very
difficult to discover such a right as existing in the Northern over the
Southern States.
In order to prepare a treaty of peace, he said, "It
would only be necessary to write on a blank sheet of paper the words ‘self-government.’ Let the Yankees accord that,
and they might fill up the paper in any manner they chose. We don't want any
State that doesn't want us; but we only wish that each State should decide
fairly upon its own destiny. All we are struggling for is to be let alone.”
At 8 P.M. Mr Benjamin walked with me to the President's
dwelling, which is a private house at the other end of the town. I had tea
there, and uncommonly good tea too — the first I had tasted in the Confederacy.
Mrs Davis was unfortunately unwell and unable to see me.
Mr Jefferson Davis struck me as looking older than I
expected. He is only fifty-six, but his face is emaciated, and much wrinkled.
He is nearly six feet high, but is extremely thin, and stoops a little. His
features are good, especially his eye, which is very bright, and full of life
and humour. I was afterwards told he had lost, the sight of his left eye from a
recent illness. He wore a linen coat and grey trousers, and he looked what he
evidently is, a well-bred gentleman. Nothing can exceed the charm of his
manner, which is simple, easy, and most fascinating. He conversed with me for a
long time, and agreed with Benjamin that the Yankees did not really intend to
go to war with England if she recognised the South; and he said that, when the
inevitable smash came — and that separation was an accomplished fact — the
State of Maine would probably try to join Canada, as most of the intelligent
people in that state have a horror of being “under the thumb of
Massachusetts.” He
added, that Maine was inhabited by a hardy, thrifty, seafaring population, with
different ideas to the people in the other New England states.
When I spoke to him of the wretched scenes I had witnessed
in his own State (Mississippi), and of the miserable, almost desperate,
situation in which I had found so many unfortunate women, who had been left
behind by their male relations; and when I alluded in admiration to the quiet,
calm, uncomplaining manner in which they bore their sufferings and their grief,
he said, with much feeling, that he always considered silent despair the
most painful description of misery to witness, in the same way that he thought mute
insanity was the most awful form of madness.
He spoke to me of Grenfell, who, he said, seemed to be
serving the Confederacy in a disinterested and loyal manner. He had heard much
of his gallantry and good services, and he was very sorry when I told him of
Grenfell's quarrel with the civil power.
He confirmed the truth of my remark, that a Confederate
general is either considered an Admirable Crichton by the soldiers, or else
abused as everything bad; and he added, the misfortune was, that it is
absolutely necessary, in order to insure success, that a general must obtain
and preserve this popularity and influence with his men, who were, however,
generally very willing to accord their confidence to any officer deserving of
it.
With regard to the black-flag-and-no-quarter agitation, he
said people would talk a great deal, and even go into action determined to give
no quarter; “but,” he added, “I have yet to hear of Confederate soldiers
putting men to death who have thrown down their arms and held up their hands.”
He told me that Lord Russell confessed that the impartial
carrying out of the neutrality laws had pressed hard upon the South; and Mr
Davis asserted that the pressure might have been equalised, and yet retained
its impartiality, if Great Britain, instead of closing her ports, had opened
them to the prizes of both parties; but I answered that perhaps this might be
over-doing it a little on the other side.
When I took my leave about 9 o'clock, the President asked me
to call upon him again. I don't think it is possible for any one to have an
interview with him without going away most favourably impressed by his
agreeable, unassuming manners, and by the charm of his conversation. Whilst
walking home, Mr Benjamin told me that Mr Davis's military instincts still
predominate, and that his eager wish was to have joined the army instead of
being elected President.
During my travels, many people have remarked to me that
Jefferson Davis seems in a peculiar manner adapted for his office. His military
education at West Point rendered him intimately acquainted with the higher
officers of the army; and his post of Secretary of War under the old Government
brought officers of all ranks under his immediate personal knowledge and
supervision. No man could have formed a more accurate estimate of their
respective merits. This is one of the reasons which gave the Confederates such
an immense start in the way of generals; for having formed his opinion with
regard to appointing an officer, Mr Davis is always most determined to carry
out his intention in spite of every obstacle. His services in the Mexican war
gave him the prestige of a brave man and a good soldier. His services as a
statesman pointed him out as the only man who, by his unflinching determination
and administrative talent, was able to control the popular will. People speak
of any misfortune happening to him as an irreparable evil too dreadful to
contemplate.
Before we reached the Spottswood Hotel, we met ——, to whom
Mr Benjamin introduced me. They discussed the great topic of the day — viz.,
the recapture of Winchester by General Ewell, the news of which had just
arrived, and they both expressed their regret that General Milroy should have
escaped. It appears that this Yankee commander, for his alleged crimes, had
been put hors de la loi by the Confederates in the same manner as
General Butler. —— said to me, “We hope he may not be taken alive; but if he
is, we will not shrink from the responsibility of putting him to death.”
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 208-18
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