I started for Grant's headquarters. We left the Navy Yard at
two o'clock in the afternoon. The party consisted of Fox, Dyer, Wise, M. Blair,
Pyne, Ives, Forbes, Ives, Tom Welles Foster, a Chinese English merchant, and Reid
of the Gazette . The day was sad, blowy, bleak, and a little wet.
We dined, and some played cards and all went to bed. When we got up in the
morning, we were at Hampton Roads. We made no stay there, but after communicating
with the Admiral D. D. Porter, we started up the James River, he following in his flagship, the Malvern.
He overtook us about noon or a little after, and came on board with Captain Steadman of the
Navy. Porter is a good-looking, lively man, a very off-hand talker, a man not
impressing me as of a high order of talent, — a hale-fellow; a slight dash of
the rowdy.
In the afternoon we passed by the island of Jamestown. On
the low, flat, marshy island, where our first colony landed, there now remains
nothing but ruins. An old church has left a solitary tower as its
representative. A group of chimneys mark the spot of another large building. On
the other side of the river, there is high, fine, swelling land. One cannot but
wonder at the taste or judgment that selected that pestilential site in
preference to those breezy hills. They probably wished to be near their boats,
and also thought a river was a handy thing to have between them and the gentle
savages that infested the shores of the James.
Fort Powhatan we saw also — where a battalion of negroes flaxed
out Fitz Hughs command of the F. F. Vs.
We arrived at City Point at three o'clock. There are very
few troops there but quite a large fleet lying in the river.
We went ashore; walked through the frame building standing
in place of that blown up by the late fearful explosion. We climbed the steep
hill, whose difficulty is mainly removed by the neat stairs that Yankee care
has built since our occupation of the Point. At the top of the hill, we found a
young sentry who halted us, and would not let us go further, till Porter,
throwing himself on his dignity, which he does not use often, said: “Let that
General know that Admiral Porter and Mr. Fox are here to see him.” He evidently
impressed the sentry, for he said, after an instant's hesitation:— “Go ahead! I
reckon it's all right.”
A common little wall-tent being indicated, we went up to
beard the General. At our first knock he came to the door. He looked neater and
more careful in his dress than usual; his hair was combed, his coat on, and his
shirt clean, his long boots blackened till they shone. Everybody was presented.
After the conference was over we went back to the boat; the
General accompanied us. We started down the river and soon had dinner. . . . . After
dinner we all gathered around Grant who led the conversation for an hour or so.
He thinks the rebels are about at the end of their tether, and said:— “I hope
we will give them a blow this winter that will hasten their end.”
He was down on the Massachusetts idea of buying out of the
draft by filling their quota with recruits at $300, from among the contrabands
in Sherman's army. “Sherman’s head is level on that question,” he said in reply
to some strictures of Mr. Forbes; “he knows he can get all these negroes that
are worth having anyhow, and he prefers to get them that way rather than to
fill up the quota of a distant State and thus diminish the fruits of the draft.”
Sherman does not think so hopefully of negro troops as do many other Generals.
Grant himself says they are admirable soldiers in many respects; quick and
docile in a charge; excellent in fatigue duty. He says he does not think that
an army of them could have stood the week's pounding at the Wilderness and
Spottsylvania as our men did; “in fact no other troops in the world could have
done it,” he said.
Grant is strongly of the belief that the rebel army is
making its last grand rally; that they have reinforced to the extent of about
30,000 men in Virginia, Lee getting 20,000 and Early getting 10,000. He does
not think they can sensibly increase their armies further. He says that he does
not think they can recover from the blows he hopes to give them this winter.
He is deeply impressed with the vast importance and
significance of the late Presidential election. The point which impressed him
most powerfully was that which I regarded as the critical one — the pivotal
centre of our history —the quiet and orderly character of the whole affair. No
bloodshed or riot, — few frauds, and those detected and punished in an
exemplary manner. It proves our worthiness of free institutions, and our
capability of preserving them without running into anarchy or despotism.
Grant remained with us until nearly one o'clock at night — Monday
morning — and then went to his own boat, the “Martin,” to sleep till day. Babcock,
Dunn, and Badeau, of his staff, were with him.
. . . . We left Fort Monroe at 3½, and arrived at Washington
Tuesday morning, the 15th, at 7 a. m.
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 245-50; Michael Burlingame & John R.
Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete
Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 249-51.
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