The regiment crossed
the river and encamped half mile from it. They reported that the Federals
were moving east toward Chattanooga in large force.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 200
The regiment
recrossed the river and encamped in sight of Fulton, in a beautiful bottom on
the west side of town.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 200
A scout went out and
burned a lot of cotton in order to prevent the Federals from
getting it.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 200
W. C. Hancock and
three others, who went out the day before, returned. They reported that they
went to Marietta, but found no Federals there.
Major Morton, with a
part of our regiment, went out on a scout in the direction of luka.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 200
A number of our
regiment went to preaching in Fulton. News coming to church that the Federals
were not far off, and moving in the direction of Fulton, we did not remain to
hear that preacher bring his remarks to a close, but went to camps in haste to
prepare to receive the enemy. However, in place of coming to Fulton, the
Federals crossed Tombigbee some distance above Fulton, cutting off Major
Morton's scout from camps.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 200
The Federal scout,
said to be about one hundred and ten, turned, recrossed Tombigbee, and went
back through Marietta. Morton returned to camps in the evening without having
any collision with the enemy.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 201
We moved camps from
the west to the south-east of, and half a mile from, Fulton, on the Smithville
road.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 201
I can now say I have
been a soldier one year, for on the 28th of June, 1861, about eleven o'clock A.
M., our company (Allison's) was mustered into service.
No troops were
camped near Fulton except Barteau's Regiment.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 201
A large scout went
out with three days' rations. We heard news that pleased us well. Colonel
Bradfute said our division was ordered to Middle Tennessee. O how delighted
were we with the thought of going back to our native State! But I guess it was
either a false report or the order was countermanded, for we heard no more of
it.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry, pp. 201
. . . Visited the Great Eastern this afternoon. Visitors seem few. She is an enormity. But the bulk of the ship impresses me less than that of the titanic engines. I dived into their depths by the help of certain slippery cobweb iron ladders. The huge cylinders and piston rods are awful to behold, even in repose. This big ship, with all her apparatus of engines, telegraphs, corrected compasses, and what not, is the incarnation (or inferration) of a good deal of thought, study, and experiment by quite a number of generations. Such a result is not developed out of the coracle of our barelegged, woad-stained ancestors, tempore Julius Caesar, by a single step. . . .
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 37-8
. . . I went up the river to Hudson, by the Rip Van Winkle, Friday afternoon, and took the Hudson and Berkshire road at five the next morning. Breakfasted at West Stockbridge and reached Great Barrington at ten-thirty after two most preposterous stoppages of some three hours.
Found Ellie and the children well and happy; Lewis—God save his Majesty—growing visibly from week to week. Certain drives and rambles, and church Sunday morning. . . .
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 37-8
Evening at Dr. Gilman’s in Thirteenth Street for a second consultation with our new allies of the College of Physicians and Surgeons about the projected Scientific School—the last hope of our “Columbia College Scientific Post-graduate Course.” Dr. Torrey, Mr. Ruggles, William Betts, and myself represented Columbia; Gilman and Delafield, Parker, St. John, and others of the Medical College faculty propounded their scheme. It promises well and may be nursed into vigorous life. The proposed course includes zoology, geology, and physiology. A year hence, we may add applied chemistry and engineering. We were all of one mind. William Betts takes hold very cordially. A special meeting of our board is to be called for the 19th instant. We signed a requisition to Governor Fish at Newport to summon it for that day. Ogden will oppose, of course, virtute officii, as treasurer and advocatus diaboli, but I think we shall put it through.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 38
Very muggy. Worse than anything this summer. Not early downtown, detained by dyspepsia. Special meeting of Columbia College trustees was called for two p.m. to consider the overtures of our Medical College allies. No quorum, only ten present. We talked them over informally. The plan did not find favor. Ogden, our treasurer, opposed every plan that involves outlay, ex-officio. He made a very clear and satisfactory statement of receipts and expenditures, showing a balance of several thousand dollars on the wrong side of the account for our next financial year. Governor Fish and John Astor were, on the whole, disinclined to disburse $2,500 on a doubtful experiment, at least until more Botanic Garden lots are leased. Cannot say they were wrong. Walked down to Pike’s after we separated, and then came home. Miss Rosalie called to ask after Ellie and the babies. I took a cup of coffee. Horace Binney came in and spent half the evening, and Dr. Gilman, to whom I had to report the failure of his scientific lecture project.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 38
Hot day and a hot night, but breezy and tolerable enough. Quite refreshing after the three days of suffocating sultriness we have just passed through. . . .
Reading Ruskin's Modern Painters, volume five and last. Less vigorous than the other four. Effort at fine writing is manifest, and a “sensation” style; that is, a style that aims at astonishing the reader or stimulating his curiosity, and does not seek exclusively to convey the writer’s meaning with the maximum of clearness and brevity, which I suppose to be the sole office of language and test of “style.” A feeling of despondency and doubt is very manifest. He thinks the prospects of Christendom and its civilization discouraging, and the real value of discussions about art questionable.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
Just from Laura Keene’s with Charley Strong; Our American Cousin, revived. It retains its popularity. The house was full and enthusiastic. With all its extravagance and absurdity, the piece has strong points.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
Am elected to the New York Club! I shall not probably trouble the clubhouse much except during summer solitude, when it may be a little less disgusting than Delmonico’s. Dinner at any restaurant is a bore. Yesterday I dined at Dr. Peters’s; Fred Snelling and Dr. Alexander Mott also present.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
Here is a specimen of our political morals. General [John A.] Dix, Ike Fowler’s successor as postmaster, says he was called upon the other day by a delegation of prominent Democrats and requested to dismiss one of his subordinates for saying that “in his opinion Fowler was little better than a thief.” As Fowler is an absconding defaulter whose deficit is between $100,000 and $200,000, Dix declined compliance.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
Find myself on a committee headed by General Scott and William B. Astor to get up a “banquet” for Lord Renfrew, alias the Prince of Wales, when and if his Lordship’s Grace’s Highness comes to this city.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
Made my debut in the New York Club this afternoon. Dined there with Charles Strong better and more cheaply than at Del-monico’s. One enjoys, moreover, a sensation of being nobby and exclusive when one dines there, which ought to promote digestion, but it has 1 failed to do so this time, for I’m dyspeptic tonight with cephalalgic tendencies. Saw but a few men there, including Bill Pennington, who was a little tight and exuberantly cordial. My respect for the Club has greatly increased since Baron Rothschild’s friends had to withdraw his name, because the Baron, though illustrious and a millionaire, was immoderately given to lewd talk and nude photographs. I did not give the Council credit for moral courage enough to deny him admission.
After dinner George Anthon came in and we went to Niblo’s Pantomime and Horse-Opera. I came off before the performance was over, finding two hours of it sufficient. In Cinderella some two score very little children took part, some mere toddlers, and some very lovely. Poor little souls!—it’s a horrid, murderous sacrifice of childhood. But I suppose the sin rests on that convenient scapegoat, the abstraction we call "society.” I paid my fifty cents (or rather my dollar for an orchestra seat) like others, and so contributed, as much as any one person commonly contributes, to maintain this child-slaughtering system. But I really did not know or suspect, nor had I reason to suspect, that the entertainment I was "patronising” was to be provided, in part at least, at such terrible cost.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 39-40
This morning a Trust Company meeting. Aftewards a session of our Prince-Catching Committee; some fifty present. We determined to enlarge our numbers to four hundred. Old Peter Cooper was in the chair and distinguished himself by invariably taking the question on the wrong motion, in spite of the whispered remonstrances of the secretary, Maunsell Field.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 40
Prince of Wales. Papers full of his movements—ad nauseam. He is in hot water just now with the Orangemen of Upper Canada, whom he refuses to recognize as Orangemen; that is, as a proscriptive, vindictive faction. His guardian, the Duke of Newcastle, would not let him land at Kingston, where the reception prepared for him was exclusively Orange and anti-Catholic. So the insulted Protestantism of all Upper Canada is in an uproar, and denounces his Royal Highness’s tutors and governors. That feeling may appear even during the Prince’s visit to this country, for our Know-Nothing lodges are, in fact, offshoots of Orangeism. But their influence and importance are next to nothing now, at least as compared with what they were of old.
Apropos of this theological subject, a Congregational "religious” newspaper of Boston announces with great satisfaction and complacency that Theodore Parker was killed by certain religious and orthodox women of that city, who prayed systematically that the mischief of his preaching might be stopped somehow. They heard with amazement and awe that his lungs had become affected and reverently recognized the tubercular deposits on those maleficent organs as a gracious response to their prayers. Hardly credible, but true and (as the Tribune suggests) alarming. Against what or whom will this death-dealing “circle” or coterie next direct its prevailing prayers? . . . Praying people to death is ugly work for Christian women.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 40-1
Last Friday to Great Barrington. . . . Left Great Barrington at ten-thirty this morning. Very chill and savage easterly rain storm. Solaced myself with a novel of Wilkie Collins’s, The Woman in White, and Dumas's Mille et un fantomes. The former is of a class now uncommon, a novel depending for its interest mainly on an artistically constructed plot, attracting its reader by an elaborate puzzle which can be resolved only by those who read on to the last chapter.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 41
Dined at New York Club with Charles E. Strong and Henry Fearing. Thereafter we inspected the grand procession of the “Wide-Awakes,” a new notable club organization of the Republicans. It extends through these Northern states, is semi-military, and is intended (as people say) to keep order at Lincoln's inauguration (he will certainly be elected) in case Governor Wise and Mr. Yancey and other foolish Southern demagogues try to make a disturbance. This procession, which we watched in Astor Place and the Bowery, was imposing and splendid. The clubs marched in good order, each man with his torch or lamp of kerosene oil on a pole, with a flag below the light; and the line was further illuminated by the most lavish pyrotechnics. Every file had its rockets and its Roman candles, and the procession moved along under a galaxy of fire balls—white, red, and green. I have never seen so beautiful a spectacle on any political turnout.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 41
Went with George Anthon and Walter Cutting to the opera. Heard three acts of Martha in the Cutting box. Patti and Brignoli did fairly. House full, but strangers mostly. Music is pretty, but not very strong.
Last night’s Republican turnout is the town talk. Everyone speaks of the good order and the earnest aspect of the “Wide-Awakes,” and likens this to the “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” gatherings of 1840. Certainly, all the vigor and enthusiasm of this campaign are thus far confined to the Republicans. Their adversaries are disorganized, divided, and discouraged. In this state, there is a fusion (worse confounded) of the Union Party (Bell and Everett) with the Squatter Sovereignty Democrats (Douglas and Johnson), and a sort of feebly coherent composite electoral ticket. . . . They are trying to coalesce with the Breckinridge people so as to include in one ticket all the anti-Lincoln elements. But that seems as yet beyond the powers of political synthesis.
So we have three parties in this state, videlicet:
1. “Honest Abe” Lincoln’s party.
2. The Fusionists, whose ticket is twenty-five Douglas and Johnson, and ten Bell and Everett, and who are engineered by Washington Hunt and the New York Express and patronized as well-meaning people, but soon to fail, by die New York Herald.
3. Breckinridge and Lane’s party, consisting mainly of federal office-holders.
4. No. 4, "Sham” Houston’s party, has dissolved, that hero having magnanimously withdrawn.
I don’t know clearly on which side to count myself in. I’ve a leaning toward the Republicans. But I shall be sorry to see Seward and Thurlow Weed with their tail of profligate lobby men promoted from Albany to Washington. I do not like the tone of the Republican papers and party in regard to the John Brown business of last fall, and I do not think rail-splitting in early life a guarantee of fitness for the presidency.
I could vote for Bell and Mr. Orator Everett. But I can’t support them in their partnership with Douglas, the little giant, for I hold the little giant to be a mere demagogue. As to Breckinridge, the ultra Southern candidate, I renounce and abhor him and his party. He represents the most cruel, blind, unreasoning, cowardly, absolute despotism that now disgraces the earth, Garibaldi having probably squelched poor little Neapolitan Bomba before this date. Freedom of speech and of thought is extinct south of the Potomac. Life and property are as insecure there as in Paris in 1793 or in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Witness the atrocities daily perpetrated, for example, in Texas, where white men are being hanged and niggers burned by terrified Vigilance Committees, self-appointed and irresponsible, on the strength of legends about “one hundred bottles of strychnine” to be used by some nigger toxicologist to “poison the wells” of a whole county. These grisly antics of insane Southern mobs and the idiotic sanguinary babblings of Southern editors and orators tempt me to become a disunion man. Alliance with com-munities so lawless—more than semi-barbarous—seems degrading to the comparatively civilized North.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 41-2
1 That is, for the slaves now being run in from Africa.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 42-3
Diligent day. Having been put on the reception committee for the Prince of Wales’s ball, I attended a meeting thereof. There were Hamilton Fish, Luther Bradish, Perit, Maunsell Field, Mintum, Cisco, and myself. There was severe prosing on “nice sharp quillets” of etiquette. Bradish and Field were uncommonly solemn and impressive. With what manner of reception shall we receive General Scott? “Can he be separated from his military family?” There’s the rub. Shall we ten reception committeemen dress alike? Shall it be white vests and black cravats or vice versa? Are silk vests considered provincial in Paris? What manner of gloves prevailed at the Tuileries when Governor Fish was there last, and what light is thrown on the whole subject by Bradish’s little souvenirs of court society at the several capitals of Europe? Cisco and I are a sub-committee on the carriages that are to convey His Royal Highness and suite from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to the Opera House. O happy carriages, and horses too much blessed! I am a Committee of One to provide drinks for the special consolation of His Royal Highness in a small withdrawing room to be consecrated to that use. The Prince is said to be partial to sherry and seltzer water.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 42-3
Wednesday night with Ellie, Miss Leavenworth, and Cameron to Tiffany’s shop in Broadway, where I had engaged a second story window. We inspected the grand National Wide-Awake torchlight procession. It was brilliant and successful. It was more than two hours in passing, and its most pleasing feature was the rear-rank of the last division. These demonstrations of the prevailing Republican party are elaborate and splendid, but cold and mechanical. One misses the spontaneous hullabaloo and furor of the Harrison campaign. Even in ’56 there was more enthusiasm. Of course, the corresponding depression on the other side is deeper yet. It is conceded that neither of the opposing candidates stands the smallest chance of election by the people. So Douglas men. Bell men, and Breckinridge men are all equally dumpish, and any excitement about fusion is impracticable. You can get up a hurrah for the gallant Smith or the "ga-lorious” Jones, but not for a mere abstraction for the generalization of Smith and Jones.
Much occupied with divers matters growing out of the expected advent of our "sweet young Prince.” "Long may he wave,” but I wish he were at home again with his royal mamma, and I hope the community won’t utterly disgrace itself before he goes away. The amount of tuft-hunting and Prince-worshiping threatens to be fearful; and, I don’t know how it happens, but I fear my share in the demonstration is to be much larger than I expected or desired. The Reception Committee met today and passed on divers weighty matters. It is proposed that we "wait on the Prince” the evening before the ball, which seems to me a very superfluous work of supererogation. All we can say or do is to express the hope that His Royal Highness finds himself pretty well, considering, and I think His Royal Highness will be inclined to take it for granted that we hope so, whether we call or not.
Maunsell Field’s exertions and labors over the arrangements for the ball are most arduous. He works all day and nearly all night and will break down if he isn’t careful. Honorable Luther Bradish has been sold with a grave suggestion that the Reception Committee wear small-clothes and silk-stockings, and was much exercised thereby. On reflection, he thought it might be, on the whole, highly becoming and proper. It seems a place on this committee is a much coveted place of honor. I was selected after great consideration. Very much obliged.
His Royal Highness is to attend services at Trinity Church on the 14th, "The First Sunday after the Ball” and the 18th after Trinity. The vestry met specially yesterday and a committee of arrangements was appointed: the Rector, Dunscomb, Hyslop, Cisco, and myself. The committee met this afternoon, and I walked up with Cisco, stopping at Mathews’s to arrange about the binding of a special prayerbook for His Royal Highness’s pew, with an inscription alluding to the former munificence of the British Crown to Trinity Church (Berrian suggested "his royal ancestors,” forgetting that His Royal Highness is descended neither from William and Mary nor from Queen Anne), and at Gimbrede’s about printing tickets of admission. We must admit by tickets or let the church be filled up with a mob, but I should much prefer to dispense with them.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 43-4
Tomorrow we shall hear of today’s state election in Pennsylvania. Its result, if favorable to the Republicans, will be decisive, and one may in that case predict Lincoln’s election by the people with entire confidence. What will little South Carolina do then? If she doesn’t secede, she will be utterly ridiculous. She will have to make her choice between the guilt of treason and the contempt of mankind. . . .
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 44-5
Republicanism triumphant in Pennsylvania and by majorities that transcend the wildest prophesyings of the Tribune. So the question is settled and Honest Abe will be our next President. Amen. We may as well ask the question at once whether the existence of the Union depends on the submission to the South.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 45
I begin to be weary of this “sweet young Prince.” The Hope of England threatens to become a bore. In fact, he is a bore of the first order. Everybody has talked of nothing but His Royal Highness for the last week. Reaction is inevitable. It has set in, and by Monday next, the remotest allusion to His Royal Highness will act like ipecac. It has been a mild, bland, half-cloudy day. By ten o’clock, people were stationing themselves along the curbstones of Broadway and securing a good place to see the Prince. What a spectacle-loving people we are! Shops were closed and business paralyzed; Wall Street deserted. I spent the morning mostly at the Trinity vestry office, signing tickets, and so forth. We had to pass on a bushel of applications for admission next Sunday. Lots of Fifth Avenueites sent in letters, tendering a private carriage for the conveyance of His Royal Highness to church, with a postscript asking for a “few” tickets. Corporators of Trinity Church bluster about their rights and insist on reserved pews. I fear we are a city of snobs.
I lounged uptown at two o’clock, feeling my way through the crowd that filled Broadway. Omnibusses and carriages were turned into the side streets and all Broadway was one long dense mass of impatient humanity. All the windows on either side were filled. Temporary platforms crowded, at five dollars a seat. It was beyond the Japanese demonstration, though Mr. Superintendent Kennedy assured me the other day that the Prince of Wales would be less popular than Tommy.
At three, I went into the New York Club and took a seat with Charley, Seton, Pinckney, Stewart, Jem Strong, Bankhead, and others, at a convenient window. We watched and waited, and united in denunciation of F. Wood, Mayor, whom we assumed to have got the Prince in his grasp and to be detaining him with a speech at the City Hall. It was six o’clock and quite dark before the head of the procession reached us. We saw a six-horse barouche pass. We hurrahed. Ladies in the opposite windows waved their handkerchiefs. Little boys in the street hay-hayed. Elder loafers yelled, and the Prince was gone. Keen-sighted and self-confident men insisted that they had actually seen someone in scarlet uniform bowing his acknowledgments, but their assertions inspired no confidence. It was too dark to distinguish colors.
I fought my way home through the crowd. We dined at seven. Ellie and Johnny had “seen” the royal procession at Mrs. Cutting’s in Fifth Avenue, and Babbins at Union Square.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 45-6
From any more princes of the blood, libera nos Domine. May this nice-looking, modest boy find his way home, or at least to our boundaries, with all convenient speed.
I’ve been in hard work about His Royal Highness for forty-eight hours. I’m weary of His Royal Highness. . . . The Ball is over, thank Heaven, but the Trinity Church reception and services tomorrow are still to be. What they will be, time must tell. I’ve made the most minute, definite arrangements with Mr. Kennedy and Sergeant Cropsey and the sextons and their aids, but I fear the crowd will out-general me. And I cannot be at the church till the services are actually commencing, for the destinies compel me to accompany or escort the royal party, our guests; and Hyslop and Dunscomb, who will be at the church from nine (when the doors open) till the Prince arrives, are timid and imbecile. I’d give a great deal if tomorrow’s august transaction were done and well done.
Mr. Ruggles took Ellie and me, also Mrs. Hunt, to the Astor Library yesterday morning. Only two or three onlookers were present; Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. John Sherwood. We waited and waited, lounged through alcoves, looked with vain longings at the titles of nice books. The trustees of the library were biding their time below, waiting to pounce on His Royal Highness the moment the sound of his chariot wheels should be heard. At length, about eleven o’clock, a noise of much people was heard without—a hooray—an opening of the police-guarded door, feet on the stone staircase, and then a vision of a girlish-looking young boy walking swiftly through the library with Dr. Cogswell, followed by the hairy-faced Duke of Newcastle with Mr. S. B. Ruggles and by William Astor, Carson Brevoort, and others of the library trustees escorting Lord Lyons and a lot of peers and honorables beside. They inspected the premises in double-quick time, and at the head of the staircase on their way out. His Highness shook hands with Cogswell and thanked him very briefly, simply, and nicely, just as any untitled gentleman would have done (think of it!), and the royal party was gone.
I spent a few minutes in looking at some of the special treasures of the library—the First Folio Shakespeare, the editio princeps of Homer, and so on, and then went down to Wall Street. . . .
At eight to the Academy of Music. The doors were not yet opened to the common herd, but my exalted official position on the committee admitted me by the royal entrance on Fourteenth Street. The house looked brilliant, blazing with lights and decorated with great masses of flowers. My post was with Charles King, Ben Silliman, and Cyrus Field in the room appointed for the reception of invited guests generally. Certain other committees had interfered with our arrangements in an unwarrantable and unconstitutional manner. The consequence of this outrage was (as we had distinctly foreseen and predicted) that the great majority of the invited guests found their way to "the floor” for themselves without being conducted thither by any legitimate organ. Our duties were therefore light. We "received” a few South American and Portuguese diplomats and General Paez and Major Delafield and Captain Cullum and sundry army and navy people and a score of city militia, colonels in most elaborate uniforms, and Mayor Wood (I had a very intimate talk with that limb of Satan); and at ten we adjourned to the special reception room and joined Hamilton Fish and old Pelatiah Perit (who looked like a duke in his dress coat and white cravat), and Peter Cooper, who looked like one of Gulliver’s Yahoos caught and cleaned and dressed up.
In came the royal party at last, with the Reception Committeemen, who had been assigned the pleasing duty of escorting them. We were presented to His Royal Highness seriatim. I had supposed that shaking hands with a Prince of Wales was indecorous, and that a bow was the proper acknowledgment of introduction to so august a personage; but when the Prince puts out his hand, or extends and proffers his fingers like anybody else, it seems ungracious to decline the honor and say, "Sir, I am so well bred as to know my place, and I am unworthy to shake hands with a descendant of James I and George III and a probable King of England hereafter.” I think of having my right-hand glove framed and glazed, with an appropriate inscription.
Fish had assigned to each of the committee the duty of conducting one of the Prince’s suite into the ballroom, and I was charged with Lord Hinchinbrooke. I had implored Fish to bear in mind that most of our committee (myself included) were unable to distinguish dukes from mere honorables and asked him to be sure to introduce each notable to his committeeman godfather (vide programmes of autos-da-fè). But he forgot to do so, and we marched into the ballroom in a very promiscuous way— Fish escorting Monseigneur, Peter Cooper tagging after them, and the rest like a flock of sheep—and took our place at the head of the room; that is, the east end. Orchestra plays "God Save the Queen,” followed by "Hail Columbia!” Aspect of the house and the crowd brilliant and satisfactory. I fall into talk with a pleasant-looking Englisher, and introduce myself. He proves to be Englehart, the Duke of Newcastle’s private secretary, and an amiable, agreeable man.
A space in our front was kept clean by the Floor Committee, and through this the crowd began to defile. Fish presenting them as they passed and people making "murgeons and jenny-fluxions to H. R. H. George Anthon passed with Ellie. . . . I was pointing out notabilities to Englehart and the Honorable Mr. Somebody, and just indicating John Van Buren as the son of one of our ex-kings, when there was a dull, ugly, jarring report, quickly followed by another of the same sort. Everybody started and peered in vain over the heads of the densely packed crowd, and wondered what it was. But there was no panic and no rush. Presently we learned that the temporary flooring had given way in two places; over the stage a couple of beams broke, causing the reports we had heard. Ellie went down into one of the pits and was frightened, but did not lose her footing, nor her self-possession.
Of course, people crowded away from this dangerous, region in all directions. The promenade became impracticable, and the Prince and his suite and most of the committee retreated to the reception and supper-rooms. A large space was presently roped off, including the two chasms in the floor, and revealing the scandalous, criminal negligence with which the work of constructing the supports had been done. A score of carpenters and policemen and the illustrious Brown were energetically repairing the damage within fifteen minutes after the accident. But there was a general sense of failure and calamity. Everything looked bilious. Everyone said the whole floor was unsafe. There could be no dancing; the ball was a disgraceful fiasco. I explained to many persons that the Reception Committee had nothing to do with the arrangements of the house. Meantime, the carpenters were working for their lives. Brown peering down into the oblong hole looked as if engaged in his ordinary sextonical duties at an interment. . , .
By midnight damages had been repaired and dancing set in. People streamed over every part of the floor the moment the Prince appeared on it. Danger was forgotten. His Royal Highness’s partners, Mrs. Goold Hoyt, Miss Lily Mason, Mrs. John Kernochan, and others, were among our prettiest women. Mrs. Governor Morgan, with whom the Prince opened the ball officially, is elderly and stout, but presentable enough. It is said that she had been taking dancing lessons for the last fortnight, rubbing up her old steps, and that when the quadrille commenced, she timidly inquired, "Your Royal Highness, isn’t it time for us to balancer?” Miss Helen Russell was overpowered when the Prince was presented. Her voice failed her for fear, and she astonished H. R. H. with a series of contortions and muscular twitchings before she succeeded in articulating an audible word. So they say; I saw little of the dancing. The way people crowded round was snobbish and rude and indecent, and I kept on the outskirts, where loafed and lounged dejectedly. . . .
While the Prince was waiting for Mrs. Camilla Hoyt, his partner. Walker, the Presbyterian bookbinder, bustled up with a young woman under his arm, introduced himself, and proceeded, "The lady with whom Your Highness was to dance doesn’t seem to be ready; allow me to introduce my daughter.’’ The Prince said, "Yes, the crowd is very dense,’’ or some such thing, and evaded this ambitious plebeian rather gracefully for so young a person. Ellie heard this propriis auribus. She was presented to the Illustrious Stranger and discoursed with him and danced in the same "Lancers.” I had a very pleasant talk with Mrs. Colonel Scott, and was introduced to Millard Fillmore, who is well-bred and cordial, but I spent most of the evening, or night rather, dawdling about and wishing it were over.
Got home at daylight, weary and worn after nearly nine hours spent in a new pair of patent leathers. Very tired. If H. R. H. appreciate my exertions, he will send me the Victoria Cross or make me a duke in partibus, at least.
This evening at Mr. Ruggles’s awhile and saw part of the Firemen’s procession pass up the Fourth Avenue. It was very brilliant, with torches, colored lights, and so forth. On Madison Square, where they no doubt displayed all their resources of Roman candles and portable fireworks, it must have been a really attractive spectacle.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 46-9
Laus Deo, this day is over, and the services at Trinity Church were marked by no gross indecency.
It was a cold, gray, bleak morning. The afternoon and tonight wet and stormy. Called for Cisco at nine-thirty and went with him to the Fifth Avenue Hotel as committee to show our august friends the way to church. Shown to their parlor. Lord Lyons and others of the suite came in, and then the Prince of Wales, looking boyish, feminine, and modest, but remarkably courteous and self-possessed. He stopped the Earl of St. Germans, who was introducing me, and said, "O, I met Mr. Strong at the ball Friday night.” He is, no doubt, under orders to be studiously polite and make a good impression, and has had the printed list of the Reception Committee before him, on which my distinguished name appears. We talked a little for ten minutes or so about the weather, and the voyage to West Point tomorrow, and the scenery of the Hudson, and our fall foliage. The Duke of Newcastle came in. He looks like a duke of the tenth century, a vigorous hirsute Dux rather than a starred and gartered duke of these days. The Prince said, “It’s ten o’clock, and it won’t do to be late at church.” So we marched downstairs and entered our barouches, the police keeping back the crowd that filled Twenty-third Street. Cisco wanted me to take a seat in the Prince’s carriage, as senior in the vestry, but as he evidently coveted that distinction, I declined it, and drove down in Carriage No. 2, with St. Germans, General Bruce, and Major Teesdale. My anticipations were dreary, but I found myself at once on terms of pleasant acquaintance, I could not tell how, with these well-bred, easy-mannered aristocrats. Major Teesdale looks like one of Leech’s “heavy swells” in Punch, and is taciturn. The other two were very agreeable persons. They asked many questions about matters and things—the American church, the endowment of Trinity Church, education, public and private, and answered queries of mine about the universities and the relations of the colleges to them. They were, of course, polite enough to commend everything they had seen here, or at least to make no criticism on their reception; and they spoke so warmly and earnestly that I think they felt what they said. Unless they are uncommonly good actors, I am sure they are gratified by our ovation. Noticed particularly General Bruce’s manner and expression when I said something about the unanimity and the depth of the popular feeling. Nothing could have been more cordial and genuine and kind.
We reached Trinity Church and found a great crowd at the gates, kept back by Superintendent Kennedy’s myrmidons. Dunscomb and Hyslop received the visitors. I think Dunscomb had prepared a speech. He bowed and hummed and choked, more solito, and Lord Lyons observed sotto voce, “I suppose we may as well move on.” So we went up the middle aisle and were spared the infliction. The church (all but the middle aisle) was packed. I saw no indecorum. H.R.H. and suite took the front pews on the south side of the middle aisle; the vestry sat on the north side. I had secured a good place for Ellie and for Mr. Ruggles and Mrs. Governor Hunt and others on the north side of the south aisle just behind the Royal pew. . . .
As soon as [the services] were over, H.R.H. got up, looked warily down the aisle to see whether the coast was clear, and then pegged out of church as fast as his legs would carry him, instead of staying, as I thought he would, a few minutes after service. He showed much practical sense thereby. We followed and reentered the carriages as before. The crowd was very dense and occupied the whole street as far as the park. With a score of mounted police to help, it was not easy to get through. It was a vociferous crowd and cheered vehemently. . . . There were lines of people waiting all along Broadway to Fourteenth Street, two or three deep, and all cheering, the better class of men raising their hats as the Prince passed by.
We left the party at Archibald’s (the Consul’s in Fourteenth Street) where they were to lunch or dine, and I took leave of my three and of Dr. Acland and Mr. Englehart very pleasantly, and walked home with Cisco.
So that matter is over. My judgment of the future King of England, from the little I’ve seen of him, is that he is not remarkably bright or forward for his years, and that he has been carefully trained to remember the duty of courtesy to all classes. Everyone has some little instance to tell of his good-breeding, under difficulties at the ball, when he must have been sorely tried by the well-meant gaucheries of a few and the unpardonable flunkeyism of others. Today, when he got out of his carriage and bade Cisco goodbye, he added a request to bid Mr. Strong goodbye and thank him for his attention in accompanying me, or some such thing. Many young Americans of eighteen would have forgotten this little civil formality. . . .
His visit has occasioned a week of excitement beyond that of any event in my time, and pervading all classes. Its permanent effect, if any, will be good here and in England. The unanimity of the feeling is wonderful, when one thinks of twenty years ago. The protest of certain militia companies of Irishmen against parading to do honor to a Saxon and an oppressor of Ireland is the single exception. I’ve not heard a single growl or sneer about the fuss we have been making over this young man, who is no better than anybody else, after all, or anything tending that way even remotely.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 49-51
Play-going with Ellie tonight at the Winter Garden; Guy Mannering. A dramatic distortion of the novel. Miss Charlotte Cushman was the Meg Merrilies, supported by the worst sticks I ever saw on any stage. She is called very great in this role, and the discriminating Dr. Carroll thinks it equal to any of Rachel's. She certainly makes up as the grisliest of hags. Her performance is intense and carefully studied. A few points in which Scott’s words were preserved were effective and beautiful. Her attitudes are remarkably grotesque and striking. But it was almost all overdone and untrue. She was a Hecate, or Waldfrau, perhaps, but not Walter Scott’s Meg, nor any other possible woman. . . .
Lincoln’s election seems to be conceded. Fusionism has lost all heart. What will happen when this result is announced? There is much stir and swagger and note of preparation among the fire-eaters. Can they overcome the conservative feeling and the common sense that doubtless exist at the South, even in South Carolina itself, and carry on an overt act of secession and treason? There is ground for anxiety. Republicans laugh at the vaporings of our Southern friends. I devoutly hope the result will justify their unconcern. It is easy to show that secession would be an act of madness and folly, but we know there are fools and madmen south of the Potomac, and they may do sore and irremediable mischief to us, their wise brethren at the North. . . .
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 51-2
Our little Prince sailed . . . Saturday, and got safely out of our hands. Inferences from the phenomena that accompanied his visit are:
(1) No community worships hereditary rank and station like a democracy.
(2) The biggest and finest specimens of flunkeyism occur in the most recently-elevated strata of society, as for example. Cooper: the “self-made millionaire glue-boiler,’’ Leary: the fashionable hatter’s son, and others.
(3) Under all this folly and tuft-hunting there is a deep and almost universal feeling of respect and regard for Great Britain and for Her Britannic Majesty. The old anti-British patriotism of twenty years ago is nearly extinct. . . .
I’ve nearly made up my mind to deposit a lukewarm Republican vote next month. It is a choice of evils, but we may as well settle the question whether a President can or cannot be chosen without the advice and approval of the slaveholding interests; whether 300,000 owners of niggers have or have not a veto on the popular choice. The question must be settled sooner or later, and we may as well dispose of it now. It is impossible for me to vote the Fusion ticket and thereby strengthen the show of the mischief-making demagogue Douglas, or of Breckinridge, the ultra-nigger-driver and demisecessionist. But I may vote for the ten Bell and Everett electors on that ticket, scratching off the rest.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52
Fine day. Tonight’s anti-Lincoln or Fusion Torchlight procession was “a big thing.’’ It was more numerous than any political demonstration I have ever witnessed. It began to pass No. 24 Union Square (where I joined Ellie) a little before ten. We got tired of lanterns, Roman candles, red shirts, and the like by a little after eleven, and came home. The rear-guard had not then reached Union Square. We could see the distant line of lights still flowing down Fourteenth Street. It's now a quarter past twelve, and band after band is still audible as the procession goes down Fourth Avenue. Its route was up Broadway, through Fourteenth Street to Fifth Avenue, through Fifth Avenue to Twenty-sixth Street, and then down Fourth Avenue and the Bowery. The Fusionists have certainly turned out in great force. (There goes “Dixie’s Land”; another band is passing the corner.) There were delegations from Brooklyn, Newark, Paterson, and other cities, but this city furnished the great majority, and this certainly looks as if the Fusionists’ boast of 40,000 majority in the city and county of New York might be justified. Here come more drums.
Talked with Mr. Ruggles about this crisis. He is constitutionally timid when people are angry and excited and Southern bluster has somewhat impressed him. Perhaps his anxiety is well grounded, for blusterers may be mischievous. Both North and South seem to him deeply diseased with sectional animosity, and he thinks the Cotton States may probably commit some overt act of treason and secession when Lincoln’s election is announced. Stocks have fallen heavily today.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52
The Board of Brokers is in decided panic. Stocks are going down. Cause, the anticipation of trouble growing out of Lincoln’s election. The government loan, just taken at a premium, is a strong indication the other way, especially as Southern bankers bid for it; but a few timid capitalists here are unquestionably converting their securities, and Kearny tells me the deposits in the Trust Company are unusually heavy. There is heavy money-pressure at the South. But that is one of the ordinary fluctuations of trade, due to causes outside of politics, and has not yet reacted on us here.
Walter Cutting was very atrabilious—his prophesyings were full of woe. Joseph Lawrence of the United States Trust Company says that they have been refusing Southern stocks as collaterals for several days. He and other leading financiers say that, though secession would produce a general fall in values here of twenty-five per cent, at least, it is better for us to test the question at once and submit to that fall, if so it must be, than continue exposed to these panics and fluctuations, which must occur at short intervals while the question remains open.
People begin to look grave and talk anxiously about our prospects. Will this have any serious effect on the vote of New York and Pennsylvania? Panic and pressure in New York and Philadelphia will not have made themselves felt throughout the country in time to influence the elections. Had they occurred earlier, they might have determined the result, for comparatively few Republicans love niggers enough to sacrifice investments for their sweet sake.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 52-4
We have reason to be unsettled and alarmed. A large and influential Southern party is working hard for disunion, and in South Carolina, at least, is strong enough to overawe and silence the sensible and conservative minority. Lincoln’s election will certainly be followed by a revolutionary movement there. Then we shall see. If no other state join her in secession and if she have time to cool down and recover her senses before any actual collision, and if no accident complicate the situation, this dangerous point may be weathered. But if things take another turn, the black year of 1860 will long be remembered. At best, we must expect an ugly shock and an anxious time before this year is ended.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 54
Today’s special rumor is of a scheme of disunion, fathered by the Hon. Howell Cobb of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, who is now favoring us “mudsills” of New York with his presence and talking sedition. His plan is said to be the secession of all the Southern states and of the commercial portions of the Middle and New England states. New York, I suppose, is to be divided by a line crossing the Hudson at West Point. This is lunacy incredible of a man who goes at large. But, I fear there is no doubt that this Honorable Cobb, one of our highest officers of state, is in shameful alliance with the most advanced destructives and secessionists of the South, and stands ready to become a traitor upon the first eligible opportunity for treason. There is reason to fear that our disgraceful old chief magistrate, James Buchanan himself, is in the hands of men like Cobb and ready to become their instrument.
Even anti-Republicans seem to find this a little too much to bear. The attempt to bully us is barefaced. If these threats are in earnest, they will drive all the North into earnest, resolute resistance, with very little distinction of party. If they are merely part of the electioneering programme of the administration and the South, it is a rash and indiscreet programme. The crack of the plantation whip is too audible.
Caleb Cushing foreshadowed something like this in a speech last summer, when he said in effect that Abolitionists need not suppose the civil war which their fanaticism was bringing upon the country would be remote and confined to the South. “No, we will begin it here, in the streets of Boston.” But the dream of setting up insurrection against our "State Sovereignties” of New York and Massachusetts in enthusiastic loyalty to the "peculiar institution” and the nigger-owning aristocracy is too extravagant to be entertained by any sane man not under the influence of whiskey, opium, or hasheesh.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 54-5
The talk today is that Fusionism may carry this state after all. Then the election goes into the House and would be long contested before a majority could unite on any one of the three. Excitement would be prolonged and sectional fury intensified. I don’t feel like voting for Lincoln, but I should be sorry to see New York frightened into voting for anybody else, even if the inevitable crisis were thereby postponed to 1864. It may as well be met now; and were Lincoln to be beat, I believe the Southern states would go into convention, nevertheless, so scared and angry are they.
Old Mrs. Hayward of South Carolina is at the New York Hotel in deep affliction and alarm because it is well known that “the abolitionists” have consigned large invoices of strychnine and arsenic to the slaves of her neighborhood. So Mrs. S. B. Ruggles reports, who saw her yesterday.
Mrs. Sally Hampton spoke the other evening at Mrs. Peters’s of Dr. Lieber’s having lately presided at a German Republican meeting at Cooper Institute. “So unfortunate for his son” (in business at Columbia or Charleston), “he was doing so well, and, of course, this ruins all his prospects at the South”!!! This is tyranny beyond King Bomba. If severance come, we must console ourselves for its calamity by remembering that we are freed from a most disreputable partner.
The Hon. Cobb, at Duncan, Sherman & Co.’s office, has been openly damning the blindness and stupidity of the capitalists who have taken the United States ten million loan at a premium, and declaring it is not worth fifty cents on the dollar. (So Charley Strong reported on respectable authority.) Pretty talk for a Secretary of the Treasury! I guess he put this loan into the market just at this time in the expectation it would not be taken, and hoping to make capital out of its failure for his own clique of traitors.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 55
No new features in today’s political talk. Perhaps the Fusionists are rather more confident, though the Herald gave the latter up for lost a week ago. I hear it said today that New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will vote anti-Republican, which I doubt most omnipotently. There is at least an even chance that we are now on the eve of a great public disaster, a calamity to the whole civilized world. Submission by the North would not avert it long if the Southerners are as unanimously in folly as they seem to be, and I’m not sure the North can submit to be rough-ridden any longer without disgrace.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 55-6
Am just from Der Freischiitz with Ellie and Mrs. Georgey Peters. The lovely phrases of the finale are not quite out of my ears yet. Formes was Caspar; Stigelli, Max; and Fabbri the heroine. The best performance of the opera I have seen. The Fabbri misconceived her part, took everything too slow and spoiled the glorious allegro of the “Wie nachte mir der schlummer” scene by breaking it up into little bits of light and shadow instead of giving us the sustained rush of joyous melody which Weber meant it to be, and which she could have made it if she tried. But in that scene, perhaps, and in Caspar’s drinking song certainly, Weber overrated the capacities of voice, energy, and expression. No mortal ever existed who could render them as they should be rendered and do full justice to their intensity. . . .
No change in the aspect of political matters. Samuel J. Tilden has come out with a letter (anti-Republican) that shows far more depth and ability; than I’ve given him credit for. He has passed for a commonplace, clever, political wire-puller, but he deals with this great question in a statesman-like way. Southern papers and stump orators continue in a blatant way. Fortunately a deal of mischievous gas is liberated and made audible which might be energetic for evil were it pent up. . . .
Republicans refuse to believe secession possible (in which I think they are wrong), and maintain that were it accomplished, it would do us no lasting mischief. I am sure it would do fatal mischief to one section or another and great mischief to both. Amputation weakens the body, and the amputated limb decomposes and perishes. Is our vital center North or South? Which is Body and which is Member? We may have to settle that question by experiment. We are not a polypoid organism that can be converted into two organisms by mere bisection. China is a specimen of that type, but we claim higher rank. Bisection is disaster and degradation, but if the only alternative is everlasting submission to the South, it must come soon, and why should it not come now? What is gained by postponing it four years longer? I feel Republican tonight.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 56
Sent Ellie to the opera in charge of her brother Jem and sallied out for a debilitated stroll. Found a great Wide-Awake demonstration in progress; inspected them in Fourteenth Street. Seward was making a speech in “Palace Gardens,’’ and the crowd there was dense, the Gardens packed full and impenetrable. The show in the street was brilliant—rockets, Roman candles with many colored fire balls, Bengal lights, the Wide-Awakes with their lanterns and torches, and “I wish I was in Dixie.” I adjourned to Broadway in front of the New York Hotel to see the procession pass. The Southerners of the hotel groaned and hissed, and the Republican mob in and about the Lincoln and Hamlin headquarters across the street cheered and roared, and the din was deafening. But there was no breach of peace. . . .
Think I will vote the Republican ticket next Tuesday. One vote is insignificant, but I want to be able to remember that I voted right at this grave crisis. The North must assert its rights, now, and take the consequences.
Think of James J. Roosevelt, United States District Attorney, bringing up certain persons under indictment for piracy as slave-traders to be arraigned the other day, and talking to the Court about the plea the defendants should put in, and saying that “there had been a great change in public sentiment about the slave trade,” and that “of course the President would pardon the defendants if they were capitally convicted.”!!! Is Judge Roosevelt more deficient in common sense or in moral sense? If we accede to Southern exactions, we must re-open the slave trade with all its horrors, establish a Slave Code for the territories, and acquiesce in a decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Lemmon case that will entitle every Southerner to bring his slaves into New York and Massachusetts and keep them there. We must confess that our federal government exists chiefly for the sake of nigger-owners. I can’t do that. Rather let South Carolina and Georgia secede. We will coerce and punish the traitorous seceders if we can; but if we can’t, we are well rid of them.
If I looked remarkably like Kossuth or Mazzini, I could nevertheless travel through Austria with no danger beyond that of a few days' detention, at the end of which, my identity being proven, I should be dismissed with apologies and an indemnity. But I happen to be mistaken for John Jay at least once a week, and it would therefore be utter madness for me to visit that section of our free and happy republic that lies south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Before I had traveled half a day’s journey through that sunny and chivalric region, some gent who had visited New York would spot me as a damned abolitionist emissary. I should be haled forth from my railroad car and hanged on the nearest palmetto tree.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 56-7
Mr. Ruggles had a long private talk yesterday with General Scott, some portion whereof he imparted to me, including matters I don’t care to write here. The General is loyal and union-loving, intensely and without reservation. He wrote to the War Department October 27 or 28, calling attention to the inadequate garrison of Fort Moultrie, only about one hundred men instead of the eight hundred or one thousand required to work its guns, and to the unprotected state of other Southern forts and arsenals, but he has received no answer, Ingraham, appointed some three months since to command of the Home Squadron, is a South Carolina man.
If old Buchanan be really playing into the hands of secessionists, and if disunion come next week, as I think it will, and if his non-feasance enable the fire-eaters to take possession of Fort Moultrie or any other federal fortalice, there will arise from all the North (and, I trust, from no small portion of the South), a reactionary indignant cry for vengeance against traitors in high places that will make old Buck’s neck feel insecure for a season.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 57-8
With William Schermerhorn to Columbia College Board meeting at two o’clock. Unusual amount of business, mostly unimportant. Treasurer’s report. Report from a Committee on Tutorships; we decided to appoint three. . . .
1 James Brooks’s Express, founded in 1836 and now supporting Douglas, was a peace-at-any-price organ, reflecting the views of many merchants; in 1861 its defense of the South almost provoked mob violence.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 58
A memorable day. We do not know yet for what. Perhaps for the disintegration of the country, perhaps for another proof that the North is timid and mercenary, perhaps for demonstration that Southern bluster is worthless. We cannot tell yet what historical lesson the event of November 6, 1860, will teach, but the lesson cannot fail to be weighty.
Clear and cool. Vote very large, probably far beyond that of 1856. Tried to vote this morning and found people in a queue extending a whole block from the polls. Abandoned the effort and went downtown. Life and Trust Company meeting. The magnates of that board showed no sign of fluster and seemed to expect no financial crisis. Uptown again at two, and got in my vote after only an hour's detention. I voted for Lincoln.
After dinner to the Trinity School Board at 762 Broadway. Thence downtown, looking for election returns. Great crowd about the newspapers of Fulton and Nassau Streets and Park Row. It was cold, and I was alone and tired and came home sooner than I intended. City returns are all one way, but they will hardly foot up a Fusion majority of much above 25,000. Brooklyn said to be Fusion by 14,000. An anti-Lincoln majority of 40,000 in New York and Kings, well backed by the river counties, may possibly outweigh the Republican majorities in the western counties, but that is unlikely. The Republicans have gained in the city since 1856, and have no doubt gained still more in the interior.
The only signs of excitement and enthusiasm that I saw were in the crowd about the Bell and Everett headquarters (in Broadway below Pine Street).
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 58-9
Lincoln elected. Hooray. Everybody seems glad of it. Even Democrats like Isaac Bell say there will be no disturbance, and that this will quiet slavery agitation at the North. DePeyster Ogden’s nerves are a little unstrung, but they are never very steady.
Republicans have carried every state on which they counted, except New Jersey, and it may be they have carried that, too. They have a very fair show in Delaware!!! Wilmington gives them a majority. Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Tennessee are believed to have gone for Bell, a sore discouragement to the extremists.
Telegrams from the South indicate no outbreak there. There is a silly, report from Washington that Governor Wise contemplates "a raid” on that city at the head of a ragged regiment of rakehelly, debauched Virginians. He has few equals in folly, but this story is incredible. I wish It was true and that he would proceed to do it. Nothing could make Southern ultraism more ridiculous. I would not have him hanged for his treasonable attempt, but publicly spanked on the steps of the Capitol.
The next ten days will be a critical time. If no Southern state commit itself to treason within a fortnight or so, the urgent danger will be past. Now that election is over, excitement will cool down rapidly, and even South Carolina will not secede unless under excitement that blinds her to the plain fact that secession is political suicide.
If they were not such a race of braggarts and ruffians, I should be sorry for our fire-eating brethren, weighed down, suffocated, and paralyzed by a nigger incubus 4,000,000 strong, of which no mortal can tell them how they are to get rid, and without a friend in the world except the cotton buyers who make money out of them, and the King of Dahomey. The sense of the civilized world is against them. They know that even the manufacturers and traders who profit by them condemn the institution on which their social system rests. And now their own country decides against their real or imaginary interests, and gives a judgment which they consider (and perhaps correctly on the whole) to be a censure, and which many of them suppose commits the government to a policy hostile to them and endangering their peace and safety.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 60
MCCLELLAN is now all-powerful, and refuses to divide the army into corps. Thus much for his brains and for his consistency.
The message — a disquisition upon labor and capital; hesitancy about slavery. The President wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But public opinion is safe, and expects from the official leader a decided step onwards. The message gives no solution, suggests none, accounts not for the lost time — foreshadows not a vigorous, energetic effort to crush the rebellion; foreshadows not a vigorous, offensive war. The message is an honest paper, but says not much.
The question of emancipation is not clear even in the heads of the leading emancipationists; not one thinks to give freeholds to the emancipated. It is the only way to make them useful to themselves and to the community. Freedom without land is humbug, and the fools speak of exportation of the four millions of slaves, depriving thus the country of laborers, which a century of emigration cannot fill again. All these fools ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum.
To export the emancipated would be equivalent to devastation of the South, to its transformation into a wilderness. Small freeholds for the emancipated can be cut out of the plantations of rebels, or out of the public lands of each State — lands forfeited by the rebellion.
State papers published. The instructions to the various diplomatic agents betray a beginner in the diplomatic career. By writing special instructions for each minister, Mr. Seward unnecessarily increased his task. The cause, reasons, etc., of the rebellion are one and the same for France or Russia, and a single explanatory circular for all the ministers would have done as well and spared a great deal of labor. Cavour wrote one circular to all cabinets, and so do all European statesmen. So, as they are, the State papers are a curious agglomeration of good patriotism and confusion. So the Minister to England is to avoid slavery; the Minister to France has the contrary. All this is not smartness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity, and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lincoln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion. The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to Italy, above all to Austria, has a smack of a schoolmaster displaying his information before a gaping boy. It is offensive to the Minister going to Vienna. It may be suspected that some of these instructions were written to make capital at home, to astonish Mr. Lincoln with the knowledge of Europe and the familiarity with European affairs. All this display will prove to Europeans rather an ignorance of Europe. The correspondence on the Paris convention is splendid, although the initiative taken by Seward on this question was a mistake. But he argued well the case against the English and French reservations.
Never any government whatever treated so tenderly its worst and most dangerous enemies as does this government the Washington secessionists, spies for the enemy, and spreading false news here to frighten McClellan.
The old regular, but partly worn-out Republican leaders throttle and neutralize the new, fresh, vigorous accessions. So Curtis Noyes, one of the most eminent and devoted men, could not come into the Senate because Greeley wished to be elected.
No living man has rendered greater services to the people during the last twenty years than Greeley; but he ought to remain in his speciality. Greeley is no more fit for a Senator than to take the command of a regiment. Besides, the events already run over his head; Greeley is slowly breaking down. McClellan is beset with all kinds of inventors, contractors, etc. He mostly endorses their suggestions, and on this authority the most extravagant orders are given by the War Department. All this ought to be investigated. Somebody back of McClellan may be found as being the real patron of these leeches.
If the genius or capacity of a commander consists not only in closely observing the movements of the enemy, but likewise in penetrating the enemy's plans and in modifying his own in proportion as they are deranged by an unexpected movement or a rapid march, then the generalship is altogether on the other side, and on ours not a sign, not a breath of it.
A civil war is mostly the purifying fire in a nation's existence. It is to be hoped that this great convulsion will purify the free States by sounding the death-knell of these small intriguing politicians. The American people at large will acquire earnestness, knowledge of men, and clear insight into its own affairs. Tricky politicians will be discarded, and true men backed by majorities.
The South has for its leaders the chiefs who for years organized the secession, who waged everything on its success, as life, honor, fortune, and who incite and carry with them the ignorant masses.
The reverse is in the North. Mr. Lincoln was not elected for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he make his Cabinet in view of a terrible national struggle for death or life. Neither Lincoln nor his Cabinet are the inciters or the inspiring leaders of the people, but only expressions — not ad hoc — of the national will. This is one reason why the administration is slower than the people, and why the rebel administration is quicker than ours.
The second reason, and generated by the first, is, that every rebel devotes his whole soul and energy to the success of the rebellion, forcibly forgetting his individuality. Our thus called leaders think first of their little selves, whose aggrandizement the public events are to secure, and the public cause is to square itself with their individual schemes.
Such is the policy of almost all those at the helm here. Not one among them is to be found deserving the name of a statesman, endowed with a great devotion, and with a great power, for the service of a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that the fatherland honorably chains him to its service, the genuine statesman exists no more for himself, but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought to consider himself a victim to the public good, even were the public unjust towards him. He is to treat as enemies all the dirty, tricky, and mean passions and men. His enemies will hate, but the country, his enemies included, will esteem him. Such a man will be the genuine man of the American people, but he exists not in the official spheres.
It is for the first time in history that a young, insignificant man, without a past, without any reason, is put in such a lofty position as has been McClellan; he is to be literally kicked into greatness, and into showing eventually courage. All this is a psychological problem!
Kent's Commentary upon the qualifications of a President is the best criticism upon Lincoln.
These mosquitoes of public opinion, the sensation-seekers, the sentimental preachers, the lecturers, the amateurs of the thus called representative men, these oratorical falsifiers of history, but considered here as luminaries, are already at their pernicious, nay, accursed work.
They poison the judgment of the people. These hero-seekers for their sermons, lectures, and sensation productions, have already found all the criteria of a hero in McClellan, even in his chin, in the back of his horse, etc., etc., and now herald it all over the country. Curses be upon them.
No nation has ever raised idols with such facility as do the Americans. Nay, I do not suppose that there ever existed in history a nation with such a thirst for idols as this people. I may be a false prophet; but this new idol, McClellan, will cost them their life-blood.
The Blairs are now staunch supporters of McClellan. It is unpardonable. They ought to know, and they do know better. But Mr. Blair wishes to be Secretary of War in Cameron's place, and wishes to get it through McClellan.
And poor Lincoln! I pity him; but his advisers may make out of him something worse even than was Judas, in the curses of ages.
Polybius asserts that when the Greeks wrote about Rome they erred and lied, and when the Romans wrote of themselves they lied or boasted. The same the English do in relation to themselves, and to Americans. Above all, in this Trent affair, or excitement, all European writers for the press, professors, doctors, etc., pervert facts, reason, and international laws, forget the past, and lie or flatter, with a slight exception, as is Gasparin.
The Trent affair finished. We are a little humbled, but it was expedient to terminate it so. With another military leader than McClellan, we could march at the same time to Richmond, and invest Canada before any considerable English force could arrive there. But with such a hero at our head, better that it ends so. Europe will applaud us, and the relation with England will become clarified. Perhaps England would not have been so stiff in this Trent affair but for the fixed idea in Russell's, Newcastle's, Palmerston's, etc., heads that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel with England.
The first weeks of Seward's premiership pointed that way. Mr. Seward has the honors of the Trent affair. It is well as it is; the argument is smart, but a little too long, and not in a genuine diplomatic style. But Lincoln ought to have a little credit for it, as from the start he was for giving the traitors up.
The worst feature of the whole Trent affair is, that it brought back home from France this old mischief, General Scott. He will again resume his position as the first military authority in the country, confuse the judgment of Lincoln, of the press, and of the people, and again push the country into mire.
The Congress appointed a War Investigating Committee, Senator Wade at the head. There is hope that the committee will quickly find out what a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the nation of him. But Lincoln, Seward, and the Blairs, will not give up their idol.
Louis Napoleon said his word about the Trent affair. All things considered, the conduct of the Emperor cannot be complained of. The Thouvenel paper is serious, severe, but intrinsically not unfriendly. Quite the contrary. Up to this time I am right in my reliance on Louis Napoleon, on his sound, cool, but broad comprehension.
Mr. Mercier behaves well, and he is to be relied on, provided we show mettle and fight the traitors. Now, as the European imbroglio is clarified, at them, at them! But nothing to hope or expect from McClellan. I daily preach, but in the wilderness. Prince de Joinville made a very ridiculous fuss about the Trent affair.
Americans believe that a statesman must be an orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English precedents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent; it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman; but here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wranglings, and a Jackson is the true type of an American statesman. Washington was not an orator, nor was Alexander Hamilton.
SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 129-36
FORT MOULTRIE, S. C., May 23, 1843.
My Dear Brother:
*
* * * * * * * * *
Leaving the seasons
to look after themselves, I'll try and give you an idea of how our days pass in
a garrison like this. Here at Fort Moultrie we have about 250 soldiers, divided
into four companies. These are quartered some inside the wall, some outside.
All the unmarried officers—
eight of us—live
inside; all the married, five, outside. This being the headquarters of the
regiment, we have the Colonel and his band of about fifteen instruments. Every morning
at daylight all get up at reveille, attend a drill, either as infantry or
artillery, at sunrise; breakfast at seven, have a dress parade at eight, and
half an hour after the new guard takes the place of the old one,—а new officer
relieving the old one. After that each one kills time to suit himself till
reveille of next morning commences the new routine. Thus it is every fair day
except Sunday, when we have an extra quantity of music, parade, and inspection
in honor of the day and to keep our men in superfine order at church. Thus, you
see that every day at nine o'clock and after we have nothing to do but amuse
ourselves. Some read, some write, some loaf, and some go to the city. For the
latter class a barge is in attendance, going and coming. Although six miles
from a city, we have all its advantages, whilst separated from its annoying
noises, taxes, and expenses. . . . During the past winter I have been at North
Carolina twice, at Savannah once, and at Charleston some hundred times. The
fact is, in the summer time we are so enveloped with citizens that we have to
make acquaintances whether or no. When they move to Charleston and the country,
they send invitations which must be accepted, or give offence. The consequence
was that two or more of us had to go constantly as representatives of the
whole,—always in rotation, unless duty or pleasure coincided, when a greater
number would cross the water. These parties are very various, from the highly
aristocratic and fashionable, with sword and epaulettes, or horse-racing,
picnicing, boating, fishing, swimming, and God knows what not. A life of this
kind does well enough for a while, but soon surfeits with its flippancy,—mingling
with people in whom you feel no permanent interest, smirks and smiles when you
feel savage, tight boots when your fancy would prefer slippers. I want relief,
and unless they can invent a new Florida war I'll come back and spend a few
months with you in Ohio. But as my visits have been, heretofore, in the spring
and summer, I'll wait for the fall this time, when I hope once more to see you
all at home and Mansfield both. . . .
SOURCE: Rachel
Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 22-4
FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., Jan. 19, 1844.
My Dear Brother:
It was about the middle of November, and on one of those mornings so peculiar
to your atmosphere, that I deposited my bones in the Chilicothe stage. I went
to Portsmouth, thence down the Ohio to Cincinnati, where I remained with Lamp a
couple of days, and then took my departure for St. Louis in the steamboat Manhattan,
loaded with every species of animal from men to Durham cattle. There were more
than 200 souls on board a second-class boat, from which circumstance you can
readily infer that the bodily comforts were not well cared for. Yet I was much
pleased. Louisville, at which we stopped several hours, is a beautiful place;
in fact, the whole river realized my wildest conceptions. In six days we
reached St. Louis, which, you know, is trying to rival our queen city; but,
although it has great merits and beauty beside a population of 30,000 people,
it has not that fixed and solid appearance that Cincinnati now wears as an
established city of business and manufacture. I spent ten days in and near St.
Louis, after which I embarked in a new and very fine boat, called the John Aull,
for New Orleans. . . . The trip cannot fail to interest one who has never been
in the South, but, as I was familiar there, it could not produce its full
effect. Imagine yourself, as I was, at the mouth of the Ohio in a heavy
snowstorm, the shores clothed in ghost-like garb; the following day the snow is
no longer seen, and before another day passes by the shores are clothed here and
there in green corn and grass. Soon the oak appears with its green leaves, then
the magnolia, orange, etc., and soon you find yourself down between the rich
sugar-fields of Louisiana, the stalks ungathered and waving beautifully and
luxuriantly in the breeze. . . . At Mobile I took a steamboat and ascended the
Alabama River to a town called Montgomery. There, on a vehicle called a car on
what was denominated a railroad to a town called Franklin, from which place I
staged it over roads such as you have about Mansfield, except the clay is
slipperier, the hills shorter and steeper, and the drivers such as can be had
nowhere else. Thus I went 120 miles to a town in Georgia called Griffin. Here I
waited twenty-four hours for the cars, which had as usual run off the track.
However, they came at last, and we started towards Macon, a distance of only
sixty miles, which it took us twelve hours to accomplish. However, at Macon I
found a well-finished railroad which led to Savannah, a distance of 190 miles,
over which we passed in exactly the same time that it took us the day before to
accomplish the sixty. From Savannah to Charleston I had the regular steamboat.
Thus it has taken me the whole sheet to give you an outline of my journey, the
details of which volumes would scarcely record. At last, on the 27th of
December, after an absence of five months and two days, I stood once more in my
old quarters at Ft. Moultrie. Since my return the weather has been so bright
and delightful that I have almost renounced all allegiance to Ohio, although it
contains all whom I love and regard as friends. I have been so busy of late
that I have not even been to Charleston to see my old acquaintances, and could
only steal time the other day to accept an invitation of some planters on an adjacent
island to participate in a fox hunt and the consequent dinner and frolic.
[W. T. Sherman]
SOURCE: Rachel
Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 24-6
FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., Oct. 24, 1844.
My Dear Brother: . . . What in the devil are you doing? Stump
speaking! I really thought you were too decent for that, or at least had
sufficient pride not to humble and cringe to beg party or popular favor.
However, the coming election will sufficiently prove the intelligence and
patriotic spirit of the American people, and may deter you from committing a
like sin again. . . . For my part, I wish Henry Clay to be elected, and should
rejoice in his success, for various reasons, but I do not permit myself to
indulge in sanguine feelings when dependence has to be placed on the
pitch-and-toss game of party elections.
*
* * * * * * * * *
I rejoice in the
winter period of relaxation to enable me to devote more time to reading. Look
out that I don't turn out a pettifogging lawyer, and rival you in fame at some
cross-roads in the Far West. . . .
Let me conclude by
hoping that you will now in the outset of life do all things in your power to
advance your interest and fame, and to neglect no chance to better your
fortune. . . .
SOURCE: Rachel
Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 26-7
