To-day the President took the cars for Pensacola, where it
had been said everything was in readiness for an assault on Fort Pickens.
Military men said it could be taken, and Toombs, I think, said it ought to be
taken. It would cost, perhaps, a thousand lives; but is it not the business of war
to consume human life? Napoleon counted men as so much powder to be consumed;
and he consumed millions in his career of conquest. But still he conquered,
which he could not have done without the consumption of life. And is it not
better to consume life rapidly, and attain results quickly, than to await
events, when all history shows that a protracted war, of immobile armies,
always engulfs more men in the grave from camp fevers than usually fall in
battle during the most active operations in the field?
To-day I saw Col. Bartow, who has the bearing and eye of a gallant
officer. He was attended by a young man named Lamar, of fine open countenance,
whom he desired to have as his aid; but the regulations forbid any one acting
in that capacity who was not a lieutenant; and Lamar not being old enough to
have a commission, he said he would attend the colonel as a volunteer aid till
he attained the prescribed age. I saw Ben McCulloch, also — an unassuming but
elastic and brave man. He will make his mark. Also Capt. McIntosh, who goes to
the West. I think I saw him in 1846, in Paris, at the table of Mr. King, our
Minister; but I had no opportunity to ask him. He is all enthusiasm, and will
rise with honor or fall with glory. And here I beheld for the first time Wade
Hampton; resolved to abandon all the comforts of his great wealth, and
encounter the privations of the tented field in behalf of his menaced country.
Arkansas and Tennessee, as I predicted, have followed the
example of Virginia and North Carolina; and I see evidence daily in the mass of
correspondence, that Missouri and Kentucky will follow in good time.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 40-1
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