At breakfast this morning two Irish waiters, seeing I was a
Britisher, came up to me one after the other, and whispered at intervals in
hoarse Hibernian accents — “It's disgraceful, sir. I've been drafted, sir. I'm
a Briton. I love my country. I love the Union Jack, sir.” I suggested an
interview with Mr Archibald, but neither of them seemed to care about going to
the Counsel just yet These rascals have probably been hard at work for
years, voting as free and enlightened American citizens, and abusing England to
their hearts' content.
I heard every one talking of the total demoralisation of the
Rebels as a certain fact, and all seemed to anticipate their approaching
destruction. All this sounded very absurd to me, who had left Lee's army four
days previously as full of fight as ever — much stronger in numbers, and ten
times more efficient in every military point of view, than it was when it
crossed the Potomac to invade Maryland a year ago. In its own opinion,
Lee's army has not lost any of its prestige at the battle of Gettysburg, in
which it most gallantly stormed strong intrenchments defended by the whole army
of the Potomac, which never ventured outside its works, or approached in force
within half a mile of the Confederate artillery.
The result of the battle of Gettysburg, together with the
fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, seems to have turned everybody's head
completely, and has deluded them with the idea of the speedy and complete
subjugation of the South. I was filled with astonishment to hear people
speaking in this confident manner, when one of their most prosperous States had
been so recently laid under contribution as far as Harrisburg and Washington,
their capital itself having just been saved by a fortunate turn of luck.
Four-fifths of the Pennsylvanian spoil had safely crossed the Potomac before I
left Hagerstown.
The consternation in the streets seemed to be on the increase;
fires were going on in all directions, and the streets were being patrolled by
large bodies of police followed by special constables, the latter bearing
truncheons, but not looking very happy.
I heard a British captain making a deposition before the
Consul, to the effect that the mob had got on board his vessel and cruelly
beaten his coloured crew. As no British man-of-war was present, the French
Admiral was appealed to, who at once requested that all British ships with
coloured crews might be anchored under the guns of his frigate.
The reports of outrages, hangings, and murder, were now most
alarming, and terror and anxiety were universal. All shops were shut; all
carriages and omnibuses had ceased running. No coloured man or woman was
visible or safe in the streets, or even in his own dwelling. Telegraphs were
cut, and railroad tracks torn up. The draft was suspended, and the mob
evidently had the upper hand.
The people who can't pay $300 naturally hate being forced to
fight in order to liberate the very race who they are most anxious should be
slaves. It is their direct interest not only that all slaves should remain
slaves, but that the free Northern negroes who compete with them for labour
should be sent to the South also.
SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three
Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 308-11
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