Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 8, 1860

. . . News from the South comes only in brief, but is all one way. Wrath and fiery hatred and malice, privy conspiracy and rebellion, treason and secession, seem the popular doctrine and sentiment in all the Cotton States, and even in North Carolina and Virginia. Colonel Scott (the General's son-in-law), who is a quiet, thoughtful, judicious man, tells me he expects serious trouble in South Carolina and Alabama at once, but he is not sure it will involve the neighboring states.¹⁸ Per contra, men like old Stevens, John C. Green, Bidwell, and others, see not the slightest ground for apprehension.¹⁹

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¹⁸ Henry Lee Scott, who married Winfield Scott’s daughter Cornelia, was a North Carolinian. He had just been retired as Inspector-General in command of the forces in the city of New York.

¹⁹ John A. Stevens was president of the Bank of Commerce; John C. Green was also a banker, and a merchant in the China trade; he is best remembered as a benefactor of the New York Society Library and New York University, and as the philanthropist who endowed the John C. Green School of Science at Princeton.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 60-1