Speech of Jefferson Davis, January 3, 1844

Speech of Jefferson Davis before the State Democratic Convention held in Jackson Mississippi January 3, 1844, for the purpose of sending delegates to the National Convention of the party and for the selection of presidential electors.*

(From The Mississippian, January 12, 1844.)

Mr. Davis remarked in substance—Though instructed by the delegation from Warren to cast the vote of our county, in this convention, for Mr. Van Buren, as the presidential candidate, I hope I will be excused for availing myself of the nomination of Mr. Calhoun, to express some of my opinions, as an individual, in relation to the comparative claims these gentlemen have upon us. I would here premise, that I wish nothing which I may say to be referred to a willingness to depreciate the high, just, and often-acknowledged claims of Mr. Van Buren; a democrat who long and severely tried, has never been found wanting—a democrat, than whom there is none I have more implicit confidence—none to whom I would more freely confide in times of difficulty, of danger, and of personal temptation, the safe keeping of the constitution; and in proof of the correctness of this opinion, I will refer to but a single instance: When the "independent treasury" was opposed by a prejudice so fixed and wide-spread among our people, that it was apparent if one had risen from the dead to bear testimony to its merits, he would not have been believed, still did Mr. Van Buren give it his open, decided and unwavering support. Surely it will not now be contended by those who attribute to him so much political shrewdness as to attach to him the name of magician, that he was ignorant of the danger to which an adherence to this measure exposed his political fortune. Upon us, however, it forces itself as conclusive evidence, that he valued truth and the good of his country above power and place, and the conscientious discharge of his duty above personal advancement.

Mr. President, it is not my purpose to attempt an eulogy of Mr. Calhoun. I should be inadequate to the task, and should deem the labor superfluous in the hand of the most able—a long public life of virtue and intelligence, of active and patriotic devotion to the best interest of his country, having shed around his name a halo which it is not in the power of language to brighten. Neither, sir, is it my intention to review the political principles of that great statesman; for in comparing him with Mr. Van Buren, I find no exception to that proud and generally just boast of the democracy, that the principles of our party are the same throughout the Union. The points of my preference for Mr. Calhoun will be merely indicated to you; because, resting as they do upon basis so well understood by you, any elucidation of them is uncalled for. First, I will mention "free trade," by which is meant, as I understand it, the most liberal principles of commerce, and from which we may anticipate as a consequence, the freest exchange of the products of different soils and climates, the largest amount of comforts for a given amount of labor. Again, as incident to the freest national intercourse, we may expect the extension of amicable relations, until our canvas-winged doves shall bear us across every sea, olive branches from every land. In addressing Mississippians, who rely upon a foreign market for the disposal of their products, an argument in support of unrestricted commerce is surely unnecessary, and I will close the consideration of this point by saying I consider Mr. Calhoun its exponent.

The annexation of the republic of Texas to our Union, is another point of vital importance to the south, and demanding, by every consideration, prompt action. Daily are we becoming relatively weaker, and with equal step is the advance of that fanatical spirit which has for years been battering in breach the defences with which the federal constitution surrounds our institutions.

Would Mr. Calhoun have less zeal than one less intimately connected with the south, or would he support this measure with less ability? I would answer not less but more. The ardent, able and honest support which he gives to all measures having his entire approbation, enables him more successfully than any one I have ever known, to combat prejudice and error; and I would add that among the many I have known who had enjoyed his intercourse, I recollect not one who had not imbibed some of his opinions.

Again, I believe that Mr. Calhoun could reduce the various divisions of the executive department at Washington to such order, and introduce a system of such prompt accountability, by the various agents, that defalcation could seldom reach that point which would result in loss to the government. That he possesses this ability, I conceive to be demonstrated by his administration of the war department; considered, I believe, of the various departments, that which is most difficult and complex in its disbursements. He found it in great confusion—he reduced it to an organization so perfect, that it has received but slight modifications down to the present time, and has been that department which has afforded but few examples of unfaithful depositories of the public money.

With the experience he acquired then, and the knowledge he has acquired since, may we not expect all that I claim for him on this point?

I will, Mr. President, tax the patience of the convention with but one point more, and that is one nearly affecting us: it is the defence of the southern Atlantic and gulf coasts. We have been treated ungenerously and unjustly, in that the majority has, through a long course of years, refused to us, the minority, that protection which it was the duty of the federal government to give us. Having made such appropriations for the benefit of other portions of the Union, inability has not been the cause of this failure in duty towards us—a failure which is aggravated by the recollection that throughout the whole period of our federal existence, we have contributed, as consumers, to the revenue, in a higher ratio than that of our representation in the halls of legislation, (by the number of our unrepresented slave population,) and therefore our claim to a share of those appropriations to which we are all entitled, is something stronger than our representative rate. Sir, if we institute a comparison as to the importance, in a national point of view, between the objects for which we require appropriations and those for which we have been neglected, still do we find nothing to justify the treatment we have received. Whilst the northern harbors and cities have been surveyed, and as far as the ability of the treasury would allow, fortified—whilst navy yards have been erected along the northern coast—whilst surveys have been made of the sinuosities of our northern lakes, sometimes where it required the perspective eye of the engineer to see a harbor, and millions expended year after year, for these joint purposes, there stand the cape and keys of Florida unprotected, though by them flows the whole commerce of the south and west, and though they overlook the straits through which, in peace or war, is the only maritime communication between the different portions of our Union, and around which sweeps a wide curve of circumvallation, extending from the Oronoko to the banks of the Bahama, from various points of which, within signal distance, from the batteries of Great Britain.

Looking further westward, which brings us nearer home here upon our own coast lie, wholly unprotected, the islands upon which the British fleet found a safe anchorage and harbor; where British troops debarked for the attack on New Orleans, an event which, though it brought glory to the American arms, and made this day an American festival, does not the less enforce itself as a warning on our government, and should have proved sufficient reason to all who loved their country more than sectional interest, to have guarded against the recurrence of such contingency.

Mr. President, the South has a delicate and daily increasing interest in the navy. She needs her own sons in the navy to represent that interest; she therefore needs in her own waters navy yards, and squadrons at home, on her own waters, to develope the nautical feeling of our youth. A survey made of the Tortugas, by the recommendation of that great man who directed the glorious event to which I but just now alluded as connected with the day on which we are assembled, exhibits a harbor admirably adapted to the purposes of a navy yard. At Pensacola, we have another favorable point, so recognized by our government in building a dock and giving it the name of "navy yard;" and they both have this great advantage over any northern harbor, they are convenient to "live oak," our most important ship timber.

Sir, I will not detain the Convention farther than to urge upon their consideration the necessity we have for a Southern President to advance these measures. The South has borne long; let her be true to herself, that justice may be done.

Jefferson Davis, of Warren, offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted.

Resolved, That our delegates to the national convention, in the event of any contingency which shall defeat the purpose for which they are appointed, viz., the nominations of Martin Van Buren for president, and James K. Polk for vice president, that they shall consider as our second choice, John C. Calhoun for president, and Levi Woodbury for vice-president.

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* This speech brought Mr. Davis into statewide notice and marked the beginning of his political career. As a delegate from Warren county he favored John C. Calhoun for the presidency.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 6-9

Brigadier-General Thomas Benton Smith.

General Thomas Benton Smith, who was the youngest general in the Confederate army and enjoys the further distinction of being the only one now living, has reached the venerable age of eighty-five years. His birth occurred in Rutherford county, Tennessee, on the 24th of February, 1838, his parents being James M. and Martha (Page) Smith, the former a native of Dinwiddie county, Virginia. He comes of English ancestry in the paternal line and of Welsh descent on the maternal side, and his mother's people lived in North and South Carolina before coming to Tennessee. General Smith still has in his possession a silver piece that his maternal ancestors brought from Wales and which was given to him by his mother. His maternal grandparents, John and Martha Page, lived ten miles from Franklin and five miles from Triune. James M. Smith, the father of General Smith, was a carpenter of Mechanicsville, Rutherford county, this state, who made and sold gins, while his wife made cloth to provide wearing apparel for her children and the ten negro slaves owned by the family. Their home was a log house of two rooms and a side porch. James M. Smith was a soldier of the War of 1812, participating in the battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson. When the Civil war was inaugurated he and his wife owned one hundred and five acres of land and other property to the value of about ten thousand dollars.

In the acquirement of an education Thomas Benton Smith walked two miles to attend common school and later became a student in a military academy at Nashville, Tennessee, from which he was graduated. Andrew Johnson gave him a lieutenant's commission and he then went to West Point, New York, attending school for sixteen years altogether. The opening of the Civil war found him busily engaged in the cultivation of a farm of one hundred and five acres which he owned in the vicinity of Triune and he left the plow handles to enlist in the Zollicoffer Guards of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, being sworn in at Triune on the 17th of May, 1861. Both he and his brother, John M. Smith, joined the Confederate forces, leaving their mother and the negroes at home. Thomas B. Smith was sent with his company to Camp Zollicoffer and in January, 1862, took part in the battle of Fishing Creek, while subsequently he fought at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Baton Rouge, Franklin and Nashville. His horse was shot from under him at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and again at the battle of Atlanta. After he had surrendered he was struck on the head with a sword by a Yankee colonel named W. S. McMillen, the blow splitting the bone of his head and exposing his brain, and he was placed in the Tennessee state prison, which was being used as a hospital. Following his discharge at Fort Warren, Massachusetts, he was given transportation and came direct to Nashville. Vernon K, Stevenson, the first president of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, who was his close personal friend, offered him a position in recognition of the fact that General Smith had made his son, Vernon K. Stevenson, Jr., a member of his staff in 1864. General Smith engaged in railroad work first as a brakeman, then as freight conductor and later won promotion to the position of passenger conductor on the Nashville & Chattanooga, being identified with railroad interests altogether for ten years, during a part of which period he was in the service of the Nashville & Decatur. After leaving the railroad he became a candidate for congress in the counties of Williamson, Wilson and Rutherford and following the election of E. I. Gollady of Lebanon, Tennessee, returned home, where he remained until the death of his mother. He was then sent to the Central State Hospital of Nashville, where he has been a patient for about forty-seven years, or since 1876, when the institution was under Dr. Callender's administration. He has always been accorded the best and kindest treatment and has numerous friends whose regard he prizes. His closest kin are nephews and nieces. He enjoyed the personal friendship of many distinguished men of an earlier day, including Andrew Johnson, General Felix K. Zollicoffer, General John C. Brown, General William B. Bate, General Bragg, who handed him his commission as brigadier general, General W. J. Hardee, General Frank Cheatham, Colonel E. W. Cole, John W. Thomas and W. L. Danley. Lieutenant James L. Cooper of Nashville and Dr. D. B. Cliff, Sr., of Franklin, Tennessee, were members of his staff while he held the rank of brigadier general in 1864. He attends the annual reunion of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment of Confederate Veterans at Centennial Park, also goes to Mount Olivet once a year to decorate the graves of Confederate soldiers and occasionally takes other trips to Nashville. He declares that he is as happy as anyone could be under the circumstances and he is spending the evening of life in quiet content.

(Since this biographical sketch was written, General Smith has passed to his reward. In honor of his distinguished character and services his body was placed in state in the hall of the house of representatives in the capitol of Tennessee, where the funeral services were held under the auspices of the United Confederate Veterans.)

SOURCE: Tennessee: The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Volume 2, p. 144-7

John A. Quitman to John F. H. Claiborne, August 6, 1831

Continued from: John A. Quitman to John F. H. Claiborne, July 31, 1831

Aug. 6th.  Since writing the above I have been in motion about the country, and will now gallop over a few of the many political observations collected during my long journey from Natchez, reserving particulars until my return. A very fierce struggle is going on in Kentucky. In no part of the Union have I seen so much excitement. In Virginia, which I traversed from west to east, there is evidently an important change working in sectional politics. They are growing lukewarm in support of the (Jackson's) administration, and I have no doubt the dissensions in the cabinet, and the developments that have been made, will ferment the leaven now generally diffused. My opinion is that Virginia is in favor of Calhoun, and, if so, Jackson can only be supported upon the principle of being the least of two evils. At Charlottesville I had the pleasure of an hour's interview with our senator, Mr. Poindexter. I found his political opinions so nearly my own, you may conceive I enjoyed a great treat in his conversation. He is more pungent and tart than ever, and his tone is something like a sneer. He is awfully severe on Jackson and his advisers, and no less bitter against some of our folks at home. Ho tells me he has written you at length upon the politics of the day. I found him walking among the people in the court-yard, without assistance and without crutches. He is a man of extraordinary intellectual powers. You knew him from your childhood, and I do not now wonder at your risking your popularity to support him. He has fascinated me. How is it that his private character is so bad? Why do we hear so much said against him in Adams County? His intemperance, his gambling, his libertinism, and his dishonesty. He gives no indications of these defects, and he is here, where he once resided, taken by the hand by the first people and followed by the crowd. By the way, have you ever met with the pamphlet published by Dr. Brown against Poindexter? I met with it in Kentucky. It charges him with base cowardice in several personal difficulties in Mississippi and at the battle of New Orleans. Can so bold a politician be deficient in personal courage? Can a public speaker who so fiercely arraigns so many influential citizens be himself a knave? The testimony in this pamphlet is very strong. The witnesses are Dr. Brown, Colonel Percy, Dr. Hogg, Dr. Stephen Duncan, Elisha Smith, and others whom we well know. I send the pamphlet to you.¹ Mr. P. is quite decided in his opposition to the administration, and thinks our congressional delegation will act with him. Will his opposition to General Jackson affect your relations to him? He is for Calhoun.

Here in New York I can plainly perceive among the Jackson party an alienation of feeling. The Democratic anti-tariff men, the free-trade and state-rights men, who were all under the banner of Jackson, begin to feel uneasy, but, as yet, have not determined on their course. The anti-masons, the no-Sunday-mail party, the manufacturers, the working interest, and the latitudinarians and so-called philanthropists all incline to Clay. The free-trade and state-rights portion of the Jackson party may well open their eyes when leading papers like the New York Courier and Enquirer are evidently shifting over to the tariff side, to prepare the way for Mr. Van Buren. I lately dined with a large party of intelligent men, who all along had supported the administration. Being asked about the impression which the late cabinet explosion had made in Mississippi, I ventured the opinion that a great majority of our politicians were disposed to side with Mr. Calhoun. One of them replied, “We have the same feeling. The President is abandoning the principles which raised him to office.”

For my part, I hope Mr. Calhoun, or some decided anti-tariff man, will become a candidate. We must know the opinion of presidential candidates on this tariff question. An idea has frequently occurred to me of proposing to the Southern Republicans to run an independent or unpledged ticket for electors. How would this do? I wish you would reflect upon it, and give me your advice. In the mean time mention it to no one. If Mr. Van Buren is a decided tariff and internal-improvement man, I have no notion of smoothing his road to the presidency by a compromising course of policy.

Among the masses in the Northern States, every other feeling is now swallowed up by a religious enthusiasm which is pervading the country. Wherever I have traveled in the free states, I have found preachers holding three, four, six, and eight days' meeting, provoking revivals, and begging contributions for the Indians, the negroes, the Sunday-schools, foreign missions, home missions, the Colonization Society, temperance societies, societies for the education of pious young men, distressed sisters, superannuated ministers, reclaimed penitents, church edifices, church debts, religious libraries, etc., etc.: clamorously exacting the last penny from the poor enthusiast, demanding the widow's mite, the orphan's pittance, and denouncing the vengeance of Heaven on those who feel unable to give, or who question the propriety of these contributions, whether wholesale or specific. They are not only extortionate, but absolutely insulting in their demands; and my observations lead me to believe that there is a vast deal of robbery and roguery under this stupendous organization of religious societies. That there is misapplication of funds, and extravagance, and a purse-proud and arrogant priesthood supported by these eleemosynary appeals, there can be no doubt. When in the city of New York, I lodged at the Clinton Hotel. From my window I saw several splendid edifices, which could not be valued at less than $100,000, belonging to the American Tract and other societies! Thus is the industry of remote parts of the Union taxed to build palaces in the Northern cities, and to support herds of lazy cattle. Here are clerks by the hundred, salaried liberally out of contributions wrung from pious and frugal persons in the South; and these officials, like the majority of their theologians and divines, are inimical to our institutions, and use our own money to defame and damage us! Respect for the proposed object of these societies, and the fear of their power, have deterred even the bold from exposing their abuses. But such thraldom must not be submitted to.² I am heartily tired of the North, and, except parting from my relations, shall feel happy when I set my face homeward.

Your elections are now over. I look forward to hear that you and Bingaman are elected representatives, and Gridley sheriff. Write me again at Lexington, Ky. Your description of Plummer's visit to Natchez, and of the intrigues it occasioned, amused me much. I know he has the ready talent and tact to carry him through, if he has prudence. What is the editor of the “Clarion” about, in his severe strictures on Ingham, and Branch, and Berrien, who very properly retired in disgust from Jackson's cabinet?

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¹ All this will be explained in a biography of the Hon. George Poindexter, based on his own correspondence and manuscripts, which I am now writing. — J. F. H. C.

² I find these opinions, uttered near thirty years ago, singularly confirmed by the Rev. Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina, in a speech delivered by him in the General Assembly of the Old School Presbyterian Church, May, 1860. The subject was the policy of the Church in regard to mission and other boards. The quotation is from the Cincinnati Commercial:

"Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina, who addressed the Assembly at Nashville, in 1855, on the same subject, most certainly made an able effort to convince the Assembly that the Church has no power to delegate authority committed to her by her Master; that she should do her own work, and not appoint boards or other organizations to do it. He argued, too, that it is a sin and a shame to have boards where the membership is complimentary, and the privilege of consulting in which can be purchased with money. The principle is money. The seed of the serpent may be harmless, but the seed contains the poison. We need unity, simplicity, and completeness of action; and he closed by rejoicing that, when the millennium comes, we will not find it necessary to change our principles. But I can not say, as the brethren have, ‘We have done well enough.’ Look at 800,000,000 of heathen without the Gospel! Look at the resources, the riches of our Church, and dare we say we have done well enough? I believe these boards have stood in the way of free action of the Church.

“He referred, likewise, to Dr. B. M. Smith's history of those boards, as full of startling disclosures."

In the New Orleans Christian Advocate of May 30th, 1860, edited by Rev. C. C. Gillespie, one of the strongest writers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, I find an able article, prompted by the anniversary meetings of the societies referred to in Quitman's letter. The article, which furnishes thoughts enough for a book, and a very interesting book, thus concludes:

"We confess we are sick of societies. We may be wrong; if so, we hope for pardon and more light. There is a cold, heartless, mechanical utilitarianism about this exclusive associational way of doing good that crushes out all individuality of reason, affection, and progress. Societies grow fat and strong, and individual Christian character remains stationary, or, rather, assumes dwarfish proportions. It is a sort of concentration of all the surplus energy of the artificial, cantish Yankeeism there is in American character. It is true, there must be associated effort. We do not deny that. But it should be harmonious with those individual aptitudes and social relations and sympathies which God has ordained. Such association we find in the Church. God made our individual constitutions, He established our social relations and sympathies, and He ordained the Church. They are all harmonious. It may be said that, condemning High Churchism, we are High Churchmen ourselves. In the sense of giving the Church the place, and the importance, and the allegiance intended by its Divine Founder, and set forth in the Scriptures, we are High Churchmen. We have almost as little sympathy with Low Churchmen, of any school, as for societarians. They both undervalue the Church in theory, or are unfaithful to their own Church ideal. High Churchism, in the sense of giving the Church a character and power not taught in the Scriptures, is the other extreme. Societarianism and Low Churchism lead to indifferentism and infidelity. Devotion to the Church of Christ, as set forth in the Bible, as ‘the purchase of Christ's blood’ — as ‘the body of Christ,’ as ‘the pillar and ground of the truth,’ as the ‘kingdom’ of Christ, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail — is simple Christianity, as far as it goes.”

These are striking illustrations of the forecast and sagacity of Quitman. He saw, thirty years ago, what no one else saw at that day, but what is now viewed as a serious social and religious evil.

SOURCE: John F. H. Quitman, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, Volume 1, p. 106-11

Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Edwin M. Stanton, May 25, 1862

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,

New Orleans, May 25, 1862.

Hon. E. M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: In matters pertaining to the conduct of affairs in my own department which affect that alone I will trouble you for instructions as little as possible, but in those which affect the administrative policy of the country I beg leave to refer to the help of the War Department for advice and direction. The question now pressing me is the state of negro property here and the condition of the negroes as men. It has a gravity as regards both white and black appalling as the mind follows out the logical necessities of different lines of action. Ethnological in its proportions and demands for investigation, it requires active administrative operations immediately upon the individual in his daily life, his social, political, and religious status as a human being, while some of the larger deductions of political economy are to be at once worked out by any given course of conduct. It cannot be solved therefore without thought or discussion by a phrase or a paragraph. The question now comes to me in a different form from that in which it has presented itself to any other military commander.

At Fortress Monroe during the last summer I found the negro deserted by his master or having been forced by him into the fortification as the builder and thus made to aid in the rebellion. The rights of property under that condition of things could be easily settled. The man was to be treated as a human being wrecked upon a civilized coast, all his social ties and means of living gone, to be cared for because he was a man. My action thereupon is well known and was approved by the Government.

At Port Royal the same condition of things substantially obtained and I suppose will be dealt with in like manner. Here, however, an entirely different state of the question is disclosed.

The general commanding finds himself in possession of a tract of country larger than some States of the Union. This has submitted to the Government of the United States; a community with whom by proclamation the President is about opening commercial relations with all the world except for that which is contraband of war; rich in fertile lands; in it a city of the first class, wherein its inhabitants by a large majority are attending to their usual avocations and endeavoring in good faith to live quietly under the laws of the Union, and whoever does not do so is speedily punished and his compeers thereby admonished.

To this city and vicinage has been pledged the governmental protection and inviolability of the rights of property under the laws of the United States so long as these conditions of peace and quiet shall be preserved, and that pledge has been accepted by the good, loyal, and peaceful, and the power of the Union is respected by the wicked, so that they have become peaceful, if not loyal. It is found that a large portion of property held here is in slaves. They till the soil, raise the sugar, corn, and cotton, lead and unload the ships; they perform every domestic office, and are permeated through every branch of industry and peaceful calling.

In a large degree the owners of the soil, planters, farmers, mechanics, and small traders have been passive rather than active in the rebellion. All that had real property at stake have been the led rather than the leaders in this outbreak against law and order. In the destruction of cotton and sugar even, which has been so largely effected, the owners and producers have not been the destroyers, but in many cases the resistants of destruction.

There is still another class. Those actively in arms and those who for motives of gain or worse have aided the rebellion in their several spheres.

The property of these I am hunting out and holding for confiscation under the laws. There is in most cases no military necessity for its immediate confiscation. Such act, if done, would in many instances work injustice to the bona fide loyal creditor, whose interest the Government will doubtless consider. I am only confiscating in fact in cases where there is a breach of a positive order, for the purpose of punishment and example. In all these cases I have no hesitation as to the kinds of property or rights of property which shall be confiscated, and make no distinctions, save that where that property consists in the services of slaves I shall not sell it until so ordered.

Now, many negroes (slaves) have come within my lines. Many have sought to be kept, fed, and to live in the quarters with my troops. Loyal and disloyal masters have lost them alike. I have caused as many to be employed as I have use for. I have directed all not employed to be sent out of my lines, leaving them subject to the ordinary laws of the community in that behalf.

I annex all orders and communications to my officers upon this matter up to the date of the transmission of this dispatch.

Now, what am I to do? Unless all personal property of all rebels is to be confiscated (of the policy of which a military commander has no right to an opinion) it is manifestly unjust to make a virtual confiscation of this particular species of property. Indeed it makes an actual confiscation of all property, both real and personal, of the planter if we take away or allow to run away his negroes as his crop is just growing, it being impossible to supply the labor necessary to preserve it. Again, if a portion of these slaves only are to be taken within my lines, and if to be so taken is a benefit to them, it is unjust to those that are not taken. Those that come early to us are by no means the best men and women. With them, as with the whites, it is the worse class that rebel against and evade the laws that govern them. The vicious and unthrifty have felt punishment of their masters as a rule, the exception being where the cruel master abuses the industrious and well-behaved slave, and the first to come are those that feel particular grievances.

It is a physical impossibility to take all. I cannot feed the white men within my lines. Women and children are actually starving in spite of all that I can do. Ay, and they too without fault on their part. What would be the state of things if I allowed all the slaves from the plantations to quit their employment and come within the lines is not to be conceived by the imagination.

Am I then to take of these blacks only the adventurers, the shiftless, and wicked, to the exclusion of the good and quiet? If coming within our lines is equivalent to freedom, and liberty is a boon, is it to be obtained only by the first that apply?

I had written thus far when by the Ocean Queen I received a copy of an order of Major-General Hunter upon this subject in the Department of the South. Whether I assent or dissent from the course of action therein taken it is not my province to criticise it.

I desire, however, to call attention to the grounds upon which it seems to be based and to examine how far they may be applicable here.

The military necessity does not exist here for the employment of negroes in arms, in order that we may have an acclimated force. If the War Department desires, and will permit, I can have 5,000 able bodied white citizens enlisted within 60 days, all of whom have lived here many years, and many of them drilled soldiers, to be commanded by intelligent loyal officers. Besides, I hope and believe that this war will be ended before any body of negroes could be organized, armed, and drilled so as to be efficient.

The negro here, by long habit and training, has acquired a great horror of fire-arms, sometimes ludicrous in the extreme when the weapon is in his own hand. I am inclined to the opinion that John Brown was right in his idea of arming the negro with a pike or spear instead of a musket, if they are to be armed at all. Of this I say nothing, because a measure of governmental policy is not to be discussed in the dispatch of a subordinate military officer.

In this connection it might not be inopportune to call to mind the fact that a main cause of the failure of the British in their attack on New Orleans was the employment of a regiment of blacks brought with them from the West Indies. This regiment was charged with the duty of carrying the facines with which the ditch in front of Jackson's line was to be filled up and the ladders for scaling the embankment. When the attacking column reached the point of assault the facines and ladders were not there. Upon looking around for them it was found that their black guardians had very prudently laid themselves down upon the plain in the rear and protected their heads from the whistling shot with the facines which should have been to the front in a different sense.

I am further inclined to believe that the idea that our men here cannot stand the climate, and therefore the negroes must be freed and armed as an acclimated force, admits of serious debate.

My command has been either here or on the way here from Ship Island since the 1st of May, some of them on shipboard in the river since the 17th of April. All the deaths in the general hospital in this city since we have been here are only 13 from all causes, 2 of these being accidental, as will appear from Surgeon Smith's report, herewith submitted. From diseases at all peculiar to the climate I do not believe we have lost in the last thirty days one-fifth of one per cent. in the whole command; taking into the account also the infirm and debilitated, who ought never to have passed the surgeon's examination and come here.

Certain it is, if we admit the proposition that white men cannot be soldiers in this climate, we go very far toward asserting the dogma that white men cannot labor here, and therefore establish the necessity for exclusively black labor, which has ever been the corner-stone of African slavery.

We have heard much in the newspapers of the free-negro corps of this city organized for the defense of the South. From this a very erroneous idea may have been derived. The officers of that company called upon me the other day upon the question of the continuance of their organization and to learn what disposition they would be required to make of their arms; and in color, nay, also in conduct, they had much more the appearance of white gentlemen than some of those who have favored me with their presence claiming to be the “chivalry of the South.”

I have satisfied myself, if I have failed to satisfy the Department, that no military necessity exists to change the policy of the Government in this respect within my command.

I have given hurriedly amidst the press of other cares some of the considerations that seem to me to bear upon the question. I only add as a fact that those well-disposed to the Union here represent that the supposed policy of the Government, as indicated by General Hunter's order, is used by our enemies to paralyze all the efforts to co-operate with us.

Reared in the full belief that slavery is a curse to a nation, which my further acquaintance with it only deepens and widens, from its baleful effects upon the master, because as under it he cannot lift the negro up in the scale of humanity therefore the negro drags him down, I have no fear that my views will be anywhere misunderstood. I only accept the fact of its present existence, the “tares among the wheat,” and have asked the direction of the Department, “lest while I gather up the tares I root up also the wheat with them,” or shall I “let both grow together till the harvest?”

Respectfully, &c.,

 BENJ. F. BUTLER,

 Major-General, Commanding.

[lnclossures.]

• Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Brigadier General John W. Phelps, May 9, 1862
• Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Brigadier General John W. Phelps, May 10, 1862
• Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Brigadier General John W. Phelps, May 21, 1862
• Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Brigadier General John W. Phelps, May 23, 1862

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 15 (Serial No. 21), p. 439-42

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 30, 1861

Wrote in the heat of the day, enlivened by my neighbor, a wonderful mocking-bird, whose songs and imitations would make his fortune in any society capable of appreciating native-born genius. His restlessness, courage, activity, and talent, ought not to be confined to Mr. Mure's cage, but he seems contented and happy. I dined with Madame and M. Milten-berger, and drove out with them to visit the scene of our defeat in 1815, which lies at the distance of some miles down the river.

A dilapidated farm-house surrounded by trees and negro huts, marks the spot where Pakenham was buried, but his body was subsequently exhumed and sent home to England. Close to the point of the canal which constitutes a portion of the American defences, a negro guide came forth to conduct us round the place, but he knew as little as most guides of the incidents of the fight. The most remarkable testimony to the severity of the fire to which the British were exposed, is afforded by the trees in the neighborhood of the tomb. In one live-oak there are no less than eight round shot embedded; others contain two or three, and many are lopped, rent, and scarred by the flight of cannon-ball, The American lines extended nearly three miles, and were covered in the front by swamps, marshes, and water cuts, their batteries and the vessels in the river enfiladed the British as they advanced to the attack.

Among the prominent defenders of the cotton bales was a notorious pirate and murderer named Lafitte, who with his band was released from prison on condition that he enlisted in the defence, and did substantial service to his friends and deliverers.

Without knowing all the circumstances of the case, it would be rash now to condemn the officers who directed the assault; but so far as one could judge from the present condition of the ground, the position must have been very formidable, and should not have been assaulted till the enfilading fire was subdued, and a very heavy covering fire directed to silence the guns in front. The Americans are naturally very proud of their victory, which was gained at a most trifling loss to themselves, which they erroneously conceive to be a proof of their gallantry in resisting the assault. It is one of the events which have created a fixed idea in their minds that they are able to “whip the world.”

On returning from my visit I went to the club, where I had a long conversation with Dr. Rushton, who is strongly convinced of the impossibility of carrying on government, or conducting municipal affairs, until universal suffrage is put down. He gave many instances of the terrorism, violence, and assassinations which prevail during election times in New Orleans. M. Miltenberger, on the contrary, thinks matters are very well as they are, and declares all these stories are fanciful. Incendiarism rife again. All the club windows crowded with men looking at a tremendous fire, which burned down three or four stores and houses.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 242-3