Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Thursday, June 5, 1862

Flat Top Mountain. — Rained most of the day. Want of exercise these rainy days begets indigestion, indigestion begets headache, blue devils, ill nature, sinister views, and general disgust. Brightened up a little by news that General Pope has taken ten thousand men and fifteen thousand stand of arms from Beauregard's retreating army. It looks as if Beauregard's army was breaking up. Later. News of the taking of Memphis and Fort Pillow.

General Cox read me a letter from General Garfield in which he speaks of the want of sympathy among army officers with the cause of the war; that they say Seward, Chase, and Sumner are more to blame than Davis and Toombs! General Sherman said he was “ashamed to acknowledge that he had a brother (Senator John Sherman) who was one of these damned Black Republicans”!

These semi-traitors must be watched. — Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of the Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery — in fact, its only enemy.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 286

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 17, 1861

If it was any consolation to me that the very noisy and very turbulent warriors of last night were exceedingly sick, dejected, and crestfallen this morning, I had it to the full. Their cries for water were incessant to allay the internal fires caused by “forty-rod” and “sixty-rod,” as whiskey is called, which is supposed to kill people at those distances. Their officers had no control over them — and the only authority they seemed to respect was that of the " gentlemanly" conductor, whom they were accustomed to fear individually, as he is a great man in America and has much authority and power to make himself disagreeable if he likes.

The victory at Big or Little Bethel has greatly elated these men, and they think they can walk all over the Northern States. It was a relief to get out of the train for a few minutes at a station called Holly Springs, where the passengers breakfasted at a dirty table on most execrable coffee, corn bread, rancid butter, and very dubious meats, and the wild soldiers outside made the most of their time, as they had recovered from their temporary depression by this time, and got out on the tops of the carriages, over which they performed tumultuous dances to the music of their band, and the great admiration of the surrounding negrodom. Their demeanor is very unlike that of the unexcitable staid people of the North.

There were in the train some Texans who were going to Richmond to offer their services to Mr. Davis. They denounced Sam Houston as a traitor, but admitted there were some Unionists, or, as they termed them, Lincolnite skunks, in the State. The real object of their journey was, in my mind, to get assistance from the Southern Confederacy, to put down their enemies in Texas.

In order to conceal from the minds of the people that the government at Washington claims to be that of the United States, the press politicians and speakers divert their attention to the names of Lincoln, Seward, and other black republicans, and class the whole of the North together as the Abolitionists. They call the Federal levies “Lincoln's mercenaries” and “abolition hordes,” though their own troops are paid at the same rate as those of the United States, This is a common mode of procedure in revolutions and rebellions, and is not unfrequent in wars.

The enthusiasm for the Southern cause among all the people is most remarkable, — the sight of the flag waving from the carriage windows drew all the population of the hamlets and the workers in the field, black and white, to the side of the carriages to cheer for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy, and to wave whatever they could lay hold of in the air. The country seems very poorly cultivated, the fields full of stumps of trees, and the plantation houses very indifferent. At every station more “soldiers,” as they are called, got in, till the smell and heat were suffocating.

These men were as fanciful in their names and dress as could be. In the train which preceded us there was a band of volunteers armed with rifled pistols and enormous bowie-knifes, who called themselves “The Toothpick Company.” They carried along with them a coffin, with a plate inscribed, “Abe Lincoln, died ——,” and declared they were “bound” to bring his body back in it, and that they did not intend to use muskets or rifles, but just go in with knife and six-shooter, and whip the Yankees straight away. How astonished they will be when the first round shot flies into them, or a cap-full of grape rattles about their bowie-knives.

At the station of Grand Junction, north of Holly Springs, which latter is 210 miles north of Jackson, several hundreds of our warrior friends were turned out in order to take the train north-westward for Richmond, Virginia. The 1st Company, seventy rank and file, consisted of Irishmen, armed with sporting rifles without bayonets. Five sixths of the 2d Company, who were armed with muskets, were of the same nationality. The 3d Company were all Americans. The 4th Company were almost all Irish. Some were in green, others were in gray, — the Americans who were in blue had not yet received their arms. When the word fix bayonets was given by the officer, a smart keen-looking man, there was an astonishishing hurry and tumult in the ranks.

“Now then, Sweeny, whar are yes dhriven me too? Is it out of the redjmint amongst the officers yer shovin' me?”

“Sullivan, don't ye hear we're to fix beenits?”

“Sarjent, jewel, wud yes ayse the shtrap of me baynit?”

“If ye prod me wid that agin, I'll let dayloite into ye.”

The officer, reading, “No. 23. James Phelan.”

No reply.

Officer again, “No. 23. James Phelan.”

Voice from the rank, “Shure, captain, and faix Phelan's gone; he wint at the last depôt.”

“No. 40. Miles Corrigan.”

Voice further on, “He's the worse for dhrink in the cars, yer honor, and says he'll shoot us if we touch him;” and so on.

But these fellows were, nevertheless, the material for fighting and for marching after proper drill and with good officers, even though there was too large a proportion of old men and young lads in the ranks. To judge from their dress these recruits came from the laboring and poorest classes of whites. The officers affected a French cut and bearing with indifferent success, and in the luggage vans there were three foolish young women with slop-dress imitation clothes of the Vivandière type, who, with dishevelled hair, dirty faces, and dusty hats and jackets, looked sad, sorry, and absurd. Their notions of propriety did not justify them in adopting straps, boots, and trousers, and the rest of the tawdry ill-made costume looked very bad indeed.

The train which still bore a large number of soldiers for the camp of Corinth, proceeded through dreary swamps, stunted forests, and clearings of the rudest kind at very long intervals. We had got out of the cotton district and were entering poorer soil, or land which, when cleared, was devoted to wheat and corn, and I was told that the crops ran from forty to sixty bushels to the acre. A more uninteresting country than this portion of the State of Mississippi I have never witnessed. There was some variety of scenery about Holly Springs where undulating ground covered with wood, diversified the aspect of the flat, but since that we have been travelling through mile after mile of insignificantly grown timber and swamps.

On approaching Memphis the line ascends towards the bluff of the Mississippi, and farms of a better appearance come in sight on the side of the rail; but after all I do not envy the fate of the man who, surrounded by slaves and shut out from the world, has to pass his life in this dismal region, be the crops never so good.

At a station where a stone pillar marks the limit between the sovereign State of Mississippi and that of Tennessee, there was a house two stories high, from the windows of which a number of negro girls and young men were staring on the passengers. Some of them smiled, laughed, and chatted, but the majority of them looked gloomy and sad enough. They were packed as close as they could, and I observed that at the door a very ruffianly looking fellow in a straw hat, long straight hair, flannel shirt, and slippers, was standing with his legs across and a heavy whip in his hand. One of the passengers walked over and chatted to him. They looked in and up at the negroes and laughed, and when the man came near the carriage in which I sat, a friend called out, “Whose are they, Sam?” “He's a dealer at Jackson, Mr. Smith. They're a prime lot of fine Virginny niggers as I've seen this long time, and he wants to realize, for the news looks so bad.”   

It was 1:40 P. M. when the train arrived at Memphis. I was speedily on my way to the Gayoso House, so called after an old Spanish ruler of the district, which is situated in the street on the bluff, which runs parallel with the course of the Mississippi. This resuscitated Egyptian city is a place of importance, and extends for several miles along the high bank of the river, though it does not run very far back. The streets are at right angles to the principal thoroughfares, which are parallel to the stream; and I by no means expected to see the lofty stores, warehouses, rows of shops, and handsome buildings on the broad esplanade along the river, and the extent and size of the edifices public and private in this city, which is one of the developments of trade and commerce created by the Mississippi. Memphis contains nearly 30,000 inhabitants, but many of them are foreigners, and there is a nomad draft into and out of the place, which abounds in haunts for Bohemians, drinking and dancing-saloons, and gaming-rooms. And this strange kaleidoscope of negroes and whites of the extremes of civilization in its American development, and of the semi-savage degraded by his contact with the white; of enormous steamers on the river, which bears equally the dug-out or canoe of the black fisherman; the rail, penetrating the inmost recesses of swamps, which on either side of it remain no doubt in the same state as they were centuries ago; the roll of heavily-laden wagons through the streets; the rattle of omnibuses and all the phenomena of active commercial life before our eyes, included in the same scope of vision which takes in at the other side of the Mississippi lands scarcely yet settled, though the march of empire has gone thousands of miles beyond them, amuses but perplexes the traveller in this new land.

The evening was so exceedingly warm that I was glad to remain within the walls of my darkened bedroom. All the six hundred and odd guests whom the Gayoso House is said to accommodate were apparently in the passage at one time. At present it is the head-quarters of General Gideon J. Pillow, who is charged with the defences of the Tennessee side of the river, and commands a considerable body of troops around the city and in the works above. The house is consequently filled with men in uniform, belonging to the General's staff or the various regiments of Tennessee troops.

The Governors and the Legislatures of the States view with dislike every action on the part of Mr. Davis which tends to form the State troops into a national army. At first, indeed, the doctrine prevailed that troops could not be sent beyond the limits of the State in which they were raised — then it was argued that they ought not to be called upon to move outside their borders; and I have heard people in the South inveighing against the sloth and want of spirit of the Virginians, who allowed their State to be invaded without resisting the enemy. Such complaints were met by the remark that all the Northern States had combined to pour their troops into Virginia, and that her sister States ought in honor to protect her. Finally, the martial enthusiasm of the Southern regiments impelled them to press forward to the frontier, and by delicate management, and the perfect knowledge of his countrymen which Mr. Jefferson Davis possesses, he is now enabled to amalgamate in some sort the diverse individualities of his regiments into something like a national army.

On hearing of my arrival, General Pillow sent his aide-decamp to inform me that he was about starting in a steamer up the river, to make an inspection of the works and garrison at Fort Randolph and at other points where batteries had been erected to command the stream, supported by large levies of Tennesseans. The aide-de-camp conducted me to the General, whom I found in his bedroom, fitted up as an office, littered with plans and papers. Before the Mexican War General Pillow was a flourishing solicitor, connected in business with President Polk, and commanding so much influence that when the expedition was formed he received the nomination of brigadier-general of volunteers. He served with distinction and was severely wounded at the battle of Chapultepec and at the conclusion of the campaign he retired into civil life, and was engaged directing the work of his plantation till this great rebellion summoned him once more to the field.

Of course there is, and must be, always an inclination to deride these volunteer officers on the part of regular soldiers; and I was informed by one of the officers in attendance on the General that he had made himself ludicrously celebrated in Mexico for having undertaken to throw up a battery which, when completed, was found to face the wrong way, so that the guns were exposed to the enemy. General Pillow is a small, compact, clear-complexioned man, with short gray whiskers, cut in the English fashion, a quick eye, and a pompous manner of speech; and I had not been long in his company before I heard of Chapultepec and his wound, which causes him to limp a little in his walk, and gives him inconvenience in the saddle. He wore a round black hat, plain blue frock-coat, dark trousers, and brass spurs on his boots; but no sign of military rank. The General ordered carriages to the door, and we went to see the batteries on the bluff or front of the esplanade, which are intended to check any ship attempting to pass down the river from Cairo, where the Federals under General Prentiss have entrenched themselves, and are understood to meditate an expedition against the city. A parapet of cotton bales, covered with tarpaulin, has been erected close to the edge of the bank of earth, which rises to heights varying from 60 to 150 feet almost perpendicularly from the waters of the Mississippi, with zigzag roads running down through it to the landing-places. This parapet could offer no cover against vertical fire, and is so placed that well-directed shell into the bank below it would tumble it all into the water. The zigzag roads are barricaded with weak planks, which would be shivered to pieces by boat-guns; and the assaulting parties could easily mount through these covered ways to the rear of the parapet, and up to the very centre of the esplanade.

The blockade of the river at this point is complete; not a boat is permitted to pass either up or down. At the extremity of the esplanade, on an angle of the bank, an earthen battery, mounted with six heavy guns, has been thrown up, which has a fine command of the river; and the General informed me he intends to mount sixteen guns in addition, on a prolongation of the face of the same work.

The inspection over, we drove down a steep road to the water beneath, where the Ingomar, a large river steamer, now chartered for the service of the State of Tennessee, was lying to receive us. The vessel was crowded with troops — all volunteers, of course — about to join those in camp. Great as were their numbers, the proportion of the officers was inordinately large, and the rank of the greater number preposterously high. It seemed to me as if I was introduced to a battalion of colonels, and that I was not permitted to pierce to any lower strata of military rank. I counted seventeen colonels, and believe the number was not then exhausted.

General Clarke, of Mississippi, who had come over from the camp at Corinth, was on board, and I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. He spoke with sense and firmness of the present troubles, and dealt with the political difficulties in a tone of moderation which bespoke a gentleman and a man of education and thought. He also had served in the Mexican war, and had the air and manner of a soldier. With all his quietness of tone, there was not the smallest disposition to be traced in his words to retire from the present contest, or to consent to a reunion with the United States under any circumstances whatever. Another general, of a very different type, was among our passengers, — a .dirty-faced, frightened-looking young man, of some twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, redolent of tobacco, his chin and shirt slavered by its foul juices, dressed in a green cutaway coat, white jean trousers, strapped under a pair of prunella slippers, in which he promenaded the deck in an Agag-like manner, which gave rise to a suspicion of bunions or corns. This strange figure was topped by a tremendous black felt sombrero, looped up at one side by a gilt eagle, in which was stuck a plume of ostrich feathers, and from the other side dangled a heavy gold tassel. This decrepit young warrior's name was Ruggles or Struggles, who came from Arkansas, where he passed, I was informed, for “quite a leading citizen.”

Our voyage as we steamed up the river afforded no novelty, nor any physical difference worthy of remark, to contrast it with the lower portions of the stream, except that upon our right-hand side, which is, in effect, the left bank, there are ranges of exceedingly high bluffs, some parallel with and others at right angles to the course of the stream. The river is of the same pea-soup color with the same masses of leaves, decaying vegetation, stumps of trees, forming small floating islands, or giant cotton-tree, pines, and balks of timber whirling down the current. Our progress was slow; nor did I regret the captain's caution, as there must have been fully nine hundred persons on board; and although there is but little danger of being snagged in the present condition of the river, we encountered now and then a trunk of a tree, which struck against the bows with force enough to make the vessel quiver from stem to stern. I was furnished with a small berth, to which I retired at midnight, just as the Ingomar was brought to at the Chickasaw Bluffs, above which lies Camp Randolph.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 302-8

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 1, 1861

The respectable people of the city are menaced with two internal evils in consequence of the destitution caused by the stoppage of trade with the North and with Europe. The municipal authorities, for want of funds, threaten to close the city schools, and to disband the police; at the same time employers refuse to pay their workmen on the ground of inability. The British Consulate was thronged to-day by Irish, English, and Scotch, entreating to be sent North or to Europe. The stories told by some of these poor fellows were most pitiable, and were vouched for by facts and papers; but Mr. Mure has no funds at his disposal to enable him to comply with their prayers. Nothing remains for them but to enlist. For the third or fourth time I heard cases of British subjects being forcibly carried off to fill the ranks of so-called volunteer companies and regiments. In some instances they have been knocked down, bound, and confined in barracks, till in despair they consented to serve. Those who have friends aware of their condition were relieved by the interference of the Consul; but there are many, no doubt, thus coerced and placed in involuntary servitude without his knowledge. Mr. Mure has acted with energy, judgment, and success on these occasions; but I much wish he could have, from national sources, assisted the many distressed English subjects who thronged his office.

The great commercial community of New Orleans, which now feels the pressure of the blockade, depends on the interference of the European Powers next October. They have among them men who refuse to pay their debts to Northern houses, but they deny that they intend to repudiate, and promise to pay all who are not Black Republicans when the war is over. Repudiation is a word out of favor, as they feel the character of the Southern States and of Mr. Jefferson Davis himself has been much injured in Europe by the breach of honesty and honor of which they have been guilty; but I am assured on all sides that every State will eventually redeem all its obligations. Meantime, money here is fast vanishing. Bills on New York are worth nothing, and bills on England are at 18 per cent, discount from the par value of gold; but the people of this city will endure all this and much more to escape from the hated rule of the Yankees.

Through the present gloom come the rays of a glorious future, which shall see a grand slave confederacy enclosing the Gulf in its arms, and swelling to the shores of the Potomac and Chesapeake, with the entire control of the Mississippi and a monopoly of the great staples on which so much of the manufactures and commerce of England and France depend. They believe themselves, in fact, to be masters of the destiny of the world. Cotton is king — not alone king but czar; and coupled with the gratification and profit to be derived from this mighty agency, they look forward with intense satisfaction to the complete humiliation of their hated enemies in the New England States, to the destruction of their usurious rival New York, and to the impoverishment and ruin of the States which have excited their enmity by personal liberty bills, and have outraged and insulted them by harboring abolitionists and an anti-slavery press.

The abolitionists have said, “We will never rest till every slave is free in the United States.” Men of larger views than those have declared, “They will never rest from agitation until a man may as freely express his opinions, be they what they may, on slavery, or anything else, in the streets of Charleston or of New Orleans as in those of Boston or New York.” “Our rights are guaranteed by the Constitution,” exclaim the South. “The Constitution,” retorts Wendell Phillips, “is a league with the devil, — a covenant with hell.”

The doctrine of State Rights has been consistently advocated not only by Southern statesmen, but by the great party who have ever maintained there was danger to liberty in the establishment of a strong central Government; but the contending interests and opinions on both sides had hitherto been kept from open collision by artful compromises and by ingenious contrivances, which ceased with the election of Mr. Lincoln.

There was in the very corner-stone of the republican edifice a small fissure, which has been widening as the grand structure increased in height and weight. The early statesmen and authors of the Republic knew of its existence, but left to posterity the duty of dealing with it and guarding against its consequences. Washington himself was perfectly aware of the danger; and he looked forward to a duration of some sixty or seventy years only for the great fabric he contributed to erect. He was satisfied a crisis must come, when the States whom in his farewell address he warned against rivalry and faction would be unable to overcome the animosities excited by different interests, and the passions arising out of adverse institutions; and now that the separation has come, there is not, in the Constitution, or out of it, power to cement the broken fragments together.

It is remarkable that in New Orleans, as in New York, the opinion of the most wealthy and intelligent men in the community, so far as I can judge, regards universal suffrage as organized confiscation, legalized violence and corruption, a mortal disease in the body politic. The other night, as I sat in the club-house, I heard a discussion in reference to the operations, of the Thugs in this city, a band of native-born Americans, who at election times were wont deliberately to shoot down Irish and German voters occupying positions as leaders of their mobs. These Thugs were only suppressed by an armed vigilance committee, of which a physician who sat at table was one of the members.

Having made some purchases, and paid all my visits, I returned to prepare for my voyage up the Mississippi and visits to several planters on its banks — my first being to Governor Roman.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 249-52

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 18, 1861

An exceedingly hot day, which gives bad promise of comfort for the Federal soldiers, who are coming, as the Washington Government asserts, to put down rebellion in these quarters. The mosquitoes are advancing in numbers and force. The day I first came I asked the waiter if they were numerous. “I wish they were a hundred times as many,” said he. On my inquiring if he had any possible reason for such an extraordinary aspiration, he said, “because we would get rid of these darned black republicans out of Fort Pickens all the sooner.” The man seemed to infer that they would not bite the Confederate soldiers.

I dined at Dr. Nott's, and met Judge Campbell, who has resigned his high post as one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and explained his reasons for doing so in a letter, charging Mr. Seward with treachery, dissimulation, and falsehood. He seemed to me a great casuist rather than a profound lawyer, and to delight in subtle distinctions and technical abstractions; but I had the advantage of hearing from him at great length the whole history of the Dred Scott case, and a recapitulation of the arguments used on both sides, the force of which, in his opinion, was irresistibly in favor of the decision of the Court. Mr. Forsyth, Colonel Hardee, and others were of the company.

To me it was very painful to hear a sweet ringing silvery voice, issuing from a very pretty mouth, “I'm so delighted to hear that the Yankees in Fortress Monroe have got typhus fever. I hope it may kill them all.” This was said by one of the most charming young persons possible, and uttered with unmistakable sincerity, just as if she had said, “I hear all the snakes in Virginia are dying of poison.” I fear the young lady did not think very highly of me for refusing to sympathize with her wishes in that particular form. But all the ladies in Mobile belong to “The Yankee Emancipation Society.” They spend their days sewing cartridges, carding lint, preparing bandages, and I'm not quite sure that they don't fill shells and fuses as well. Their zeal and energy will go far to sustain the South in the forthcoming struggle, and no where is the influence of women greater than in America.

As to Dr. Nott, his studies have induced him to take a purely materialist view of the question of slavery, and, according to him, questions of morals and ethics, pertaining to its consideration, ought to be referred to the cubic capacity of the human cranium — the head that can take the largest charge of snipe shot will eventually dominate in some form or other over the head of inferior capacity. Dr. Nott detests slavery, but he does not see what is to be done with the slaves, and how the four millions of negroes are to be prevented from becoming six, eight, or ten millions, if their growth is stimulated by high prices for Southern produce.

There is a good deal of force in the observation which I have heard more than once down here, that Great Britain could not have emancipated her negroes had they been dwelling within her border, say in Lancashire or Yorkshire. No inconvenience was experienced by the English people per se in consequence of the emancipation, which for the time destroyed industry and shook society to pieces in Jamaica. Whilst the States were colonies, Great Britain viewed the introduction of slaves to such remote dependencies with satisfaction, and when the United States had established their sovereignty they found the institution of slavery established within their own borders, and an important, if not essential, stratum in their social system. The work of emancipation would have then been comparatively easy; it now is a stupendous problem which no human being has offered to solve.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 225-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 4, 1861

In the morning I took a drive about the city, which is loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty undulating country covered with wood and fruit-trees. Many good houses of dazzling white, with bright green blinds, verandas, and doors, stand in their own grounds or gardens. In the course of the drive I saw two or three signboards and placards announcing that “Smith & Co. advanced money on slaves, and had constant supplies of Virginian negroes on sale or hire.” These establishments were surrounded by high walls enclosing the slave-pens or large rooms, in which the slaves are kept for inspection. The train for Montgomery started at 9:45 A. M., but I had no time to stop and visit them.

It is evident we are approaching the Confederate capital, for the candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a printed testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country, from Macon, in Georgia, to Montgomery, in Alabama, offers no features to interest the traveller which are not common to the districts already described. It is, indeed, more undulating, and somewhat more picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on the whole, there is little to recommend it, except the natural fertility of the soil. The people are rawer, ruder, bigger — there is the same amount of tobacco chewing and its consequences — and as much swearing or use of expletives. The men are tall, lean, uncouth, but they are not peasants. There are, so far as I have seen, no rustics, no peasantry in America; men dress after the same type, differing only in finer or coarser material; every man would wear, if he could, a black satin waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of his shirt, as he certainly has a watch and a gilt or gold chain of some sort or other. The Irish laborer, or the German husbandman is the nearest approach to our Giles Jolter or the Jacques Bonhomme to be found in the States. The mean white affects the style of the large proprietor of slaves or capital as closely as he can; he reads his papers — and, by the by, they are becoming smaller and more whitey-brown as we proceed — and takes his drink with the same air — takes up as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same fashion.

The people are all hearty Secessionists here — the Bars and Stars are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops, and there are lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. Troops are flocking towards Virginia from the Southern States in reply to the march of Volunteers from Northern States to Washington; but it is felt that the steps taken by the Federal Government to secure Baltimore have obviated any chance of successfully opposing the “Lincolnites” going through that city. There is a strong disposition on the part of the Southerners to believe they have many friends in the North, and they endeavor to attach a factious character to the actions of the Government by calling the Volunteers and the war party in the North “Lincolnites,” “Lincoln's Mercenaries,” “Black Republicans,” “Abolitionists,” and the like. The report of an armistice, now denied by Mr. Seward officially, was for some time current, but it is plain that the South must make good its words, and justify its acts by the sword. General Scott would, it was fondly believed, retire from the United States army, and either remain neutral or take command under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain he will not follow any of these courses, he is assailed in the foulest manner by the press and in private conversation. Heaven help the idol of a democracy!

At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by Mr. Manning, and others of his staff, got into the car, and tried to elude observation, but the conductors take great pleasure in unearthing distinguished passengers for the public, and the General was called on for a speech by the crowd of idlers. The General hates speech-making, he told me, and he had besides been bored to death at every station by similar demands. But a man must be popular or he is nothing. So, as next best thing, Governor Manning made a speech in the General's name, in which he dwelt on Southern Rights, Sumter, victory, and abolitiondom, and was carried off from the cheers of his auditors by the train in the midst of an unfinished sentence. There were a number of blacks listening to the Governor, who were appreciative.

Towards evening, having thrown out some slight outworks, against accidental sallies of my fellow-passengers’ saliva, I went to sleep, and woke up at eleven P. M., to hear we were in Montgomery. A very rickety omnibus took the party to the hotel, which was crowded to excess. The General and his friends had one room to themselves. Three gentlemen and myself were crammed into a filthy room which already contained two strangers, and as there were only three beds in the apartment it was apparent that we were intended to “double up considerably;” but after strenuous efforts, a little bribery and cajoling, we succeeded in procuring mattresses to put on the floor, which was regarded by our, neighbors as a proof of miserable aristocratic fastidiousness. Had it not been for the flies, the fleas would have been intolerable, but one nuisance neutralized the other. Then, as to food — nothing could be had in the hotel — but one of the waiters led us to a restaurant, where we selected from a choice bill of fare, which contained, I think, as many odd dishes as ever I saw, some unknown fishes, oyster-plants, ‘possums, raccoons, frogs, and other delicacies, and, eschewing toads and the like, really made a good meal off dirty plates on a vile table-cloth, our appetites being sharpened by the best of condiments.

Colonel Pickett has turned up here, having made his escape from Washington just in time to escape arrest — travelling in disguise on foot through out-of-the-way places till he got among friends.

I was glad when bedtime approached, that I was not among the mattress men. One of the gentlemen in the bed next the door was a tremendous projector in the tobacco juice line: his final rumination ere he sank to repose was a masterpiece of art — a perfect liquid pyrotechny, Roman candles and falling stars. A horrid thought occurred as I gazed and wondered. In case he should in a supreme moment turn his attention my way! — I was only seven or eight yards off, and that might be nothing to him! — I hauled down my mosquito curtain at once, and watched him till, completely satiated, he slept.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 162-4

Senator Jefferson Davis to Governor Francis W. Pickens, January 13, 1861

washington, D. C,

January 13, 1861.

Governor F. W. Pickens,

My dear sir: A serious and sudden attack of neuralgia has prevented me from fulfilling my promise to communicate more fully by mail than could safely be done by telegraph. I need hardly say to you that a request for a conference on questions of defense had to me the force of a command; it, however, found me under a proposition from the Governor of Mississippi, to send me as a commissioner to Virginia, and another to employ me in the organization of the State militia. But more than all, I was endeavoring to secure the defeat of the nomination of a foreign collector for the port of Charleston, and at that time it was deemed possible that in the Senate we could arrest all hostile legislation such as might be designed either for the immediate or future coercion of the South. It now appears that we shall lack one or two votes to effect the legislative object just mentioned, and it was decided last evening, in a conference which I was not able to attend, that the Senators of the seceded States should promptly withdraw upon the telegraphic information already received. I am still confined to my bed, but hope soon to be up again, and, at as early a day as practicable, to see you. I cannot place any confidence in the adherence of the administration to a fixed line of policy. The general tendency is to hostile measures, and against these it is needful for you to prepare. I take it for granted that the time allowed to the garrison of Fort Sumter has been diligently employed by yourselves, so that before you could be driven out of your earthworks you will be able to capture the fort which commands them. I have not sufficiently learned your policy in relation to the garrison at Fort Sumter, to understand whether the expectation is to compel them to capitulate for want of supplies, or whether it is only to prevent the transmission of reports and the receipt of orders. To shut them up with a view to starve them into submission would create a sympathetic action much greater than any which could be obtained on the present issue. I doubt very much the loyalty of the garrison, and it has occurred to me that if they could receive no reinforcements—and I suppose you sufficiently command the entrance to the harbor to prevent it — that there could be no danger of the freest intercouse between the garrison and the city. We have to-day news of the approach of a mixed commission from Fort Sumter and Charleston, but nothing further than the bare fact. We are probably soon to be involved in that fiercest of human strifes, a civil war. The temper of the Black Republicans is not to give us our rights in the Union, or allow us to go peaceably out of it. If we had no other cause, this would be enough to justify secession, at whatever hazard. When I am better I will write again, if I do not soon see you.

Very sincerely yours,

Jefferson Davis.*

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* From original letter.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 265-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 22, 1861

To-day was fixed for the visit to Mr. Pringle's plantation, which lies above Georgetown near the Pedee River. Our party, which consisted of Mr. Mitchell, an eminent lawyer of Charleston, Colonel Reed, a neighboring planter, Mr. Ward, of New York, our host, and myself, were on board the Georgetown steamer at seven o'clock, A. M., and started with a quantity of commissariat stores, ammunition, and the like, for the use of the troops quartered along the coast. There was, of course, a large supply of newspapers also. At that early hour invitations to the “bar” were not uncommon, where the news was discussed by long-legged, grave, sallow men. There was a good deal of joking about “old Abe Lincoln's paper blockade,” and the report that the Government had ordered their cruisers to treat the crews of Confederate privateers as “pirates” provoked derisive and menacing comments. The full impulses of national life are breathing through the whole of this people. There is their flag flying over Sumter, and the Confederate banner is waving on all the sand-forts and headlands which guard the approaches to Charleston.

A civil war and persecution have already commenced. “Suspected Abolitionists” are ill-treated in the South, and “Suspected Secessionists” are mobbed and beaten in the North. The news of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania regiment, by the mob in Baltimore, has been received with great delight; but some long-headed people see that it will only expose Baltimore and Maryland to the full force of the Northern States. The riot took place on the anniversary of Lexington.

The “Nina” was soon in open sea, steering northwards and keeping four miles from shore in order to clear the shoals and banks which fringe the low sandy coasts, and effectually prevent even light gunboats covering a descent by their ordnance. This was one of the reasons why the Federal fleet did not make any attempt to relieve Fort Sumter during the engagement. On our way out we could see the holes made in the large hotel and other buildings on Sullivan's Island behind Fort Moultrie, by the shot from the fort, which caused terror among the negroes “miles away.” There was no sign of any blockading vessel, but look-out parties were posted along the beach, and as the skipper said we might have to make our return-journey by land, every sail on the horizon was anxiously scanned through our glasses.

Having passed the broad mouth of the Santee, the steamer in three hours and a half ran up an estuary, into which the Maccamaw River and the Pedee River pour their united waters.

Our vessel proceeded along-shore to a small jetty, at the end of which was a group of armed men, some of them being part of a military post, to defend the coast and river, established under cover of an earthwork and palisades constructed with trunks of trees, and mounting three 32-pounders. Several posts of a similar character lay on the river banks, and from some of these we were boarded by men in boats hungry for news and newspapers. Most of the men at the pier were cavalry troopers, belonging to a volunteer association of the gentry for coast defence, and they had been out night and day patrolling the shores, and doing the work of common soldiers — very precious material for such work. They wore gray tunics, slashed and faced with yellow, buff belts, slouched felt hats, ornamented with drooping cocks' plumes, and long jackboots, which well became their fine persons and bold bearing, and were evidently due to “Cavalier” associations. They were all equals. Our friends on board the boat hailed them by their Christian names, gave and heard the news. Among the cases landed at the pier were certain of champagne and pâtés, on which Captain Blank was wont to regale his company daily at his own expense, or that of his cotton broker. Their horses picketed in the shade of trees close to the beach, the parties of women riding up and down the sands, or driving in light tax-carts, suggested images of a large picnic, and a state of society quite indifferent to Uncle Abe's cruisers and “Hessians.” After a short delay here, the steamer proceeded on her way to Georgetown, an ancient and once important settlement and port, which was marked in the distance by the little forest of masts rising above the level land, and the tops of the trees beyond, and by a solitary church-spire.

As the "Nina" approaches the tumble-down wharf of the old town, two or three citizens advance from the shade of shaky sheds to welcome us, and a few country vehicles and light phaetons are drawn forth from the same shelter to receive the passengers, while the negro boys and girls who have been playing upon the bales of cotton and barrels of rice, which represent the trade of the place on the wharf, take up commanding positions for the better observation of our proceedings.

There is about Georgetown an air of quaint simplicity and old-fashioned quiet, which contrasts refreshingly with the bustle and tumult of American cities. While waiting for our vehicle we enjoyed the hospitality of Colonel Reed, who took us into an old-fashioned, angular, wooden mansion, more than a century old, still sound in every timber, and testifying, in its quaint wainscotings, and the rigid framework of door and window, to the durability of its cypress timbers and the preservative character of the atmosphere. In early days it was the grand house of the old settlement, and the residence of the founder of the female branch of the family of our host, who now only makes it his halting-place when passing to and fro between Charleston and his plantation, leaving it the year round in charge of an old servant and her grandchild. Rose-trees and flowering shrubs clustered before the porch and filled the garden in front, and the establishment gave one a good idea of a London merchant's retreat about Chelsea a hundred and fifty years ago.

At length we were ready for our journey, and, in two light covered gigs, proceeded along the sandy track which, after a while, led us to a road cut deep in the bosom of the woods, where silence was only broken by the cry of a woodpecker, the scream of a crane, or the sharp challenge of the jay. For miles we passed through the shades of this forest, meeting only two or three vehicles containing female planterdom on little excursions of pleasure or business, who smiled their welcome as we passed. Arrived at a deep chocolate-colored stream, called Black River, full of fish and alligators, we find a flat large enough to accommodate vehicles and passengers, and propelled by two negroes pulling upon a stretched rope, in the manner usual in the ferry-boats in Switzerland.

Another drive through a more open country, and we reach a fine grove of pine and live-oak, which melts away into a shrubbery guarded by a rustic gateway: passing through this, we are brought by a sudden turn to the planter's house, buried in trees, which dispute with the green sward and with wild flower-beds the space between the hall-door and the waters of the Pedee; and in a few minutes, as we gaze over the expanse of fields marked by the deep water-cuts, and bounded by a fringe of unceasing forest, just tinged with green by the first life of the early rice-crops, the chimneys of the steamer we had left at Georgetown, gliding as it were through the fields, indicate the existence of another navigable river still beyond.

Leaving the veranda which commanded this agreeable foreground, we enter the mansion, and are reminded by its low-browed, old-fashioned rooms, of the country houses yet to be found in parts of Ireland or on the Scottish border, with additions, made by the luxury and love of foreign travel, of more than one generation of educated Southern planters. Paintings from Italy illustrate the walls, in juxtaposition with interesting portraits of early colonial governors and their lovely womankind, limned with no uncertain hand, and full of the vigor of touch and naturalness of drapery, of which Copley has left us too few exemplars; and one portrait of Benjamin West claims for itself such honor as his own pencil can give. An excellent library — filled with collections of French and English classics, and with those ponderous editions of Voltaire, Rousseau, the “Mémoires pour Servir,” books of travel and history which delighted our forefathers in the last century, and many works of American and general history — affords ample occupation for a rainy day.

It was five o'clock before we reached our planter's house — White House Plantation. My small luggage was carried into my room by an old negro in livery, who took great pains to assure me of my perfect welcome, and who turned out to be a most excellent valet. A low room hung with colored mezzotints, windows covered with creepers, and an old-fashioned bedstead and quaint chairs, lodged me sumptuously; and after such toilet as was considered necessary by our host for a bachelor's party, we sat down to an excellent dinner, cooked by negroes and served by negroes, and aided by claret mellowed in Carolinian suns, and by Madeira brought down stairs cautiously, as in the days of Horace and Maecenas, from the cellar between the attic and the thatched roof.

Our party was increased by a neighboring planter, and after dinner the conversation returned to the old channel — all the frogs praying for a king — anyhow a prince — to rule over them. Our good host is anxious to get away to Europe, where his wife and children are, and all he fears is being mobbed at New York, where Southerners are exposed to insult, though they may get off better in that respect than Black Republicans would down South. Some of our guests talked of the duello, and of famous hands with the pistol in these parts. The conversation had altogether very much the tone which would have probably characterized the talk of a group of Tory Irish gentlemen over their wine some sixty years ago, and very pleasant it was. Not a man — no, not one — will ever join the Union again! “Thank God!” they say, “we are freed from that tyranny at last.” And yet Mr. Seward calls it the most beneficent government in the world, which never hurt a human being yet!

But alas! all the good things which the house affords, can be enjoyed but for a brief season. Just as nature has expanded every charm, developed every grace, and clothed the scene with all the beauty of opened flower, of ripening grain, and of mature vegetation, on the wings of the wind the poisoned breath comes borne to the home of the white man, and he must fly before it or perish. The books lie unopened on the shelves, the flower blooms and dies unheeded, and, pity ’tis, ’tis true, the old Madeira garnered ’neath the roof, settles down for a fresh lease of life, and sets about its solitary task of acquiring a finer flavor for the infrequent lips of its banished master and his welcome visitors. This is the story, at least, that we hear on all sides, and such is the tale repeated to us beneath the porch, when the moon while softening enhances the loveliness of the scene, and the rich melody of mockingbirds fills the grove.

Within these hospitable doors Horace might banquet better than he did with Nasidienus, and drink such wine as can be only found among the descendants of the ancestry who, improvident enough in all else, learnt the wisdom of bottling up choice old Bual and Sercial, ere the demon of oidium had dried up their generous sources forever. To these must be added excellent bread, ingenious varieties of the galette, compounded now of rice and now of Indian meal, delicious butter and fruits, all good of their kind. And is there anything better rising up from the bottom of the social bowl? My black friends who attend on me are grave as Mussulman Khitmutgars. They are attired in liveries and wear white cravats and Berlin gloves. At night when we retire, off they go to their outer darkness in the small settlement of negro-hood, which is separated from our house by a wooden palisade. Their fidelity is undoubted. The house breathes an air of security. The doors and windows are unlocked. There is but one gun, a fowling-piece, on the premises. No planter hereabouts has any dread of his slaves. But I have seen, within the short time I have been in this part of the world, several dreadful accounts of murder and violence, in which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that “we are not afraid of our slaves.” The curfew and the night patrol in the streets, the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations, prove that strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My host is a kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be so with him.

These people are fed by their master. They have half a pound per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry and sell their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master. He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of tobacco and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going on in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get its head above water. These fields yield plentifully; the waters of the river are fat, and they are let in whenever the planter requires it by means of floodgates and small canals, through which the flats can carry their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 127-32

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 20, 1861

I visited the editors of the “Charleston Mercury” and the “Charleston Courier” to-day at their offices. The Rhett family have been active agitators for secession, and it is said they are not over well pleased with Jefferson Davis for neglecting their claims to office. The elder, a pompous, hard, ambitious man, possesses ability. He is fond of alluding to his English connections and predilections, and is intolerant of New England to the last degree. I received from him, ere I left, a pamphlet on his life, career and services. In the newspaper offices there was nothing worthy of remark; they were possessed of that obscurity which is such a characteristic of the haunts of journalism — the clouds in which the lightning is hiding. Thence to haunts more dingy still where Plutus lives — to the counting-houses of the cotton brokers, up many pairs of stairs into large rooms furnished with hard seats, engravings of celebrated clippers, advertisements of emigrant agencies and of lines of steamers, little flocks of cotton, specimens of rice, grain, and seed in wooden bowls, and clerks living inside railings, with secluded spittoons, and ledgers, and tumblers of water. I called on several of the leading merchants and bankers, such as Mr. Rose, Mr. Muir, Mr. Trenholm, and others. With all it was the same story. Their young men were off to the wars — no business doing. In one office I saw an announcement of a company for a direct communication by steamers between a southern port and Europe. “When do you expect that line to be opened?” I asked. “The United States cruisers will surely interfere with it.” “Why, I expect, sir,” replied the merchant, “that if those miserable Yankees try to blockade us, and keep you from our cotton, you'll just send their ships to the bottom and acknowledge us. That will be before autumn, I think.” It was in vain I assured him he would be disappointed. “Look out there,” he said, pointing to the wharf, on which were piled some cotton bales; “there's the key will open all our ports, and put us into John Bull's strong box as well.” I dined to-day at the hotel, notwithstanding many hospitable invitations, with Messrs. Manning, Porcher Miles, Reed, and Pringle. Mr. Trescot, who was Under Secretary of State in Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet, joined us, and I promised to visit his plantation as soon as I have returned from Mr. Pringle's. We heard much the same conversation as usual, relieved by Mr. Trescot's sound sense and philosophy. He sees clearly the evils of slavery, but is, like all of us, unable to discover the solution and means of averting them. The Secessionists are in great delight with Governor Letcher’s proclamation, calling out troops and volunteers, and it is hinted that Washington will be attacked, and the nest of Black Republican vermin which haunt the capital, driven out. Agents are to be at once despatched to get up a navy, and every effort made to carry out the policy indicated in Jeff Davis's issue of letters of marque and reprisal. Norfolk harbor is blocked up to prevent the United States ships getting away; and at the same time we hear that the Unites States officer commanding at the arsenal of Harper's Ferry has retired into Pennsylvania, after destroying the place by fire. How “old John Brown” would have wondered and rejoiced, had he lived a few months longer!

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 122-4

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Sunday, November 3, 1861

Camp Ewing, Virginia. — Yesterday and today it has been rainy, stormy, and disagreeable. I came up to my regiment yesterday as lieutenant-colonel. The men and officers seem pleased with my promotion. All regret the loss of Colonel Matthews and say that if I go their interest in the regiment is gone. The paymaster has paid me up to the 31st [of] August, four hundred and ninety-six dollars. Lieutenant Richardson has also collected for me two hundred and fifty dollars of money lent the company officers. I can send home seven hundred dollars and still have two months' pay due me. I have been very economical in order to a fair start for my family. I shall now feel relieved from anxiety on that score and will be more liberal in my expenditures.

A Mr. Ficklin, of Charlottesville, Virginia, a brother-in-law of Mrs. Colonel Tompkins, came with her bearing a flag of truce. He staid with us last night. He is an agreeable, fair-minded, intelligent gentleman of substance, formerly and perhaps now a stage proprietor and mail-carrier. He says he entertains not the shadow of a doubt that the Confederate States will achieve independence. He says the whole people will spend and be spent to the last before they will yield. On asking him, “Suppose on the expiration of Lincoln's term a state-rights Democrat shall be elected President, what will be the disposition of the South towards him?” he replied hesitatingly as if puzzled, and seemed to feel that the chief objection to the Union would be removed. So it's Lincoln, Black Republican, prejudice, a name, that is at the bottom of it all. His account of things goes to show that great pains have been taken to drill and discipline the Rebel troops, and that their cavalry are especially fine.

All the sick sent over Gauley last night. A new lot appear today. We have had three deaths by the fever.

I now enter on new duties. I must learn all the duties of colonel, see that Colonel Scammon does not forget or omit anything. He is ready to all but so forgetful. He loves to talk of West Point, of General Scott, of genteel and aristocratic people; and if an agreeable person is found who will seem to be entertained, he can talk by the hour in a pleasant way to the omission of every important duty.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 136-7

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: April 2, 1861

Governor Manning came to breakfast at our table. The others had breakfasted hours before. I looked at him in amazement, as he was in full dress, ready for a ball, swallow-tail and all, and at that hour. “What is the matter with you?” “Nothing, I am not mad, most noble madam. I am only going to the photographer. My wife wants me taken thus.” He insisted on my going, too, and we captured Mr. Chesnut and Governor Means.¹ The latter presented me with a book, a photo-book, in which I am to pillory all the celebrities.

Doctor Gibbes says the Convention is in a snarl. It was called as a Secession Convention. A secession of places seems to be what it calls for first of all. It has not stretched its eyes out to the Yankees yet; it has them turned inward; introspection is its occupation still.

Last night, as I turned down the gas, I said to myself: “Certainly this has been one of the pleasantest days of my life.” I can only give the skeleton of it, so many pleasant people, so much good talk, for, after all, it was talk, talk, talk à la Caroline du Sud. And yet the day began rather dismally. Mrs. Capers and Mrs. Tom Middleton came for me and we drove to Magnolia Cemetery. I saw William Taber's broken column. It was hard to shake off the blues after this graveyard business.

The others were off at a dinner party. I dined tête-a-tête with Langdon Cheves, so quiet, so intelligent, so very sensible withal. There never was a pleasanter person, or a better man than he. While we were at table, Judge Whitner, Tom Frost, and Isaac Hayne came. They broke up our deeply interesting conversation, for I was hearing what an honest and brave man feared for his country, and then the Rutledges dislodged the newcomers and bore me off to drive on the Battery. On the staircase met Mrs. Izard, who came for the same purpose. On the Battery Governor Adams² stopped us. He had heard of my saying he looked like Marshal Pelissier, and he came to say that at last I had made a personal remark which pleased him, for once in my life. When we came home Mrs. Isaac Hayne and Chancellor Carroll called to ask us to join their excursion to the Island Forts to-morrow. With them was William Haskell. Last summer at the White Sulphur he was a pale, slim student from the university. To-day he is a soldier, stout and robust. A few months in camp, with soldiering in the open air, has worked this wonder. Camping out proves a wholesome life after all. Then came those nice, sweet, fresh, pure-looking Pringle girls. We had a charming topic in common — their clever brother Edward.

A letter from Eliza B., who is in Montgomery: “Mrs. Mallory got a letter from a lady in Washington a few days ago, who said that there had recently been several attempts to be gay in Washington, but they proved dismal failures. The Black Republicans were invited and came, and stared at their entertainers and their new Republican companions, looked unhappy while they said they were enchanted, showed no ill-temper at the hardly stifled grumbling and growling of our friends, who thus found themselves condemned to meet their despised enemy.”

I had a letter from the Gwinns to-day. They say Washington offers a perfect realization of Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

Celebrated my 38th birthday, but I am too old now to dwell in public on that unimportant anniversary. A long, dusty day ahead on those windy islands; never for me, so I was up early to write a note of excuse to Chancellor Carroll. My husband went. I hope Anderson will not pay them the compliment of a salute with shotted guns, as they pass Fort Sumter, as pass they must.

Here I am interrupted by an exquisite bouquet from the Rutledges. Are there such roses anywhere else in the world? Now a loud banging at my door. I get up in a pet and throw it wide open. “Oh!” said John Manning, standing there, smiling radiantly; “pray excuse the noise I made. I mistook the number; I thought it was Rice's room; that is my excuse. Now that I am here, come, go with us to Quinby's. Everybody will be there who are not at the Island. To be photographed is the rage just now.”

We had a nice open carriage, and we made a number of calls, Mrs. Izard, the Pringles, and the Tradd Street Rutledges, the handsome ex-Governor doing the honors gallantly. He had ordered dinner at six, and we dined tête-atête. If he should prove as great a captain in ordering his line of battle as he is in ordering a dinner, it will be as well for the country as it was for me to-day.

Fortunately for the men, the beautiful Mrs. Joe Heyward sits at the next table, so they take her beauty as one of the goods the gods provide. And it helps to make life pleasant with English grouse and venison from the West. Not to speak of the salmon from the lakes which began the feast. They have me to listen, an appreciative audience, while they talk, and Mrs. Joe Heyward to look at.

Beauregard³ called. He is the hero of the hour. That is, he is believed to be capable of great things. A hero worshiper was struck dumb because I said: “So far, he has only been a captain of artillery, or engineers, or something.” I did not see him. Mrs. Wigfall did and reproached my laziness in not coming out.

Last Sunday at church beheld one of the peculiar local sights, old negro maumas going up to the communion, in their white turbans and kneeling devoutly around the chancel rail.

The morning papers say Mr. Chesnut made the best shot on the Island at target practice. No war yet, thank God. Likewise they tell me Mr. Chesnut has made a capital speech in the Convention.

Not one word of what is going on now. “Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” says the Psalmist. Not so here. Our hearts are in doleful dumps, but we are as gay, as madly jolly, as sailors who break into the strong-room when the ship is going down. At first in our great agony we were out alone. We longed for some of our big brothers to come out and help us. Well, they are out, too, and now it is Fort Sumter and that ill-advised Anderson. There stands Fort Sumter, en evidence, and thereby hangs peace or war.

Wigfall⁴ says before he left Washington, Pickens, our Governor, and Trescott were openly against secession; Trescott does not pretend to like it now. He grumbles all the time, but Governor Pickens is fire-eater down to the ground. “At the White House Mrs. Davis wore a badge. Jeff Davis is no seceder,” says Mrs. Wigfall.

Captain Ingraham comments in his rapid way, words tumbling over each other out of his mouth: “Now, Charlotte Wigfall meant that as a fling at those people. I think better of men who stop to think; it is too rash to rush on as some do.” “And so,'” adds Mrs. Wigfall, “the eleventh-hour men are rewarded; the half-hearted are traitors in this row.”

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¹ John Hugh Means was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1850, and had long been an advocate of secession. He was a delegate to the Convention of 1860 and affixed his name to the Ordinance of Secession. He was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in August, 1862.

² James H. Adams was a graduate of Yale, who in 1832 strongly opposed Nullification, and in 1855 was elected Governor of South Carolina.

³ Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born in New Orleans in 1818, and graduated from West Point in the class of 1838. He served in the war with Mexico; had been superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point a few days only, when in February, 1861, he resigned his commission in the Army of the United States and offered his services to the Confederacy.

⁴ Louis Trezevant Wigfall was a native of South Carolina, but removed to Texas after being admitted to the bar, and from that State was elected United States Senator, becoming an uncompromising defender of the South on the slave question. After the war he lived in England, but in 1873 settled in Baltimore. He had a wide Southern reputation as a forcible and impassioned speaker.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 25-9

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: December 10, 1860

We have been up to the Mulberry Plantation with Colonel Colcock and Judge Magrath, who were sent to Columbia by their fellow-citizens in the low country, to hasten the slow movement of the wisdom assembled in the State Capital. Their message was, they said: “Go ahead, dissolve the Union, and be done with it, or it will be worse for you. The fire in the rear is hottest.” And yet people talk of the politicians leading! Everywhere that I have been people have been complaining bitterly of slow and lukewarm public leaders.

Judge Magrath is a local celebrity, who has been stretched across the street in effigy, showing him tearing off his robes of office. The painting is in vivid colors, the canvas huge, and the rope hardly discernible. He is depicted with a countenance flaming with contending emotions—rage, disgust, and disdain. We agreed that the time had now come. We had talked so much heretofore. Let the fire-eaters have it out. Massachusetts and South Carolina are always coming up before the footlights.

As a woman, of course, it is easy for me to be brave under the skins of other people; so I said: “Fight it out. Bluffton¹ has brought on a fever that only bloodletting will cure.” My companions breathed fire and fury, but I dare say they were amusing themselves with my dismay, for, talk as I would, that I could not hide.

At Kingsville we encountered James Chesnut, fresh from Columbia, where he had resigned his seat in the United States Senate the-day before. Said some one spitefully, “Mrs. Chesnut does not look at all resigned.” For once in her life, Mrs. Chesnut held her tongue: she was dumb. In the high-flown style which of late seems to have gotten into the very air, she was offering up her life to the cause.

We have had a brief pause. The men who are all, like Pickens,² “insensible to fear,” are very sensible in case of small-pox. There being now an epidemic of small-pox in Columbia, they have adjourned to Charleston. In Camden we were busy and frantic with excitement, drilling, marching, arming, and wearing high blue cockades. Red sashes, guns, and swords were ordinary fireside accompaniments. So wild were we, I saw at a grand parade of the home-guard a woman, the wife of a man who says he is a secessionist per se, driving about to see the drilling of this new company, although her father was buried the day before.

Edward J. Pringle writes me from San Francisco on November 30th: “I see that Mr. Chesnut has resigned and that South Carolina is hastening into a Convention, perhaps to secession. Mr. Chesnut is probably to be President of the Convention. I see all of the leaders in the State are in favor of secession. But I confess I hope the black Republicans will take the alarm and submit some treaty of peace that will enable us now and forever to settle the question, and save our generation from the prostration of business and the decay of prosperity that must come both to the North and South from a disruption of the Union. However, I won't speculate. Before this reaches you, South Carolina may be off on her own hook — a separate republic.”

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¹ A reference to what was known as “the Bluffton movement” of 1844, in South Carolina. It aimed at secession, but was voted down.

² Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, 1860-62. He had been elected to Congress in 1834 as a Nullifier, but had voted against the " Bluffton movement." From 1858 to 1860, he was Minister to Russia. He was a wealthy planter and had fame as an orator.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 2-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: Charleston, South Carolina, November 8, 1860

Yesterday on the train, just before we reached Fernandina, a woman called out: “That settles the hash.” Tanny touched me on the shoulder and said: “Lincoln's elected.” “How do you know?” “The man over there has a telegram.”

The excitement was very great. Everybody was talking at the same time. One, a little more moved than the others, stood up and said despondently: “The die is cast; no more vain regrets; sad forebodings are useless; the stake is life or death.” “Did you ever!”' was the prevailing exclamation, and some one cried out: “Now that the black radical Republicans have the power I suppose they will Brown¹ us all.” No doubt of it.

I have always kept a journal after a fashion of my own, with dates and a line of poetry or prose, mere quotations, which I understood and no one else, and I have kept letters and extracts from the papers. From to-day forward I will tell the story in my own way. I now wish I had a chronicle of the two delightful and eventful years that have just passed. Those delights have fled and one's breath is taken away to think what events have since crowded in. Like the woman’s record in her journal, we have had “earthquakes, as usual” — daily shocks.

At Fernandina I saw young men running up a Palmetto flag, and shouting a little prematurely, “South Carolina has seceded!” I was overjoyed to find Florida so sympathetic, but Tanny told me the young men were Gadsdens, Porchers, and Gourdins,² names as inevitably South Carolinian as Moses and Lazarus are Jewish. From my window I can hear a grand and mighty flow of eloquence. Bartow and a delegation from Savannah are having a supper given to them in the dining-room below. The noise of the speaking and cheering is pretty hard on a tired traveler. Suddenly I found myself listening with pleasure. Voice, tone, temper, sentiment, language, all were perfect. I sent Tanny to see who it was that spoke. He came back saying, “Mr. Alfred Huger, the old postmaster.” He may not have been the wisest or wittiest man there, but he certainly made the best after-supper speech.

_______________

¹ A reference to John Brown of Harper's Ferry.

² This and other French names to be met with in this Diary are of Huguenot origin.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 1-2

Senator George W. Jones to Senator Stephen A. Douglas, November 9, 1858

Dubuque, Iowa, Nov. 9, ’58.

Hon. S. A. Douglas,

Chicago, Ill,

Sir: — Herewith is enclosed your letter dated August 7th, 1858, to H. G. Crouch, editor of the Galena, Illinois, Courier, cut from that paper of the 2d instant, with the editorial accompanying the same, headed — “A Base Calumny.” I will not condescend to notice the scurrilous editorial, predicated upon the many wilful [mis]representations of your letter, preferring to deal with you, as more responsible than your instrument. I say “wilful misrepresentation,” because you say you "have a distinct recollection of the facts in the case,'' and because the journals of the Senate prove your statements to be wholly destitute of truth, so far as you refer to my colleague (Gen. A. C. Dodge,) myself and our friends as having ever expressed or entertained the idea, as you say, of “defeating the bill unless the road was extended to Dubuque,” though we surely had as much right so to amend it as our Southern friends of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama had to suggest and require, as I think they did, that you should make the road extend to Mobile, through those three States.

You knew well that neither you nor your colleague, Gen. Shields, ever had such consultation, either between yourselves or your colleagues of the House, before I offered my amendment to make the road terminate at this place, instead of at Galena. You moreover knew equally well that when I approached you towards the close of the debate in the Senate on the bill with my amendment, and asked you whether you had any objections to my offering it, stating as I did that it was merely to extend your road to Dubuque, 12 or 15 miles further West, that you not only freely assented thereto, but thanked me for the suggestion, and that I immediately thereafter, in your presence and hearing, obtained the assent of your colleagues to the same effect;— that I then offered it and it was passed without a dissenting vote or objection from any quarter whatever, as the records show.

You must also recollect that within twenty-four hours after the passage of the bill through the Senate, I informed you that I had had a conversation with Col. Baker, the then Representative from Galena in Congress, and that he declared to me that he would not allow the bill to pass the House without having my amendment stricken from it, and that you then said that you cared not what Baker wished — that it was right that the road should terminate on the Mississippi, and so connect with our proposed railroad, and that you would so state to your colleagues, Col. Richardson, Major Harris, and others of the House, who would take charge of the bill, and would prevent Baker from making any such amendment in that body.

The assertion on your part that I or my colleague, or any one of our friends had determined to defeat your bill upon the ground stated by you, or for any other reason whatever is false, and its publication being deferred until the day of the Illinois election, too late to be contradicted by myself or others, shows that you and he (your Galena organ) who acted for you, designed to mislead the Galena people, and accomplish your selfish purpose. The journals and the debates of the Senate show that Gen. Dodge and I heartily cooperated with you and your colleague in every effort and every vote which was given on that question. For many considerations we could not but be deeply interested in the passage of that bill.

At the celebration of the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad to Dunleith, held at this place in July, 1855, you complimented me, in exalted terms, in your speech on that occasion as the person who procured the amendment, making Dubuque the terminus of the road, and although you knew that hundreds of your own constituents were there present, you did not intimate that the same had been done contrary to your wishes. You were then addressing an Iowa audience whom you wished to propitiate.

Again, sir, when you last visited Dubuque, (26th August, 1857,) you had an interview with J. B. Dorr, the editor of the Express and Herald of this city, who had, ever since you introduced the Kansas and Nebraska Bill in the Senate, been your bitter opponent, and the opponent of that measure. The next morning an editorial article appeared in that paper, of which the following is an extract:

"But Illinois is not the only State which has been benefited by the policy and by the labors of Stephen A. Douglas. All the Western States are indebted to him for the material improvement which is observable within her borders. We believe, however, that our own State, Iowa, stands next to Illinois in her obligations to Mr. Douglas. To him more than to any living man is owing the magnificent railroad system planned out for her — the system which is destined to make her one of the wealthiest and most important States in the West. Even our own good city of Dubuque owes, in a great measure, her present importance to the labors of Mr. Douglas. She knows that the extension of the north western branch of the Illinois Central to the opposite bank of the Mississippi has greatly added to her prosperity, and the land grant roads running from here to the interior will still add more towards making her the commercial metropolis of the region North and West of Chicago.''

Two numbers of the paper containing the above extract were sent to you the next day, one to Galena and the other to Chicago, with the expectation that you would have the honesty to spurn the offer thus made you by your newly acquired advocate here, to the detriment of myself, for whom you then professed friendship. Instead of doing so, however, the same article was republished in the Times, your organ at Chicago, and that, too, within a very few days after it came out here, and whilst you were still at Chicago, and necessarily within your knowledge, if not at your request. Thus, sir, at one time you extolled me in unmeasured terms for causing Dubuque to be made the terminus of the Illinois Central Railroad when addressing an Iowa audience; at another, you allow Dorr, your ally and my unscrupulous opponent here, to filch that which justly belongs to me and appropriate it to your temporary benefit. And now, when arraigned by your constituents for allowing me to make an amendment to your bill, to the disadvantage of Galena, (as the people there believe,) you resort to the dishonest and unworthy pretext of saying you were compelled either to allow the amendment to be made, or to lose the bill entirely, because “they (myself and colleague) were immovable and insisted on defeating the bill,” &c. Neither Gen'l Dodge, his father nor myself, ever voted against you or Gen'l Shields on any amendment or proposition offered to the bill. The vote was generally two to one in favor of the bill and it finally passed by yeas and nays 26 to 14, so we had not, as you allege, the power to defeat the bill, as still it would have passed.

My amendment was offered without consultation with any one, not excepting my own colleague, or any one of my constituents. I am proud of having procured such a benefit for the State which has trusted and honored me, but I would spurn it had it been obtained “by collusion” with yourself or any one else — a charge never within my knowledge made at Galena or elsewhere, until now meanly insinuated by yourself.

This, sir, is the third time that you have made “infamously false” accusations against me, and that I have been compelled to fasten the lie upon you. Though you may, at the sacrifice of Democratic organization, have effected a triumph in your own State, as you say “over Executive and Congressional dictation,” I can but look with contempt upon any fame or position you may have acquired by a union with “white spirits and black, blue spirits and grey,'” Black Republicans, South Americans, disappointed office-seekers, &c., as I do upon the miserable resort to opprob[r]ious epithets connected with my name, but covered with a contingency which gave you a sure escape.

George Wallace Jones.

P. S. This was prepared at the time and place that it bears date, and would have been sent to you had I known where it would reach you. As you are still canvassing the country, I address it to you at your own home, and publish a copy of the same in order to make sure of it being seen by you,

Geo. W. Jones.

SOURCE: John Carl Parish, George Wallace Jones, p. 197-202