Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, June 10, 1863

Rumors of a cavalry fight in Culpeper. The President and Stanton have gone to Falmouth. Nothing definite from Vicksburg. Am not favorably impressed with what I hear of the fight on the Rappahannock.

The accounts of piratical depredations disturb me. My views, instructions, and arrangements to capture the Alabama, which would have prevented these depredations, have failed through the misconduct of Wilkes. The Rebel cruisers are now beginning to arm their prizes and find adventurers to man them. Our neutral friends will be likely to find the police of the seas in a bad way.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 326-7

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, June 4, 1863

Only a sense of duty would have led me to relieve Du Pont and Wilkes. With D. my relations have been kind and pleasant, on my part confiding. Latterly he has disappointed me, and given indication that my confidence was not returned. Wilkes is a different man and of an entirely different temperament. Du Pont is pleasant in manner and one of the most popular officers in the Navy; Wilkes is arbitrary and one of the most unpopular. There are exceptions in both cases. Du Pont is scrupulous to obey orders; Wilkes often disregards and recklessly breaks them. The Governments of Great Britain, Denmark, Mexico, and Spain have each complained of Wilkes, but, except in the case of Denmark, it appears to me without much cause, and even in the case of Denmark the cause was aggravated. There was some mismanagement in the Mexican case that might not stand close scrutiny. As regards the rights of neutrals, he has so far as I yet know, deported himself correctly, and better than I feared so far as England is concerned, after the affair of the Trent and with his intense animosity towards that government. His position has doubtless been cause of jealousy and irritation on the part of Great Britain, and in that respect his selection from the beginning had its troubles. He has accomplished less than I expected; has been constantly grumbling and complaining, which was expected; has captured a few blockade-runners, but not an armed cruiser, which was his special duty, and has probably defeated the well-devised plan of the Navy Department to take the Alabama. At the last advices most of his squadron was concentrated at St. Thomas, including the Vanderbilt, which should then have been on the equator, by specific orders. To-day Mrs. Wilkes, with whom we have been sociable, and I might almost say intimate, writes Mrs. Welles a note asking if any change has been made in the command of the West India Squadron. This note was on my table as I came out from breakfast. The answer of Mrs. Welles was, I suppose, not sufficiently definite, for I received a note with similar inquiries in the midst of pressing duties, and the messenger was directed to await an answer. I frankly informed her of the change. Alienation and probably anger will follow, but I could not do differently, though this necessary official act will, not unlikely, be resented as a personal wrong.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 322-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 9, 1863

Nothing additional has occurred at Charleston, the enemy not having renewed the attack. At Vicksburg all was quiet, and the enemy abandoning their canal. Such news must have a depressing effect upon the North. They will see that their monitors and iron-clads have lost their terrors. They have lost some twenty war steamers within the last few months; and how many of their merchantmen have been destroyed on the ocean, we have no means of knowing.

British and French capitalists have taken a cotton loan of $15,000,000, which is now selling at a premium of four per cent, in those countries, Our government can, if it will, soon have a navy of Alabamas and Floridas.

But we are in danger of being sold to the enemy by the blockade-runners in this city. High officers, civil and military, are said, perhaps maliciously, to be engaged in the unlawful trade hitherto carried on by the Jews. It is said that the flag of truce boats serve as a medium of negotiations between official dignitaries here and those at Washington; and I have no doubt many of the Federal officers at Washington, for the sake of lucre, make no scruple to participate in the profits of this treasonable traffic. They can beat us at this game: cheat us in bargaining, and excel us in obtaining information as to the number and position of troops, fortifications, etc.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 289

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, May 29, 1863

We have accounts of farther and extensive depredations by the Alabama. These depredations were near the Line, where the Department, in anticipation of her appearance, had ordered the Vanderbilt. She was specially ordered to Fernando de Noronha, whither the Alabama was expected to go, — where she did go, and where she would have been captured, had instructions been obeyed, and not interfered with. But Admiral Wilkes, having fallen in with that vessel and finding her a commodious ship with extensive and comfortable accommodations, deliberately annexed her to his squadron and detained her in the West Indies as his flagship, hunting prizes, too long for the service on which she was specially sent. I, of course, shall be abused for the escape of the Alabama and her destruction of property by those who know nothing of the misconduct of Wilkes. The propriety of recalling that officer is more apparent than ever. He has accomplished nothing, but has sadly interrupted and defeated the plans of the Department. The country, ignorant of these facts and faults, will disapprove his removal, and assail the Department for the mischief of the Alabama, whereas, had he been earlier removed, the latter would not have happened.

I this morning sent for Admiral Foote and had a free and full talk with him in regard to the command of the South Atlantic Squadron. I am satisfied he would be pleased with the position, and really desired it when he knew Du Pont was to be relieved. I then introduced him to General Gillmore, and with the charts and maps before us took a rapid survey of the harbor and plan of operations. Before doing this, I said to Foote that I thought it would be well for the country, the service, and himself, were Admiral Dahlgren associated with him. He expressed the pleasure it would give him, but doubted if D. would consent to serve as second.

I requested Mr. Fox to call on D. and inform him that I had given Foote the squadron, that I should be glad to have him embark with Foote, and take an active part against Charleston. If he responded favorably, I wished him to come with Fox to the conference. Fox returned with an answer that not only was D. unwilling to go as second, but that he wished to decline entirely, unless he could have command of both naval and land forces. This precludes farther thought of him. I regret it for his own sake. It is one of the errors of a lifetime. He has not seen the sea service he ought for his rank, and there is a feeling towards him, on account of his advancement, among naval men which he had now an opportunity to remove. No one questions his abilities as a skillful and scientific ordnance officer, but some of his best friends in his profession doubt his capability as a naval officer on such duty as is here proposed. It is doubtful if he ever will have another so good an opportunity.

Foote says he will himself see D., and has a conviction that he can induce him to go with him. I doubt it. Dahlgren is very proud and aspiring, and will injure himself and his professional standing in consequence. With undoubted talents of a certain kind he has intense selfishness, and I am sorry to see him on this occasion, as I have seen him on others, regardless of the feelings and rights of officers of greater experience, who have seen vastly more sea service and who possess high naval qualities and undoubted merit. In a matter of duty, such as this, he shows what is charged upon him, — that he is less devoted to the country than to himself, that he never acts on any principle of self-sacrifice. While friendly to him, as I have shown on repeated occasions, I am friendly to others also, and must respect their feelings and protect their rights.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 316-8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, May 16, 1863

Saw Seward this morning respecting Wilkes. After talking over the subject, he said he cared nothing about Wilkes, that if he was removed he would be made a martyr, and both he (S.) and myself would be blamed and abused by the people, who knew not the cause that influenced and governed us. He then for the first time alluded to the removal of Butler, which he said was a necessity to appease France. Nevertheless France was not satisfied, yet Butler's removal had occasioned great discontent and called down much censure. If I could stand the recall of Wilkes, he thought he could. I answered him that any abuse of me in the discharge of my duty and when I knew I was right would never influence my course. In this case I could better stand his recall than the responsibility of sending him into the Pacific, where he would have great power and be the representative of the Government; for he is erratic, impulsive, opinionated, somewhat arbitrary towards his subordinates, and is always disinclined to obey orders which he receives if they do not comport with his own notions. His special mission, in his present command, had been to capture the Alabama. In this he had totally failed, while zealous to catch blockade-runners and get prize money. Had he not been in the West Indies, we might have captured her, but he had seized the Vanderbilt, which had specific orders and destination and gone off with her prize-hunting, thereby defeating our plans. Seward wished me to detach him because he had not taken the Alabama and give that as the reason. I care to assign no reasons, — none but the true ones, and it is not politic to state them.

When I was about leaving, Seward asked as a favor that I would address him a proposition that the matter of the Mont Blanc should be left to Admiral Bailey alone. The whole pecuniary interest involved did not, he said, exceed six or eight hundred dollars, and it would greatly relieve him at a pinch, if I would do him this favor, and harm no one, for the vessel had been seized sleeping at anchor within a mile of the Cays, and was retained by the court. I asked what he had to do with it anyway. He gave me no satisfactory answer, but went into the trouble he had in keeping the Englishmen quiet and his present difficulties. All of which, I take it, means he has loosely committed himself, meddled with what was none of his business, made inconsiderate promises to Lord Lyons, and wishes me, who have had nothing to do with it, but have objected to the whole proceeding, to now propose that Admiral Bailey shall be sole referee. This will enable him to cover up his own error and leave it to be inferred that I have prompted it, as B. is a naval officer.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 304-5

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, May 2, 1863

Thick rumors concerning the Army of the Potomac, — little, however, from official sources. I abstain from going to the War Department more than is necessary or consulting operators at the telegraph, for there is a hazy uncertainty there. This indefiniteness, and the manner attending it, is a pretty certain indication that the information received is not particularly gratifying. Whether Hooker refuses to communicate, and prevents others from communicating, I know not. Other members of the Cabinet, like myself, are, I find, disinclined to visit the War Department under the circumstances.

A very singular declaration by John Laird, Member of Parliament and one of the builders of the pirate Alabama, has been shown. Laird said in Parliament, in reply to Thomas Baring, that the Navy Department had applied to him to build vessels. It is wholly untrue, a sheer fabrication. But John Laird writes to Howard of New York, that he (Howard) had said something to him (Laird) about building vessels for the Government. Howard, I judge, was Laird's agent or broker to procure, if possible, contracts for him or his firm, but did [not] succeed. The truth is, our own shipbuilders, in consequence of the suspension of work in private yards early in the war, were clamorous for contracts, and the competition was such that we would have had terrible indignation upon us had we gone abroad for vessels, which I never thought of doing.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 290-1

Diary of Gideon Welles: April 2, 1863

Had a call last evening and again to-day from Senator Sumner. Our conversation was chiefly on our foreign relations, the unfortunate condition of public affairs, the inexcusable attitude of England, and the question of letters of marque. On the latter subject he is much dissatisfied with Mr. Seward. He informs me that he was opposed to the passage of the law at the late session, and is, I am glad to see, quite sensitive on the subject. I thought the law well enough as a precautionary measure, a warning to the mischievous spirits abroad, an authorization to the President in case of necessity, and especially as a weapon to coerce England into propriety. The power granted was extraordinary and to be used with discretion, but Mr. Seward, having obtained the authority, is disposed to exercise it. The merchants having been loud and profuse in their complaints and promises, he has taken it for granted that they would at once avail themselves of the law, and make a rush in a random search for a couple of lean and hungry wolves that are abroad, which would be difficult to catch and valueless when caught. I have questioned whether he could beguile merchants into such an investment, and he begins to feel uneasy that none have come forward as he expected.

In a letter which I commenced some days since and finished Saturday night, I put upon paper some of the suggestions, views, and doubts I have from time to time expressed in our discussions. This letter I gave out to be copied, and it was on my table for signature when I returned yesterday from Cabinet council. The English news was such that I laid it aside unsigned, and it was lying on the table when Sumner came in. He stated, among other things, he had been to the State Department and that Seward had given him the substance of the last dispatches. He asked if I had seen them. I answered that I had, and was so disgusted with them that I had laid by a letter which I had prepared in opposition to the current feeling which prevailed on the subject of letters of marque. He wished to read it, and after doing so complimented the letter with emphasis, and begged I would sign and send it.

Informed Admiral Foote that the Secretary of State desired he should go to New York in the service of the State Department, on the subject of letters of marque. He expressed his readiness to obey orders, but asked the object of detailing him. I gave him an outline of proceedings and what appeared to be the purpose of Mr. Seward, which was not very clear, or could not be plainly stated. No doubt he believes it will give importance to the Secretary of State to have a naval officer of the standing of Foote attached to the State Department and acting under its orders.

The President called at my house this evening, chiefly to see the letter which I had prepared concerning letters of marque. Senator Sumner had gone directly from the Navy Department to him, and so made known his gratification at my views and the manner in which I had stated them that the curiosity of the President was excited and he desired to read the letter. I informed him that the last thing I did before leaving the Department was to sign and send it to the Secretary of State; that I perhaps should not have done it, though, as he (the President) was aware, I had differed with him and others on this subject and looked upon it as a dangerous step, but since reading the last English dispatches, I was less opposed to the measure than I had been.

The opportunity being favorable and he disposed to converse and apparently interested in my remarks, I took occasion to enlarge upon the topic more fully than I had done in our Cabinet discussions. I started out with the proposition that to issue letters of marque would in all probability involve us in a war with England. [I said] that I had so viewed this question from the beginning, though he and Mr. Seward had not; that I was not prepared to deny that it might not be best for us to move promptly with that object in view, though it had not yet been urged or stated; but that if we were to resort to letters of marque we should do it understandingly and with all the consequences before us. The idea that private parties would send out armed ships to capture the Alabama and one, possibly two, other rovers of the Rebels was too absurd to be thought of for a moment. If privateers were fitted out for any purpose it would be to capture neutral vessels intended to run the blockade or supposed to be in that service. It was not difficult for us to foresee that such a power in private hands would degenerate into an abuse for which this Government would be held responsible. The Rebels have no commerce to invite private enterprise. So far as the Rebels were concerned, therefore, I had been opposed to committing the Government to the measure. But the disclosures recently made had given a different aspect to the question. There was little doubt the British Government and British capital were encouraging the rebellion; that that Government intended to interpose no obstacle to prevent the sending out of privateers from British ports to depredate upon our commerce; that these privateers, though sailing under the Confederate flag, would be the property of British merchants; that the rich plunder would repay the lawless English adventurer, knowing he had the sanction of his Government; that this combination of British capital with Rebel malignity and desperation would despoil our commerce and drive it from the seas. Our countrymen would not quietly submit to these wrongs and outrages, and allow Englishmen to make war upon us in disguise under the Rebel flag. We ought, therefore, to have an immediate and distinct understanding with the English Government. It should be informed in terms that could not be mistaken or misunderstood that if this policy was persisted in we should in self-defense be under the necessity of resorting to reprisals. In this view the law which authorized letters of marque had appeared to me proper, and might be made useful as a menace and admonition to England; and I repeated what I had said to the Secretary of State in reply to a remark of his that we must make more extensive naval operations against the Rebels by issuing letters of marque to annoy them, — that letters of marque, instead of annoying them, destitute as they were of commerce, would aid them, for that step would involve war with England. If the Secretary of State would be less yielding and more decisive in asserting our rights with that power, it would, I thought, be better for the country.

I then opened on the subject generally. England is taking advantage of our misfortunes and would press upon us just as far as we would bear to be pressed. She rejoiced in our dissensions and desired the dismemberment of the Union. With this rebellion on our hands we were in no condition for a war with her, and it was because we were in this condition that she was arrogant and presuming. A higher and more decisive tone towards her will secure a different policy on her part. A war with England would be a serious calamity to us, but scarcely less serious to her. She cannot afford a maritime conflict with us, even in our troubles, nor will she. We can live within ourselves if worse comes to worse. Our territory is compact, facing both oceans, and in latitudes which furnish us in abundance without foreign aid all the necessaries and most of the luxuries of life; but England has a colonial system which was once her strength, but is her weakness in these days and with such a people as our countrymen to contend with. Her colonies are scattered over the globe. We could, with our public and private armed ships, interrupt and destroy her communication with her dependencies, her colonies, on which she is as dependent for prosperity as they on her.

I was therefore in favor of meeting her face to face, asking only what is right but submitting to nothing that is wrong.

If the late dispatches are to be taken as the policy she intends to pursue, it means war, and if war is to come it looks to me as of a magnitude greater than the world has ever experienced, — as if it would eventuate in the upheaval of nations, the overthrow of governments and dynasties. The sympathies of the mass of mankind would be with us rather than with the decaying dynasties and the old effete governments. Not unlikely the conflict thus commenced would kindle the torch of civil war throughout Christendom, and even nations beyond. I desired no such conflict in my day, and therefore hoped and believed the policy and tone of England might be modified, but it would require energy, resolution, and a firm determination on our part to effect it.

The President listened, for I did most of the talking, as he evidently wished, and showed much interest and accord in what I said. He assented consequently to most that I uttered and controverted nothing. It was evident I suggested some ideas that had not before occurred to him, and I am not without hope that the tone of our foreign affairs, particularly with England, may be different.

The President spoke, as he always has done with me, doubtingly of Porter's schemes on the Mississippi, or rather the side movements to the Yazoo on the east and Red River on the west. Said the long delay of Du Pont, his constant call for more ships, more ironclads, was like McClellan calling for more regiments. Thought the two men were alike, and said he was prepared for a repulse at Charleston.

[The letter referred to above was signed and sent with date of March 31.]

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 251-9

Gideon Welles to William H. Seward, March 31, 1863

Navy Department.

31 Mar., 1863.

Sir,

When discussing the regulations concerning “Letters of Marque,” &c a few days since, I made certain suggestions, and you invited me to communicate any views I might entertain, in writing.

I have felt some delicacy, I may say disinclination, to take any active part in this matter, because I have from the beginning of our difficulties discouraged the policy of privateering in such a war as this we are now waging. The rebels have no commercial marine to entice and stimulate private enterprise and capital in such undertakings, provided the policy were desirable. We, however, have a commerce that invites the cupidity, zeal and spirit of adventure, which, once commenced, will be difficult to regulate or suppress. A few privateers let loose among our shipping, like wolves among sheep, would make sad havoc, as the Alabama and the Florida bear witness.

It is proposed to encourage private enterprize to embark in undertaking to capture the two wolves or privateers that are abroad devastating the seas, and it is said, in addition to the wolves they may be authorized to catch blockade runners. The inducement, I apprehend, will not meet a favorable response. There may be vessels fitted out to capture unarmed prizes, but not of sufficient force to meet and overcome the Alabama; if not, the great end and purpose of the scheme will fail of accomplishment.

To clothe private armed vessels with governmental power and authority, including the belligerent right of search, will be likely to beget trouble, and the tendency must unavoidably be to abuse. Clothed with these powers reckless men will be likely to involve the Government in difficulty, and it was in apprehension of that fact, and to avoid it, I encountered much obloquy and reproach at the beginning of the rebellion, and labored to institute a less objectionable policy.

Propositions for privateers, for yacht squadrons, for naval brigades, volunteer navy, &c., &c. were, with the best intentions in most instances, pressed upon the Dep't, regardless of the consequences that might follow from these rude schemes of private warfare. It was to relieve us of the necessity of going into these schemes of private adventure, that the “Act to provide for the temporary increase of the Navy,” approved July 24, 1861, was so framed as to give authority to take vessels into the Naval service and appoint officers for them, temporarily, to any extent which the President may deem expedient. Under other laws, seamen may be enlisted and their wages fixed by executive authority; and the officers and men so taken temporarily into the Naval service are subject to the laws for the government of the Navy. An “Act for the better government of the Navy,” approved July 17,1862, grants prize money to “any armed vessel in the service of the United States,” in the same manner as to vessels of the Navy.

These laws, therefore, seem, and were intended to provide all the advantages of letters of marque, and yet prevent in a great measure the abuses liable to spring from them. Private armed vessels, adopted temporarily into the Naval service, would be more certainly and immediately under the control of the government, than if acting only under a general responsibility to law.

It will be necessary to establish strict rules for the government of private armed vessels, as to some extent they will be likely to be officered and manned by persons of rude notions and free habits. Congress after authorizing Letters of Marque in the War of 1812, adopted the necessary legislation for the vessels bearing them, by the Act of June 26th of that year. This act has not been revived. The recent “Act concerning letters of marquee” &c. &c. authorizes the President to “make all needful rules and regulations for the government and conduct of private armed vessels, furnished with letters of marque.” In pursuance of this authorization, the “regulations” have been prepared, embracing the provisions of the statute enacted during the War of 1812. These regulations establish, as the statute did, a penal code. They impose fines and assume to authorize punishments, including even capital punishment.

As suggested in our interview, I question the validity of such proceedings. Can Congress delegate this power of penal legislation to the President? and if to the President, why may it not to any branch of the Executive?

If it can be granted for this special purpose — the government of private armed vessels — why not for any other purpose? And if it can delegate the power of penal legislation, why could it not delegate any other power, or powers, to the President, to Commissioners, or even to a Committee of its own body, to sit during the recess? Why could it not delegate to the Secretary of the Treasury to legislate respecting imports and foreign trade, or to the Post-Master General full power of legislation respecting post offices and post routes?

The power of imposing penalties and inflicting punishments is the essence of legislative power, for it is the penalty of transgression that gives force to law. These regulations also establish rewards as well as penalties. They provide that a large bounty shall be paid to private armed vessels in certain cases. But no fund is appropriated for the purpose by the Act, nor has any provision elsewhere been made for it. Can Congress delegate to the President the power to appropriate the public moneys, or to take them without specific appropriation, or pledge the public faith at his discretion for an indefinite amount?

As I have already said, I have doubts in these particulars. They are expressed with some reluctance, because in the uneasy condition of the public mind, growing out of the lawless depredations of the semi-piratical cruisers that are abroad, I am unwilling to interpose anything which may be construed into an obstacle, to repress public indignation, which is so justly excited. I did not regret that Congress enacted a law authorizing letters of marque; because I verily believe that, with it, England can be made to prevent her mercenary citizens from making war on our commerce under a flag that has no recognized nationality. If the police of the sea is to be surrendered, and rovers built by English capital and manned by Englishmen are to be let loose to plunder our commerce, let England understand that her ships will suffer, and her commerce also be annoyed and injured by private armed ships. With her distant and dependent colonies, no nation has greater cause to oppose maritime robbery and plunder, such as is being inflicted on us by Englishmen and English capital, than Great Britain.

The West Indies are, notoriously, harbors of refuge for the corsairs that are plundering our merchants, as well as for the infamous and demoralizing business of running our blockade, to encourage the insurgents who are waging war on our government. Of these ports, those of England are the worst, and a vast amount of English capital is engaged in illicit traffic, and her people and authorities exhibit sympathy for, and afford aid to, the insurgents and their abettors, and corresponding opposition to this Government.

The English ship-yards are filled with vessels built and building for the rebel service, and if measures are not taken to prevent, these will soon swarm the seas to capture, condemn and destroy American property, without a port into which they can send their captures for adjudication. Enjoying greater advantages than the corsairs and sea-rovers that once infested the ocean, because protected, harbored, & sheltered by governments in alliance with, and professedly friendly to us, while ordinary pirates are outlaws, this species of lawless outrage cannot be permitted to go on.

England should be warned that we cannot permit this indirect war to continue with impunity — that it will provoke and justify retaliation, and that if her people and government make war upon our commerce, by sending abroad rovers with no nationality, to prey upon the property of our citizens, it will be impossible to restrain our people from retaliatory measures.

I am, respectfully,

Your Obdt. Servt.

Gideon Welles,

Secty. of Navy.

Hon. Wm. H. Seward,

Secty. of State.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 252-6

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 8, 1863

From intelligence received yesterday evening, it is probable the Alabama, Harriet Lane, and Florida have met off the West Indies, and turned upon the U. S. steamer Brooklyn. The account says a large steamer was seen on fire, and three others were delivering broadsides into her. The United States press thought the burning steamer was the Florida.

From Charleston or Savannah we shall soon have stirring news. They may overpower our forces, but our power there will be completely exhausted before resistance ceases. There will be no more “giving up,” as with New Orleans, Norfolk, etc. Yet there is a feverish anxiety regarding Vicksburg. Pemberton permitted one iron-clad gun-boat to pass, and all our boats below are now at its mercy.

The House of Representatives, at Washington, has passed the “negro soldier bill.” This will prove a “Pandora's Box,” and the Federals may rue the day that such a measure was adopted.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 256

Diary of Gideon Welles: March 31, 1863

For a fortnight I have been ill and really unfit for duty, yet have been absent from the Department but a single day, the only day I have lost in Washington since March 4,1861. But for the illness of Mr. Faxon, Chief Clerk, I should have abstained a day or two from labor. Fatigued and exhausted, I have not felt able to jot down current events from day to day.

With some effort, though with indifferent health, I have drawn up a communication to Mr. Seward on the subject of letters of marque. But after the council to-day he read a dispatch from Mr. Adams, communicating two letters from Earl Russell, which are insolent, contemptuous, and mean aggression if not war. It is pretty evident that a devastating and villainous war is to be waged on our commerce by English capital and English men under the Rebel flag with the connivance of the English Government, which will, and is intended to, sweep our commerce from the ocean. Only by a decided, firm, and resolute tone can the country be rescued, and I am by no means certain that will be sufficient. We are in no condition for a foreign war. Torn by dissensions, an exhausting civil war on our hands, we have a gloomy prospect, but a righteous cause that will ultimately succeed. God alone knows through what trials, darkness, and suffering we are to pass. There is a disinclination to look these troubles which threaten us boldly in the face. I felt oppressed, as did the others. A long vista of direful calamities opens before us. Mr. Seward is earnest to get out privateers to catch the Alabama and the blockade-runners. The President thinks they should try that policy. Chase has lately favored it. I have no faith in it as against the Rebels, who have no commerce to be injured, but if we are to have a conflict with England, letters of marque and every means in our power must be put in requisition against that faithless nation. I have, therefore, doubts about sending the letter which I have prepared.

Earl Russell gives us to understand the English Government do not intend to interpose to prevent the Rebels from building, buying, and sending out from England cruisers, semi-pirates, to prey upon our commerce. In plain language, English capital is to be employed in destroying our shipping interests. If we are silent and submissive, they will succeed, and we shall waken to our condition when our vessels and merchant seamen are gone.

The condition of affairs opens a vast field. Should a commercial war commence, it will affect the whole world. The police of the seas will be broken up, and the peaceful intercourse of nations destroyed. Those governments and peoples that have encouraged and are fostering our dissensions will themselves reap the bitter fruits of their malicious intrigues. In this great conflict, thus wickedly begun, there will be likely to ensue an uprising of the nations that will shatter existing governments and overthrow the aristocracies and dynasties not only of England but of Europe.

I close my book and this month of March with sad and painful forebodings. The conduct and attitude of Great Britain, if persisted in, foreshadow years of desolation, of dissolution, of suffering and blood.

Should April open, as we hope, with success at Charleston and Vicksburg, there will be a change in the deportment and conduct of England. Her arrogance and subtle aggression will be checked by our successes, and by that alone. She has no magnanimity, no sense of honor or of right. She is cowardly, treacherous, and mean, and hates and fears our strength. In that alone is our security.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 249-51

John Stuart Mill to John L. Motley, January 26, 1863

Blackheath Park, Kent,

January 26, 1863.

Dear Sir: You may imagine better than I can tell you how much your letter interested me. I am obliged to you for the information respecting the first settlers in New England. I did not know that there were so many people of family among them, though I knew there were some. And I was quite aware that the place which the refuse went to was Virginia — all the popular literature of the century following shows that colony to have been the one regarded as the Botany Bay of that time. But my argument did not turn upon this, nor was I thinking of race and blood, but of habits and principles. New England, as I understand it, was essentially a middle-class colony; the Puritans, in the higher classes, who took part in its foundation, were persons whose sympathies went in a different channel from that of class or rank. The Southern colonies, on the contrary, were founded upon aristocratic principles, several of them by aristocratic men as such, and we know that the greatest of them, Virginia, retained aristocratic institutions till Jefferson succeeded in abolishing them.

Concerning the Alabama, most people of sense in this country, I believe, are reserving their opinion until they hear what the government has to say for itself. My own first impression was that the government was not bound, nor even permitted, by international rules to prevent the equipment of such a vessel, provided it allows exactly similar liberty to the other combatant. But it is plain that notion was wrong, since the government has shown by issuing an order, which arrived too late, that it considered itself bound to stop the Alabama. What explanation it can give of the delay will be shown when Parliament meets; and what it ought to do now in consequence of its previous default, a person must be better acquainted than I am with international law to be able to judge. But I expect to have a tolerably decided opinion on the subject after it has been discussed.

I write you in much better spirits than I have been in since I saw you. In the first place, things are now going in a more encouraging manner in the West. Murfreesboro is an important as well as a glorious achievement, and from the general aspect of things I feel great confidence that you will take Vicksburg and cut off Arkansas and Texas, which then, by your naval superiority, will soon be yours. Then I exult in (what from observation of the politics of that State I was quite prepared for, though not for the unanimity with which it has been done) the passing over of Missouri from slavery to freedom — a fact which ought to cover with shame, if they were capable of it, the wretched creatures who treated Mr. Lincoln's second proclamation as waste paper, and who described the son of John Quincy Adams as laughing in his sleeve when he professed to care for the freedom of the negro. But I am now also in very good heart about the progress of opinion here. When I returned I already found things better than I expected. Friends of mine, who are heartily with your cause, who are much in society, and who speak in the gloomiest terms of what the general feeling was a twelvemonth ago, already thought that a change had commenced; and I heard every now and then that some person of intellect and influence, whom I did not know before to be with you, was with you very decidedly.

You must have read one of the most powerful and most thorough pieces of writing in your defense which has yet appeared, under the signature “Anglo-Saxon,” in the “Daily News.” That letter is by Goldwin Smith, and though it is not signed with his name, he is willing (as I am authorized to say) that it should be known. Again, Dr. Whewell, one from whom I should not have expected so much, feels, I am told, so strongly on your side that people complain of his being rude to them on the subject, and he will not suffer the “Times” to be in his house. These, you may say, are but individual cases. But a decided movement in your favor has begun among the public since it has been evident that your government is really in earnest about getting rid of slavery. I have always said that it was ignorance, not ill will, which made the majority of the English public go wrong about this great matter. Difficult as it may well be for you to comprehend it, the English public were so ignorant of all the antecedents of the quarrel that they really believed what they were told, that slavery was not the ground, scarcely even the pretext, of the war. But now, when the public acts of your government have shown that at last it aims at entire slave-emancipation, that your victory means this, and your failure means the extinction of all present hope of it, many feel very differently. When you entered decidedly into this course, your detractors abused you more violently for doing it than they had before for not doing it, and the “Times” and “Saturday Review” began favoring us with the very arguments, almost in the very language, which we used to hear from the West Indian slaveholders to prove slavery perfectly consistent with the Bible and with Christianity. This was too much — it overshot the mark.

The antislavery feeling is now thoroughly raising itself. Liverpool has led the way by a splendid meeting, of which the “Times” suppressed all mention. But you must have seen a report of this meeting; you must have seen how Spence did his utmost, and how he was met; and that the object was not merely a single demonstration, but the appointment of a committee to organize an action on the public mind. There are none like the Liverpool people for making an organization of that sort succeed, if once they put their hands to it. The day when I read this, I read in the same day's newspaper two speeches by cabinet ministers: one by Milner Gibson, as thoroughly and openly with you as was consistent with the position of a cabinet minister; the other by the Duke of Argyll, a simple antislavery speech, denouncing the pro-slavery declaration of the Southern bishops; but his delivery of such a speech at that time and place had but one meaning. I do not know if you have seen Cairnes's lecture, or whether you are aware that it has been taken up and largely circulated by religious societies and is in its fourth edition. A new and enlarged edition of his great book is on the point of publication, and will, I have no doubt, be very widely read and powerfully influential.

Foreigners ought not to regard the “Times” as representing the British nation. Of course a paper which is so largely read and bought and so much thought of as the “Times” is must have a certain amount of suitability to the people that buy it. But the line it takes on any particular question is much more a matter of accident than is supposed. It is sometimes better than the public, and sometimes worse. It was better on the Competitive Examinations and on the Revised Educational Code, in each case owing to the accidental position of a particular man who happened to write in it — both which men I could name to you. I am just as fully persuaded as if I could name the man that the attitude it has long held respecting slavery, and now on the American question, is equally owing to the accidental interests or sympathies of some one person connected with the paper. The “Saturday Review,” again, is understood to be the property of the bitterest Tory enemy America has — Beresford Hope.

Unfortunately, these papers, through the influence they obtain in other ways, and in the case of the “Times” very much in consequence of the prevailing notion that it speaks the opinions of all England, are able to exercise great power in perverting the opinions of England whenever the public is sufficiently ignorant of facts to be misled. That, whenever engaged in a wrong line, writers like those of the “Times” go from bad to worse, and at last stick at nothing in the way of perverse and even dishonest misrepresentation, is but natural to party writers everywhere; natural to those who go on day after day working themselves up to write strongly in a matter to which they have committed themselves and breathing an atmosphere inflamed by themselves; natural, moreover, to demagogism both here and in America, and natural, above all, to anonymous demagogism, which, risking no personal infamy by any amount of tergiversation, never minds to what lengths it goes, because it can always creep out in time and turn round at the very moment when the tide turns.

Among the many lessons which have been impressed on me by what is now going on, one is a strong sense of the solidarite (to borrow a word for which our language has no short equivalent) of the whole of a nation with every one of its members, for it is painfully apparent that your country and mine habitually judge of one another from their worst specimens. You say that if England were like Cairnes and me there would be no alienation; and neither would there if Americans were like you. But I need not use soft words to you, who, I am sure, detest these things as much as I do. The low tricks and fulsome mob flattery of your public men and the bullying tone and pettifogging practice of your different cabinets (Southern men chiefly, I am aware) toward foreigners have deeply disgusted a number of our very best people, and all the more so because it is the likeness of what we may be coming to ourselves. You must admit, too, that the present crisis, while it has called forth a heroism and constancy in your people which cannot be too much admired, and to which even your enemies in this country do justice, has also exhibited on the same scale of magnitude all the defects of your state of society — the incompetency and mismanagement arising from the fatal belief of your public that anybody is fit for anything, and the gigantic pecuniary corruption which seems universally acknowledged to have taken place, and, indeed, without it one cannot conceive how you can have got through the enormous sums you have spent.

All this, and what seems to most of us entire financial recklessness (though, for myself, I do not pretend to see how you could have done anything else in the way of finance), are telling against you here, you can hardly imagine how much. But all this may be, and I have great hopes that it will be, wiped out by the conduct which you have it in your power to adopt as a nation. If you persevere until you have subdued the South, or at all events all west of the Mississippi; if, having done this, you set free the slaves, with compensation to loyal owners, and (according to the advice of Mr. Paterson, in his admirable speech at Liverpool) settle the freed slaves as free proprietors on the unoccupied land; if you pay honestly the interest on your own national debt, and take measures for redeeming it, including the debt without interest which is constituted by your inconvertible paper currency — if you do these things, the United States will stand very far higher in the general opinion of England than they have stood at any time since the War of Independence. If, in addition to this, you have men among you of a caliber to use the high spirit which this struggle has raised, and the grave reflections to which it gives rise, as means of moving public opinion in favor of correcting what is bad and of strengthening what is weak in your institutions and modes of feeling and thought, the war will prove to have been a permanent blessing to your country such as we never dared hope for, and a source of inestimable improvement in the prospects of the human race in other ways besides the great one of extinguishing slavery.

If you are really going to do these things you need not mind being misunderstood — you can afford to wait.

Believe me, dear sir,

Yours very truly,

J. S. Mill.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 307-14

John M. Forbes to Salmon P. Chase, March 31, 1863

London, March 31,1863.

. . . I am glad, however, to find in some quarters a theory, that while the government here, and their special pleader, the Attorney-General, have so defended themselves against claims for damages, and also against criticism in the Alabama case, by all sorts of special pleading and sophistry, they are not going to lay themselves open to the same charge again.

If they will only do better with the vessels now fitting out against us, we must try to forgive their past sins, for the time. I am trying to hunt up some evidence that this theory is well founded, and, if confirmed, I will write by next mail.

If we can only tide over the time until we occupy Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and the mouth of the Rio Grande, we shall avert the complication of another war upon our hands, — now the last hope of the rebels. . . .

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 20

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 22, 1863

We have reliable intelligence of the sinking of the U. S. gun-boat Hatteras, in the Gulf, by the Alabama. She was iron-clad, and all the officers and crew, with the exception of five, went down.

Gen. Whiting telegraphs to-day for the use of conscripts near Wilmington, in the event of an emergency. Several ships have just come in safely from abroad, and it is said a large number are on the way.

Mr. Miles yesterday reported, from the Military Committee, a bill repealing the existing exemption law, and embracing all male residents between the ages of 18 and 45 years. The President, or Secretary of War, to have authority to grant exemptions in certain cases, if deemed expedient. This ought to give us 200,000 more men. And they will be required.

A resolution was passed demanding of the Commissary and Quartermaster-General the number of their employees capable of performing military duty. It would be well to extend the inquiry to the War Deparment itself.

A letter from Norfolk states that at a grand ball, in celebration of the emancipation of the negroes, Gen. Vieille opened the dance with a mulatto woman of bad character as his partner; and Mrs.V. had for her partner a negro barber.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 243-4

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, January 19, 1863

Sent a letter to the two naval committees on the subject of filling vacancies in the Naval School. Members of Congress are disposed to evade all responsibility, and yet to carp at and criticize those of us who under imperious public necessity are compelled to act. The school should be full now if ever. I propose to fill it. The Members individually with few exceptions urge it. I ask them to give me at least the expression of their official, Senatorial opinion, but they shrink.

Received a telegraphic dispatch from Admiral Porter via Cairo of the capture of Dunnington and force at Arkansas Post. It is dated the 11th of January, — a long and protracted transit.

Baldwin of the Vanderbilt came up to-day from Hampton Roads, where he arrived yesterday from an unsuccessful cruise for the Alabama, his vessel having been detained by Wilkes, which defeated the Department's plan.

There are rumors of the movement of the army at Falmouth. Incipient steps have doubtless been taken, but the storm has retarded operations.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 224-5

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, January 6, 1863

Got off dispatches this morning ordering the ironclads south to strengthen Du Pont in his attack on Charleston, which he intends to take, — then Savannah, if not too long delayed, when the ironclads must go around to Pensacola.

Wilkes is not doing as much as we expected. I fear he has more zeal for and finds it more profitable to capture blockade-runners than to hunt for the Alabama. Lord Lyons is preferring complaints against him for want of courtesy, when he is really flinging on him British insults. There is not much love lost between him and John Bull. If Seward would square up firmly we could make Bull behave better.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 217

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, January 5, 1863

Commander Bankhead arrived this morning and brings particulars of the loss of the Monitor. Its weakness was in herself, where we had apprehended, and not in an antagonist. This has been in some degree remedied in the new boats we are now constructing.

For months I have been berated and abused because I had not more vessels of the Monitor class under contract. Her success with the Merrimac when she was under the trial as an experiment made men wild, and they censured me for not having built a fleet when she was constructed. Now that she is lost, the same persons will be likely to assail me for expending money on such a craft.

There is a set of factious fools who think it is wise to be censorious, and it is almost as amusing as it is vexatious to hear and read the remarks of these Solomons. One or two of these officious blockheads make themselves conspicuous in the New York Chamber of Commerce, and none more so than Mr. Charles H. Marshall, who attempts to show off his nautical knowledge by constantly attacking and slandering the Secretary of the Navy. Marshall was formerly a shipmaster and it was his often expressed opinion that no man should be Secretary of the Navy who has not had command of, and the sailing of, a ship. Like many others as simple if not as egotistical, he would have the Secretary who administers the department a sailor and for the same reasons he should be an engineer, naval constructor, etc. On every occasion of disaster, no matter from what cause, this man Marshall imputes it to the fact that the Secretary of the Navy has never commanded a ship, and he never admits that any credit is due the Navy Department for intelligent and correct administration, or the Secretary of the Navy for any success of any kind, whether of a squadron or single ship, because he is not and never was a sea-captain. Marshall has had his prejudices sharpened by others and particularly by Moses H. Grinnell, who thinks a shipping merchant would make a good Secretary of the Navy. Both are disappointed men, and each wants to be at the head of the Navy Department.

Thus far the British pirate named Alabama sailing under Rebel colors has escaped capture. As a consequence there are marvelous accounts of her wonderful speed, and equally marvelous ones of the want of speed of our cruisers. Of course there is no controverting these fables; she will be a myth, a “skimmer of the seas,” till taken, and our own vessels, of better speed and power, will be slandered by the Marshalls and Grinnells as destitute of all speed. There are men of better sense in the Chamber of Commerce, but one of these has been an extensive ship-owner, the other a shipmaster; both are good and well-meaning men, have been successful business men, but are egotistical and vainly weak. Neither is competent to administer the Navy Department.

The loss of the Monitor and the report of Admiral Lee and others of the draft of water at the inlet is unfavorable for a naval attack on the battery at Cape Fear, and the army object to move on Wilmington except in conjunction with the Navy. It is best, therefore, to push on to Charleston and strengthen Du Pont. The War Department promised to send forward to South Carolina an additional military force of ten thousand under General Hunter. Halleck is heavy-headed; wants sagacity, readiness, courage, and heart. I am not an admirer of the man. He may have some talent as a writer and critic; in all military matters he seems destitute of resources, skill, or capacity. He is more tardy and irresolute than McClellan and is deficient in the higher qualities which the latter possessed.

We have further cheering news from Tennessee of the success of Rosecrans at Murfreesborough; also hopeful news from Vicksburg. I do not see that the least credit is due to Halleck in either of these cases, unless for not embarrassing the officers in command.

It was arranged and directed by the President that General McClernand should command the forces which were to cooperate with the Navy at the opening of the navigation of the Mississippi and the capture of Vicksburg. But McClernand has scarcely been heard of. He is not of the Regular Army, and is no favorite, I perceive, with Halleck, though the President entertains a good opinion of him. Blair alluded two or three weeks since to the fact that McClernand was crowded aside; said there was a combination to prevent his having that command. The President started from his chair when the remark was made and said it should not be so. Stanton declared it was not so, that he and Halleck had arranged the matter that day. The President looked surprised and said he supposed it had been done long ago.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 215-7

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, December 29, 1862

We had yesterday a telegram that the British pirate craft Alabama captured the Ariel, one of the Aspinwall steamers, on her passage from New York to Aspinwall, off the coast of Cuba. Abuse of the Navy Department will follow. It will give the mercenaries who are prostituted correspondents, and who have not been permitted to plunder the Government by fraudulent contracts, an opportunity to wreak vengeance for their disappointments.

I am exceedingly glad it was an outward and not a homeward bound vessel. It is annoying when we want all our force on blockade duty to be compelled to detach so many of our best craft on the fruitless errand of searching the wide ocean for this wolf from Liverpool. We shall, however, have a day of reckoning with Great Britain for these wrongs, and I sometimes think I care not how soon nor in what manner that reckoning comes.

A committee has been appointed by the Legislature of Connecticut, of eight persons, to visit Washington and urge the selection of New London for a navy yard. Twelve hundred dollars are appropriated to defray their expenses. There has been no examination by the Legislature of the question, or investigation of the comparative merits of this and other places, or whether an additional yard is needed, or what the real interest of the country requires; but there is, with excusable local pride, a speculating job by a few individuals and a general idea that a government establishment for the expenditure of money will benefit the locality, which controls the movement. As I am a citizen of Connecticut, there is a hope that I may be persuaded by personal considerations to debase myself,—forget my duty and make this selection for that locality regardless of the wants or true interests of the country. I have proposed to transfer the limited and circumscribed yard at Philadelphia to League Island, where there is an abundance of room, fresh water, and other extraordinary advantages. We do not want more yards, certainly not east of the Hudson. We do need a government establishment of a different character from any we now have, for the construction, repair, and preservation of iron vessels. League Island on the Delaware combines all these required advantages, is far in the interior, remote from assault in war, and is in the vicinity of iron and coal, is away from the sea, etc., etc. New London has none of these advantages, but is located in my native State. My friends and my father's friends are there, and I am urged to forget my country and favor that place. A navy yard is for no one State, but this the Legislature and its committee and thousands of their constituents do not take into consideration; but I must.

The six members of the Cabinet (Smith absent) to-day handed in their respective opinions on the question of dividing the old Commonwealth of Virginia and carving out and admitting a new State. As Stanton and myself returned from the Cabinet-meeting to the Departments, he expressed surprise that I should oppose division, for he thought it politic and wise to plant a Free State south of the Ohio. I thought our duties were constitutional, not experimental, that we should observe and preserve the landmarks, and that mere expediency should not override constitutional obligations. This action was not predicated on the consent of the people of Virginia, legitimately expressed; was arbitrary and without proper authority; was such a departure from, and an undermining of, our system that I could not approve it and feared it was the beginning of the end. As regarded a Free State south of the Ohio, I told him the probabilities were that pretty much all of them would be free by Tuesday when the Proclamation emancipating slaves would be published. The Rebels had appealed to arms in vindication of slavery, were using slaves to carry on the War, and they must be content with the results of that issue; the arbitrament of arms to which they had appealed would be against them. This measure, I thought, we were justified in adopting on the issue presented and as a military necessity, but the breaking up of a State by the General Government without the prescribed forms, innate rights, and the consent of the people fairly and honestly expressed, was arbitrary and wrong. Stanton attempted no defense.

At the meeting to-day, the President read the draft of his Emancipation Proclamation, invited criticism, and finally directed that copies should be furnished to each. It is a good and well-prepared paper, but I suggested that a part of the sentence marked in pencil be omitted.¹ Chase advised that fractional parts of States ought not to be exempted. In this I think he is right, and so stated. Practically there would be difficulty in freeing parts of States, and not freeing others, — a clashing between central and local authorities.

There is discontent in the public mind. The management of our public affairs is not satisfactory. Our army operations have been a succession of disappointments. General Halleck has accomplished nothing, and has not the public confidence. General McClellan has intelligence but not decision; operated understandingly but was never prepared. With General Halleck there seems neither military capacity nor decision. I have not heard nor seen a clear and satisfactory proposition or movement on his part yet.

Information reaches us that General Butler has been superseded at New Orleans by General Banks.

The wisdom of this change I question, and so told the President, who called on me one day last week and discussed matters generally. I have not a very exalted opinion of the military qualities of either. Butler has shown ability as a police magistrate both at Baltimore and New Orleans, and in each, but particularly at the latter place, has had a peculiar community to govern. The Navy captured the place and turned it over to his keeping. The President agreed with me that Butler had shown skill in discharging his civil duties, and said he had in view for Butler the command of the valley movement in the Mississippi. Likely he has this in view, but whether Halleck will acquiesce is more questionable. I have reason to believe that Seward has effected this change, and that he has been prompted by the foreigners to do it. Outside the State and War Departments, I apprehend no one was consulted. I certainly was not, and therefore could not apprize any of our naval officers, who are cooperating with the army and by courtesy and right should have been informed. Banks has some ready qualities for civil administration and, if not employed in the field or active military operations, will be likely to acquit himself respectably as a provisional or military governor. He has not the energy, power, ability of Butler, nor, though of loose and fluctuating principles, will he be so reckless and unscrupulous. The officer in command in that quarter must necessarily hold a taut rein.

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¹ Just what this suggestion referred to does not appear.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 207-10

John M. Forbes to Joseph Pease, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite and Robert Forster, May 26, 1863

London, May 26,1863.

Gentlemen, — My purpose in asking introductions to Friends in this country was to bring to your attention the danger of hostile relations, and even of war, between our two kindred nations, and to beg you to apply your accustomed practical wisdom to finding means of averting the evil.

You are already aware of the serious although smaller evil which has been made public, namely:—

Swift steamers have been fitted out in your ports, manned by your own seamen, with a full knowledge of the warlike objects of the voyage, but not at first armed with cannon. Another British vessel, with guns and ammunition, and additional men, meets them on your coast, or in some neighboring port, and in a few days they commence the destruction of American ships — often laden with British property.

The Law of Nations is necessarily indefinite; but it is generally held, that no armed ship becomes a legal cruiser until she has received her commission in one of the ports of the power which authorizes her warlike proceedings; and even then, that she cannot condemn her prizes until each case has been adjudicated before a court of law. Notwithstanding the illegality of the proceedings of these cruisers, your government has not stopped their course of destruction, and they are afforded the hospitalities of your colonial ports, without which their career of mischief would soon terminate. Judging of the future by the past, and also by the information which I receive from authentic sources, there is no doubt that other similar expeditions are in course of preparation; and that from time to time the course of irritation will be continued, by which the slaveholders and their agents hope to produce a war between our country and yours. This is probably their object, rather than the mere destruction of property. Thanks to Bright, and Forster, and Cobden, and Monckton Milnes, and other noble spirits, in Parliament and out of it, a marked improvement has taken place in public opinion, which has strengthened your government in its efforts to prevent further expeditions; but the work is only half done; the danger is still great. Now we all hope that peace may, through the efforts of good and wise men on both sides of the water, be kept between us, in spite of these expeditions.

Another consideration has great weight, namely, if your government practically establish the precedent that a neutral may evade the technicalities of a Foreign Enlistment Act, and that vessels so evading the local law may at once become legal cruisers, entitled to capture enemies' property and dispose of it without adjudication, your next war after we are at peace will probably see the ocean covered with foreign-built cruisers, who will do, on a larger scale, against your rich commerce exactly what the Alabama is now doing; and will at the same time give an impetus to commerce, under our neutral flag, far greater than that with which your shipowners are now bribed. When that evil day comes, you will go to war for the protection of your commerce.

I have thus far only mentioned the lesser danger; but a far greater one threatens us.

By the inclosed copy of the intercepted correspondence of the slaveholders' government,¹ you will see the statement of their so-called Secretary of the Navy, that months ago “they had contracted for six ironclad vessels in Great Britain.”

I cannot now give you legal proof that these ships are building here, but a very little shrewd inquiry will convince you of the fact; at least two of these ironclads are building at Liverpool, one of which might be launched within a few weeks. These two ships are known to be of the most formidable character, and equal, except in size, to the best ironclads belonging to your government. If they are allowed to go to sea, we might either have our harbors obstructed, or our cities burned!

They may not take in their guns at Liverpool; but, as in other cases, a British steamer can meet them on your coast, and dispatch them fully armed upon their errand of death; having thus evaded the technicalities of your law.

Now it is plain that your nation and ours cannot live in peace if you permit such engines of destruction to be sent from your harbors against us. The law of nations and the common sense of mankind will decide that it is your business to see that your local laws are made sufficient to carry out your international obligations. We did so under Washington without any statute law; we afterwards amended our law, when in your Canadian rebellion we found it insufficient. Whatever may be thought of the maintenance of peace, under a continuance of the privateers outfitting against our commerce, if the ironclads go out against our cities, peace between us is hardly possible.

You may think that the possibility of war is a mere dream. So reasoned too many of our people, North and South, when the causes of our war were ripening. Wars come from passion and from want of forecast more often than from the interests of either party.

I have laid before you the danger; I now entreat you to apply the remedy in your own good way, but without delay.

If I have dwelt upon the material and national consideration of the subject too much, I beg you to believe that it is only because I feel that it would be unnecessary to appeal to your well-known abhorrence of any war, and especially of a war between the two nations of the earth who, when our country is once freed from the stain of slavery, ought to stand shoulder to shoulder before the world to up hold peace on earth and freedom to all men.

With great respect, your friend and servant,

J. M. Forbes.

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¹ A letter referring to the Confederates having contracted for six ironclad steamers in England, urging dispatch, and speaking of “the cotton to be delivered in liquidation of these contracts.” — Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 10-14

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, December 4, 1862

The Members of Congress from Minnesota are urging the President vehemently to give his assent to the execution of three hundred Indian captives, but they will not succeed. Undoubtedly the savage wretches have been guilty of great atrocities, and I have as little doubt the stories of their barbarities, bad enough in themselves, are greatly exaggerated. What may have been the aggressions and provocations which led the Indians on is not told us. When the intelligent Representatives of a State can deliberately besiege the Government to take the lives of these ignorant barbarians by wholesale, after they have surrendered themselves prisoners, it would seem the sentiments of the Representatives were but slightly removed from the barbarians whom they would execute. The Minnesotians are greatly exasperated and threaten the Administration if it shows clemency.

Some of the Members of Congress begin early to manifest a perverse and bad spirit. Foremost as regards the Navy, of which he should be the friend and organ, is John P. Hale, Chairman of the Senate Naval Committee. He is censorious to all the Administration, but especially to the Navy Department, which, instead of supporting, he omits no opportunity to assail and embarrass. Calvert, of the House, is equally virulent. He thinks he has cause to be angry with me, but has not the courage and manliness to declare the reason or motive which governs him. Some months since he made application to me to order the return of one or two slaves who were on the Potomac Flotilla, or in the navy yard, to his sister, who, he says, is a deserving loyal lady residing in Virginia near the Potomac. I of course declined. I also declined appointing some one to be midshipman under the general clause, whom he wished selected, as I declined in many similar cases. He is also dissatisfied because the Naval School is not immediately returned to Annapolis, which is within his district.

The lowest bidder for one of the large steamers lives at Chester. Other competitors are greatly excited and charge him with being disloyal. This charge is, I think, untrue, though one of the firm is a Democrat and opposed the election of President Lincoln. But the idea of exclusion or favoritism in a matter of this kind, and in disregard of law, is absurd.

Count Adam Gurowski, a Polish exile, who has been employed as a clerk in the State Department, has published a book which I am told is unsparing in its assaults upon almost all in authority, but that he deals gently with me. He is by nature a grumbler, ardent, earnest, rash, violent, unreasonable, impracticable, with no powers of rightfully discriminating character; nor is he a correct judge of measures and results. I have neither sought nor shunned him. Under no circumstances could he be to me a pleasant companion. He wants, I think, to be frank and honest in his way, to be truthful, though given to scandal; brave he is without doubt, a rude, rough Polish bear who is courted and flattered by a set of extreme partisans that delight in listening to his denunciations of public men, and in hearing his enthusiastic praises in broken English of liberty. He is an exile for good and bad qualities, a martyr to his opinions and his manners. Seward gave him a clerkship, — why and for what reason I never understood, for his companions and intimates are Seward's opponents, and the Count himself is and always has been an open, persistent, undisguised opponent of Seward and his course. The Count, it seems, kept a journal or took memoranda while in the Department and wrote scandal and hate in bad English, which he has printed.

The proposition to divide the State of Virginia is before Congress, and I am told it will probably be successful. I am not clear as to its expediency, and I doubt if it can constitutionally be done. Certainly the time is not auspicious for such a step. To me the division of Virginia at this time looks like a step towards a division of the Union, a general break-up. This is intuitive, an impression without investigation. Let us have no separations or divisions at present.

I have answered two resolutions, petty calls of Congress, in relation to the appointment of midshipmen. There are one hundred and forty vacancies, chiefly in consequence of the secession of the Southern States, and I have appointed sixty-two.

Senator Fessenden has been to see me in the case of George H. Preble, who is one of his constituents and a neighbor, who is dismissed for failure to do his duty on the 4th of last September, when he permitted the steamer Oreto (Florida) to run the blockade at Mobile. Senator F. thinks injustice has been done Preble, and asks that he be restored and then tried by court martial. Told him this could not be done by the Department or the President; that, being out of the service, there was but one way of restoring him, and that was by a new appointment. To be reinstated, the President must nominate and the Senate confirm. The act of confirmation would itself absolve him. The Senate would not, however, confirm a man with guilt or wrong upon him. Fessenden said he had taken a different view; thought the President might restore without Congressional action, yet seemed confused and in doubt. Wished me to talk with Admirals Smith and Dahlgren; says the officers generally justify Preble, who, he added, is in Washington and would like to see me. I requested him to call; told F. my view of the case was unchanged, but would hear and give consideration to anything he might advance.

Preble called the next day, and we went over the case. He claims he did his whole duty; says he believed the Oreto was an English vessel, and he wished to keep the peace, was perhaps too prudent. I told him that in his zeal to preserve the peace he forgot his duty as an officer; that he had been placed as a sentinel before the harbor of Mobile, with express orders to prevent ingress or egress, and had, in not obeying these orders, failed to do his whole duty. His excuse was that if he obeyed his orders he would hurt somebody, but in not obeying he had done his country and the service great injury; that the excuse did not become an officer and would not justify a sentinel. We had much discussion on this point. He said he could have boarded and sunk the Oreto, but suppose he had done so and she had been an English vessel with an English flag above, what would have been the consequences to himself? I assured him the Government would never let an officer suffer for fidelity in obeying orders and being vigilant in performing his duty; that it would have been better for him had he not paused to consider consequences to himself, better for the country had he strictly obeyed his orders, and even if the Oreto had been an English vessel and been sunk by him, he would have been justified, and the Englishman condemned for his temerity in violating usage and disregarding the warning of the sentinel.

The subject has given me trouble, and I sent my conclusions by Assistant Secretary Fox to Fessenden. Fox, when he saw Fessenden, did not find it convenient to state his errand, but requested the Senator to call and see me, which he did on Tuesday morning.

I informed him there was no way of instituting a court martial nor even a court of inquiry. The officers who would be required as witnesses were in the Gulf and could not be detached from indispensable duty and brought home on such an errand. That under the circumstances — the feelings of himself and others — and in justice to both Preble and the Government, I would appoint a board of officers, who should take the three reports of Commodore Preble on the 4th and 6th of September and 10th of October, — being his own statements of his case at different dates, — and say whether he had done his whole duty as he claimed and in conformity with the articles of war. That their report I would submit to the President to dispose of, and thus end the matter, so far as the Navy Department was concerned. He asked if I did not prefer the certificates of other officers. I replied no, neither statements, witnesses, nor arguments would be introduced, nothing but Preble's own reports, which I thought all he or his friends could require. F. was a little nonplussed. Said it was certainly fair, he was satisfied with such submission and presumed P. would be.

Within an hour Preble called; said that Senator F. had informed him of my proposition for an informal court, which he thought fair, but wished Admiral Farragut's letter to go to the board, as F. by his hasty letter had made an improper prejudice on me. I assured him he was mistaken, — that my action was based on his own statement. What I proposed was a board that should take his own reports and decide upon the same evidence as the Admiral and I had done, and I should abide their conclusion. The tribunal would necessarily be informal and composed of men whose opinions, if they had formed any, were unknown to me and I hoped to him also.

He said this was all he could ask or expect, but intimated it might relieve me of responsibility if Admiral Farragut's letter was included in the submission. I said no, I evaded no honest responsibility. My convictions were that I had done right, though it had borne hard upon him; that he had been in fault from error in judgment, rather than criminal intent, but the injury was none the less, and the example was quite necessary. Without assenting to my views he said he should be satisfied with the judgment of the board and left me.

I appointed Admiral Foote, Commodore Davis, and Lieutenant-Commander Phelps and shall leave the matter in their hands.

The House has voted to create and admit Western Virginia as a State. This is not the time to divide the old Commonwealth. The requirements of the Constitution are not complied with, as they in good faith should be, by Virginia, by the proposed new State, nor by the United States. I find that Blair, with whom I exchanged a word, is opposed to it.

We have news of a movement of our troops at Falmouth with the intention of crossing the Rappahannock and attacking the Rebels.

The Rebel steamer Alabama was at Martinique and escaped the San Jacinto, Commander Ronckendorff, a good officer.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 186-91

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, November 4, 1862

Further news of the depredations by the Alabama. Ordered Dacotah, Ino, Augusta, etc., on her track. The President read in Cabinet to-day his sensible letter of the 13th of October to General McClellan, ordering him to move and to pass down on the east side of the Blue Ridge. McClellan did not wish to move at all. Was ordered by Halleck, and when he found he must move, said he would go down the west side of the mountains, but when he finally started went on the east side without advising H. or the President. Stanton, whose dislike of McC. increases, says that Halleck does not consider himself responsible for army movements or deficiencies this side of the mountains, of which he has had no notice from General McClellan, who neither reports to him nor to the Secretary of War. All his official correspondence is with the President direct and no one else. The President did not assent to the last remarks of Stanton, which were more sneering in manner than words, but said Halleck should be, and would be, considered responsible, for he (the President) had told him (Halleck) that he would at any time remove McC. when H. required it, and that he (the President) would take the entire responsibility of the removal. Mr. Bates quietly suggested that Halleck should take command of the army in person. But the President said, and all the Cabinet concurred in the opinion, that H. would be an indifferent general in the field, that he shirked responsibility in his present position, that he, in short, is a moral coward, worth but little except as a critic and director of operations, though intelligent and educated. Congress wisely ordered a transfer of all war vessels on the Mississippi to the Navy. It was not by my suggestion or procurement that this law was passed, but it was proper. It has, however, greatly disturbed Stanton, who, supported by Halleck and Ellet, opposes a transfer of the ram fleet as not strictly within the letter, though it is undoubtedly the intent of the law. That Ellet should wish a distinct command is not surprising. It is characteristic. He is full of zeal to overflowing; is not, however, a naval man, but is, very naturally, delighted with an independent naval command in this adventurous ram service. It is, however, a pitiful business on the part of Stanton and Halleck, who should take an administrative view and who should be aware there cannot be two distinct commands on the river under different orders from different Departments without endangering collision.

Seward sent me a day or two since a singular note, supercilious in tone, in relation to mails captured on blockade-runners, telling me it is deemed expedient that instructions be given to our naval officers that such mails should not be opened, but that as speedily as possible they be forwarded. Who deems it expedient to give these instructions, which would be illegal, abject, and an unauthorized and unwarranted surrender of our maritime rights? No man the least conversant with admiralty or statute law, usage, or the law of prize, or who knowingly maintains national rights can deem it expedient to give such instructions, and I have declined doing so. The President must give the order, which he will never do if he looks into the subject. This is another exhibition of the weakness and the loose and inconsiderate administrative management of the Secretary of State, who really seems to suppose himself the Government and his whims supreme law. We had this subject up last August, and I then pointed out the impropriety of any attempt to depart from law and usage, but so shaped a set of instructions as to relieve him; but this proceeding is worse than the former. I shall make no farther effort to relieve him, and have told him I cannot go beyond my instructions of the 18th of August last. He professes to believe something more is necessary to keep the English authorities quiet. The truth is he then and now undertook, in a spirit of self-conceit, to do more than he is authorized. Stuart, the English Chargé, knows it; has, I have no doubt, pressed Seward to have instructions issued to our officers which shall come up to the promises he ostentatiously made. He is conscious, I think, that he has been bamboozled, but he will not be able to extricate himself by bamboozling me. His course is sometimes very annoying, and exhibits an indifference which is astonishing in one of his long experience and intellectual capacity.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 179-81