Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, March 12, 1863

Had a letter from Chief Engineer Stimers last night. Says the attack on Charleston will be delayed; suggests it will be made the first week in April. It made me nervous and restless through the night; got but little sleep. The delay, hesitation, uncertainty in the Army of the Potomac over again. Du Pont is getting as prudent as McClellan; is very careful; all dash, energy, and force are softened under the great responsibility. He has a reputation to preserve instead of one to make.

Stimers arrived this morning and read to me the minutes of a council held on board the Wabash. The army officers were present, and it is plain they were a drawback on naval operations. Talk of beginning the attack on Charleston by an assault on the sand-batteries at the mouth of the harbor instead of running past them. Of obstructions and torpedos little is known, but great apprehensions are entertained. Stimers is sent up to get more ironclads and another raft. The President came in, and the whole subject was recounted. His views and mine are alike. To delay for the objects stated till April will be to postpone to May. Expressed ourselves very decidedly, and told Stimers to hurry back.

Talked over the subject of Rebel privateers building in England. Said to the President and Mr. Seward I thought England should be frankly informed that our countrymen would not be restrained from active operations if Great Britain persisted in making war on our commerce under Confederate colors.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 247

Major Charles Fessenden Morse: July 15, 1864

Near Vining's Station, Ga.,

July 15, 1864.

We are now enjoying a short respite from our exertions, which is very welcome after the campaign's hard work. By a series of movements and operations we have pushed the enemy south of the Chattahoochie, they now picketing their side of the river and we ours. It is difficult to tell anything about the result of this campaign, since, from appearances, the rebels are preparing to evacuate Atlanta with no more of a struggle than they made at Marietta, so that the fall of the former place is already calculated on as the result of the next move forward. The trouble is that we cannot get at Johnston and his army; he is too weak to meet us in a fair fight; his game, therefore, is to have a succession of lines of works prepared for him in his rear by citizens and negroes, which cannot be taken by direct assaults, but out of which, with our superior numbers, we can finally turn him. Whether we can follow an enemy of this kind farther than Atlanta, is a question in my mind, for we have already had to guard a railroad for over two hundred and fifty miles through a country swarming with guerrillas and roving cavalry. Johnston will undoubtedly retreat towards Macon, which will virtually abandon to us the whole of Alabama and Western Georgia, and cause the fall of Mobile.

There is an amount of cunning in this continual retreating of Johnston which is not generally allowed him. To be sure, he gives up a great deal of valuable territory, but he keeps his army intact and finally removes it out of our reach, leaving us an immense distance from our base, subject to raids on our line of communication and consequent stoppage of supplies; and supposing him at Macon, he is nearer to Lee, and can sooner transmit and receive reinforcements. This is the unfavorable side; but, on the other hand, the constant retreats of Johnston have, to a certain extent, demoralized the troops belonging in Kentucky, Tennessee, Northern Georgia and Alabama, so that on each occasion of their falling back, hundreds of deserters are brought into our lines; they all say that half the army would do the same if it dared, but they are told fearful stories of our treatment of prisoners and are also closely watched, and, when caught, shot without mercy. The case has occurred, repeatedly, of deserters lying all day in ditches and behind stumps, between our picket lines, afraid to stir from fear of being shot by their own men; as soon as night would come, they would come in. Without a single exception, 1 have seen these men always kindly and hospitably received by our soldiers; it is always, “How are you, Johnny? we're glad to see you; sit down and have some coffee, and tell us the news.”

The amicable feeling existing between the men of the two armies when not actually fighting is very curious, and between the best troops on each side the understanding seems the most perfect. It is a proverbial expression, now, with the rebels, that Hooker's men are the toughest to fight, but the best to picket against. We have one rule now in our division, which entirely prevents all picket firing except in case of an advance of the enemy. Last Sunday I was Field Officer of the day and had charge of the brigade picket; one portion of my line relieved a part of the Fourteenth Corps. When I first posted my men, it was necessary to crawl from one post to another and keep entirely out of sight, for before we came there had been a continual popping. In a short time it was discovered who had arrived, and all firing upon us ceased. The next morning, in broad daylight, I pushed my line down to the bank of the river without receiving a single shot, and afterwards rode along where the day before it would have been sure death or a disabling wound. We never yet have been the victims of any treachery, but, on the contrary, have received warnings in time to look out for ourselves. They will call out, “Look out, Yanks, we've been ordered to fire,” and plenty of time will be given to get behind our works. When we fight, we fight to crush the rebellion and break the power of the rebel armies, not against these men as individuals; there is no enmity felt, yet no one can complain of a want of earnestness or desire on our part for victory.

No news which has come to us for a long time has been received with such pleasure as that of the sinking of the Alabama by the Kearsarge. It is a great naval triumph for us, not over rebels merely, but over a Johnny Bull ship manned by English sailors, armed by English guns, fired by English gunners. It was an affair with England all through, and only needed, at the wind-up, to have that fair-minded, non-interfering Englishman carry off Captain Semmes, who had already surrendered, under a recognized British flag. Perhaps we cannot do anything now to help ourselves, but the time will come when we will make that mean, bullying English nation repent of her action towards us in this war; I hope I may live to see the day and help to wipe off these old scores. How long could she hold a foot square of territory on this continent against the immense armies we could raise, and what harm could she do us? We may not have as good a navy to-day, but we would have, and our coast would swarm with privateers.

War is a terrible thing, but a man should feel as jealous of the honor of his country and flag as he would of his own, and should resent an insult to the one as readily as he would to the other.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 175-8

Diary of Sergeant George G. Smith: March 27, 1862

At 2 a. m. went on deck, fearful sight, thunder, lightning and rain, wind blowing almost a hurricane, sea roaring and waves running nearly mountain high. At 3 a. m. Michael Dobson died, it was said, of delirium tremens. His berth being near mine, of course I tried to compose his limbs and features for burial, but while doing so the ship gave a tremendous lurch almost sending her on to her beam ends. The dead body of poor Dobson was flung out of his berth, and I found myself lodged against a row of berths in the center of the deck. I got the body back with the assistance of another soldier, and at daylight the wind ceased. Dobson's funeral was at 9 o'clock. The body was sewed up in sail cloth with bags of sand at the feet, placed on a plank shrouded in the U. S. flag and balanced across the rail. The chaplain read the beautiful burial service of the Episcopal church, the inner end of the plank was raised, and the body slid off into the deep. I remembered the words in Revelations, “And the sea gave up the dead that were in it.” From this time on nothing of importance occurred worth relating for several days. We were south of the latitude of Charleston going round the peninsula of Florida, and much of the time we were becalmed, the sea being smooth as a mill pond. One evening there was an alarm of a privateer. Somebody said they saw a dim light in the distance. I did not see any and did not believe anybody else did. To meet an armed vessel of the enemy it is plain would be no joke. All we had was two small smooth bore four-inch guns, worth about as much as toy pistols against modern rifled cannon, so that to meet such a craft everybody knew that our destination would be Andersonville or the bottom of the ocean instead of Ship Island. Off Bermuda, John Haywood died and was buried in the deep.

SOURCE: George G. Smith, Leaves from a Soldier's Diary, p. 3-5

Diary of William Howard Russell: May [7]*, 1861

To-day the papers contain a proclamation by the President of the Confederate States of America, declaring a state of war between the Confederacy and the United States, and notifying the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. I went out with Mr. Wigfall in the forenoon to pay my respects to Mr. Jefferson Davis at the State Department. Mr. Seward told me that but for Jefferson Davis the Secession plot could never have been carried out. No other man of the party had the brain, or the courage and dexterity, to bring it to a successful issue. All the persons in the Southern States spoke of him with admiration, though their forms of speech and thought generally forbid them to be respectful to any one.

There before me was “Jeff Davis's State Department” — a large brick building, at the corner of a street, with a Confederate flag floating above it. The door stood open, and “gave” on a large hall whitewashed, with doors plainly painted belonging to small rooms, in which was transacted most important business, judging by the names written on sheets of paper and applied outside, denoting bureaux of the highest functions. A few clerks were passing in and out, and one or two gentlemen were on the stairs, but there was no appearance of any bustle in the building.

We walked straight up-stairs to the first floor, which was surrounded by doors opening from a quadrangular platform. On one of these was written simply, “The President.” Mr. Wigfall went in, and after a moment returned and said, “The President will be glad to see you; walk in, sir.” When I entered, the President was engaged with four gentlemen, who were making some offer of aid to him. He was thanking them “in the name of the Government.” Shaking hands with each, he saw them to the door, bowed them and Mr. Wigfall out, and turning to me, said, “Mr. Russell, I am glad to welcome you here, though I fear your appearance is a symptom that our affairs are not quite prosperous,” or words to that effect. He then requested me to sit down close to his own chair at his office-table, and proceeded to speak on general matters, adverting to the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebastopol, the Eedan, and the Siege of Lucknow.

I had an opportunity of observing the President very closely: he did not impress me as favorably as I had expected, though he is certainly a very different looking man from Mr. Lincoln. He is like a gentleman — has a slight, light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself erect and straight. He was dressed in a rustic suit of slate-colored stuff, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck; his manner is plain, and rather reserved and drastic; his head is well formed, with a fine full forehead, square and high, covered with innumerable fine lines and wrinkles, features regular, though the cheek-bones are too high, and the jaws too hollow to be handsome ; the lips are thin, flexible, and curved, the chin square, well defined; the nose very regular, with wide nostrils; and the eyes deep-set, large and full — one seems nearly blind, and is partly covered with a film, owing to excruciating attacks of neuralgia and tic. Wonderful to relate, he does not chew, and is neat and clean-looking, with hair trimmed, and boots brushed. The expression of his face is anxious, he has a very haggard, careworn, and pain-drawn look, though no trace of anything but the utmost confidence and the greatest decision could be detected in his conversation. He asked me some general questions respecting the route I had taken in the States.

I mentioned that I had seen great military preparations through the South, and was astonished at the alacrity with which the people sprang to arms. “Yes, sir,” he remarked, and his tone of voice and manner of speech are rather remarkable for what are considered Yankee peculiarities, “In Eu-rope” (Mr. Seward also indulges in that pronunciation) “they laugh at us because of our fondness for military titles and displays. All your travellers in this country have commented on the number of generals and colonels and majors all over the States. But the fact is, we are a military people, and these signs of the fact were ignored. We are not less military because we have had no great standing armies. But perhaps we are the only people in the world where gentlemen go to a military academy who do not intend to follow the profession of arms.”

In the course of our conversation, I asked him to have the goodness to direct that a sort of passport or protection should be given to me, as I might possibly fall in with some guerrilla leader on my way northwards, in whose eyes I might not be entitled to safe conduct. Mr. Davis said, “I shall give such instructions to the Secretary of War as shall be necessary. But, sir, you are among civilized, intelligent people who understand your position, and appreciate your character. We do not seek the sympathy of England by unworthy means, for we respect ourselves, and we are glad to invite the scrutiny of men into our acts; as for our motives, we meet the eye of Heaven.” I thought I could judge from his words that he had the highest idea of the French as soldiers, but that his feelings and associations were more identified with England, although he was quite aware of the difficulty of conquering the repugnance which exists to slavery.

Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities at Washington, but he asked me if I thought it was supposed in England there would be war between the two States? I answered, that I was under the impression the public thought there would be no actual hostilities. “And yet you see we are driven to take up arms for the defence of our rights and liberties.”

As I saw an immense mass of papers on his table, I rose and made my bow, and Mr. Davis, seeing me to the door, gave me his hand and said, “As long as you may stay among us you shall receive every facility it is in our power to afford to you, and I shall always be glad to see you.” Colonel Wigfall was outside, and took me to the room of the Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, whom we found closeted with General Beauregard and two other officers in a room full of maps and plans. He is the kind of man generally represented in our types of a “Yankee” — tall, lean, straight-haired, angular, with fiery, impulsive eyes and manner — a ruminator of tobacco and a profuse spitter — a lawyer, I believe, certainly not a soldier; ardent, devoted to the cause, and confident to the last degree of its speedy success.

The news that two more States had joined the Confederacy, making ten in all, was enough to put them in good humor. “Is it not too bad these Yankees will not let us go our own way, and keep their cursed Union to themselves? If they force us to it, we may be obliged to drive them beyond the Susquehanna.” Beauregard was in excellent spirits, busy measuring off miles of country with his compasses, as if he were dividing empires.

From this room I proceeded to the office of Mr. Benjamin, the Attorney-General of the Confederate States, the most brilliant perhaps of the whole of the famous Southern orators. He is a short, stout man, with a full face, olive-colored, and most decidedly Jewish features, with the brightest large black eyes, one of which is somewhat diverse from the other, and a brisk, lively, agreeable manner, combined with much vivacity of speech and quickness of utterance. He is one of the first lawyers or advocates in the United States, and had a large practice at Washington, where his annual receipts from his profession were not less than £8,000 to £10,000 a year. But his love of the card-table rendered him a prey to older and cooler hands, who waited till the sponge was full at the end of the session, and then squeezed it to the last drop.

Mr. Benjamin is the most open, frank, and cordial of the Confederates whom I have yet met. In a few seconds he was telling me all about the course of Government with respect to privateers and letters of marque and reprisal, in order probably to ascertain what were our views in England on the subject. I observed it was likely the North would not respect their flag, and would treat their privateers as pirates. “We have an easy remedy for that. For any man under our flag whom the authorities of the United States dare to execute, we shall hang two of their people.” “Suppose, Mr. Attorney-General, England, or any of the great powers which decreed the abolition of privateering, refuses to recognize your flag?” “We intend to claim, and do claim, the exercise of all the rights and privileges of an independent sovereign State, and any attempt to refuse us the full measure of those rights would be an act of hostility to our country.” “But if England, for example, declared your privateers were pirates?” “As the United States never admitted the principle laid down at the Congress of Paris, neither have the Confederate States. If England thinks fit to declare privateers under our flag pirates, it would be nothing more or less than a declaration of war against us, and we must meet it as best we can.” In fact, Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of anything; but his confidence respecting Great Britain was based a good deal, no doubt, on his firm faith in cotton, and in England's utter subjection to her cotton interest and manufactures. “All this coyness about acknowledging a slave power will come right at last. We hear our commissioners have gone on to Paris, which looks as if they had met with no encouragement at London; but we are quite easy in our minds on this point at present.”

So Great Britain is in a pleasant condition. Mr. Seward is threatening us with war if we recognize the South, and the South declares that if we don't recognize their flag, they will take it as an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to give an assurance to the Government at Washington, that under no circumstances will Great Britain recognize the Southern rebels; but, at the same time, Mr. Seward refuses to give any assurance whatever, that the right of neutrals will be respected in the impending struggle.

As I was going down stairs, Mr. Browne called me into his room. He said that the Attorney-General and himself were in a state of perplexity as to the form in which letters of marque and reprisal should be made out. They had consulted all the books they could get, but found no examples to suit their case, and he wished to know, as I was a barrister, whether I could aid him. I told him it was not so much my regard to my own position as a neutral, as the vafri inscitia juris which prevented me throwing any light on the subject. There are not only Yankee ship-owners but English firms ready with sailors and steamers for the Confederate Government, and the owner of the Camilla might be tempted to part with his yacht by the offers made to him.

Being invited to attend à levée or reception held by Mrs. Davis, the President's wife, I returned to the hotel to prepare for the occasion. On my way I passed a company of volunteers, one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three fieldpieces, on their way to the station for Virginia, followed by a crowd of “citizens” and negroes of both sexes, cheering vociferously. The band was playing that excellent quick-step “Dixie.” The men were stout, fine fellows, dressed in coarse gray tunics with yellow facings, and French caps. They were armed with smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks were unfit for marching, being water-proof bags slung the shoulders. The guns had no caissons, and the shoeing of the troops was certainly deficient in soling. The Zouave mania is quite as rampant here as it is in New York, and the smallest children are thrust into baggy red breeches, which the learned Lipsius might have appreciated, and are sent out with flags and tin swords to impede the highways

The modest villa in which the President lives is painted white, — another “White House,” — and stands in a small garden. The door was open. A colored servant took in our names, and Mr. Browne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom I could just make out in the demi-jour of a moderately-sized parlor, surrounded by a few ladies and gentlemen, the former in bonnets, the latter in morning dress à la midi. There was no affectation of state or ceremony in the reception. Mrs. Davis, whom some of her friends call “Queen Varina,” is a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike, and clever, and she seemed a great favorite with those around her, though I did hear one of them say, “It must be very nice to be the President's wife, and be the first lady in the Confederate States.” Mrs. Davis, whom the President C. S. married en secondes noces, exercised considerable social influence in Washington, where I met many of her friends. She was just now inclined to be angry, because the papers contained a report that a reward was offered in the North for the head of the arch rebel Jeff Davis. “They are quite capable, I believe,” she said, “of such acts.” There were not more than eighteen or twenty persons present, as each party came in and staid only for a few moments, and, after a time, I made my bow and retired, receiving from Mrs. Davis an invitation to come in the evening, when I would find the President at home.

At sundown, amid great cheering, the guns in front of the State Department, fired ten rounds to announce that Tennessee and Arkansas had joined the Confederacy.

In the evening I dined with Mr. Benjamin and his brother-in-law, a gentleman of New Orleans, Colonel Wigfall coming in at the end of dinner. The New Orleans people of French descent, or “Creoles,” as they call themselves, speak French in preference to English, and Mr. Benjamin's brother-in-law labored considerably in trying to make himself understood in our vernacular. The conversation, Franco-English, very pleasant, for Mr. Benjamin is agreeable and lively. He is certain that the English law authorities must advise the Government that the blockade of the Southern ports is illegal so long as the President claims them to be ports of the United States. “At present,” he said, “their paper blockade does no harm; the season for shipping cotton is over; but in October next, when the Mississippi is floating cotton by the thousands of bales, and all our wharves are full, it is inevitable that the Yankees must come to trouble with this attempt to coerce us.” Mr. Benjamin walked back to the hotel with me, and we found our room full of tobacco-smoke, filibusters, and conversation, in which, as sleep was impossible, we were obliged to join. I resisted a vigorous attempt of Mr. G. N. Sanders and a friend of his to take me to visit a planter who had a beaver-dam some miles outside Montgomery. They succeeded in capturing Mr. Deasy.

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* This entry is dated May 9, 1861 in the published work, which is chronologically out of order, May 6th preceding it, and May 8 & 9 following it. Since there is an entry for May 9 in its proper order, I surmise May 7th is the logical and true date of the entry above in Mr. Russell’s Diary.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 171-8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, September 6, 1862

We have information that the Rebels have crossed the Potomac in considerable force, with a view of invading Maryland and pushing on into Pennsylvania. The War Department is bewildered, knows but little, does nothing, proposes nothing.

Our army is passing north. This evening some twenty or thirty thousand passed my house within three hours. There was design in having them come up from Pennsylvania Avenue to H Street, and pass by McClellan's house, which is at the corner of H and 15th. They cheered the General lustily, instead of passing by the White House and honoring the President.

Have unpleasant information concerning privateers, which are getting abroad by connivance of the British authorities. Am trying to get Wilkes off as speedily as possible. Wrote out his orders and instructions this evening to cruise with a squadron in the Bahamas and West Indies for certain vessels of no recognized nationality that were preparing to prey on our commerce. Will get them copied and in his hands on Monday. As an additional hint, told him to-day I wished he could get off on Monday.

McClellan and his partisans have ascendency in the army, but he has lost ground in the confidence of the country, chiefly from delays, or what the President aptly terms the “slows.”

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 111

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, September 4, 1862

City full of rumors and but little truth in any of them.

Wilkes laid before me his plan for organizing the Potomac Flotilla. It is systematic and exhibits capacity.

Something energetic must be done in regard to the suspected privateers which, with the connivance of British authorities, are being sent out to depredate on our commerce. We hear that our new steamer, the Adirondack, is wrecked. She had been sent to watch the Bahama Channel. Her loss, the discharge of the Oreto by the courts of Nassau, and the arrival of Steamer 290,¹ both piratical British wolves, demand attention, although we have no vessels to spare from the blockade. Must organize a flying squadron, as has been suggested, and put Wilkes in command. Both the President and Seward request he should go on this service.

When with the President this A.M., heard Pope read his statement of what had taken place in Virginia during the last few weeks, commencing at or before the battle of Cedar Mountain. It was not exactly a bulletin nor a report, but a manifesto, a narrative, tinged with wounded pride and a keen sense of injustice and wrong. The draft, he said, was rough. It certainly needs modifying before it goes out, or there will be war among the generals, who are now more ready to fight each other than the enemy. No one was present but the President, Pope, and myself. I remained by special request of both to hear the report read. Seward came in for a moment, but immediately left. He shuns these controversies and all subjects where he is liable to become personally involved. I have no doubt Stanton and Chase have seen the paper, and Seward, through Stanton, knows its character.

Pope and I left together and walked to the Departments. He declares all his misfortunes are owing to the persistent determination of McClellan, Franklin, and Porter, aided by Ricketts, Griffin, and some others who were predetermined he should not be successful. They preferred, he said, that the country should be ruined rather than he should triumph.

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¹ The cruiser Alabama.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 109-10

John Lothrop Motley to his Family, June 14, 1861

Woodland Hill,

June 14, 1861.

My Dearest Mary And Dearest Darlings: My note from Halifax, with the announcement which you must have seen in the papers, will have told you enough of my voyage.¹ It was a singularly favorable one, and we reached Boston Wednesday morning at eight o'clock. I found my dear mother looking not worse than I had anticipated, but very feeble. She had had an attack of neuralgic pain the day before, and was not able to come out of her room. She was, however, pretty well the next day, and is not very much changed in the face, although she has evidently become more infirm.

My father seems a good deal older, but is very active and in vigorous health. All the various members of the family are very well. I walked out about eleven o'clock, and went first to the State House to see Governor Andrew. He received me with the greatest cordiality, I may say distinction, and thanked me very warmly for my papers in the “Times.” I may as well mention once for all that not a single person of the numbers with whom I have already spoken has omitted to say the same thing. You know how enthusiastic our people are when pleased, and you can therefore imagine the earnest and perhaps somewhat exaggerated commendations which I receive.²

The paper was at once copied bodily into the Boston and New York papers, with expressions of approbation, and I make a point of stating this to you, both because I was myself surprised at the deep impression which the article seems to have made here, and in order that you may let any of our English friends who are interested know that the position taken in the article is precisely that which is recognized by all men throughout the free States as the impregnable one in this momentous conflict.

The reason why I am saying so much about it now is simply because it is the text, as it were, to all I have, or probably shall have, to say on the subject of American politics in my letter to you. Any one who supposes that this civil war is caused by anything else than by an outrageous and unprovoked insurrection against a constituted government, because that government had manifested its unequivocal intention to circumscribe slavery and prevent forever its further extension on this continent, is incapable of discussing the question at all, and is not worth listening to. Therefore it is (and with deep regret I say it) that there is so deep and intense a feeling of bitterness and resentment toward England just now in Boston. Of course I only speak of Boston, because, having been here but two days, I have as yet taken no wider views, and I intend, when I write, to speak only of that “which I do know.” The most warm-hearted, England-loving men in this England-loving part of the country are full of sorrow at the attitude taken up by England. It would be difficult to exaggerate the poisonous effects produced by the long-continued, stinging, hostile articles in the “Times.” The declaration of Lord John Russell that the Southern privateers were to be considered belligerents was received, as I knew and said it would be, with great indignation, especially the precedent cited of Greece struggling against Turkey, to justify, as it were, before England and the world, the South struggling against the United States government. This, then, is the value, men say to me every moment, of the antislavery sentiment of England, of which she has boasted so much to mankind. This is the end of all the taunts and reproaches which she has flung at the United States government for being perpetually controlled by the slavery power, and for allowing its policy to be constantly directed toward extending that institution. Now that we have overthrown that party, and now that we are struggling to maintain our national existence, and, with it, liberty, law, and civilization, against the insurrection which that overthrow has excited, we are treated to the cold shoulder of the mother-country, quite as decidedly as if she had never had an opinion or a sentiment on the subject of slavery, and as if the greatest war of principle which has been waged, in this generation at least, was of no more interest to her, except as it bore on the cotton question, than the wretched squabbles of Mexico or South America. The ignorance, assumed or actual, of the nature of our Constitution, and the coolness with which public speakers and writers have talked about the Southern States and the Northern States, as if all were equally wrong, or equally right, and as if there had never been such a state in existence as the one which the queen on her throne not long ago designated as the “great Republic,” have been the source of surprise, disappointment, and mortification to all. Men say to me, We did not wish England to lift a little finger to help us, we are not Austria calling in Russia to put down our insurrections for us, but we have looked in vain for any noble words of encouragement and sympathy. We thought that some voice, even of men in office, or of men in opposition, might have been heard to say, We are sorry for you, you are passing through a terrible ordeal; but we feel that you are risking your fortunes and your lives for a noble cause, that the conflict has been forced upon you, that you could not recede without becoming a byword of scorn among the nations. Our hands are tied; we must be neutral in action: you must fight the fight yourself, and you would be ashamed to accept assistance; but our hearts are with yon, and God defend the right. But of all this there is not a word.

. . . Now, it is superfluous for me to say to you that I am not expressing my own opinions in what I am writing. In my character of your own correspondent, I am chronicling accurately my first impressions on arriving here. You see that the language I hear does not vary so much in character as in intensity from that which I have used myself on all occasions in England to our friends there. But the intensity makes a great difference, and I am doing my best, making use of whatever influence and whatever eloquence I possess, to combat this irritation toward England, and to bring about, if I can, a restoration of the old kindliness.

You cannot suppose that I am yet in condition to give you much information as to facts. One thing, however, is certain, there is no difference of opinion here. There is no such thing as party. Nobody asks or cares whether his neighbor was a Republican, or Democrat, or abolitionist. There is no very great excitement now, simply because it is considered a settled thing, which it has entered into no man's head to doubt, that this great rebellion is to be put down, whatever may be the cost of life and treasure it may entail. We do not know what General Scott's plan is, but every one has implicit confidence in his capacity, and it is known that he has matured a scheme on a most extensive scale. There are now in Washington and Maryland, or within twelve hours' march of them, about 80,000 Union troops. There are, including these, 240,000 enrolled and drilling and soon to be ready. The idea seems to be that a firm grasp will be kept upon Maryland, Washington, Western Virginia, and that Harper's Ferry, Richmond, and Norfolk will be captured this summer; that after the frosts of October vast columns of men will be sent down the Mississippi, and along it, cooperating with others to be sent by sea; that New Orleans will be occupied, and that thus with all the ports blockaded, and a cordon of men hemming them in along the border of the Middle States, the rebellion will be suffocated with the least possible effusion of blood. Of course there will be terrible fighting in Virginia this summer, and I am by no means confident that we shall not sustain reverses at first, for the rebels have had longer time to prepare than we, and they are desperate. General Scott promises to finish the war triumphantly before the second frost, unless England interferes. This was his language to the man who told me.

You see that it was no nightmare of mine, this possibility of a war with England. General Scott loves and admires England, but there is a feeling in Washington that she intends to recognize the Southern Confederacy. This would be considered by our government, under the present circumstances, as a declaration of war; and war we should have, even if it brought disaster and destruction upon us. But I have little fear of such a result. I tell every one what is my profound conviction, that England will never recognize the “Confederacy” until the de facto question is placed beyond all doubt, and until her recognition is a matter of absolute necessity. I have much reliance on Forster. I know that his speech will do infinite good, and I doubt not that Buxton will be warm and zealous. I hope that Milnes and Stirling will keep their promise. But what nonsense it is for me to tell of what you know already, and what I shall know in a few days!

Yesterday afternoon I came out here to stop for a couple of nights. My first object was to visit Camp Andrew. This is the old Brook Farm, the scene of Hawthorne's “Blithedale Romance,” and his original and subtle genius might, I should think, devise a new romance out of the wonderful transformation effected now in that locality.

Five regiments, in capital condition, have already gone from Massachusetts to the seat of war, being, as you know, the very first to respond to the President's summons. We have more enlisted for the war, which are nearly ready to move, and will have their marching orders within a fortnight. Of these the crack one is Gordon's regiment—the Massachusetts Second. Lawrence Motley is one of the first lieutenants in this corps, and you would be as pleased as I was to see what a handsome, soldierly fellow he is. And there is no boy's play before his regiment, for it is the favorite one. All the officers are of the jeunesse doree of Boston —Wilder Dwight, young Quincy, Harry Russell, Bob Shaw, Harry Higginson of Dresden memory, and others whose names would be familiar to you, are there, and their souls are in their work. No one doubts that the cause is a noble and a holy one; and it is certainly my deliberate opinion that there was never a war more justifiable and more inevitable in history.

We went to the camp to see the parade. To my unsophisticated eye there was little difference between these young volunteers and regular soldiers. But of course my opinion is of little worth in such matters. I had a good deal of talk with Colonel Gordon. He is about thirty, I should think. He graduated first in his class at West Point, served through the Mexican War, and is, I should think, an excellent soldier. He is very handsome, very calm and gentle in manner, with a determined eye. You will watch, after this, with especial interest the career of the Massachusetts Second.

. . . Gordon's regiment will, it is hoped, be taken into the permanent service after the war, as the regular army must always be on a much larger scale than before. In that case these officers will have a profession, which has been one of the great wants for young men of rich families in our part of the country.

I am now going into town, when I shall post this letter and order your Boston newspaper. No event has taken place, of any very great moment, since I left you. General Scott, I am very glad to say, is in no hurry. He is too old a campaigner and strategist to wish to go unprepared into petty conflicts to furnish food for telegrams. The thing is to be done on a great scale. There is no thought of peace, and there is a settled conviction in the minds of the most pacific by nature that, even had the United States government been base enough to acknowledge the Southern Confederacy, it would necessarily have been involved in war with it. There are at least half a dozen casus belli, which, as between two belligerent nations, could only be settled by the sword, unless the North chose to go on its knees and accept the dictation of the South. There is no need of saying more. The Mississippi alone speaks war out of its many mouths. The Union hardly intended, when it bought Louisiana and the Mississippi valley, in order to take it from the control of one enemy, to make a present of it to another and more bitter foe.

The girls here are all pretty and nice. N____ sings very well, with a fine, fresh, ringing voice, and gave me “The Star-Spangled Banner” last night with great spirit. God bless you all, dearest ones. I will write from Washington.

Ever most affectionately,

J. L. M.

I shall go to see Mrs. Greene³ to-day, who is in town and in good health. It was impossible for me to do so yesterday, as I was detained by many visitors. Amory came almost the first. He is delightful as ever, and sends his love to you.

_______________

¹ Mr. Motley's anxiety in this crisis of American affairs led to a sudden visit to Boston, his family then expecting to follow him. His appointment to the post of United States minister to Austria, which became vacant after his return, changed the plan.

² At the beginning of the Civil War Mr. Motley wrote an elaborate letter to the London "Times," explaining clearly and comprehensively the nature of the Union and the actual causes of the struggle. There was so much misunderstanding upon the subject that the letter was of the greatest service. It was republished in the United States, and universally read and approved.

³ Sister to Lord Lyndhurst

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 128-36

Gustavus V. Fox to John M. Forbes, July 30, 1861

Navy Department, July 30, 1861.

Sir, — I notice your letter to the Secretary of July 27. I think the Rover better be fitted for a long cruise towards the line, where her steam might enable her to pick up a privateer in calm latitudes. You must send forward nominations for all the officers, or there will be delay.  . . . Let us have the officers at once. The department will buy no ships east of New York, except through your board, and any other parties have no countenance from here. If the board jump clear of them, their act will be approved. We mean to have you act unfettered, to the best of your judgment, but I should try to keep inside of 1100 tons. . . .

Very truly yours,

G. V. Fox.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 231-2

John M. Forbes to Congressman Thomas Dawes Eliot*, July 4, 1861

Boston, July 4,1861.

My Dear Mr. Eliot, — I have yours of 2d, and note the doubts of Mr. Welles as to the safety of intrusting commissions to our merchant sailors. This is natural at first sight, but a little reflection must convince him that it is entirely unfounded.

During our two wars with England, when most of our merchant ships were of 200 to 400 tons and none above 700, our best commodores and captains came from the merchant service, and showed no inaptitude for carrying frigates into action. Look over Cooper's “Naval History” and see who won the laurels then!

If history were wanting as a guide, we should on general principles come to the same confidence in the skill and gallantry of our merchant sailors. I would make no invidious comparisons with our navy; but the crisis is a great one, and the navy can well afford to face the truth. It has glorious men and glorious memories, but they are so closely interwoven with those of our merchant marine that to lower the one it is almost inevitable that you lower the other. If I make a comparison, it is partly in the hope of making suggestions that will tend to raise the navy to its highest point of efficiency.

Let us for a moment examine the training of the two services now. Leaving out the Annapolis school as only just beginning to act upon the very youngest grade of commissioned officers, the youths intended for the navy have been selected at a very early age, with generally very insufficient education, from those families who have political influence, and from those young men who have a prejudice against rough sailor life. Under our system of promotion by seniority these young men live an easy life in the midshipman's mess, the wardroom, or on shore, with little responsibility and little actual work until, at the age of from forty to sixty, they get command of a vessel; they feel that they are in the public service for life, and that the ones that take the best care of their lives and healths are the most sure of the high honors of their profession! Considering their want of early training, of active experience, and of stimulus, it is only surprising that they are on the whole so fine a body of men.

Compare this training with that of our merchant officers. Taken from a class of young men, with somewhat fewer advantages and education, but all having access to our public schools, they are sent to sea to fight their own way up. Those who are capable soon emerge from the mass of common sailors (most of them common sailors for life), and are tried as mates, etc. They are chosen for their daring, their vigilance, their faculty for commanding; and those who prove to have these qualities soon get into command. In nine cases out of ten, the young American-born sailor who is fit for it gets command of a vessel by the time he is twenty-five years old, an age when our naval officers have, as a rule, had but little experience in navigating vessels, and but little responsibility put upon them.

Instead of the little vessels which our heroes of the old wars commanded, you will find these same merchant captains in command of vessels ranging from 700 tons (a small ship now), up to 1500 and 2000 tons, some as large as our seventy-fours, many as large as our first-class frigates! It is idle to talk of such men not being able to manœuvre sloops-of-war or frigates, either in action or in any circumstances where seamanship and daring are needed.

So much for a comparison of the training of the two services; now for one or two suggestions for raising the navy. First, let us go on with the naval school and carry its scientific requirements and rigid discipline as high as West Point. To go further back still; I would have the candidates for the school recommended, not by members of Congress, but by the boards of education of the different States, and taken from those who have proved themselves the best scholars in our public, schools, — at least a majority of them; leaving the minority to come from those more favored by fortune who use the private schools.

Once in service, I would have our navy actively employed in surveying foreign seas and making charts, as the English navy is doing to a considerable extent. Then let the President have some discretion to promote those who by gallantry or science distinguish themselves. Finally, a more liberal retiring list, and if possible some higher honors in the way of titles as a stimulus to our officers.

Perhaps there is not time for the reform of the service, but it is the time for beginning the organization of our volunteer navy. Do you note that the only privateer that we know has been taken has been by sailing brig Perry, though another is reported by the Niagara? I could say almost or quite as much in favor of half clipper ships, in comparison with the ordinary sloop-of-war, as I have said of our merchant sailors. Until we become converted to European ideas upon standing armies and navies, we cannot think of giving up our land or sea militia, and, if we give up privateering, we must have a substitute with all its strength and more.

Yours truly,

J. M. Forbes.

_______________

* Chairman of the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives.— Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 221-4

John M. Forbes to Captain Matthews, July 13, 1861

Boston, July 13, 1861.

Captain Matthews, Steamer Cambridge, Hyannis:

Dear Sir, — Commodore Hudson sends Lieutenant Stevens by this train to represent the government on board Cambridge, and take charge of any warlike operations, but he will doubtless consult with you about the cruise generally.

You will receive a new twelve-pound rifle by the train, with ammunition; also some preserved meats.

Then get, if you can and think best, ten to twenty good men for the cruise.

Follow Lieutenant Stevens's orders, if he comes. If he misses from any cause, get somehow, by purchase or otherwise, enough coal for a cruise of five or six days with what you have got, and run out about northeast and cruise on the north edge of the Gulf in search of privateers — take the responsibility carefully, of hailing vessels, and if you find one that you feel sure is a privateer or pirate, take her, or better still sink her, but be sure you are right before you fire.

I have little doubt the lieutenant will reach you. I have a telegram from Secretary Welles authorizing me to send you on a two or three days' cruise after the privateer. The best chance for catching her will be at the northeast, on the track of vessels bound to New York from Europe. She was last seen Monday night, about one hundred miles southeast from Nantucket; has had light southerly winds since. She is a full-rigged brig, of about 200 tons, formerly the Echo, slaver, has been showing French flag, has cotton foresail and top-gallant sails, hemp trysail. Has three jibs and staysail, about seventy men, Captain Coxetter, First Lieutenant Postell, said to be formerly of Texan navy, one eighteen-pound pivot gun, four thirty-two or twenty-four, and all old guns, no rifled cannon.

There have been two revenue cutters sent from here and United States sloop Vincennes, also several vessels from New York, all intending to cruise to eastward of Nantucket. Your best chance will therefore be further north. The Secretary's directions are to cruise for two or three days, but if you get any information which leads you to hope for success, you must cruise longer.

We shall have troops to send by you about Thursday. Return to Boston after your cruise. I have telegraphed Captain John Eldridge to engage coal and men for you at Hyannis conditionally. See newspapers for particulars about pirates.

Yours,

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 216-7

James Russell Lowell to Sibyl Norton, September 28, 1861

Elmwood, the day before you wrote

your last letter; viz., Sep. 28, 1861.

My dear Sibyl, — Will you kindly tell me what has happened next week, so that I may be saved from this daily debauch of newspapers? How many “heroic Mulligans” who, “meurent et ne se rendent pas" to the reporters, with the privilege of living and surrendering to the enemy? How many “terrific conflicts” near Cheat Mountain (ominous name), with one wounded on our side, and enemy's loss supposed to be heavy? How many times we are to save Kentucky and lose our self-respect? How many times the Potomac is to be “hermetically sealed”? How often Mr. Seward is to put newspaper correspondents on the level of Secretaries of State? etc., etc. I ask all these questions because your so-welcome letter, which I received on Wednesday the 25th, was dated to-morrow the 29th. There is something very impressive to the imagination in a letter from the future, and to be even a day in advance of the age is a good deal — how much more five or six! How does it seem to come back? Is not everything weary and stale? Or do you live all the time in a balloon, thus seeing over the lines of Time, the old enemy of us all? Pray tell me how much foolisher I shall be this day twelve-month. Well, at any rate, you can't see far enough to find the day when your friendship shall not be one of my dearest possessions. . . .

Has it begun to be cold with you? I had a little Italian bluster of brushwood fire yesterday morning, but the times are too hard with me to allow of such an extravagance except on the brink of gelation. The horror of my tax-bill has so infected my imagination that I see myself and all my friends begging entrance to the P.H. (From delicacy I use initials.) I fancy all of you gathering fuel on the Newport beaches. I hope you will have lots of wrecks—Southern privateers, of course. Don't ever overload yourself. I can't bear to think of your looking like the poor women I met in the Pineta at Ravenna just at dusk, having the air of moving druidical altars or sudden toadstools.

Our trees are beginning to turn — the maples are all ablaze, and even in our ashes live their wonted fires. The Virginia creeper that I planted against the old horse-chestnut stump trickles down in blood as if its support were one of Dante's living wood. The haze has begun, and the lovely mornings when one blesses the sun. I confess our summer weather too often puts one in mind of Smithfield and the Book of Martyrs.

I have had an adventure. I have dined with a prince. After changing my mind twenty times, I at last sat down desperately and “had the honour to accept.” And I was glad of it — for H.I.H.’s resemblance to his uncle is something wonderful. I had always supposed the portraits of the elder Nap imperialized, but Jerome N. looks as if he had sat for that picture where the emperor lies reading on a sofa — you remember it. A trifle weaker about the mouth, suggesting loss of teeth; but it is not so, for his teeth are exquisite. He looks as you would fancy his uncle if he were Empereur de Ste. Hélène, roi d’Yvetôt. I sat next to Colonel Ragon, who led the forlorn hope at the taking of the Malakoff and was at the siege of Rome. He was a very pleasant fellow. (I don't feel quite sure of my English yet — J'ai tant parlé Français que je trouve beaucoup de difficulté à m'y déshabituer.) Pendant — I mean during — the dinner Ooendel Homes récitait des vers vraiment jolis. Il arrivait déjà au bout, quand M. Ragon, se tournant vers moi d'un air mêlé d'intelligence et d'interrogation, et à la même fois d'un Colomb qui fait la découverte d'un monde tout nouveau, s'écria, “C'est en vers, Monsieur, n'est ce pas?” St'anegdot charmang j'ai rahcontay ah Ooendell daypwee, avec days eclah de reer. (See Bolmar.) Mr. Everett made a speech où il y avait un soupçon de longueur. The prince replied most gracefully, as one

"Who saying nothing yet saith all."

He speaks French exquisitely — foi de professeur. Ho parlato anche Italiano col Colonello, chi è stato sei anni in Italia, and I believe I should have tried Hebrew with the secretary of legation, who looked like a Jew, if I had had the chance. After dinner the prince was brought up and presented to me!  Please remember that when we meet. The political part of our conversation of course I am not at liberty to repeat (! !), but he asked me whether I myself occupied of any work literary at present? to which I answered, no. Then he spoke of the factories at Lowell and Lawrence, and said how much the intelligence of the operatives had interested him, etc., etc. He said that Boston seemed to have much more movement intellectual than the rest of the country (to which I replied, nous le croyons, au moins); astonished himself at the freedom of opinion here, etc., at the absence of Puritanism and the like. I thought him very intelligent and thanked him for his bo deescoor o saynah Frongsay shure lays ahfair deetahlee. (See Bolmar again, which I took in my pocket.) . . .

Ever yours,

J. R. L.

SOURCE: Charles Eliot Norton, Editor, Letters of James Russell Lowell, Volume 1, p. 352-5

General John Bell Hood to Major-General William T. Sherman, September 12, 1864

HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

September 12, 1864.

Maj. Gen. W. T. SHERMAN,

Commanding Military Division of the Mississippi:

GENERAL; I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th [10th] instant, with its inclosure, in reference to the women, children, and others whom you have thought proper to expel from their homes in the city of Atlanta. Had you seen proper to let the matter rest there, I would gladly have allowed your letter to close this correspondence, and without your expressing it in words would have been willing to believe that whilst “the interests of the United States,” in your opinion, compelled you to an act of barbarous cruelty, you regretted the necessity, and we would have dropped the subject. But you have chosen to indulge in statements which I feel compelled to notice, at least so far as to signify my dissent and not allow silence in regard to them to be construed as acquiescence. I see nothing in your communication which induces me to modify the language of condemnation with which I characterized your order. It but strengthens me in the opinion that it stands “pre-eminent in the dark history of war, for studied and ingenious cruelty.” Your original order was stripped of all pretenses; you announced the edict for the sole reason that it was “to the interest of the United States.” This alone you offered to us and the civilized world as an all-sufficient reason for disregarding the laws of God and man. You say that “General Johnston himself, very wisely and properly, removed the families all the way from Dalton down,” It is due to that gallant soldier and gentleman to say that no act of his distinguished career gives the least color to your unfounded aspersions upon his conduct. He depopulated no villages nor towns nor cities, either friendly or hostile. He offered and extended friendly aid to his unfortunate fellow-citizens who desired to flee from your fraternal embraces. You are equally unfortunate in your attempt to find a justification for this act of cruelty either in the defense of Jonesborough, by General Hardee, or of Atlanta by myself. General Hardee defended his position in front of Jonesborough at the expense of injury to the houses, an ordinary, proper, and justifiable act of war. I defended Atlanta at the same risk and cost. If there was any fault in either case, it was your own, in not giving notice, especially in the case of Atlanta, of your purpose to shell the town, which is usual in war among civilized nations. No inhabitant was expelled from his home and fireside by the orders of General Hardee or myself, and therefore your recent order can find no support from the conduct of either of us. I feel no other emotion than pain in reading that portion of your letter which attempts to justify your shelling Atlanta without notice under pretense that I defended Atlanta upon a line so close to town that every cannon shot, and many musket balls from your line of investment, that over-shot their mark went into the habitations of women and children. I made no complaint of your firing into Atlanta in any way you thought proper. I make none now, but there are a hundred thousand witnesses that you fired into the habitations of women and children for weeks, firing far above and miles beyond my line of defense. I have too good an opinion, founded both upon observation and experience, of the skill of your artillerists to credit the insinuation that they for several weeks unintentionally fired too high for my modest field-works, and slaughtered women and children by accident and want of skill.

The residue of your letter is rather discussion. It opens a wide field for the discussion of questions which I do not feel are committed to me. I am only a general of one of the armies of the Confederate States, charged with military operations in the field, under the direction of my superior officers, and I am not called upon to discuss with you the causes of the present war, or the political questions which led to or resulted from it. These grave and important questions have been committed to far abler hands than mine, and I shall only refer to them so far as to repel any unjust conclusion which might be drawn from my silence. You charge my country with “daring and badgering you to battle.” The truth is, we sent commissioners to you respectfully offering a peaceful separation before the first gun was fired on either side. You say we insulted your flag. The truth is we fired upon it and those who fought under it when you came to our doors upon the mission of subjugation. You say we seized upon your forts and arsenals and made prisoners of the garrisons sent to protect us against negroes and Indians. The truth is, we, by force of arms, drove out insolent intruders, and took possession of our own forts and arsenals to resist your claims to dominion over masters, slaves, and Indians, all of whom are to this day, with a unanimity unexampled in the history of the world, warring against your attempts to become their masters. You say that we tried to force Missouri and Kentucky into rebellion in spite of themselves. The truth is my Government, from the beginning of this struggle to this hour, has again and again offered, before the whole world to leave it to the unbiased will of these States and all others to determine for themselves whether they will cast their destiny with your Government or ours? and your Government has resisted this fundamental principle of free institutions with the bayonet, and labors daily by force and fraud to fasten its hateful tyranny upon the unfortunate freemen of these States. You say we falsified the vote of Louisiana. The truth is, Louisiana not only separated herself from your Government by nearly a unanimous vote of her people, but has vindicated the act upon every battle-field from Gettysburg to the Sabine, and has exhibited an heroic devotion to her decision which challenges the admiration and respect of every man capable of feeling sympathy for the oppressed or admiration for heroic valor. You say that we turned loose pirates to plunder your unarmed ships. The truth is, when you robbed us of our part of the navy, we built and bought a few vessels, hoisted the flag of our country, and swept the seas, in defiance of your navy, around the whole circumference of the globe. You say we have expelled Union families by thousands. The truth is not a single family has been expelled from the Confederate States, that I am aware of, but, on the contrary, the moderation of our Government toward traitors has been a fruitful theme of denunciation by its enemies and many well-meaning friends of our cause. You say my Government, by acts of Congress, has “confiscated all debts due Northern men for goods sold and delivered.” The truth is our Congress gave due and ample time to your merchants and traders to depart from our shores with their ships, goods, and effects, and only sequestrated the property of our enemies in retaliation for their acts, declaring us traitors and confiscating our property wherever their power extended, either in their country or our own. Such are your accusations, and such are the facts known of all men to be true.

You order into exile the whole population of a city, drive men, women, and children from their homes at the point of the bayonet, under the plea that it is to the interest of your Government, and on the claim that it is an act of “kindness to these families of Atlanta.” Butler only banished from New Orleans the registered enemies of his Government, and acknowledged that he did it as a punishment. You issue a sweeping edict covering all the inhabitants of a city and add insult to the injury heaped upon the defenseless by assuming that you have done them a kindness. This you follow by the assertion that you will “make as much sacrifice for the peace and honor of the South as the best born Southerner.” And because I characterized what you call a kindness as being real cruelty you presume to sit in judgment between me and my God and you decide that my earnest prayer to the Almighty Father to save our women and children from what you call kindness is a “sacrilegious, hypocritical appeal.” You came into our country with your army avowedly for the purpose of subjugating free white men, women, and children, and not only intend to rule over them, but you make negroes your allies and desire to place over us an inferior race, which we have raised from barbarism to its present position, which is the highest ever attained by that race in any country in all time. I must, therefore, decline to accept your statements in reference to your kindness toward the people of Atlanta, and your willingness to sacrifice everything for the peace and honor of the South, and refuse to be governed by your decision in regard to matters between myself, my country, and my God. You say, “let us fight it out like men.” To this my reply is, for myself, and, I believe, for all the true men, aye, and women and children, in my country, we will fight you to the death. Better die a thousand deaths than submit to live under you or your Government and your negro allies.

Having answered the points forced upon me by your letter of the 9th [10th] of September, I close this correspondence with you, and notwithstanding your comments upon my appeal to God in the cause of humanity, I again humbly and reverently invoke His Almighty aid in defense of justice and right.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. B. HOOD,

General.

SOURCES: John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat, p. 232-5; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 39, Part 2 (Serial No. 78), p. 419-22

Major-General William T. Sherman to General John Bell Hood, September 10, 1864

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,

In the Field, Atlanta, Ga., September 10, 1864.

General J. B. HOOD, C. S. Army, Comdg. Army of Tennessee:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this date [9th], at the hands of Messrs. Ball and Crew, consenting to the arrangements I had proposed to facilitate the removal south of the people of Atlanta who prefer to go in that direction. I inclose you a copy of my orders, which will, I am satisfied, accomplish my purpose perfectly.* You style the measure proposed “unprecedented,” and appeal to the dark history of war for a parallel as an act of “studied and ingenious cruelty.” It is not unprecedented, for General Johnston himself, very wisely and properly, removed the families all the way from Dalton down, and I see no reason why Atlanta should be excepted. Nor is it necessary to appeal to the dark history of war when recent and modern examples are so handy. You, yourself, burned dwelling-houses along your parapet, and I have seen to-day fifty houses that you have rendered uninhabitable because they stood in the way of your forts and men. You defended Atlanta on a line so close to town that every cannon shot and many musket shots from our line of investment that overshot their mark went into the habitations of women and children. General Hardee did the same at Jonesborough, and General Johnston did the same last summer at Jackson, Miss. I have not accused you of heartless cruelty, but merely instance these cases of very recent occurrence, and could go on and enumerate hundreds of others and challenge any fair man to judge which of us has the heart of pity for the families of a “brave people.” I say that it is kindness to these families of Atlanta to remove them now at once from scenes that women and children should not be exposed to, and the "brave people" should scorn to commit their wives and children to the rude barbarians who thus, as you say, violate the laws of war, as illustrated in the pages of its dark history. In the name of common sense I ask you not to appeal to a just God in such a sacrilegious manner; you who, in the midst of peace and prosperity, have plunged a nation into war, dark and cruel war; who dared and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized our arsenals and forts that were left in the honorable custody of peaceful ordnance sergeants; seized and made “prisoners of war” the very garrisons sent to protect your people against negroes and Indians long before any overt act was committed by the, to you, hated Lincoln Government; tried to force Kentucky and Missouri into rebellion, spite of themselves; falsified the vote of Louisiana, turned loose your privateers to plunder unarmed ships; expelled Union families by the thousands; burned their houses and declared by an act of your Congress the confiscation of all debts due Northern men for goods had and received. Talk thus to the marines, but not to me, who have seen these things, and who will this day make as much sacrifice for the peace and honor of the South as the best born Southerner among you. If we must be enemies, let us be men and fight it out, as we propose to do, and not deal in such hypocritical appeals to God and humanity. God will judge us in due time, and He will pronounce whether it be more humane to fight with a town full of women, and the families of “a brave people” at our back, or to remove them in time to places of safety among their own friends and people.

 W. T. SHERMAN,

Major-general, Commanding.

________________

* See Special Field Orders, No. 70, September 10, 1864, p. 356.

SOURCES: John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat, p. 231-2; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 39, Part 2 (Serial No. 78), p. 416

Capture of the Alfred Robb

A Tennessee river pilot, who appears to be a wide awake fellow, gives an amusing account of the manner in which the rebel steamer Robb was captured by our gunboats.

It seems a government steamer, heavily ladened with government stores in wending her way up the river, got aground.  News of this mishap quickly reached the confederates, and about 200 of them took possession of the Robb, put a light field piece on board, and started down the little stream in which she has been concealed since the first expedition of our gunboat up the Tennessee river, for the purpose of bagging a rich prize.  The Robb arrived in the vicinity of the federal transport, still hard aground, after night.  The soldiers were concealed in the thickets, on shore, and the little privateer hunting a snug resting place quietly awaiting the approach of daylight for the consummation of her intentions.

During the night, a couple of gunboats – regular night hawks, they do most of their going after dark – possibly suspicioning mischief, came sneaking up the river.  One of them anchored a short distance below where the rob was concealed, and the other passing up on the opposite side of an island in the river was not detected by those on board the Robb, and going up the river a short distance she, too, came to anchor and awaited daylight.

Conceiving the coast to be clear, early the next morning the Robb started out to take possession of her prize.  Before reaching it, however, one of the “Lincoln sneaks,” as they are called in Dixie, was discovered creeping after her.  Greatly alarmed the little rebel steamer turned her head up stream, and went off sputtering and puffing at an alarming rate.  The gunboat paid the usual compliments of the morning, by sending a couple of shells, which exploded near the skedadling little steamer, to which it lacking in politeness, paid no attention beyond raising more steam and puffing with more vigor.  Rounding an abrupt bend in the river, all on onboard the rebel craft were horror-struck at finding themselves immediately under the broadside of another gunboat, which appeared to be waiting their approach.  Though surprised the party on board the Robb did not lose their presence of mind, and as if by instinct, every man on board seized table cloths, towels, and whatever other white substance on which they could lay their hands, and waived them with frantic vigor, amidst despairing shouts of “don’t shoot, we surrender.”

The gunboat didn’t shoot and directed the rebel steamer to follow in her wake, quietly made her way to headquarters, when the privateer was handed over to the proper authorities.

The Robb was the last rebel craft in the Tennessee, and we doubt not the gunboats will take care that many years will elapse before a flag hostile to the general government is ever again spread to the breeze on that beautiful stream. – Evansville Journal.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, May 6, 1862, p. 2

Escape of the Nashville

FORT MONORE, March 25. – The U. S. Steamer Cambridge arrived here this morning from the blockade off Beaufort, having left Sunday evening last.

The rebel steamer Nashville escaped from the harbor of Beaufort on Tuesday night, the 18th inst., having run the blockade.  The U. S. vessels at the place were the Cambridge and Barrant Gemstock [sic], a sailing vessel.  The blockading vessels had news of the capture of Newberne and were on the lookout for the Nashville, but they were not numerous enough to prevent her escape.  The Gembrook [sic] first saw the Nashville and immediately telegraphed to the Cambridge that she was coming out.  The Cambridge followed the Nashville and fired a number of shots at her with the hope of getting her into a fight, but the superior speed of the Nashville soon put her at a safe distance.  Two of the shots from the Cambridge were supposed to have struck the Nashville.

The bark Glenn, which has been blockaded in the harbor of Beaufort for some time, was set on fire by the rebels on Sunday, and was still burning when the Cambridge left, in the evening.  The Glenn was supposed to be fitting out as a privateer.  The burning of this vessel was doubtless preparatory to an evacuation of the place.

Fort Macon had not been blown up by the rebels at the last advices.

The bark Gembrook and steamer State of Georgia were left at the station by the Cambridge.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 3

Special Dispatch to the Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5. – It is still believed that Mr. Spaulding’s Treasury Note bill, with the legal tender clause included will, merely on the grounds of supposed necessity, secure a majority of both Houses.  Were the Treasury less barren of funds, the measure would be more doubtful.  Strong opposition was developed yesterday.  The committee are four to one on the question of submitting Morrill’s proposition.

Senator Simmons will soon bring forward a project for a National Savings Bank and government fiscal agency, originated by him, as an improvement upon the old United States Bank and Webster’s Exchequer plan.

A bill is maturing authorizing the President to appoint a Lieutenant General from regular or volunteer officers, designed to put somebody over Gen. McClellan.

Young naval officers complain of the delay in retiring the senior under the bill lately passed, and of the consequent delay in making promotions.

It is suspected that the frigate Richmond will carry Gen. Scott to Vera Cruz, as a semi official Commissioner to the allies and the Mexican Government.

A track has been laid across Long Bridge, thus completing the road connecting between this city and Alexandria.  Trains now pass over the bridge regularly.

It is said that the changed treatment of privateersmen is Stanton’s work, contemporaneous with the sending of Commissioners South.

Letters from Cairo say that everything connected with the flotilla is working will, and that  new spirit has been infused since the President himself took hold.

– Published in The Dubuque Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 7, 1862, p. 1

Releasing The Privateers

The government has done at least what it was considered treason six months ago to suggest, it should do – viz: treat Privateer prisoners as prisoners of war.  The Rebels are to all intents and purposes belligerents and had they been treated so sooner, the Federal prisoners would not have been suffered to languish in Rebel prisons uncared for and almost forgotten by their Government.

Now, the government does ungraciously what it might have done with a good grace, gratifying the prisoners who fell into the hands of the enemy, and depriving the enemy of the weapons of taunt and Satire which have been used effectively against the Federal Government.

Some time ago, we suggested that the Rebels be recognized as belligerents, not for the purpose of giving them any advantage but to enable the government to carry on the war against them in an effectual manner, unrestrained by the Constitution, which protected them even as rebels.  But we were called and denounced as a traitor for our advice, which will have to be taken yet before the war can be carried on successfully.  While the rebels are treated as rebels, they have constitutional rights, of which no act of Congress nor no Military Proclamation can deprive them; but if they are acknowledged as belligerents in the attitude they have assumed outside of the Constitution, they could be treated accordingly, in person and property, according to the laws and usages of war.

When will the Government learn to act in accordance with the emergencies in which it is placed.  Will it ever?  It is doubtful.

– Published in The Dubuque Herald, Dubuque, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 7, 1862, p. 1

Southern News

FORT MONROE, March 25.

The U. S. steamer Cambridge arrived here this morning, form the blockade of Beaufort, having left there on Sunday evening last.

The rebel steamer Nashville escaped from the harbor of Beaufort on Tuesday night, 18^th inst., having run the blockade.

The only U. S. vessels at the place were the steamer Cambridge and the bark Gemsbok.  The blockading vessels had news of the capture of Newbern, and were on the look out for the Nashville, but they were not numerous enough to prevent her escape.  The Gemsbok just saw the Nashville, and immediately telegraphed to the Cambridge that she was coming out.  The Cambridge followed the Nashville and fired a number of shots at her with the hope of getting her into a fight, but the superior speed of the Nashville soon put her at a safe distance.  Two of the shots from the Cambridge were supposed to have stuck the Nashville.

The bark Glenn, which has been blockaded in the harbor of Beaufort for some time, was set on fire by the rebels on Sunday, and was still burning when the Cambridge left.  The Glenn was supposed to be fitting out as a privateer.

The burning of this vessel was doubtless preparatory to an evacuation of the place.

Fort Macon had not been blown up by the rebels at the last accounts.

The bark Gembsok and the steamer State of Ga. were left at the station by the Cambridge.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 27, 1862, p. 1