Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 1, 1860

The Prince’s ball next week’s the chief topic of the town. The King of Naples has run away and Garibaldi triumphs. The House of Bourbon is on its last legs. John Jay has been making a row in the diocesan convention with a speech on the slave trade, which Mr. Ruggles says was very able. George Anthon suggests an alteration in the prayerbook for the benefit of the “Church South,” namely, in the prayer for persons I going to sea.¹ Instead of "these Thy servants,” add “These our servants,” and instead of “conduct him in safety to the haven where they would be,” read “. . . the haven where they wouldn’t be” (if they could help it, that is). . . .

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¹ That is, for the slaves now being run in from Africa.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 42-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 2, 1860

Diligent day. Having been put on the reception committee for the Prince of Wales’s ball, I attended a meeting thereof. There were Hamilton Fish, Luther Bradish, Perit, Maunsell Field, Mintum, Cisco, and myself. There was severe prosing on “nice sharp quillets” of etiquette. Bradish and Field were uncommonly solemn and impressive. With what manner of reception shall we receive General Scott? “Can he be separated from his military family?” There’s the rub. Shall we ten reception committeemen dress alike? Shall it be white vests and black cravats or vice versa? Are silk vests considered provincial in Paris? What manner of gloves prevailed at the Tuileries when Governor Fish was there last, and what light is thrown on the whole subject by Bradish’s little souvenirs of court society at the several capitals of Europe? Cisco and I are a sub-committee on the carriages that are to convey His Royal Highness and suite from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to the Opera House. O happy carriages, and horses too much blessed! I am a Committee of One to provide drinks for the special consolation of His Royal Highness in a small withdrawing room to be consecrated to that use. The Prince is said to be partial to sherry and seltzer water.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 42-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Friday, October 5, 1860

Wednesday night with Ellie, Miss Leavenworth, and Cameron to Tiffany’s shop in Broadway, where I had engaged a second story window. We inspected the grand National Wide-Awake torchlight procession. It was brilliant and successful. It was more than two hours in passing, and its most pleasing feature was the rear-rank of the last division. These demonstrations of the prevailing Republican party are elaborate and splendid, but cold and mechanical. One misses the spontaneous hullabaloo and furor of the Harrison campaign. Even in ’56 there was more enthusiasm. Of course, the corresponding depression on the other side is deeper yet. It is conceded that neither of the opposing candidates stands the smallest chance of election by the people. So Douglas men. Bell men, and Breckinridge men are all equally dumpish, and any excitement about fusion is impracticable. You can get up a hurrah for the gallant Smith or the "ga-lorious” Jones, but not for a mere abstraction for the generalization of Smith and Jones.

Much occupied with divers matters growing out of the expected advent of our "sweet young Prince.” "Long may he wave,” but I wish he were at home again with his royal mamma, and I hope the community won’t utterly disgrace itself before he goes away. The amount of tuft-hunting and Prince-worshiping threatens to be fearful; and, I don’t know how it happens, but I fear my share in the demonstration is to be much larger than I expected or desired. The Reception Committee met today and passed on divers weighty matters. It is proposed that we "wait on the Prince” the evening before the ball, which seems to me a very superfluous work of supererogation. All we can say or do is to express the hope that His Royal Highness finds himself pretty well, considering, and I think His Royal Highness will be inclined to take it for granted that we hope so, whether we call or not.

Maunsell Field’s exertions and labors over the arrangements for the ball are most arduous. He works all day and nearly all night and will break down if he isn’t careful. Honorable Luther Bradish has been sold with a grave suggestion that the Reception Committee wear small-clothes and silk-stockings, and was much exercised thereby. On reflection, he thought it might be, on the whole, highly becoming and proper. It seems a place on this committee is a much coveted place of honor. I was selected after great consideration. Very much obliged.

His Royal Highness is to attend services at Trinity Church on the 14th, "The First Sunday after the Ball” and the 18th after Trinity. The vestry met specially yesterday and a committee of arrangements was appointed: the Rector, Dunscomb, Hyslop, Cisco, and myself. The committee met this afternoon, and I walked up with Cisco, stopping at Mathews’s to arrange about the binding of a special prayerbook for His Royal Highness’s pew, with an inscription alluding to the former munificence of the British Crown to Trinity Church (Berrian suggested "his royal ancestors,” forgetting that His Royal Highness is descended neither from William and Mary nor from Queen Anne), and at Gimbrede’s about printing tickets of admission. We must admit by tickets or let the church be filled up with a mob, but I should much prefer to dispense with them.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 43-4

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 11, 1860

I begin to be weary of this “sweet young Prince.” The Hope of England threatens to become a bore. In fact, he is a bore of the first order. Everybody has talked of nothing but His Royal Highness for the last week. Reaction is inevitable. It has set in, and by Monday next, the remotest allusion to His Royal Highness will act like ipecac. It has been a mild, bland, half-cloudy day. By ten o’clock, people were stationing themselves along the curbstones of Broadway and securing a good place to see the Prince. What a spectacle-loving people we are! Shops were closed and business paralyzed; Wall Street deserted. I spent the morning mostly at the Trinity vestry office, signing tickets, and so forth. We had to pass on a bushel of applications for admission next Sunday. Lots of Fifth Avenueites sent in letters, tendering a private carriage for the conveyance of His Royal Highness to church, with a postscript asking for a “few” tickets. Corporators of Trinity Church bluster about their rights and insist on reserved pews. I fear we are a city of snobs.

I lounged uptown at two o’clock, feeling my way through the crowd that filled Broadway. Omnibusses and carriages were turned into the side streets and all Broadway was one long dense mass of impatient humanity. All the windows on either side were filled. Temporary platforms crowded, at five dollars a seat. It was beyond the Japanese demonstration, though Mr. Superintendent Kennedy assured me the other day that the Prince of Wales would be less popular than Tommy.

At three, I went into the New York Club and took a seat with Charley, Seton, Pinckney, Stewart, Jem Strong, Bankhead, and others, at a convenient window. We watched and waited, and united in denunciation of F. Wood, Mayor, whom we assumed to have got the Prince in his grasp and to be detaining him with a speech at the City Hall. It was six o’clock and quite dark before the head of the procession reached us. We saw a six-horse barouche pass. We hurrahed. Ladies in the opposite windows waved their handkerchiefs. Little boys in the street hay-hayed. Elder loafers yelled, and the Prince was gone. Keen-sighted and self-confident men insisted that they had actually seen someone in scarlet uniform bowing his acknowledgments, but their assertions inspired no confidence. It was too dark to distinguish colors.

I fought my way home through the crowd. We dined at seven. Ellie and Johnny had “seen” the royal procession at Mrs. Cutting’s in Fifth Avenue, and Babbins at Union Square.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 45-6

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Saturday, October 13, 1860

From any more princes of the blood, libera nos Domine. May this nice-looking, modest boy find his way home, or at least to our boundaries, with all convenient speed.

I’ve been in hard work about His Royal Highness for forty-eight hours. I’m weary of His Royal Highness. . . . The Ball is over, thank Heaven, but the Trinity Church reception and services tomorrow are still to be. What they will be, time must tell. I’ve made the most minute, definite arrangements with Mr. Kennedy and Sergeant Cropsey and the sextons and their aids, but I fear the crowd will out-general me. And I cannot be at the church till the services are actually commencing, for the destinies compel me to accompany or escort the royal party, our guests; and Hyslop and Dunscomb, who will be at the church from nine (when the doors open) till the Prince arrives, are timid and imbecile. I’d give a great deal if tomorrow’s august transaction were done and well done.

Mr. Ruggles took Ellie and me, also Mrs. Hunt, to the Astor Library yesterday morning. Only two or three onlookers were present; Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. John Sherwood. We waited and waited, lounged through alcoves, looked with vain longings at the titles of nice books. The trustees of the library were biding their time below, waiting to pounce on His Royal Highness the moment the sound of his chariot wheels should be heard. At length, about eleven o’clock, a noise of much people was heard without—a hooray—an opening of the police-guarded door, feet on the stone staircase, and then a vision of a girlish-looking young boy walking swiftly through the library with Dr. Cogswell, followed by the hairy-faced Duke of Newcastle with Mr. S. B. Ruggles and by William Astor, Carson Brevoort, and others of the library trustees escorting Lord Lyons and a lot of peers and honorables beside. They inspected the premises in double-quick time, and at the head of the staircase on their way out. His Highness shook hands with Cogswell and thanked him very briefly, simply, and nicely, just as any untitled gentleman would have done (think of it!), and the royal party was gone.

I spent a few minutes in looking at some of the special treasures of the library—the First Folio Shakespeare, the editio princeps of Homer, and so on, and then went down to Wall Street. . . .

At eight to the Academy of Music. The doors were not yet opened to the common herd, but my exalted official position on the committee admitted me by the royal entrance on Fourteenth Street. The house looked brilliant, blazing with lights and decorated with great masses of flowers. My post was with Charles King, Ben Silliman, and Cyrus Field in the room appointed for the reception of invited guests generally. Certain other committees had interfered with our arrangements in an unwarrantable and unconstitutional manner. The consequence of this outrage was (as we had distinctly foreseen and predicted) that the great majority of the invited guests found their way to "the floor” for themselves without being conducted thither by any legitimate organ. Our duties were therefore light. We "received” a few South American and Portuguese diplomats and General Paez and Major Delafield and Captain Cullum and sundry army and navy people and a score of city militia, colonels in most elaborate uniforms, and Mayor Wood (I had a very intimate talk with that limb of Satan); and at ten we adjourned to the special reception room and joined Hamilton Fish and old Pelatiah Perit (who looked like a duke in his dress coat and white cravat), and Peter Cooper, who looked like one of Gulliver’s Yahoos caught and cleaned and dressed up.

In came the royal party at last, with the Reception Committeemen, who had been assigned the pleasing duty of escorting them. We were presented to His Royal Highness seriatim. I had supposed that shaking hands with a Prince of Wales was indecorous, and that a bow was the proper acknowledgment of introduction to so august a personage; but when the Prince puts out his hand, or extends and proffers his fingers like anybody else, it seems ungracious to decline the honor and say, "Sir, I am so well bred as to know my place, and I am unworthy to shake hands with a descendant of James I and George III and a probable King of England hereafter.” I think of having my right-hand glove framed and glazed, with an appropriate inscription.

Fish had assigned to each of the committee the duty of conducting one of the Prince’s suite into the ballroom, and I was charged with Lord Hinchinbrooke. I had implored Fish to bear in mind that most of our committee (myself included) were unable to distinguish dukes from mere honorables and asked him to be sure to introduce each notable to his committeeman godfather (vide programmes of autos-da-fè). But he forgot to do so, and we marched into the ballroom in a very promiscuous way— Fish escorting Monseigneur, Peter Cooper tagging after them, and the rest like a flock of sheep—and took our place at the head of the room; that is, the east end. Orchestra plays "God Save the Queen,” followed by "Hail Columbia!” Aspect of the house and the crowd brilliant and satisfactory. I fall into talk with a pleasant-looking Englisher, and introduce myself. He proves to be Englehart, the Duke of Newcastle’s private secretary, and an amiable, agreeable man.

A space in our front was kept clean by the Floor Committee, and through this the crowd began to defile. Fish presenting them as they passed and people making "murgeons and jenny-fluxions to H. R. H. George Anthon passed with Ellie. . . . I was pointing out notabilities to Englehart and the Honorable Mr. Somebody, and just indicating John Van Buren as the son of one of our ex-kings, when there was a dull, ugly, jarring report, quickly followed by another of the same sort. Everybody started and peered in vain over the heads of the densely packed crowd, and wondered what it was. But there was no panic and no rush. Presently we learned that the temporary flooring had given way in two places; over the stage a couple of beams broke, causing the reports we had heard. Ellie went down into one of the pits and was frightened, but did not lose her footing, nor her self-possession.

Of course, people crowded away from this dangerous, region in all directions. The promenade became impracticable, and the Prince and his suite and most of the committee retreated to the reception and supper-rooms. A large space was presently roped off, including the two chasms in the floor, and revealing the scandalous, criminal negligence with which the work of constructing the supports had been done. A score of carpenters and policemen and the illustrious Brown were energetically repairing the damage within fifteen minutes after the accident. But there was a general sense of failure and calamity. Everything looked bilious. Everyone said the whole floor was unsafe. There could be no dancing; the ball was a disgraceful fiasco. I explained to many persons that the Reception Committee had nothing to do with the arrangements of the house. Meantime, the carpenters were working for their lives. Brown peering down into the oblong hole looked as if engaged in his ordinary sextonical duties at an interment. . , .

By midnight damages had been repaired and dancing set in. People streamed over every part of the floor the moment the Prince appeared on it. Danger was forgotten. His Royal Highness’s partners, Mrs. Goold Hoyt, Miss Lily Mason, Mrs. John Kernochan, and others, were among our prettiest women. Mrs. Governor Morgan, with whom the Prince opened the ball officially, is elderly and stout, but presentable enough. It is said that she had been taking dancing lessons for the last fortnight, rubbing up her old steps, and that when the quadrille commenced, she timidly inquired, "Your Royal Highness, isn’t it time for us to balancer?” Miss Helen Russell was overpowered when the Prince was presented. Her voice failed her for fear, and she astonished H. R. H. with a series of contortions and muscular twitchings before she succeeded in articulating an audible word. So they say; I saw little of the dancing. The way people crowded round was snobbish and rude and indecent, and I kept on the outskirts, where loafed and lounged dejectedly. . . .

While the Prince was waiting for Mrs. Camilla Hoyt, his partner. Walker, the Presbyterian bookbinder, bustled up with a young woman under his arm, introduced himself, and proceeded, "The lady with whom Your Highness was to dance doesn’t seem to be ready; allow me to introduce my daughter.’’ The Prince said, "Yes, the crowd is very dense,’’ or some such thing, and evaded this ambitious plebeian rather gracefully for so young a person. Ellie heard this propriis auribus. She was presented to the Illustrious Stranger and discoursed with him and danced in the same "Lancers.” I had a very pleasant talk with Mrs. Colonel Scott, and was introduced to Millard Fillmore, who is well-bred and cordial, but I spent most of the evening, or night rather, dawdling about and wishing it were over.

Got home at daylight, weary and worn after nearly nine hours spent in a new pair of patent leathers. Very tired. If H. R. H. appreciate my exertions, he will send me the Victoria Cross or make me a duke in partibus, at least.

This evening at Mr. Ruggles’s awhile and saw part of the Firemen’s procession pass up the Fourth Avenue. It was very brilliant, with torches, colored lights, and so forth. On Madison Square, where they no doubt displayed all their resources of Roman candles and portable fireworks, it must have been a really attractive spectacle.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 46-9

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 14, 1860

Laus Deo, this day is over, and the services at Trinity Church were marked by no gross indecency.

It was a cold, gray, bleak morning. The afternoon and tonight wet and stormy. Called for Cisco at nine-thirty and went with him to the Fifth Avenue Hotel as committee to show our august friends the way to church. Shown to their parlor. Lord Lyons and others of the suite came in, and then the Prince of Wales, looking boyish, feminine, and modest, but remarkably courteous and self-possessed. He stopped the Earl of St. Germans, who was introducing me, and said, "O, I met Mr. Strong at the ball Friday night.” He is, no doubt, under orders to be studiously polite and make a good impression, and has had the printed list of the Reception Committee before him, on which my distinguished name appears. We talked a little for ten minutes or so about the weather, and the voyage to West Point tomorrow, and the scenery of the Hudson, and our fall foliage. The Duke of Newcastle came in. He looks like a duke of the tenth century, a vigorous hirsute Dux rather than a starred and gartered duke of these days. The Prince said, “It’s ten o’clock, and it won’t do to be late at church.” So we marched downstairs and entered our barouches, the police keeping back the crowd that filled Twenty-third Street. Cisco wanted me to take a seat in the Prince’s carriage, as senior in the vestry, but as he evidently coveted that distinction, I declined it, and drove down in Carriage No. 2, with St. Germans, General Bruce, and Major Teesdale. My anticipations were dreary, but I found myself at once on terms of pleasant acquaintance, I could not tell how, with these well-bred, easy-mannered aristocrats. Major Teesdale looks like one of Leech’s “heavy swells” in Punch, and is taciturn. The other two were very agreeable persons. They asked many questions about matters and things—the American church, the endowment of Trinity Church, education, public and private, and answered queries of mine about the universities and the relations of the colleges to them. They were, of course, polite enough to commend everything they had seen here, or at least to make no criticism on their reception; and they spoke so warmly and earnestly that I think they felt what they said. Unless they are uncommonly good actors, I am sure they are gratified by our ovation. Noticed particularly General Bruce’s manner and expression when I said something about the unanimity and the depth of the popular feeling. Nothing could have been more cordial and genuine and kind.

We reached Trinity Church and found a great crowd at the gates, kept back by Superintendent Kennedy’s myrmidons. Dunscomb and Hyslop received the visitors. I think Dunscomb had prepared a speech. He bowed and hummed and choked, more solito, and Lord Lyons observed sotto voce, “I suppose we may as well move on.” So we went up the middle aisle and were spared the infliction. The church (all but the middle aisle) was packed. I saw no indecorum. H.R.H. and suite took the front pews on the south side of the middle aisle; the vestry sat on the north side. I had secured a good place for Ellie and for Mr. Ruggles and Mrs. Governor Hunt and others on the north side of the south aisle just behind the Royal pew. . . .

As soon as [the services] were over, H.R.H. got up, looked warily down the aisle to see whether the coast was clear, and then pegged out of church as fast as his legs would carry him, instead of staying, as I thought he would, a few minutes after service. He showed much practical sense thereby. We followed and reentered the carriages as before. The crowd was very dense and occupied the whole street as far as the park. With a score of mounted police to help, it was not easy to get through. It was a vociferous crowd and cheered vehemently. . . . There were lines of people waiting all along Broadway to Fourteenth Street, two or three deep, and all cheering, the better class of men raising their hats as the Prince passed by.

We left the party at Archibald’s (the Consul’s in Fourteenth Street) where they were to lunch or dine, and I took leave of my three and of Dr. Acland and Mr. Englehart very pleasantly, and walked home with Cisco.

So that matter is over. My judgment of the future King of England, from the little I’ve seen of him, is that he is not remarkably bright or forward for his years, and that he has been carefully trained to remember the duty of courtesy to all classes. Everyone has some little instance to tell of his good-breeding, under difficulties at the ball, when he must have been sorely tried by the well-meant gaucheries of a few and the unpardonable flunkeyism of others. Today, when he got out of his carriage and bade Cisco goodbye, he added a request to bid Mr. Strong goodbye and thank him for his attention in accompanying me, or some such thing. Many young Americans of eighteen would have forgotten this little civil formality. . . .

His visit has occasioned a week of excitement beyond that of any event in my time, and pervading all classes. Its permanent effect, if any, will be good here and in England. The unanimity of the feeling is wonderful, when one thinks of twenty years ago. The protest of certain militia companies of Irishmen against parading to do honor to a Saxon and an oppressor of Ireland is the single exception. I’ve not heard a single growl or sneer about the fuss we have been making over this young man, who is no better than anybody else, after all, or anything tending that way even remotely.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 49-51

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 22, 1860

Our little Prince sailed . . . Saturday, and got safely out of our hands. Inferences from the phenomena that accompanied his visit are:

(1) No community worships hereditary rank and station like a democracy.

(2) The biggest and finest specimens of flunkeyism occur in the most recently-elevated strata of society, as for example. Cooper: the “self-made millionaire glue-boiler,’’ Leary: the fashionable hatter’s son, and others.

(3) Under all this folly and tuft-hunting there is a deep and almost universal feeling of respect and regard for Great Britain and for Her Britannic Majesty. The old anti-British patriotism of twenty years ago is nearly extinct. . . .

I’ve nearly made up my mind to deposit a lukewarm Republican vote next month. It is a choice of evils, but we may as well settle the question whether a President can or cannot be chosen without the advice and approval of the slaveholding interests; whether 300,000 owners of niggers have or have not a veto on the popular choice. The question must be settled sooner or later, and we may as well dispose of it now. It is impossible for me to vote the Fusion ticket and thereby strengthen the show of the mischief-making demagogue Douglas, or of Breckinridge, the ultra-nigger-driver and demisecessionist. But I may vote for the ten Bell and Everett electors on that ticket, scratching off the rest.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52

Diary of George Templeton Strong, June 20, 1860

Attended the British Consul this morning, closing a commission to take testimony for the Court of Sessions.¹² Talked with him about the proposed visit of the Prince of Wales. Archibald seems to have been called on by his government to advise whether the Prince, if he come here, shall accept the invitation of the city government or decline it and travel through the country incognito. He wanted to know what I thought about it, and I decidedly recommended that this royal imp should visit us as an English gentleman or nobleman, and accept no public hospitalities, for the tender mercies of the Common Council are cruel. But Mr. Archibald thinks otherwise, and he may be right. A frank acceptance by the Prince of any civility paid him by our public functionaries, such as they are, would flatter the public vanity and bring us closer to England. . . . Crowd at the Metropolitan Hotel all day, except at intervals when dispersed by a shower. People stand and stare at the windows for a vision of some ugly Mongol mug protruded for a moment and then withdrawn.

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¹² E. M. Archibald had been the able British consul since 1857.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 34

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Friday, March 2, 1860

Stopped at Barnum’s on my way downtown to see the much advertised nondescript, the "What-is-it.”¹ Some say it’s an advanced chimpanzee, others that it’s a cross between nigger and baboon. But it seems to me clearly an idiotic negro dwarf, raised, perhaps, in Alabama or Virginia. The showman’s story of its capture (with three other specimens that died) by a party in pursuit of the gorilla on the western coast of Africa is probably bosh. The creature’s look and action when playing with his keeper are those of a nigger boy. But his anatomical details are fearfully simian, and he’s a great fact for Darwin.

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¹ This “What-is-it.”—shortly to be viewed by the Prince of Wales—became the most famous circus freak in America. Often called "the missing link," he was really a Negro of distorted frame and cone-shaped head named William H. Johnson, who survived until 1926.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 12

Diary of Henry Greville: Saturday, December 14, 1861

This morning I was startled by a very alarming bulletin of Prince Albert's state, dated yesterday, viz. that H.R.H. had passed a restless night on Thursday, and that the symptoms had assumed an unfavourable character during the day. It also stated that the Prince of Wales had been summoned to Windsor, and had passed through town at two this morning. I at once considered this account as nearly hopeless. On going out, I heard that at four yesterday afternoon, whilst the Queen was driving out, a sort of syncope had come on, and the doctors considered the case so critical, that they thought it right to announce the great danger of the Prince to Her Majesty, and they say she received the news with fortitude and calmness. From this fit he rallied, and he passed a somewhat better night, and this morning the report was that there was some mitigation of the dangerous symptoms. I heard, however, from a very good source that the doctors, and particularly Watson, had the worst opinion of the case.

I called at Stafford House and found that the Duchess had gone to Windsor. At six she returned, having only seen Lady Augusta Bruce, who told her the Queen was calm, but the state of the Prince most critical. Later in the day I saw Clanwilliam, who had heard through Colonel Maude that at Windsor every one considered the case as hopeless. I dined with the Flahaults, and at eleven received a note from the Duchess of Beaufort to tell me that Dudley de Ros had just come back from Windsor, and that the Prince was fast sinking. Lavradio dined with us, and told me the Prince's malady resembled that of the late King of Portugal, and that Prince Albert had been deeply impressed by that event, and was constantly harping upon it during his illness; he, indeed, had been very desponding all along.

At twelve I was at the Club, where a telegram arrived stating that the Prince had expired at a quarter before eleven. Every one present (and the room was full), both young and old, seemed consterné by this event, so unlooked for, and possibly pregnant with such disastrous consequences. I tremble for the Queen.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, pp. 416-7

Diary of Henry Greville: Monday, December 16, 1861

The two articles on Prince Albert's death in this day's 'Times' are admirable. The second contains a true and faithful account of all that happened during his last days. I met Lady Ely to-day at Gifford's. She had been at Windsor. The Queen had passed a tolerable night, having been completely exhausted. She had desired that nothing should be said to her about the funeral, and that the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge should settle everything. It is to take place next Monday. King Leopold had telegraphed to recommend that the Queen should be removed from Windsor, partly that she should leave the atmosphere of fever, partly to avoid the preparations for the funeral. The Queen showed some reluctance to leave the Castle, but has determined on going to Osborne on Wednesday. The Duchess of Sutherland offered her Cliveden, and she was at one moment inclined to accept it, but it was thought best she should go to Osborne, where King Leopold is to meet her. As long ago as last Wednesday, Prince Albert, when alone with Princess Alice, asked if the Queen was in the room. She said 'No.' He then told her he knew he was dying, and desired her to write to the Princess Royal to that effect. The Princess quite believed him, and from this moment abandoned all hope. She left the room to write-on her return the Prince asked her what she had written. 'I have told my sister,' she answered, 'that you are very ill.' 'You have done wrong,' he said: 'you should have told her I am dying-yes-I am dying.' The Queen told the Duchess of Sutherland she did not know what she should have done but for Princess Alice. The Prince of Wales had shown much feeling, and threw himself into the Queen's arms, and said she might depend upon his doing all in his power to console and assist her. Granville saw him yester day, and says nothing can be more perfect than his behaviour.

Flahault told me the Emperor had frequently telegraphed for news of the Prince and had sent a message on hearing of his death, full of the most lively expressions of sorrow. Flahault considered this to be quite an European calamity.

The Queen has already begun to act up to her resolution to exert herself and to fulfil the duties of her position, and is to see Palmerston to-day.

Sir Edward Bowater, who accompanied Prince Leopold to Cannes, has died there. Prince Albert had arranged that, if he died or was disabled by illness, Lord Rokeby, who is at Nice, should go to Cannes and take charge of the boy, until Frederick Cavendish¹ could be sent out to replace him.

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¹ Grandson of Lord George Cavendish, who was created first Earl of Burlington.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, pp. 419-20

Diary of Henry Greville: Tuesday, December 17, 1861

I called on Lady Palmerston and found her and Lady Jocelyn greatly dejected. Palmerston is very unwell with a bad fit of gout and is unable to go to Windsor, and Ferguson and Lady P. are most anxious he should not attend the funeral. She told me he was deeply affected by this event, that he had ever had the highest opinion of the Prince's character and ability, and he considered him an immense loss to himself personally. The Prince of Wales had written Palmerston a very nice letter, in which he says he had been desired by his mother to tell P. that she was fully aware she had a life of duty before her, and that she would endeavour to fulfil that duty to the best of her ability, but that she considered her worldly career as at an end.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, p. 421

All Sorts Of Paragraphs.

The Jackson (Ill.) Journal says the severe frost of Thursday night has destroyed the prospect of the fruit in the vicinity. The farmers say that nearly all their apples, peaches and cherries are destroyed. This destruction of the fruit together with the entire loss of the fruit crop will be a serious calamity to Morgan county.

The Charleston correspondent of the Philadelphia Press says that during the excitement occasioned by the withdrawal of the cotton states from the democratic convention, Senator Bigler visited the Kentucky delegation and urged them to withdraw also promising that if they would do so a portion of the Pennsylvania delegation would do the same.

A destructive fire occurred at Nebraska city, N. T., last Saturday afternoon, consuming nearly all the business portion of the town, consisting of forty-two prominent houses, including the post office, with considerable mail matter, and the government land office, with nearly all its papers; also the Nickals House. Loss estimated at $150,000; insurance $75,000, mostly in Hartford and St. Louis companies.

A man named Rorke murdered his wife in the town of Norway, Racine county, Wisconsin, last week. He beat her to death while excited with liquor. He has not been arrested.

The Pennsylvania railroad company have lighted one of their cars with gas, and are preparing to introduce it generally.

A correspondent of the New York Herald writing concerning the expected execution of Rev. Mr. Harden, says he will probably make a confession implicating others.

The Massachusetts commissioners now believe that unless some spread of the cattle contagion unknown to them has occurred, they have got the disease at North Brookfield and vicinity entirely under control.

The keeper of a drinking saloon in Keokuk, Iowa, last week, pushed the wife of one of his customers (who had come to take her husband away) out of doors, throwing her down six or eight steps, tearing the skin and flesh from her forehead till it hung over her eyes and injuring her terribly.

COMING TO AMERICA.—Master Albert Edward, a promising young man of eighteen years, and heir to the English throne, is intending to visit America the present season. We hope Americans will be Americans; treat the young man with cordial hospitality, but not enter upon any obsequious ovations to him, as if he were a divinity.

In North Carolina the contest for governor is turning strangely upon the negro, who is the political pivot there as well as at the north. The question is whether he shall be taxed upon his value as property, or as a personal poll. The democrats are in favor of the latter proposition.

The bill for organizing new territories, reported in the House of Representatives by Mr. Grow, provides that, whereas slavery has no legal existence in the said territories, “nothing herein contained shall be so construed to authorize or permit its existence therein.”

Two professional well-diggers, while digging a well near Dayton, Ohio, last week were buried by the caving in of the sides at the depth of sixty-four feet, and could not be extricated. They leave wives and three children respectively.

SOURCE: “All Sorts Of Paragraphs,” Janesville Weekly Gazette, Janesville, Wisconsin, Wednesday, May 16, 1860, p. 2, col. 4.

Emory Upton to his Sister, October 21, 1860

WEST POINT, October 21, 1860.

MY DEAR SISTER:  The Price of Wales created a good deal of excitement here on Monday last.  The plain was thronged with people eager to get a glimpse of the future King of England.  We were drawn up in line in front of barracks to receive the prince.  He and his suite were mounted and preceded by a platoon of dragoons as escort.  As he came galloping along the line we came to “present arms.”  I never experience such queer feelings before, and, had I not been under military discipline, I believe my enthusiasm would have given vent to itself in cheers.  The crowd was wild, but was doubtless somewhat restrained by the example of the corps.  After the review, the officers of my class were introduced to his Royal Highness.  I can now say that my rustic hand has grasped the hand of royalty.  He has a kind and very pleasant countenance, and he will probably make a good if not a brilliant sovereign.  The members of his suite are perfect gentlemen, (General Bruce, Duke of Newcastle, Dr. Ackland, and others).  They came into the engineering-rooms and I had quite an interesting conversation with them.  They spoke pure English.  We rode before them in the riding-hall with saddles, and then with blankets.  One cadet was thrown almost off his horse, but he regained his seat with such skill and address as to make the prince clap his hands.  After the ride, the prince expressed his admiration of our horsemanship to the officer in command. . . .

Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, preached us a sermon last Sunday. He was chaplain here thirty years ago, and during his ministry a great revival took place. He attended our prayer-meeting and commenced to relate his experience here, but, unfortunately, his interesting narrative was interrupted by the “call to quarters.” West Point was then a hot-bed of infidelity, but he rooted it out, and his influence is felt to this day. I was introduced to him, and he gave me a warm invitation to visit him at Cincinnati next year. Please give me credit for not saying anything about my studies in this letter.

SOURCE: Peter Smith Michie, The Life and Letters of Emory Upton, p. 23-4

Diary of to Amos A. Lawrence: August 29, 1860

President Felton came after his return from Canada. He speaks well of the Prince of Wales; says he should think he might rank number twenty in a class of eighty if he should study for it; thinks he has been well trained.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 155-6

Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, April 1, 1863

Camp White, April 1, 1863.

Dearest: — We are again in communication with America after being cut off about four or five days by General Jenkins. He attacked two posts garrisoned by [the] Thirteenth Virginia — and one had Lieutenant Hicks, the color sergeant and six men of Twenty-third. In both cases General Jenkins was badly worsted losing seventy men killed or captured, while we lost only four killed and five wounded. A sorry raid so far.

Judge Matthews, I see, is to be superior court judge. I suppose his health is the cause. He had a difficulty before he left the Twenty-third which at times unfitted him for service in the field.

Awful weather for tent life the last week — snow, rain, and wind “all to once.” I am really glad you left when you did. A few weeks hence if Jenkins lets us alone we shall be in condition to enjoy your presence.

Love to the dear boys. Webb will, I am sure, study hard when he hears how much I want him to be a scholar. Birch and the others are right of course.

The Prince's [Prince of Wales] wedding you read, I know. No happier than ours!

Affectionately,

R.

Mrs. Hayes.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 401

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Blanche Butler, Sunday October 22, 1860

LoweLL, Oct. 22, 1860

MY GOOD GIRL: You know that I am not a constant correspondent, but I am now taking your mother's place. You need not feel alarm about your mother's eyes, as I believe the weakness to be temporary only. At least she was quite well enough last Friday evening to go with me to the Prince's Ball¹ at Boston. Aunt Harriet went with us; both were much pleased, as ladies always are, with beautiful dresses, fine music, and a gay throng. I was obliged to go down to the review of the Military.² I suppose you hardly saw the Prince; as a sight you have not lost much. He looks somewhat like your cousin Hal Read, but is not quite so intelligent in the face.

Pray do not pain me by hearing that you are homesick. A girl of good sense like you to be homesick! Never say it. Never feel it, never think it. The change, the novelty of your situation, will soon wear away, and with your duties well done, as I know they will be, you will be sustained by the pride of a well-earned joy in your return. You say the girls, your associates, seem strange to you. May they not find the same strange appearance in you? You say you think they do not like you much, and you do not like them much. Is not this because of the strangeness, and because you do not understand and know each other. It is one of the objects I desired to gain by sending you to Georgetown that you should see other manners, other customs and ways, than those around you at home. However good these may be, the difficulty is that one used to a single range of thoughts and modes of life soon comes to think all others inferior, while in fact they may be better, and are only different. This is a provincialism, and one of which I am sorry to say that Massachusetts people are most frequently guilty.

By no means give up your own manners simply because others of your associates are different. Try and see which are best, but do not cling to your own simply because they are yours. In the matter of pronunciation of which you wrote, hold fast your own, subject to your teachers. Do not adopt the flat drawl of the South. That is a patois. Avoid it. All educated people speak a language alike. T’is true Mr. Clay, said cheer for chair, but that from a defect of early association. Full, distinct, and clear utterance with a kindly modulated voice, will add a new accomplishment to a young lady, who is as perfect as Blanche in the eye of

FATHER

_______________

¹ H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, then on a visit to the United States.

² General Butler was Brigadier General of the Massachusetts militia, having received his commission in 1857.

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 3-4

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 21, 1862

Jackson has gone into the enemy's country. Joe Johnston and Wade Hampton are to follow.

Think of Rice, Mr. Senator Rice,¹ who sent us the buffalo-robes. I see from his place in the Senate that he speaks of us as savages, who put powder and whisky into soldiers' canteens to make them mad with ferocity in the fight. No, never. We admire coolness here, because we lack it; we do not need to be fired by drink to be brave. My classical lore is small, indeed, but I faintly remember something of the Spartans who marched to the music of lutes. No drum and fife were needed to revive their fainting spirits. In that one thing we are Spartans.

The Wayside Hospital² is duly established at the Columbia Station, where all the railroads meet. All honor to Mrs. Fisher and the other women who work there so faithfully! The young girls of Columbia started this hospital. In the first winter of the war, moneyless soldiers, sick and wounded, suffered greatly when they had to lie over here because of faulty connections between trains. Rev. Mr. Martin, whose habit it was to meet trains and offer his aid to these unfortunates, suggested to the Young Ladies' Hospital Association their opportunity; straightway the blessed maidens provided a room where our poor fellows might have their wounds bound up and be refreshed. And now, the “Soldiers' Rest” has grown into the Wayside Hospital, and older heads and hands relieve younger ones of the grimmer work and graver responsibilities. I am ready to help in every way, by subscription and otherwise, but too feeble in health to go there much.

Mrs. Browne heard a man say at the Congaree House, “We are breaking our heads against a stone wall. We are bound to be conquered. We can not keep it up much longer against so powerful a nation as the United States. Crowds of Irish, Dutch, and Scotch are pouring in to swell their (armies. They are promised our lands, and they believe they will get them. Even if we are successful we can not live without Yankees.” “Now,” says Mrs. Browne, “I call that man a Yankee spy.” To which I reply, “If he were a spy, he would not dare show his hand so plainly.” “To think,” says Mrs. Browne, “that he is not taken up. Seward's little bell would tinkle, a guard would come, and the Grand Inquisition of America would order that man put under arrest in the twinkling of an eye, if he had ventured to speak against Yankees in Yankee land.”

General Preston said he had “the right to take up any one who was not in his right place and send him where he belonged.” “Then do take up my husband instantly. He is sadly out of his right place in this little Governor's Council.” The general stared at me and slowly uttered in his most tragic tones, “If I could put him where I think he ought to be!” This I immediately hailed as a high compliment and was duly ready with my thanks. Upon reflection, it is borne in upon me, that he might have been more explicit. He left too much to the imagination.

Then Mrs. Browne described the Prince of Wales, whose manners, it seems, differ from those of Mrs. –––, who arraigned us from morn to dewy eve, and upbraided us with our ill-bred manners and customs. The Prince, when he was here, conformed at once to whatever he saw was the way of those who entertained him. He closely imitated President Buchanan's way of doing things. He took off his gloves at once when he saw that the President wore none. He began by bowing to the people who were presented to him, but when he saw Mr. Buchanan shaking hands, he shook hands, too. When smoking affably with Browne on the White House piazza, he expressed his content with the fine cigars Browne had given him. The President said: “I was keeping some excellent ones for you, but Browne has got ahead of me.” Long after Mr. Buchanan had gone to bed, the Prince ran into his room in a jolly, boyish way, and said: “Mr. Buchanan, I have come for the fine cigars you have for me.”

As I walked up to the Prestons', along a beautiful shaded back street, a carriage passed with Governor Means in it. As soon as he saw me he threw himself half out and kissed both hands to me again and again. It was a whole-souled greeting, as the saying is, and I returned it with my whole heart, too. “Good-by,” he cried, and I responded “Good-by.” I may never see him again. I am not sure that I did not shed a few tears.

General Preston and Mr. Chesnut were seated on the piazza of the Hampton house as I walked in. I opened my batteries upon them in this scornful style: “You cold, formal, solemn, overly-polite creatures, weighed down by your own dignity. You will never know the rapture of such a sad farewell as John Means and I have just interchanged. He was in a hack,” I proceeded to relate, “and I was on the sidewalk. He was on his way to the war, poor fellow. The hackman drove steadily along in the middle of the street; but for our gray hairs I do not know what he might have thought of us. John Means did not suppress his feelings at an unexpected meeting with an old friend, and a good cry did me good. It is a life of terror and foreboding we lead. My heart is in my mouth half the time. But you two, under no possible circumstances could you forget your manners.”

Read Russell's India all day. Saintly folks those English when their blood is up. Sepoys and blacks we do not expect anything better from, but what an example of Christian patience and humanity the white “angels” from the West set them.

The beautiful Jewess, Rachel Lyons, was here to-day. She flattered Paul Hayne audaciously, and he threw back the ball.

To-day I saw the Rowena to this Rebecca, when Mrs. Edward Barnwell called. She is the purest type of Anglo-Saxon — exquisitely beautiful, cold, quiet, calm, lady-like, fair as a lily, with the blackest and longest eyelashes, and her eyes so light in color some one said “they were the hue of cologne and water.” At any rate, she has a patent right to them; there are no more like them to be had. The effect is startling, but lovely beyond words.

Blanton Duncan told us a story of Morgan in Kentucky. Morgan walked into a court where they were trying some Secessionists. The Judge was about to pronounce sentence, but Morgan rose, and begged that he might be allowed to call some witnesses. The Judge asked who were his witnesses. “My name is John Morgan, and my witnesses are 1,400 Confederate soldiers.”

Mrs. Izard witnessed two instances of patriotism in the caste called “Sandhill tackeys.” One forlorn, chills, and fever-freckled creature, yellow, dirty, and dry as a nut, was selling peaches at ten cents a dozen. Soldiers collected around her cart. She took the cover off and cried, “Eat away. Eat your fill. I never charge our soldiers anything.” They tried to make her take pay, but when she steadily refused it, they cheered her madly and said: “Sleep in peace. Now we will fight for you and keep off the Yankees.” Another poor Sandhill man refused to sell his cows, and gave them to the hospital.

_______________

¹ Henry M. Rice, United States Senator from Minnesota, who had emigrated to that State from Vermont in 1835.

² Of ameliorations in modern warfare, Dr. John T. Darby said in addressing the South Carolina Medical Association, Charleston, in 1873: “On the route from the army to the general hospital, wounds are dressed and soldiers refreshed at wayside homes; and here be it said with justice and pride that the credit of originating this system is due to the women of South Carolina. In a small room in the capital of this State, the first Wayside Home was founded; and during the war, some seventy-five thousand soldiers were relieved by having their wounds dressed, their ailments attended, and very frequently by being clothed through the patriotic services and good offices of a few untiring ladies in Columbia. From this little nucleus, spread that grand system of wayside hospitals which was established during our own and the late European wars."

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 205-9

John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, September 22, 1861

East Sheen, September 22, 1861.

My Dearest Mother: I am writing you a little note again. I can do no more until such time as we shall be settled at Vienna. We came down here last evening to spend Sunday with your old friends Mr. and Mrs. Bates. He is the same excellent, kindly old gentleman he always was, and is as stanch an American and as firm a believer in the ultimate success of our cause as if he had never left Boston.

. . . I have lost no time since I have been in England, for almost every day I have had interesting conversations with men connected with the government or engaged in public affairs.

There will be no foreign interference, certainly none from England, unless we be utterly defeated in our present struggle. We spent a few days with our friends the De Greys in Yorkshire. During my visit I went up to the north of Scotland to pass a couple of days with Lord John Russell at Abergeldie. It is an old Scotch castle, which formerly belonged to a family of Gordon of Abergeldie. The country is wild and pretty about it, with mountains clothed in purple heather all round, the Dee winding its way through a pleasant valley, and the misty heights of Lochnagar, sung by Byron in his younger days, crowning the scene whenever the clouds permit that famous summit to be visible.

I was received with the greatest kindness. There were no visitors at the house, for both Lord and Lady Russell are the most domestic people in the world, and are glad to escape from the great whirl of London society as much as they can. In the afternoons we went with the children out in the woods, making fires, boiling a kettle, and making tea al fresco with water from the Dee, which, by the way, is rather coffee-colored, and ascending hills to get peeps of the prospects.

Most of my time, however, was spent in long and full conversations tete-a-tete with Lord John (it is impossible to call him by his new title of Earl Russell).

The cotton-manufacturers are straining every nerve to supply themselves with cotton from India and other sources. But it seems rather a desperate attempt to break up the Southern monopoly, however galling it is to them.

I can only repeat, everything depends upon ourselves, upon what we do. There are a few papers, like the “Daily News,” the “Star,” and the “Spectator,” which sustain our cause with cordiality, vigor, and talent.

The real secret of the exultation which manifests itself in the “Times” and other organs over our troubles and disasters is their hatred not to America so much as to democracy in England. We shall be let alone long enough for us to put down this mutiny if we are ever going to do it. And I firmly believe it will be done in a reasonable time, and I tell everybody here that the great Republic will rise from the conflict stronger than ever, and will live to plague them many a long year.

. . . We shall probably remain another week in London, for I have not yet seen Lord Palmerston, whom I am most anxious to have some talk with, and he is expected to-morrow in London. While I was stopping with Lord John, the queen sent to intimate that she would be pleased if I would make a visit at Balmoral, which is their Highland home, about one and a half miles from Abergeldie. Accordingly, Lord John went over with me in his carriage. We were received entirely without ceremony by the Prince Consort (we were all dressed in the plainest morning costumes), who conversed very pleasantly with us, and I must say there was never more got out of the weather than we managed to extract from it on this occasion. After we had been talking some twenty minutes the door opened, and her Majesty, in a plain black gown, walked quietly into the room, and I was presented with the least possible ceremony by the Prince Consort. I had never seen her before, but the little photographs in every shop-window of Boston or London give you an exact representation of her.

They are so faithful that I do not feel that I know her appearance now better than I did before. Her voice is very agreeable and her smile pleasant. She received me very politely, said something friendly about my works, and then alluded with interest to the great pleasure which the Prince of Wales had experienced in his visit to America.

The Prince Consort spoke with great animation on the same subject. There is not much more to be said in regard to the interview. I thought that the sending for me was intended as a compliment to the United States, and a mark of respect to one of its representatives.

Most affectionately your son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 204-7

Diary of William Howard Russell: Monday, March 18, 1861

“St. Patrick's day in the morning” being on the 17th, was kept by the Irish to-day. In the early morning the sounds of drumming, fifing, and bugling came with the hot water and my Irish attendant into the room. He told me: “We'll have a pretty nice day for it. The weather's often agin us on St. Patrick's day.” At the angle of the square outside I saw a company of volunteers assembling. They wore bear-skin caps, some turned brown, and rusty green coatees, with white facings and crossbelts, a good deal of gold-lace and heavy worsted epaulettes, and were armed with ordinary muskets, some of them with flint-locks. Over their heads floated a green and gold flag with mystic emblems, and a harp and sunbeams. A gentleman, with an imperfect seat on horseback, which justified a suspicion that he was not to the manor born of Squire or Squireen, with much difficulty was getting them into line, and endangering his personal safety by a large infantry-sword, the hilt of which was complicated with the bridle of his charger in some inexplicable manner. This gentleman was the officer in command of the martial body, who were gathering to do honor to the festival of the old country; and the din and clamor in the streets, the strains of music, and the tramp of feet outside announced that similar associations were on their way to the rendezvous. The waiters in the hotel, all of whom were Irish, had on their best, and wore an air of pleased importance. Many of their countrymen outside on the pavement exhibited very large decorations, plates of metal, and badges attached to broad ribbons over their left breasts.

After breakfast I struggled with a friend through the crowd which thronged Union Square. Bless them! They were all Irish, judging from speech and gesture and look; for the most part decently dressed, and comfortable, evidently bent on enjoying the day in spite of the cold, and proud of the privilege of interrupting all the trade of the principal streets, in which the Yankees most do congregate, for the day. They were on the door-steps, and on the pavement men, women, and children, admiring the big policemen — many of them compatriots — and they swarmed at the corners, cheering popular town-councillors or local celebrities. Broadway was equally full. Flags were flying from the windows and steeples — and on the cold breeze came the hammering of drums and the blasts of many wind instruments. The display, such as it was, partook of a military character, though not much more formidable in that sense than the march of the Trades Unions, or of Temperance Societies. Imagine Broadway lined for the long miles of its course by spectators mostly Hibernian, and the great gaudy stars and stripes, or as one of the Secession journals I see styles it, the “Sanguinary United States Gridiron” — waving in all directions, whilst up its centre in the mud march the children of Erin.

First came the acting Brigadier-General and his staff, escorted by 40 lancers, very ill-dressed, and worse mounted: horses dirty, accoutrements in the same condition, bits, bridles, and buttons rusty and tarnished; uniforms ill-fitting, and badly put on. But the red flags and the show pleased the crowd, and they cheered “bould Nugent” right loudly. A band followed, some members of which had been evidently " smiling" with each other; and next marched a body of drummers in military uniform, rattling away in the French fashion. Here comes the 69th N. Y. State Militia Regiment — the battalion which would not turn out when the Prince of Wales was in New York, and whose Colonel, Corcoran, is still under court martial for his refusal. Well, the Prince had no loss, and the Colonel may have had other besides political reasons for his dislike to parade his men.

The regiment turned out, I should think, only 200 or 220 men, fine fellows enough, but not in the least like soldiers or militia. The United States uniform which most of the military bodies wore, consists of a blue tunic and trousers, and a kepi-like cap, with “U. S.” in front for undress. In full dress the officers wear large gold epaulettes, and officers and men a bandit-sort of felt hat looped up at one side, and decorated with a plume of black-ostrich feathers and silk cords. The absence of facings, and the want of something to finish off the collar and cuffs, render the tunic very bald and unsightly. Another band closed the rear of the 69th, and to eke out the military show, which in all was less than 1200 men, some companies were borrowed from another regiment of State Militia, and a troop of very poor cavalry cleared the way for the Napper-Tandy Artillery, which actually had three whole guns with them! It was strange to dwell on some of the names of the societies which followed. For instance, there were the “Dungannon Volunteers of '82,” prepared of course to vindicate the famous declaration that none should make laws for Ireland, but the Queen, Lords, and Commons of Ireland! Every honest Catholic among them ignorant of the fact that the Volunteers of '82 were, all Protestants. Then there was the “Sarsfield Guard!” One cannot conceive anything more hateful to the fiery high-spirited cavalier, than the republican form of Government, which these poor Irishmen are, they think, so fond of. A good deal of what passes for national sentiment, is in reality dislike to England and religious animosity.

It was much more interesting to see the long string of Benevolent, Friendly, and Provident Societies, with bands, numbering many thousands, all decently clad, and marching in order with banners, insignia, badges, and ribbons, and the Irish flag flying along-side the “stars and stripes.” I cannot congratulate them on the taste or good effect of their accessories — on their symbolical standards, and ridiculous old harpers, carried on stages in “bardic costume,” very like artificial white wigs and white cotton dressing-gowns, but the actual good done by these societies, is, I am told, very great, and their charity would cover far greater sins than incorrectness of dress, and a proneness to “piper's playing on the national bagpipes.” The various societies mustered upwards of 10,000 men, some of them uniformed and armed, others dressed in quaint garments, and all as noisy as music and talking could make them. The Americans appeared to regard the whole thing very much as an ancient Roman might have looked on the Saturnalia; but Paddy was in the ascendant, and could not be openly trifled with.

The crowds remained in the streets long after the procession had passed, and I saw various pickpockets captured by the big policemen, and conveyed to appropriate receptacles. “Was there any man of eminence in that procession,” I asked. “No; a few small local politicians, some wealthy store-keepers, and beer-saloon owners perhaps; but the mass were of the small bourgeoisie. Such a man as Mr. O'Conor, who may be considered at the head of the New York bar for instance, would not take part in it.”

In the evening I went, according to invitation, to the Astor House — a large hotel, with a front like a railway terminus, in the Americo-Classical style, with great Doric columns and portico, and found, to my surprise, that the friendly party was to be a great public dinner. The halls were filled with the company, few or none in evening dress; and in a few minutes I was presented to at least twenty-four gentlemen whose names I did not even hear. The use of badges, medals, and ribbons, might, at first, lead a stranger to believe he was in very distinguished military society; but he would soon learn that these insignia were the decorations of benevolent or convivial associations. There is a latent taste for these things in spite of pure republicanism. At the dinner there were Americans of Dutch and English descent, some “Yankees,” one or two Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen. The chairman, Judge Daly, was indeed a true son of the soil, and his speeches were full of good humor, fluency, and wit; but his greatest effect was produced by the exhibition of a tuft of shamrocks in a flower-pot, which had been sent from Ireland for the occasion. This is done annually, but, like the miracle of St. Januarius, it never loses its effect, and always touches the heart.

I confess it was to some extent curiosity to observe the sentiment of the meeting, and a desire to see how Irishmen were affected by the change in their climate, which led me to the room. I came away regretting deeply that so many natives of the British Isles should be animated with a hostile feeling towards England, and that no statesman has yet arisen who can devise a panacea for the evils of these passionate and unmeaning differences between races and religions. Their strong antipathy is not diminished by the impossibility of gratifying it. They live in hope, and certainly the existence of these feelings is not only troublesome to American statesmen, but mischievous to the Irish themselves, inasmuch as they are rendered with unusual readiness the victims of agitators or political intriguers. The Irish element, as it is called, is much regarded in voting times, by suffraging bishops and others; at other times, it is left to its work and its toil — Mr. Seward and Bishop Hughes are supposed to be its present masters. Undoubtedly the mass of those I saw to-day were better clad than they would have been if they remained at home. As I said in the speech which I was forced to make much against my will, by the gentle violence of my companions, never had I seen so many good hats and coats in an assemblage of Irishmen in any other part of the world.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 15-19