The Baltimoreans.

The stupid absurdity of the professed Union savers, who met at Baltimore the other day to nominate a candidate for President, and another for Vice President, upon a single plan—the Constitution and the Union—will be apparent to the dullest dunce, when he remembers that every man in this country, save only a few ultra Abolitionists of the North and a handful of intense fanatics in the South, can endorse the platform which the Booby Brookeses laid down; because all political parties in the United States are loud in their devotions to the Constitution and the Union, and the vaunts the ultraists of either extreme in this matter, pass for just as much as the outcry of the National Constitutional Union Old Line Whigs and Know Nothings, who ventilated their patriotism at Baltimore. Whenever the Republicans declare their sentiments they will exalt the Constitution and the Union. The seceders from the Charleston Convention will do the same thing; and the Douglasites will follow the example. Here, then, we shall have four parties in the field, with the Constitution and the Union as a basis of each. Wherein the Baltimoreans are entitled to any preferences over either, we have not the wit to see. That in shirking the responsibility of declaring themselves upon the living issues of the day, they exhibit a degree of cowardice which breeds distrust of the purity of their intentions, all can well understand.

SOURCE: “The Baltimoreans,” The Press and Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Monday, May 14, 1860, p. 2, col. 2

Diary of Lucy Larcom, November 10, 1860

I have actually forgotten to write for months in this book. I fear me, "my heart is nae here." I have lived a good deal in the past week, and the world has been doing a great business, our country in particular. The Prince has turned the heads of our democratic people, and Republicans have chosen a President at last. That is glorious! Freedom takes long strides in these better days. The millennium is not so far off as we feared. While there is so much to be lived outside, who cares for the little self-life of a journal? But I never meant it to be a "subjective" one, and when it has been so, it has been so because I was living below my ideal. Yet this shall be just the book my thoughts shape from their various moods; when the thought is for myself, I will write it, and when it is for another, I will write it too.

"Whose window opened towards the rising sun.”

So the happy pilgrim rested, knowing that as soon as there was light anywhere, he should have the first ray. Strange, that every Christian sojourner should not seek a room with windows opening to the dawn! Some of them seem afraid of the sun; they choose a chamber having only a black, northerly outlook, and lie down saying, "What a dreary, miserable world!" And what wonder that they should grow thin and sickly-plants of the shade must ever be so; the soul, as well as the body, needs large draughts of sunshine for vigorous life.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 77-8

General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, October 1885

[St. Louis, October 1885.]

The newspapers here now state that the Ohio election has gone fairly and conclusively to the Republicans, and pronounce you as the cause. So, apart from the immediate results and the influence it may have on other elections, it will introduce the "Bloody Shirt" as a part of the Republican doctrine. Of course the name "Bloody Shirt" is pure bosh, like the old political cries of "Black Republicans," "Niggers," etc., etc., so familiar to us in 1860-61. I understand your position to be that by Section 2, Article 14, Amendments of the Constitution, by which Representatives in Congress are apportioned, the South gained in numbers, and yet practically have defeated the main purpose of the Amendment. Now, as Congress had the power to enforce that Section by the Fifth Section, I am asked why it was not done when the Republicans had the Government. So far as I can learn the negroes at the South are protected and encouraged in gaining property and education; also in voting when their vote does not affect the result. But the feeling is universal against their "ruling white men." How force or law can be brought to bear is the most difficult problem I can conceive of, and I think you are perfectly right in making the issue; a good result will follow from its fair, open discussion. My notion is that the negro himself will have to fight for his right of suffrage, but the laws of the United States for electing Members of the House should be made as strong as possible, to encourage the negroes in voting for their candidates, and, if need be, fighting for their right when they have an undoubted majority. . . .

Affectionately yours,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 367-8

Theodore Parker to Francis Jackson, November 24, 1859

Rome, November 24, 1859.

MY DEAR FRIEND: I see by a recent telegraph which the steamer of November 2d brought from Boston, that the Court found Captain Brown guilty, and passed sentence upon him. It is said Friday, December 2d, is fixed as the day for hanging him. So, long before this reaches you, my friend will have passed on to the reward of his magnanimous public services, and his pure, upright, private life. I am not well enough to be the minister to any Congregation, least of all to one like that which, for so many years, helped my soul, while it listened to my words. Surely, the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in Boston needs a minister, not half dead, but alive all over; and yet, while reading the accounts of the affair at Harper's Ferry, and of the sayings of certain men at Boston, whom you and I know only too well, I could not help wishing I was at home again, to use what poor remnant of power is left to me in defence of the True and the Right.

America is rich in able men, in skilful writers, in ready and accomplished speakers. But few men dare treat public affairs with reference to the great principles of justice, and the American Democracy; nay, few with reference to any remote future, or even with a comprehensive survey of the present. Our public writers ask what effect will this opinion have on the Democratic party, or the Republican party? how will it affect the next Presidential election? what will the great State of Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or New York say to it? This is very unfortunate for us all, especially when the people have to deal practically and that speedily with a question concerning the very existence of Democratic institutions in America; for it is not to be denied that we must give up Democracy if we keep Slavery or give up Slavery if we keep Democracy.

I greatly deplore this state of things. Our able men fail to perform their natural function to give valuable instruction and advice to the people; and, at the same time, they debase and degrade themselves. The hurrahs and the offices they get are poor compensation for falseness to their own consciences.

In my best estate, I do not pretend to much political wisdom, and still less now while sick; but I wish yet to set down a few thoughts for your private eye, and, it may be, for the ear of the Fraternity. They are, at least, the result of long meditation on the subject; besides, they are not at all new nor peculiar to me, but are a part of the Public Knowledge of all enlightened men.

1. A man, held against his will as a slave, has a natural right to kill every one who seeks to prevent his enjoyment of liberty. This has long been recognized as a self-evident proposition, coming so directly from the Primitive Instincts of Human Nature, that it neither required proofs nor admitted them.

2. It may be a natural duty of the slave to develop this natural right in a practical manner, and actually kill all those who seek to prevent his enjoyment of liberty. For, if he continue patiently in bondage: First, he entails the foulest of curses on his children; and, second, he encourages other men to commit the crime against nature which he allows his own master to commit. It is my duty to preserve my own body from starvation. If I fail thereof through sloth, I not only die, but incur the contempt and loathing of my acquaintances while I live. It is not less my duty to do all that is in my power to preserve my body and soul from Slavery; and if I submit to that through cowardice, I not only become a bondman, and suffer what thraldom inflicts, but I incur also the contempt and loathing of my acquaintance. Why do freemen scorn and despise a slave? Because they think his condition is a sign of his cowardice, and believe that he ought to prefer death to bondage. The Southerners hold the Africans in great contempt, though mothers of their children. Why? Simply because the Africans are slaves; that is, because the Africans fail to perform the natural duty of securing freedom by killing their oppressors.

3. The freeman has a natural right to help the slaves recover their liberty, and in that enterprise to do for them all which they have a right to do for themselves. This statement, I think, requires no argument or illustration.

4. It may be a natural duty for the freeman to help the slaves to the enjoyment of their liberty, and, as means to that end to aid them in killing all such as oppose their natural freedom. If you were attacked by a wolf, I should not only have a right to aid you in getting rid of that enemy, but it would be my duty to help you in proportion to my power. If it were a murderer, and not a wolf, who attacked you, the duty would be still the same. Suppose it is not a murderer who would kill you, but a kidnapper who would enslave, does that make it less my duty to help you out of the hands of your enemy? Suppose it is not a kidnapper who would make you a bondman, but a slaveholder who would keep you one, does that remove my obligation to help you?

5. The performance of this duty is to be controlled by the freeman's power and opportunity to help the slaves. (The Impossible is never the Obligatory.) I cannot help the slaves in Dahomey or Bornou, and am not bound to try. I can help those who escape to my own neighborhood, and I ought to do so. My duty is commensurate with my power; and, as my power increases, my duty enlarges along with it. If I could help the bondmen in Virginia to their freedom as easily and effectually as I can aid the runaway at my own door, then I ought to do so.

These five maxims have a direct application to America at this day, and the people of the Free States have a certain dim perception thereof, which, fortunately, is becoming clearer every year.

Thus, the people of Massachusetts feel that they ought to protect the fugitive slaves who come into our State. Hence come, first the irregular attempts to secure their liberty, and the declarations of noble men, like Timothy Gilbert, George W. Carnes, and others, that they will do so even at great personal risk; and, secondly the statute laws made by the legislature to accomplish that end.

Now, if Massachusetts had the power to do as much for the slaves in Virginia as for the runaways in her own territory, we should soon see those two sets of measures at work in that direction also.

I find it is said in the Democratic newspapers that "Captain Brown had many friends at the North, who sympathized with him in general, and in special approved of this particular scheme of his; they furnished him with some twelve or twenty thousand dollars, it would seem." I think much more than that is true of us. If he had succeeded in running off one or two thousand slaves to Canada, even at the expense of a little violence and bloodshed, the majority of men in New England would have rejoiced, not only in the End, but also in the Means. The first successful attempt of a considerable number of slaves to secure their freedom by violence will clearly show how deep is the sympathy of the people for them, and how strongly they embrace the five principles I mentioned above. A little success of that sort will serve as priming for the popular cannon; it is already loaded.

Of course, I was not astonished to hear that an attempt had been made to free the slaves in a certain part of Virginia, nor should I be astonished if another "insurrection" or "rebellion" took place in the State of ——, or a third in or a fourth in ——. Such things are to be expected; for they do not depend merely on the private will of men like Captain Brown and his associates, but on the great General Causes which move all human kind to hate Wrong and love Right. Such "insurrections" will continue as long as Slavery lasts, and will increase, both in frequency and in power, just as the people become intelligent and moral. Virginia may hang John Brown and all that family, but she cannot hang the Human Race; and, until that is done, noble men will rejoice in the motto of that once magnanimous State "Sic semper Tyrannis!" "Let such be the end of every oppressor."

It is a good Anti-Slavery picture on the Virginia shield: a man standing on a tyrant and chopping his head off with a sword; only I would paint the sword-holder black and the tyrant while, to show the immediate application of the principle. The American people will have to march to rather severe music, I think, and it is better for them to face it in season. A few years ago it did not seem difficult first to check Slavery, and then to end it without any bloodshed. I think this cannot be done now, nor ever in the future. All the great charters of Humanity have been writ in blood. I once hoped that of American Democracy would be engrossed in less costly ink; but it is plain, now, that our pilgrimage must lead through a Red Sea, wherein many a Pharaoh will go under and perish. Alas! that we are not wise enough to be just, or just enough to be wise, and so gain much at small cost!

Look, now, at a few notorious facts:

I. There are four million slaves in the United States violently withheld from their natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, they are our fellow countrymen yours and mine—just as much as any four million white men. Of course, you and I owe them the duty which one man owes another of his own nation the duty of instruction, advice, and protection of natural rights. If they are starving, we ought to help feed them. The color of their skins, their degraded social condition, their ignorance, abates nothing from their natural claim on us, or from our natural duty toward them.

There are men in all the Northern States who feel the obligation which citizenship imposes on them the duty to help those slaves. Hence arose the Anti-Slavery Society, which seeks simply to excite the white people to perform their natural duty to their dark fellow-countrymen. Hence comes CAPTAIN BROWN'S EXPEDITION an attempt to help his countrymen enjoy their natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

He sought by violence what the Anti-Slavery Society works for with other weapons. The two agree in the end, and differ only in the means. Men like Captain Brown will be continually rising up among the white people of the Free States, attempting to do their natural duty to their black countrymen that is, help them to freedom. Some of these efforts will be successful. Thus, last winter, Captain Brown himself escorted eleven of his countrymen from bondage in Missouri to freedom in Canada. He did not snap a gun, I think, although then, as more recently, he had his fighting tools at hand, and would have used them, if necessary. Even now, the Underground Railroad is in constant and beneficent operation. By-and-by it will be an Overground Railroad from Mason and Dixon's line clear to Canada: the only tunnelling will be in the Slave States. Northern men applaud the brave conductors of that Locomotive of Liberty.

When Thomas Garrett was introduced to a meeting of political Free-Soilers in Boston, as "the man who had helped eighteen hundred slaves to their natural liberty," even that meeting gave the righteous Quaker three times three. All honest Northern hearts beat with admiration of such men; nay, with love for them. Young lads say, "I wish that heaven would make me such a man." The wish will now and then be father to the fact. You and I have had opportunity enough, in twenty years, to see that this philanthropic patriotism is on the increase at the North, and the special direction it takes is toward the liberation of their countrymen in bondage.

Not many years ago, Boston sent money to help the Greeks in their struggle for political freedom, (they never quite lost their personal liberty,) but with the money, she sent what was more valuable and far more precious, one of her most valiant and heroic sons, who staid in Greece to fight the great battle of Humanity. Did your friend, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, lose the esteem of New England men by that act? He won the admiration of Europe, and holds it still.

Nay, still later, the same dear old Boston Hunkers have never been more than rats and mice in her house, which she suffers for a time and then drives out twelve hundred of them at once on a certain day of March, 1776,—that same dear old Boston sent the same Dr. Howe to carry aid and comfort to the Poles, then in deadly struggle for their political existence. Was he disgraced because he lay seven-and-forty days in a Prussian jail in Berlin? Not even in the eyes of the Prussian King, who afterwards sent him a gold medal, whose metal was worth as many dollars as that philanthropist lay days in the despot's jail. It is said, "Charity should begin at home." The American began a good ways off, but has been working homeward ever since. The Dr. Howe of to-day would and ought to be more ready to help an American to personal liberty, than a Pole or a Greek to mere political freedom, and would find more men to furnish aid and comfort to our own countrymen, even if they were black. It would not surprise me if there were other and well-planned attempts in other States to do what Captain Brown heroically, if not successfully, tried in Virginia. Nine out of ten may fail — the tenth will succeed. The victory over General Burgoyne more than made up for all the losses in many a previous defeat; it was the beginning of the end. Slavery will not die a dry death; it may have as many lives as a cat; at last, it will die like a mad dog in a village, with only the enemies of the human kind to lament its fate, and they too cowardly to appear as mourners.

II. But it is not merely white men who will fight for the liberty of Americans; the negroes will take their defence into their own hands, especially if they can find white men to lead them. No doubt the African race is greatly inferior to the Caucasian in general intellectual power, and also in that instinct for liberty which is so strong in the Teutonic family, and just now obvious in the Anglo-Saxons of Britain and America; besides, the African race have but little desire for vengeance the lowest form of the love of justice. Here is one example out of many: In Santa Cruz, the old slave laws were the most horrible, I think, I ever read of in modern times, unless those of the Carolinas be an exception. If a slave excited others to run away, for the first offence his right leg was to be cut off; for the second offence, his other leg. This mutilation was not to be done by a surgeon's hand; the poor wretch was laid down on a log, and his legs chopped off with a plantation axe, and the stumps plunged into boiling pitch, to stanch the blood, and so save the property from entire destruction; for the live Torso of a slave might serve as a warning. No action of a court was requisite to inflict this punishment; any master could thus mutilate his bondman. Even from 1830 to 1846, it was common for owners to beat their offending victims with "tamarind rods" six feet long and an inch in thickness at the bigger end — rods thick set with ugly thorns. When that process was over, the lacerated back was washed with a decoction of the Manchineel, a poison tree, which made the wounds fester and long remain open.

In 1846, the negroes were in "rebellion," and took possession of the island; they were 25,000, the whites 3000. But the blacks did not hurt the hair of a white man's head; they got their freedom, but they took no revenge! Suppose 25,000 Americans, held in bondage by 3000 Algerines on a little island, should get their masters into their hands, how many of the 3000 would see the next sun go down?

No doubt it is through the absence of this desire of natural vengeance, that the Africans have been reduced to bondage, and kept in it.

But there is a limit even to the negro's forbearance. San Domingo is not a great way off. The revolution which changed its black inhabitants from tame slaves into wild men, took place after you had ceased to call yourself a boy.

It shows what may be in America, with no white man to help. In the Slave States there is many a possible San Domingo, which may become actual any day; and, if not in 1860, then in some other "year of our Lord." Besides, America offers more than any other country to excite the slave to love of Liberty, and the effort for it. We are always talking about "Liberty," boasting that we are "the freest people in the world," declaring that "a man would die, rather than be a slave." We continually praise our Fathers "who fought the Revolution." We build monuments to commemorate even the humblest beginning of that great national work. Once a year, we stop all ordinary work, and give up a whole day to the noisiest kind of rejoicing for the War of Independence. How we praise the "champions of liberty!" How we point out the "infamy of the British oppressors!" "They would make our Fathers slaves," say we, "and we slew the oppressor Sic semper Tyrannis!"

Do you suppose this will fail to produce its effect on the black man, one day? The South must either give up keeping "Independence Day," or else keep it in a little more thorough fashion. Nor is this all: the Southerners are continually taunting the negroes with their miserable nature. "You are only half human," say they, "not capable of freedom." "Hay is good for horses, not for hogs," said the philosophic American who now represents the great Democracy" at the court of Turin. So, liberty is good for white men, not for negroes. Have they souls? I don't know that — non mi ricordo. Contempt," says the proverb, "will cut through the shell of the tortoise." And, one day, even the sluggish African will wake up under the threefold stimulus of the Fourth of July cannon, the whip of the slaveholder, and the sting of his heartless mockery. Then, if "oppression maketh wise men mad," what do you think it will do to African slaves, who are familiar with scenes of violence, and all manner of cruelty? Still more: if the negroes have not general power of mind, or instinctive love of liberty, equal to the whites, they are much our superiors in power of cunning, and in contempt for death — rather formidable qualities in a service war. There already have been several risings of slaves in this century; they spread fear and consternation. The future will be more terrible. Now, in case of an insurrection, not only is there, as Jefferson said, “no attribute of the Almighty" which can take sides with the master, but there will be many white men who will take part with the slave. Men like the Lafayettes of the last century, and the Dr. Howes of this, may give the insurgent negro as effectual aid as that once rendered to America and Greece; and the public opinion of an enlightened world will rank them among its heroes of noblest mark.

If I remember rightly, some of your fathers were in the battle of Lexington, and that at Bunker Hill. I believe, in the course of the war which followed, every able-bodied man in your town (Newton) was in actual service. Nowadays, their descendants are proud of the fact. One day it will be thought not less heroic for a negro to fight for his personal liberty, than for a white man to fight for political independence, and against a tax of three pence a pound on tea. Wait a little, and things will come round.

III. The existence of Slavery endangers all our Democratic institutions. It does this if only tolerated as an exceptional measure—a matter of present convenience, and still more when proclaimed as an instantial principle, a rule of political conduct for all time and every place. Look at this: In 1790, there were (say) 300,000 slaves; soon they make their first doubling, and are 600,000; then their second, 1,200,000; then their third, 2,400,000. They are now in the process of doubling the fourth time, and will soon be 4,800,000; then comes the fifth double, 9,600,000; then the sixth, 19,200,000. Before the year of our Lord nineteen hundred, there will be twenty million slaves!

An Anglo-Saxon with common sense does not like this Africanization of America; he wishes the superior race to multiply rather than the inferior. Besides, it is plain to a one-eyed man that Slavery is an irreconcilable enemy of the progressive development of Democracy; that, if allowed to exist, it must be allowed to spread, to gain political, social, and ecclesiastical power; and all that it gains for the slaveholders is just so much taken from the freemen.

Look at this!—there are twenty Southern representatives who represent nothing but property in man, and yet their vote counts as much in Congress as the twenty Northerners who stand for the will of 1,800,000 freemen. Slavery gives the South the same advantage in the choice of President; consequently the slaveholding South has long controlled the federal power of the Nation.

Look at the recent acts of the Slave Power! The Fugitive Slave bill, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the Dred Scott decision, the fillibustering against Cuba, (till found too strong,) and now against Mexico and other feeble neighbors, and, to crown all, the actual re-opening of the African slave-trade!

The South has kidnapped men in Boston, and made the Judges of Massachusetts go under her symbolic chain to enter the Courts of Justice. (!) She has burned houses and butchered innocent men in Kansas, and the perpetrators of that wickedness were rewarded by the Federal Government with high office and great pay! Those things are notorious; they have stirred up some little indignation at the North, and freemen begin to think of defending their liberty. Hence came the Free-Soil party, and hence the Republican party; it contemplates no direct benefit to the slave, only the defence of the white man in his national rights, or his conventional privileges. It will grow stronger every year, and also bolder. It must lay down principles as a platform to work its measures on; the principles will be found to require much more than what was at first proposed, and, even from this platform, Republicans will promptly see that they cannot defend the natural rights of freemen without destroying that Slavery which takes away the natural rights of a negro. So, first, the wise and just men of the party will sympathize with such as seek to liberate the slaves, either peacefully or by violence; next, they will declare their opinions in public; and, finally, the whole body of the party will come to the same sympathy and the same opinion. Then, of course, they will encourage men like Captain Brown, give him money and all manner of help, and also encourage the slaves, whenever they shall rise, to take their liberty at all hazards. When called to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, they will go readily enough, and do the work by removing the cause of insurrection: that is by destroying Slavery itself.

An Anti-Slavery party, under one name or another, will before long control the Federal Government, and will exercise its constitutional rights, and perform its constitutional

duty, and "guarantee a republican form of government to every State in the Union." That is a work of time and peaceful legislation. But the short work of violence will be often tried, and each attempt will gain something for the cause of humanity, even by its dreadful process of blood.

IV. But there is yet another agency that will act against Slavery. There are many mischievous persons who are ready for any wicked work of violence. They abound in the City of New York, (a sort of sink where the villany of both hemispheres settles down, and genders that moral pestilence which steams up along the columns of The New York Herald and The New York Observer, the great escape-pipes of secular and ecclesiastical wickedness;) they commit the great crimes of violence and robbery at home, plunder emigrants, and engage in the slave-trade, or venture on fillibustering expeditions. This class of persons is common in all the South. One of the legitimate products of her "peculiar institution," they are familiar with violence, ready and able for murder. Public opinion sustains such men. Bully Brooks was but one of their representatives in Congress. Nowadays they are fond of Slavery, defend it, and seek to spread it. But the time must come one day it may come any time. when the lovers of mischief will do a little fillibustering at home, and rouse up the slaves to rob, burn, and kill. Prudent carpenters sweep up all the shavings in their shops at night, and remove this food of conflagration to a safe place, lest the spark of a candle, the end of a cigar, or a friction-match should swiftly end their wealth slowly gathered together. The South takes pains to strew her carpenter's shop with shavings, and fill it full thereof. She encourages men to walk abroad with naked candles in their hands and lighted cigars in their months; then they scatter friction-matches on the floor, and dance a fillibustering jig thereon. She cries," Well done! Hurrah for Walker!" "Hurrah for Brooks!" "Hurrah for the bark Wanderer and its cargo of slaves! Up with the bowie-knife!

“Down with justice and humanity!" The South must reap as she sows; where she scatters the wind the whirlwind will come up. It will be a pretty crop for her to reap. Within a few years the South has burned alive eight or ten negroes. Other black men looked on, and learned how to fasten the chain, how to pile the green wood, how to set this Hell-fire of Slavery agoing. The apprentice may be slow to learn, but he has had teaching enough by this time to know the art and mystery of torture; and, depend upon it, the negro will one day apply it to his old tormentors. The Fire of Vengeance may be waked up even in an African's heart, especially when it is fanned by the wickedness of a white man then it runs from man to man, from town to town. What shall put it out? The white man's blood!

Now, Slavery is a wickedness so vast and so old, so rich and so respectable, supported by the State, the Press, the Market, and the Church, that all those agencies are needed to oppose it with those and many more which I cannot speak of now. You and I prefer the peaceful method; but I, at least, shall welcome the violent if no other accomplish the end. So will the great mass of thoughtful and good men at the North: else why do we honor the Heroes of the Revolution, and build them monuments all over our blessed New England? I think you gave money for that of Bunker Hill: I once thought it a folly; now I recognize it as a great sermon in stone, which is worth not only all the money it cost to build it, but all the blood it took to lay its corner-stones. Trust me, its lesson will not be in vain — at the North, I mean; for the Logic of Slavery will keep the South on its lower course, and drive it on more swiftly than before. "Captain Brown's expedition was a failure," I hear it said. I am not quite sure of that. True, it kills fifteen men by sword and shot, and four or five men by the gallows. But it shows the weakness of the greatest Slave State in America, the worthlessness of her soldiery, and the utter fear which Slavery genders in the bosoms of the masters. Think of the condition of the City of Washington, while Brown was at work!

Brown will die, I think, like a martyr, and also like a saint. His noble demeanor, his unflinching bravery, his gentleness, his calm, religious trust in God, and his words of truth and soberness, cannot fail to make a profound impression on the hearts of Northern men; yes, and on Southern men. For "every human heart is human," &c. I do not think the money wasted, nor the lives thrown away. Many acorns must be sown to have one come up; even then the plant grows slow; but it is an Oak at last. None of the Christian martyrs died in vain; and from Stephen, who was stoned at Jerusalem, to Mary Dyer, whom our fathers hanged on a bough of "the great tree" on Boston Common, I think there have been few spirits more pure and devoted than John Brown's, and none that gave up their breath in a nobler cause. Let the American State hang his body, and the American Church damn his soul; still, the blessing of such as are ready to perish will fall on him, and the universal justice of the Infinitely Perfect God will take him welcome home. The road to heaven is as short from the gallows as from a throne; perhaps, also, as easy.

I suppose you would like to know something about myself. Rome has treated me to bad weather, which tells its story in my health, and certainly does not mend me. But I look for brighter days and happier nights. The sad tidings from America- my friends in peril, in exile, in jail, killed, or to be hung-have filled me with grief, and so I fall back a little, but hope to get forward again. God bless you and yours, and comfort you!

Ever affectionately yours,

THEODORE PARKER.

TO FRANCIS JACKSON, ESQ., Boston.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 73-87

Diary of Elvira J. Powers: April 1, 1864

ON BOARD THE "GEN. BUELL,"        

OHIO RIVER, April 1, 1864.

HAVING been duly commissioned and ordered to “report immediately at Nashville, Tenn., for hospital service at the front," my friend, Miss N—— O——, and myself find ourselves steaming down the Ohio, between Cincinnati and Louisville.

Thus far we are quite ignorant of the duties of hospital life, though so soon to enter upon them. Our Northern friends have been questioned to little purpose, except that of ascertaining how very little knowledge there is upon the subject; and the papers are equally silent.

This fact determines me to keep some sort of a journal, however imperfect. It will of course necessarily be so, as I must neglect no duty for the sake of scribbling about it.

We have just been seeking information of our gentlemanly escort, Mr. R., of Louisville. He, it appears, has an innate love of humor and a peculiarly dry and quiet way of quizzing people. Here was a fine opportunity. But we determine to ward off the attacks as skilfully as possible with the little knowledge we do possess. He says:

“Well, ladies, I suppose you are prepared to make bread and gruel, sweep and mop, make beds, dress wounds and plough?"

In reply the gentleman was informed that had we not been proficient in each, especially the ploughing, we should never have dared to make application for the situation.

He explained by informing us that one of the Southern refugees, who confessed herself unable to do either of the others, said she "could plough."

"And I suppose you have each brought good knives along with you?" was the next query."

“Knives—oh yes, but for what purpose do you mean?" And visions of being set to amputate limbs or to protect ourselves against personal assaults flitted through our minds.

“Well, nothing, only you'll have an enormous amount of onions to peel for those boys down there. You can peel those during the night, for you'll hardly have time in the day, that's the way I used to do."

"Did you? That's pleasant employment. I've practised it considerably myself, but didn't, like you, have the satisfaction of knowing during the grievous operation that I was shedding tears for the good of my country."

Then he wished to know whether in our visits to the sick wards we should "notice only the good looking ones." Upon being informed that we have fully-determined to minister to such only as looked as if they were ministers, doctors, lawyers or editors, the gentleman seemed satisfied that we were fully fitted for the service. Still he felt called upon to caution us against excessive attention even to such, by relating that one of the class was asked by a lady visitor if she might "comb his hair."

"Yes-you-may," meekly responded the sufferer, "but it will be the thirteenth time to day."

Evening.

Just at sunset we passed North Bend, and had a glimpse of the tomb of President Harrison. The remains of Mrs. Harrison have within the last thirty days been laid by the side of the old hero. The place was pointed out by Dr. S., of Louisville, who is a second cousin to Mrs. Harrison. He informed us that the brother of his grandfather received a grant of all the land lying between the "Big and Little Miami,” and extending back sixteen miles from their mouths. 4500 acres of this was willed to the grandfather of the Doctor and about the same to the mother of Mrs. H.

Dr. S. also informed us that he was the only one in Louisville who voted for Lincoln. That the polls were twice declared closed, and the clerk with oaths refused to record his vote, when the son of one of our Generals—I regret having forgotten the name—peremptorily ordered it done; when an A. and L. and a long black stroke was dashed upon the record, The baser sort had all day threatened hanging him upon the back porch, but at the close of the day most of them were safely intoxicated.

The Doctor has the sad trial of losing a son, who had by the offer of military emolument been drawn into the Confederate service. He was wounded or taken sick and carried to Ohio, where a brother took care of him till his death. The father wished him brought home, and funeral services performed, but the military authorities of Louisville forbade it, as similar occasions had drawn out crowds of two or three thousands of secession proclivities. Then he was buried in Ohio, but when the citizens of the loyal little town learned that he had been in the Confederate service, they obliged Dr. S. to remove the body. That such staunch loyalists should suffer innocently is one of the saddest features of this rebellion.

In the course of conversation this evening we were informed by the Doctor that we were to pass the next day within seven miles of Mammoth Cave. And he spoke of the subterranean streams and mills in the vicinity, and of the blind fishes in the waters of the Cave.

"Yes," said Mr. R., in his usual serious way, "and I believe that is where your people go a craw-fishing!"

The Doctor replied in the affirmative, but in a tone which excited my curiosity. Here was a chance to add to my rather meagre stock of knowledge in natural history, and with the anxiety of a reporter for something out of which to manufacture an item, I inquired what kind of fish those were—if that was the name given to those blind fishes in the cave. To my astonishment a universal laugh greeted me from the trio. An explanation followed; and it seems that the same or something similar to what at the North we find in creeks and ditches, and call fresh-water crabs, there bear the name of craw-fish. And moreover as those crawl backward, they have attached a meaning to the term, so that when a man "puts his hand to the plough and looks back," he is said to have “gone a craw-fishing." So, like that notable traveller in Pickwick Papers, I can make a note of the discovery of a new kind of fish of the skedaddle genus. Hallicarnassus was decidedly

wrong in thinking one can sail around the world in an armchair. He should have considerately assisted that big trunk down stairs, and benignly seconded Gail's efforts to go abroad and see the world, for peradventure she might learn something even about craw-fish.

SOURCE: Elvira J. Powers, Hospital Pencillings: Being a Diary While in Jefferson General Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., and Others at Nashville, Tennessee, as Matron and Visitor, p. 1-5

Diary of Henry Greville: Monday, November 19, 1860

Hatchford. Came here on Saturday.

Lincoln has been elected President of the United States.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, p. 333

Diary of Henry Greville: Thursday, January 3, 1861

The King of Prussia¹ died yesterday at Sans-Souci.

The American Secession question now occupies public attention more than any other subject. Mr. Motley, who is here, considers it as certain, but does not think the Northern States will thereby lose any of their importance.

Fanny Kemble writes to me, December 9:

'What can I tell you, except that the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency appears to be precipitating the feud between the Northern and Southern States to immediate and most disastrous issues? The Cotton-growing States declare their purpose of at once seceding from the Union—the Slave-growing States depend upon them for their market, but depend still more upon the undisturbed security of the Union for the possibility of raising in safety their human cattle.

‘The Northern States seem at last inclined to let the Southern act upon their long threatened separation from them—the country is in a frightful state of excitement from one end to the other.

'The commercial and financial interests of all the States are already suffering severely from the impending crisis. It is a shame and a grief to all good men to think of the dissolution of this, in some respects, noble and prosperous confederacy of States. It is a horror to contemplate the fate of these insane Southerners if, but for one day, their slaves should rise upon them, when they have ascertained, which they will be quick enough to do, that they are no longer sure of the co-operation of the North in coercing their servile population. In short, there is no point of view from which the present position of this country can be contemplated which is not full of dismay. Conceive the position of the English in India if they had known beforehand of the murderous projected rising of the natives against them and had been without troops, arms, means of escape, or hope of assistance, and you have something like the present position of the Southern planters. God knows how fervently I bless that Providence which turned the worldly loss of my children's property, by their father's unprincipled extravagance, into so great a gain. Their shares were sold more than a year ago, and it will never be their fate to inflict injustice and oppression, or tremble before impending retribution.'

_______________

¹ Frederick William IV.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, p. 339-41

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, January 19, 1860

SHERWOOD FOREST, January 19, 1860.

MY DEAR ROBERT: To-day the General Assembly give a complimentary dinner to Gov. Wise, and I have been invited to it, but decline attending. My letter is full of professions of friendship for the Governor, which I sincerely feel, but I say nothing political. If you ask me whether I approve of the Governor's political views in toto, my answer would be in the negative. I have regretted his opposition in the main to Mr. Buchanan. I think, on the contrary, that the President has acquitted himself well in his high office, and if re-nominated I should go to the polls and vote for him with alacrity; but my friendship for Wise is almost indestructible. It had its beginning in times of great trouble, and he was faithful. His election to the presidency is equivalent to an endorsement of my administration by the country, and therefore as well as for my confidence in him, his election would be gratifying to I think he will carry the electoral vote of Virginia in the convention; but even if he and Douglas should be inclined to break up the convention, of which I should entirely disapprove, my belief is that neither will be permitted to do it, even by their supporters. The condition of the country is altogether too critical for this. Some man will be nominated without a platform, which at most is a useless thing. We had in 1839-'40 far greater dissentions at Harrisburg, and a platform would have scattered us to the winds. Mr. Grey, the gentleman to whom I wrote a letter in reply to one from him requesting my opinion relative to the Staten Island resolutions, has asked for permission to publish my letter, and I have granted it. He says that he had shown the letter to the leading men of New York, who urged its publication. You will therefore see it by the time this reaches you. It is brief but pointed. You refer to my expenditures. They have been large for me, and by reason of the failure of the wheat crop for two years have been embarrassing. Julia desired an investment of some money I had of hers in a lot near Hampton; and this carried with it expenditures for new buildings, furniture, etc., all of which, of course, will form a unit, and come out of her fund. I had used some of her fund, and have had to replace it. Thus the expenditure has been large. I hope to work through it in a year or two. At all times my expenses are larger than I could wish them, but they cannot be otherwise. It is a shame to the country that an ex-President, who is obliged to keep an open house, should not receive a pension, when every man who has but shouldered a musket in war is pensioned. He is commander-in-chief (of the Army and Navy).

[The rest of this letter is lost.]

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 557

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, July 22, 1860

VILLA MARGARET,¹ July 22, 1860.

MY DEAR ROBERT: . . . We begin to have more numerous calls by visitors to this region, and I become daily better informed of the status of public opinion. The effort is making in Virginia to concentrate the Democratic vote by running the same ticket for Breckenridge and Douglas, the electors to cast their vote according to the sense of the majority. Breckenridge would lead the ticket by a large majority, and the Democratic ascendency would be secure. Without some such arrangement, the divisions in the Democratic ranks may, and most probably will, lead to conferring on the Bell ticket the plurality vote. I find with many a positive aversion to Douglas,—so great that they denounce all fraternity with him, while similar feelings are ascribed to very many Douglas men. I have much doubt whether any harmony of action can be brought about. There were for the Southrons at Charleston but two courses to pursue, and they adopted neither. The first was to press the nomination of some one whose name would have constituted a platform in itself, or universally to have seceded and proceeded at once to the declaration of their platform and the nomination of candidates. My own feelings ran strongly in favor of Lane, and Bayard of Delaware; the first as the pioneer of the West, the last as coterminous in more than mere residence with New Jersey and Pennsylvania. By splitting up at Charleston they lost the prestige of victory; in other words, they played the game badly by throwing away their trump card.

The consequences of Lincoln's election I cannot foretell. Neither Virginia, nor North Carolina, nor Maryland (to which you may add Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri) will secede for that. My apprehension, however, is that South Carolina and others of the cotton States will do so, and any attempt to coerce such seceding States will most probably be resisted by all the South. When such an issue comes, then comes also the end of the Confederacy. I know the value of the Roman maxim "never to despair of the Republic,” but confess to the gloom which overspreads and enshrouds the country. I can now do nothing more than fold my arms and pray for deliverance of the country from the evils which beset it. Does not every day render the difficulties which assail a confederacy of States in the selection of their chief magistrate more and more conspicuous?

The President, in his late speech, has acquitted himself well. You did right to preserve silence. He has been uniformly polite to you, and for that I thank him; but he is altogether your debtor. No one has been so true to him or rendered him greater service. Heretofore he could not have spared you from your position in Pennsylvania; but now his political days are numbered, and his sand nearly run. He might now reciprocate by rendering you service. Will he volunteer to do it? or, having squeezed the orange, will he throw the rind away? Nous verrons. I may do him injustice in regarding him as a mere politician without heart. I hope I am mistaken.

On Thursday next I propose going to Sherwood Forest, where I may remain for some weeks. Give my devoted affection to all your family.

Your father,

JOHN TYLER.

_______________

¹ Mr. Tyler's summer residence at Hampton, Virginia.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 559-60

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, August 14, 1860

VILLA MARGARET, August 14, 1860.

DEAR ROBERT: The country is undoubtedly in an alarming condition. While I think you are too bitter on Douglas, yet I consider his course, and that of his friends, unfortunate. In truth, I see nothing to approve on either side. The eight Southern States, had they remained in the Charleston convention, might easily have defeated him, and, making a proper selection, might have waived a platform altogether. Bell becomes stronger every day, as is proven in the Missouri election; but still I persuade myself that Breckenridge will carry majorities in most of the Southern States and the plurality in Virginia; but of course everything is in doubt by the division in the Democratic ranks. Let things result as they may, I fear that the great Republic has seen its last days.

But I did not mean to do more than to say to you that you had better make us a visit here for a short time. We have a delightful place, and a change of air would benefit you in all probability. Your friend, C. H. Mallory, expresses a great desire to see you.

Love to all.

Your father,

J. TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 560

John Tyler to Henry S. Foote, August 26, 1860

SHERWOOD FOREST, August 26, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of August 21st was forwarded to me from the summer residence of my family, near Hampton, to this place, and only reached me an hour ago, asking of me a declaration in writing expressive of the opinion that the Breckenridge and Lane ticket should not be run in the Free States, and that the Northern field should be left exclusively in the possession of their adversaries. Pardon me, my dear sir, for declining the public expression of such an opinion on a subject with which I am so little acquainted as the relative strength of the several candidates in the unfortunate quadrangular contest which now prevails. It may very well be that in some of the Northern States Mr. Breckenridge is stronger than either Mr. Douglas or Mr. Bell, in which event it would be altogether out of place to advise his withdrawal from the canvass in those States. My remarks to Mr. Withers, to which you refer, had exclusive reference to the State of New York, where, according to the newspaper editors, Mr. Breckenridge has no available force, and where it is said a combination of all the conservative forces is necessary to defeat Mr. Lincoln. To detach New York from his support, or some other of the Free States, is supposed to be the only "open sesame" to the hopes of the other candidates. Whether it is necessary for any one of the other candidates to withdraw, you will much better understand than myself. The rivalry between Messrs Breckenridge, Douglas, and Bell, in the Southern States, is not so much for majorities as puralities, which count as majorities in the end." Non nostrum componere lites." In the midst of faction I should only meet with ridicule for interposing my opinions. Excuse me for preferring the profound quiet which I desire to enjoy.

You do me no more than justice in ascribing to me conservative opinions. The expanding power of these States has been the subject of my warmest contemplation. The future glory of the Union has wrapped me in a vision of ecstasy. Exeter Hall for a season was not permitted by its impertinent interference in our affairs to cast a shadow over so bright a vision. The separation between this country and Great Britain, I flattered myself, had been completed, alike in opinion and government, by the surrender at Yorktown. It is only in these latter days, when that Hall has sent over its agents to foment sectional divisions among us, and American citizens have crossed the ocean to enter into its conferences, esteeming themselves as honored by the plaudits they have received, that I have painfully felt for the condition of the country. The English sentiment engendering bitterness and enmity has to a great extent superseded the American of harmony and love. However, my dear sir, every free government has had its Catalines, and it is hoping against hope to expect that we should escape the fate of other nations. My only reliance is on the good sense of the American people to crush out all wicked designs and put their heels on the necks of the workers of mischief. With high respect and esteem, faithfully yours,

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 560-1

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, August 27, 1860

SHERWOOD FOREST, August 27, 1860.

DEAR ROBERT: I think it best to enclose you these letters. There are parts of mine you may not be able to decipher accurately. It is the first draft. The gentleman alluded to—Colonel Withers, of Mississippi—called on me at the Villa Margaret, and, as the condition of the times is the fruitful subject of conversation, it came soon to be introduced. I expressed to him the gratification I had felt at the fusion between the Douglas and Bell men in New York, and expressed the hope that all conservatives would unite on the same ticket; that in my view the defeat of Lincoln was the great matter at issue, and that all others were subordinate; and probably said that if I lived in New York, although I was decidedly a Breckenridge man, I would advocate the fusion ticket. This, it seems, he reported to General Foote, and hence the correspondence.

There can be no possible doubt of Lincoln's election unless some one of the so-called free States is snatched from him. I presented also another idea to Colonel Withers, and that was that to defeat Lincoln was to elect Breckenridge or Lane, I cared not which, by throwing the first before the House, the last before the Senate. This has called forth the letter of my old friend General Foote, who is a Douglas man. I enclose it to you, so that if you should see any reference made to my opinions by General Foote, or any other which may call for explanation, you may be in proper position to make it by the publication, if necessary, of my letter. I said to Colonel Withers (and hence the reference to Cataline) that I regarded Seward as the Cataline of our day, and that to reach the presidency he would quaff blood with his fellows, as did Cataline of old, and expressed the hope that there would still arise a Cicero to denounce him in the Senate chamber.

I am here to superintend the delivery of my crop of wheat, which, although full of promise on the 1st of June, turns out a miserable failure. I shall remain during the week, and then back to Hampton.

Do give me some account of Pennsylvania. How goes the night? I think, after all, that everything depends on her. If I deceive not myself, Breckenridge will carry pluralities in a large majority of the Southern States, so as to present Lane to the Senate, should Lincoln not be elected by the popular vote. I live in the hope that a defeat of the negro-men now will dissolve their party. Write me soon. Love to all.

Your father,

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 561-2

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, September 14, 1860

VILLA MARGARET, Sept. 14, 1860.

MY DEAR ROBERT: I see the election is gone in Maine, although Douglas confidently calculated on carrying the State. Such were his declarations here. You say nothing to me as to Pennsylvania. Can you hold out any hope in regard to it? I am almost in despair as to results, and deeply meditate the future. The Marylanders have struck upon the right key in nominating Chief-Justice Taney and Nelson. I fear that they move too late. My hope is that many here will come to their reason before it be too late; but it seems to me certain that Lincoln is to be elected, in despite of all combinations. How stand things in New Jersey? The increase of the Republican vote in Maine augurs an increase all through the free States.

What does Seward mean by originating a war on the army and navy? Does he design to hold out inducements to the wide-awakes? In his strategemic game, does he mean to open to the ambition of his organized bands generalships, colonelships, etc., etc., and the $25,000,000 now bestowed on the army and navy; and thus with his train-bands have his will supreme in the execution of his movements on the Constitution and the South? I suspect the man at every step and in every movement. A more arch and wily conspirator does not live. I can understand why, if the army or navy be too large, they should be reduced; but how to get on without them entirely I cannot understand. Or how the militia could be called on to do duty in fortifications and the Indian frontier, or how to collect a revenue, or claim the respect of the world without regular seamen, officers, and men, I cannot understand. If he makes the move, depend upon it he seeks only to further his ambitious schemes. Do write to me your opinion relative to Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

All send love.

Your father,

JOHN TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 562

John Tyler to Robert Tyler, November 10, 1860

SHERWOOD FOREST, November 10, 1860.

So all is over, and Lincoln elected. South Carolina will secede. What other States will do remains to be seen. Virginia will abide developments. The Bellites will seek to divide parties into Unionists and the reverse. We shall see the result. It is said that Rives is offered the premiership. He will only take it upon satisfactory assurances being given, I am sure. For myself, I rest in quiet, and shall do so unless I see that my poor opinions have due weight. In the meantime confidence between man and man is giving way, and soon gold and silver will be hoarded by those who are fortunate enough to have them.

Love to all.

Your affectionate father,

J. TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 563

George Mason Graham to William T. Sherman, January 4, 1861

TYRONE, Friday Night, Jan. 4, 1861.

DEAR COLONEL: Your Christmas letter came duly to hand, and I beg to make you my acknowledgements for it, although it added fuel to the flame of the sad thoughts and feelings with which I am now constantly oppressed.

First of all, I thought of your little circle at Lancaster and felt provoked that instead of being absorbed in the enjoyment of their society you should have no better occupation on that day than in writing to me.

Then the already almost realized certainty that we shall lose you, for I feel as confident as I possibly can of any event not yet transpired, than an ordinance of secession will be rushed through the convention with breathless haste. The tone of the Louisiana Democrat ever since the presidential election has satisfied me of that — its last issue confirms it. Less than four weeks ago I proclaimed from the steps of the post-office, to an unusually large crowd awaiting the opening of the mail, that “I stood by the Union, that secession was treason, and no man in the crowd opened his mouth affirmatively or negatively, although I saw men there — lifelong Democrats, too — who, I knew, felt and thought as I did about it. A few days afterward a man who was in that crowd, and whose breath smells of whatever Governor Moore chews, told me that he was opposed to sending men of extreme views either way to the convention on Dec. 26. The same man said in my presence in Alexandria that he would not vote for any man for the convention who would not pledge himself beforehand to put the state out of the Union before the 4th of March.

And what men are we to vote for to that convention! So far as the talent and ability requisite for the occasion are concerned I look upon both tickets as sphinxs, having a common head. I shall vote for the courthouse sphinx, because that was made publicly in open day, by the people, where everybody had a chance to take a part whilst the dark lantern sphinx was made nobody knows by whom, nobody knows where, but popped on to the Democratic stage by Locofoco jugglery.

The course you have marked out for yourself I had anticipated. There is none other left for you. In the event of the convention passing an ordinance of abrupt secession, I do not see that there will be the slightest obligation on (you), or propriety in your allowing time for a successor. Where is he to come from at this time except temporarily out of the present Academic Board? Some of our friends will be apt to think that they have accomplished more than they ever contemplated, and may come, possibly, to the conclusion that there are more things between heaven and earth than were ever dreamt of in their philosophy.

Having no papers or letters by yesterday's mail, I am very much in a mist in regard to Bob Anderson's situation (in Fort Sumter). I have heard that Mr. Floyd has resigned because he was not allowed to reinforce him. Am looking with intense anxiety for the mail of to-morrow night. I really think that Mr. Van Buren would have made longer strides after Gen. Jackson than poor old Buck.

I have been greatly engrossed during the Holy Days (?). The overseer for "Forked-Deer"¹ has only now arrived, having been to Mississippi for his wife, and I have no overseer at Tyrone yet, though almost hourly pestered with applications — so that I have the cares and troubles of both plantations on my hands, for it will take several days yet to get rid of "Forked-deer.” Onze Heurs, et mes yeux beaucoup fatigues.

To-morrow I must work to get all the votes I can for the courthouse sphinx. . .

_______________

¹ One of General Graham's plantations. – ED

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 326-8

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, January 16, 1861

Jan. 16, 1860.

 . . . The people born and bred in the North are more enthusiastic in this revolution than the natives to the soil.

If you want me to come away you must move to get me something to do. I know it is ridiculous for me to ask this of you, but on the other hand I would not stay in Ohio ten days without employment. I wrote you last that you might visit Louisiana with Willie and Lizzie, but these events are hurrying along too fast to make arrangements ahead. Still I doubt not I shall be here into February and maybe March. Though when Govr. Moore receives my message he may think it wise to get me away. Smith on the contrary wants to prove to me that here in Louisiana we shall have more peace and prosperity than in Ohio. . . ——— has written me that he should take his family to Europe for safety and return to fight in the sacred cause of his country South, and against the invasion of the fanatic North. So you see what force religion and charity has upon the minds of mankind. I know millions are sincere in the belief that the people of the North have done a barbarous deed in voting for Lincoln.

General Graham lays low and says nothing in these times, but I know he is much distressed at the hasty manner in which things are pushed. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 337-8

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, November 23, 1860

ALEXANDRIA, Nov. 23, 1860.

We are having a cold raw day and I avail myself of it to do a good deal of indoor work. I was out for some hours directing the making of the fence around our new house, but the work within proceeds very slowly indeed. Our house is all plastered and the carpenters are putting in the doors, windows, and casings. Also the painter is tinkering around, but at present rate the building will not be ready before Christ

I now have all arrangements made for your coming down about that time, but prudence dictates some caution as political events do seem portentous.

I have a letter from the cashier that he sent you the first of exchange, the second I now enclose to you for two hundred ninety dollars. But by the very mail which brought it came the rumor that the banks are refusing exchange on the North, which cannot be true; also that goods were being destroyed on the levee at New Orleans and that the Custom House was closed. I also notice that many gentlemen who were heretofore moderate in their opinions now begin to fall into the popular current and go with the mad foolish crowd that seems bent on a dissolution of this confederacy.

The extremists in this quarter took the first news of the election of Lincoln so coolly, that I took it for granted all would quietly await the issue; but I have no doubt that politicians have so embittered the feelings of the people that they think that the Republican Party is bent on abolitionism, and they cease to reason or think of consequences.

We are so retired up here, so much out of the way of news, that we hear nothing but stale exaggerations; but I feel that a change is threatened and I will wait patiently for a while. My opinions are not changed.

If the South is bent on disunion of course I will not ally our fate with theirs, because by dissolution they do not escape the very danger at which they grow so frantically mad. Slavery is in their midst and must continue, but the interest of slavery is much weaker in Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland than down here. Should the Ohio River become a boundary between the two new combinations, there will begin a new change. The extreme South will look on Kentucky and Tennessee as the North, and in a very few years the same confusion and disorder will arise, and a new dissolution, till each state and maybe each county will claim separate independence.

If South Carolina precipitate this Revolution it will be because she thinks by delay Lincoln's friends will kind of reconcile the middle, wavering states, whereas now they may raise the cry of abolition and unite all the Slave States. I had no idea that this would actually begin so soon, but the news from that quarter does look as though she certainly would secede, and that Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas would soon follow. All these might go and still leave a strong, rich confederated government, but then come Mississippi and Louisiana. As these rest on the Mississippi and control its mouth I know that the other states north will not submit to any molestation of the navigation by foreign states. If these two states go and Arkansas follows suit then there must be war, fighting, and that will continue until one or the other party is subdued.

If Louisiana call a convention I will not move, but if that convention resolve to secede on a contingency that I can foresee, then I must of course quit. It is not to be expected that the state would consent to trust me with arms and command if I did not go with them full length. I don't believe Louisiana would of herself do anything; but if South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas resolve no longer to wait, then Louisiana will do likewise. Then of course you will be safer where you are. As to myself I might have to go to California or some foreign country, where I could earn the means of living for you and myself. I see no chance in Ohio

A man is never a prophet in his own land and it does seem that nature for some wise purpose, maybe to settle wild lands, does ordain that man shall migrate, clear out from the place of his birth.

I did not intend to write so much, but the day is gloomy, and the last news from New Orleans decidedly so, if true. Among ourselves it is known that I am opposed to disunion in any manner or form. Prof. Smith ditto, unless Lincoln should actually encourage abolitionism after installed in office. Mr. Boyd thinks the denial to the southern people of access to new territories is an insult to which they cannot submit with honor and should not, let the consequences be what they may. Dr. Clarke is simply willing to follow the fortunes of the South, be what they may. Vallas and St. Ange, foreigners, don't care, but will follow their immediate self interests.

Thus we stand, about a fair sample of a mixed crowd; but 'tis now said all over the South the issue is made, and better secession now when they can than wait till it is too late. This is a most unfortunate condition of things for us, and I hardly know how to act with decency and firmness, and like most undecided men will wait awhile to see what others do; if feeling in South Carolina continues they must do something, else they will be the laughing stock of the world, and that is what they dread. For of all the states they can least afford to secede, as comparatively she is a weak and poor state. This on the contrary is destined to be a rich and powerful one. . .

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 305

William T. Sherman to George Mason Graham, September 20, 1860

LANCASTER, OHIO, Sept. 20, 1860.

DEAR GENERAL:

I did regret and do still regret that under the circumstances you thought it your duty to your own feelings to vacate the position of vice-president and I will further venture the expression of my earnest hope that you will do nothing to show the public that you have lost confidence in the government of the Seminary. Your acts and your power have never been contravened, but I admit that at the last session the opponents to the military feature of our institution made a home thrust, more at my power than anything else. You know that many of my acts have been virtually reversed and now I am made to fill an office requiring me to carry out the resolves of the Board of Supervisors and of an Academic Board.

I certainly do not covet power, but if the public and my friends look to me personally to do certain things, they will misjudge me when my acts must be a zigzag course between the indefinite opinions of two deliberative bodies. Were you vice-president, I would still [act on my own responsibility] whenever occasion arose, but it may be different in case a less reliable occupies that vacant place. The Board of Supervisors mistake much in supposing that cadets will be safer under the Academic Board than under a Board ordered by me, whose acts I could revise, restrain, and even veto. The more I reflect the more convinced am I that the Academic Board should not be trusted exclusively with the enforcement of discipline, but it is now done and the next session must pass under the new system, and I must needs try the experiment, only I want it to be universally known that I will not compromise my military reputation by a seeming assent to a system of government that has ever failed, and must fail in this instance.

I wish to be distinctly understood as not complaining at the personal application of reducing my power to a mere “supervisory” power—a right to complain to the Board of Supervisors—instead of what ought to be a right to control. If the cadets find out that my wings are clipped won't they make it rather uncomfortable to me? Still I have had little experience in these matters and may be mistaken, and will try another session. I will leave my family where they are and come to Alexandria by way of New Orleans.

I feel uneasy about Jarreau. Still as my power is now merely "supervisory,” if he utterly fail in his contract I am in no wise responsible. I never mentioned to you that last November I introduced Jarreau to my friends Kennett and Co. of New Orleans, enjoining the latter in all cases to supply good articles of groceries. Jarreau bought of them to the extent of some $1,300 without paying one cent. They wrote to me and at my instance he sent down one of his monthly payments of $800, leaving still $500 due. I feel that Kennett looks to me for that and I don't know but I am liable. Jarreau is too careless about such things and it may be said too that I was too careless in incurring such a liability, after my recent business experience.

I have several letters from Mr. Boyd, giving me reasonable assurance that the items of work devised for the summer will be substantially done. Frank's desertion did not much surprise me – you mistake in saying my “favorite Frank.” I got out of him all sorts of work for which we could not afford to employ help—clerical or other—he never had charge of anything subject to larceny, except may be some blankets and I could readily have detected that. I employed Wright. In my absence Smith discharged him and Frank fell in because no body else was at hand and as the boy was willing we used him for “all work." I think if he has stolen nothing more than Mr. Boyd reports his account is not much over. When I left he had $3 due him and had in his room (paid for) some $20 of merchandise.

I could get hundreds of intelligent young men here who would go with me for moderate wages; but a drummer or clerk, the only posts I ought to fill, must from the necessity of the case be subject to the command of others, who would order them about in a style and manner to which Ohio boys are not used to, and the result would be "off.” So I discourage all who apply. One young fellow—a good musician but neither drummer or bugler, says, he is going south anyways, but he must go at his own cost and risk. Smith at my suggestion applied at Old Point Comfort to my personal friend Captain Ord who says he can supply us. Smith writes about road expenses, and wages and I feel a little doubtful now, whether I have a right to make a bargain without the ratification of the Board. There is a resolution to “furnish” the building and to provide in advance the stores, but nothing about drummer and fifer. An army drummer and fifer would suit us better than boys picked up as we picked up Wright and Frank. Still I can not afford pecuniarily to run the risk of these private bargains of hire. Still I think I will write to Smith that if Ord will recommend a drummer and fifer, both willing to work either as clerks, storekeepers, and sweepers of halls, lighters of lamps, etc., that I will agree to employ—expenses up from New Orleans to be paid by Seminary, to New Orleans by himself and myself jointly until the Board ratify. The family recommended to you by Captain Maynadier were of too delicate health to suit the present period of our establishment. All must work in some sphere or other.

Mr. Boyd says that the drought prevented the delivery of lumber, so that the roofs are not yet on – still even if done I would not bring my family now. I have written to finish Mr. Vallas' house first.

To a mere looker on the political game of our country is funny. In the South you are struggling between Bell and Breckenridge. Here their names are hardly mentioned, and the orators are noisy only for Douglas and Lincoln. Political majority has passed to the North and power must follow. Sooner or later the North will control, and the only question in my mind is, will she abuse it? Nobody now can say she will or she will not. I know some Southrons say they won't await the chance. I think they will and should. Even the wide-awake Republicans here say they don't mean interference with slavery. They opposed the repeal of Missouri Compromise and the events connected with Kansas, but of course I don't look to word for meaning. I am satisfied no president in power will weaken the country over which he presides.

Of course I keep aloof from all political cliques and knots, and only express an opinion occasionally to the effect, that there are many men of action and ability at the South, who will act with prudence and decision when the time comes, but that danger does exist from the growing suspicion and distrust, between the two general sections of one country. My wife and family are well. Mrs. S. begs that I will thank you for your repeated offers of hospitality—but she ought not to budge from here till she can move straight into a house of her

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 283-6

William T. Sherman to David F. Boyd, September 30, 1860

LANCASTER, OHIO, Sept. 30, 1860.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

I am much obliged to your letters which have kept me easy. Time now begins to approach the season of action, and I see no better cause for me to pursue that what I have heretofore designated. By the way all the books, text and library, are already en route to Converse, Kennett and Co., New Orleans, from New York, and the regulations ought to be done and shipped to-morrow. So that by or before October 15 everything we need will be there.

My orders are to ship to Pineville if possible and by the Picayune I see that occasionally a boat gets up to Alexandria. But if on my arrival there I find all our things I will promptly write to you to send to me at mouth of Red River four or five wagons and my horse, that out of the whole I may select the books, bedding, and hardware necessary and leave the balance to follow when navigation opens. The arms will be delivered at Alexandria by Uncle Sam, and if freight is excessive we don't care.

My own preference is that our cadets should not exceed one hundred and fifty in number and I doubt if we can do them or ourselves justice if in greater number. Tell Manning if he or Smith intend to engineer the Seminary through, they must look well to this question of number. Have new mess hall tables made, same width as the others but four feet shorter, because four of the present length in a row make too close a fit. Tell Manning that I hope the mere manner of appointment did not defeat the assistant professor of mathematics. Such an officer should be there the very day we begin. Even if his qualifications are limited to arithmetic. Our teaching must be practical and adapted to the capacity of the cadets, and all hands must recite daily in mathematics, and it is a physical impossibility for Vallas to hear all or half. I have been quite sick, bad cold and some of the bilious that was in me all spring, but I feel better now, though my face is much broken out with four blisters.

This week is a busy one for our village – fair, races, etc. This country has thirty thousand people, town six thousand, the finest farms in the world, and such horses and cattle as would do you good to see. We have men here who can afford to own such stock as “Fashion,” and one of our men imported an eight thousand dollar English horse, “Bonnie Scotland,” which is a beauty.

At this instant the Prince of Wales is in Cincinnati. Some of the ladies wanted me to go down one hundred and twenty miles to see him, but I begged off and they got other escort. He is having a jolly good time and enjoys his trip exceedingly, as he should, for he makes his progress during fine weather and when fruits are at perfection. I would like to see the youth, but will trust to the newspapers for a description.

My brother John continues to circulate, making Republican speeches and everybody says that in case Lincoln be elected he will have a high seat in the synagogue. Judging from the mere local clamor here, and remembering the wild and foolish schism in the Democratic Party it is more than probable that Lincoln will be elected. But there is so wide a difference between the Seward Republicans and Corwin Republicans that in case of success the party will break into flinders worse than the old Whig Party used to do—and then will begin the war of the Roses.

Which wing of the Democratic Party is the Simon pure? That seems now the only effort of the Democrats north—is to try and see which wing of the party shall be construed as the true heir to the rights and glory of the old Democratic Party. Douglas here is the Democratic but in the South Breckenridge is.

The truth is that the present territories—Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and the desert—ain't worth quarrelling over, and practically nobody can be tempted to go there except as governor, marshal, judge, etc., of supposed future states. No sensible man with liberty of choice would think of taking his slaves there. Consequently all this clamor about rights in territories is a theoretical one, but as you say it involves a principle and therefore is contended for.

If any calamity should befall our country in this question, the future historian would have the pleasant task of chronicling the downfall of the Great Republic, because one class of would not permit theoretically another class of to go, where neither party had the most remote intention to go, for I take it that no sensible man except an army officer who could not help himself ever went to Utah, New Mexico, or Arizona, or even proposes to do so. And as our dominions now reach the Pacific, and our frontiers are all “rectified” we have no further necessity of taking in any more "worthless Mexican waste land."

I hope therefore that the result of this angry controversy will be no more extension of territory, but that all states will confine their efforts to perfecting and improving their internal resources. You can readily understand that I am sick of this war of prejudice. Here the prejudice is that planters have nothing else to do but hang abolitionists and hold lynch courts. There, that all the people of Ohio are engaged in stealing and running off negroes. The truth is they both do injustice to the other; and if all would forget and mind their respective interests, it would be found that slave and all other property in the United States are now at a most prosperous standard.

Yesterday I was out all day with my boys gathering nuts. I had a single horse spring-wagon and filled it with black walnuts and chestnuts - and what with roasting, boiling, and eating chestnuts there is no peace in the house. When I began the young ones had gone to church but they are back now, and it requires more nerve to write in the midst of their noises than if a regimental band were in full career.

Mrs. Sherman has put up for me an amount of currant jelly, quince jelly, and marmalade and all sorts of preserves – but I doubt if I can take them down. If Red River were navigable I would send them down to New Orleans from Cincinnati to Kennett and have him reship them. I am trying to stop smoking. It and bad food had reduced me to a skeleton, and I am still thin. I was fifteen pounds lighter than ever before in my life when I reached home. I had paid no attention to it and Mrs. Sherman thinks I am so careless of what I eat, that she really believes we are starved down there. I don't know what she will think when she has to depend on Schwartzenberg and Alexandria for her daily supplies.

I know they are well off here and therefore shall leave them statu quo till I send for them, but in the meantime will myself occupy the house built for me, though I still think Vallas' house should be plastered and painted first, and Mills can do so. I take it the plastering will all be done before I arrive and that one and may be two coats of paint on. The moment I arrive at New Orleans I will write you whether I want the wagons sent to the mouth of Red River. The distance is sixty-five miles, time three days, load say two thousand pounds for two yoke. Total time of trip one week - about twenty dollars a load which would be three dollars a day—or better one dollar the hundred, about that. There will be fourteen boxes of books, eighty rolls of bed and about six hundred weight of sundries. Keep your mind on four or five wagons. Wagons should have covers.

Write me very fully by the 12th October care of Kennett, Blood and Co., New Orleans, on these points – that I may act with the greatest chance of economy and certainty. Only make a written charter party, and allow for lay days at a price at the mouth. If you have one of those two hundred dollar checks left or any means of drawing send me some by letter as I shall be hard up on arrival at New Orleans; let me know also then who is vice-president. 

SOURCES: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 288-92