Diary of William Howard Russell: June 11, 1861

Before noon the steamer hauled along-side a stationary hulk at Baton Rouge, which once “walked the waters” by the aid of machinery, but which was now used as a floating hotel, depot, and storehouse — 315 feet long, and fully thirty feet on the upper deck above the level of the river. The Acadia stopped, and I disembarked. Here were my quarters till the boat for Natchez should arrive. The proprietor of the floating hotel was somewhat excited because one of his servants was away. The man presently came in sight. “Where have you been you ——?” “Away to buy de newspaper, Massa.” "For who, you ——?” “Me buy ’em for no one, Massa; me sell ’um agin, Massa.” “See now, you ——, if ever you goes aboard them steamers to meddle with newspapers, I'm —— but I'll kill you, mind that!”

Baton Rouge is the capital of the State of Louisiana, and the State House thereof is a very quaint and very new example of bad taste. The Deaf and Dumb Asylum near it is in a much better style. It was my intention to have visited the State Prison and Penitentiary, but the day was too hot, and the distance too great, and so I dined at the oddest little Creole restaurant, with the funniest old hostess, and the strangest company in the world.

On returning to the boat hotel, Mr. Conrad, one of the citizens of the place, and Mr. W. Avery, a judge of the district court, were good enough to call and to invite me to remain some time, but I was obliged to decline. These gentlemen were members of the home guard, and drilled assiduously every evening. Of the 1300 voters at Baton Rouge, more than 750 are already off to the wars, and another company is being formed to follow them. Mr. Conrad has three sons in the field, and another is anxious to follow, and he and his friend, Mr. Avery, are quite ready to die for the disunion. The waiter who served out drinks in the bar wore a uniform, and his musket lay in the corner among the brandy bottles. At night a patriotic meeting of citizen soldiery took place in the bow, with which song and whiskey had much to do, so that sleep was difficult.

Precisely at seven o'clock on Wednesday morning the Mary T. came alongside, and soon afterward bore me on to Natchez, through scenery which became wilder and less cultivated as she got upwards. Of the 1500 steamers on the river, not a tithe are now in employment, and the owners of these profitable flotillas are “in a bad way.” It was late at night when the steamer arrived at Natchez, and next morning early I took shelter in another engineless steamer beside the bank of the river at Natchez-under-the-hill, which was thought to be a hotel by its owners.

In the morning I asked for breakfast. “There is nothing for breakfast; go to Curry’s on shore.” Walk up hill to Curry's — a bar-room occupied by a waiter and flies. “Can I have any breakfast?” “No, sir-ree; it's over half-an-hour ago.” “Nothing to eat at all?” “No, sir.” “Can I get some anywhere else?” “I guess not.” It had been my belief that a man with money in his pocket could not starve in any country soi-disant civilized. I chewed the cud of fancy faute de mieux, and became the centre of attraction to citizens, from whose conversation I learned that this was “Jeff. Davis's fast-day.” Observed one, “It quite puts me in mind of Sunday; all the stores closed.” Said another, “We'll soon have Sunday every day, then, for I ’spect it won't be worth while for most shops to keep open any longer.” Natchez, a place of much trade and cotton export in the season, is now as dull — let us say, as Harwich without a regatta. But it is ultra-secessionist, nil obstante.

My hunger was assuaged by Mr. Marshall, who drove me to his comfortable mansion through a country like the wooded parts of Sussex, abounding in fine trees, and in the only lawns and park-like fields I have yet seen in America.

After dinner, my host took me out to visit a wealthy planter, who has raised and armed a cavalry corps at his own expense. We were obliged to get out of the carriage at a narrow lane and walk toward the encampment on foot in the dark; a sentry stopped us, and we observed that there was a semblance of military method in the camp. The captain was walking up and down in the veranda of the poor hut, for which he had abandoned his home. A book of tactics — Hardee's — lay on the table of his little room. Our friend was full of fight, and said he would give all he had in the world to the cause. But the day before, and a party of horse, composed of sixty gentlemen in the district, worth from £20,000 to £50,000 each, had started for the war in Virginia. Everything to be seen or heard testifies to the great zeal and resolution with which the South have entered upon the quarrel. But they hold the power of the United States, and the loyalty of the North to the Union at far too cheap a rate.

Next day was passed in a delightful drive through cotton fields, Indian corn, and undulating woodlands, amid which were some charming residences. I crossed the river at Natchez, and saw one fine plantation, in which the corn, however, was by no means so good as the crops I have seen on the coast. The cotton looks well, and some had already burst into flower — bloom, as it is called — which has turned to a flagrant pink, and seems saucily conscious that its boll will play an important part in the world.

The inhabitants of the tracts on the banks of the Mississippi, and on the inland regions hereabout, ought to be, in the natural order of things, a people almost nomadic, living by the chase, and by a sparse agriculture, in the freedom which tempted their ancestors to leave Europe. But the Old World has been working for them. All its trials have been theirs; the fruits of its experience, its labors, its research, its discoveries, are theirs. Steam has enabled them to turn their rivers into highways, to open primeval forests to the light of day and to man. All these, however, would have availed them little had not the demands of manufacture abroad, and the increasing luxury and population of the North and West at home, enabled them to find in these swamps and uplands sources of wealth richer and more certain than all the gold mines of the world.

There must be gnomes to work those mines. Slavery was an institution ready to their hands. In its development there lay every material means for securing the prosperity which Manchester opened to them, and in-supplying their own countrymen with sugar. The small, struggling, deeply-mortgaged proprietors of swamp and forest set their negroes to work to raise levees, to cut down trees, to plant and sow. Cotton at ten cents a pound gave a nugget in every boll. Land could be had for a few dollars an acre. Negroes were cheap in proportion. Men who made a few thousand dollars invested them in more negroes, and more land, and borrowed as much again for the same purpose. They waxed fat and rich — there seemed no bounds to their fortune.

But threatening voices came from the North — the echoes of the sentiments of the civilized world repenting of its evil pierced their ears, and they found their feet were of clay, and that they were nodding to their fall in the midst of their power. Ruin inevitable awaited them if they did not shut out these sounds and stop the fatal utterances.

The issue is to them one of life and death. Whoever raises it hereafter, if it be not decided now, must expect to meet the deadly animosity which is now displayed towards the North. The success of the South — if they can succeed — must lead to complications and results in other parts of the world, for which neither they nor Europe are prepared. Of one thing there can be no doubt — a slave state cannot long exist without a slave trade. The poor whites who have won the fight will demand their share of the spoils. The land for tilth is abundant, and all that is wanted to give them fortunes is a supply of slaves. They will have that in spite of their masters, unless a stronger power than the Slave States prevents the accomplishment of their wishes.

The gentleman in whose house I was stopping was not insensible to the dangers of the future, and would, I think, like many others, not at all regret to find himself and property safe in England. His father, the very day of our arrival, had proceeded to Canada with his daughters, but the Confederate authorities are now determined to confiscate all property belonging to persons who endeavor to evade the responsibilities of patriotism. In such matters the pressure of the majority is irresistible, and a sort of mob law supplants any remissness on the part of the authorities. In the South, where the deeds of the land of cypress and myrtle are exaggerated by passion, this power will be exercised very rigorously. The very language of the people is full of the excesses generally accepted as types of Americanism. Turning over a newspaper this morning, I came upon a “card” as it is called, signed by one “Mr. Bonner,” relating to a dispute between himself and an Assistant-Quarter-Master-General, about the carriage of some wood at Mobile, which concludes with the sentence that I transcribe, as an evidence of the style which is tolerated, if not admired, down South: —

“If such a Shylock-hearted, caitiff scoundrel does exist, give me the evidence, and I will drag him before the bar of public opinion, and consign him to an infamy so deep and damnable that the hand of the Resurrection will never reach him.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 290

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 11, 1862

Gen. Lee dispatched this morning early that the enemy were constructing three pontoon bridges, and that firing had commenced on both sides. At nine o'clock A.M. the firing increased, and Gen Lee dispatched for ammunition, looking to the contingency of a prolonged battle.

At three P.M., Gen. Lee says, the enemy had been repulsed in two of their attempts to throw bridges over the river; but the third attempt would probably succeed, as it was under cover of batteries which commanded the river, and where his sharpshooters could not reach the workmen. But, he says, his batteries command the plain where the enemy must debouch. We may speedily hear of a most sanguinary conflict.

Burnside must have greatly superior numbers, or else he is a great fool to precipitate his men into a plain, where every Southern soldier is prepared to die, in the event of failure to conquer! There is no trepidation here; on the contrary, a settled calm on the faces of the people, which might be mistaken for indifference. They are confident of the success of Lee, and really seem apprehensive that Burnside will not come over and fight him in a decisive battle. We shall soon see, now, of what stuff Burnside and his army are made. I feel some anxiety; because the destruction of our little army on the Rappahannock might be the fall of Richmond.

It is rumored that the President started two days ago for the West — Tennessee and Mississippi. No papers have been sent in by him since Tuesday, and it may be true. If so, he means to return speedily. I think we shall soon have news from the lower James River.

A letter from the Governor of Alabama calls urgently for heavy guns, and a reserve force, for the defense of Mobile.

Major Hause, the government's agent in Europe, has purchased, up to this time, 157,000 stand of arms, besides many cannon, much ammunition, quartermaster's stores, etc. A portion was lost in transitu, however, but not a large amount. Besides the large sums he has expended, he has obtained credit to the extent of $6,000,000!

They are calling for a guard at Petersburg against incendiaries. A factory was burned the other night. This is bad.

Scully and Lewis, condemned to die as spies, have been pardoned by the President, and are to be sent North.

Another dispatch from Gen. Lee, dated 3½ P.M., says the enemy has nearly completed his bridge, and will probably commence crossing this evening or in the morning. The bulletin boards in the city purport to give intelligence of the passage having been effected in part; but I do not see how the editors could have obtained their information.

At 6 P.M., passengers by the Fredericksburg train (which left, at 1 P.M.) report the shelling of the town, and a great battle in progress on this side of the river. I doubt both; and I saw but one excited man (a Jew) who said he was in Fredericksburg when the shelling began. I do not believe it. The cars were not within four miles of the town, and perhaps merely conjectured the cannonading they heard to be directed at the town. There were no ladies or children in the cars. But doubtless the enemy will cross the river, and there will be a battle, which must result in a great mortality.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 209-11

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, November 25, 1862

Vienna, 20 Favoriten Strasse, Wieden,

November 25, 1862.

Dearest Little Mary: We jog on here much as usual. We are fortunate in our pleasant house and garden, so that the external physical influences are not so gloomy as they were last winter; but in other respects we are rather dismal, being so far away from the center of all interest, our own beloved country. It is very probable that I shall not live to see the end of this great tragedy, which seems to have hardly passed its first act. But you may do so, and when you do, you will see a great commonwealth, the freest and the noblest that ever existed in history, purged of the foul disorder which has nearly eaten away its vitals. This war is a purifying process, but it seems that a whole generation of youths has to be sacrificed before we can even see the end.

When the news of the attempt of the French emperor to interfere in our affairs in favor of the slaveholders reaches America, I hope it may open the eyes of our people to the danger ever impending over them from abroad. You will see that this is distinctly intimated in the despatch of Drouyn de l'Huys. The party of peace is supposed to have triumphed, and of course peace to the Europeans means the dismemberment of the Republic and the establishment of the slaveholders' Confederacy. I consider the 25,000 majority in glorious Massachusetts after the proclamation as a greater monument of triumph in the onward march of civilization on our continent than anything that has yet happened. I have somewhat recovered from the spleen and despondency into which I was thrown by the first accounts of the elections in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. After all, when one makes an arithmetical calculation we see that the popular vote in the great States is very nearly balanced, and when we reflect that it was really a vote upon the Emancipation Proclamation, the progress is enormous. Two years hence there will be a popular majority for emancipation as large as there was for non-extension in 1860. This is true progress. Moreover, our majority in Massachusetts is almost equal to the Democratic majority in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania combined.

The President's proclamation was just in time. Had it been delayed it is possible that England would have accepted the invitation of France, and that invitation was in reality to recognize the slaveholders' Confederacy, and to make with it an alliance offensive and defensive. I am not exaggerating. The object is distinctly to unite all Europe against us, to impose peace, and to forcibly dismember our country. Nothing has saved us from this disaster thus far except the antislavery feeling in England, which throughout the country, although not so much in high places, is the predominant popular instinct in England which no statesman dares confront. Thank God, Sumner is reelected, or is sure of it, I suppose, and Sam Hooper, too. The “people” of Massachusetts have succeeded in electing five senators out of forty, thirty representatives out of a few hundred, and half a congressman.¹ If McClellan had been an abolitionist together with his military talents, which are certainly very respectable, he would have been a great man. This is a great political and social revolution, and not an ordinary war. Goodby, my darling. Your letters give us great pleasure. Mr. Sumner is a high-minded, pure-minded patriot, and his rejection by Massachusetts would be a misfortune and a disgrace. Mr. Hooper, too, is eminently qualified for his post, and I beg you to give him my most sincere congratulations at his reelection, which I at one time felt was rather doubtful.

Ever thine in storm and shine and brine,

Papagei.

_______________

¹ These senators and representatives were elected to the Legislature of the State by opponents of the national administration.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 294-6

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: Monday, December 1, 1862

There is a rumor to-day that we are upon the eve of a great battle on the Rappahannock. I doubt it not.

I am sorry to see that Col. McRae, a gallant officer, has resigned his commission, charging the President with partiality in appointing junior officers, and even his subordinates, brigadiers over his head. Nevertheless, he tenders his services to the Governor of his State, and will be made a general. But where will this end? I fear in an issue between the State and Confederate authorities.

The news from Europe is not encouraging. France is willing to interfere, and Russia is ready to participate in friendly mediation to stay the effusion of blood — but England seems afraid of giving offense to the United States. They refer to the then approaching elections in the North, and lay some stress on the anticipated change in public opinion. Popular opinion! What is it worth in the eyes of European powers? If it be of any value, and if the voice of the people should be allowed to determine such contests, why not leave it to a vote of the Southern people to decide under which government they will live? But why make such an appeal to monarchies, while the Republican or Democratic government of the North refuses to permit 8,000,000 of people to have the government they unanimously prefer? Can it be possible that the United States are ignorant of popular sentiment here? I fear so; I fear a few traitors in our midst contrive to deceive even the Government at Washington. Else why a prolongation of the war? They ought to know that, under almost any conceivable adverse circumstances, we can maintain the war twenty years. And if our lines should be everywhere broken, and our country overrun — it would require a half million soldiers to hold us down, and this would cost the United States $500,000,000 per annum.

God speed the day of peace! Our patriotism is mainly in the army and among the ladies of the South. The avarice and cupidity of the men at home, could only be excelled by ravenous wolves; and most of our sufferings are fully deserved. Where a people will not have mercy on one another, how can they expect mercy? They depreciate the Confederate notes by charging from $20 to $40 per bbl. for flour; $3.50 per bushel for meal; $2 per lb. for butter; $20 per cord for wood, etc. When we shall have peace, let the extortionists be remembered! let an indelible stigma be branded upon them.

A portion of the people look like vagabonds. We see men and women and children in the streets in dingy and dilapidated clothes; and some seem gaunt and pale with hunger — the speculators, and thieving quartermasters and commissaries only, looking sleek and comfortable. If this state of things continue a year or so longer, they will have their reward. There will be governmental bankruptcy, and all their gains will turn to dust and ashes, dust and ashes!

And I learn they are without shirts in the North — cotton being unattainable. A universal madness rules the hour! Why not throw aside the instruments of death, and exchange commodities with each other? Subjugation is an impossibility. Then why not strive for the possible and the good in the paths of peace? The Quakers are the wisest people, after all. I shall turn Quaker after this war, in one sense, and strive to convince the world that war is the worst remedy for evils ever invented — and Man the most dangerous animal ever created.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 199-201

William Cullen Bryant to John Bigelow, December 3, 1862

New York, December 3, 1862

Your view of the proposal of the French government that there shall be a suspension of arms for six months, to give the great powers of modern Europe an opportunity to mediate between the acknowledged governments, as to the rebellion, is the one which almost universally prevails here. Everybody sees that it is neither more or less than asking us to give up what we are fighting for. The most favorable construction that can be put upon it makes it a device to give the rebel government an opportunity to get on its legs again, to breathe, recruit, and take a new start. That is, on the supposition that the interference is to end with the procuring of an armistice, which is not probable. The top of the wedge being once inserted, the rest would be driven in after it. An interference of the nature proposed once allowed, would draw after it interferences of the most decided and domineering character, and transfer to our continent the system of dictation by which three or four sovereigns give law to Europe. I do not think that the French ministry will be much pleased with the manner in which the project is received here. The most blatant of the Peace Party would not venture upon the unpopularity of proposing a cessation of hostilities. You put the case strongly against England in the letter to the “Independence Beige.” Notwithstanding the expression of the French Emperor's desire to interfere, and the refusal of his proposal by Great Britain, the feeling of dissatisfaction with Great Britain is much stronger than against France. It pervades all classes; the old British party, who looked at everything British through a prism, are reached by it, give up their old prejudices, and scold vehemently against England. At least this is the case with very many of them. The English have lost more ground in public opinion in America within the past year and a half than they can redeem in a century.

SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, Volume 1, p. 182-3

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to John L. Motley, August 29, 1862

Boston, 21 Charles Street,

August 29, 1862.

My Dear Motley: I don't know how I can employ the evening of my birthday better than by sitting down and beginning a letter to you. I have heard of your receiving my last, and that you meant to reply to it soon. But this was not in the bond, and whether you write or not, I must let you hear from me from time to time. I know what you must endure with a non-conductor of a thousand leagues between you and this great battery, which is sending its thrill through us every night and morning. I know that every different handwriting on an envelop, if it comes from a friend, has its special interest, for it will give an impression in some way differing from that of all others. My own thoughts have been turned aside for a while from those lesser occurrences of the day which would occupy them at other times by a domestic sorrow, which, though coming in the course of nature, and at a period when it must have been very soon inevitable, has yet left sadness in mine and other households. My mother died on the 19th of this month, at the age of ninety-three, keeping her lively sensibilities and sweet intelligence to the last. My brother John had long cared for her in the most tender way, and it almost broke his heart to part with her. She was a daughter to him, she said, and he had fondly thought that love and care could keep her frail life to the filling up of a century or beyond it. It was a pity to look on him in his first grief; but time, the great consoler, is busy with his anodyne, and he is coming back to himself. My mother remembered the Revolution well, and she was scared by the story of the redcoats coming along and killing everybody as they went, she having been carried from Boston to Newburyport. Why should I tell you this? Our hearts lie between two forces — the near ones of home and family, and those that belong to the rest of the universe. A little magnet holds its armature against the dragging of our own planet and all the spheres.

I had hoped that my mother might have lived through this second national convulsion. It was ordered otherwise, and with the present prospects I can hardly lament that she was spared the period of trial that remains. How long that is to be no one can predict with confidence. There is a class of men one meets with who seem to consider it due to their antecedents to make the worst of everything. I suppose —— —— may be one of these. I met him a day or two since, and lost ten minutes in talk with him on the sidewalk — lost them, because I do not wish to talk with any man who looks at this matter empirically as an unlucky accident, which a little prudence might have avoided, and not a theoretical necessity. However, he said to me that the wisest man he knew — somebody whose name I did not know — said to him long ago that this war would outlast him, an old man, and his companion also, very probably. You meet another man, and he begins cursing the government as the most tyrannical one that ever existed. “That is not the question,” I answer. “How much money have you given for this war? How many of your boys have gone to it? How much of your own body and soul have you given to it?” I think Mr. —— —— is the most forlorn of all the Jeremiahs I meet with. Faith, faith is the only thing that keeps a man up in times like these; and those persons who, by temperament or underfeeding of the soul, are in a state of spiritual anemia, are the persons I like least to meet, and try hardest not to talk with.

For myself, I do not profess to have any political wisdom. I read, I listen, I judge to the best of my ability. The best talk I have heard from any of our home politicians was that of Banks, more than a year and a half ago. In a conversation I had with him, he foreshadowed more clearly the plans and prospects and estimated more truly the resources of the South than any one else with whom I had met. But prophets in America and Europe have been at a very heavy discount of late. Count Gasparin seems to me to have the broadest and keenest understanding of the aims and ends of this armed controversy. If we could be sure of no intermeddling, I should have no anxiety except for individuals and for temporary interests. If we have grown unmanly and degenerate in the north wind, I am willing that the sirocco should sweep us off from the soil. If the course of nature must be reversed for us, and the Southern Goths must march to the “beggarly land of ice” to overrun and recolonize us, I have nothing to object. But I have a most solid and robust faith in the sterling manhood of the North, in its endurance, its capacity for a military training, its plasticity for every need, in education, in political equality, in respect for man as man in peaceful development, which is our law, in distinction from aggressive colonization; in human qualities as against bestial and diabolical ones; in the Lord as against the devil. If I never see peace and freedom in this land, I shall have faith that my children will see it. If they do not live long enough to see it, I believe their children will. The revelations we have had from the Old World have shed a new light for us on feudal barbarism. We know now where we are not to look for sympathy. But oh, it would have done your heart good to see the processions of day before yesterday and to-day, the air all aflame with flags, the streets shaking with the tramp of long-stretched lines, and only one feeling showing itself, the passion of the first great uprising, only the full flower of which that was the opening bud.

There is a defense of blubber about the arctic creatures through which the harpoon must be driven before the vital parts are touched. Perhaps the Northern sensibility is protected by some such incasing shield. The harpoon is, I think, at last through the blubber. In the meanwhile I feel no doubt in my own mind that the spirit of hostility to slavery as the cause of this war is speedily and certainly increasing. They were talking in the cars to-day of Fremont's speech at the Tremont Temple last evening. His allusions to slavery — you know what they must have been — were received with an applause which they would never have gained a little while ago. Nay, I think a miscellaneous Boston audience would be more like to cheer any denunciation of slavery now than almost any other sentiment.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 267-71

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, August 26, 1862

Legation of the United States, Vienna,

August 26, 1862.

My Darling Little Mary: I am writing to you a mere apology for a letter. I wrote a letter to your dear grandmama by the last steamer, and, I believe, to you, but I am not sure. I am writing at my office in town, where I have the newspapers up to the 12th of August, which your mother and Lily have not yet seen. Here I have just read in them the details of the late fight in Virginia, in which the Massachusetts Second seems to have so much distinguished itself, and to have suffered so severely. I see with great regret that my old friend and classmate Dr. Shurtleff has lost a son in the fight. The details are still meager, but I have seen enough to feel sure that our men behaved brilliantly, and I can have no doubt of our ultimate success. I have just seen Hayward, whom I dare say you have seen in Hertford Street. He had had a long talk with M. Duvergier d'Hauranne, one of Louis Philippe's old ministers, which gentleman had just heard the whole story of the Richmond battles from the French princes. They described them exactly according to the accounts of the Northern newspapers, which they pronounced perfectly accurate, said that nothing could exceed the courage displayed on both sides, and that the movement to James River had been managed in such a very masterly manner by McClellan. All this I had no doubt of, but I like to hear what outsiders say to each other. Hayward also read me a note from Lord March, Governor-General of Canada, who says that English officers present at the late battles, and since returned to Canada, pronounce the accounts given in the Northern papers as perfectly accurate.

I have not a word to say of news. We dribble on in the even tenor of our Vöslau ways. Hayward is coming out to dine to-morrow,¹ and Saturday or Sunday we expect a visit of a few days from Mr. and Mrs. Hughes (Tom Brown) and Miss Stanley (Arthur Stanley's sister). We hope to have some comfort in talking with them, as Hughes is as stanch a friend to our cause as exists in Europe. Of course we never talk or think of anything else night or day.

Good-by, and God bless you, my darling. I promise to write again next week.

Your affectionate

Papa.

_______________

1 From Mr. Hayward's “Letters,” ii. 82: “I also passed a day with the Motleys at their villa, and found him more unreasonable than ever, vowing that the restoration of the Union in its entirety was as sure as the sun in heaven.”

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 265-7

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, June 30, 1862

Legation of the United States, Vienna,

June 30, 1862.

My Dearest Mother:

It is a long time since I wrote to you, and I am only writing a little note at this moment, for I would not let this steamer go without a word of affection and greeting. But the life here is so humdrum, while yours on that side of the ocean is so crowded with great events, that it is always with reluctance that I sit down to write to any one. Our life here (Vöslau) is very retired, and therefore very agreeable, for we can devote ourselves to our own pursuits, the principal part of which, as you may suppose, is reading the American journals. I try to work at my “History,” and have really succeeded in getting my teeth into the subject; but the great events of our own day in our country are so much more absorbing that I find it difficult to make much progress. As for European politics, except in their bearing on our own affairs, they are pale and uninteresting to me, although so important for the Europeans themselves as to prevent their giving sufficient attention to the American war. The consequence is that public ignorance on that subject is amazing.

I do not mean that we had any right to expect that they would sympathize with the great movement now going on in America. The spectacle of a great people going forth in its majesty and its irresistible power to smite to the dust the rebellion of a privileged oligarchy is one so entirely contrary to all European notions that it is hopeless to attempt making it understood. All European ideas are turned upside down by the mere statement of the proposition which is at the bottom of our war. Hitherto the “sovereignty of the people” has been heard of in Europe, and smiled at as a fiction, very much as we smile on our side of the water at that other little fiction, the divine right of kings. But now here comes rebellion against our idea of sovereignty, and fact on a large scale is illustrating our theoretic fiction. Privilege rebels, and the sovereign people orders an army of half a million to smash the revolt.

Here is the puzzle for the European mind. Whoever heard before in human history of a rebellion, except one made by the people against privilege? That the people rising from time to time, after years of intolerable oppression, against their natural masters, kings, nobles, priests, and the like, should be knocked back into their appropriate servitude by the strong hand of authority at any expense of treasure and blood, why, this is all correct. But when the privileged order of the New World — the 300,000 slaveholders leading on their 3,000,000 dupes — rise in revolt against the natural and legal and constitutional authority of the sovereign people, and when that authority, after pushing conciliation and concession in the face of armed treason to the verge of cowardice, at last draws the sword and defends the national existence against the rebels, why, then it is bloodshed, causeless civil war, and so on.

. . . One great fact has been demonstrated — the Americans, by a large majority, will spend any amount of treasure and blood rather than allow their Republic to be divided. Two years ago we did not know this fact. Two years hence, perhaps, we shall learn another fact — that the single possibility of division, that the single obstacle to peace and union, is slavery, and that so long as slavery exists, peace is impossible. Whenever the wise and courageous American people is thoroughly possessed of this truth, our trouble will be over. I think Mr. Lincoln embodies singularly well the healthy American mind. He revolts at extreme measures, and moves in a steady way to the necessary end. He reads the signs of the times, and will never go faster than the people at his back. So his slowness seems sometimes like hesitation; but I have not a doubt that when the people wills it, he will declare that will, and with the disappearance of the only dissolvent the dissolution of the Union will be made impossible. I have got to the end of my paper, and so, with best love to my father and all the rest,

I am, dear mother, most affectionately yours,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 260-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 1, 1862

Gen. Winder's late policemen have fled the city. Their monstrous crimes are the theme of universal execration. But I reported them many months ago, and Gen. Winder was cognizant of their forgeries, correspondence with the enemy, etc. The Secretary of War, and the President himself, were informed of them, but it was thought to be a “small matter.”

Gen. Lee made his appearance at the department to-day, and was hardly recognizable, for his beard, now quite white, has been suffered to grow all over his face. But he is quite robust from his exercises in the field. His appearance here, coupled with the belief that we are to have the armistice, or recognition and intervention, is interpreted by many as an end of the war. But I apprehend it is a symptom of the falling back of our army.

I have been startled to-day by certain papers that came under my observation. The first was written by J. Foulkes, to L. B. Northrop, Commissary-General, proposing to aid the government in procuring meat and bread for the army from ports in the enemy's possession. They were to be paid for in cotton. The next was a letter from the Commissary-General to G. W. Randolph, Secretary of War, urging the acceptance of the proposition, and saying without it, it would be impossible to subsist the army. He says the cotton proposed to be used, in the Southwest will either be burned or fall into the hands of the enemy; and that more than two-thirds is never destroyed when the enemy approaches. But to effect his object, it will be necessary for the Secretary to sanction it, and to give orders for the cotton to pass the lines of the army. The next was from the Secretary to the President, dated October thirtieth, which not only sanctioned Colonel Northrop's scheme, but went further, and embraced shoes and blankets for the Quartermaster-General. This letter inclosed both Foulkes's and Northrop's. They were all sent back to-day by the President, with his remarks. He hesitates, and does not concur. But says the Secretary will readily see the propriety of postponing such a resort until January — and he hopes it may not be necessary then to depart from the settled policy of the government — to forbear trading cotton to the Yankees, etc. etc.

Mr. Benjamin, Secretary of State, has given Mr. Dunnock permission to sell cotton to the Yankees and the rest of the world on the Atlantic and Gulf coast. Can it be that the President knows nothing of this? It is obvious that the cotton sold by Mr. Dunnock (who was always licensed by Mr. Benjamin to trade with people in the enemy's country beyond the Potomac) will be very comfortable to the enemy. And it may aid Mr. Dunnock and others in accumulating a fortune. The Constitution defines treason to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy. I never supposed Mr. Randolph would suggest, nay urge, opening an illicit trade with “Butler, the Beast.” This is the first really dark period of our struggle for independence.

We have acres enough, and laborers enough, to subsist 30,000,000 of people; and yet we have the spectacle of high functionaries, under Mr. Davis, urging the necessity of bartering cotton to the enemy for stores essential to the maintenance of the army! I cannot believe it is a necessity, but a destitution of that virtue necessary to achieve independence. If they had any knowledge of these things in Europe, they would cease their commendations of President Davis.

Mr. Randolph says, in his letter to the President, that trading with ports in possession of the enemy is forbidden to citizens, and not to the government! The archives of the department show that this is not the first instance of the kind entertained by the Secretary. He has granted a license to citizens in Mobile to trade cotton in New Orleans for certain supplies in exchange, in exact compliance with Gen. Butler's proclamation. Did Pitt ever practice such things during his contest with Napoleon? Did the Continental Government ever resort to such equivocal expedients? A member of Washington's cabinet (and he, too, was a Randolph) once violated the “settled policy of the government,” but he was instantly deprived of the seals of office. He acted under the advice of Jefferson, who sought to destroy Washington; and the present Secretary Randolph is a grandson of Jefferson. Washington, the inflexible patriot, frowned indignantly upon every departure from the path of rectitude.

I can do nothing more than record these things, and Watch!

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 179-81

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, June 9, 1862

Vienna,

June 9, 1862.

My Dearest Mother: I am pretty busy now with my “History,” and work on regularly enough, but of course I am disturbed by perpetual thoughts about our own country. I am convinced, however, that it is a mistake in us all to have been expecting a premature result. It is not a war; it is not exactly a revolution; it is the sanguinary development of great political and social problems, which it was the will of the Great Ruler of the Universe should be reserved as the work of the generation now on the stage and their immediate successors. The more I reflect upon this Civil War, and try to regard it as a series of historical phenomena, disengaging myself for the moment from all personal feelings or interests, the more I am convinced that the conflict is the result of antagonisms the violent collision of which could no longer be deferred, and that its duration must necessarily be longer than most of us anticipated. In truth, it is almost always idle to measure a sequence of great historical events by the mere lapse of time, which does very well to mark the ordinary succession of commonplace human affairs. The worst of it is, so far as we are all individually concerned, that men are short-lived, while man is immortal even on the earth, for aught that we know to the contrary. It will take half a century, perhaps, before the necessary conclusion to the great strife in which we are all individually concerned has been reached, and there are few of us now living destined to see the vast result. But it is of little consequence, I suppose, to the Supreme Disposer whether Brown, Jones, and Robinson understand now or are likely to live long enough to learn what he means by the general scheme according to which he governs the universe in which we play for a time our little parts. If we do our best to find out, try to conform ourselves to the inevitable, and walk as straight as we can by such light as we honestly can get for ourselves, even though it be but a tallow candle, we shall escape tumbling over our noses more than half a dozen times daily.

I look at the mass of the United States, and it seems impossible for me to imagine for physical and geographical and ethnographical reasons that its territory can be permanently cut up into two or more independent governments. A thousand years ago this happened to Europe, and the result was the parceling out of two or three hundred millions of human creatures into fifty or five hundred (it matters not how many) different nations, who thus came to have different languages, religions, manners, customs, and histories. As I am not writing a historical lecture, and as I am a wonderful son who can always astonish his mother with his wisdom, it will be sufficient for my present audience to say that not one of the causes which ten centuries ago disintegrated and decomposed the European world, with a territory about the size of the United States, and with essentially the same population, is present at this moment in America. The tendency of the age everywhere, and the strongest instinct of the American people, is to consolidation, unification. It is the tendency of all the great scientific discoveries and improvements which make the age of utilitarianism at which we have arrived. I do not believe the American people (of course I mean a large majority) will ever make such asses of themselves as to go to work in the middle of the nineteenth century and establish a Chinese wall of custom-houses and forts across the widest part of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and keep an army of 300,000 men perpetually on foot, with a navy of corresponding proportion, in order to watch the nation on the south side of the said Chinese wall, and fight it every half-dozen years or so, together with its European allies. The present war, sanguinary and expensive as it is, even if it lasts ten years longer, is cheaper both in blood and in money than the adoption of such a system; and I am so much of a democrat (far more now that I ever was in my life) as to feel confident that the great mass of the people will instinctively perceive that truth, and act in accordance with it. Therefore I have no fear that it will ever acknowledge a rival sovereignty to its own. The Union I do not believe can be severed. Therefore I believe the war must go on until this great popular force has beaten down and utterly annihilated the other force which has arranged itself in plump opposition to it. The world moves by forces.

The popular force, where land is half a dollar an acre and limitless in supply, for a century to come must prove irresistible. How long the conflict will last I know not, but slavery must go down and free labor prevail at last; but those of us whose blood is flowing or whose hearts are aching (like Mrs. W. D 's, for instance, mother of heroes) may find it small consolation that the United States of 1900 will be a greater and happier power than ever existed in the world, thanks to the sacrifices of this generation. But we have only to accept the action of great moral and political forces even as we must instinctively those of physical nature. There, you see what I am reduced to in the utter lack of topics. Instead of writing a letter I preach a sermon. We are going on very quietly. There is nothing doing now. Vienna has decanted itself into the country, and we are left like “lees for the vault to brag of.” The summer, after much preliminary sulking and blustering, seems willing to begin, and our garden is a great resource. There is small prospect of a war in Europe. The poor Poles will be put down at last. What is called moral influence will be bestowed upon them by England and France as generously as the same commodity has been bestowed upon our slaveholders, and it will do about as much good. Fine words have small effect on Cossacks or parsnips.

Give our love to the governor and to all the family far and near, and with a boundless quantity for yourself,

I am, my dearest mother,

Ever your most affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 256-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, September 29, 1862

Seward brought me to-day a long dispatch from Dudley, consul at Liverpool. Although his fears were somewhat simulated, I saw he was really excited and alarmed. He is easily frightened. I therefore talked on general subjects, but he turned away, said there were terrible combinations in Europe to break the blockade, that there was evidence of it in the documents he brought and wished me to read. They were getting eight or ten steamers ready to break the blockade. I told him I had no apprehensions from any general concerted attack, such as he dreaded, but that I was annoyed by the sneaking method which the Englishmen practiced of stealing into Charleston in the darkness of the night. On reading the principal dispatch, I assured him there was no evidence in that document of any purpose to break the blockade, that there was no mention of an armed vessel by Consul Dudley, that there was activity among the merchant adventurers of Great Britain, stimulated by the Bull Run tidings, which they had just previously received. I did not doubt that British merchants were actively preparing to try to run the blockade, but we would be active in trying to catch them.

He seemed relieved yet not perfectly satisfied. We had some conversation in relation to letters of marque, which he favors. Wishes me to purchase the Baltic and give Comstock the command. Told him I trusted our naval cruisers, though some were not as fast as I wished, would perform the service, and that were we to buy and arm the Baltic, a naval officer must command her.

This scheme for Comstock and the Baltic is a key to the affected alarm. It has been concocted by Thurlow Weed, who has a job in view for himself or friends, perhaps both. Though Seward was somewhat frightened, his fears may have been greater in appearance than reality. He did not alarm me. It is shameful that an old profligate party-debaucher like Weed should have such influence, and Seward is mistaken in supposing I could be deceived by this connivance. His own fears of breaking the blockade were in a degree simulated. Weed is the prompter in this Comstock and Baltic intrigue. It is a job. Wrote Seward a letter of some length on the subject of cruising to suppress the slave trade under the treaty which he, without consulting the Cabinet, had recently negotiated with Great Britain. The letter is in answer to one addressed to him by Mr. Stuart, the British Chargé d’Affaires. The treaty looks to me like a trap, and as if the Secretary of State had unwittingly “put his foot in it.” He thinks it would be popular to make a demonstration against slavery and the slave trade, — would conciliate the Abolitionists, who distrust him, and be a feather in his administration of the State Department. But he has been inconsiderate or duped, perhaps both. I declined to furnish cruisers as requested, for it would weaken our position, and I cannot consent to cripple our naval strength at this time, but prefer to retain, and to act under, the belligerent right of search, to that of restricted right conferred by the treaty.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 154-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 20, 1861

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

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

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, January 22, 1862

Vienna, January 22, 1862.

Dearest Little Mary: There is much sympathy for us in Austria, more, I should say, than in any country in Europe. The most widely circulated journal of Vienna, “Die Presse,” has a leading article almost every day on the subject, as warm, as strong, as sympathetic, and as well informed even to the minutest details as if it were written in Washington or Boston. This moment I have been interrupted by a visit from a field-marshal, whom I did not know, but who introduced himself to ask my advice about a young military friend who wished to serve in our army. Another gentleman called yesterday in behalf of a young man, son of one of the ministers of the grand duchy of Baden. I receive letters daily from officers in all parts of Austria, and two or three warriors were here this morning before I was up. I could have furnished half a dozen regiments since I have been here, but of course I can only say that I have nothing to do with the War Department, and that any one who wishes to try his chance must betake himself to Washington.

Lily has been to two or three balls, and enjoyed herself. The picnic balls, something like Almack's, are once a fortnight. The first took place last week, and Lily danced till three. She went with her mother, and I was allowed to stay at home, as it is not very amusing for an elderly party like me to look on at the mazy dance.

Ever your affectionate

Papagei.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 231-2

Stephen R. Mallory to James D. Bulloch, May 6, 1863

Confederate States of America,

Navy Department,

Richmond, May 6th, 1863.

Sir,—

Herewith you will receive copy of a Secret Act of Congress appropriating £2,000,000 for the construction of ironclad ships-of-war in Southern Europe, which Act was induced by the belief that we can have such vessels constructed and equipped in France and delivered to us upon the high seas or elsewhere. The President has selected you as the agent of the Government to accomplish the important object thus provided for by Congress. In view of the great improvements which theory and experiment have produced in the construction and equipment of armoured ships in France and England, as well as of your thorough knowledge of the subject and your means of observation, it is deemed expedient to leave to your judgment, untrammelled by instructions, the size and details of the vessels, subject to the consideration that in draft of water, speed and power, they must be able to enter and navigate the Mississippi river; that their first trial must be a long ocean voyage; that their antagonists carry 11-inch and 15-inch guns; and that they must be completed and delivered at the earliest day practicable.  . . . You will regard the £2,000,000 as the only fund for building, equipping, manning, providing, and furnishing the vessels for one year's service. Your immediate attention to this subject is important, and every effort must be made to have the ships completed at the earliest day practicable. To this end I suggest to you a conference with Mr. Slidell.

I am, etc.,

(Signed)

S. R. Mallory.

SOURCE: James D. Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, Volume 2, p. 30-1

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: August 23, 1861

No arms yet of any amount from Europe; though our agent writes that he has a number of manufactories at work. The U. S. agent has engaged the rest. All the world seems to be in the market buying arms. Mr. Dayton, U. S. Minister in Paris, has bought 30,000 flint-locks in France; and our agent wants authority to buy some too. He says the French statisticians allege that no greater mortality in battle occurs from the use of the percussion and the rifled musket than from the old smooth-bore flint-lock musket. This may be owing to the fact that a shorter range is sought with the latter.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 75

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, September 10, 1863

Centreville, Sept. 10, 1863.

I to-day had to call attention in a general order to the prevalence of profanity in the command, and at the same time to add that perhaps I had not set them a good example in this respect. I don't swear very much or very deep, — but I do swear, more often at officers than men, and there is a great deal of swearing in the regiment which I wish to check: of course, I shall stop it in myself entirely; I shall enforce the Articles of War if necessary. . . .

I think we must make up our minds to a long war yet, and possibly to a war with some European power. For years to come, I think all our lives will have to be more or less soldierly, — i. e. simple and unsettled; simple because unsettled.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 301

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: July 10, 1862

My husband has come. He believes from what he heard in Richmond that we are to be recognized as a nation by the crowned heads across the water, at last. Mr. Davis was very kind; he asked him to stay at his house, which he did, and went every day with General Lee and Mr. Davis to the battle-field as a sort of amateur aide to the President. Likewise they admitted him to the informal Cabinet meetings at the President's house. He is so hopeful now that it is pleasant to hear him, and I had not the heart to stick the small pins of Yeadon and Pickens in him yet a while.

Public opinion is hot against Huger and Magruder for McClellan's escape. Doctor Gibbes gave me some letters picked up on the battlefield. One signed “Laura,” tells her lover to fight in such a manner that no Southerner can ever taunt Yankees again with cowardice. She speaks of a man at home whom she knows, “who is still talking of his intention to seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth.” “Miserable coward!” she writes, “I will never speak to him again.” It was a relief to find one silly young person filling three pages with a description of her new bonnet and the bonnet still worn by her rival. Those fiery Joan of Arc damsels who goad on their sweethearts bode us no good.

Rachel Lyons was in Richmond, hand in glove with Mrs. Greenhow. Why not? “So handsome, so clever, so angelically kind,” says Rachel of the Greenhow, “and she offers to matronize me.”

Mrs. Philips, another beautiful and clever Jewess, has been put into prison again by “Beast” Butler because she happened to be laughing as a Yankee funeral procession went by.

Captain B. told of John Chesnut's pranks. Johnny was riding a powerful horse, captured from the Yankees. The horse dashed with him right into the Yankee ranks. A dozen Confederates galloped after him, shouting, “Stuart! Stuart!” The Yankees, mistaking this mad charge for Stuart's cavalry, broke ranks and fled. Daredevil Camden boys ride like Arabs!

Mr. Chesnut says he was riding with the President when Colonel Browne, his aide, was along. The General commanding rode up and, bowing politely, said: “Mr. President, am I in command here?” “Yes.” “Then I forbid you to stand here under the enemy's guns. Any exposure of a life like yours is wrong, and this is useless exposure. You must go back.” Mr. Davis answered: “Certainly, I will set an example of obedience to orders. Discipline must be maintained.” But he did not go back.

Mr. Chesnut met the Haynes, who had gone on to nurse their wounded son and found him dead. They were standing in the corridor of the Spotswood. Although Mr. Chesnut was staying at the President's, he retained his room at the hotel. So he gave his room to them. Next day, when he went back to his room he found that Mrs. Hayne had thrown herself across the foot of the bed and never moved. No other part of the bed had been touched. She got up and went back to the cars, or was led back. He says these heartbroken mothers are hard to face.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 201-2

John L. Motley to Josiah Quincy III, Nov. 23, 1859

WALTON ON THAMES (england), Nov. 23,1859.

MY DEAR SIR: — Very long after the date, — 29 January, 1859, — which you were so kind as to write, together with your honored name, in the blank leaf of the copy of your admirable life of John Quincy Adams, did the volume reach me. It has been in my possession, indeed, but a very few weeks; but I have already read it through carefully once, besides studying many passages of it many times.

I thank you most sincerely for your goodness in presenting me with the book. To have known and venerated its author from my earliest youth, I shall always consider one of the great privileges of my life. I esteem myself still more fortunate in being able to find sympathy with my own political views, and with my own convictions as to the tendency and aspects of the American commonwealth, in one of so large and elevated a mind, and so wide an experience, as yourself. This is an epoch in which, both in Europe and America, the despotic principle seems to be uppermost, in spite of all the struggles of the oppressed to free themselves. . . . .

At home, the battle between the Slave Power in alliance with the Mob Power, and the party which believes in the possibility of a free republic, governed by the laws of reason, and pursuing a path of progress and civilization, is soon I hope to be fought out, without any compromise. The party of despotism is, I trust, at the next Presidential election, to be fairly matched against the party of freedom, and one or the other must go down in the conflict.

I ought to apologize for making this digression from the topic of my letter; but knowing your sentiments on the great subject of liberty, it was impossible for me to say less; nor was it easy, in thinking of John Quincy Adams, the very breath of whose existence was the love of freedom, not to speak of the great object of his pure and illustrious career. I was much struck with a brief analysis which you give, on pages 374, 375, of his view of our government. ‘The Constitution neither of the United States nor of Massachusetts can, without a gross and fraudulent perversion of language, be termed a Democracy. They form a mixed government, compounded not only of the three elements of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, but with a fourth added element, confederacy. The Democrats are now the most devoted and most obsequious champions of executive power, — the very life-guard of the commander of the armies and navies of this Union. The name of Democracy was assumed because it was discovered to be very taking among the multitude; yet, after all, it is but the investment of the multitude with absolute power.’ . . . .

It seems to me that human liberty, and its result, human civilization, have not been in so great danger as now for many years. Men have grown so familiar with the ugly face of despotism, both in Europe and America, that they really begin to love it. It is for this reason that — especially at this epoch — your life of Mr. Adams is most welcome. I wish it could be made a text-book in every public school and college in the Free States of America. It is a statue of gold raised by most worthy hands to him who most deserved such an honor.

Allow me to say, that, from a literary point of view, your work seems to me remarkably artistic and satisfactory. The portraiture of the just man, with his solid, unshaken mind, tenacious of his noble purpose in the midst of the “civium prava jubentium,” is a very finished one.

I never had the honor of his personal acquaintance, but I have always felt — without being thoroughly aware of my reasons — that he was among the small band of intellectual, accomplished, virtuous, and patriotic statesmen, not only of our country, but of all countries.

There are always plenty of politicians in the world, but few statesmen; and there are sometimes eloquent patriots who are sadly deficient in culture, and others still more lamentably wanting in still more important endowments. But here was a scholar, — a ripe and rare one; a statesman trained in the school of Washington; a man familiar with foreign courts and laws and tongues; a life-long student, ever feasting on the nectared sweets of divine philosophy, and yet a busy, practical, and most sagacious administrator of political affairs; a ready debater; an impetuous and irresistible orator; and a man so perfect in his integrity that it was as impossible for him to be intimidated, as to be cajoled or bribed. The wonder is, not that such a man should have lost his re-election to the Presidency, but that he ever should by any combination have arrived at it at all.

But this is not a pleasant reflection. Would that he were to be the candidate of the Republicans in 1860. It would almost be a triumph to be defeated under such an indomitable chief.

“Et cuncta terrarum subucta

Prӕter atrocem animum Catonis.”

I must once more thank you most warmly for the noble portrait you have given us of the patriot, philosopher, and statesman; and for yourself pray accept my sincerest wishes for your health and happiness.

Believe me, my dear sir, most respectfully and truly yours,

J. Lothrop Motley.

SOURCE: Edmund Quincy, Life of Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, p. 523-5

Brigadier-General John A. Rawlins to Mary Emeline Hurlburt Rawlins, March 28, 1864

March 28, 1864.

. . . To-day has been mild and cloudy, threatening rain. Everything is quiet along our lines, but in our camps is a burning desire for something to be done which will break the monotony prevailing in this vicinity, and the only fear I entertain is that the General's restlessness, and the spirit animating the troops will make him commence operations before he is sufficiently prepared. You know, I believe more in the infallibility of numbers than in the infallibility of generals, no matter how great their reputation.

Everything we hold dear as patriots and pride ourselves in as Americans, is staked more certainly upon the impending campaign than upon any which has preceded it. We are close upon the beginning of the fourth year of the war and notwithstanding all our successes in the West and South, our National Capital is still beleaguered by a formidable and unbroken army of the enemy. Unless this army of foes is defeated and broken, and our Capital relieved of its fierce frowns, we cannot hope that the recognition of the rebel government will be much longer postponed by European Governments, a recognition which while it would not necessarily precipitate us into a war with the powers making it, would tend to raise the hopes of our enemy. And worst of all, it would tend much towards the further prostration of our national finances. In this view of the case no steps should be taken that would in the least possible way promise anything less than certain success.

I believe a victory, great and decisive, is within our grasp — that we have men enough which may be spared from other points, to be brought here, to increase our numbers to so far beyond those of the enemy, do all he can, as to ensure victory. In other words, we may in this manner “organize victory,” and this is the only way to organize it.

General Grant returned this afternoon from Washington much disgusted with the news from General Banks, who was to have been at Alexandria on the Red River by the 17th instant, but instead of being there was on the 18th instant still at New Orleans, while the forces from Sherman had promptly reached Alexandria in pursuance of orders, but will have to wait there for weeks for the tardy and I might say immovable Banks. This delay of his may delay greatly our spring operations.

This proves to me that politicians cannot be soldiers and entrusted with great and responsible commands. It may, however, be providential, for it opens the General's eyes to the character of men he has to command, and fixes in a measure the limit to which he may trust them. Thank God there are generals whom he knows and can trust implicitly to carry out his orders, and that promptly. . . .

SOURCE: James H. Wilson, The Life of John A. Rawlins, p. 407-8

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 20, 1865

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, April 20, 1865.

I am glad you were so prompt in putting your house in mourning for the loss of the President, and I am also glad to see the press in Philadelphia take so much notice of you.

Lyman,¹ much to my sorrow and regret, leaves me to-day, he considering the destruction of Lee's army as justifying his return home. Lyman is such a good fellow, and has been so intimately connected personally with me, that I feel his separation as the loss of an old and valued friend.

I have had for the last two days as guest at my headquarters Mr. Charles J. Faulkner, late Minister to France. He is on his way to Richmond, to assist in bringing back Virginia to the Union. He acknowledges the Confederacy destroyed, is in favor of a convention of the people to rescind the ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, and ask to be received into the Union. This is in my judgment the best course to be pursued. Mr. Faulkner goes from here to Richmond. We also had yesterday the arrival of a Confederate officer from Danville, who reported the rumored surrender of Johnston, and the flight of Jeff. Davis to the region beyond the Mississippi, from whence I have no doubt he will go into Mexico, and thence to Europe.

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¹ Theodore Lyman, aide-de-camp to General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 274