Diary of William Howard Russell: June 21, 1861

Verily I would be sooner in the Coptic Cairo, narrow streeted, dark bazaared, many flied, much vexed by donkeys and by overland route passengers, than the horrid tongue of land which licks the muddy margin of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The thermometer at 100° in the shade before noon indicates nowhere else such an amount of heat and suffering, and yet prostrate as I was, it was my fate to argue that England was justified in conceding belligerent, rights to the South, and that the attitude of neutrality we had assumed in this terrible quarrel is not in effect an aggression on the United States; and here is a difference to be perceived between the North and the South.

The people of the seceding States, aware in their consciences that they have been most active in their hostility to Great Britain, and whilst they were in power were mainly responsible for the defiant, irritating, and insulting tone commonly used to us by American statesmen, are anxious at the present moment when so much depends on the action of foreign countries, to remove all unfavorable impressions from our minds by declarations of good will, respect, and admiration, not quite compatible with the language of their leaders in times not long gone by. The North, as yet unconscious of the loss of power, and reared in a school of menace and violent assertion of their rights, regarding themselves as the whole of the United States, and animated by their own feeling of commercial and political opposition to Great Britain, maintain the high tone of a people who have never known let or hindrance in their passions, and consider it an outrage that

the whole world does not join in active sympathy for a government which in its brief career has contrived to affront every nation in Europe with which it had any dealings.

If the United States have astonished France by their ingratitude, they have certainly accustomed England to their petulance, and one can fancy the satisfaction with which the Austrian Statesmen who remember Mr. Webster's despatch to Mr. Hulsemann, contemplate the present condition of the United States in the face of an insurrection of these sovereign and independent States which the Cabinet at Washington stigmatizes as an outbreak of rebels and traitors to the royalty of the Union.

During my short sojourn in this country I have never yet met any person who could show me where the sovereignty of the Union resides. General Prentiss, however, and his Illinois volunteers, are quite ready to fight for it.

In the afternoon the General drove me round the camps in company with Mr. Washburne, Member of Congress, from Illinois, his staff and a party of officers, among whom was Mr. Oglesby, colonel of a regiment of State Volunteers, who struck me by his shrewdness, simple honesty, and zeal,* He told me that he had begun life in the utmost obscurity, but that somehow or other he got into a lawyer's office and there, by hard drudgery, by mother wit, and industry, notwithstanding a defective education, he had raised himself not only to independence, but to such a position that 1000 men had gathered at his call and selected one who had never led a company in his life to be their colonel; in fact, he is an excellent orator of the western school, and made good homely, telling speeches to his men.

“I'm not as good as your Frenchmen of the schools of Paris, nor am I equal to the Russian colonels I met at St. Petersburg, who sketched me out how they had beaten you Britishers at Sebastopol,” said he; “but I know I can do good straight fighting with my boys when I get a chance. There is a good deal in training, to be sure, but nature tells too. Why I believe I would make a good artillery officer if I was put to it. General, you heard how I laid one of them guns the other day and touched her off with my own hand and sent the ball right into a tree half-a-mile away.” The Colonel evidently thought he had by that feat proved his fitness for the command of a field battery. One of the German officers who was listening to the lively old man's talk, whispered to me, “Dere is a good many of tese colonels in dis camp.”

At each station the officers came out of their tents, shook hands all round, and gave an unfailing invitation to get down and take a drink, and the guns on the General's approach fired salutes, as though it was a time of profoundest peace. Powder was certainly more plentiful than in the Confederate camps, where salutes are not permitted unless by special order on great occasions.

The General remained for some time in the camp of the Chicago light artillery, which was commanded by a fine young Scotchman of the Saxon genus Smith, who told me that the privates of his company represented a million and a half of dollars in property. Their guns, horses, carriages, and accoutrements were all in the most creditable order, and there was an air about the men and about their camp which showed they did not belong to the same class as the better disciplined Hungarians of Milotzky close at hand.

Whilst we were seated in Captain Smith's tent, a number of the privates came forward, and sang the “Star-spangled banner,” and a patriotic song, to the air of “God save the Queen!” and the rest of the artillery-men, and a number of stragglers from the other camps, assembled and then formed line behind the singers. When the chorus was over there arose a great shout for Washburne, and the honorable congressman was fain to come forward and make a speech, in which he assured his hearers of a very speedy victory and the advent of liberty all over the land. Then “General Prentiss” was called for; and as citizen soldiers command their Generals on such occasions, he too was obliged to speak, and to tell his audience "the world had never seen any men more devoted, gallant, or patriotic than themselves.” “Oglesby” was next summoned, and the tall, portly, good-humored old man stepped to the front, and with excellent tact and good sense, dished up in the Buncombe style, told them the time for making speeches had passed, indeed it had lasted too long; and although it was said there was very little fighting when there was much talking, he believed too much talking was likely to lead to a great deal more fighting than any one desired to see between citizens of the United States of America, except their enemies, who, no doubt, were much better pleased to see Americans fighting each other than to find them engaged in any other employment. Great as the mischief of too much talking had been, too much writing had far more of the mischief to answer for. The pen was keener than the tongue, hit harder, and left a more incurable wound; but the pen was better than the tongue, because it was able to cure the mischief it had inflicted,” And so by a series of sentences the Colonel got round to me, and to my consternation, remembering how I had fared with my speech at the little private dinner on St. Patrick's Day in New York, I was called upon by stentorian lungs, and hustled to the stump by a friendly circle, till I escaped by uttering a few sentences as to “mighty struggle,” “Europe gazing,” “the world anxious,” “the virtues of discipline,” “the admirable lessons of a soldier's life,” and the “aspiration that in a quarrel wherein a British subject was ordered, by an authority he was bound to respect, to remain neutral, God might preserve the right.”

Colonel, General, and all addressed the soldiers as “gentlemen,” and their auditory did not on their part refrain from expressing their sentiments in the most unmistakable manner. “Bully for you, General!” “Bravo, Washburne!” “That's so, Colonel!” and the like, interrupted the harangues; and when the oratorical exercises were over the men crowded round the staff, cheered and hurrahed, and tossed up their caps in the greatest delight.

With the exception of the foreign officers, and some of the Staff, there are very few of the colonels, majors, captains, or lieutenants who know anything of their business. The men do not care for them, and never think of saluting them. A regiment of Germans was sent across from Bird's Point this evening for plundering and robbing the houses in the district in which they were quartered.

It may be readily imagined that the scoundrels who had to fly from every city in Europe before the face of the police will not stay their hands when they find themselves masters of the situation in the so-called country of an enemy. In such matters the officers have little or no control, and discipline is exceedingly lax, and punishments but sparingly inflicted, the use of the lash being forbidden altogether. Fine as the men are, incomparably better armed, clad — and doubtless better fed — than the Southern troops, they will scarcely meet them man to man in the field with any chance of success. Among the officers are bar-room keepers, persons little above the position of potmen in England, grocers' apprentices, and such like — often inferior socially, and in every other respect, to the men whom they are supposed to command. General Prentiss has seen service, I believe, in Mexico; but he appears to me to be rather an ardent politician, embittered against slaveholders and the South, than a judicious or skilful military leader.

The principles on which these isolated commanders carry on the war are eminently defective. They apply their whole minds to petty expeditions, which go out from the camps, attack some Secessionist gathering, and then return, plundering, as they go and come, exasperating enemies, converting neutrals into opponents, disgusting friends, and leaving it to the Secessionists to boast that they have repulsed them. Instead of encouraging the men and improving their discipline these ill-conducted expeditions have an opposite result.

_______________

* Since died of wounds received in action.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 337-41

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: July 21, 1863

We have intelligence to-day, derived from a New York paper of the 18th inst., that the “insurrection” in New York had subsided, under the menacing attitude of the military authority, and that Lincoln had ordered the conscription law to be enforced. This gives promise of a long war.

Mr. Mallory sent a note to the Secretary of War to-day (which of course the Secretary did not see, and will never hear of) by a young man named Juan Boyle, asking permission for B. to pass into Maryland as an agent of the Navy Department. Judge Campbell indorsed on the back of it (to Brig.-Gen. Winder) that permission was “allowed” by “order.” But what is this “agent” to procure in the United States which could not be had by our steamers plying regularly between Wilmington and Europe?

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 384-5

Brigadier-General William F. Bartlett to Edwin M. Stanton, August 9, 1865

(Confidential.)

16 Broad Street, Boston, August 9, 1865.

Hon. E. M. Stanton: —

Dear Sir,— You were kind enough to say to me a few weeks ago, when I called to pay my respects to you before leaving Washington, that you would be glad to do anything for me at any time. I take you at your word, and ask you frankly for advice on a subject which has been suggested by some of my friends, in the army and out.

They are desirous that I should visit Europe before I leave the army, — that I should be there while an officer of the U. S. Volunteers, — and wish me to apply for a six months’ leave of absence. You are aware that I lost my leg in the first year of the war, and have been in the service (active) ever since, being badly wounded again at the assault on Port Hudson in the arm and other foot (where my conduct caused you to offer me a brigadier-general's commission), and again in the Wilderness. My health was very much impaired by my imprisonment last summer, and I have not been well since, although on duty in command of the First Division, Ninth Corps, until within a few weeks, after I was fit for any duty. I have not sought for assignment to any duty since the muster-out of the troops, for I knew there were a hundred applicants for every one place, and I did not care to swell the number. I am at home, awaiting orders. I thought I would take you at your word, sir, and instead of sending a formal application for this leave, backed by such influence as I might command, I would simply ask you what favor such a request would meet with from you.

Colonel Conolly, Adjutant-general (late) of forces in Canada, is desirous that I should visit England while I am still in the army.

Will you be kind enough to tell me your views on the subject, and whether you will grant such a request?

I should expect to be mustered out at the expiration of the leave unless my services were required, which is not probable.

Even if the leave were to be on half or without pay, from the time when I should otherwise be mustered out, it would meet the wishes of my friends, as far as still being in the service is concerned. Hoping for an answer as frank as my statement to you is, I remain, very respectfully and sincerely,

Your obedient servant,

W. F. Bartlett, Brigadier-general.

SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William Francis Bartlett, p. 152-4

Diary of Gideon Welles: March 31, 1863

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diary of William Howard Russell: Friday, June 14, 1861

Last night with my good host from his plantation to the great two-storied steamer General Quitman, at Natchez. She was crowded with planters, soldiers and their families, and as the lights shone out of her windows, looked like a walled castle blazing from double lines of embrasures.

The Mississippi is assuredly the most uninteresting river in the world, and I can only describe it hereabout by referring to the account of its appearance which I have already given — not a particle of romance, in spite of oratorical patriots and prophets, can ever shine from its depths, sacred to cat and buffalo fish, or vivify its turbid waters.

Before noon we were in sight of Vicksburg, which is situated on a high bank or bluff on the left bank of the river, about 400 miles above New Orleans and some 120 miles from Natchez.

Mr. MacMeekan, the proprietor of the "Washington," declares himself to have been the pioneer of hotels in the far west; but he has now built himself this huge caravansary, and rests from his wanderings. We entered the dining saloon, and found the tables closely packed with a numerous company of every condition in life, from generals and planters down to soldiers in the uniform of privates. At the end of the room there was a long table on which the joints and dishes were brought hot from the kitchen to be carved by the negro waiters, male and female, and as each was brought in the proprietor, standing in the centre of the room, shouted out with a loud voice, "Now, then, here is a splendid goose! ladies and gentlemen, don't neglect the goose and apple-sauce! Here's a piece of beef that I can recommend! upon my honor you will never regret taking a slice of the beef. Oyster-pie! oyster-pie! never was better oyster-pie seen in Vicksburg. Run about, boys, and take orders. Ladies and gentlemen, just look at that turkey! who's for turkey?" — and so on, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and combating with the flies.

Altogether it was a semi-barbarous scene, but the host was active and attentive; and after all, his recommendations were very much like those which it was the habit of the taverners in old London to call out in the streets to the passers-by when the joints were ready. The little negroes who ran about to take orders were smart, but now and then came into violent collision, and were cuffed incontinently. One mild-looking little fellow stood by my chair and appeared so sad that I asked him "Are you happy, my boy?" He looked quite frightened. "Why don't you answer me?" "I'se afeered, sir; I can't tell that to Massa." "Is not your master kind to you?" "Massa very kind man, sir; very good man when he is not angry with me," and his eyes filled with tears to the brim.

The war fever is rife in Vicksburg, and the Irish and German laborers, to the extent of several hundreds, have all gone off to the war.

When dinner was over, the mayor and several gentlemen of the city were good enough to request that I would attend a meeting at a room in the railway-station, where some of the inhabitants of the town had assembled. Accordingly I went to the terminus and found a room filled with gentlemen. Large china bowls, blocks of ice, bottles of wine and spirits, and boxes of cigars were on the table, and all the materials for a symposium.

The company discussed recent events, some of which I learned for the first time. Dislike was expressed to the course of the authorities in demanding negro labor for the fortifications along the river, and uneasiness was expressed respecting a negro plot in Arkansas; but the most interesting matter was Judge Taney's protest against the legality of the President's course in suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the case of Merriman. The lawyers who were present at this meeting were delighted with his argument, which insists that Congress alone can suspend the writ, and that the President cannot legally do so.

The news of the defeat of an expedition from Fortress Monroe against a Confederate post at Great Bethel, has caused great rejoicing. The accounts show that there was the grossest mismanagement on the part of the Federal officers. The Northern papers particularly regret the loss of Major Winthrop, aide-de-camp to General Butler, a writer of promise. At four o'clock, P. M., I bade the company farewell, and the train started for Jackson. The line runs through a poor clay country, cut up with gulleys and watercourses made by violent rain.

There were a number of volunteer soldiers in the train; and their presence no doubt attracted the girls and women who waved flags and cheered for Jeff Davis and States' Rights. Well, as I travel on through such scenes, with a fine critical nose in the air, I ask myself, "Is any Englishman better than these publicans and sinners in regard to this question of slavery?" It was not on moral or religious grounds that our ancestors abolished serfdom. And if to-morrow our good farmers, deprived of mowers, reapers, ploughmen, hedgers and ditchers, were to find substitutes in certain people of a dark skin assigned to their use by Act of Parliament, I fear they would be almost as ingenious as the Rev. Dr. Seabury in discovering arguments physiological, ethnological, and biblical, for the retention of their property. And an evil day would it be for them if they were so tempted; for assuredly, without any derogation to the intellect of the Southern men, it may be said that a large proportion of the population is in a state of very great moral degradation compared with civilized Anglo-Saxon communities.

The man is more natural, and more reckless; he has more of the qualities of the Arab than are to be reconciled with civilization; and it is only among the upper classes that the influences of the aristocratic condition which is generated by the subjection of masses of men to their fellow-man are to be found.

At six o'clock, the train stopped in the country at a railway crossing by the side of a large platform. On the right was a common, bounded by a few detached wooden houses, separated by palings from each other, and surrounded by rows of trees. In front of the station were two long wooden sheds, which, as the signboard indicates, were exchanges or drinking saloons; and beyond these again were visible some rudimentary streets of straggling houses, above which rose three pretentious spires and domes, resolved into insignificance by nearer approach. This was Jackson.

Our host was at the station in his carriage, and drove us to his residence, which consisted of some detached houses shaded by trees in a small enclosure, and bounded by a kitchen garden. He was one of the men who had been filled with the afflatus of 1848, and joined the Young Ireland party before it had seriously committed itself to an unfortunate outbreak; and when all hope of success had vanished, he sought, like many others of his countrymen, a shelter under the stars and stripes, which, like most of the Irish settled in the Southern States, he was now bent on tearing asunder. He has the honor of being mayor of Jackson, and of enjoying a competitive examination with his medical rivals for the honor of attending the citizens.

In the evening I walked out with him to the adjacent city, which has no title to the name, except as being the State capital. The mushroom growth of these States, using that phrase merely as to their rapid development, raises hamlets in a small space to the dignity of cities. It is in such outlying expansion of the great republic that the influence of the foreign emigration is most forcibly displayed. It would be curious to inquire, for example, how many men there are in the city of Jackson exercising mechanical arts or engaged in small commerce, in skilled or manual labor, who are really Americans in the proper sense of the word. I was struck by the names over the doors of the shops, which were German, Irish, Italian, French, and by foreign tongues and accents in the streets ; but, on the other hand, it is the native-born American who obtains the highest political stations and arrogates to himself the largest share of governmental emoluments.

Jackson proper consists of strings of wooden houses, with white porticoes and pillars a world too wide for their shrunk rooms, and various religious and other public edifices, of the hydrocephalic order of architecture, where vulgar cupola and exaggerated steeple tower above little bodies far too feeble to support them. There are of course a monster hotel and blazing bar-rooms — the former celebrated as the scene of many a serious difficulty, out of some of which the participators never escaped alive. The streets consist of rows of houses such as I have seen at Macon, Montgomery, and Baton Rouge; and as we walked towards the capital or State-house there were many more invitations "to take a drink" addressed to my friend and me than we were able to comply with. Our steps were bent to the State-house, which is a pile of stone, with open colonnades, and an air of importance at a distance which a nearer examination of its dilapidated condition does not confirm. Mr. Pettus, the Governor of the State of Mississippi, was in the Capitol; and on sending in our cards, we were introduced to his room, which certainly was of more than republican simplicity. The apartment was surrounded with some common glass cases, containing papers and old volumes of books; the furniture, a table or desk, and a few chairs and a ragged carpet; the glass in the windows cracked and broken; the walls and ceiling discolored by mildew.

The Governor is a silent man, of abrupt speech, but easy of access; and, indeed, whilst we were speaking, strangers and soldiers walked in and out of his room, looked around them, and acted in all respects as if they were in a public-house, except in ordering drinks. This grim, tall, angular man seemed to me such a development of public institutions in the South as Mr. Seward was in a higher phase in the North. For years he hunted deer and trapped in the forest of the far west, and lived in a Natty Bumpo or David Crocket state of life; and he was not ashamed of the fact when taunted with it during his election contest, but very rightly made the most of his independence and his hard work.

The pecuniary honors of his position are not very great as Governor of the enormous State of Mississippi. He has simply an income of £800 a year and a house provided for his use; he is not only quite contented with what he has but believes that the society in which he lives is the highest development of civilized life, notwithstanding the fact that there are more outrages on the person in his State, nay, more murders perpetrated in the very capital, than were known in the worst days of mediaeval Venice or Florence; — indeed, as a citizen said to me, "Well, I think our average in Jackson is a murder a month;" but he used a milder name for the crime.

The Governor conversed on the aspect of affairs, and evinced that wonderful confidence in his own people which, whether it arises from ignorance of the power of the North, or a conviction of greater resources, is to me so remarkable. "Well, sir," said he, dropping a portentous plug of tobacco just outside the spittoon, with the air of a man who wished to show he could have hit the centre if he liked, "England is no doubt a great country, and has got fleets and the like of that, and may have a good deal to do in Europe; but the sovereign State of Mississippi can do a great deal better without England than England can do without her." Having some slight recollection of Mississippi repudiation, in which Mr. Jefferson Davis was so actively engaged, I thought it possible that the Governor might be right; and after a time his Excellency shook me by the hand, and I left, much wondering within myself what manner of men they must be in the State of Mississippi when Mr. Pettus is their chosen Governor; and yet, after all, he is honest and fierce; and perhaps he is so far qualified as well as any other man to be Governor of the State. There are newspapers, electric telegraphs, and railways; there are many educated families, even much good society, I am told, in the State; but the larger masses of the people struck me as being in a condition not much elevated from that of the original backwoodsman. On my return to the Doctor's house I found some letters which had been forwarded to me from New Orleans had gone astray, and I was obliged, therefore, to make arrangements for my departure on the following evening.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 295-300

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