Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 27, 1865

Bright and windy. The Virginia Assembly has passed resolutions instructing the Senators to vote for the negro troops bill—so Mr. Hunter must obey or resign.

It is authoritatively announced in the papers that Gen. J. E. Johnston has taken command of the army in front of Sherman (a perilous undertaking), superseding Beauregard.

Grant is said to be massing his troops on our right, to precipitate them upon the South Side Railroad. Has Hill marched his corps away to North Carolina? If so, Richmond is in very great danger.

The Examiner to-day labors to show that the evacuation of Richmond would be fatal to the cause The Sentinel says it has authority for saying that Richmond will not be given up. "Man proposes—God disposes." It is rumored that Fayetteville, N. C., has fallen into the hands of the enemy.

I saw Col. Northrop, late Commissary-General, to-day. He looks down, dark, and dissatisfied. Lee's army eats without him.

I see nothing of Lieut.-Col. Ruffin. He always looks down and darkly. Gen. Breckinridge seems to have his heart in the cause— not his soul in his pocket, like most of his predecessors.

I saw admiral Buchanan to-day, limping a little. He says the enemy tried to shoot away his legs to keep him from dancing at his granddaughter's wedding, but won't succeed.

Robert Tyler told me that it was feared Governor Brown, and probably Stephens and Toombs, were sowing disaffection among the Georgia troops, hoping to get them out of the army; but that if faction can be kept down thirty days, our cause would assume a new phase. He thinks Breckinridge will make a successful Secretary. The President and Gen. Lee were out at Camp Lee to-day, urging the returned soldiers (from captivity) to forego the usual furlough and enter upon the spring campaign now about to begin. The other day, when the President made a speech to them, he was often interrupted by cries of "furlough!"

The ladies in the Treasury Department are ordered to Lynchburg, whither the process of manufacturing Confederate States notes is to be transferred.

A committee of the Virginia Assembly waited on the President on Saturday, who told them it was no part of his intention to evacuate Richmond. But some construed his words as equivocal. Tobacco, cotton, etc. are leaving the city daily. The city is in danger.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 434-5

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: August 6, 1864

Hot and dry.

The booming of cannon heard yesterday evening was from one of our batteries below Drewry's Bluff. The enemy answered from their batteries, the existence of which we had no knowledge of before. No one was hurt.

About the same time Gen. Beauregard sprung a mine under the enemy's mine, and blew it up, no doubt destroying many lives. This was succeeded by heavy, but, perhaps, harmless shelling along the lines.

Another raiding party has been defeated and dispersed at Madison, Ga.

But we have been unfortunate in a naval engagement in the lower bay, at Mobile. We have lost Admiral Buchanan's ram “Tennessee,” and several other steamers. One of the enemy's monitors was sunk. They had five vessels to our one.

Battles are momentarily expected at Atlanta and Winchester. We have nothing additional from the North.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 261

Abraham Lincoln to Erastus Corning and Others, June 12, 1863

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, June 12, 1863.

Hon. ERASTUS CORNING,  and others:

GENTLEMEN: Your letter of May 19,* inclosing the resolutions of a public meeting held at Albany, N.Y., on the 16th of the same month, was received several days ago.

The resolutions as I understand them are resolvable into two propositions — first, the expression of a purpose to sustain the cause of the Union, to secure peace through victory, and to support the Administration in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion; and secondly, a declaration of censure upon the Administration for supposed unconstitutional action, such as the making of military arrests. And from the two propositions a third is deduced, which is that the gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to maintain our common Government and country despite the folly or wickedness, as they may conceive, of any Administration. This position is eminently patriotic, and as such I thank the meeting and congratulate the nation for it. My own purpose is the same; so that the meeting and myself have a common object, and can have no difference except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object.

And here I ought to close this paper and would close it if there was no apprehension that more injurious consequences than any merely personal to myself might follow the censures systematically cast upon me for doing what in my view of duty I could not forbear. The resolutions promise to support me in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion, and I have not knowingly employed nor shall I knowingly employ any other. But the meeting by their resolutions assert and argue that certain military arrests and proceedings following them for which I am ultimately responsible are unconstitutional. I think they are not. The resolutions quote from the Constitution the definition of treason, and also the limiting safeguards and guarantees therein provided for the citizen on trials of treason, and on his being held to answer for capital or otherwise infamous crimes, and in criminal prosecutions his right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. They proceed to resolve “that these safeguards of the rights of the citizen against the pretensions of arbitrary power were intended more especially for his protection in times of civil commotion.” And apparently to demonstrate the proposition the resolutions proceed:

They were secured substantially to the English people after years of protracted civil war, and were adopted into our Constitution at the close of the Revolution.

Would not the demonstration have been better if it could have been truly said that these safeguards had been adopted and applied during the civil wars and during our Revolution instead of after the one and at the close of the other! I, too, am devotedly for them after civil war and before civil war and at all times, “except when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require” their suspension.

The resolutions proceed to tell us that these safeguards “have stood the test of seventy-six years of trial under our republican system under circumstances which show that while they constitute the foundation of all free government they are the elements of the enduring stability of the Republic.” No one denies that they have so stood the test up to the beginning of the present rebellion if we except a certain occurrence at New Orleans, nor does any one question that they will stand the same test much longer after the rebellion closes. But these provisions of the Constitution have no application to the case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of were not made for treason — that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon the conviction of which the punishment is death — nor yet were they made to hold persons to answer for any capital or otherwise infamous crimes, nor were the proceedings following in any constitutional or legal sense “criminal prosecutions.” The arrests were made on totally different grounds and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of the arrests. Let us consider the real case with which we are dealing and apply it to the parts of the Constitution plainly made for such cases.

Prior to my installation here it had been inculcated that any State had a lawful right to secede from the National Union, and that it would be expedient to exercise the right whenever the devotees of the doctrine should fail to elect a President to their own liking. I was elected contrary to their liking, and accordingly so far as it was legally possible they had taken seven States out of the Union, had seized many of the U.S. forts, and had fired upon the U.S. flag, all before I was inaugurated, and of course before I had done any official act whatever. The rebellion thus begun soon ran into the present civil war, and in certain respects it began on very unequal terms between the parties. The insurgents had been preparing for it for more than thirty years, while the Government had taken no steps to resist them. The former had carefully considered all the means which could be turned to their account. It undoubtedly was a well-pondered reliance with them that in their own unrestricted efforts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law all together the Government would in great degree be restrained by the same Constitution and law from arresting their progress. Their sympathizers pervaded all departments of the Government and nearly all communities of the people. From this material, under cover of “liberty of speech, liberty of the press and habeas corpus, they hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. They knew that in times such as they were inaugurating by the Constitution itself the habeas corpus might be suspended, but they also knew that they had friends who would make a question as to who was to suspend it, meanwhile their spies and others might remain at large to help on their cause. Or if as has happened the Executive should suspend the writ without ruinous waste of time instances of arresting innocent persons might occur, as are always likely to occur in such cases, and then a clamor could be raised in regard to this which might be at least of some service to the insurgent cause.

It needed no very keen perception to discover this part of the enemy's programme so soon as by open hostilities their machinery Was fairly put in motion. Yet thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals I was slow to adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being within the exceptions of the Constitution and as indispensable to the public safety. Nothing is better known to history than that courts of justice are utterly incompetent to such cases. Civil courts are organized chiefly for the trials of individuals, or at most a few individuals acting in concert, and this in quiet times and on charges of crimes well defined in the law. Even in times of peace bands of horse-thieves and robbers frequently grow too numerous and powerful for ordinary courts of justice. But what comparison in numbers have such bands ever borne to the insurgent sympathizers even in many of the loyal States? Again a jury frequently has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor. And yet again he who dissuades one man from volunteering or induces one soldier to desert weakens the Union cause as much as he who kills a Union soldier in battle. Yet this dissuasion or inducement may be so conducted as to be no defined crime of which any civil court would take cognizance.

Ours is a case of rebellion — so-called by the resolutions before me; in fact a clear, flagrant, and gigantic case of rebellion; and the provision of the Constitution that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it” is the provision which specially applies to our present case. This provision plainly attests the understanding of those who made the Constitution that ordinary courts of justice are inadequate to “cases of rebellion” — attests their purpose that in such cases men may be held in custody whom the courts acting under ordinary rules would discharge. Habeas corpus does not discharge men who are proved to be guilty of defined crime, and its suspension is allowed by the Constitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who cannot be proved to be guilty of defined crime, “when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” This is precisely our present case — a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. Indeed arrests by process of courts and arrests in cases of rebellion do not proceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is directed at the small percentage of ordinary and continuous perpetration of crime, while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against the Government, which at most will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case arrests are made not so much for what has been done as for what probably would be done. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former. In such cases the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered he is sure to help the enemy; much more, if he talks ambiguously — talks for his country with “buts” and “ifs” and “ands.”

Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall have been committed may be illustrated by a few notable examples. General John C. Breckinridge, General Robert E. Lee, General Joseph E. Johnston, General John B. Magruder, General William Preston, General Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the rebellion began and were nearly as well known to be traitors then as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and held them the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them if arrested would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.

By the third resolution the meeting indicates their opinion that military arrests may be constitutional in localities where rebellion actually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional in localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests shall not be made “outside of the lines of necessary military occupation and the scenes of insurrection? Inasmuch, however, as the Constitution itself makes no such distinction I am unable to believe that there is any such constitutional distinction. I concede that the class of arrests complained of can be constitutional only when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require them, and I insist that in such cases they are constitutional wherever the public safety requires them, as well in places to which they may prevent the rebellion extending as in those where it may be already prevailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the rebellion as where the rebellion may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army as where they would prevent mutiny in the army; equally constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion.

Take the peculiar case mentioned by the meeting. It is asserted in substance that Mr. Vallandigham was by a military commander seized and tried “for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting in criticism of the course of the Administration and in condemnation of the military orders of the general.” Now if there be no mistake about this, if this assertion is the truth and the whole truth, if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest as I understand was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union, and his arrest was made because he was laboring with some effect to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the nation depends. He was warring upon the military and this gave the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country then his arrest was made on mistake of fact which I would be glad to correct on reasonably satisfactory evidence.

I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force — by armies. Long experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires and the law and the Constitution sanction this punishment. Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father or brother or friend into a public meeting and there working upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write to the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for the wicked Administration of a contemptible Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional but withal a great mercy.

If I be wrong on this question of constitutional power my error lies in believing that certain proceedings are constitutional when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires them, which would not be constitutional when in the absence of rebellion or invasion the public safety does not require them; in other words, that the Constitution is not in its application in all respects the same in cases of rebellion or invasion involving the public safety, as it is in times of profound peace and public security. The Constitution itself makes the distinction, and I can no more be persuaded that the Government can constitutionally take no strong measures in time of rebellion because it can be shown that the same could not be lawfully taken in time of peace than I can be persuaded that a particular drug is not a good medicine for a sick man because it can be shown to not be good food for a well one. Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting that the American people will by means of military arrests during the rebellion lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus throughout the indefinite peaceful future which I trust lies before them any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life.

In giving the resolutions that earnest consideration which you request of me I cannot overlook the fact that the meeting speaks as “Democrats.” Nor can I with fall respect for their known intelligence and the fairly presumed deliberation with which they prepared their resolutions be permitted to suppose that this occurred by accident, or in any way other than that they preferred to designate themselves “Democrats” rather than “American citizens? In this time of national peril I would have preferred to meet you on a level, one step higher than any party platform, because I am sure that from such more elevated position we could do better battle for the country we all love than we possibly can from those lower ones where, from the force of habit, the prejudices of the past, and selfish hopes of the future we are sure to expend much of our ingenuity and strength in finding fault with and aiming blows at each other. But since you have denied me this I will yet be thankful for the country's sake that not all Democrats have done so. He on whose discretionary judgment Mr. Vallandigham was arrested and tried is a Democrat having no old party affinity with me; and the judge who rejected the constitutional views expressed in these resolutions by refusing to discharge Mr. Vallandigham on habeas corpus is a Democrat of better days than these, having received his judicial mantle at the hands of President Jackson. And still more, of all these Democrats who are nobly exposing their lives and shedding their blood on the battle-field I have learned that many approve the course taken with Mr. Vallandigham, while I have not heard of a single one condemning it. I cannot assert that there are none such.

And the name of President Jackson recalls an instance of pertinent history. After the battle of New Orleans and while the fact that the treaty of peace had been concluded was well known in the city, but before official knowledge of it had arrived, General Jackson still maintained martial or military law. Now that it could be said the war was over the clamor against martial law which had existed from the very first grew more furious. Among other things a Mr. Louaillier published a denunciatory newspaper article. General Jackson arrested him. A lawyer by the name of Morel procured the U.S. judge (Hall) to order a writ of habeas corpus to relieve Mr. Louaillier. General Jackson arrested both the lawyer and the judge. A Mr. Hollander ventured to say of some part of the matter that “it was a dirty trick.” General Jackson arrested him. When the officer undertook to serve the writ of habeas corpus General Jackson took it from him and sent him away with a copy. Holding the judge in custody a few days the general sent him beyond the limits of his encampment and set him at liberty with an order to remain till the ratification of peace should be regularly announced or until the British should have left the southern coast. A day or two more elapsed, the ratification of the treaty of peace was regularly announced, and the judge and the others were fully liberated. A few days more and the judge called General Jackson into court and fined him $1,000 for having arrested him and the others named. The general paid the fine, and there the matter rested for nearly thirty years, when Congress refunded principal and interest. The late Senator Douglas, then in the House of Representatives, took a leading part in the debates in which the constitutional question was much discussed. I am not prepared to show who the journals would show voted for the measure.

It may be remarked: First, that we had the same Constitution then as now; secondly, that we then had a case of invasion, and now we have a case of rebellion; and, thirdly, that the permanent right of the people to public discussion, the liberty of speech and of the press, the trial by jury, the law of evidence and the habeas corpus suffered no detriment whatever by that conduct of General Jackson or its subsequent approval by the American Congress.

And yet let me say that in my own discretion I do not know whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. While I cannot shift the responsibility from myself I hold that as a general rule the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any particular case. Of course I must practice a general directory and revisory power in the matter.

One of the resolutions expressed the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion and I am specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this as at least a fair appeal to me on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such appeal I have to say it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested — that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him — and that it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him as soon as I can by any means believe the public safety will not suffer by it.

I further say that as the war progresses it appears to me opinion and action which were in great confusion at first take shape and fall into more regular channels so that the necessity for strong dealing with them gradually decreases. I have every reason to desire that it should cease altogether, and far from the least is my regard for the opinions and wishes of those who, like the meeting at Albany, declare their purpose to sustain the Government in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the rebellion. Still I must continue to do so much as may seem to be required by the public safety.

A. LINCOLN.

_______________

* See Vol. V, this series, p. 654.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume 6 (Serial No. 119), p. 4-10

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 5, 1863

To-day the excitement was quite as great as ever, for bodies of the enemy are still in the vicinity. They are like frightened quails when the hawks are after them, skurrying about the country in battalions and regiments. Fitzhugh Lee defeated one of their parties, and reports that the entire calvary force of Hooker, in anticipation of certain victory, had been detached in the rear of Lee's army. This force comprises twenty-eight regiments, or 15,000 mounted men! Now that Hooker is defeated— our operator at Guiney's station dispatches to-day that it is reported there, and believed, that Hooker and his staff are prisoners — it may be reasonably doubted whether one-half of this wild cavalry will escape. It was the mad pranks of a desperate commander. Hooker cast all upon the hazard of the die — and lost.

Among the mad pranks of the enemy, they sent a message over the wires to-day from Louisa County, I believe, to this purport: “For Heaven's sake, come and take us. We are broken down, and will surrender.”

They captured an engine sent out yesterday to repair the road. The white men escaped, leaving two free negroes. The Yankees made the negroes put on a full head of steam, and run the locomotive into the river.

One of the enemy was taken sleeping at one of our city batteries near the river.

My friend, Dr. Powell, on the Brooke Turnpike, sent his little son, mounted on his finest horse, on an errand to a neighbor. The lad fell in with, as he called them, “some Yankee Dutchmen,” who presented their pistols and made him dismount. They took his horse and allowed him to return.

At the hour we were dining yesterday, the enemy were within two and a half miles of us on the Brooke road, and might have thrown shell into this part of the city.

Col. D. J. Godwin writes a long letter to the Secretary of War, from King and Queen Counties, concerning the great number of suspicious persons continually passing our lines into those of the enemy, with passports from this city; and the great injury done by the information they give. Unquestionably they have not only given information, but have furnished guides to the many regiments of cavalry now skurrying through the country. But the Baltimore Plug Uglies, under the protection of Gen. Winder, are the masters, now Mr. Secretary Seddon has yielded again.

A letter was received from Gen. J. E. Johnston to-day. He is too unwell to take the field, and suggests, if it be desirable to be in regular communication with Gen. Bragg, that the President send out a confidential officer. He says the army is suffering for meat, and if it retires into East Tennessee, supplies must be obtained from its flanks instead of from its rear, which would be dangerous. The letter was dated a week ago, and gives no indications of a battle. The general says he is exchanging sugar for bacon; but condemns the practice of allowing our people to sell cotton to the enemy for supplies. In my opinion none but government cotton should be exchanged for subsistence. He says the people are subjugated by trade. He suggests that our men when paroled, and not exchanged, may do duty otherwise than in arms — as is practiced by the enemy.

H. D. Bird, general superintendent of the railroad, writes from Petersburg that the movements of cars with ammunition, etc. are thrown into confusion by the neglect of telegraph agents in giving timely notice. This is an unfortunate time for confusion. I sent the letter to the Secretary, and know that it was not “filed” on the way to him.

A communication came in to-day from the Committee of Safety at Mobile, Ala., charging that J. S. Clark, Win. G. Ford, and Hurt, have been shipping cotton to New Orleans, after pretending to clear it for Nassau. It says Mr. Clarke was an intimate crony of Gen. Butler's speculating brother. It also intimates that the people believe the government here winks at these violations of the act of Congress of April, 1862.

Very curiously, a letter came from the Assistant Secretary's room to-day for “file,” which was written April 22d, 1861, by R. H. Smith to Judge Campbell — a private letter — warning him not to come to Mobile, as nothing was thought of but secession, and it was believed Judge C. had used his influence with Mr. Seward to prevent secession. The writer deprecates civil war. And quite as curiously, the Examiner to-day contains what purports to be Admiral Buchanan's correspondence with the Lincoln government, two letters, the first in April, 1861, tendering his resignation, and the last on May 4th, begging, if it had not been done already, that the government would not accept his resignation.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 308-10

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 31, 1863

We have dispatches from Charleston, to-day, which reconcile us to the loss of the cargo captured by the blockading squadron early in the week. An artillery company captured a fine gun-boat in Stone River (near Charleston) yesterday evening. She had eleven guns and 200 men.

But this morning we did better still. Our little fleet of two iron-clads steamed out of Charleston harbor, and boldly attacked the blockading fleet. We crippled two of their ships, and sunk one, completely raising the blockade, for the time being. This will frustrate some of their plans, and may relieve Wilmington.

The attack on Fort McAlister was a failure. The monitor which assaulted the fort sustained so much injury, that it had to retire for repairs.

Several blockade-runners between this and Williamsburg were arrested and sent to Gen. Winder to-day by Lieut. G. D. Wise. Gen. W. sent them to Gen. Rains. Mr. Petit and Mr. James Custis (from Williamsburg) came with them to endeavor to procure their liberation. Gen. Rains sent them back to Gen. W., with a note that he had no time to attend to such matters. Such business does not pertain to his bureau. I suppose they will be released.

Major Lear, of Texas, who was at the capture of the Harriet Lane, met on the captured steamer his mortally-wounded son, the lieutenant.

A few days ago, Lieut. Buchanan was killed on a United States gun-boat by our sharpshooters. He was the son of Admiral Buchanan, in the Confederate service, now at Mobile. Thus we are reminded of the wars of the roses — father against son, and brother against brother. God speed the growth of the Peace Party, North and South; but we must have independence.

Mr. Hunter was in our office to-day, getting the release of a son of the Hon. Jackson Morton, who escaped from Washington, where he had resided, and was arrested here as a conscript. The Assistant Secretary of War ruled him entitled to exemption, although yesterday others, in the same predicament, were ruled into the service.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 250-1

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 18, 1862

Major-Gen. Jones telegraphs from Knoxville, Tenn., that a wounded officer arrived from Kentucky, reports a victory for Bragg, and that he has taken over 10,000 prisoners. We shall soon have positive news.

A letter from Admiral Buchanan states that he has inspected the defenses of Mobile, and finds them satisfactory.

I traversed the markets this morning, and was gratified to find the greatest profusion of all kinds of meats, vegetables, fruits, poultry, butter, eggs, etc. But the prices are enormously high. If the army be kept away, it seems the supply must soon be greater than the demand. Potatoes at $5 per bushel, and a large crop! Halfgrown chickens at $1 each! Butter at $1.25 per pound! And other things in the same proportion.

Here is a most startling matter. Gov. Baylor, appointed Governor of Arizona, sent an order some time since to a military commander to assemble the Apaches, under pretense of a treaty — and when they came, to kill every man of them, and sell their children to pay for the whisky. This order was sent to the Secretary, who referred it to Gen. Sibley, of that Territory, to ascertain if it were genuine. To-day it came back from Gen. S. indorsed a true bill. Now it will go to the President — and we shall see what will follow. He cannot sanction such a perfidious crime. I predict he will make Capt. Josselyn, his former private Secretary, and the present Secretary of the Territory, Governor in place of Baylor.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 172-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 16, 1862

I omitted to note in its place the gallant feat of Commodore Buchanan with the iron monster Merrimac in Hampton Roads. He destroyed two of the enemy's best ships of war. My friends, Lieutenants Parker and Minor, partook of the glory, and were severely wounded.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 115

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S. Nealley Grimes, December 16, 1860

I have been writing letters the whole day, and now conclude. I suppose I can hardly add anything to what you have already heard of the condition of things here. Public affairs certainly wear a very bad aspect at present. South Carolina will leave the Union, so far as she has the power, this week, beyond question. Five or six States may follow her, and I think that some of them will be sure to. There will be an effort to go peacefully, but war of a most bitter and sanguinary character will be sure to follow in a short time. We can never divide the army, the navy, the public lands, the public buildings, the public debt, the Mississippi River, etc., in peace. All these questions must be submitted in the end to the arbitrament of the sword, and the strongest battalions will be victors. This is certainly deplorable, but there is no help for it. No reasonable concession will satisfy the rebels. It is not that Lincoln is elected, or that there are personal liberty laws in some of the States, or that their negroes occasionally run off, that troubles them. They want to debauch the moral sentiment of the people of the North, by making them agree to the proposition that slavery is a benign, constitutional system, and that it shall be extended in the end all over this continent.

There is, as you have heard, much talk about all sorts of compromises, but there is not the slightest probability that anything will be done. We have a rumor every few hours of bloodshed that is to be, but I do not imagine that anything of the kind is to be apprehended here. A great many men make a great many foolish remarks, and they are sure to increase in magnitude and nonsense as they pass from mouth to mouth.

General Cass has resigned, as well as Mr. Cobb. The whole cabinet is tumbling to pieces, and what remains is without influence. Mr. Buchanan, it is said, about equally divides his time between praying and crying. Such a perfect imbecile never held office before. When Cobb resigned, he sent him a letter, saying that he was going home to Georgia, to assist in dissolving the Union, and breaking up the Government; and Buchanan replied to the letter, and complimented Mr. Cobb, as you have seen.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 132

Specials to the New York Papers

(Tribune’s Dispatch.)

NEW YORK, March 15. – The President nominated yesterday for Brigadier General, John Craig, also Robert C. Buchanan to be Inspector General.

The War Department has authorized Gen. Halleck to [supersede] Major General Grant unless he should ask to be relieved, on account of bad conduct at Fort Donelson and elsewhere.

Secretary Fox, who is in Washington, reports the Merrimac badly injured in the two days fight.  She had a hole bored in her hull by the Monitor.  She was leaking very badly when she put back.  The Cumberland’s broadside in the first fight injured her so badly that she could not attack the Monitor or Roanoke, all though they were both aground.  He thinks that the Monitor, now that she is afloat, can handle the Merrimac.  She is slow and unwieldy.  He considers it utterly impossible for the Merrimac to go to sea, as she would immediately founder in an ordinary gale.

The Merrimac’s shot was bunked away by a ball from an 11-inch on the Minnesota.

Capt. [Buchanan] was wounded by a shot from a rifle-man on board the Cumberland, the ball going through his thigh.

Mr. Fox says the crew of the Minnesota as well as that of the Monitor, which to see the Merrimac come out again, but it is not likely that they will be gratified.

Commodore Stevens of the steam battery has obtained permission from the Secretary of War to make use of the 15 inch gun at Fortress Monroe, to be placed upon his steam propeller Nangantuck, to be used in the defence of New York harbor, and to attack the Merrimac, in the event of her appearance.

The Herald’s Washington dispatch says Gen. McClellan reviewed a division of the army in the vicinity of Manassas this p. m., and as he reviewed the lines he was greeted by the most vociferous cheers and enthusiasm.

A man this evening from a village on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, 37 miles from Goodysville came into the camp of the Ira Harris cavalry. – He states that there were forty thousand rebels troops in town when he left and that they continued to come in and hurried on under in impression that the Union army was in pursuit of them.  Gen. Johnson and other rebel officers were dining when he left.

He states that the road from Rappahannock to Manassas is strewed with muskets, knapsacks, haversacks, blankets, and provisions flung away in the retreat and that numbers of soldiers lay fainting and exhausted by the roadside.

The Times’ Washington dispatch says the steamer Achilles, while passing the rebel batteries at Acquia Creek last night, was fired at six times, indicating that there are some rebels yet lounging on the Potomac.  None of the shots took effect.

Gen. Hooker was of opinion at nine o’clock, to-day, that the rebels had not abandoned Fredericksburgh.

(Herald’s Special.)

WASHINGTON, March 17. – The relatives of Capt. Franklin Buchanan, who commanded the rebel iron clad steamer Merrimac at the late fight, have written to his relatives in this city from Baltimore, that he is dead, and his body is to be brought to the old homestead on the Eastern shore of Maryland for interment.

A movement is on foot relative to the impeachment of all those judges who have in any form, shape, or manner aided in the interests of secession.  A member of Congress has now in his desk a resolution, which he will offer at the first opportune moment to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to inquire into this matter of general impeachment, and report at an early date by bill or otherwise.

(Tribune correspondence.)

Delegates from a great number of business interests are here, suggesting a modification of the tax bill in [its favor].  Changes have already been made in committee in making the tax specific instead of ad valorem.  To newspapers,  making the advertisement tax three instead of five per cent, and on net receipts instead of gross.  Tobacconists, reducing it on leaf and stem, and raising it on the manufactured.  The tax proposed on umbrellas and parasols a change from specific to five per cent. ad valorem.  Omnibuses, entire freedom from the tax on passengers.  It was shown that it would be fatal to them in competition with the horse railroads.  The tax has also been stricken off from the manufactures of flour.  This was done by a delegation of the Rochester millers, who showed that it would be fatal to their business.  All along the line afflicted by the reciprocity treaty, the tax would enable the Canadian millers to undersell us in our own markets.

Nomination of Daniel E. Sickles and Haller Gunn of New Hampshire were made.

Gen. Lockwood’s nomination is suspended.

The limits of the Department to which Gen. Hunter has been appointed, has again been incorrectly stated.  It [may] not be improper to say that it comprises the States of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.  Gen. Sherman will be retained in the Department under Gen. Hunter.  Also. Capt. W. [H. Peck] of the 11th Infantry, formerly of Chicago, Illinois.

To-day Senator Sumner will introduce a bill repealing an act originally passed in 1812, providing that [henceforth] no person by reason of color shall be disqualified from employment in carrying the mails.

Hon. Richard Fanchette, of the 18th N. Y. district, has obtained the signatures of about 150 Senators and Representatives to a memorial to Congress, asking that better rations be served out to the army.

(Special to Post.)

WASHINGTON, March 28 – the Naval committee formally voted in favor of the appropriation sufficient to complete the Stevens’ battery and fifteen million dollars for the construction of iron clad steamers.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 22, 1862, p. 4

What one of the Merrimac’s Crew says of her Fight with the Monitor

From the New York Herald, 19^th.

James Thompson a sailor by vocation, a citizen of Massachusetts, and formerly a resident of this city, arrived here on Saturday night last from Norfolk, and furnishes us with a very interesting statement of affairs in rebeldom.  He was one of the crew of the Merrimac during the fight with the Monitor, having been impressed into the rebel navy, and had also been one of the crew of the rebel gunboat Lady Davis during the cruisings of that vessel off Charleston and the coast. * * * *

Having sunk the two vessels we steamed up James River, the rebel officers being in high glee, and came to an anchor about five miles from the scene of action.  Here we remained all night.  On the morning of the 9^th we prepared to go down again, the rebel officers thinking to complete the work of destruction by sinking all the vessels in the Roads.  When daylight had revealed the situation of affairs, the officers of the Merrimac discovered what they at first thought was a small tug boat, steaming towards us.  We hailed her but receiving no reply, let fly at her from one of our bow guns; but she very imprudently took no notice of the messenger we had sent and kept steaming on.  Then our officers began to be fearful of the “little cheese box,” and were fairly “trembling in their shoes” for the result of a contest with her. – They soon found out what she was.  Soon the little Monitor sent us her compliments in the shape of a round shot, which struck a gun on our starboard side, broke it completely in two, killed two and wounded four of the crew.  The firing was then kept up for about three hours, the vessels being very often side by side.  After an hour’s firing the Merrimac thought to try the virtue of her plough on her antagonist, and struck her with it amidships.  The effect produced was very unsatisfactory to the rebel, however.  The Monitor then turned on her giant compeer and struck her rudder, producing great consternations on board, but not rendering the rudder unserviceable.  Every time the two guns from the Monitor were discharged, each of the two shots seemed to strike us in nearly the same spot, bursting in the timbers of the Merrimac, loosening the bolts of the iron plates, and timbers, and doing us very great damage generally.  It was noticeable also that her shots struck us near the water line, and caused our vessel to leak badly.

Mr. Thompson also corroborates what we published some time since from the Richmond Dispatch, that the iron plates on the Merrimac were welded together in many instances by the heat and force of the Monitor’s shot.  The Merrimac’s crew, during the engagement, were made to swear that if a large number of rebels on board were killed, they would not reveal the fact to any one on their arrival at Norfolk.  Seeing that the tide of battle was against us, we were ordered to “’bout ship” and put back to Norfolk.  We had not proceeded far when we grounded, and orders had been already given to scuttle the ship, when we made another effort to get off the shoal, and succeeded, and we made our way up to Norfolk slowly, arriving there at six P. M., with about six feet of water in the hold.  The rebel steamer Patrick Henry, which bore down to the Monitor during the fight, was driven back by a shot and having steam turned on her from the Monitor’s boiler.  She had six men scalded and two badly wounded.  After reaching Norfolk she was put upon the dry dock for repairs, and for five weeks men were working on her night and day, giving her a thorough overhauling.  When destroyed she was in excellent condition, and her loss, Mr. Thompson thinks, will prove incalculable to the rebels.  While these repairs were going on great fear was expressed that the Monitor might come up Elizabeth river and shell the city.  If she had done so no resistance could or would have been offered (as the authorities and people were frightened at the very name of her,) and the evacuation of the batteries and the city was already decided on in the event of her visit.  Commodore Buchanan was badly wounded in the thigh, and was taken, immediately on our arrival, to the hospital, where, at last accounts, he still remains.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 2