Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 8, 1862

The European statesmen, declining intervention in our behalf, have, nevertheless, complimented our President by saying he has, at all events, “made a nation.” He is pleased with this, I understand. But it is one of the errors which the wise men over the water are ever liable to fall into. The “nation” was made before the President existed: indeed, the nation made the President.

We have rumors of fighting near the month of the Shenandoah, and that our arms were successful. It is time both armies were in winter quarters. Snow still lies on the ground here.

We have tidings from the North of the trinmph of the Democrats in New York, New Jersey, etc. etc. This news produces great rejoicing, for it is hailed as the downfall of Republican despotism. Some think it will be followed by a speedy peace, or else that the European powers will recognize us without further delay. I should not be surprised if Seward were now to attempt to get the start of England and France, and cause our recognition by the United States. I am sure the Abolitionists cannot now get their million men. The drafting must be a failure.

The Governor of Mississippi (Pettus) informs the President that a Frenchman, perhaps a Jew, proposes to trade salt for cotton — ten sacks of the first for one of the latter. The Governor says he don't know that he has received the consent of "Butler, the Beast" (but he knows the trade is impossible without it), but that is no business of his. He urges the traffic. And the President has consented to it, and given him power to conduct the exchange in spite of the military authorities. The President says, however, that twenty sacks of salt ought to be given for one of cotton. Salt is worth in New Orleans about one dollar a sack, cotton $160 per bale. The President informed the Secretary of what had been done, and sends him a copy of his dispatch to Gov. Pettus. He don't even ask Mr. Randolph's opinion.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 184-5

Senator Jefferson Davis to Governor Francis W. Pickens, January 13, 1861

washington, D. C,

January 13, 1861.

Governor F. W. Pickens,

My dear sir: A serious and sudden attack of neuralgia has prevented me from fulfilling my promise to communicate more fully by mail than could safely be done by telegraph. I need hardly say to you that a request for a conference on questions of defense had to me the force of a command; it, however, found me under a proposition from the Governor of Mississippi, to send me as a commissioner to Virginia, and another to employ me in the organization of the State militia. But more than all, I was endeavoring to secure the defeat of the nomination of a foreign collector for the port of Charleston, and at that time it was deemed possible that in the Senate we could arrest all hostile legislation such as might be designed either for the immediate or future coercion of the South. It now appears that we shall lack one or two votes to effect the legislative object just mentioned, and it was decided last evening, in a conference which I was not able to attend, that the Senators of the seceded States should promptly withdraw upon the telegraphic information already received. I am still confined to my bed, but hope soon to be up again, and, at as early a day as practicable, to see you. I cannot place any confidence in the adherence of the administration to a fixed line of policy. The general tendency is to hostile measures, and against these it is needful for you to prepare. I take it for granted that the time allowed to the garrison of Fort Sumter has been diligently employed by yourselves, so that before you could be driven out of your earthworks you will be able to capture the fort which commands them. I have not sufficiently learned your policy in relation to the garrison at Fort Sumter, to understand whether the expectation is to compel them to capitulate for want of supplies, or whether it is only to prevent the transmission of reports and the receipt of orders. To shut them up with a view to starve them into submission would create a sympathetic action much greater than any which could be obtained on the present issue. I doubt very much the loyalty of the garrison, and it has occurred to me that if they could receive no reinforcements—and I suppose you sufficiently command the entrance to the harbor to prevent it — that there could be no danger of the freest intercouse between the garrison and the city. We have to-day news of the approach of a mixed commission from Fort Sumter and Charleston, but nothing further than the bare fact. We are probably soon to be involved in that fiercest of human strifes, a civil war. The temper of the Black Republicans is not to give us our rights in the Union, or allow us to go peaceably out of it. If we had no other cause, this would be enough to justify secession, at whatever hazard. When I am better I will write again, if I do not soon see you.

Very sincerely yours,

Jefferson Davis.*

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* From original letter.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 265-6