Diary of 2nd Lieutenant John S. Morgan, Sunday, April 23, 1865

Inspection at 9. A. M. Lt Hook comes to the Regt with the sad intiligence of the Assassination of President Lincoln & Sec Seward which is published in the Mobile paper. The news quickly spreads & groups of men can be seen all arond talking in low tones with a look of sadness never worn by them before, at 10, a. m the Div Brass Band plays the "dead march" & is followed by the bands of Regts in order. It is truly a solemn day & the boys one & all vow to take vengance in Southern blood, many who favored peace this morning now favor utter extermination; about noon we are greeted with the arrival of Luit Sharman looking like altogether a different man from the Luit Sharman we left at Little Rock the 14 of Feb he brings an extra which states that it is thought Seward is not mortally wounded & hopes of his recovery is enertained, he spent the night last night with Capt Lacy & reports that Genl Steeles Corps proceeded up the Alabama river this morning, embarked on 15 transports escorted by a fleet of gun boats, says a very fine Gulf steamer was blown up in the channel in the Bay by a torpedo of which there remain some yet. Luit Seevers s detailed to proceed to New Orleans to bring up our Books & Records. Weather cool.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, pp. 594-5

Diary of Private Seth J. Wells, March 10, 1863

Cold, rainy and disagreeable. We paid old Sampson off and let him go. We still have our house and cook in it, and are living very well at present. We draw crackers two-fifths of the time, and flour the remainder. We use cistern water altogether. The spirits of the troops are higher than they have been in six months. If old Abe would only call back a portion of the first volunteers they could soon annihilate the enemy.

SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, pp. 43-4

Diary of Private Seth J. Wells, Thursday, March 19, 1863

Cloudy, looks like rain. Cleaning up and ditching our camp was the order of the day. I was on the detail to dig a ditch on each side of the camp. The banks of the ditch are slowly washing back. It is now about one hundred and fifty feet at the first levee, and two hundred at the second. Water is slowly rising in both the ditch and the lake. The President has given deserters until April to report at a certain depot. Co. K expects about four back.

SOURCE: Seth James Wells, The Siege of Vicksburg: From the Diary of Seth J. Wells, Including Weeks of Preparation and of Occupation After the Surrender, p. 46

Alfred Hyde to Abraham Lincoln, March 25, 1858

Alton Mch 25th/58

Abram Lincoln

Springfield

Dear Sir allow me to call your attention back to the 4th of last March & also to the conversation that took place between Your Honor & myself, then a prisoner on the cars from Chicago, for being concerned in the American Exchenge Bank of Georgetown D. C. I write this to you with refferance to engageing you to obtain a pardon for me I was sentenced for 4 years, But I did not have a fair trial nor was I allowed time to get my witnesses, I was indited for haveing ficticious Money, But it was not such thare was such a Bank; & no one ever lost a dollar by it. The Mayor of the City of Georgetown D. C. will satisfy you as to that (the then Mayor)/56

further I had nothing to do with the concern, & more I am not a Villian nor a rascall, have always been in Mercantile buisiness & will refur you to Hon D. S. Dickinson, of Binghamton Judson Smith Esq same place Wm Ross Wallace N. York City Ex Governrr Wm Wood of Cleveland Ohio, & Wm H Seward — for as to my pased life for 10 years— In Chicago to Hanson Abbot G. W. Gage Jencks & Beers & Capt. A. Pellittere, I am here innocent. Now what will you ask to obtain a pardon for me, cash upon my freedom, & it put in Bank before subject to my Pardon, Wm Rutherford & S A. Buckmaster I am told will give me a fair Bill of conduct since here 13 months, James C Brayman has advised me to write you, he works beside me— My Brother Alvin of Brookfield Mass will pay the fee that we may agree upon.—

I write this & send it (Sub Rosa) & you I hope will be so kind as answer it at once & let me know your views & then I will get permission to write you in full — you will need only to go to Chicago once & send here to Mr Rutherford Agent— I am anxious to be out as I am loosing money & time. You can write me without saying you received this letter by evading it & say you have heard from me, Pleas write me at once & I will answer fully & be much obliged to you — while I remain here yours

Most Gratefully

Alfred. Hyde

To Hon A Lincoln

Springfield Ill

Please direct care of Mr S A Buckmaster

SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Alfred Hyde to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday,Legal. 1858. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal0074200/.

Abraham Lincoln to Daniel S. Dickinson, August 3, 1858

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., August 3, 1858.

SIR—In March, 1857, I saw upon the railroad train, being taken from Chicago to Alton to the Penitentiary there, a man of gentlemanly appearance by the name of [Alfred Hyde]. He accosted me, and conversed some as to the chance of obtaining a pardon. A year after, he addressed me the enclosed letter from the prison. You see he mentions your name. Do you really know him? If our Governor could learn that he has been respectable and is of respectable connections, perhaps he would pardon him. Please answer.

Pardon the liberty I take in addressing you. Several years ago, I knew you slightly at Washington.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

SOURCES: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, pp. 513; for the name of the inmate see Daniel S. Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, August 9, 1858.

Daniel S. Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, August 9, 1858

Binghamton

Aug. 9, 1858

Dear Sir

Your favor of the 3d with enclosure of Mr Alfred Hyde toyou, has just been recd. Hyde was here and in business, a few years, and I know him, not intimately, but as I know men of that class who are here for two or three years. He consulted me as counsel, on one or two occasions, & I conducted some business being against him. He came here from Boston as I understood, where it is said he was well brought up & respectably active in domestic & business relations. His intercourse with me was always frank & honorable. He was connected here in a mercantile establishment, and was one of a good many free trade speculators and as it was speculating [?] their dealings were pretty miscellaneous, but I saw nothing in Hydes course but that he was as good as the average. His establishment here failed badly, as it was natural it should, and he was a good deal censured in connection with it, but I not not [sic] know that he was more censured that [??ings], [???liss] dealers generally are.

This is all I know of him personally. he went west and the stories circulated concerning him there, and among them his booking &c, were not creditable, but I know nothing of their truth He is said to have married respectably in Cleveland

Sincerely Yours

D. S. Dickinson

Hon. A. Lincoln

SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Daniel S. Dickinson to Abraham Lincoln, Monday,Legal. August 9, 1858. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.0119100/.

Private William O. Gulick to his sisters, September 29, 1861

Camp Warren, Ia. Sept. 29th/61

Ia Cavalry            

Dear Sisters¹

I received your kind letter yesterday morning but as I did not have time to answer it then I waited untill now. My time is limited, for I am standing guard and just came off, will have to go on again at one oclock, we stand two hours on, and about four off, for twenty-four hours. It commenced last night to rain and has continued to rain ever since and prospects for a wet time all through my time of Guard, But I am well provided for as we have our uniform the clothing for the whole Regiment came Sept. 20th. We have one heavy pair Pantaloons and the promise of another soon, a very heavy Overcoat with cape a Fighting Jacket trimmed with orange a blue sack coat for a fatigue dress a pair of Boots, pair of shoes, and a hat something like Isaac's We have three Blankets one for our horse. The Whole Regiment is Ordered to go to St. Louis and to go by Squadrons one each day commencing tomorrow (Monday) Our Squadron will be the last so we will remain here yet six days unless further orders We expect to get the remainder of our horses by Wednesday, We have now about 30 horses and saddles. I forgot to tell you all of our clothing we got Shirts two pair drawers, two pair Socks a canteen, and all the little necessaries we wanted. I cannot carry all my clothing so I will send my things that I need least, in a box with some others to Clinton I shall have them in a bundle directed to Low Moor, I shall write to the rest of the family in a few days I got a pass yesterday to go down town but as the Colonel² wanted all should appear on grond parad [sic] I could not go to have my likeness taken but as soon as I can get my pass I will have it taken and send it in my next letter. You will probably hear from Isaac soon for he will write as soon as he gets to St. Louis and he starts Tuesday

I was glad to hear that you were all geting along so well I am as well as can be and like soldiering better evry day I tell you it is fine cooking and eating out doors such days as this I have just pertaken of an apple dumpling I bought it for my dinner and thank fortune I have change but many have not, Peter Barr³ has lost his pocket Book with over Fifty dollars he says if Wagner⁴ has not payed that little sum he ows him to his brother he would like to have him send it to him, he says direct or send it in one of my letters The sum is $3.60 I believe. It is now time for me to go on guard and I have always been prompt excuse me from writing more this time and I will write soon and more give my love to all my friends tell them I like to get letters, direct care of Capt.⁵ to Camp Warren as you have heretofore and my letters will be forwarded on to me if I am gone

Your Brother

W. O. Gulick

_______________

¹ William Gulick had four sisters, all older than himself: Lorette Schuyler, Sarah Jane Wagner, Emma V. Harris, and Cynthia Jones.

² Colonel Fitz Henry Warren, of the First Iowa Cavalry Volunteers, rose to the rank of brevet major general before the close of the war. A native of Massachusetts, he had moved to Burlington, Iowa, in 1844. In 1849 President Taylor appointed him Assistant Postmaster General. He made an excellent record in this position, but resigned it in indignation when Millard Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Law. In the campaign of 1860 he employed his eloquent oratorical powers in behalf of Abraham Lincoln. When war broke out he left the associate editorship of the New York Tribune, where he had made a reputation as one of the ablest journalists in the United States, to serve his country in the field. In later years he was frequently active in Iowa politics.

³ Peter Barr, of Company M, came (like Gulick) from the Low Moor neighborhood and seems to have been a close friend of Gulick's, as he is mentioned a number of times in these letters. At the time of his discharge for disability at Clinton, Missouri, on June 24, 1862, he held the rank of corporal.

⁴ Richard Wagner, of Low Moor, married Sarah Jane Gulick.

⁵ By the "Capt." is meant William H. Ankeny, Captain of Company M.

SOURCE: Benjamin F. Shambaugh, The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, vol. 28 (1930), pp. 204-6.

Diary of George Templeton Strong, September 13, 1860

Dined at New York Club with Charles E. Strong and Henry Fearing. Thereafter we inspected the grand procession of the “Wide-Awakes,” a new notable club organization of the Republicans. It extends through these Northern states, is semi-military, and is intended (as people say) to keep order at Lincoln's inauguration (he will certainly be elected) in case Governor Wise and Mr. Yancey and other foolish Southern demagogues try to make a disturbance. This procession, which we watched in Astor Place and the Bowery, was imposing and splendid. The clubs marched in good order, each man with his torch or lamp of kerosene oil on a pole, with a flag below the light; and the line was further illuminated by the most lavish pyrotechnics. Every file had its rockets and its Roman candles, and the procession moved along under a galaxy of fire balls—white, red, and green. I have never seen so beautiful a spectacle on any political turnout.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 41

Diary of George Templeton Strong, September 14, 1860

Went with George Anthon and Walter Cutting to the opera. Heard three acts of Martha in the Cutting box. Patti and Brignoli did fairly. House full, but strangers mostly. Music is pretty, but not very strong.

Last night’s Republican turnout is the town talk. Everyone speaks of the good order and the earnest aspect of the “Wide-Awakes,” and likens this to the “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” gatherings of 1840. Certainly, all the vigor and enthusiasm of this campaign are thus far confined to the Republicans. Their adversaries are disorganized, divided, and discouraged. In this state, there is a fusion (worse confounded) of the Union Party (Bell and Everett) with the Squatter Sovereignty Democrats (Douglas and Johnson), and a sort of feebly coherent composite electoral ticket. . . . They are trying to coalesce with the Breckinridge people so as to include in one ticket all the anti-Lincoln elements. But that seems as yet beyond the powers of political synthesis.

So we have three parties in this state, videlicet:

1. “Honest Abe” Lincoln’s party.

2. The Fusionists, whose ticket is twenty-five Douglas and Johnson, and ten Bell and Everett, and who are engineered by Washington Hunt and the New York Express and patronized as well-meaning people, but soon to fail, by die New York Herald.

3. Breckinridge and Lane’s party, consisting mainly of federal office-holders.

4. No. 4, "Sham” Houston’s party, has dissolved, that hero having magnanimously withdrawn.

I don’t know clearly on which side to count myself in. I’ve a leaning toward the Republicans. But I shall be sorry to see Seward and Thurlow Weed with their tail of profligate lobby men promoted from Albany to Washington. I do not like the tone of the Republican papers and party in regard to the John Brown business of last fall, and I do not think rail-splitting in early life a guarantee of fitness for the presidency.

I could vote for Bell and Mr. Orator Everett. But I can’t support them in their partnership with Douglas, the little giant, for I hold the little giant to be a mere demagogue. As to Breckinridge, the ultra Southern candidate, I renounce and abhor him and his party. He represents the most cruel, blind, unreasoning, cowardly, absolute despotism that now disgraces the earth, Garibaldi having probably squelched poor little Neapolitan Bomba before this date. Freedom of speech and of thought is extinct south of the Potomac. Life and property are as insecure there as in Paris in 1793 or in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Witness the atrocities daily perpetrated, for example, in Texas, where white men are being hanged and niggers burned by terrified Vigilance Committees, self-appointed and irresponsible, on the strength of legends about “one hundred bottles of strychnine” to be used by some nigger toxicologist to “poison the wells” of a whole county. These grisly antics of insane Southern mobs and the idiotic sanguinary babblings of Southern editors and orators tempt me to become a disunion man. Alliance with com-munities so lawless—more than semi-barbarous—seems degrading to the comparatively civilized North.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 41-2

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Tuesday, October 9, 1860

Tomorrow we shall hear of today’s state election in Pennsylvania. Its result, if favorable to the Republicans, will be decisive, and one may in that case predict Lincoln’s election by the people with entire confidence. What will little South Carolina do then? If she doesn’t secede, she will be utterly ridiculous. She will have to make her choice between the guilt of treason and the contempt of mankind. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 44-5

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 10, 1860

Republicanism triumphant in Pennsylvania and by majorities that transcend the wildest prophesyings of the Tribune. So the question is settled and Honest Abe will be our next President. Amen. We may as well ask the question at once whether the existence of the Union depends on the submission to the South.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 45

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 19, 1860

Play-going with Ellie tonight at the Winter Garden; Guy Mannering. A dramatic distortion of the novel. Miss Charlotte Cushman was the Meg Merrilies, supported by the worst sticks I ever saw on any stage. She is called very great in this role, and the discriminating Dr. Carroll thinks it equal to any of Rachel's. She certainly makes up as the grisliest of hags. Her performance is intense and carefully studied. A few points in which Scott’s words were preserved were effective and beautiful. Her attitudes are remarkably grotesque and striking. But it was almost all overdone and untrue. She was a Hecate, or Waldfrau, perhaps, but not Walter Scott’s Meg, nor any other possible woman. . . .

Lincoln’s election seems to be conceded. Fusionism has lost all heart. What will happen when this result is announced? There is much stir and swagger and note of preparation among the fire-eaters. Can they overcome the conservative feeling and the common sense that doubtless exist at the South, even in South Carolina itself, and carry on an overt act of secession and treason? There is ground for anxiety. Republicans laugh at the vaporings of our Southern friends. I devoutly hope the result will justify their unconcern. It is easy to show that secession would be an act of madness and folly, but we know there are fools and madmen south of the Potomac, and they may do sore and irremediable mischief to us, their wise brethren at the North. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 51-2

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 22, 1860

Our little Prince sailed . . . Saturday, and got safely out of our hands. Inferences from the phenomena that accompanied his visit are:

(1) No community worships hereditary rank and station like a democracy.

(2) The biggest and finest specimens of flunkeyism occur in the most recently-elevated strata of society, as for example. Cooper: the “self-made millionaire glue-boiler,’’ Leary: the fashionable hatter’s son, and others.

(3) Under all this folly and tuft-hunting there is a deep and almost universal feeling of respect and regard for Great Britain and for Her Britannic Majesty. The old anti-British patriotism of twenty years ago is nearly extinct. . . .

I’ve nearly made up my mind to deposit a lukewarm Republican vote next month. It is a choice of evils, but we may as well settle the question whether a President can or cannot be chosen without the advice and approval of the slaveholding interests; whether 300,000 owners of niggers have or have not a veto on the popular choice. The question must be settled sooner or later, and we may as well dispose of it now. It is impossible for me to vote the Fusion ticket and thereby strengthen the show of the mischief-making demagogue Douglas, or of Breckinridge, the ultra-nigger-driver and demisecessionist. But I may vote for the ten Bell and Everett electors on that ticket, scratching off the rest.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 23, 1860

Fine day. Tonight’s anti-Lincoln or Fusion Torchlight procession was “a big thing.’’ It was more numerous than any political demonstration I have ever witnessed. It began to pass No. 24 Union Square (where I joined Ellie) a little before ten. We got tired of lanterns, Roman candles, red shirts, and the like by a little after eleven, and came home. The rear-guard had not then reached Union Square. We could see the distant line of lights still flowing down Fourteenth Street. It's now a quarter past twelve, and band after band is still audible as the procession goes down Fourth Avenue. Its route was up Broadway, through Fourteenth Street to Fifth Avenue, through Fifth Avenue to Twenty-sixth Street, and then down Fourth Avenue and the Bowery. The Fusionists have certainly turned out in great force. (There goes “Dixie’s Land”; another band is passing the corner.) There were delegations from Brooklyn, Newark, Paterson, and other cities, but this city furnished the great majority, and this certainly looks as if the Fusionists’ boast of 40,000 majority in the city and county of New York might be justified. Here come more drums.

Talked with Mr. Ruggles about this crisis. He is constitutionally timid when people are angry and excited and Southern bluster has somewhat impressed him. Perhaps his anxiety is well grounded, for blusterers may be mischievous. Both North and South seem to him deeply diseased with sectional animosity, and he thinks the Cotton States may probably commit some overt act of treason and secession when Lincoln’s election is announced. Stocks have fallen heavily today.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Wednesday, October 24, 1860

The Board of Brokers is in decided panic. Stocks are going down. Cause, the anticipation of trouble growing out of Lincoln’s election. The government loan, just taken at a premium, is a strong indication the other way, especially as Southern bankers bid for it; but a few timid capitalists here are unquestionably converting their securities, and Kearny tells me the deposits in the Trust Company are unusually heavy. There is heavy money-pressure at the South. But that is one of the ordinary fluctuations of trade, due to causes outside of politics, and has not yet reacted on us here.

Walter Cutting was very atrabilious—his prophesyings were full of woe. Joseph Lawrence of the United States Trust Company says that they have been refusing Southern stocks as collaterals for several days. He and other leading financiers say that, though secession would produce a general fall in values here of twenty-five per cent, at least, it is better for us to test the question at once and submit to that fall, if so it must be, than continue exposed to these panics and fluctuations, which must occur at short intervals while the question remains open.

People begin to look grave and talk anxiously about our prospects. Will this have any serious effect on the vote of New York and Pennsylvania? Panic and pressure in New York and Philadelphia will not have made themselves felt throughout the country in time to influence the elections. Had they occurred earlier, they might have determined the result, for comparatively few Republicans love niggers enough to sacrifice investments for their sweet sake.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 52-4

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 25, 1860

We have reason to be unsettled and alarmed. A large and influential Southern party is working hard for disunion, and in South Carolina, at least, is strong enough to overawe and silence the sensible and conservative minority. Lincoln’s election will certainly be followed by a revolutionary movement there. Then we shall see. If no other state join her in secession and if she have time to cool down and recover her senses before any actual collision, and if no accident complicate the situation, this dangerous point may be weathered. But if things take another turn, the black year of 1860 will long be remembered. At best, we must expect an ugly shock and an anxious time before this year is ended.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 54

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 28, 1860

The talk today is that Fusionism may carry this state after all. Then the election goes into the House and would be long contested before a majority could unite on any one of the three. Excitement would be prolonged and sectional fury intensified. I don’t feel like voting for Lincoln, but I should be sorry to see New York frightened into voting for anybody else, even if the inevitable crisis were thereby postponed to 1864. It may as well be met now; and were Lincoln to be beat, I believe the Southern states would go into convention, nevertheless, so scared and angry are they.

Old Mrs. Hayward of South Carolina is at the New York Hotel in deep affliction and alarm because it is well known that “the abolitionists” have consigned large invoices of strychnine and arsenic to the slaves of her neighborhood. So Mrs. S. B. Ruggles reports, who saw her yesterday.

Mrs. Sally Hampton spoke the other evening at Mrs. Peters’s of Dr. Lieber’s having lately presided at a German Republican meeting at Cooper Institute. “So unfortunate for his son” (in business at Columbia or Charleston), “he was doing so well, and, of course, this ruins all his prospects at the South”!!! This is tyranny beyond King Bomba. If severance come, we must console ourselves for its calamity by remembering that we are freed from a most disreputable partner.

The Hon. Cobb, at Duncan, Sherman & Co.’s office, has been openly damning the blindness and stupidity of the capitalists who have taken the United States ten million loan at a premium, and declaring it is not worth fifty cents on the dollar. (So Charley Strong reported on respectable authority.) Pretty talk for a Secretary of the Treasury! I guess he put this loan into the market just at this time in the expectation it would not be taken, and hoping to make capital out of its failure for his own clique of traitors.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 55

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 2, 1860

Sent Ellie to the opera in charge of her brother Jem and sallied out for a debilitated stroll. Found a great Wide-Awake demonstration in progress; inspected them in Fourteenth Street. Seward was making a speech in “Palace Gardens,’’ and the crowd there was dense, the Gardens packed full and impenetrable. The show in the street was brilliant—rockets, Roman candles with many colored fire balls, Bengal lights, the Wide-Awakes with their lanterns and torches, and “I wish I was in Dixie.” I adjourned to Broadway in front of the New York Hotel to see the procession pass. The Southerners of the hotel groaned and hissed, and the Republican mob in and about the Lincoln and Hamlin headquarters across the street cheered and roared, and the din was deafening. But there was no breach of peace. . . .

Think I will vote the Republican ticket next Tuesday. One vote is insignificant, but I want to be able to remember that I voted right at this grave crisis. The North must assert its rights, now, and take the consequences.

Think of James J. Roosevelt, United States District Attorney, bringing up certain persons under indictment for piracy as slave-traders to be arraigned the other day, and talking to the Court about the plea the defendants should put in, and saying that “there had been a great change in public sentiment about the slave trade,” and that “of course the President would pardon the defendants if they were capitally convicted.”!!! Is Judge Roosevelt more deficient in common sense or in moral sense? If we accede to Southern exactions, we must re-open the slave trade with all its horrors, establish a Slave Code for the territories, and acquiesce in a decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Lemmon case that will entitle every Southerner to bring his slaves into New York and Massachusetts and keep them there. We must confess that our federal government exists chiefly for the sake of nigger-owners. I can’t do that. Rather let South Carolina and Georgia secede. We will coerce and punish the traitorous seceders if we can; but if we can’t, we are well rid of them.

If I looked remarkably like Kossuth or Mazzini, I could nevertheless travel through Austria with no danger beyond that of a few days' detention, at the end of which, my identity being proven, I should be dismissed with apologies and an indemnity. But I happen to be mistaken for John Jay at least once a week, and it would therefore be utter madness for me to visit that section of our free and happy republic that lies south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Before I had traveled half a day’s journey through that sunny and chivalric region, some gent who had visited New York would spot me as a damned abolitionist emissary. I should be haled forth from my railroad car and hanged on the nearest palmetto tree.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 56-7

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 5, 1860

With William Schermerhorn to Columbia College Board meeting at two o’clock. Unusual amount of business, mostly unimportant. Treasurer’s report. Report from a Committee on Tutorships; we decided to appoint three. . . .

I confidently predict that Lincoln will be elected by the people, and that South Carolina and Texas, and probably Georgia and Mississippi, will thereupon be foolish enough to commit themselves to revolution, which will be a grave calamity. Also that Governor Wise will make several great speeches, and make himself singularly ridiculous. Also, that there will be Northern men enough interested in Southern trade to paralyze our Northern protest against treason and disunion, and that their special organ will be the New York Express¹ Also, that Southern conservatives will be crushed and silenced, though in a majority, and that the Reign of Terror in the Carolinas, Georgia, and other states will be so strengthened that it may become intolerable and be thrown off. I fear the question may have a grim solution in an uprising of the slaves, from Richmond to Galveston, stimulated by their masters’ insane talk about the designs of the Black Republican party.

_______________

¹ James Brooks’s Express, founded in 1836 and now supporting Douglas, was a peace-at-any-price organ, reflecting the views of many merchants; in 1861 its defense of the South almost provoked mob violence.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 58

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Tuesday, November 6, 1860

A memorable day. We do not know yet for what. Perhaps for the disintegration of the country, perhaps for another proof that the North is timid and mercenary, perhaps for demonstration that Southern bluster is worthless. We cannot tell yet what historical lesson the event of November 6, 1860, will teach, but the lesson cannot fail to be weighty.

Clear and cool. Vote very large, probably far beyond that of 1856. Tried to vote this morning and found people in a queue extending a whole block from the polls. Abandoned the effort and went downtown. Life and Trust Company meeting. The magnates of that board showed no sign of fluster and seemed to expect no financial crisis. Uptown again at two, and got in my vote after only an hour's detention. I voted for Lincoln.

After dinner to the Trinity School Board at 762 Broadway. Thence downtown, looking for election returns. Great crowd about the newspapers of Fulton and Nassau Streets and Park Row. It was cold, and I was alone and tired and came home sooner than I intended. City returns are all one way, but they will hardly foot up a Fusion majority of much above 25,000. Brooklyn said to be Fusion by 14,000. An anti-Lincoln majority of 40,000 in New York and Kings, well backed by the river counties, may possibly outweigh the Republican majorities in the western counties, but that is unlikely. The Republicans have gained in the city since 1856, and have no doubt gained still more in the interior.

The only signs of excitement and enthusiasm that I saw were in the crowd about the Bell and Everett headquarters (in Broadway below Pine Street).

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 58-9