Diary of Adam Gurowski, October 1861

As in the mediæval epoch, and some time thereafter, anatomists and physiologists experimented on the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and called this process experientia in anima vili, so this naïve administration experiments in civil and in military matters on the people's life-blood.

McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely read not what he signed.

The army is in sufficient rig and organization to take the field; but nevertheless McClellan has not yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force of the enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be conceded to the rebel generals that they show great skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (tenfold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure. If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy, the main body should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if we were children.

McClellan fortifies Washington; Fremont, St. Louis; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.

The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly ignorant of such matters; wholly ignorant of human nature; wholly ignorant of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which criminals can display when firmly decided upon their purpose. This absurdity comes from the celebrated anaconda Mississippi-Atlantic strategy.

Oh! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing general, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the White House! The constitutional advisers are deaf to the voice of the people, who know more about it than do all the departments and the military wiseacres. The people look up to find as big brains and hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King, a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc., the true Republicans in the last session of Congress — further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the true exponents of the character, of the clear insight, of the soundness of the people.

McClellan, and even the administration, seem not to realize that pure military considerations cannot fulfil the imperative demands of the political situation.

October 6th. — I met McClellan; had with him a protracted conversation, and could look well into him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies, and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness of his eyes and features. My enthusiasm for him, my faith, is wholly extinct. All that he said to me and to others present was altogether unmilitary and inexperienced. It made me sick at heart to hear him, and to think that he is to decide over the destinies and the blood of the people. And he already an idol, incensed, worshipped, before he did anything whatever. McClellan may have individual courage, so has almost every animal; but he has not the decision and the courage of a military leader and captain. He has no real confidence in the troops; has scarcely any idea how battles are fought; has no confidence in and no notion of the use of the bayonet. I told him that, notwithstanding his opinion, I would take his worst brigade of infantry, and after a fortnight's drill challenge and whip any of the best rebel brigades.

Some time ago it was reported that McClellan considered this war had become a duel of artillery. Fools wondered and applauded. I then protested against putting such an absurdity in McClellan's mouth; now I must believe it. To be sure, every battle is in part a duel of artillery, but ends or is decided by charges of infantry or cavalry. Cannonading alone never constituted and decided a battle. No position can be taken by cannonading alone, and shells alone do not always force an enemy to abandon a position. Napoleon, an artillerist par excellence, considered campaigns and battles to be something more than duels of artillery. The great battle of Borodino, and all others, were decided when batteries were stormed and taken. Eylau was a battle of charges by cavalry and by infantry, besides a terrible cannonading, etc., etc. McClellan spoke with pride of the fortifications of Washington, and pointed to one of the forts as having a greater profile than had the world-renowned Malakoff. What a confusion of notions, what a misappreciation of relative conditions!

I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, during this conversation with McClellan. We spoke about the necessity of dividing his large army into corps. McClellan took from the table an Army Almanac, and pointed to the names of generals to whom he intended to give the command of corps. He feels the urgency of the case, and said that Gen. Scott prevented him from doing it; but as soon as he, McClellan, shall be free to act, the division will be made. So General Scott is everywhere to defend senile routine against progress, and the experience of modern times.

The rebels deserve, to the end of time, many curses from outraged humanity. By their treason they forced upon the free institutions of the North the necessity of curtailing personal liberty and other rights; to make use of depotism for the sake of selfdefence.

The enemy concentrates and shortens his lines, and McClellan dares not even tread on the enemy's heels. Instead of forcing the enemy to do what we want, and upturn his schemes, McClellan seemingly does the bidding of Beauregard. We advance as much as Beauregard allows us to do. New tactics, to be sure, but at any rate not Napoleonic.

The fighting in the West and some small successes here are obtained by rough levies; and those imbecile, regular martinets surrounding McClellan still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the wealth, energy, intellect of the country, is concentrated in the hands of McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations his science. He may have some little of it, but half-science is worse than thorough ignorance. Oh! for one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon, nor a Cabrera, nor a Garibaldi.

Mason and Slidell escaped to Havana on their way to Europe, as commissioners of the rebels. According to all international definitions, we have the full right to seize them in any neutral vessel, they being political contrabands of war going on a publicly avowed errand hostile to their true government. Mason and Slidell are not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of war, of bloodshed and rebellion; and it is all the same in whatever seaport they embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes from America to Europe, or vice versa, Mr. Seward can let them be seized when they have left Havana, provided he finds it expedient.

We lose time, and time is all in favor of the rebels. Every day consolidates their existence — so to speak, crystallizes them. Further — many so-called Union men in the South, who, at the start, opposed secession, by and by will get accustomed to it. Secession daily takes deeper root, and will so by degrees become un fait accompli. Mr. Adams, in his official relations with the English government, speaks of the rebel pirates as of lawful privateers. Mr. Seward admonished him for it. Bravo!

It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an American who concatenates a long series of effects and causes, or who understands that to explain an isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be ascended and a general law invoked. Could they do it, various bunglings would be avoided, and much of the people's sacrifices husbanded, instead of being squandered, as it is done now.

Fremont going overboard! His fall will be the triumph of the pro-slavery party, headed by the New York Herald, and supported by military old fogies, by martinets, and by double and triple political and intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had no brilliant military capacity. Then his fall could not have taken place.

Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination, and too hastily discounts the future. But imagination ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward must lose credit at home and abroad for having prophesied, and having his prophecies end in smoke. When Hatteras was taken (Gen. Scott protested against the expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the beginning of the end. A diplomat here made the observation that no minister of a European parliamentary government could remain in power after having been continually contradicted by facts.

Now, Mr. Seward devised these collateral missions to Europe. He very little knows the habit and temper of European cabinets if he believes that such collateral confidential agents can do any good. The European cabinets distrust such irresponsible agents, who, in their turn, weaken the influence and the standing of the genuine diplomatic agents. Mr. S., early in the year, boasted to abolish, even in Europe, the system of passports, and soon afterwards introduced it at home. So his imagination carries him to overhaul the world. He proposes to European powers a united expedition to Japan, and we cannot prevent at home the running of the blockade, and are ourselves blockaded on the Potomac. All such schemes are offsprings of an ambitious imagination. But the worst is, that every such outburst of his imagination Mr. Seward at once transforms into a dogma, and spreads it with all his might. I pity him when I look towards the end of his political career. He writes well, and has put down the insolent English dispatch concerning the habeas corpus and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Englishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII. (provided he knows as much history), or may be he has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or Metternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily outwits here men around him; most are politicians as he; but he never can outwit the statesmen of Europe. Besides, diplomacy, above all that of great powers, is conceived largely and carried on a grand scale; the present diplomacy has outgrown what is commonly called (but fallaciously) Talleyrandism and Metternichism.

McClellan and the party which fears to make a bold advance on the enemy make so much fuss about the country being cut up and wooded; it proves only that they have no brains and no fertility of expedients. This country is not more cut up than is the Caucasus, and the woods are no great, endless, primitive forests. They are rather groves. In the Caucasus the Russians continually attack great and dense forests; they fire in them several round shots, then grape, and then storm them with the bayonet; and the Circassians are no worse soldiers than are the Southrons.

European papers talk much of mediation, of a peaceful arrangement, of compromise. By intuition of the future the Northern people know very well the utter impossibility of such an arrangement. A peace could not stand; any such peace will establish the military superiority of the arrogant, reckless, piratical South. The South would teem with hundreds of thousands of men ready for any piratical, fillibustering raid, enterprise, or excursion, of which the free States north and west would become the principal theatres. Such a marauding community as the South would become, in case of success, will be unexampled in history. The Cylician pirates, the Barbary robbers, nay, the Tartars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were virtuous and civilized in comparison with what would be an independent, man-stealing, and man-whipping Southern agglomeration of lawless men. The free States could have no security, even if all the thus called gentlemen and men of honor were to sign a treaty or a compromise. The Southern pestilential influence would poison not only the North, but this whole hemisphere. The history of the past has nothing to be compared with organized, legal piracy, as would become the thus-called Southern chivalry on land and on sea; and soon European maritime powers would be obliged to make costly expeditions for the sake of extirpating, crushing, uprooting the nest of pirates, which then will embrace about twelve millions, — every Southern gentleman being a pirate at heart.

This is what the Northern people know by experience and by intuition, and what makes the people so uneasy about the inertia of the administration.

Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Gen. Scott, and other great men, are soured against the people and public opinion for distrusting, or rather for criticising their little display of statesmanlike activity. How unjust! As a general rule, of all human sentiments, confidence is the most scrutinizing one. If confidence is bestowed, it wants to perfectly know the why. But from the outset of this war the American people gave and give to everybody full, unsuspecting confidence, without asking the why, without even scrutinizing the actions which were to justify the claim.

Up to this day Secesh is the positive pole; the Union is the negative, — it is the blow recipient. When, oh, when will come the opposite? When will we deal blows? Not under McClellan, I suspect.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 104-114

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: July 27, 1861

The Colonel left for Ohio to-day, to be gone two weeks.

I came from the quarters of Brigadier-General Schleich a few minutes ago. He is a three-months' brigadier, and a rampant demagogue. Schleich said that slaves who accompanied their masters to the field, when captured, should be sent to Cuba and sold to pay the expenses of the war. I suggested that it would be better to take them to Canada and liberate them, and that so soon as the Government began to sell negroes to pay the expenses of the war I would throw up my commission and go home. Schleich was a State Senator when the war began. He is what might be called a tremendous little man, swears terribly, and imagines that he thereby shows his snap. Snap, in his opinion, is indispensable to a military man. If snap is the only thing a soldier needs, and profanity is snap, Schleich is a second Napoleon. This General Snap will go home, at the expiration of his three-months' term, unregretted by officers and men. Major Hugh Ewing will return with him. Last night the Major became thoroughly elevated, and he is not quite sober yet. He thinks, when in his cups, that our generals are too careful of their men. "What are a th-thousand men," said he, "when (hic) principle is at stake? Men's lives (hic) shouldn't be thought of at such a time (hic). Amount to nothing (hic). Our generals are too d----d slow" (hic). The Major is a man of excellent natural capacity, the son of Hon. Thomas Ewing, of Lancaster, and brother-in-law of W. T. Sherman, now a colonel or brigadier-general in the army. W. T. Sherman is the brother of John Sherman.

The news from Manassas is very bad. The disgraceful flight of our troops will do us more injury, and is more to be regretted, than the loss of fifty thousand men. It will impart new life, courage, and confidence to our enemies. They will say to their troops: "You see how these scoundrels run when you stand up to them."

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 35-6

Congressman Horace Mann to Reverend Samuel Joseph May, September 21, 1850

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,— . . . You have seen how Websterism overrides everything in Boston. A large portion of the voters in my district belong in Boston, and have no sympathies or interests but in Boston, and only come out into the country to sleep and vote. They are exciting an opposition to me, to the extent of their influence and Webster's money. Were it not for this, I should long ago have positively declined to be a candidate again. The posture of affairs may compel me to withhold the execution of this purpose. . . . I have no heart to write a word on the course of things in Congress this session. The slaveholders have overthrown principles, and put them to rout as Napoleon did armies.

Yours very truly,

HORACE MANN.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 331-2

Jefferson Davis’ Remarks on the Resolution of Thanks to General Zachary Taylor, May 28, 1846

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS said, as a friend to the army, he rejoiced at the evidence now afforded of a disposition in this House to deal justly, to feel generously towards those to whom the honor of our flag has been intrusted. Too often and too long had we listened to harsh and invidious reflections upon our gallant little army, and the accomplished officers who command it. A partial opportunity had been offered to exhibit their soldierly qualities in their true light, and he trusted these aspersions were hushed-hushed now forever. As an American, whose heart promptly responds to all which illustrates our national character, and adds new glory to our national name, he rejoiced with exceeding joy at the recent triumph of our arms. Yet it is no more than he expected from the gallant soldiers who hold our post upon the Rio Grande-no more than, when occasion offers, they will achieve again. It was the triumph of American courage, professional skill, and that patriotic pride which blooms in the breast of our educated soldier, and which droops not under the withering scoff of political revilers.

These men will feel, deeply feel, the expression of your gratitude. It will nerve their hearts in the hour of future conflict, to know that their country acknowledges and honors their devotion. It will shed a solace on the dying moment of those who fall, to be assured their country mourns the loss. This is the meed for which the soldier bleeds and dies. This he will remember long after the paltry pittance of one month's extra pay has been forgotten.

Beyond this expression of the nation's thanks, he liked the principle of the proposition offered by the gentleman from South Carolina. We have a pension system providing for the disabled soldier, but he seeks well and wisely to extend it to all who may be wounded, however slightly. It is a reward offered to those who seek for danger, who first and foremost plunge into the fight. It has been this incentive, extended so as to cover all feats of gallantry, that has so often crowned the British arms with victory, and caused their prowess to be recognised in every quarter of the globe. It was the sure and high reward of gallantry, the confident reliance upon their nation's gratitude, which led Napoleon's armies over Europe, conquering and to conquer; and it was these influences which, in an earlier time, rendered the Roman arms invincible, and brought their eagle back victorious from every land on which it gazed. Sir, let not that prevent us from parsimony, (for he did not deem it economy,) adopting a system which in war will add so much to the efficiency of troops. Instead of seeking to fill the ranks of your army by increased pay, let the soldier feel that a liberal pension will relieve him from the fear of want in the event of disability, provide for his family in the event of death, and that he wins his way to gratitude and the reward of his countrymen by perilling all for honor in the field.

The achievement which we now propose to honor is one which richly deserves it. Seldom, sir, in the annals of military history has there been one in which desperate daring and military skill were more happily combined. The enemy selected his own ground, and united to the advantage of a strong position a numerical majority of three to one. Driven from his first position by an attack in which it is hard to say whether professional skill or manly courage is to be more admired, he retired and posted his artillery on a narrow defile, to sweep the ground over which our troops were compelled to pass. There, posted in strength three times greater than our own, they waited the approach of our gallant little army.

General Taylor knew the danger and destitution of the band he left to hold his camp opposite Matamoras, and he paused for no regular approaches, but opened his field artillery, and dashed with sword and bayonet on the foe. A single charge left him master of their battery, and the number of slain attests the skill and discipline of his army. Mr. D. referred to a gentleman who, a short time since, upon this floor, expressed extreme distrust in our army, and poured out the vials of his denunciation upon the graduates of the Military Academy. He hoped now the gentleman will withdraw those denunciations; that now he will learn the value of military science; that he will see in the location, the construction, the defence of the bastioned field-work opposite Matamoras the utility, the necessity of a military education. Let him compare the few men who held that with the army that assailed it; let him mark the comparative safety with which they stood within that temporary work; let him consider why the guns along its ramparts were preserved, whilst they silenced the batteries of the enemy; why that intrenchment stands unharmed by Mexican shot, whilst its guns have crumbled the stone walls in Matamoras to the ground, and then say whether he believes a blacksmith or a tailor could have secured the same results. He trusted the gentleman would be convinced that arms, like every occupation, requires to be studied before it can be understood; and from these things, to which he had called his attention, he will learn the power and advantage of military science. He would make but one other allusion to the remarks of the gentleman he had noticed, who said nine-tenths of the graduates of the Military Academy abandoned the service of the United States. If he would take the trouble to examine the records upon this point, he doubted not he would be surprised at the extent of his mistake. There he would learn that a majority of all the graduates are still in service; and if he would push his inquiry a little further, he would find that a large majority of the commissioned officers who bled in the actions of the 8th and 9th were graduates of that academy.

He would not enter into a discussion on the military at this time. His pride, his gratification arose from the success of our arms. Much was due to the courage which Americans have displayed on many battle-fields in former times; but this courage, characteristic of our people, and pervading all sections and all classes, could never have availed so much had it not been combined with military science. And the occasion seemed suited to enforce this lesson on the minds of those who have been accustomed, in season and out of season, to rail at the scientific attainments of our officers.

The influence of military skill—the advantage of discipline in the troops—the power derived from the science of war, increases with the increased size of the contending armies. With two thousand we had beaten six thousand; with twenty thousand we would far more easily beat sixty thousand, because the General must be an educated soldier who wields large bodies of men, and the troops, to act efficiently, must be disciplined and commanded by able officers. He but said what he had long thought and often said, when he expressed his confidence in the ability of our officers to meet those of any service—favorably to compare, in all that constitutes the soldier, with any army in the world; and as the field widened for the exhibition, so would their merits shine more brightly still.

With many of the officers now serving on the Rio Grande he had enjoyed a personal acquaintance, and hesitated not to say that all which skill and courage and patriotism could perform, might be expected from them. He had forborne to speak of the General commanding on the Rio Grande on any former occasion; but he would now say to those who had expressed distrust, that the world held not a soldier better qualified for the service he was engaged in than General Taylor. Trained from his youth to arms, having spent the greater portion of his life on our frontier, his experience peculiarly fits him for the command he holds. Such as his conduct was in Fort Harrison, on the Upper Mississippi, in Florida, and on the Rio Grande, will it be wherever he meets the enemy of his country.

Those soldiers to whom so many have applied deprecatory epithets, upon whom it has been so often said no reliance could be placed, they, too, will be found in every emergency renewing such feats as have recently graced our arms, bearing the American flag to honorable triumphs, or falling beneath its folds as devotees to our common cause to die a soldier's death.

He rejoiced that the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. BLACK] had shown himself so ready to pay this tribute to our army. He hoped not a voice would be raised in opposition to it; that nothing but the stern regret which is prompted by remembrance of those who bravely fought and nobly died will break the joy, the pride, the patriotic gratulation with which we hail this triumph of our brethren on the Rio Grande.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 46-9

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: Sunday, November 6, 1864

Bright and frosty.

All quiet below. Another day, and if it remains quiet, we may know that Lincoln will be re-elected.

It is said news came from the North last night, that gold sold for $260, and that Governor Seymour had ordered the militia of New York to be in readiness for the protection of the polls on Tuesday next.

G. W. Randolph, late Secretary of War, has sailed for Europe, taking his family with him. Other quondam Confederate States functionaries have gone, or are going. Many have realized fortunes, who were poor, and this country has ceased to be the one to enjoy them in.

A parting letter was written by Mr. Randolph to his friend, R. G. H. Kean, Chief of the Bureau of War-appointed by Mr. R., and from whom I derived the information of the sailing of his patron. Such departures, at a crisis like this, spread additional doubts in the community. Mr. R. was not liable to conscription, if averse to fighting more in our cause, being exempted by Governor Smith as a member of the Common Council.

To-morrow is the day fixed for the reassembling of our Congress, but doubts are entertained whether there will be a quorum.

We shall soon have lively news from Beauregard. If I understand his letter of the 24th ult., he is determined to march the army without delay into Middle Tennessee, leaving Sherman on his right flank and rear. It is a desperate conception, and will probably be a brilliant success—or a sad disaster. Napoleon liked such games. If Beauregard really bas great genius, he has now the field on which to display it. If the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians rise, momentous events may follow; if not, it is probably the last opportunity they will have. They have their choice—but blood is the price of independence.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 325

Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, November 7, 1866

SANTIAGO, Nov. 7, 1866.

Dear Brother: We have nearly completed the circle without finding Juarez, who is about as far as ever, away up in Chihuahua for no other possible purpose than to be where the devil himself cannot get at him.

I have not the remotest idea of riding on mule back a thousand miles in Mexico to find its chief magistrate, and although the French go away and Maximilian follow, I doubt if Juarez can be made to trust his life and safety to his own countrymen. We found Vera Cruz in possession of the French and Maximilian, and we found Tucapiso in possession of local troops in the interest of Maximilian, but they had not the remotest idea where we should look for Juarez. We have just reached here, and shall to-morrow go up to Matamoras to meet General Escobedo, who can possibly fix some date when Juarez will come within reach of civilization.

The truth is these Mexicans were and are still as unable as children to appreciate the value of time. They shrug their shoulders and exclaim "Quien sabe!" (who knows) and "Poco tiempo" (in a short time), utterly regardless of combinations with others.

Mr. Campbell can deal with none but Juarez and the Republican Government he represents, and that government partakes of the characteristics of Mexicans; viz., indecision and utter want of combination.

I believe the French want to leave, but would like to bring us into the scrape. Their scheme of giving Mexico a stable government has cost them $200,000,000 of gold, and the whole conception was in hostility to us, to be ready to reabsolve the old Louisiana purchase, where, as Napoleon calculated, our Union had failed. But our Union has not failed, and the French are willing to go, but they are scattered and must collect before they can march for the seacoast to embark. By reason of the everlasting contest between the rival factions of Mexico, the property-holders desire some sort of stable government, and these favor Maximilian. He may attempt to remain after the French go, but I think would soon be forced to go. Then Mexico must of necessity settle her own difficulties. Some think she can, some that she cannot without our aid. This cannot be done without Congress, and on that point I am no advocate. All I can say is that Mexico does not belong to our system. All its northern part is very barren and costly. Its southern part is very good tropical country, but not suited to our people or pursuits. Its inhabitants are a mixture of Indians, negroes, and Spanish, that can never be tortured into good citizens, and would have to be exterminated before the country could be made available to us. I am obeying orders and not carrying out a project of my own, and it is well you should understand it, though I cannot impart it to others.

I don't know what policy the Administration has adopted, but I should deplore anything that would make us assume Mexico in any shape—its territory, its government, or its people. Still the French occupation designed in hostility to us should be made to terminate.

Affectionately,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 284-6

Major General William T. Sherman to Senator John Sherman, January 17, 1866

[ST. LOUIS, January 17, 1866]

I get a great many commentaries on the past, and have no reason to object to the exalted examples with which my name is connected. According to some enthusiasts, Hannibal, Alexander, and Napoleon fall below my standard. Of course I always laugh at these, and prefer to stand by the record, being perfectly satisfied with Grant's résumé of the campaigns of 1864-5. Affectionately,

W. T. SHERMAN.

SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 261

Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, December 23, 1860

The Arabia brings the news that Secretary Cobb has resigned. He goes then to join the Disunionists, who, in Georgia, object to joint, but are in favor of separate, secession. Mr. Cobb is forty-five years of age; before he becomes sixty, he will have discovered that a good cause is really only injured by violence, and best promoted by calm and steady action; he will then have become, for he has ample ability, a safe American statesman.

The news in no respect diminishes the gloom of affairs in the United States. The situation is deplorable already, and worse is in prospect. I think it at once proper and becoming to manifest sympathy with my countrymen in their present trials. I have, therefore, declined Mr. Bates's invitation to the New-Year festivities at Sheen. It is impossible to be merry when one's country is gasping for breath.

China news is highly interesting. The first Napoleon has been always condemned by the British press for despoiling the academies and temples of Italy of their treasures of art, which he collected in his gallery of the Louvre. Still, they vindicated the burning of our Capitol and White House in 1814 by Ross; they bombarded the superb private residence of Prince Woronzow at Odessa; and here they are again, this time conjointly with the French, avowedly plundering and carrying off the ornaments and comforts of an imperial summer palace! War necessarily leads to excesses, which every effort should be made to restrict as much as possible. What conceivable benefit to the cause in which they are engaged could the allies derive from purloining pictures, statuary, and articles of novelty? But such are the two heads of European civilization. The French have made a separate convention, after the Treaty of Peace, bargaining for liberty to carry off coolies (hem!), for a recognition of Catholicism throughout China, and an indemnity of twelve millions of dollars! Pretty well for Louis Napoleon, and better, considering his looting, for Marshal Montauban.

SOURCE: George Mifflin Dallas, Diary of George Mifflin Dallas, While United States Minister to Russia 1837 to 1839, and to England 1856 to 1861, Volume 3, p. 423-5

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 25, 1864

The President has certainly conferred on Bragg the position once (1862) occupied by Lee, as the following official announcement, in all the papers to-day, demonstrates: 

WAR DEPARTMENT,         

ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL's OFFICE,

RICHMOND, February 24th, 1864. 

GENERAL ORDERs No. 23.

 

Gen. Braxton Bragg is assigned to duty at the seat of government, and, under direction of the President, is charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederacy.

 

By order of the Secretary of War.

S. COOPFR,  

Adjutant and Inspector General.

No doubt Bragg can give the President valuable counsel—nor can there be any doubt that he enjoys a secret satisfaction in triumphing thus over popular sentiment, which just at this time is much averse to Gen. Bragg. The President is naturally a little oppugnant.

He has just appointed a clerk, in the Department of War, a military judge, with rank and pay of colonel of cavalry—one whom he never saw; but the clerk once had a street fight with Mr. Pollard, who has published a pamphlet against the President. Mr. Pollard sees his enemy with three golden stars on each side of his collar.

The retreat of Sherman seems to be confirmed.

Gen. Beauregard sends the following dispatch: 

CHARLESTON, February 23d—2.15 P.M.

TO GEN. S. COOPER.

 

The latest reports from Gen. Finnegan give no particulars of the victory at Occum Pond, except that he has taken all of the enemy's artillery, some 500 or 600 stand of small arms already collected, and that the roads for three miles are strewn with the enemy's dead and wounded.

 

G. T. BEAUREGARD.

The Examiner has the following remarks on the appointment of Bragg:

The judicious and opportune appointment of Gen. Bragg to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Armies, will be appreciated as an illustration of that strong common sense which forms the basis of the President's character, that regard for the opinions and feelings of the country, that respect for the Senate, which are the keys to all that is mysterious in the conduct of our public affairs. The Confederate armies cannot fail to be well pleased. Every soldier's heart feels that merit is the true title to promotion, and that glorious service should insure a splendid reward. From Lookout Mountain, a step to the highest military honor and power is natural and inevitable. Johnston, Lee, and Beauregard learn with grateful emotions that the conqueror of Kentucky and Tennessee has been elevated to a position which his superiority deserves. Finally this happy announcement should enliven the fires of confidence and enthusiasm, reviving among the people like a bucket of water on a newly kindled grate.

The day before his appointment, the Enquirer had a long editorial article denouncing in advance his assignment to any prominent position, and severely criticised his conduct in the West. Today it hails his appointment as Commander-in-Chief with joy and enthusiasm! This reminds one of the Moniteur when Napoleon was returning from Elba. The Enquirer's notion is to prevent discord—and hence it is patriotic.

The weather is still bright, pleasant, but dusty. We have had only one rain since the 18th of December, and one light snow. My garden is too dry for planting.

We have not only the negroes arrayed against us, but it appears that recruiting for the Federal army from Ireland has been carried on to a large extent.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 157-9

Diary of Corporal David L. Day: March 21, 1862

I AM INTERVIEWED.

Passing along Pollock, above Middle street, today, I was accosted by a man who was sitting on the veranda of his house and invited to come in, as he wished a talk with me. Noticing that he was a smart-looking, well-dressed, gentlemanly appearing man, and withal an M. D., according to his sign, I was nothing loth to gratify his whim. As I stepped up on the veranda, he invited me to be seated. After a little commonplace talk, he began to inquire about our troops, their number and where they were from. I told him only a few of our troops had landed, that the river and sound were black with them in case they should be needed, and nearly all of them were from New England. He said our capture of the city was wholly unexpected, and at the last moment nearly all the better class of citizens left, leaving their houses and property as we found them. He said in that he thought they had made a great mistake, as he regarded Gen. Burnside as an honorable, high-toned gentleman, who would have dealt fairly with them, if they had remained and taken their chances, and would have allowed them to go whenever they wished. I replied I didn't know how that would have been, but I thought they had made another mistake in burning the railroad bridge and trying to burn the town. In doing as they have, they have shown that they had no regard for their property and they certainly cannot expect us to have much for it, although we have shown some in putting out the fires and saving it.

“Yes, I know,” he said, “but perhaps they thought they would show your people that they were willing to sacrifice their property and make a Moscow of it rather than let it fall into your hands.” “Well, sir,” said I, “in that they made another mistake, for if they had succeeded in burning it, it would have been no Moscow; we should have staid here just the same. Unlike Napoleon, we do not need the town; we care nothing for it; it is the position we want.”

“But you seem to occupy it?”

“Certainly we do, there is no one else to occupy it, and we may as well use it as not.”

“Do you propose to have us vacate our premises for your use?”

“Really, sir, I am not in the secrets of the general, but I presume that you and all others will be protected in your persons and property, so long as you remain loyal and show no opposition to the government.”

“Yes, sir, I supposed it would be something that way. What do you propose doing with that cotton down on the wharf.”

“That cotton belonged to the Confederate government, or at least they were using it against the Federal government, and like other government property it becomes the spoils of war, and some fine morning you will see it going down the river bound for some northern manufacturing city. After a few weeks it will be back here again in the form of tents for the use of the army.”

“Then you intend making this a permanent garrison?”

“We intend to hold this position just as long as it is of any use to us.”

“How long do you think this war will continue?”

“As things look now, I don't think it can possibly hold more than a year longer, if it does so long.”

“Then you think in that time you can subjugate our people?”

“Well, sir, my opinion is that in less than eighteen months, every armed Confederate, unless he sooner surrenders, will be driven into the Gulf of Mexico.”

“You seem to be very sanguine in your opinion, sir; but then we all have our opinions, and I think after a year you will find you have made but little progress. I would like to ask for how long you have enlisted?”

“I have enlisted for three years, unless the job is sooner finished.”

“Well, sir, if nothing serious happens to you (which I really. hope there will not), you will serve your three years, and then, unless your people give it up, you can again enlist, for I can assure you that our people will never give it up.”

“You think then, that with all the odds against you, you will finally succeed?”

“I certainly do; you see you Yankees are going to tire of this thing after a spell; you are not used to roughing it, and will soon weary of the hardships and privations of a soldier's life. You Yankees had much rather be spinning cotton, making shoes, trading, speculating and trying to make money, than following the occupation of a soldier.”

“For a choice, there are probably very few of us who would select the occupation of a soldier, but you mistake the Yankee character entirely, if you think, having undertaken anything, they tire of it very easily. That was not the class of men they sprung from. They were an enterprising, untiring class of men; if they had not been, they would never have settled down among the rocks and hills of bleak New England and made of it the richest, most intelligent and powerful little piece of territory the sun shines on. But, my friend, as all things earthly have an end, this will probably prove no exception, and in the end, your people will find that they have got the least value received for the money paid out of any speculation they ever engaged in, and will still find themselves a part and parcel of the United States, subject to all the rules and conditions of the government, in common with the rest of the states.”

After some further talk about state rights and state sovereignty, in which we could not agree, he invited me into his house. Here, like a true Southern gentleman, he entertained and extended hospitalities right royally, and I think we must have sampled his best bottle. He told me it was six years old, and from a silver goblet, I sipped the best native wine I ever tasted; it was rich, mellow and fruity. He said it was made from a choice variety of grape called the Scupperuong. It was really a splendid native wine, as so it appeared to me. After some more small talk, I bade my new found friend good day, and took my leave.

SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 49-51

Diary of Private Daniel L. Ambrose: Sunday, April 6, 1862

It is now move ing [sic]—a beautiful Sabbath morning. The dews have gone to heaven and the stars have gone to God; the sky is all inlaid with crimson, far away to the east. From behind the eastern hills the sun is peering; it is moving on its path. But ere it has long illumed the sky, war's dread tocsin is heard; the sullen roar of artillery breaks upon our ears, telling to us that the storm-king of battle would ride upon the banks of the Tennessee to-day. The army of the Tennessee springs to arms to meet the advancing columns of Albert Sidney Johnson. The pennons are now flying. Major Rowett and the Seventh are quickly buckled for the conflict. Her old, tattered and shot-riven flag goes flying through the woods, and the regiment is soon in the conflict. Their position is now behind a rail fence. Oh! the angry tempest that rolls around here! Belching cannons, shotted to the muzzle, are now plowing deep lanes in the Union ranks. How can we describe the sound of a storm of grape and canister, cutting their hellish paths through serried ranks of human beings. It is impossible. Many are the storms flying around the Seventh now. Thicker and faster they come, but those noble men who bore that riddled flag over Fort Donelson's walls, struggle on. Many have breathed quickly, and, trampled under their comrades' feet, have rolled in bloody agonies and now lie in quiet eternal slumber. The mighty armies are now struggling—struggling desperately for the life or death of a nation.

Fiercer and fiercer rages the battle. The great Grant is moving on the field with a mighty power. But fearful odds are against us, and the army of the Tennessee is compelled to yield position after position. The Seventh has been forced to yield many points to-day; at one time being so far in the advance, we were left without support, and had it not been for the quick perception of our gallant Major, we would have been cut off and captured. Forming columns by divisions, we retreated from our critical position, and were compelled to fall back across an open field. It was a trying time. The harsh, fierce barking of the dogs of war made the earth tremble, as if in the midst of a convulsion. But there was no confusion in the Seventh-no panic there. Led by the brave Rowett, they moved firmly, as if to say, that shot-pierced flag, tattered and torn, shall not go down to-day. Major Rowett, with the aid of Captain Monroe, acting Major now form a new line with the Seventh. War's ruthless machine is moving with a relentless force.

It is now past noon. Confusion reigns; brave men are falling like rain drops. All seems dark—seems that the Union army will be crushed by this wild sweep of treason. But on the crippled army of the Tennessee struggles; they still keep the flag up. It is now four o'clock. Step by step the army is being driven back towards the river. The old Union banner seems to be drooping in the wrathful storm, but by an almost superhuman effort the tide is checked. For a while there is a lull in the battle, but only to make preparations for the last desperate assault-an assault in which the enemy expect to see the old flag come down to their feet.

Buell is said to be approaching; he is hourly expected. Grant is now seen moving with a care-worn countenance, He moves amid the carnage to form his last grand line one-fourth mile from the Tennessee, where the advance is now driven. Grant's last line is formed. It is a line of iron, a line of steel, a wall of stout hearts, as firm, as powerful as Napoleon under like reverses ever formed in the days of his imperial power. It seems almost impossible for such a line to be formed at this hour 50 compact. On every available spot of earth an iron-lipped monster frowns. It is a trying moment, for Grant knows and his army knows that should this line be broken, the battle would be lost and the proud flag would be compelled to fall. At half-past four o'clock Grant dashes through the woods. His voice rings out: “They come! they come! Army of the Tennessee stand firm!” A breathless silence pervades these serried ranks, until broken by the deafening crash of artillery. The last desperate struggle on Sunday evening now commences. One hundred brazen guns are carrying terror and death across Shiloh's plain. The Seventh is at its place; every officer and soldier is at his post; Rowett and Monroe are at their stations, now on foot; (Rowett's horse killed in former charge; Monroe's disabled.) All the company officers are in their places, cheering and encouraging their gallant men, and as we gaze upon the bristling bayonets that are gleaming along the Seventh's line, we know that every brawny arm that is beneath them will be bared to shield the old flag. The infantry are clashing now, but this line of stout hearts stands firm. The traitor hosts grow desperate; the earth trembles; the sun is hid behind the wrathful smoke, but amid all the deafening battle elements of the darkened field, the flag and its defenders stand. Down beneath its shadow brave men are falling to close their eyes in glory. The storm still increases in its sweeping power. About five o'clock the issue becomes doubtful; each seems to hold the balance, and like Napoleon at Waterloo, who prayed that night or Blucher would come, so we prayed that night or the army of Ohio would come. About this time, Albert Sidney Johnson poured out his life-blood upon the altar of a vain ambition. At that fatal hour the enemy's lines waver, and the sun goes down with the army of the Tennessee standing victorious on their last great line.

Night comes, and with it Buell comes, but only in time to witness the closing scene on Sunday evening. We thanked God for the arrival of the army of the Ohio, but we never thanked God for Don Carlos Buell when he rode across the Tennessee and spoke lightly of the great Grant, who had successfully stemmed the wildest storm of battle that ever rolled upon the American continent.

The sable curtains have now fallen, closing to our eyes the terrible scene. Soon it commences to rain. Dark, dark night for the army of the Tennessee. Many brave men are sleeping silently. They have fought their last battle. Fearful, desolating war has done a desperate work. Noble men have thrown themselves into the dread ordeal, and passed away. The human pen will fail to picture the battle-field of Shiloh as it presented itself on Sunday night. The Seventh, tired and almost exhausted, drops down on the ground, unmindful of the falling rain, to rest themselves. Ere it was noon some of the Seventh had already lain down to rest, and ere it was night others laid down, but it was an eternal rest-the soldier's last slumber. Disastrous war has wrapped its winding sheet around the cold form of many a fond mother's boy, and before many days there will be weeping in the lonely cottage homes; weeping for the loved and lost who are now sleeping beneath the tall oaks on the banks of the Tennessee. About the noble men of the Seventh who fell to-day, we will speak hereafter; we shall not forget them. How could we forget them, when they have played their part so well in the great tragedy?

SOURCES: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 49-54

Diary of Corporal David L. Day: February 6, 1862

Hoisted anchor and steamed to within a short distance of the light house, and in full view of the island. Here we again dropped anchor and the day was spent in prospecting by the gunboats. They went up near the island, and after a few hours returned, reporting three forts and a number of armed boats and schooners. The thing is being managed pretty cautiously, and I expect when the show comes off, it will be ahead of anything we ever saw, not excepting Barnum's. For one, I am not over anxious to see a fight, and especially to be a participant, but we have been afloat so long and fared so hard I wish to get ashore, no matter under what circumstances. One would have supposed, to have heard the boys talk last night, that we were all Napoleons. They talked of booming guns, the rattle of infantry, of splendid bayonet charges, brilliant victories, and deeds of courage, daring and heroism. On the principle, I suppose of those who know nothing fear nothing, but then it is a good plan not to get our tails down until we are obliged to. I even got my courage screwed up so I could repeat the words of some great military hero or other:

“Then welcome war, our arms to brace,

The standards planted face to face;

Tho' death’s pale horse leads on the chase,

We’ll follow there.”

Ammunition was dealt out today, and our cartridge boxes now contain forty rounds of the death-dealing missiles. The boys seem to be in great spirits and the bands are discoursing national music.

SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 32

Anti-Slavery Meeting in Andover, published August 8, 1835

MR. EDITOR — I regret that the former account I was sent of your labors of our excellent brothers Thompson and Phelps, was so meager a statement of their untiring efforts among us.  Circumstances, however, obliged me to compress into a small space, what was worthy of being given at much greater length; and for the benefit of those who have not the privilege of listening to the discussion of a question of so much importance to every American citizen as that of slavery, a fuller sketch of the remaining meetings shall be given.  As my remarks will be confined for the most part to the speeches of Mr. Thompson, it must not be supposed that I can give anything like an adequate idea of the cogency of his arguments or of the power of his eloquence.  To eulogize him as an orator would be idle.  It would be like daubing paint upon a finished portrait, which would only soil it instead of adding to its beauty. Those who would form any just conception of Mr. Thompson as a public speaker and a christian philanthropist, must both see and hear him, and those who have once listened to him, are well aware that even an analysis of a speech of his , so closely joined in all its parts, so replete with profound thought, and so profusely embellished with rhetorical flowers of every hue and ever ordour, cannot be embodied in a single brief paragraph.  I shall therefore not attempt to give his own expressions, but merely a general description of his discourse.

On Sunday evening, July 12th, Mr. Thompson addressed a crowded audience, from Ezekiel xxviii. 14, 15, 16 – “Thou art the anointed the cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so : thou wast upon the holy mountain of God: thou hast walked up and down in the midst of these stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.”

Mr. Thompson remarked that though this was a passage of inimitable beauty, it was one of tremendous and awful import. While it drew the picture of the wealth and grandeur of ancient Tyre, it contained the prediction of its downfall. Mr. Thompson then proceeded to portray in matchless colors the prosperity and glory of the renowned city, whose “builders had perfected her beauty, whose borders were in the midst of the sea, whose mariners were the men of Sidon, and who was a merchant to the people of many islands.” Her fir trees were brought from Hermon, her oaks from Bashan, her cedars from Lebanon, her blue and purple and fine linen from Egypt, her wheat and oil and honey from Judea, her spices and gold and precious stones from Arabia, her silver from Tarsus, her emeralds and coral and agate from Syria, her warriors from Persia, and her slaves from Greece. Her palaces were radiant with jewels, and many kings were filled with the multitude of the riches of her merchandise. But iniquity was found in her. She had kept back the hire of the laborer by fraud. By the multitude of her riches she was filled with violence. She made merchandise of the bodies and souls of men, therefore she should be cast down. Many nations should come up against her and destroy her walls and break down her towers. All this had been literally fulfilled.

Mr. Thompson then applied his subject to America. Your country, said he, is peculiarly an anointed cherub. Heaven smiled upon the self-denying enterprise of your praying, pilgrim fathers, and in two centuries a great nation has risen into being — a nation whose territories stretches from the Canadas to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains — a nation whose prowess by land and by sea is unsurpassed by any people that have a name — a nation whose markets are filled with the luxuries of every clime, and whose merchandise is diffused over the world. The keels of your vessels cut all waters. Your ships lie along the docks of every port of Europe, and are anchored under the walls of China. The deer and the buffalo fall before the aim of your hunters, and the eagle is stricken down from his eyry. Your hardy tars visit the ice-bound coasts of the North, and transfix the monsters of the polar seas. Your coasts are thronged with populous and extended cities, and in the interior may be seen the spires of your churches towering above the beautiful villages that surround them. Above every other nation under heaven, yours is distinguished for its christian enterprise. You can give the Bible to every family within the limits of your own territory, and pledge it to the world. Your missionaries are in all quarters of the globe, and your seventeen thousand clergy are preaching salvation, in the midst of your own population. Other nations of Christendom behold with complacency the good effected by your charitable societies, and would be proud to emulate you. No nation has ever been so peculiarly blessed. You are placed upon the holy mountain of God, and walk up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, but you have sinned. Ye make merchandise of the bodies and souls of men. Ye have torn the African from his quiet home, and subjected him to interminable, bondage in a land of strangers. Violence is in the midst of you, and the oppressor walks abroad unpunished. One-sixth part of your whole population are doomed to perpetual slavery. The cotton tree blooms, and the cane field wanes, because the black man tills the soil. The sails of your vessels whiten the ocean, their holds filled with sugar, and their decks burdened with cotton, because the black man smarts under the driver's lash, while the scorching rays of a tropical sun fall blistering upon his skin. He labors and faints, and another riots on the fruits of his unrequited toils. He is bought and sold as the brute, and has nothing that he can call his own. Is he a husband? the next hour may separate him forever from the object of his affections. Is he a father? the child of his hopes may the next moment be torn from his bleeding bosom, and carried he knows not whither, but at best, to a state of servitude more intolerable than death. He looks back upon the past, and remembers his many stripes and tears. He looks forward, and no gleam of hope breaks in upon his sorrow-stricken bosom. Despair rankles in his heart and withers all his energies, and he longs to find rest in the grave. But his dark mind is uninformed of his immortal nature, and when he dies he dies without the consolations of religion, for in christian America there is no Bible for the slave. Your country being thus guilty, it behoves every citizen of your republic to consider lest the fate of Tyre be yours.

Mr. Thompson closed by expressing his determination to labor in behalf of those in bonds, till the last tear was wiped from the eye of the slave, and the last fetter broken from his heel; and then, continued he, then let a western breeze bear me back to the land of my birth, or let me find a spot to lay my bones in the midst of a grateful people, and a people FREE indeed.

Never did the writer of this article listen to such eloquence; and never before did he witness an audience hanging with such profound attention upon the lips of a speaker. But those who take the trouble to read this article, must not suppose that what I have here stated is given in Mr. Thompson's own words. Perhaps I may have made use of some of his expressions, but my object has been to give a general view of this surpassingly excellent address of our beloved brother.

On Monday evening, Mr. Thompson gave a lecture on St. Domingo. It being preliminary to subsequent lectures, it was mostly statistics from the time of the discovery of the island, down to the year 1789. Mr. Thompson remarked that he had a two-fold object in view in giving an account of St. Domingo. First, to show the capacity of the African race for governing themselves; and, second, to show that immediate emancipation was safe, as illustrated by its effects on that island. St. Domingo, he said, was remarkable for being the place where Columbus was betrayed — for its being the first of the West India Islands to which negro slaves were carried from the coast of Africa — for the cruel treatment of the first settlers in the Island to the aborigines — for the triumph of the liberated slaves over the French, and those of the islanders who joined them — for being the birth place of the noble minded, the gifted, the honored, but afterwards, betrayed Toussaint L’Ouverture, who was born a slave, and a great part of his life labored as a slave, yet as soon as his chains were broken off, he rose at once to a man — to a general to a commander-in-chief, and finally to the Governor of a prosperous and happy Republic.

At the close of the exercises, Mr. Thompson informed the audience, that on the next evening they would be addressed by Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Editor of the Liberator, — the much despised and villified Wm. Lloyd Garrison was to address the citizens of Andover on the subject of slavery.

Tuesday evening arrived, and with it arrived Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Editor of the Liberator. The house was crowded by many, who, we doubt not, came from mere curiosity, to see the man who had been held up to the world as the “enemy of all righteousness — the “disturber of the public peace — the “libeller of his country” — the “outlawed fanatic”—the reckless incendiary, who was propagating his seditious sentiments from one end of the land to the other, and yet in this free country, suffered to live notwithstanding.

After prayer and singing, brother Garrison arose, and said, he stood before them as the one who had been represented to the public as the propagator of discord, and the enemy of his country — that almost every opprobrious epithet had been attached to his name; but since one term of reproval had been spared him — since his enemies had never called him a slaveholder, he would forgive them all the rest, and thank them for their magnanimity. He spoke for some time on the supercilious inquiry so often iterated and reiterated by our opponents; Why don't you go to the South? He remarked, that the very individuals who made this inquiry, and were denouncing us as fanatics, well knew that death would be the lot of him who should broach such sentiments at the South, and should the advocates of abolition throw away their lives by recklessly throwing themselves into the hands of those who were thirsting for their blood, then indeed, might these haughty querists smile over their mangled bodies, and with justice pronounce them fanatics. He touched upon several other important points which I must pass over in silence. His manner was mild, his address dignified and dispassionate, and many who never saw him before, and whose opinions, or rather prejudices were formed from the false reports of his enemies, and confirmed by not reading his paper, were compelled, in spite of themselves, to form an idea entirely the reverse of what they had previously entertained of him. His address did much towards removing the prejudice that many had against him, and proved an excellent catholicon to the stomachs of those who are much given to squeamishness, whenever they hear the name of Garrison mentioned.

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Thompson was to have continued his remarks on St. Domingo, but a heavy rain prevented most of the audience from coming together, and by the request of those present, the address was deferred until the next evening, and the time spent in familiar conversation. An interesting discussion took place, and lasted about an hour and a half. Many important questions were canvassed, to the entire satisfaction, we believe, of all who listened to them.

On Thursday evening, Mr. Thompson resumed his account of St. Domingo. Commencing with the year 1790, he showed that the beginning of what are termed “the horrid scenes of St. Domingo,” was in consequence of a decree passed by the National Convention, granting to the free people of color the enjoyment of the same political privileges as the whites, and again in 1791, another decree was passed, couched in still stronger language, declaring that all the free people of color in the French islands were entitled to all the privileges of citizenship. When this decree reached Cape Francais, it excited the whites to great hostility against the free people of color. The parties were arrayed in arms against each other, and blood and conflagration followed. The Convention, in order to prevent the threatening evils, immediately rescinded the decree. By this act, the free blacks were again deprived of their rights, which so enraged them, that they commenced fresh hostilities upon the whites, and the Convention was obliged to re-enact the former decree, giving to them the same rights as white citizens. A civil war continued to rage in the island until 1793, when, in order to extinguish it, and at the same time repel the British, who were then hovering round the coasts, it was suggested that the slaves should be armed in defence of the island. Accordingly in 1793, proclamation was made, promising “to give freedom to all the slaves who would range themselves under the banners of the Republic.” This scheme produced the desired effect. The English were driven from the Island, the civil commotions were suppressed, and peace and order were restored. After this, the liberated slaves were industrious and happy, and continued to work on the same plantations as before, and this state of things continued until 1802, when Buonaparte sent out a military force to restore slavery in the Island. Having enjoyed the blessings of freedom for nine years, the blacks resolved to die rather than again be subjected to bondage. They rose in the strength of free men, and with Toussaint L’Ouverture at their head they encountered their enemies. Many of them, however, were taken by the French, and miserably perished. Some were burnt to death, some were nailed to the masts of ships, some were sown up in sacks, poignarded, and then thrown into the sea as food for sharks, some were confined in the holds of vessels, and suffocated with the fumes of brimstone, and many were torn in pieces by the blood hounds, which the French employed to harass and hunt them in the forests and fastnesses of the mountains. At length the scene changed. The putrifying carcases of the unburied slain poisoned the atmosphere, and produced sickness in the French army. In this state of helplessness they were besieged by the black army, their provisions were cut off, a famine raged among them so that they were compelled at last to subsist upon the flesh of the blood hounds, that they had exported from Cuba as auxiliaries in conquering the islanders. The French army being nearly exterminated, a miserable remnant put to sea, and left the Island to the quiet possession of their conquerors. Mr. Thompson concluded with the following summary: First, the revolution in St. Domingo originated between the whites and the free people of color, previous to any act of emancipation. Second, the slaves after their emancipation remained peaceful, contented, industrious, and happy, until Buonaparte made the attempt to restore slavery in the Island. Third, the history of St. Domingo proves the capacity of the black man for the enjoyment of liberty, his ability of self-government, and improvement, and the safety of immediate emancipation. Friday evening, Mr. Thompson closed his account of St. Domingo, by giving a brief statement of its present condition. He showed by documents published in the West Indies, that its population was rapidly multiplying, its exports annually increasing, and the inhabitants of the Island improving much faster than could be reasonably expected.

After the address, opportunity was given for any individuals to propose questions. A gentleman slaveholder commenced. He made several unimportant inquiries, and along with them, abused Mr. Thompson, by calling him a “foreign incendiary.” Mr. Thompson answered in his usual christian calmness and dignity, not rendering reviling for reviling. The discusion continued to a late hour, and when it closed the audience gave evidence of being well satisfied with the answers given, and some who attended that evening for the first time, subscribed their names to the Constitution. Thus closed Mr. Thompson's labors with us for the present, and he left town on Saturday, July 18th. Mr. Phelps remained and addressed us on Sabbath evening, but the small space left to me, will not admit of my giving any account of it. As to the good accomplished by the labors of Messrs. Thompson and Phelps, some further account may be given hereafter. At present, I will only say, that upwards of 200 have joined the Anti-Slavery Society since they came among us.

Yours, in behalf of the A. S. Society at Andover,

R. REED, Cor. Secretary.

SOURCES: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 77-83; “Anti-Slavery Meetings at Andover,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday, August 8, 1835, p. 1.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Jaunt to Vermont, October 20, 1838

We have recently journeyed through a portion of this free state, and it is not all imagination in us, that sees, in its bold scenery, — its uninfected, inland position, its mountainous, but fertile and verdant surface, the secret of the noble and antislavery predisposition of its people. They are located for freedom. Liberty's home is on their Green Mountains. Their farmer-republic no where touches the ocean — “the highway of the” world's crimes, as well as its “nations.” It has no seaport for the importation of slavery, or the exportation of its own highland republicanism. Vermont is accordingly the earliest anti-slavery state, and should slavery ever prevail over this nation to its utter subjugation, the last, lingering footsteps of retiring liberty will be seen — not, as Daniel Webster said, in the proud old commonwealth of Massachusetts, about Bunker hill and Faneuil hall, (places long since deserted of freedom) — but wailing, like Jephtha's daughter, among the “hollows,” and along the sides of the Green Mountains.

Vermont shows gloriously at this autumn season. Frost has gently laid hands on her exuberant vegetation, tinging her rockmaple woods, without abating the deep verdure of her herbage. Every where along her peopled hollows and her bold hill-slopes and summits is alive with green, while her endless hard-wood forests are uniformed with all the hues of early fall — richer than the regimentals of the kings that glittered in the train of Napoleon on the confines of Poland, when he lingered there on the last outposts of summer, before plunging into the snow-drifts of the North — more gorgeous than the “array” of Saladin's lifeguard in the wars of the Crusaders — or of “Solomon in all his glory” — decked in all colors and hues, but still the hues of life. Vegetation touched, but not dead, or if killed, not bereft yet of  “signs of life.” “Decay's effacing fingers” had not yet “swept the ‘hills,’ where beauty lingers.” All looked fresh as growing foliage. Vermont frosts don't seem to be “killing frosts.” They only change aspects of beauty. The mountain pastures, verdant to the peaks, and over the peaks of the high, steep hills, were covered with the amplest feed, and clothed with countless sheep; — the hay-fields heavy with second crop, in some partly cut and abandoned, as if in very weariness and satiety, blooming with honey-suckle, contrasting strangely with the colors on the woods — the fat cattle and the long-tailed colts and close-built Morgans wallowing in it, up to the eyes, or the cattle down to rest, with full bellies, by ten in the morning. Fine but narrow roads wound along among the hills — free, almost entirely, of stone, and so smooth as to be safe for the most rapid driving — made of their rich, dark, powder-looking soil. Beautiful villages or scattered settlements breaking upon the delighted view, on the meandering way, making the ride a continued scene of excitement and animation. The air fresh, free and wholesome, — no steaming of the fever and ague of the West, or the rank slaveholding of the South,—the road almost dead level for miles and miles among mountains that lay over the land like the great swells of the sea, and looking, in the prospect, as though there could be no passage. On the whole, we never, in our limited travel, experienced any thing like it, and we commend any one, given to despondency or dumps, to a ride, in beginning of October, chaise-top back, fleet horses tandem, fresh from the generous fodder and thorough-going groomage of Steel's tavern, a forenoon Tide, from White-river Sharon, through Tunbridge, to Chelsea Hollow. There's nothing on Salem turnpike like the road, and nothing, any where, a match for “the lay of the land” and the ever-varying, animating landscape.

We can't praise Vermonters for their fences or their barns, and it seems to us their out-houses and door-yards hardly correspond with the well-built dwellings. But they have no stones for wall — no red oak or granite for posts, or pine growth for rails and boards in their hard-wood forests, and we queried, as we observed their “insufficient fences” and lack of pounds, whether such barriers as our side of the Connecticut we have to rear about an occasional patch of feed, could be necessary in a country where no “creatures” appeared to run in the road, and where there was not choice enough in field and pasture, to make it an object for any body to be breachy, or to stray — and where every hoof seemed to have its hands full at home. Poor fences there seemed to answer all purposes of good ones among us, where every blade of grass has to be watched and guarded from the furtive voracity of hungry New Hampshire stock.

The farmers looked easy and care-free. We saw none that seemed back-broken with hard work, or brow-wrinkled with fear of coming to want. How do your crops come in, sir? “O, middlin’.” — How much wheat? “Well, about three hundred. Wheat han't filled well.” — How much hay do you cut? “Well, sir, from eighty to one hundred ton.” Corn? “Over four hundred; corn is good.” How many potatoes? “Well, I don't know; we've dug from eight hundred to one thousand.” How many cattle do you keep? “Only thirty odd head this year; cattle are scarce.” Sheep? “Three hundred and odd.” Horse kind? “Five,” and so on. And yet the Vermont farmers are leaving for the West.

The only thing we saw, that looked anti-republican, was their magnificent State House, which gleams among their hills more like some ancient Greek temple, than the agency house of a self-governed democracy. It is a very imposing object. Of the severest and most compact proportions, its form and material (the solid granite) comporting capitally with the surrounding scenery. About one hundred and fifty feet long, and some eighty or one hundred wide, we should judge, an oblong square, with a central projection in front, the roof of it supported on a magnificent row of granite pillars — the top a dome without spire. It looks as if it had been translated from old Thebes or Athens, and planted down among Ethan Allen's Green Mountains. It stands on a ledge of rock; close behind it a hill, somewhat rocky and rugged for Vermont; and before it, descends an exceedingly fine and extensive yard, fenced with granite and iron in good keeping with the building, the ground covered with the richest verdure, broken into wide walks, and planted with young trees. It is a very costly structure; but Vermont can afford it, though we hold to cheap and very plain State houses, inasmuch as the seat of government with us is, or should be, at the people's homes. We want to see the dwelling-houses of the “owners of the soil,” the palaces of the country. There the sovereignty of the country should hold its court, and there its wealth should be expended. Let despots and slaveholders build their pompous public piles and their pyramids of Egypt.

The apartments and furniture of the State House within are very rich, and, we should judge, highly commodious. The Representatives' Hall a semicircular, with cushioned seats, a luxury hardly suited to the humor of the stout old Aliens and Warners of early times, and comporting but slightly with the hardy habits of the Green Mountain boys, who now come there, and in brief session pass anti-slavery resolutions, to the dismay of the haughty South, and the shame of the neighboring dough-faced North.

Their legislature was about to sit — and an anti-slavery friend, one of their state officers, informed us that Alvan Stewart was expected there, to attend their anti-slavery anniversary. We should have rejoiced to stay and hear him handle southern slavery in that Vermont State House. — We trust yet to hear George Thompson there. It shall be our voice, when he comes again, that he go directly into Vermont; that he land there from Canada. Let him leave England in some man-of-war, that hoists the “meteor flag,” and mounts guns only in chase of the slave ship, and enter the continent by way of the gulf of St. Lawrence. Let him tarry some months among the farmers of Vermont, and tell them the whole mysteries of slavery, and infuse into their yeoman-hearts his own burning abhorrence of it, till they shall loathe slaveholding as they loathe the most dastardly thieving, and with one stern voice, from the Connecticut to Champlain, demand its annihilation. We would have him go into the upland farming towns — not to the shores of the lake, where the steamboat touches, to land the plague of pro-slavery — nor to the capital, where “property and standing” might turn up the nose at the negro's equal humanity, or the vassals of “the northern man with southern principles” veto the anti-slavery meeting with a drunken mob — but to Randolph Hill, to Danville Green, the swells of Peacham, and the plains of St. Johnsbury, to Strafford Hollow and the vales of Tunbridge and Sharon — William Slade's Middlebury, and up among James Bell's Caledonia hills. Let the South learn that George Thompson Was Stirring The Vermonters Up Among The Green Mountains. See if Alabama would send a requisition for him to Anti-slavery Governor Jennison, or Anti-slavery Lieut. Gov. Camp. And what response, think ye, she would get back? — a Gilchrist report — or the thundering judgment rather of stout old Justice Harrington to the shivering slave-chaser— “Show Me Your Bill Of Sale Of This Man From The Almighty!” [“]A decision,” said a judge of the present truly upright and learned bench of that state, “no less honorable to Judge Harrington's head than his heart, and Good Law.”

Let George Thompson land in Vermont, and stay there, till other states shall learn the courage to guaranty him his rights within their own borders, if they have not learned it already for shame. He can do anti-slavery's work, and all of it, in Vermont. He need go no farther south. They can hear him distinctly, every word he says, from Randolph Green clear down to Texas. John C. Calhoun would catch every blast of his bugle; and assassin Preston startle at its note, in the rotunda at Charleston. And by and by, when every Vermont farmer shall have heard his voice, and shaken his hand and welcomed him to his hearth-stone, let him come down into Montpelier and shake that granite State House; and mayhap to fair Burlington, to that University — where the colored student can now enjoy, unrestricted, all the equal privileges of “field recitation;” where he may come, under cloud of night, to gaze at the stars on the very same common with the young New-Yorker, and the son of the rich merchant of this fair city of the lake, or accompany them, in broad day, on an excursion of trigonometry, in the open fields. The doors of that college chapel would open wide to George Thompson, after the Green Mountain boys had once heard him speak.

But we are lingering too long for our readers or ourselves, m this noble state. We hasten back to our own native, sturdy quarry of rocks and party politics.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 34-8 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of October 20, 1838.