Gideon Welles to John M. Forbes, April 18, 1863

Navy Department, Washington, 18th April, 1863.

Your two favors of the 27th ult. and 1st inst. were duly received. We have been and are extra busy in consequence of results at Charleston,¹ etc., so that I seize a moment this Saturday evening to acknowledge them.

I do not believe it expedient to purchase machinery as suggested, nor do I think it advisable to buy either of the Cunarders.

If we can prevent the formidable craft which is being got up for the “Emperor of China” from getting into rebel hands, or get hold of any swift privateers which they are constructing or fitting out, the great purpose of your mission will have been accomplished. I am not over-sanguine of success in this matter, and shall not experience deep disappointment at your failure, — assisted as I know the rebels are by British neutrality as well as by British capital. There may be some fortunate contingency to aid you, but I do not rely upon it. When you left I had strong hopes that the English government might interfere to prevent the semi-piratical rovers from going abroad. Beyond any government or people on earth, it is the interest, and should be the policy, of Great Britain to maintain the police of the seas. She has so thought, and acted heretofore. If in encouraging, or acquiescing in the policy of sending abroad from her shores, these pirate steamers to prey upon the commerce of a friendly nation, we are to understand there is a change of policy, there is no country that will suffer more. With her immense commerce, and dependent colonies spread over the globe, she would be ruined by retaliatory measures. I have no doubt that it is a primary object with the rebel agents, enemies, and sympathizers, to create a misunderstanding between us and England, and hence forbearance, to its utmost limit, is with us a virtue.

On the subject of letters of marque, our views coincide, and I think will prevail, unless we shall be compelled to resist other Alabamas and Floridas, by letting loose similar vessels which may depredate on the commerce of that country, which, under the rebel flag, is devastating ours.

We have an impression that but limited means will be derived from the loan recently negotiated, yet it may for the moment give them some credit. The statement of Mr. Laird in Parliament that propositions had been made to him to build vessels for the United States is destitute of truth. Certainly nothing of the kind has ever come from me, directly or indirectly, nor from the Navy Department during my administration of its affairs; and there is no other branch of the government authorized or possessed of means to make such a proposition. All appropriations for constructing or purchasing naval vessels are by Congress confided to the Navy Department. I am therefore compelled to believe that Mr. L. states what he knew to be false to relieve himself in difficulty.

Perhaps it may be advisable to expose Mr. Laird, though of that you can best judge. Ordinarily I take little notice of false partisan statements, but an exhibition of the low moral standard of the rebel agents may not be without a beneficial influence on the British mind at this moment.

I am glad you have encouraged Mr. Dudley, our excellent and vigilant consul at Liverpool, to persevere in legal measures. . . .

. . . What we want is to prevent the rebels from getting out dangerous vessels; and if it means a necessity to buy and leave them, so be it. We would have neither you nor the government compromised by any illegal proceedings.

Our ironclad monitors proved their powers of resistance at Charleston, and for harbor defense and assault are a success. But we want chasers, — fast sailers for cruising, and must and will have them. The suggestion in regard to blockade runners, if successful, would, like almost every success, have great and general approval, but it would be attended with many difficulties. With regards to Mr. Aspinwall, and hoping to hear from you often, [etc., etc.].

_______________

¹ Probably referring to the attack on Fort Sumter, on the 7th of April, when the Union fleet under Admiral Dupont had had to retire discomfited. — Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 23-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, April 1, 1864

The Chronicle of this morning contains my letter with some errors, to the Senate in response to a call relating to transfers.  It makes some commotion among the members of congress, and will cause some in the War Department I presume.

There was nothing of special interest to day in the cabinet.  Stanton was not present, nor was Blair. Chase calls for largely additional taxes which I have no doubt are necessary.  There should have been heavier taxes the last two years.  At least double what have been collected.  Undoubtedly demagogues will try to prevent this necessary measure for party ends, but I believe the good sense and intelligence of the people will prevail over the debasing abuse of party.  I apprehend that Chase is not making the most of his position, and think he has committed some errors.  No one could have altogether avoided them.

Seward spoke to me concerning the case of the Sir William Peel, captured at the mouth of the Rio Grande.  Had carried contraband ostensibly to Matamoras, but portions had gone direct to Brownsville, and cotton brought direct from that place in return.  It is claimed, however that she was captured in Mexican waters though near the U. States, and therefore Seward says she must be given up.  I asked him to whom.  If captured in Mexican waters, no power but Mexico could make the claim.  This he undertook to deny, provided the government of Mexico was enfeebled by revolution and not able to sustain itself.  But, I told him, if able to assert and maintain neutrality, then she, and she alone could intervene.  If not able to maintain her claim of neutrality, no other one could make a claim of Mexican jurisdiction.

I am fearful he will make a miss-fire on this question.  He has never looked into maritime law, and will make any sacrifice of national or individual rights to keep in with England.

SOURCES: William E. Gienapp & Erica L. Gienapp, Editors, The Civil War Diary of Gideon Wells: Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy, p. 383-4; *Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 3-4 which reprinted the entry of March 30, 1864 under the date of April 1, 1864.

Diary of William Howard Russell: Chapter XLII

I shall here briefly recapitulate what has occurred since the last mention of political events.

In the first place the South has been developing every day greater energy in widening the breach between it and the North, and preparing to fill it with dead; and the North, so far as I can judge, has been busy in raising up the Union as a nationality, and making out the crime of treason from the act of Secession. The South has been using conscription in Virginia, and is entering upon the conflict with unsurpassable determination. The North is availing itself of its greater resources and its foreign vagabondage and destitution to swell the ranks of its volunteers, and boasts of its enormous armies, as if it supposed conscripts well led do not fight better than volunteers badly officered. Virginia has been invaded on three points, one below and two above Washington, and passports are now issued on both sides.

The career open to the Southern privateers is effectually closed by the Duke of Newcastle's notification that the British Government will not permit the cruisers of either side to bring their prizes into or condemn them in English ports; but, strange to say, the Northerners feel indignant against Great Britain for an act which deprives their enemy of an enormous advantage, and which must reduce their privateering to the mere work of plunder and destruction on the high seas. In the same way the North affects to consider the declaration of neutrality, and the concession of limited belligerent rights to the seceding States, as deeply injurious and insulting; whereas our course has, in fact, removed the greatest difficulty from the path of the Washington Cabinet, and saved us from inconsistencies and serious risks in our course of action.

It is commonly said, “What would Great Britain have done if we had declared ourselves neutral during the Canadian rebellion, or had conceded limited belligerent rights to the Sepoys?” as if Canada and Hindostan have the same relation to the British Crown that the seceding States had to the Northern States. But if Canada, with its parliament, judges, courts of law, and its people, declared it was independent of Great Britain; and if the Government of Great Britain, months after that declaration was made and acted upon, permitted the new State to go free, whilst a large number of her Statesmen agreed that Canada was perfectly right, we could find little fault with the United States Government for issuing a proclamation of neutrality the same as our own, when after a long interval of quiescence a war broke out between the two countries.

Secession was an accomplished fact months before Mr. Lincoln came into office, but we heard no talk of rebels and pirates till Sumter had fallen, and the North was perfectly quiescent — not only that — the people of wealth in New York were calmly considering the results of Secession as an accomplished fact, and seeking to make the best of it; nay, more, when I arrived in Washington some members of the Cabinet were perfectly ready to let the South go.

One of the first questions put to me by Mr. Chase in my first interview with him, was whether I thought a very injurious effect would be produced to the prestige of the Federal Government in Europe if the Northern States let the South have its own way, and told them to go in peace. “For my own part,” said he, “I should not be averse to let them try it, for I believe they would soon find out their mistake.” Mr. Chase may be finding out his mistake just now. (When I left England the prevalent opinion, as far as I could judge, was, that a family quarrel, in which the South was in the wrong, had taken place, and that it would be better to stand by and let the Government put forth its [strength] to chastise rebellious children. But now we see the house is divided against itself, and that the family are determined to set up two separate establishments. These remarks occur to me with the more force because I see the New York papers are attacking me because I described a calm in a sea which was afterwards agitated by a storm. “What a false witness is this,” they cry; “see how angry and how vexed is our Bermoothes, and. yet the fellow says it was quite placid.”

I have already seen so many statements respecting my sayings, my doings, and my opinions, in the American papers, that I have resolved to follow a general rule, with few exceptions indeed, which prescribes as the best course to pursue, not so much an indifference to these remarks as a fixed purpose to abstain from the hopeless task of correcting them. The “Quicklys” of the press are incorrigible. Commerce may well be proud of Chicago. I am not going to reiterate what every Crispinus from the old country has said again and again concerning this wonderful place — not one word of statistics, of corn elevators, of shipping, or of the piles of buildings raised-from the foundation by ingenious applications of screws. Nor am I going to enlarge on the splendid future of that which has so much present prosperity, or on the benefits to mankind opened up by the Illinois Central Railway. It is enough to say that by the borders of this lake there has sprung up in thirty years a wonderful city of fine streets, luxurious hotels, handsome shops, magnificent stores, great warehouses, extensive quays, capacious docks; and that as long as corn holds its own, and the mouths of Europe are open, and her hands full, Chicago will acquire greater importance, size, and wealth with every year. The only drawback, perhaps, to the comfort of the money-making inhabitants, and of the stranger within the gates, is to be found in the clouds of dust and in the unpaved streets and thoroughfares, which give anguish to horse and man.

I spent three days here writing my letters and repairing the wear and tear of my Southern expedition; and although it was hot enough, the breeze from the lake carried health and vigor to the frame, enervated by the sun of Louisiana and Mississippi. No need now to wipe the large drops of moisture from the languid brow lest they blind the eyes, nor to sit in a state of semi-clothing, worn out and exhausted, and tracing with moist hand imperfect characters on the paper.

I could not satisfy myself whether there was, as I have been told, a peculiar state of feeling in Chicago, which induced many people to support the Government of Mr. Lincoln because they believed it necessary for their own interest to obtain decided advantages over the South in the field, whilst they were opposed totis viribus to the genius of emancipation and to the views of the Black Republicans. But the genius and eloquence of the Little Giant have left their impress on the facile mould of democratic thought; and he who argued with such acuteness and ability last March in Washington, in his own study, against the possibility, or at least the constitutional legality, of using the national forces, and the militia and volunteers of the Northern States, to subjugate the Southern people, carried away by the great bore which rushed through the placid North when Sumter fell, or perceiving his inability to resist its force, sprung to the crest of the wave, and carried to excess, the violence of the Union reaction.

Whilst I was in the South I had seen his name in Northern papers with sensation headings and descriptions of his magnificent crusade for the Union in the West. I had heard his name reviled by those who had once been his warm political allies, and his untimely death did not seem to satisfy their hatred. His old foes in the North admired and applauded the sudden apostasy of their eloquent opponent, and were loud in lamentations over his loss. Imagine, then, how I felt when visiting his grave at Chicago, seeing his bust in many houses, or his portrait in all the shop-windows, I was told that the enormously wealthy community of which he was the idol were permitting his widow to live in a state not far removed from penury.

“Senator Douglas, sir,” observed one of his friends to me, “died of bad whiskey. He killed himself with it while he was stumping for the Union all over the country.” “Well,” I said, “I suppose, sir, the abstraction called the Union, for which by your own account he killed himself, will give a pension to his widow,” Virtue is its own reward, and so is patriotism, unless it takes the form of contracts.

As far as all considerations of wife, children, or family are concerned, let a man serve a decent despot, or even a constitutional country with an economizing House of Commons, if he wants anything more substantial than lip-service. The history of the great men of America is full of instances of national ingratitude. They give more praise and less peace to their benefactors than any nation on the face of the earth. Washington got little, though the plundering scouts who captured Andre were well rewarded; and the men who fought during the War of Independence were long left in neglect and poverty, sitting in sackcloth and ashes at the doorsteps of the temple of liberty, whilst the crowd rushed inside to worship Plutus.

If a native of the British Isles, of the natural ignorance of his own imperfections which should characterize him, desires to be subjected to a series of moral shower-baths, douches, and shampooing with a rough glove, let him come to the United States. In Chicago he will be told that the English people are fed by the beneficence of the United States, and that all the trade and commerce of England are simply directed to the one end of obtaining gold enough to pay the Western States for the breadstuffs exported for our population. We know what the South think of our dependence on cotton. The people of the East think they are striking a great blow at their enemy by the Morrill tariff and I was told by a patriot in North Carolina, “Why, creation! if you let the Yankees shut up our ports, the whole of your darned ships will go to rot. Where will you get your naval stores from? Why, I guess in a year you could not scrape up enough of tarpentine in the whole of your country for Queen Victoria to paint her nursery-door with.”

Nearly one half of the various companies enrolled in this district are Germans, or are the descendants of German parents, and speak only the language of the old country; two-thirds of the remainder are Irish, or of immediate Irish descent; but it is said that a grand reserve of Americans born lies behind this avant garde, who will come into the battle should there ever be need for their services.

Indeed so long as the Northern people furnish the means of paying and equipping armies perfectly competent to do their work, and equal in numbers to any demands made for men, they may rest satisfied with the accomplishment of that duty, and with contributing from their ranks the great majority of the superior and even of the subaltern officers; but with the South it is far different. Their institutions have repelled immigration; the black slave has barred the door to the white free settler. Only on the seaboard and in the large cities are. German and Irish to be found, and they to a man have come forward to fight for the South; but the proportion they bear to the native-born Americans who have rushed to arms in defence of their menaced borders, is of course far less than it is as yet to the number of Americans in the Northern States who have volunteered to fight for the Union.

I was invited before I left to visit the camp of a Colonel Turchin, who was described to me as a Russian officer of great ability and experience in European warfare, in command of a regiment consisting of Poles, Hungarians, and Germans, who were about to start for the seat of war; but I was only able to walk through his tents, where I was astonished at the amalgam of nations that constituted his battalion; though, on inspection, I am bound to say there proved to be an American element in the ranks which did not appear to have coalesced with the bulk of the rude, and, I fear, predatory Cossacks of the Union. Many young men of good position have gone to the wars, although there was no complaint, as in Southern cities, that merchants' offices have been deserted, and great establishments left destitute of clerks and working hands. In warlike operations, however, Chicago, with its communication open to the sea, its access to the head waters of the Mississippi, its intercourse with the marts of commerce and of manufacture, may be considered to possess greater belligerent power and strength than the great city of New Orleans; and there is much greater probability of Chicago sending its contingent to attack the Crescent City than there is of the latter being able to despatch a soldier within five hundred miles of its streets.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 354-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, October 3, 1863

Mr. Seward called early this morning and read me the draft of a proclamation for Thanksgiving. I complimented the paper as very well done, and him for his talent in the preparation of such papers, which pleased him; but he made a remark to which I did not respond as favorably. He said it had been formerly claimed that Thanksgivings were a State institution, a State prerogative; he thought it a good time and opportunity to extinguish that claim and make such days national. I remarked there might be propriety, as at this time, in designating a day to be observed throughout the whole country, but there were occasions when a people in one State or section had reasons for special thanks, which reasons might not exist in other sections, as for a bountiful harvest in some latitudes when there might be famine and drought in others; that the most which could be done was recommendatory, and the practice was, I believed, now voluntary everywhere, but that until comparatively recently the observance of Thanksgiving and also of Fast was in my State compulsory, and "all servile labor and vain recreation" on those days were "by law prohibited"; that it would hardly do to make this institution national with mandatory orders, such as some States had ordered.

I called on the President this afternoon relative to certain proposed instructions which he, at the suggestion of Mr. Seward, wished should be issued to naval officers. He had been bored with troublesome company and was weary and exhausted. As I opened my portfolio the quantity of papers disturbed him. I stated briefly the case, which, being one of Seward's, he did not distinctly remember, and remarked the subject was, I thought, more important than he apprehended, that I had given it much time and thought, and it had increased in magnitude the more I had considered it. He became interested, recalled the case, and desired me to leave the papers with him and he would read them by himself. His mind was still confused and he wished to understand the subject more fully. Mr. Seward, whose inconsiderate and imprudent promises have involved him in difficulty, and who in consequence aims to involve the Administration in a most unwise and injudicious proceeding, will have an opportunity to read and digest my report. It will, I think, do him good and Lord Lyons no harm. Fox and Faxon both urge me to send a duplicate to the State Department, that the papers may be placed on file.

[The correspondence follows.]

• Abraham Lincoln to Gideon Welles, July 25, 1863
• Gideon Welles to Abraham Lincoln, September 30, 1863

Memoranda submitted for the consideration of the President, upon the proposed Instructions to Naval Officers:—

It is suggested at the instance it would seem of the British Government, or at least in conformity with its views and wishes, that our Naval Officers in command of the vessels composing our Navy, and at present engaged in belligerent operations, shall be instructed by the government in the following terms: —

“1. — You will avoid the reality, and as far as possible the appearance, of using any neutral port to watch neutral vessels and then to dart out and seize them on their departure.”

“2. — You will not, in any case, detain the crew of a captured neutral vessel, as prisoners of war, or otherwise, except the small number necessary as witnesses in the prize court.”

In considering the expediency of issuing at this time these instructions to our Naval commanders, it is proper, in the first place, to bear in mind, that if issued by us they will be, so far as is known, without any precedent in the history of the Naval service of any country engaged in war.

It should be observed, in the second place, that such instructions would impose upon our naval officers restrictions and limitations in the performance of their duties which are in nowise imposed upon them by any established principle or fixed rules of international law.

It must be borne in mind, in the third place, as being alike important and extraordinary, that this government is so urged to issue to its naval commanders these stringently restrictive instructions, without having the slightest guarantee that similar restrictions will be imposed in neutral ports upon the predatory sea-rovers under the rebel flag, whom neutral powers, under the lead of Great Britain, have already regarded and treated, in these ports, as having belligerent rights.

It should not be forgotten, in the fourth place, that this government is now urged to issue these instructions without any assurance by Great Britain, or any other neutral power, that if issued and acted upon by us in this war with the rebels, who have no Navy and no commerce, they will be held by Great Britain, or any other power, to constitute for it a precedent or a rule of action in its exercise of belligerent rights in any war, civil or international, in which it may hereafter engage; nor is the slightest intimation given that such instructions to our naval commanders now will induce, or tend to induce Great Britain, or any other neutral power, to abandon or to modify in our favor any course of action or policy in the present war, of which we have complained, or have had reason to complain.

In the fifth place, these proposed instructions seem to stand upon an unsound principle. It is a fundamental principle of public law that the neutral sovereign himself — and not the belligerent cruiser who lawfully resorts to the ports or waters within his jurisdiction — is the guardian of this neutrality, and of all its immunities and privileges. In his own prize courts he must, in every case where he can obtain jurisdiction, do justice, upon the claim of any party injured by the infraction of his neutral privilege. In the prize courts of the belligerent government, he, the neutral sovereign, can alone be heard, even to claim such redress for such violation of his neutrality. So, too, neutrality having its duties as well as its rights, the public law holds the neutral government, and it alone, responsible to all concerned, for any violation of neutrality within the limits of its jurisdiction. In the absence of treaty stipulations to the contrary, every neutral government exercises the right to determine and prescribe for itself, upon its responsibility, the conditions of ingress, egress, sojourn and conduct within its ports and territorial waters, upon which alone it will permit belligerent cruisers to resort to those places and enjoy such, and only such, of their accommodations as it may see fit to afford. Now, in defiance of this fundamental principle that the neutral government is always the judge of the conditions upon which the hospitality of its ports may be enjoyed by belligerent cruisers, it is proposed in these instructions that we, being belligerents, should gratuitously proceed beyond the requirements of public law and belligerent usage and establish for all our ships of war, certain additional restrictive conditions, within which only they shall use any neutral port. What assurance have we that any neutral government desires us now, or will desire us hereafter to take such action, restricting ourselves in her ports, in the exercise, outside of her limits, of our belligerent rights, either of search or of capture? Will any one neutral power — will Great Britain herself, at this time — give us assurance that in any future war which may happen, it, being then neutral, will by municipal regulation, adopt the stringent terms of the proposed instructions, and make them an indispensable condition precedent to the use of all her ports by any belligerent cruiser? If not, then why should we, as belligerents, be expected now to put such a gratuitous disability upon all our cruisers, in all the neutral ports of the world? Is it not enough that our cruisers should in all neutral ports obey all the law, public and municipal, which they find in force there, and in case of its violation, by accident and against our fixed policy, afford, in the proper manner, through the judicial tribunals or otherwise, prompt and adequate reparation?

In the sixth place, it seems to follow from these views, that to instruct our cruisers, as above proposed, is no part of our business as belligerents? Therefore such action by us at this time would probably be to some neutral powers, and ought to be to all powers which are really and earnestly neutral, unwelcome. It behooves us then to consider upon what instance or urgency it is that we are to take this action, thus modifying our relations as they stand under the public law, to every neutral port, and to every ship claiming to be neutral, but being in fact engaged in illicit navigation or commerce. No one neutral power has any just ground to ask from us such wide-reaching action. There should be a neutral unanimity in the request if we are to grant it; and even then such unanimous request should be accompanied by stipulations of reciprocity of the rule in all future wars. Such conditions seem to be required in order to justify us in acceding to a proposition which goes to the curtailment of our rights in law as belligerents, at a moment when we have the most arduous blockade to enforce which any nation ever undertook to make effectual, and the most adventurous and persistent illicit trade to suppress, against which any nation ever attempted practically and not merely on paper, to guard.

It is true — and this idea appears to have occurred strongly to your mind — that the issuing of such instructions by us and obedience to them by our ships of war, would constitute no infraction of public law, because it is the unquestionable right of any government engaged in war to surrender such portions as it sees fit of its belligerent rights and privileges; and no other injury is, by such surrender, inflicted upon neutrals than that which may be found in its manifest tendency to enfeeble and thus prolong the war. It should, however, be remarked that the second of these proposed instructions is in a direction and of a tendency opposed not only to the universal and traditional policy of belligerent governments, as expressed in their statutes, in the rulings of their prize courts and their instructions to cruisers, but also to what is often insisted upon, especially by neutrals in cases of capture, as a duty of captors. No adjudged case, it is believed, can be found in which the prize court, especially in Great Britain, has ever held that the captor erred in sending in with his prize too many of the officers, crew or passengers found on board at the time of her capture. Certainly no adjudged case can be found in which the right of the captor, thus to send in with his prize as many of the persons found on board of her as he may see fit to send, has been questioned. The allegation that any person found at the time of capture on board of any lawfully captured ship has any right, in law, immediately after the capture, to leave the ship against the will of the captor, or that the captor is bound in law to give his consent to such leaving, is believed to be wholly novel. It is undoubtedly true, in general, that the temptation and inclination of captors are to err in the other direction, and to retain too few rather than too many of the persons so captured. In so doing captors subject themselves to the frequent complaints and censures of the prize court, and not infrequently to its penalties. In fact to instruct a naval commander never to detain any neutral person found on board the captured neutral ship, unless such person be necessary as a witness; is to subject the commander to the harsh necessity of judging upon the spot in a case perhaps very complicated and important, just how many and what persons may be necessary as witnesses, with the certainty of being censured by his government for violation of his orders if he detain too many, and of being censured and perhaps mulcted by the prize court for insufficient performance of his duty if he detains too few. It is unnecessary to say that no principle or rule of international law places a lawfully commissioned, honest and faithful capturing officer in so critical a position. It is the clear belligerent right of his government to shield him, while lawfully engaged in his duties, from so severe and perilous a responsibility. Our gallant naval officers, it is therefore suggested, might justly feel that the public service in their hands and the public right were cramped and weakened, and themselves embarrassed, if not aggrieved, by such an instruction.

In regard to the first of the proposed instructions, it is not deemed necessary to discuss elaborately, in this paper, the extent to which its terms augment and aggravate the restrictions which international law, particularly as expounded and applied by the highest authorities of Great Britain, both judicial and juridical, impose upon the conduct of commanders of public ships of war of a belligerent government lawfully sojourning within neutral ports. It is proper, however, to state that this important point has been maturely considered, and the leading British authorities examined and collated with care. Citations from these authorities, with brief comments upon them, will be found in the accompanying appendix.

Suffice it here to say that while these British authorities emphatically lay down the rule that no acts of war, either immediate or proximate, are permitted by the public law to belligerent vessels in waters within neutral jurisdiction; it is yet with the utmost reserve, circumspection and tenderness, that they enter upon or even approach the delicate question of the extent to which the belligerent cruiser, whether a public ship or a privateer duly commissioned and lawfully sojourning in neutral ports or waters, may, under international law, in the absence of municipal regulation to the contrary, avail itself in its act of departure, and after its departure from such places, of any facilities or remote and indirect aids lawfully obtained there, for the prosecution of its belligerent operations against the adverse belligerents, or for the exercise of its belligerent rights upon neutral ships outside the neutral jurisdiction. Of these facilities and indirect aids, lawfully obtainable by peaceable means, in the neutral ports and waters, information often is, and always may be, the most important. In the absence of municipal regulation to the contrary, such cruiser lawfully sojourning in the neutral port has a perfect right in public law, in order to obtain such information, to watch in a peaceable manner, most vigilantly, all vessels in the port, or coming into it or going out of it; and to dart out of the port just when he pleases, with the purpose to act upon such information in the exercise of his belligerent rights upon the high seas, outside of the neutral jurisdiction, upon all neutral commercial vessels, in the form of search and of capture, if such search shall discover a probable case of navigation or trade, illicit as against his government. In so doing, such cruiser has but made an unforbidden passage over neutral territorial waters, in order to exercise in a lawful place his belligerent right. This under the public law, in the absence of municipal restraint, he has a perfect right to do.

If the Sovereign of the neutral port fails to prohibit such cruiser from using his port as a station for the habitual doing of these things — as distinguishable from a place of occasional visit and reasonable sojourn — then the adverse belligerent sovereign certainly, if the same privilege be refused to him and other neutral governments, perhaps, may with reason complain of the neutral sovereign's conduct, in allowing his port to be so used, as "noxious" and "unfriendly," and even perhaps unneutral. But they have no right in law to complain of the lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser for availing himself of the liberty thus allowed him; and they are bound to consider that if the neutral sovereign does not prohibit the continuance of such practices — nor demand reparation for them — by such belligerent, then he intends to allow; and it is for this very reason that in such case they have sometimes charged him, and him only, with noxious and unfriendly conduct.

Such being the public law, it seems certain that the Naval vessels of the United States are not bound by that law, in the absence of municipal regulations, to govern for themselves their conduct as belligerents, by the proposed stringently restrictive instructions. This being the fact, if there were any one neutral government specially urging such instructions, and if it should happen that the subjects of such neutral government were, in its own ports and therefore under its own eyes, engaged in furnishing upon a large scale to the rebels, not only the munitions of war, but vessels, armament and even crews, for harassing and burning upon the high seas, our commercial ships, could it be considered our duty or our wise policy to issue, at the instance mainly of that power and in response to its almost exclusive complaint, such instructions so restricting our belligerent rights in our use of every neutral port? But the wisdom of your policy in restricting our Navy in the use of its belligerent rights within the most vigorous limits of established public law, is manifest, and is in conformity, not only with the judgment of your wisest predecessors, but also with the traditional practice of the United States, and with their permanent interests, as appreciated by the great popular instinct of the present time. Indeed the enlargement of neutral immunities, in proper methods and by the common consent of nations, is an object worthy of your statesmanship, even in the present crisis. Especially is this the case when, as in this instance, you seek to combine with such liberal policy, a palpable proof to every government claiming to be neutral, of your desire to pursue toward it and toward all, to every proper and rightful extent, a course of conciliation.

In these views, it is respectfully suggested that, if you are urged by neutral governments to cause these instructions to be issued, the inquiry may properly be made of them, whether they, or any of them, are willing to adopt an identical rule of action in any future war, international or domestic, in which they may be engaged. In that event, the instructions proposed might, perhaps, upon the assurance to that effect, well receive your favorable consideration.

If a negative answer on the other hand should be given to such an inquiry, then it may be well to request any neutral government which presses this policy upon you, to produce from the records of its own practice as a belligerent any precedent of identical, or even similar instructions issued within the present century, to the commanders of its ships of war. Such precedents might doubtless have considerable weight in inducing you to adopt a policy in the same direction. Should no such precedent be forthcoming at your request, then it may be proper in response to any government, — the British Government for instance — which may especially desire that these proposed instructions should be issued, or that our belligerent rights as they exist under the public law should be further restrained by our own action, to request that any such restraining instructions which may have been within recent memory issued by such government, when a belligerent, to its naval officers, should now be furnished to you for your consideration. In such case it will be easy for the government of the United States to prove that it desires while maintaining its own belligerent rights not to be surpassed by any other government in a just and friendly respect for all the rights and lawful interests of neutrals.

Commander Shufeldt called on me. Thinks the capture  of Charleston impracticable by the force now there. Says Dahlgren has been a good deal ill, and there has been much to discourage him. The Army, he says, fails to do justice to the Navy, without which they would be speedily driven away. There have been some mistakes, errors which seem to have caused irritation between the two branches of the service. Dahlgren has not spared himself, and his long and arduous labors have been such as would wear down a more robust man. More than exhausting physical labor have been the mental anxieties he has endured, — the loss of his two fleet captains, jealousies as to his professional advancement without corresponding sea service or naval achievement in battle, the morbid hostility of such of the Du Pont clique as remain in the squadron, army antagonism, and ignorance and prejudice fostered by it.

[Appendix.]

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 452-67

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, October 3, 1863: Appendix

Embracing a synopsis of the leading British Authorities as to the first proposed Instruction.

The general rule of International Law, as received and expounded in the British Prize Courts, as to the restrictions and limitations imposed by it upon the lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser, in the use of neutral ports or other waters, with a view to the prosecution outside of their limits, of his belligerent operations against the adverse belligerent, or the exercise of his belligerent rights on vessels claiming to be neutral, is summed up by Phillimore (citing his authorities) in the following terms: (Int. Law, Vol. 3, pp. 451-452)

"It has been already shown, in preceding portions (1.) of this work, that it is not competent to a belligerent to exercise any Rights of War within the territorial jurisdiction of a neutral State (m.), and that this jurisdiction extends not only within ports, headlands and bays, but to a recognized distance at sea from the shore itself. Thus, captures made by armed vessels stationed in a river of a Neutral Power, or in the mouth of his river, or in his harbors, for the purpose of exercising the Rights of War from that river or harbor, are invalid; and where a belligerent ship, lying within neutral territory, made a capture with her boats, sent out of the neutral territory, the capture was also held to be invalid; for though the hostile force employed was applied to the captured vessel lying out of the territory, yet no such use of a neutral territory for the purpose of war is to be permitted. (n.)

All captures therefore made by belligerents within these limits are, at the request of the Government of the Neutral State, (o), pronounced by Courts of International Law, to be invalid.

(n) The Twee Gebroeders, 3 Robinson, p. 162, leading English case. The Anna, 5 ib., p. 373. The Vrow Anna Catharina, ib., p. 15, see the arguments of the counsel in the Topaz, 2 Acton's Adm. Rep. p. 20.”

The above statement of Phillimore, its brevity being considered, is very exact, but he does not introduce into it all the exceptions to its vigorous application which appears clearly in the cases adjudicated by Lord Stowell, which he cites as his authority. It will be observed, however, that in order to bring his act within the rule of prohibition, as laid down by Phillimore, the lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser must have his vessel stationed in the neutral water or harbor, and stationed there for the purpose of exercising the rights of war from that place. Now, neither this government nor its Naval Commanders have ever thought of infringing this rule, by so stationing its cruisers for such purpose. The importance of the distinction between the use made by the belligerent of a neutral port or water in the course of an occasional visit or sojourn there, and the use of the same place by him as a station from which habitually to exercise his rights of war, is emphatically set forth by Lord Stowell, in the case of the Anna Catharina (5 Robinson, p. 18) as follows: —

"If the fact had been that the privateer had made this capture in a neutral port, or whilst lying in harbor, as was done in some of the ports of the North, with a view of making that harbor an habitual station for captures, I should have concurred in reprobating such a practice in the strongest terms; but, if whilst a privateer is accidently lying there, she sees an enemy approaching, she may go out and capture, I conceive, without any violation of the peace or immunity of the neutral port, provided this is done beyond the limits of the port.”

In the case of the Twee Gebroeders (3 Robinson, pp. 164-165) where the vessel lay within the neutral waters and sent her boats just outside of them to make the capture, Lord Stowell emphasized the same distinction, and said: —

“You are not to avail yourself of a station on neutral territory, making as it were a vantage ground of the neutral country, a country which is to carry itself with perfect equality between both belligerents, giving neither the one nor the other any advantage. Many instances have occurred in which such an irregular use of a neutral country has been warmly resented, and some during the present war: the practice which has been tolerated in the Northern States of Europe, of permitting French privateers to make stations of their ports, and to sally out to capture British vessels in that neighborhood, is of that number.”

In the same case he said: —

“I am of opinion that no use of neutral territory for the purposes of war is to be permitted. I do not say remote uses, such as procuring provisions and refreshments, and acts of that nature, which the law of nations universally tolerates; but that no proximate acts of war are in any manner to originate on neutral grounds; and I cannot but think that such an act as this, that a ship should station herself on neutral territory and send out her boats on hostile enterprises, is an act of hostility much too immediate to be permitted.”

Now, is it not here too evident, that if the belligerent cruiser may lawfully use the neutral port to get" provisions and refreshments," he may certainly use it to get information, and may not only in "appearance," but in "reality," "watch " carefully, in order to obtain information. Nor is the slightest information here given that the belligerent cruiser may not under public law, in the absence of municipal regulation to the contrary, take his departure from the neutral water just when he pleases, either following or accompanying any vessel which may see fit to sail out at the same time.

But this position is by no means left to mere inference. In another case of similar name, The Three [=Drie] Gebroeders (5 Rob. pp. 339 [et seq.]), Lord Stowell held, in express terms, that a capture was not vitiated by the capturing ship having passed through neutral territorial waters in order to accomplish the capture outside of the neutral limits. This is the very point. The belligerent cruiser may under public law, if unforbidden by municipal regulation, rightfully sail out of the neutral port in order to accomplish his capture in a lawful place.

Indeed, so well established is this right of departure at pleasure, unless municipally forbidden, either at the same time with or just after, even an adverse belligerent, and still more along with or just after a commercial vessel under a neutral flag, that Great Britain herself has held it to be necessary, in her general order in reference to her Bahama ports, to forbid, municipally, such departure by the belligerent cruiser, along with, or immediately after, a vessel of the adverse belligerent; but while making this stringent regulation, rendered necessary because there was in the public law as accepted by Great Britain, no such rule nor restriction, the British Government has wholly abstained from imposing in that municipal regulation any such restriction or rule in relation to neutral vessels in their departure from the harbor, being accompanied, or immediately followed, by the belligerent cruiser.

It is useless to pursue the examination of this point farther. There are other cases in the British books, but they all speak with the same voice. The Prize Courts of Great Britain have never upon any occasion pretended to assert that under the Public Law, and in the absence of municipal regulation to the contrary, any lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser occasionally visiting a neutral port and for a reasonable length of time sojourning there, may not in a peaceable manner watch any neutral commercial vessel there, and at his pleasure follow such vessel out of that port in order to do, upon the high seas, upon her any act which, at any time, may upon her be there lawfully done.

It is true that some of the Continental publicists, especially Hautefeuille, Galiani, Azuni and of course Hübner, — all avowedly impassioned champions of neutral rights, have in their speculations in their closets, as to what international law is, or in their judgment ought to be, gone farther. Lawrence has collected some of their dicta in this sense in his last edition of Wheaton, at page 767, and Lawrence's comments show that he leans too much in their direction. But their dicta, as cited by him, are not law, and by Prize Courts in Great Britain and the United States, at least, have never been received or applied as law. It is true that in our past history the United States has been almost as ardent a champion of the enlargement of neutral rights as Hautefeuille himself; but it must not be forgotten that our policy in that direction has always proceeded in the methods of attempted treaty stipulations, in order to change the harsh fixed rule, upon the basis of reciprocity. In the present case there is nothing either of such method or such basis. Our policy would, therefore, seem to be to maintain, undiminished, our belligerent rights as they stand in Public Law.

The quotation above given from Phillimore proves clearly that whenever any act is done by a lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser, which infringes the right or immunity of a neutral port, no one in the Prize Court of any other nation can be lawfully even heard to make suggestions of such infringement, save only the neutral sovereign of the Port himself, through his agent authorized ad hoc.

It is also to be observed as a rule of Public Law too well settled to require either elucidation or citation of authority, that whosoever is injured in any manner, in a case of capture by a lawfully commissioned belligerent cruiser, who sends the prize vessel in for adjudication, is bound in law to seek in the proper manner his remedy in the Prize Court; and if he thinks that justice is not done him by such court of primary jurisdiction in the case, then he is bound in law to pursue and exhaust his judicial remedy by appeal, — and this under penalty of being held to acknowledge the justice of the sentence of the Court below, unless he does so appeal to the Appellate Court. And it is altogether irregular for him, or his Government, being neutral, in his behalf to make Diplomatic demand for reparation in his case, until his judicial remedy be thus exhausted; and this is confidently believed to be the inexorable judgment of the British Government, in relation to all such Diplomatic reclamations, when so prematurely addressed to itself as a belligerent.

As to the Second proposed Instruction.

Phillimore (Int. Law. Vol. 3, p. 602.) says:

"And indeed, in ordinary cases, the prize crew, whether national, neutral or hostile, are necessary witnesses in the cause. (r.) And upon further proof ordered the attestation of the claimant and his clerks, and the correspondence between him and his agents, are admissible evidence and proper proofs of property." (s.)

(r.) The Henrick & Maria, 4 Rob. p. 43, (s.). The Adelaide, 3 Ad. p. 281. The Henrick & Maria, thus cited by Phillimore, was a neutral (Danish) vessel, captured by a British cruiser for alleged attempt to break blockade, — released by Lord Stowell, for want of previous knowledge or due notification. Incidentally came up the question, what persons the Court had a right to have within its reach, in the adjudication of such a case, and Lord Stowell said: —

“Prisoners are accessory witnesses to be examined; according to our instructions, they are the only witnesses. The French regulations admit the evidence of the captor, but hold at the same time that natural justice requires the crew of the captured vessel should be examined touching the rights in question.”

LaPurissima Conception¹ (5 Rob. p. 40) is still stronger. A neutral (Spanish) vessel captured with scarcely justifiable cause by a British privateer, who sent her in with her whole ship's company, 22 in number, all in irons. Released at once and captor mulcted in 100 pounds sterling for his cruelty in so confining the captured persons without showing to the Court that such rigor was necessary for his own security, or that of his prize. Stowell found no fault with him for bringing them all in, — assumed indeed that he had a right to do so, and to handcuff or otherwise confine so many of them as he could show to be needful for his security. The case therefore stands as full authority for the perfect right of the captor to send in with his prize, being under a neutral flag, all her ship's company.

It is needless to cite other cases to show on this point the rule of International Law, as expounded and applied in the Prize Courts of Great Britain.

It may be added, however, that in other passages of his work (see Vol. 3, p. 590) Phillimore speaks of the “captured crew,” as in due course “brought in,” and says that “the examination” must be confined to “persons on board at the time of the capture,” unless otherwise ordered by the Court.

Upton, in the latest and fullest, and upon the whole, the most accurate Manual on Prize Law and Proceedings in the English language, which the Supreme Court in its latest judgment in prize cited as authority, lays down the settled rule of International Law upon this point, as established in the practice of our Prize Courts, in the following terms: —

“The general rule in relation to the duty of captors towards the persons captured on board the vessels taken, is to send "them in with the prize as witnesses in the proceedings in adjudication.”

Indeed are we not ourselves fully committed to the doctrine that in the case of the "Trent" it was the right, under the public law as expounded by Great Britain, of Admiral Wilkes to capture that ship and send her in, with all on board, and that his omission, under the circumstances of the case, to do so, was an irregularity?

_______________

¹ Sic Phillimore and Robinson.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 461-6

Gideon Welles to Abraham Lincoln, September 30, 1863

Navy Department,

30 Sept. 1863.

SIR:

Since the interview with you some weeks since, in relation to certain proposed instructions to our Naval Officers, I have, as suggested, given the subject careful and thorough investigation, and am fully satisfied that neither in British law nor British practice is there any authority or precedent for such instructions. As Her Majesty's representative has introduced the subject, I have embodied what I believe to be the law and usage on the several points, in a distinct paper, which can, if you think proper, be submitted to Lord Lyons, and if I have in that document done injustice in any respect to British authority and British usage, or misapprehended or misstated international law, I shall be happy to be corrected.

Permit me in this connection to express my surprise and regret that the British Minister should so persistently insist on interfering in matters that belong to the Prize Courts, and on which he should not be heard from diplomatically, as, were Great Britain in our case and we in hers, the American Minister in London would not be heard diplomatically until judicial remedies have been exhausted. His right to be heard in the Court of Prize, according to its rules of procedure, and in the proper cases, is unquestioned. If the Court, after its appellate jurisdiction is fully exhausted, should fail to do justice in any case then undoubtedly, and not till then, diplomacy may properly come in. But I do not understand by what authority Her Majesty's Minister intervenes at all, even in the Prize Courts by suggestion, or before you, in cases where the violation of territorial immunities of Neutral powers, other than Great Britain, is in question.

If our Naval Officers violate the sovereignty, or the neutrality, or the municipal regulations, of a neutral state, we are, first in our Prize Courts and then diplomatically, amenable for that violation to the neutral state itself, and not to Great Britain, even though the act of violation has been perpetrated there by us upon a British vessel. There is no principle of international law better settled than this, and I respectfully insist that no one but the sovereign of the neutral territory which is violated, has the slightest right to allege or suggest such violation, even in our prize courts, and much less diplomatically.

As regards persons on board of captured neutral vessels the best rule of law is that they shall be sent in as witnesses; the requirement of law is that some be sent in; and if the captor fails to send them all in, he so fails at his peril of not sending enough; and if he sends them all in, all being neutral, no one has the right anywhere to complain of him, provided only that he had probable cause for capturing the ship.

But in the war in which we are now engaged, it must be remembered that no inconsiderable portion of the persons captured on some of the vessels, claiming to be neutral, are rebels. It is impossible for the captor to decide who, or how many are rebels. It certainly is not advisable to go counter to the rule so framed by all the Courts, nor to release captured rebel prisoners.

I am not unaware of your strong desire to conciliate Great Britain and to make all reasonable concessions to preserve friendly relations with her. In this feeling I cordially participate. But my earnest conviction is that we shall best command the respect which insures peace, by firmly, but not offensively, maintaining our rights; and in no way can amicable relations with Great Britain and others be so surely maintained as by our claiming only what is right, by surrendering nothing that is clearly and indisputably our own, and by referring always the question of what our just rights are to those tribunals of Prize, which are instituted by the consent of nations to adjudge these points, under the law of nations and in the interests of peace, by reason of the acknowledged inability of diplomacy, even in the most skilful hands, to deal satisfactorily, before-hand, with these complicated questions as they arise.

I am, respectfully, &c.

Gideon Welles,

Secty of Navy.

The President.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 452-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: June 25, 1863

The excitement has subsided. No doubt small detachments of the enemy were seen at the places indicated, and Gen. Elzey (who some say had been drinking) alarmed the Governor with a tale of horror. The reports came through Gen. Winder's detectives, one-half of whom would rather see the enemy here than not, and will serve the side that pays most. Yet, we should be prepared.

I saw an indorsement by the President to-day, that foreigners should give guarantees of neutrality or be sent out of the city.

Nothing from Lee.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 360

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, August 12, 1863

The President addressed me a letter, directing additional instructions and of a more explicit character to our naval officers in relation to their conduct at neutral ports. In doing this, the President takes occasion to compliment the administration of the Navy in terms most commendatory and gratifying.

The proposed instructions are in language almost identical with certain letters which have passed between Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons, which the former submitted to me and requested me to adopt. My answer was not what the Secretary and Minister had agreed between themselves should be my policy and action. The President has therefore been privately interviewed and persuaded to write me, — an unusual course with him and which he was evidently reluctant to do. He earnestly desires to keep on terms of peace with England and, as he says to me in his letter, to sustain the present Ministry, which the Secretary of State assures him is a difficult matter, requiring all his dexterity and ability, — hence constant derogatory concessions.

In all of this Mr. Seward's subservient policy, or want of a policy, is perceptible. He has no convictions, no fixed principles, no rule of action, but is governed and moved by impulse, fancied expediency, and temporary circumstances. We injure neither ourselves nor Great Britain by an honest and firm maintenance of our rights, but Mr. Seward is in constant trepidation lest the Navy Department or some naval officer shall embroil us in a war, or make trouble with England. Lord Lyons is cool and sagacious, and is well aware of our premier's infirmities, who in his fears yields everything almost before it is asked. Hence the remark of Historicus (Sir Vernon Harcourt) that “the fear of England is not that the Americans will yield too little but that we shall take too much.” That able writer has the sagacity to see, and the frankness to say, that the time will come when England will have a war on her hands and Americans will be neutrals.

The President has a brief reply to Governor Seymour's rejoinder, which is very well. Stanton said to me he wished the President would stop letter-writing, for which he has a liking and particularly when he feels he has facts and right [on his side]. I might not disagree with Stanton as regards some correspondence, but I think the President has been more successful with Seymour than some others. His own letters and writings are generally unpretending and abound in good sense.

Seward informs me in confidence that he has, through Mr. Adams, made an energetic protest to Great Britain against permitting the ironclads to leave England, distinctly informing the Ministry that it would be considered by us as a declaration of war. The result is, he says, the ironclads will not leave England. I have uniformly insisted that such would be the case if we took decided ground and the Ministry were satisfied we were in earnest.

Spain, Seward says, had been seduced with schemes to help the Rebels, and was to have taken an active part in intervention, or acknowledging the independence of the Confederates, but on learning the course of Roebuck, and after the discussion in the British Parliament, Spain had hastened to say she should not interfere in behalf of the Rebels. But Tassara, the Spanish Minister, under positive instructions, had on the 9th inst. given our government formal notice that after sixty days Spain would insist that her jurisdiction over Cuba extended six miles instead of the marine league from low-water mark. To this Seward said he replied we should not assent; that we could not submit to a menace, especially at such a time as this; that the subject of marine jurisdiction is a question of international law in which all maritime nations have an interest, and it was not for Spain or any one or two countries to set it aside.

He says Lord Lyons has been to him with a complaint that a British vessel having Rebel property on board had been seized in violation of the admitted principle that free ships made free goods. But he advised Lord L. to get all the facts and submit them, etc.

From some cause Seward sought this interview and was unusually communicative. Whether the President's letter, which originated with him, as he must be aware I fully understand, had an influence in opening his mouth and heart I know not. His confidential communication to me should have been said in full Cabinet. In the course of our conversation, Seward said “some of the facts had leaked out through the President, who was apt to be communicative.

The condition of the country and the future of the Rebel States and of slavery are rising questions on which there are floating opinions. No clear, distinct, and well-defined line of policy has as yet been indicated by the Administration. I have no doubt there is, and will be, diversity of views in the Cabinet whenever the subject is brought up. A letter from Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, has been recently published, quite characteristic of the man. Not unlikely Stanton may have suggested, or assented to, this document, by which some are already swearing their political faith. Mr. Whiting is in high favor at the War and State Departments, and on one occasion the President endorsed him to me. I think little of him. He is ready with expedients but not profound in his opinions; is a plausible advocate rather than a correct thinker, more of a patent lawyer than a statesman. His elaborate letter does not in my estimation add one inch to his stature.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 398-400

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, May 21, 1863

Had an early call from the President, who brought a communication from Tassara to Seward, complaining of violation of neutral rights by a small pilot-boat, having a gun mounted amidships and believed to be an American vessel, which was annoying Spanish and other neutral vessels off the coast of Cuba. The President expressed doubts whether it was one of our vessels, but I told him I was inclined to believe it was, and that I had last week written Mr. Seward concerning the same craft in answer to Lord Lyons, who complained of outrage on the British schooner Dream, but I had also written Admiral Bailey on the subject. I read my letter to the President. He spoke of an unpleasant rumor concerning Grant, but on canvassing the subject we concluded it must be groundless, originating probably in the fact that he does not retain but has evacuated Jackson, after destroying the enemy's stores.

It is pretty evident that Senator John P. Hale, Chairman of the Naval Committee of the Senate, is occupying his time in the vacation in preparing for an attack on the Navy Department. He has a scheme for a tract of land with many angles, belonging to a friend, which land he has procured from Congress authority for the Secretary to purchase, but the Secretary does not want the land in that shape. It is a “job,” and the object of this special legislative permission to buy, palpable. Hale called on me, and has written me, and I am given to understand, if I do not enter into his scheme, — make this purchase, — I am to encounter continued and persistent opposition from him.

Hale has also sent me a letter of eight closely written pages, full of disinterested, patriotic, and devoted loyalty, protesting against my detailing Commodore Van Brunt to be one of a board on a requisition from the War Department for a naval officer. Van Brunt has committed no wrong, is accused of none, but Hale doesn't like him. I replied in half a page. I will not waste time on a man like Hale.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 307-8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, May 15, 1863

The President called on me this morning with the basis of a dispatch which Lord Lyons proposed to send home. He had submitted it to Mr. Seward, who handed it to the President, and he brought it to me. The President read it to me, and when he concluded, I remarked the whole question of the mails belonged properly to the courts and I thought unless we proposed some new treaty arrangement it would be best the subject should continue with the courts as law and usage directed. “But,” he inquired, “have the courts ever opened the mails of a neutral government?” I replied, “Always, when the captured vessels on which mails were found were considered good prize.” “Why, then,” said he, “do you not furnish me with the fact? It is what I want, but you furnish me with no report that any neutral has ever been searched.” I said I was not aware that the right had ever been questioned. The courts made no reports to me whether they opened or did not open mail. The courts are independent of the Departments, to which they are not amenable. In the mails was often the best and only evidence that could insure condemnation. [I said] that I should as soon have expected an inquiry whether evidence was taken, witnesses sworn, and the cargoes examined as whether mails were examined. “But if mails ever are examined,” said he, “the fact must be known and recorded. What vessels,” he asked, “have we captured, where we have examined the mails?” “All, doubtless, that have had mails on board,” I replied. Probably most of them were not intrusted with mails. “What,'” asked he, '”was the first vessel taken?” “I do not recollect the name, a small blockade-runner, I think; I presume she had no mail. If she had, I have no doubt the court searched it and examined all letters and papers.” He was extremely anxious to ascertain if I recollected, or knew that any captured mail had been searched. I told him I remembered no specific mention, doubted if the courts ever reported to the Navy Department. Foreign governments, knowing of the blockade, would not be likely to make up mails for the ports blockaded. The Peterhoff had a mail ostensibly for Matamoras, which was her destination, but with a cargo and mails which we knew were intended for the Rebels, though the proof might be difficult since the mail had been given up. I sent for Watkins, who has charge of prize matters, to know if there was any record or mention of mails in any of the papers sent the Navy Department, but he could not call to mind anything conclusive. Some mention was made of mails or dispatches in the mail on board the Bermuda, which we captured, but it was incidental. Perhaps the facts might be got from the district attorneys, though he thought, as I did, that but few regular mails were given to blockade-runners. The President said he would frame a letter to the district attorneys, and in the afternoon he brought in a form to be sent to the attorneys in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.

Read Chase the principal points in the Peterhoff case. He approved of my views, concurred in them fully, and said there was no getting around them.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 302-4

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 15, 1863

The President's message is highly applauded. It is well written; but I do not perceive much substance in it, besides some eloquent reproaches of England and France for the maintenance of their neutrality, which in effect is greatly more beneficial to the United States than to us. The President essays to encourage the people to continued effort and endurance — and such encouragement is highly judicious at this dark epoch of the struggle. He says truly we have larger armies, and a better supply of arms, etc., now, than we have had at any time previously.

The President says he will, unless Congress directs differently, have all Federal officers that we may capture, handed over to the States to be dealt with as John Brown was dealt with. The Emancipation Proclamation, if not revoked, may convert the war into a most barbarous conflict.

Mr. Foote, yesterday, introduced a resolution requesting the recall of our diplomatic agents; and, after a certain time, to notify the foreign consuls to leave the country, no longer recognizing them in an official capacity.

A bill was introduced making Marylanders subject to conscription.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 238

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 23,1861

Gen. T. J. Jackson has destroyed a principal dam on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. That will give the enemy abundance of trouble. This Gen. Jackson is always doing something to vex the enemy; and I think he is destined to annoy them more.

It is with much apprehension that I see something like a general relaxation of preparation to hurl back the invader. It seems as if the government were waiting for England to do it; and after all, the capture of Slidell and Mason may be the very worst thing that could have happened. Mr. Benjamin, I learn, feels very confident that a rupture between the United States and Great Britain is inevitable. War with England is not to be thought of by Mr. Seward at this juncture, and he will not have it. And we should not rely upon the happening of any such contingency. Some of our officials go so far as to hint that in the event of a war between the United States and Great Britain, and our recognition by the former, it might be good policy for us to stand neutral. The war would certainly be waged on our account, and it would not be consistent with Southern honor and chivalry to retire from the field and leave the friend who interfered in our behalf to fight it out alone. The principal members of our government should possess the highest stamp of character, for never did there exist a purer people.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 101

John Stuart Mill to John Lothrop Motley, October 31, 1862

ST. VERAN, 31st October 1862.

MY DEAR SIR, — Allow me to thank you most warmly for your long and interesting letter, which if it had been twice as long as it was would only have pleased me more. There are few persons that I have seen only once with whom I so much desire to keep up a communication as with you; and the importance of what I learn from you respecting matters so full of momentous consequences to the world would make such communication most valuable to me even if I did not wish for it on personal grounds. The state of affairs in America has naturally improved since you wrote, by the defeat of the enemy in Maryland and their expulsion from it, and still more by Mr. Lincoln's Anti-Slavery Proclamation, which no American, I think, can have received with more exultation than I did. It is of the highest importance, and more so because the manifest reluctance with which the President made up his mind to that decided step indicates that the progress of opinion in the country had reached the point of seeing its necessity for the effectual prosecution of the war. The adhesion of so many Governors of States, some of them originally Democrats, is a very favourable sign, and thus far the measure does not seem to have materially weakened your hold upon the border Slave States. The natural tendency will be, if the war goes on successfully, to reconcile those States to emancipating their own slaves, availing themselves of the pecuniary offers made by the Federal Government. I still feel some anxiety about the reception which will be given to the measure by Congress when it meets, and I should much like to know what are your expectations on the point. In England the proclamation has only increased the venom of those who, after taunting you so long with caring nothing for abolition, now reproach you for your abolitionism as the worst of your crimes. But you will find that, whenever any name is attached to these wretched effusions, it is always that of some deeply-dyed Tory — generally the kind of Tory to whom slavery is rather agreeable than not, or who so hate your democratic institutions that they would be sure to inveigh against you whatever you did, and are enraged at being no longer able to taunt you with being false to your own principles. It is from there also that we are now beginning to hear, what disgusts me more than all the rest, the base doctrine that it is for the interest of England that the American Republic should be broken up. Think of us as ill as you may (and we have given you abundant cause), but do not, I entreat you, think that the general English public is so base as this. Our national faults are not now of that kind, and I firmly believe that the feeling of almost all English Liberals, even those whose language has been the most objectionable, is one of sincere respect for the disruption which they think inevitable. As long as there is a Tory party in England it will rejoice at everything which injures or discredits American institutions, but the Liberal party, who are now, and are likely to remain much the strongest, are naturally your friends and allies, and will return to that position when once they see that you are not engaged in a hopeless, and therefore, as they think, an irrational and unjustifiable contest. There are writers enough here to keep up the fight and meet the malevolent comments on all your proceedings by right ones. Besides Cairns, and Dicey, and H. Martineau, and Ludlow, and Hughes, besides the Daily News, and Macmillan, and the Star, there is now the Westminster and the London Review, to which several of the best writers of the Saturday have gone over; there is Ellison of Liverpool, the author of “Slavery and Secession,” and editor of a monthly economical journal, the Exchange; and there are other writers less known who, if events go on favourably, will rapidly multiply. Here in France the state of opinion on the subject is most gratifying. All Liberal Frenchmen seem to have been with you from the first. They did not know more about the subject than the English, but their instincts were truer. By the way, what did you think of the narrative of the campaign on the Potomac in the Revue des Deux Mondes of 15th October by the Comte de Paris? It looks veracious, and is certainly intelligent, and in the general effect likely, I should think, to be very useful to the cause.

I still think you take too severe a view of the conduct of our Government. I grant that the extra-official dicta of some of the Ministry have been very unfortunate, especially that celebrated one of Lord Russell, on which I have commented not sparingly in the Westminster Review. Gladstone, too, a man of a much nobler character than Lord Russell, has said things lately which I very much regret, though they were accompanied by other things showing that he had no bad feelings towards you, and regretted their existence in others. But as a Government I do not see that their conduct is objectionable. The port of Nassau may be all that you say it is, but the United States also have the power, and have used it largely, of supplying themselves with munitions of war from our ports. If the principle of neutrality is accepted, our markets must be open to both sides alike, and the general opinion in England is (I do not say whether rightly or wrongly) that, if the course adopted is favourable to either side, it is to the United States, since the Confederates, owing to the blockade of their ports, have so much less power to take advantage of the facilities extended equally to both. What you mention about a seizure of arms by our Government must, I feel confident, have taken place during the Trent difficulty, at which time alone (and neither before nor after) has the export of arms to America been interdicted.

It is very possible that too much may have been made of Butler's proclamation, and that he was more wrong in form and phraseology than in substance. But with regard to the watchword said to have been given out by Pakenham at New Orleans, I have always hitherto taken it for a mere legend, like the exactly parallel ones which grew up under our own eyes at Paris in 1848 respecting the Socialist insurrections of June. What authority there may be for it I do not know, but, if it is true, nothing can mark more strongly the change which has taken place in the European standard of belligerent rights since the wars of the beginning of the century, for if any English commander at the present time were to do the like he never could show his face again in English society, even if he escaped being broken by a court-martial ; and I think we are entitled to blame in others what none of us, of the present generation at least, would be capable of perpetrating. You are perhaps hardly aware how little the English of the present day feel of solidarité with past generations. We do not feel ourselves at all concerned to justify our predecessors. Foreigners reproach us with having been the great enemies of neutral rights so long as we were belligerents, and with turning round and stickling for them now when we are neutrals; but the real fact is we are convinced, and have no hesitation in saying (what our Liberal party said even at the time), that our policy in that matter in the great Continental war was totally wrong.

But while I am anxious that liberal and friendly Americans should not think worse of us than we really deserve, I am deeply conscious and profoundly grieved and mortified that we deserve so ill; and are making, in consequence, so pitiful a figure before the world, with which, if we are not daily and insultingly taxed by all Europe, it is only because our enemies are glad to see us doing exactly what they expected, justifying their opinion of us, and acting in a way which they think perfectly natural, because they think it perfectly selfish.

SOURCE: Hugh S. R. Elliot, Editor, The Letters of John Stuart Mill, Volume 1, p. 263-6