Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: October 25, 1862

Another battle before the month is up. Oh! we are indeed being crushed and chastened! It is a great comfort in these days when (in New York at least) the people seem trifling and uncertain, to hear such good, strong confidence expressed as Mr. Henry James¹ said he felt in the people's “coming to self-consciousness,” as he called it. When I asked him if he thought it would take long to make them feel that they were the one and only power, and that they must save their native land, he said: “No, perhaps a day might do it. Some manly act on the part of a leader might crystallize the men near him.” Everything looks dark and uncertain ahead, except the pure faith in God and ourselves. However, it isn't well to be down-hearted in view of the proclamation, — that must work. I was told yesterday by Lou Schuyler that the negroes in Georgia had quietly refused to work, sitting calmly with no idea of insurrection, but simply immovable. In Louisiana (as a lady told Mother who came from there) there is no more slavery, and with such facts before us how can we say nothing has been accomplished?

Yesterday at the theatre it didn't sound well when Richelieu² said: “Take away the sword,” etc., to hear loud applause, but we comforted ourselves with the reflection that it was New York and only the upper gallery at that. I suppose waiting is wholesome and trust that it is as Mr. James said, that “When the people do wake up and know themselves, we shall have blessed happy peace forever.” We, as a Nation, are learning splendid lessons of heroism and fortitude through it that nothing else could teach. All our young men who take their lives in their hands and go out and battle for the right grow noble and grand in the act, and when they come back (perhaps only half of those who went) I hope they will find that the women have grown with them in the long hours of agony. Mr. James brought Nellie and me today two photographs of Wilkie,³ who had gone off in the 44th as Sergeant, and on the back was somebody's or something's escutcheon with the motto, “Vincere vel mori.” It seemed a very fitting one for a young soldier going forth in all the ardor of a first campaign. Dear boys! How noble they are, and yet how can they help being noble? I have longed so to go myself that it seemed unbearable, and Emmie Russell⁴ wrote me from Florence that it always made her cry to see soldiers, partly for thinking of our army, and partly for chagrin that she was not a man to go too. We can work though if we can't enlist, and we do. It is very pleasant to see how well the girls and women do work everywhere, sewing meetings, sanitary hospitals and all. Lou Schuyler told me at the Sanitary yesterday that there were 150,000 sick and wounded now in the different hospitals to be cared for! and I suppose, poor fellows, they are cold and tired and miserable, even after all that's been done for them! God help us all.

_______________

¹ The elder of that name.

² Played at that time by Edwin Booth.

³ Wilkie James, brother of Professor William James.

⁴ Afterwards Mrs. Charles L. Pierson, of Boston.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 35-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: March 23, 1861

It is announced positively that the authorities in Pensacola and Charleston have refused to allow any further supplies to be sent to Fort Pickens, the United States fleet in the Gulf, and to Fort Sumter. Everywhere the Southern leaders are forcing on a solution with decision and energy, whilst the Government appears to be helplessly drifting with the current of events, having neither bow nor stern, neither keel nor deck, neither rudder, compass, sails, or steam. Mr. Seward has declined to receive or hold any intercourse with the three gentlemen called Southern Commissioners, who repaired to Washington accredited by the Government and Congress of the Seceding States now sitting at Montgomery, so that there is no channel of mediation or means of adjustment left open. I hear, indeed, that Government is secretly preparing what force it can to strengthen the garrison at Pickens, and to reinforce Sumter at any hazard; but that its want of men, ships, and money compels it to temporize, lest the Southern authorities should forestall their designs by a vigorous attack on the enfeebled forts.

There is, in reality, very little done by New York to support or encourage the Government in any decided policy, and the journals are more engaged now in abusing each other, and in small party aggressive warfare, than in the performance of the duties of a patriotic press, whose mission at such a time is beyond all question the resignation of little differences for the sake of the whole country, and an entire devotion to its safety, honor, and integrity. But the New York people must have their intellectual drams every morning, and it matters little what the course of Government may be, so long as the aristocratic democrat can be amused by ridicule of the Great Rail Splitter, or a vivid portraiture of Mr. Horace Greeley's old coat, hat, breeches, and umbrella. The coarsest personalities are read with gusto, and attacks of a kind which would not have been admitted into the “Age” or “Satirist” in their worst days, form the staple leading articles of one or two of the most largely circulated journals in the city. “Slang” in its worst Americanized form is freely used in sensation headings and leaders, and a class of advertisements which are not allowed to appear in respectable English papers, have possession of columns of the principal newspapers, few, indeed, excluding them. It is strange, too, to see in journals which profess to represent the civilization and intelligence of the most enlightened and highly educated people on the face of the earth, advertisements of sorcerers, wizards, and fortunetellers by the score — “wonderful clairvoyants,” “the seventh child of a seventh child,” “mesmeristic necromancers,” and the like, who can tell your thoughts as soon as you enter the room, can secure the affections you prize, give lucky numbers in lotteries, and make everybody's fortunes but their own. Then there are the most impudent quack programmes — very doubtful “personals” addressed to “the young lady with black hair and blue eyes, who got out of the omnibus at the corner of 7th Street” — appeals by “a lady about to be confined” to “any respectable person who is desirous of adopting a child:” all rather curious reading for a stranger, or for a family.

It is not to be expected, of course, that New York is a very pure city, for more than London or Paris it is the sewer of nations. It is a city of luxury also — French and Italian cooks and milliners, German and Italian musicians, high prices, extravagant tastes and dressing, money readily made, a life in, hotels, bar-rooms, heavy gambling, sporting, and prize-fighting flourish here, and combine to lower the standard of the bourgeoisie at all events. Where wealth is the sole aristocracy, there is great danger of mistaking excess and profusion for elegance and good taste. To-day as I was going down Broadway, some dozen or more of the most over-dressed men I ever saw were pointed out to me as “sports;” that is, men who lived by gambling-houses and betting on races; and the class is so numerous that it has its own influence, particularly at elections, when the power of a hard-hitting prize-fighter with a following makes itself unmistakably felt. Young America essays to look like martial France in mufti, but the hat and the coat suited to the Colonel of Carabiniers en retraite do not at all become the thin, tall, rather long-faced gentlemen one sees lounging about Broadway. It is true, indeed, the type, though not French, is not English. The characteristics of the American are straight hair, keen, bright, penetrating eyes, and want of color in the cheeks.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 26-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, July 19, 1863

New York, July 19th, '63.

On Tuesday evening, upon an intimation from a man who had heard the plot arranged in the city to come down and visit me that night, and find Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips, “who were concealed in my house,” I took the babies out of bed and departed to an unsuspected neighbor's. On Wednesday a dozen persons informed me and Mr. Shaw that our houses were to be burned; and as there was no police or military force upon the island, and my only defensive weapon was a large family umbrella, I carried Anna and the two babies to James Sturgis's in Roxbury. Frank was with Mrs. Shaw at Susie Minturn's up the river. Today I am going with him to Roxbury, but shall return immediately, so that I cannot see you. We have now organized ourselves in the neighborhood for mutual defense, and I do not fear any serious trouble.

The good cause gains greatly by all this trouble. The government is strong enough to hold New York, if necessary, as it holds New Orleans, Baltimore, and St. Louis. There must be a great deal more excitement, and if Seymour can bring the State, under a form of law, against the national government, he will do it. It will be done by a state decision of the unconstitutionality of the conscription act. But as a riot it has been suppressed, as an insurrection it has failed. No Northern conspiracy for the rebellion can ever have so fair a chance again as it had in this city last week, without soldiers, with a governor friendly to the mob, and with only a splendid police which did its duty as well as Grant's army.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 165-6

Diary of William Howard Russell: March 20, 1861

The papers are still full of Sumter and Pickens. The reports that they are or are not to be relieved are stated and contradicted in each paper without any regard to individual consistency. The “Tribune” has an article on my speech at the St. Patrick's dinner, to which it is pleased to assign reasons and motives which the speaker, at all events, never had in making it.

Received several begging letters, some of them apparently with only too much of the stamp of reality about their tales of disappointment, distress, and suffering. In the afternoon went down Broadway, which was crowded, notwithstanding the piles of blackened snow by the curbstones, and the sloughs of mud, and half-frozen pools at the crossings. Visited several large stores or shops — some rival the best establishments in Paris or London in richness and in value, and far exceed them in size and splendor of exterior. Some on Broadway, built of marble, or of fine cut stone, cost from £6,000 to £8,000 a year in mere rent. Here, from the base to the fourth or fifth story, are piled collections of all the world can produce, often in excess of all possible requirements of the country; indeed I was told that the United States have always imported more goods than they could pay for. Jewellers' shops are not numerous, but there are two in Broadway which have splendid collections of jewels, and of workmanship in gold and silver, displayed to the greatest advantage in fine apartments decorated with black marble, statuary, and plate

New York has certainly all the air of a “nouveau riche.” There is about it an utter absence of any appearance of a grandfather — one does not see even such evidences of eccentric taste as are afforded in Paris and London, by the existence of shops where the old families of a country cast off their “exuviӕ” which are sought by the new, that they may persuade the world they are old; there is no curiosity shop, not to speak of a Wardour Street, and such efforts as are made to supply the deficiency reveal an enormous amount of ignorance or of bad taste. The new arts, however, flourish; the plague of photography has spread through all the corners of the city, and the shop-windows glare with flagrant displays of the most tawdry art. In some of the large booksellers' shops — Appleton's for example — are striking proofs of the activity of the American press, if not of the vigor and originality of the American intellect. I passed down long rows of shelves laden with the works of European authors, for the most part, oh shame! stolen and translated into American type without the smallest compunction or scruple, and without the least intention of ever yielding the most pitiful deodand to the authors. Mr. Appleton sells no less than one million and a half of Webster's spelling-books a year; his tables are covered with a flood of pamphlets, some for, others against coercion; some for, others opposed to slavery, — but when I asked for a single solid, substantial work on the present difficulty, I was told there was not one published worth a cent. With such men as Audubon and Wilson in natural history, Prescott and Motley in history, Washington Irving and Cooper in fiction, Longfellow and Edgar Poe in poetry, even Bryant and the respectabilities in rhyme, and Emerson as essayist, there is no reason why New York should be a paltry imitation of Leipsig, without the good faith of Tauchnitz.

I dined with a litterateur well known in England to many people a year or two ago — sprightly, loquacious, and well informed, if neither witty nor profound — now a Southern man with Southern proclivities, — as Americans say; once a Southern man with such strong anti-slavery convictions, that his expression of them in an English quarterly had secured him the hostility of his own people — one of the emanations of American literary life for which their own country finds no fitting receiver. As the best proof of his sincerity, he has just now abandoned his connection with one of the New York papers on the republican side, because he believed that the course of the journal was dictated by anti-Southern fanaticism. He is, in fact, persuaded that there will be a civil war, and that the South will have much of the right on its side in the contest. At his rooms were Mons. B–––, Dr. Gwin, a Californian ex-senator, Mr. Barlow, and several of the leading men of a certain clique in New York. The Americans complain, or assert, that we do not understand them, and I confess the reproach, or statement, was felt to be well founded by myself at all events, when I heard it declared and admitted that “if Mons. Belmont had not gone to the Charleston Convention, the present crisis would never have occurred.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 24-6

Charles Eliot Norton to James Russell Lowell, December 19, 1861

The Albemarle, New York, December 19,1861.

. . . This is a wonderful city. It has greatly changed since you and I were here eighteen years ago. There is a special fitness in the first syllable of its name, for it is essentially New, and seems likely always to remain so. It is all of the New World, and what Villemain says of Joinville is true in another sense of the impression that a stranger receives from New York “On dirait que les objets sont nés dans le monde le jour où il les a vus.” The only old things here are yesterday's newspapers. People do not seem to live here, — they pass the nights and spend the days in the city, — that is all. The persons whom I meet in the street do not have, to my eyes, the air of belonging here, or of being at home. They look restless, and even the children have tired faces as if they had been seeing sights too long.

The New Yorkers have got Aladdin's lamp, and build palaces in a night. The city is gay, entertaining, full of costly things, — but its lavish spending does not result in magnificence, it is showy rather than fine, and its houses and churches and shops and carriages are expensive rather than beautiful. Architecture is not practised as a fine art, it is known here only as a name for the building trade.

Boston is farther off than it used to be from New York. We are provincials, with a very little city of our own. This is really metropolitan, and has great advantages. A few years hence and Boston will be a place of the past, with a good history no doubt, but New York will be alive. It seems to be getting what Paris has so much of,—a confidence in the immortality of the present moment. It does not care for past or future.

My windows look out on the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, and there is not a livelier place in the world.

The news from England, I trust, is not so bad as it seems. The manner in which the country has received it is most satisfactory, — and there is apparently no reason to fear war as the result of any popular excitement here, or of any want of temper or discretion on the part of the Administration. It is a fortunate thing for us that Seward has regained so much of the public confidence. He will feel himself strong enough not to be passionate or violent. I cannot believe that the English ministry mean war, — if they do they will get it and its consequences.

How good the new number of the “Atlantic” is! I have read and re-read your letters in it, always with a fuller sense of the overflowing humour, wit and cleverness of them. You are as young, my boy, as you were in the old time. It seems to me indeed (you will take what I say for what it is worth, and of this you are a better judge than I am), that there is some risk from the very abundance of your power lest the popularity and effect of this new series of the "Biglow Papers" should not be as great as it ought to be. This letter of B. Sawin's is too full, and contains too much. I know that the necessity of the case forced you into details in order to place your characters on the stage in an intelligible way. But I am afraid that the public will be impatient of detail, and will complain of divided interest. It was this that prevented common readers from appreciating the delightful fun and humour of “Our Own.” The truth is that for popularity — that is, for wide, genuine, national popularity — there is need of unity of effect. One blow must be struck, not ten. Moreover our people are more in earnest now than they ever have been before, they are not in the vein for being amused by the most humorous touches of satire unless there be a simple, perfectly direct moral underneath. The conclusion to which I want to come is this, — that you must interrupt the series of Birdofredum's letters, by some shorter pieces of Hosea's own, the shorter the better if so be that they give expression and form to any one of the popular emotions or sentiments of the moment; — and more than this, that you should make them as lyrical and as strong as possible, binding the verses together with a taking refrain. The pieces in the old “Biglow Papers” that have become immortal are the lyrics; — the John P. Robinson; the Gen. Cass says some one's an ass; the Apostles rigged out in their swallow-tail coats, and so on.

Am I right? I believe so. And if I am, I am sure that you can do what I think should be done. You have a fine chance (me judice) at this moment to put the popular feeling toward England into verse which shall ring from one end of the country to the other. Do let Hosea do it, and send it with one of his brief old-fashioned letters to the publishers for the next number, — and keep back Birdofredum till March. If you hit the nail of the minute such a ringing blow on the head as you can hit it, all the people will cheer and laugh, and throw up their hats in your honour. I am so proud of you, and love you so well that I not only want you to do the best for the country but am sure that you can do it. And love gives me the precious right to write thus freely to you. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 247-50

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: September 9, 1862

Nothing looks bright and cousin John who went up yesterday and returned today, said all Boston is as “blue as indigo.” The enemy has been reinforced and now they say they intend to march on Philadelphia and New York, though I think that's all talk, for how can they get North if we couldn't get South?

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 33

Diary of William Howard Russell: Sunday, March 17, 1861

The first thing I saw this morning, after a vision of a waiter pretending to brush my clothes with a feeble twitch composed of fine fibre had vanished, was a procession of men, forty or fifty perhaps, preceded by a small band (by no excess of compliment can I say, of music), trudging through the cold and slush two and two: they wore shamrocks, or the best resemblance thereto which the American soil can produce, in their hats, and green silk sashes emblazoned with crownless harp upon their coats, but it needed these insignia to tell they were Irishmen, and their solemn mien indicated that they were going to mass. It was agreeable to see them so well clad and respectable looking, though occasional hats seemed as if they had just recovered from severe contusions, and others had the picturesque irregularity of outline now and then observable in the old country. The aspect of the street was irregular, and its abnormal look was increased by the air of the passers-by, who at that hour were domestics — very finely dressed negroes, Irish, or German. The colored ladies made most ‘elaborate’ toilets and as they held up their broad crinolines over the mud looked not unlike double-stemmed mushrooms. “They're concayted poor craythures them niggirs, male and faymale,” was the remark of the waiter as he saw me watching them. “There seem to be no sparrows in the streets,” said I. “Sparras!” he exclaimed; “and then how did you think a little baste of a sparra could fly across the ochean?” I felt rather ashamed of myself.

And so down-stairs where there was a table d'hôte room, with great long tables covered with cloths, plates, and breakfast apparatus, and a smaller room inside, to which I was directed by one of the white-jacketed waiters. Breakfast over, visitors began to drop in. At the “office” of the hotel, as it is styled, there is a tray of blank cards and a big pencil, whereby the cardless man who is visiting is enabled to send you his name and title. There is a comfortable “reception room,” in which he can remain and read the papers, if you are engaged, so that there is little chance of your ultimately escaping him. And, indeed, not one of those who came had any but most hospitable intents.

Out of doors the weather was not tempting. The snow lay in irregular layers and discolored mounds along the streets, and the gutters gorged with “snow-bree” flooded the broken pavement. But after a time the crowds began to issue from the churches, and it was announced as the necessity of the day, that we were to walk up and down the Fifth Avenue and look at each other. This is the west-end of London — its Belgravia and Grosvenoria represented in one long street, with offshoots of inferior dignity at right angles to it. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater number have a compressed, squeezed-up aspect, which arises from the compulsory narrowness of frontage in proportion to the height of the building, and all of them are bright and new, as if they were just finished to order, — a most astonishing proof of the rapid development of the city. As the ball-door is made an important feature in the residence, the front parlor is generally a narrow, lanky apartment, struggling for existence between the hall and the partition of the next house. The outer door, which is always provided with fine carved panels and mouldings, is of some rich varnished wood, and looks much better than our painted doors. It is generously thrown open so as to show an inner door with curtains and plate glass. The windows, which are double on account of the climate, are frequently of plate glass also. Some of the doors are on the same level as the street, with a basement story beneath; others are approached by flights of steps, the basement for servants having the entrance below the steps, and this, I believe, is the old Dutch fashion, and the name of “stoop” is still retained for it.

No liveried servants are to be seen about the streets, the door-ways, or the area-steps. Black faces in gaudy caps, or an unmistakable “Biddy” in crinoline are their substitutes. The chief charm of the street was the living ornature which moved up and down the trottoirs. The costumes of Paris, adapted to the severity of this wintry weather, were draped round pretty, graceful figures which, if wanting somewhat in that rounded fulness of the Medicean Venus, or in height, were svelte and well poised. The French boot has been driven off the field by the Balmoral, better suited to the snow; and one must at once admit — all prejudices notwithstanding — that the American woman is not only well shod and well gloved, but that she has no reason to fear comparisons, in foot or hand with any daughter of Eve, except, perhaps, the Hindoo.

The great and most frequent fault of the stranger in any land is that of generalizing from a few facts. Every one must feel there are “pretty days” and “ugly days” in the world, and that his experience on the one would lead him to conclusions very different from that to which he would arrive on the other. To-day I am quite satisfied that if the American women are deficient in stature and in that which makes us say, “There is a fine woman,” they are easy, well formed, and full of grace and prettiness. Admitting a certain pallor — which the Russians, by the by, were wont to admire so much that they took vinegar to produce it — the face is not only pretty, but sometimes of extraordinary beauty, the features fine, delicate, well defined. Ruby lips, indeed, are seldom to be seen, but now and then the flashing of snowy-white evenly-set ivory teeth dispels the delusion that the Americans are — though the excellence of their dentists be granted — naturally ill provided with what they take so much pains, by eating bon-bons and confectionery, to deprive of their purity and color.

My friend R–––, with whom I was walking, knew every one in the Fifth Avenue, and we worked our way through a succession of small talk nearly as far as the end of the street; which runs out among divers places in the State of New York, through a debris of unfinished conceptions in masonry The abrupt transition of the city into the country is not unfavorable to an idea that the Fifth Avenue might have been transported from some great workshop, where it had been built to order by a despot, and dropped among the Red men: indeed, the immense growth of New York in this direction, although far inferior to that of many parts of London, is remarkable as the work of eighteen or twenty years, and is rendered more conspicuous by being developed in this elongated street, and its contingents. I was introduced to many persons to-day, and was only once or twice asked how I liked New York; perhaps I anticipated the question by expressing my high opinion of the Fifth Avenue. Those to whom I spoke had generally something to say in reference to the troubled condition of the country, but it was principally of a self-complacent nature. “I suppose, sir, you are rather surprised, coming from Europe, to find us so quiet here in New York: we are a peculiar people, and you don't understand us in Europe.”

In the afternoon I called on Mr. Bancroft, formerly minister to England, whose work on America must be rather rudely interrupted by this crisis. Anything with an "ex" to it in America is of little weight — ex-presidents are nobodies, though they have had the advantage, during their four years' tenure of office, of being prayed for as long as they live. So it is of ex-ministers, whom nobody prays for at all. Mr. Bancroft conversed for some time on the aspect of affairs, but he appeared to be unable to arrive at any settled conclusion, except that the republic, though in danger, was the most stable and beneficial form of government in the world, and that as a Government it had no power to coerce the people of the South or to save itself from the danger. I was indeed astonished to hear from him and others so much philosophical abstract reasoning as to the right of seceding, or, what is next to it, the want of any power in the Government to prevent it.

Returning home in order to dress for dinner, I got into a street-railway-car, a long low omnibus drawn by horses over a strada ferrata in the middle of the street. It was filled with people of all classes, and at every crossing some one or other rang the bell, and the driver stopped to let out or to take in passengers, whereby the unoffending traveller became possessed of much snow-droppings and mud on boots and clothing. I found that by far a greater inconvenience caused by these street-railways was the destruction of all comfort or rapidity in ordinary carriages.

I dined with a New York banker, who gave such a dinner as bankers generally give all over the world. He is a man still young, very kindly, hospitable, well-informed, with a most charming household — an American by theory, an Englishman in instincts and tastes — educated in Europe, and sprung from British stock. Considering the enormous interests he has at stake, I was astonished to perceive how calmly he spoke of the impending troubles. His friends, all men of position in New York society, had the same dilettante tone, and were as little anxious for the future, or excited by the present, as a party of savans chronicling the movements of a “magnetic storm.”

On going back to the hotel, I heard that Judge Daly and some gentlemen had called to request that I would dine with the Friendly Society of St. Patrick to-morrow at Astor House. In what is called “the bar,” I met several gentlemen, one of whom said, “the majority of the people of New York, and all the respectable people, were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as Lincoln to be President, and would back the Southern States, if it came to a split.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 10-14

Diary of William Howard Russell: March 16, 1861

The entrance to New York, as it was seen by us on 16th March, is not remarkable for beauty or picturesque scenery, and I incurred the ire of several passengers, because I could not consistently say it was very pretty. It was difficult to distinguish through the snow the villas and country houses, which are said to be so charming in summer. But beyond these rose a forest of masts close by a low shore of brick houses and blue roofs, above the level of which again spires of churches and domes and cupolas announced a great city. On our left, at the narrowest part of the entrance, there was a very powerful casemated work of fine close stone, in three tiers, something like Fort Paul at Sebastopol, built close to the water's edge, and armed on all the faces, — apparently a tetragon with bastions. Extensive works were going on at the ground above it, which rises rapidly from the water to a height of more than a hundred feet, and the rudiments of an extensive work and heavily armed earthen parapets could be seen from the channel. On the right hand, crossing its fire with that of the batteries and works on our left, there was another regular stone fort with fortified enceinte; and higher up the channel, as it widens to the city on the same side, I could make out a smaller fort on the water's edge. The situation of the city renders it susceptible of powerful defence from the seaside; and even now it would be hazardous to run the gauntlet of the batteries, unless in powerful iron-clad ships favored by wind and tide, which could hold the place at their mercy. Against a wooden fleet New York is now all but secure, save under exceptional circumstances in favor of the assailants.

It was dark as the steamer hauled up alongside the wharf on the New Jersey side of the river; but ere the sun set, I could form some idea of the activity and industry of the people from the enormous ferry-boats moving backwards and forwards like arks on the water, impelled by the great walking-beam engines, the crowded stream full of merchantmen, steamers, and small craft, the smoke of the factories, the tall chimneys, — the net-work of boats and rafts, — all the evidences of commercial life in full development. What a swarming, eager crowd on the quay-wall! What a wonderful ragged regiment of laborers and porters, hailing us in broken or Hibernianized English! “These are all Irish and Germans,” anxiously explained a New Yorker. “I'll bet fifty dollars there's not a native-born American among them.”

With Anglo-Saxon disregard of official insignia, American Custom House officers dress very much like their British brethren, without any sign of authority as faint as even the brass button and crown, so that the stranger is somewhat uneasy when he sees unauthorized-looking people taking liberties with his plunder, especially after the admonitions he has received on board ship to look sharp about his things as soon as he lands. I was provided with an introduction to one of the principal officers, and he facilitated my egress, and at last I was bundled out through a gate into a dark alley, ankle deep in melted snow and mud, where I was at once engaged in a brisk encounter with my Irish porterhood, and, after a long struggle, succeeded in stowing my effects in and about a remarkable specimen of the hackney-coach of the last century, very high in the axle, and weak in the springs, which plashed down towards the river through a crowd of men shouting out, “You haven't paid me yet, yer honor. You haven't given anything to your own man that's been waiting here the last six months for your honor!” “I’m the man that put the lugidge up, sir,” &c, &c. The coach darted on board a great steam ferry-boat, which had on deck a number of similar vehicles and omnibuses; and the gliding, shifting lights, and the deep, strong breathing of the engine, told me I was moving and afloat before I was otherwise aware of it. A few minutes brought us over to the lights on the New York side, — a jerk or two up a steep incline, — and we were rattling over a most abominable pavement, plunging into mudholes, squashing through snow-heaps in ill-lighted, narrow streets of low, mean-looking, wooden houses, of which an unusual proportion appeared to be lager-bier saloons, whiskey-shops, oyster-houses, and billiard and smoking establishments.

The crowd on the pavement were very much what a stranger would be likely to see in a very bad part of London, Antwerp, or Hamburg, with a dash of the noisy exuberance which proceeds from the high animal spirits that defy police regulations and are superior to police force, called “rowdyism.” The drive was long and tortuous; but by degrees the character of the thoroughfares and streets improved. At last we turned into a wide street with very tall houses, alternating with far humbler erections, blazing with lights, gay with shop-windows, thronged in spite of the mud with well-dressed people, and pervaded by strings of omnibuses, — Oxford Street was nothing to it for length. At intervals there towered up a block of brickwork and stucco, with long rows of windows lighted up tier above tier, and a swarming crowd passing in and out of the portals, which were recognized as the barrack-like glory of American civilization, — a Broadway monster hotel. More oyster-shops, lager-bier saloons, concert-rooms of astounding denominations, with external decorations very much in the style of the booths at Bartholomew Fair, — churches, restaurants, confectioners, private houses! again another series, — they cannot go on expanding forever. The coach at last drives into a large square, and lands me at the Clarendon Hotel.

Whilst I was crossing the sea, the President's Inaugural Message, the composition of which is generally attributed to Mr. Seward, had been delivered, and had reached Europe, and the causes which were at work in destroying the cohesion of the Union had acquired greater strength and violence.

Whatever force "the declaration of causes which induced the Secession of South Carolina" might have for Carolinians, it could not influence a foreigner who knew nothing at all of the rights, sovereignty, and individual independence of a state, which, however, had no right to make war or peace, to coin money, or enter into treaty obligations with any other country. The South Carolinian was nothing to us, quoad South Carolina — he was merely a citizen of the United States, and we knew no more of him in any other capacity than a French authority would know of a British subject as a Yorkshireman or a Munsterman.

But the moving force of revolution is neither reason nor justice — it is most frequently passion  — it is often interest. The American, when he seeks to prove that the Southern States have no right to revolt from a confederacy of states created by revolt, has by the principles on which he justifies his own revolution, placed between himself and the European a great gulf in the level of argument. According to the deeds and words of Americans, it is difficult to see why South Carolina should not use the rights claimed for each of the thirteen colonies, “to alter and abolish a form of government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established, and to institute a new one.” And the people must be left to decide the question as regards their own government for themselves, or the principle is worthless. The arguments, however, which are now going on are fast tending towards the ultima ratio regum. At present I find public attention is concentrated on the two Federal forts, Pickens and Sumter, called after two officers of the revolutionary armies in the old war. As Alabama and South Carolina have gone out, they now demand the possession of these forts, as of the soil of their several states and attached to their sovereignty. On the other hand, the Government of Mr. Lincoln considers it has no right to give up anything belonging to the Federal Government, but evidently desires to temporize and evade any decision which might precipitate an attack on the forts by the batteries and forces prepared to act against them. There is not sufficient garrison in either for an adequate defence, and the difficulty of procuring supplies is very great. Under the circumstances every one is asking what the Government is going to do? The Southern people have declared they will resist any attempt to supply or reinforce the garrisons, and in Charleston, at least, have shown they mean to keep their word. It is a strange situation. The Federal Government, afraid to speak, and unable to act, is leaving its soldiers to do as they please. In some instances, officers of rank, such as General Twiggs, have surrendered everything to the State authorities, and the treachery and secession of many officers in the army and navy no doubt paralyze and intimidate the civilians at the head of affairs.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 7-10

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 2, 1861

There are vague rumors of lawless outrages committed on Southern men in Philadelphia and New York; but they are not well authenticated, and I do not believe them. The Yankees are not yet ready for retaliation. They know that game wouldn't pay. No — they desire time to get their money out of the South; and they would be perfectly willing that trade should go on, even during the war, for they would be the greatest gainers by the information derived from spies and emissaries. I see, too, their papers have extravagant accounts of imprisonments and summary executions here. Not a man has yet been molested. It is true, we have taken Norfolk, without a battle; but the enemy did all the burning and sinking.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 31

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: December 4, 1861

The latest, best and most ardently wished for Republican triumph has been achieved. Fernando Wood is defeated and George Opdyke is Mayor of New York. Hurrah! We scarcely hoped for such delightful news. A Republican Mayor of New York! The idea is positively an almost inconceivable one.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 22

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, April 20, 1861

20th April, 1861.

Anna and the baby are perfectly well. Her brother Bob and my brother Sam marched yesterday with their regiment, the 7th, both the Winthrops, Philip Schuyler, and the flower of the youth of the city.

This day in New York has been beyond description, and remember, if we lose Washington to-night or to-morrow, as we probably shall, we have taken New York. The grand hope of this rebellion has been the armed and moneyed support of New York, and New York is wild for the flag and the country, and our bitterest foes of yesterday are in good faith our nearest friends. The meeting to-day was a city in council. The statue of Washington held in its right hand the flagstaff and flag of Sumter. The only cry is, “Give us arms!” and this before a drop of New York blood has been shed. What will it be after?

I think of the Massachusetts boys dead. “Send them home tenderly,” says your governor. Yes, “tenderly, tenderly; but for every hair of their bright young heads brought low, God, by our right arms, shall enter into judgment with traitors!”

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 145

Fire In New York

NEW YORK, Jan. 26. – The Fulton Bank and other buildings, [corner] Fulton and Pearl streets, were burned this morning. Loss about half a million dollars.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4

A New Party

The New York correspondent of the Boston Post says a new party is now organizing in the former city, under the name of “Republican Democrats.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 2

New Orleans and the War

We have just had the pleasure of enjoying a protracted conversation with a highly intelligent gentleman, long a resident of that city, who left New Orleans for the North about ten days ago.  Without further particulars as to our informant himself, it is enough to say that he is eminently reliable, a gentleman of mature judgment and excellent sense, and thus worth of the utmost confidence in his statements. – We shall do injustice to his lucid and graphic statements of the condition of affairs in the Metropolis of the Southwest, trusting only to memory to siege the details, but some points will interest our readers, even thus imperfectly presented.

Louisiana was a strong Union State, and the influence of New Orleans eminently so, long after the secession of other states.  The “Co-operationists” represented the intermediate state of public sentiment from loyalty to disloyalty, but leaned most strongly in favor of adherence to the Constitution and the Union. – They took their name and shaped their policy on the scheme of a co-operaiton of the Southern States in order to secure additional pledges from the General Government, and they carried the State to this measure, but the ground taken was not enough and secession came next, and became dominant, overpowering everything.

What of the Union element in New Orleans to-day?  The question might as well be asked in mid winter of a snow covered field, as to what is seeded down, and what it will bear.  Just now secession holds sway and Unionism is crushed out.  Only one sentiment is expressed because but one is safe, and martyrdom would be sure to follow the other.  Let this terrorism be removed, and there would come the time for judging as the share of this and other Southern communities who would welcome the restoration of the Federal power and unite with it in utterly sweeping away the reckless demagogues who have betrayed and outraged the South.  Our informant speaks hopefully with reference to the men who are thus “biding their time.”

In New Orleans, under the all overpowering influence of secession, there is but one opinion expressed in public.  The city is quiet and orderly, for its lower order of white society have gone to the wars.  There are no riots, nor disturbances.  The city is dull in commercial respects.  Whatever products belong to their market are plenty and without sale whatever they have been accustomed to seek form abroad are proportionately high.  Thus sugar is 1½ to 2 cents per lb., and mess pork is $50 per barrel.  All fabrics are high, and stocks are very light.  Owing to the scarcity of meats, the planters are feeding their slaves on mush and molasses, the latter staple being cheap.  The scarcity of ardent compounds being also great, large quantities of molasses are being manufactured into New England rum, which the whisky loving must need use in place of the coveted but scarcer article.

In monetary matters, the change is a striking one.  All specie has disappeared from circulation.  It has gone into private hoards, and bills of the sound banks of Louisiana (and there are not better in the United States) are also being stored away by holders, who see no advantage in presenting them for redemption in Confederate Notes.  Said a bank officer of the State Bank of Louisiana to our informant, “Out of $250,000 in currency received in making our Exchanges with other banks, only twenty five dollars of our own issues were received.”  For an institution with a circulation of one and a half million, this is a significant statement.

Another proof of the distrust of the people in the notes of the C. S. A. is seen in the fact of greatly stimulated prices of New Orleans real estate.  Secessionists who do not look beneath the surface wax vastly jubilant over the aspect. – “There, sir, look at it – see what the war, and this cutting loose from the North has done for us.  Real estate in New Orleans has gone up one half.  Glorious!! Sir, don’t you see it?  The cause of exultation diminishes rapidly when it is understood that all this is but the natural cause of holders of property who say to their possessions, in view of the everywhere present Confederate notes – “take any shape but that.”  No wonder they prefer real estate at exorbitant prices, and pass the shinplasters out of their fingers as fast as possible.  This is the sole secret of the flush times in New Orleans real estate.

The money in circulation from hand to hand is “everybody’s checks,” and omnibus tickets for small charge, and the most mongrel brood of wild cats and kittens that ever distressed a business community.  We saw in the hand of our informant, a bank note for five cents, issued by the Bank of Nashville!  Besides small issues of shinplasters, notes in circulation are divided, A desiring to pay B two dollars and a half, cuts a five dollar note in two, and the dissevered portion goes floating about distressedly looking up its better half, (or otherwise) according to which end bears the bank signatures.

As to the feeling of the community regarding the war, the outspoken sentiment is one of intense hatred to the North, or “the United States,” as they express it.  They affect to believe that spoliation, rapine and outrage of every dye would follow the invasion of Northern troops.  Their own troops are only indifferently provided with outfit, and camp comforts are scarce.  A very significant statement was recently made in the St. Charles Hotel, in the hearing of our informant, which we deem to give as nearly in his own words as possible.  A gentleman had gone up to the camps at Nashville, having in charge donations from the citizens of New Orleans.  On his return his unofficial statements were about as follows: “I tell you, you have no idea of the suffering there among our troops.  It would make your heart bleed to see them lying there sick and dying without nurses and medicine.  New Orleans has done a great deal, but she must do more.”

A Bystander – “But why don’t people up that way do something?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.  The fact is, about one half of them say they never wanted the troops to come there at all, and don’t care how soon they are removed.  The other half are doing all they can, but cannot do all.”

“Why don’t they set their niggers to tending the sick?”

“Well, that’s the squalliest point on the whole.  The niggers say that if they were Lincoln soldiers they would attend them.”

A Bystander (hotly) – “Why don’t they shoot the ______ treacherous sons of ______.”

“Well (meaningly) they don’t think it’s quite safe up there to begin that sort of thing.”

A pretty significant confession, one would think to be made publicly in the rotunda of the St. Charles.  And this brings us to speak of the position of the blacks.  What do they think of the War?  The gentleman we quote says “the blacks have been educated fast within the past six months.  They are a different race from what they were.  Their docility is a thing of the past, and their masters stand appalled at the transformation.”  In several of the parishes about New Orleans, what were believed to be the germs of dangerous insurrections have been several times discovered within the past few months.  In St. Mary’s thirteen slaves were shot at one time.  The South have thought it would aid their plans by telling the slaves that the enemy of the Union was the “army of freedom,” and the blacks believe it.  Certainly no Abolition sheet of the North is responsible for the circulation of such a statement.

An instance was told us of a man sent to the North from New Orleans, with the purpose of looking about him a little [bare] and gaining an idea of matters.  He accomplished his mission after diverse adventures, and came back to the Crescent City.  Wherever his formal report was made, it certainly was pretty much summed up in a statement he made openly in a secession coterie at the St. Charles.  Said he, “I went to New York, business is going on there about as ever – never saw things more busy there – should not judge any body had gone to the war didn’t actually hear much about the South.  Then I went to where they were turning out the things for war, and saw how they were doing it, and, and then was when I began to smell h-ll.”

We are exceeding the limits we had proposed for our statement, but let us add a few brief facts.  As to the defences of New Orleans.  There are two forts on the river below the city, which once passed, New Orleans would be in Federal hands in twenty four hours, for it has no defences in itself.  Earthworks were thrown up south of the city, but no guns have been mounted.  The secessionists feel the danger of their position, and are loud in censures of their Confederate government for its dilatoriness.  The foreign population of New Orleans are alarmed at the aspect of affairs.  A large meeting of French citizens has been held, and a delegation waited on the French Consul to ask him to present their petition to the French Emperor to send a national vessel to take them from the city.

It is upon a community thus constituted and filled with these real sources of alarm that the news of Zollicoffer’s defeat must fall.  It will be spread like wildfire all throughout the South.  If Confederate notes were a drug before, and only taken under protest and unwillingly, what will happen when notes “redeemable on the establishment of the Southern Confederacy” are made even more shaky as a currency by the imminent danger of the government.  The beginning of the end is at hand, and thus at no distant day. – {Chicago Tribune.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 1

More About the K. G. C.

(From the Louisville Journal.)

A few days ago the subject of a letter written by a Dr. Hopkins in regard to a secret league of traitors in the non-slaveholding States under the name of the Knights of the Golden Circle was brought to the consideration of Congress.  Two members of the House of Representatives, Mr. Chandler and Mr. Howard, both of Michigan, attested the existence of the letter.  It has since been published in the Detroit Tribune and republished in some of the New York papers.  It gives an account of the success of Hopkins, its author, in organizing branches of the treasonable conspiracy in several of the States, and refers in very plain terms to its object, which is to rise against the Government of the United States and aid the rebels of the South in its overthrow.  Unquestionably the letter will now be laid before the public in a form that will preclude all dispute as to its genuineness.  For some time past we have not doubted the existence of a Northern rebel organization – small, to [be] sure, in numbers, but fierce and virulent in purpose. – We could name several newspapers which, beyond all question, in our mind, are conducted under its influence, and for the furtherance of its objects.  Those papers profess indeed to be loyal to the Union, for they are afraid of the swift retribution that they know would follow any open exhibition of treason; but they diligently devote themselves to the selection and publication of such matter as they deem calculated to dispirit the friends of the Union and to encourage the rebels, and they expect and find their reward in the liberal patronage of rebels in Kentucky, Missouri and elsewhere.

The New York Evening Post, one of the ablest and most respectable papers in the country, says that the testimony of the two Michigan members of Congress to the existence of the rebel conspiracy in the North was not necessary.  It says that the Knights of the Golden Circle have for months had their clubs in New York city – that the noted rebel General, Gustavus W. Smith, and his deputy, Lovell, belonged to it before they joined the Southern army.  It adds that so confident were these plotters at one time of success that they began to indulge in threats of vengeance against those who supported the United states Government, and it refers to the case of a prominent citizen, who, speaking zealously on all occasions against the heresy of Secession was given to understand that, if not more quiet, he would have his throat cut.  The post says we are on the eve of a Northern insurrection, and that there would have been one if the popular feeling in that section had not declared itself with irresistible energy on the side of the Constitution.

The Michigan members of Congress affirm that one of the effects of the conspiracy has been to get some of the worst enemies of the Union and the Constitution into the army, where they now are all working upon that high vantage ground, with all their might, in favor of the rebellion. – This may account for the conduct, otherwise inexplicable, of some of our military officers in high positions, and afford some clue to the deep mystery of the frequent promulgation, among the rebels, of the profoundest secrets of our military authorities at Washington and elsewhere.

– Published in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862, p. 2

WASHINGTON, March 12 [1862]

This evening all the principal forts in the harbor of New York will be garrisoned by order of Gov. Morgan.  The 5^th New York volunteer artillery, enlisted and instructed for heavy artillery service, and recently ordered to Washington to garrison the forts in the vicinity of the capitol, has been retained, and under orders received to-day will be apportioned in companies to the different forts in New York harbor.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, March 13, 1862, p. 1