Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Color-phobia, November 10, 1838

COLOR-PHOBIA.

Our people have got it. They have got it in the blue, collapse stage. Many of them have got it so bad, they can't get well. They will die of it. It will be a mercy, if the nation does not. What a dignified, philosophic malady! Dread of complexion. They don't know they have got it — or think, rather, they took it the natural way. But they were inoculated. It was injected into their veins and incided into their systems, by old Doctor Slavery, the great doctor that the famous Dr. Wayland studied with. There is a kind of varioloid type, called colonization. They generally go together, or all that have one are more apt to catch the other. Inoculate for one, (no matter which,) and they will have both, before they get over it. The remedy and the preventive, if taken early, is a kine-pock sort of matter, by the name of anti-slavery. It is a safe preventive and a certain cure. None that have it, genuine, ever catch slavery or colonization or the color-phobia. You can't inoculate either into them. It somehow changes and redeems the constitution, so that it is unsusceptible of them. An abolitionist can sleep safely all night in a close room, where there has been a colonization meeting the day before. He might sleep with It. R. Gurley and old Dr. Proudfit, three in a bed, and not catch it. The remedy was discovered by Dr. William Lloyd Jenner-Garrison.

This color-phobia is making terrible havoc among our communities. Anti-slavery drives it out, and after a while cures it. But it is a base, low, vulgar ailment. It is meaner, in fact, than the itch. It is worse to get rid of than the “seven years' itch.” It is fouler than Old Testament leprosy. It seems to set the dragon into a man, and make him treat poor, dark-skinned folks like a tiger. It goes hardest with dark-complect white people. They have it longer and harder than light-skinned people. It makes them sing out “Nigger—nigger,” sometimes in their sleep. Sometimes they make a noise like this, “Darkey—darkey— darkey.” Sometimes, “Wully—wully—wully.” They will turn up their noses, when they see colored people, especially if they are of a pretty rank, savory habit of person, themselves. They are generally apt to turn up their noses, as though there was some “bad smell” in the neighborhood, when they have it bad, and are naturally pretty odoriferous. It is a tasty disorder — a beautiful ailment; very genteel, and apt to go in “first families.” We should like to have Hogarth take a sketch of a community that had it — of ours, for instance, when the St. Vitus’ fit was on. We have read somewhere of a painter, who made so droll a picture, that he died a-laughing at the sight of it. Hogarth might not laugh at this picture. It would be a sight to cry at, rather than laugh, especially if he could see the poor objects of our frenzy, when the fit is on — which indeed is all the time, for it is an unintermittent. Our attitude would be most ridiculous and ludicrous, if it were not too mortifying and humiliating and cruel. Our Hogarth would be apt to die of something else than laughter, at sight of his sketch.

The courtly malady is the secret of all our anti-abolition, and all our mobocracy. It shuts up all the consecrated meetinghouses — and all the temples of justice, the court-houses, against the friends of negro liberty. It is all alive with fidgets about desecrating the Sabbath with anti-slavery lectures. It thinks anti-slavery pew-owners can't go into them, or use their pulpit, when it is empty, without leave of the minister whom they employ to preach in it. It will forcibly shut people out of their own houses and off their own land, — not with the respectful violence of enemies and trespassers, but the contemptuous unceremoniousness of the plantation overseer — mingled moreover with the slavish irascibility of the poor negro, when he holds down his fellow-slave for a flogging. It sneers at human rights through the free press. It handed John B. Mahin over to the alligators of Kentucky. It shot Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton. It dragged away the free school, at Canaan. It set Pennsylvania Hall a-fire.

It broke Miss Crandall's school windows, and threw filth into her well. It stormed the female prayer meeting in Boston, with a “property and standing” forlorn hope. It passed the popish resolution at Littleton, in Grafton county. It shut up the meeting-house at Meredith Bridge, against minister and all, — and the homely court-house there, and howled like bedlam around the little, remote district school-house, and broke the windows at night. It excludes consideration and prayer in regard to the forlorn and christian-made heathenism of the American colored man, from county conferences and clerical associations. It broods over the mousings of the New York Observer, and gives keenness to the edge and point of its New Hampshire name-sake. It votes anti-slavery lectures out of the New Hampshire state house, and gives it public hearing on petitions, in a seven by nine committee room. It answers the most insulting mandate of southern governors, calling for violations of the state constitution and bill of rights, by legislative report and resolves that the paramount rights of slavery are safe enough in New Hampshire, without these violations. It sneers and scowls at woman's speaking in company, unless to simper, when she is flattered by a fool of the masculine or neuter gender. It won't sign an anti-slavery petition, for fear it will put back emancipation half a century. It votes in favor of communing with slaveholders, and throwing the pulpit wide open to men-stealers, to keep peace in the churches, and prevent disunion. It will stifle and strangle sympathy for the slave and " remembrance of those in bonds," to prevent disturbance of religious revivals. It will sell the American slave to buy Bibles, or hire negro-hating and negro-buying missionaries for foreign heathen of all quarters but christian-wasted Africa. It prefers American lecturers on slavery, to having that foreign emissary, George Thompson, come over here, to interfere with American rights and prejudices. It abhors "church action" and "meddling with politics." In short, it abhors slavery in the abstract — wishes it might be done away, but denies the right of any body or any thing to devise its overthrow, but slavery itself and slaveholders. It prays for the poor slave, that he might be elevated, while it stands both feet on his breast to keep him down. It prays God might open a way in his own time for the deliverance of the slave, while it stands, with arms akimbo, right across the way he has already opened. Time would fail us to tell of its extent and depth in this free country, or the deeds it has done. Anti-slavery must cure it, or it must die out like the incurable drunkards.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 44-7 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of November 10, 1838.

Diary of Laura M. Towne: Saturday, June 7, 1862

An exciting day. This morning Mr. Eustis came over and told Mr. Hooper that we ought to be ready to go at a moment's notice. For two weeks we have been quite unprotected, and last night an attempt was made to pass the pickets at Port Royal Ferry. A flat was seen coming. Our pickets challenged it, and the negroes exclaimed, “Don't shoot, massa!” Then fifty men rose up in the boat and fired into the guard, killing four of them. The others fled to Port Royal, I believe, carrying dismay, and this morning all the ladies, cotton agents, and civilians, except our men, embarked on the Ottawa and went down to Hilton Head, Miss Walker among them. Our men, of the Commission, have been bold enough. Little Taylor has shouldered his gun and he this morning went to within four miles of the enemies’ lines. Ashly acted as guide to the scouts and others have gone readily to the aid of the soldiery. Yet Mr. Pierce says the soldiers are swearing at the “nigger lovers,” who have all gone — run away at the first danger. Not a man has gone — not one.

There is quite a panic in Beaufort and several gunboats have gone up to it, apparently to take away the commissary stores. It will then be evacuated, and what will become of the poor negroes if the masters return! It seems to me that this is a causeless panic.

We packed our trunks to-day according to Mr. Hooper's orders, and we can run at any time, but leaving much behind us. I cannot bear the thought of going while these poor people must stay — Aunt Bess, whose leg is so bad; and some of the babies are ill now — they will suffer so in the woods and marshes if they have to fly. While we were packing this morning, Susannah, then Rina, came and asked anxiously about our going. I told them all we knew — that we might have to go off, but would not if we could help it; that our soldiers had all gone off to take Charleston and that Secesh might come down to attack us, and then the gentlemen would insist upon our going. Mr. Pierce came home about eleven, and he thinks we may remain. So we have composed ourselves as best we can. The gentlemen are going to patrol to-night, but I am more afraid of the exposure than of Secesh for them, and us too.

Mr. Pierce has gone to Beaufort again. Several gentlemen were here to-day, Mr. Horton among them, who wanted to know if we were “going to trust the Lord and keep our powder dry.” I want to have Mr. Pierce secure half a dozen guns for each plantation, and then if Secesh come, call upon the negroes to help us and stay. I am sure we shall be safe. I am entirely opposed to our flying. If Mr. Pierce were not going North, this would be the case, I am pretty sure, but he is determined to have us safe while he is gone. We have a boat in readiness to set out by water, and the horses are kept fresh to take us by land. One of them died to-day of poison plants, or colic, — one of the handsome bays.

I have been in other excitement lately and feel almost ill from it. But first about the alarm at Beaufort. It was so great that the arsenal was open, and anybody wishing it could go in and get a gun. It appears that the Pennsylvania regiment, or a guard of fifty, were stationed at Port Royal Ferry, and on this alarm they ran, after firing, and burned the bridge between themselves and the enemy. Their panic alarmed Beaufort. The ladies fled to the gunboats and to Hilton Head. They will return to-morrow probably. All Beaufort was in confusion. To-night all is safety and quiet there. We have had quite a cosy evening here — Mr. Pierce, Mr. Hooper, Miss Winsor, and I.

SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina 1862-1864, p. 63-5

Laura M. Towne: May 11, 1862

St. Helena's, May 11, 1862.

I wish I had half as much time to think of folks at home as you take to think of me, but you will know how busy I am when I tell you that your last letters were carried in my pocket all day — nine letters — and not opened, some of them; none of them read until night. But every day is not so. That was yesterday, and today I have rested. I am just as well as I can be and am having a good time. As for unhealthiness, I shall go from here as soon as I see that this place is not healthy. The negroes say no white folks ever lived here to test it, and as the house was new, it was probably so. They say it is healthy for “niggers,” but “white folks” always go North or to Beaufort in summer. It has proved, though, to be healthy wherever white folks have lived as near the sea as we are, so I think I need not run till I see cause.

You need not be troubled about the allopathic doctoring, for there is a nice, elderly man in the army, a lieutenant in a Michigan regiment, who has charge of the comfort of the ladies at Mr. French's. He came over here with Mr. French and we made a solemn agreement, he to doctor me, and I him in case we were either of us ill. He is an old hand at homoeopathy, and a very good doctor, I think. So I feel very safe and comfortable. He is elderly, married, and stationed here for the summer, and at the disposal of the ladies so far as doing everything he can for their comfort. As for going into the hot sun and night dews — when I get time for a walk I shall be happy. There is a pine grove close by, and I have wanted from the first to go to it. It is not a stone's throw from here and I have not entered it yet. I never go further than the quarters or the cotton-house except in the carriage, but I have had lots of beautiful rides, and Mr. Pierce is going to give me a horse and buggy so that I can drive whenever I please and wherever I please. He does this rather for the horse's sake than mine, I fancy.

It is not very hot here. There is a splendid sea breeze every day and the nights are cool. We have every comfort except steady servants, and I have a real good, old auntie who does my washing, chamber-work, and waiting at table for half a dollar a week. Although I never worked so in my life, it seems to agree with me, as I am in high health and spirits, sleep like a top, laugh like old times, and am jolly generally.

Ellen has not yet come and I am so afraid the Boston Committee will not send her, because they will not accept Mr. Pierce's pass now that he thinks of leaving, or because their funds are out. I expected her fully yesterday, but the letters came and she did not. I find it so much better and safer and more cool and comfortable here than I expected, that I have no scruples about her coming and have got all over my fears about all sorts of things that I used to be afraid would be the death of her.

You must not think because I talk so much of the hurry that I do not like it. I do, for it is just what I came here for — though not just this kind [of work]. The day I kept school for Miss Winsor I had the hardest time of all, and I concluded perhaps I was better for this work than teaching. In my doctoring I can do much good and give much advice that is wanted. The clothing department is the most laborious, but it is very amusing to sell to the negroes; they are so funny.

I see every day why I came and what I am to stay for.

A ST. HELENA LANDSCAPE

SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina 1862-1864, p. 39-41

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Colonization Love and “Logic,” September 8, 1838

Abolition Logic

“Not hate of one's neighbor.” We prove it to be hate, because it wants to send off. Hatred repels, and would expel. Love attracts, draws, wishes to detain. Colonization proposes to rid the land of colored people. It therefore, cannot love them. Its love is mere pretence. — Herald of Freedom.

This argument, poor as it is, with hardly speciousness enough to deceive a sensible boy of six years old, is the same that was used by George Thompson, in our debate with him in Boston. But how will this argument work? A New Hampshire father sends off his son to make his fortune on the rich lands of the West. Therefore he hates him. A Boston merchant sends off his son to Europe or the East Indies, that he may extend his schemes of enterprise, and acquire wealth. Therefore he hales him. We send off missionaries to barbarous nations, that they may extend the blessings of Christianity, and receive in a future world the rewards of those that turn many to righteousness. Therefore we hate these missionaries. The consent of those who depart seems to make no difference in the view of this sage editor. “We prove it to be hate because it wants to send off.”

It is a little ludicrous that the editor of the Herald should actually kill his own argument, even before he reaches the bottom of his column. “It won't hurt a slave to send him to Africa. It won't, to send him any where out of the infernal regions. We had rather he might get to Canada, — but if he can't go there — or to the West Indies — or to England — or France — or Spain, or Turkey, or Algiers — or any other comparatively free country under heaven — why, rather than remain in America, among our Colonizationists, let him go to Liberia — or to the bottom of the sea — or to the sharks. No monster of the deep would devour him with the cruel tooth of our republicanism.”

He also proposes, in another article, to colonize slaves in Canada. Seriously, we think there are strong indications of insanity in the Herald.

The above is from the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary and chief engineer of the American Colonization Society — that grand "American system” of machinery for clearing this country of free colored people, by a sort of suction-pump force, called “consent.” They say, however, the “Niggers” come hard; and though the pump draws upon them, like doctor's instruments upon a tooth, yet they stick to the soil like a lamprey eel to the rocks; and though the Secretary “hangs on like a dog to a root,” they “hang back, like a dog going to the gallows.” Resist sternly, colored friends! “Abide in the ship.” The land shall soon be indeed your country and your home. Lay your bones in it. Your tyrants and persecutors will go and evangelize Africa, themselves, when they really wish her evangelized.

The wily Secretary has ventured upon a little article of ours, with true Tracy philology and word-hunting. “Send off.” The magnificent “statesman” here finds a field for the scope of his continental philanthropy. The argument, he says, is the same that was used by George Thompson. All the better for that. George Thompson is an authority. He is a mm of instinctive and intuitive judgment on this question. But it is a poor argument, says the Secretary, “with hardly speciousness enough to deceive a sensible school boy of six years old.” Any argument is always poor in the eyes of the Secretary, that is clear “of speciousness and false show, and that can't deceive sensible school boys. We don't intend to use specious arguments,— “showy, plausible, superficially not solidly right,” as Walker defines them! The Secretary had better not use any more of them. “Fair play is a jewel.”

“How will this argument work?” Try it and see, Secretary.

You don't try it. You put different cases. You speak of farmers sending away sons for their benefit and fortunes. We speak of sending off — a sending off to get rid of. Farmers don't send off their sons, unless they get angry, and forget their nature, and disinherit them. Then they send them off. This sending to the West is not true in fact. The sons want to go from New Hampshire rocks to the prairied West. They have heard stories about it almost as extravagant and false as the Secretary tells about the death-haunted capes of Liberia, where bones lie bleaching as they do in the valley of the fabled Upas. The father wants them to stay with him, if he has got land for them, and if he han't, he would go with them. That is the way the father sends off his sons. Does the Secretary send off the dear colored people so?  Would he accompany them? Let him go and edit at Cape Palmas, and sing his ditty of the “African steeples” about among king Joe Harris' people. They would admire his tall presence and his fine head, as the Cossacks did Murat on his black charger. No. The Secretary loves —  “society,” that has got more “frame-work” in it. The dragon take Liberia, for all his going there! It is a grand country for “free niggers;” but the Secretary belongs to another race.

“The Boston merchant sends off his son,” &c. Whoever heard of such a sending off? Would the weeping father, as the vessel, with his dear boy on board, was clearing the harbor and standing out into the wide sea, tell the disconsolate mother and the brothers and sisters — all in tears — “I've sent off Charles?” Sent him off! for shame, Secretary! If you had instanced a Boston merchant, who had a poor, miserable, profligate, drunken, prodigal son, that had exhausted his paternal nature, and forged his name to checks — whom he did not wish to see hanged at home, for the disgrace it would bring on the family, and he had shipped him aboard a man-of-war for the Mediterranean — or a whaler for a three years' chance among the storms of the cape, and the grampuses of the arctic circle, peradventure to come back, and peradverture not, then you might talk of a father's sending his son off. But that comes too near colonizing, for the Secretary's purpose, — only he wants to ship the innocent — the blameless — the unoffending — guilty of nothing but want of the roseate hue of the beauteous, Absalom-looking Secretary.

“We send off missionaries,” &c. Only to Liberia, Secretary. We send out to every other quarter. Note this peculiarity, reader, in our American efforts to evangelize the world. We send out white, educated, college-learned, beneficiary, Andover-finished theologians to those people we have never enslaved; and to our old human hunting-ground we send off  “abated nuisances,” called “free niggers,” — sent off “with their own consent.”  (“He ’ticed him out of the field,” says the witness; “’ticed him clear out.” How did he ’tice him? said the court. “O, he 'ticed him with a pitchfork.’”) We had the curiosity to look, in this very number of the Secretary's “Statesman,” to see what he called the sending of missionaries. He has a deal to say about love to the heathen. We lit upon “Missions to Liberia,” the first thing almost. It is not the Secretary's own, but his faithful Achates, R. McDowell's. He gives us the very technical phrase for missionary sending; but there is no off to it. “The first mission, established in Liberia,” says McD., “was the Swiss mission, &c., sent out by Rev. Dr. Bleinhardt,” &c.

Don't talk of sending off sons and missionaries, any more, Mr. Secretary. It is too “specious.”

The Secretary says, we “ludicrously kill our argument before we get down our column.” What is our argument? That sending off our free colored people, to rid the country of them, is proof of hatred towards them. How do we kill it? Why, by saying it won't hurt a slave to send him away. Commend us to such killing. “What is sauce for the goose, may be for the” Secretary; but it don't follow, that what is bad for the freeman, would be bad for the slave. Would it be good for the freeman of America to be sent to Algiers? We say it would not hurt the slave to be sent there. He would rejoice to get there, and we should rejoice to have him, if we can't free him here,—even to Liberia—rather than stay within influence of such teachers of humanity as McDufie and Gurley.

The Secretary's mention of our proposal to colonize the slaves in Canada, as a serious proposal, is so roguishly “specious,” that we can't answer it. — The charge of “insanity,” abolitionists are used to. The Secretary will be glad to be so, by and by, when we get slavery down in this country. The cry from the West Indies makes him look wild. He will exclaim, by another year or two, when Congress, with old John Quincy Adams at their head, and Alvan Stewart and Wendell Phillips and Vermont Knapp to back him up, declare slavery down in the capital and the' district — he will then cry out, as Atlialiah did, when she “heard the noise of the guard, the clapping of hands, and the God save king Joash.” He will be stark crazy then, — if he does not repent — which we hope he may.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 21-5 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of September 8, 1838.

John A. Quitman to Colonel Platt Brush, August 23, 1823

Soldier's Retreat, near Natchez, Aug. 23d, 1823.

Since my last letter, my dear Col. Brush, I have been a refugee from Natchez, where the yellow fever is raging. Our bar is quartered at various country-seats — not boarding; a Mississippi planter would be insulted by such a proposal; but we are enjoying the hospitalities that are offered to us on all sides. The awful pestilence in the city brings out, in strong relief, the peculiar virtues of this people. The mansions of the planters are thrown open to all comers and goers free of charge. Whole families have free quarters during the epidemic, and country wagons are sent daily to the verge of the smitten city with fowls, vegetables, etc., for gratuitous distribution to the poor. I am now writing from one of those old mansions, and I can give you no better notion of life at the South than by describing the routine of a day. The owner is the widow of a Virginia gentleman of distinction, a brave officer, who died in the public service during the last war with Great Britain.¹ She herself is a native of this vicinity, of English parents settled here in Spanish times. She is an intimate friend of my first friend, Mrs. Griffith, and I have been in the habit of visiting her house ever since I came South. The whole aim of this excellent lady seems to be to make others happy. I do not believe she ever thinks of herself. She is growing old, but her parlor is constantly thronged with the young and gay, attracted by her cheerful and never-failing kindness. There are two large families from the city staying here, and every day some ten or a dozen transient guests. Mint-juleps in the morning are sent to our rooms, and then follows a delightful breakfast in the open veranda. We hunt, ride, fish, pay morning visits, play chess, read or lounge until dinner, which is served at two P.M. in great variety, and most delicately cooked in what is here called the Creole style — very rich, and many made or mixed dishes. In two hours afterward every body — white and black — has disappeared. The whole household is asleep—the siesta of the Italians. Tho ladies retire to their apartments, and the gentlemen on sofas, settees, benches, hammocks, and often, gipsy fashion, on the grass under the spreading oaks. Here, too, in fine weather, the tea-table is always set before sunset, and then, until bedtime, we stroll, sing, play whist, or coquet. It is an indolent, yet charming life, and one quits thinking and takes to dreaming.

This excellent lady is not rich, merely independent; but by thrifty housewifery, and a good dairy and garden, she contrives to dispense the most liberal hospitality. Her slaves appear to be, in a manner, free, yet are obedient and polite, and the farm is well worked. With all her gayety of disposition and fondness for the young, she is truly pious, and in her own apartment every night she has family prayer with her slaves, one or more of them being often called on to sing and pray. When a minister visits the house, which happens very frequently, prayers night and morning are always said, and on these occasions the whole household and the guests assemble in the parlor: chairs are provided for the servants. They are married by a clergyman of their own color, and a sumptuous supper is always prepared. On public holidays they have dinners equal to an Ohio barbecue, and Christmas, for a week or ten days, is a protracted festival for the blacks. They are a happy, careless, unreflecting, good-natured race, who, left to themselves, would degenerate into drones or brutes, but, subjected to wholesome restraint and stimulus, become the best and most contented of laborers. They are strongly attached to “old massa” and “old missus,” but their devotion to “young massa” and “young missus” amounts to enthusiasm. They have great family pride, and are the most arrant coxcombs and aristocrats in the world. At a wedding I witnessed here last Saturday evening, where some 150 negroes were assembled, many being invited guests, I heard a number of them addressed as governors, generals, judges, and doctors (the titles of their masters), and a spruce, tight-set darkey, who waits on me in town, was called “Major Quitman.” The “colored ladies” are invariably Miss Joneses, Miss Smiths, or some such title. They are exceedingly pompous and ceremonious, gloved and highly perfumed. The “gentlemen” sport canes, ruffles, and jewelry, wear boots and spurs, affect crape on their hats, and carry huge cigars. The belles wear gaudy colors, “tote” their fans with the air of Spanish senoritas, and never stir out, though black as the ace of spades, without their parasols. In short, these “niggers,” as you call them, are the happiest people I have ever seen, and some of them, in form, features, and movement, are real sultanas. So far from being fed on “salted cotton-seed,” as we used to believe in Ohio, they are oily, sleek, bountifully fed, well clothed, well taken care of, and one hears them at all times whistling and singing cheerily at their work.² They have an extraordinary facility for sleeping. A negro is a great night-walker. He will, after laboring all day in the burning sun, walk ten miles to a frolic, or to see his “Dinah,” and be at home and at his work by daylight next morning. This would knock up a white man or an Indian. But a negro will sleep during the day — sleep at his work, sleep on the carriage-box, sleep standing up; and I have often seen them sitting bareheaded in the sun on a high rail-fence, sleeping as securely as though lying in bed. They never lose their equipoise, and will carry their cotton-baskets or their water-vessels, filled to the brim, poised on their heads, walking carelessly and at a rapid rate, without spilling a drop. The very weight of such burdens would crush a white man's brains into apoplexy. Compared with the ague-smitten and suffering settlers that you and I have seen in Ohio, or the sickly and starved operators we read of in factories and in mines, these Southern slaves are indeed to be envied. They are treated with great humanity and kindness. I have only heard of one or two exceptions. And the only drawback to their happiness is that their owners, sometimes, from extravagance or other bad management, die insolvent, and then they must be sold to the highest bidder, must leave the old homestead and the old family, and pass into the hands of strangers. I have witnessed one of these scenes, and but one, though they occur often, and I never saw such profound grief as the poor creatures manifested. I am opposed, as you know, to all relief laws, but, I confess, I never hear of the sale of old family servants without wishing that there was some provision by which some of them, at least, might be retained as inalienable. It is a grave question for those interested in slavery to determine whether some protection of this nature is not a necessary adjunct of slavery itself.

_______________

¹ The late Gen. F. L. Claiborne.

² Contrast this with life at the North, as recorded by his brother Henry in a letter dated Rhinebeck, Feb. 3d, 1823: “We have not had snow enough for sleighing, so every body has to stay at home. In the morning I feed the cows, take care of the horses, and cut wood until dinner-time. In the evening I take care of the cattle, and go to bed. I would willingly exchange my residence here for one where I might do for myself, were my earnings ever so small, and lay by a little for a rainy day. It is a hard place to get along in — cold winters and hot summers; snow, or slush, or dust, or drought. Work, work, work, and money always scarce. I wish I had been brought up a tailor, or shoemaker, as you say they have none at Natchez.”

SOURCE: John F. H. Quitman, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, Volume 1, p. 83-6

John B. Lamar to Howell Cobb, July 12, 1848

American Hotel, New York, July 12th/48.

Dear Howell, Don't forget my passports, as I sail on Monday in the ship Fidelia for Liverpool.

P. S. — I hope to God Congress will not adjourn before the nigger question is settled about the newly acquired territory. If it does adjourn and leave that question open until after the Presidential election the “cake is all dough” with this Union, you may depend upon it. Now is the time to settle it while both parties are disposed to conciliate to effect their ends, but if you wait until after election the successful party will have no inducement, and the defeated party too much exasperated, to yield anything. I hope Congress will not adjourn until the question is settled; and if you love your country better than president making, you will use all your influence to have it settled before you adjourn. It is more important than people are aware of generally to settle the question before Congress adjourns.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 116

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, September 1, 1838

“Only ye may opine it frets my patience, Mr. Osbaldistone, to be hunted like an otter, or a sealgh, or a salmon upon the shallows, and that by my very friends and neighbors.” — Rob Roy.

Whose patience has been fretted, if it had not been fret-proof, like the abolitionists’? Have they not been hunted like an otter, or a salmon among the shallows, or a partridge upon the mountains; or like David among the cliffs of Ziph and the rocks of the wild goats? And every body seems to think it is all as natural as life, and that they should bear it, and be thankful it is no worse. How they have been belied and slandered and insulted, by a stupid pro-slavery community! How church brethren and sisters have scowled upon them, and trifled with their rights and their feelings, as though they had no more of either than a “nigger!” How has the murderous scorn been extended from their poor, down-trodden — mark the phrase — down-trodden — not merely stamped upon, for once, or any given number of times, — but every time — by the common walking footstep of community, —  trodden on as universally as the path of the highway — “down trodden,” indeed! How has the scorn felt for the poor colored man, been extended to the abolitionist, and how he has borne it, with almost the “patient sufferance” of the “free negro,” or the Jew in Venice, — until sufferance is become “the badge of all our tribe.” And what avails it? “The brotherhood” have fallen into the idea, that we also are “an inferior race,” and that we are exceedingly out of our place, when we claim the common rights of humanity. As to the rights of citizenship, they do not dream that any appertain to us. See with what calm, summer-day serenity they look on, while we are mobbed. They think no more of it, than they do when a lane of “free niggers” is “smoked out” by “public sentiment” in New York or Philadelphia. Who cared for the outrages of the great Concord mob, in September, 1835? “Tremendous public excitement!” shouted the N. H. Patriot — as if another revolution had been fought Tremendous public excitement! A grand popular victory. Victory indeed it was — but over what? Over innocency [sic], humanity, the law of the land, the public peace! An odd victory to boast of.—What a “frolic after Thompson,” (or to that effect) exclaimed the merry N. H. Courier. — O, what a joke! How funny and frolicsome the people were after Thompson! How they did frisk and caper, and how masterly funny they did chase him, and surround Neighbor ——‘s dwelling-house! O, what a sportive company of them got together, and how they did surround that house by moonlight, and what a merry time on't they caused in that dwelling!

O “riddle-cum-ritldle-cum-right!

“What a time we had, that Friday night!”

He, he, he — hah, hah, hah!!!

Hung be the heavens in black. Out, moon — and hide, stars, so that ye look not on and blench your light, at sight of such scenes. “Frolic!” Was the Alton night-scene a frolic? Was the hellish-gathering about that ware-house, rendering the dun night hideous, a joke — a fracas — “an abolition frolic?”

The time will come, when these deeds will be appreciated by the people of this country. Ay, it is at hand. We wait patiently, but not silently. "The brotherhood" may fix upon us its evil eye of menace and "frolic." They shall hear of their merry doings. If we cannot speak freely, we desire not to remain on the slavery-cursed soil. We call upon the people of the land, to look to their liberties. We have no freedom of speech, no liberty of the press, no freedom of assembly. The sovereign and tyrant of the country is Slavery. He holds his court in the South, and rules the vassal North by his vicegerent the mob, — or as Hubbard Winslow preaches it, “the brotherhood.” We owe no allegiance to either. We shall pay none.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 11-3 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of September 1, 1838.

Diary of William Howard Russell: July 4, 1861

When the Senate had adjourned, I drove to the State Department and saw Mr. Seward, who looked much more worn and haggard than when I saw him last, three months ago. He congratulated me on my safe return from the South in time to witness some stirring events. “Well, Mr. Secretary, I am quite sure that, if all the South are of the same mind as those I met in my travels, there will be many battles before they submit to the Federal Government.”

“It is not submission to the Government we want; it is to assent to the principles of the Constitution. When you left Washington we had a few hundred regulars and some hastily-levied militia to defend the national capital, and a battery and a half of artillery under the command of a traitor. The Navy Yard was in the hands of a disloyal officer. We were surrounded by treason. Now we are supported by the loyal States which have come forward in defence of the best Government on the face of the earth, and the unfortunate and desperate men who have commenced this struggle will have to yield or experience the punishment due to their crimes.”

“But, Mr. Seward, has not this great exhibition of strength been attended by some circumstances calculated to inspire apprehension that liberty in the Free States may be impaired; for instance, I hear that I must procure a passport in order to travel through the States and go into the camps in front of Washington.”

“Yes, sir; you must send your passport here from Lord Lyons, with his signature. It will be no good till I have signed it, and then it must be sent to General Scott, as Commander-in-Chief of the United States army, who will subscribe it, after which it will be available for all legitimate purposes. You are not in any way impaired in your liberty by the process.”

“Neither is, one may say, the man who is under surveillance of the police in despotic countries of Europe; he has only to submit to a certain formality, and he is all right; in fact, it is said by some people, that the protection afforded, by a passport is worth all the trouble connected with having it in order.”

Mr. Seward seemed to think it was quite likely. There were corresponding measures taken in the Southern States by the rebels, and it was necessary to have some control over traitors and disloyal persons. “In this contest,” said he, “the Government will not shrink from using all the means which they consider necessary to restore the Union.” It was not my place to remark that such doctrines were exactly identical with all that despotic governments in Europe have advanced as the ground of action in cases of revolt, or with a view to the maintenance of their strong Governments. “The Executive,” said he, “has declared in the inaugural that the rights of the Federal Government shall be fully vindicated. We are dealing with an insurrection within our own country, of our own people, and the Government of Great Britain have thought fit to recognize that insurrection before we were able to bring the strength of the Union to bear against it, by conceding to it the status of belligerent. Although we might justly complain of such an unfriendly act in a manner that might injure the friendly relations between the two countries, we do not desire to give any excuse for foreign interference; although we do not hesitate, in case of necessity, to resist it to the uttermost, we have less to fear from a foreign war than any country in the world. If any European Power provokes a war, we shall not shrink from it. A contest between Great Britain and the United States would wrap the world in fire, and at the end it would not be the United States which would have to lament the results of the conflict.”

I could not but admire the confidence — may I say the coolness? — of the statesman who sat in his modest little room; within the sound of the evening's guns, in a capital menaced by their forces who spoke so fearlessly of war with a Power which could have blotted out the paper blockade of the Southern forts and coast in a few hours, and, in conjunction with, then Southern armies, have repeated the occupation and destruction of the capital.

The President sent for Mr. Seward whilst I was in the State Department, and I walked up Pennsylvania Avenue to my lodgings, through a crowd of men in uniform who were celebrating Independence Day in their own fashion — some by the large internal use of fire-water, others by an external display of fire-works.

Directly opposite my lodgings are the head-quarters of General Mansfield, commanding the district, which are marked by a guard at the door and a couple of six-pounder guns pointing down the street. I called upon the General, but he was busy examining certain inhabitants of Alexandria and of Washington itself, who had been brought before him on the charge of being Secessionists, and I left my card, and proceeded to General Scott's head-quarters, which I found packed with officers. The General received me in a small room, and expressed his gratification at my return, but I saw he was so busy with reports, despatches, and maps, that I did not trespass on his time. I dined with Lord Lyons, and afterwards went with some members of the Legation to visit the camps, situated in the public square.

All the population of Washington had turned out in their best to listen to the military bands, the music of which was rendered nearly inaudible by the constant discharge of fireworks. The camp of the 12th New York presented a very pretty and animated scene. The men liberated from duty were enjoying themselves out and inside their tents, and the sutlers' booths were driving a roaring trade. I was introduced to Colonel Butterfield, commanding the regiment, who was a merchant of New York; but notwithstanding the training of the counting-house, he looked very much like a soldier, and had got his regiment very fairly in hand. In compliance with a desire of Professor Henry, the Colonel had prepared a number of statistical tables in which the nationality, height, weight, breadth of chest, age, and other particulars respecting the men under his command were entered. I looked over the book, and as far as I could judge, but two out of twelve of the soldiers were native-born Americans, the rest being Irish, German, English, and European-born generally. According to the commanding officer they were in the highest state of discipline and obedience. He had given them leave to go out as they pleased for the day, but at tattoo only fourteen men out of one thousand were absent, and some of those had been accounted for by reports that they were incapable of locomotion owing to the hospitality of the citizens.

When I returned to my lodgings, the colored boy whom I had hired at Niagara was absent, and I was told he had not come in since the night before. “These free colored boys,” said my landlord, “are a bad set; now they are worse than ever; the officers of the army are taking them all away from us; it's just the life they like; they get little work, have good pay; but what they like most is robbing and plundering the farmers’ houses over in Virginia; what with Germans, Irish, and free niggers, Lord help the poor Virginians, I say; but they'll give them a turn yet.”

The sounds in Washington to-night might have led one to believe the city was carried by storm. Constant explosion of fire-arms, fireworks, shouting, and cries in the streets, which combined, with the heat and the abominable odors of the undrained houses and mosquitoes, to drive sleep far away.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 380-3

William T. Sherman, December 28, 1859

Seminary, Wednesday, Dec. 28, 1859.

. . . I was disappointed the two last mails at not hearing from you, but to-morrow I feel certain. I will go to town myself and take this. The time is now near at hand for opening the Seminary. I have the mess started in the building, all the carpenters are out, all the furniture ready, a pretty good stock of wood on hand and generally all things are about as far advanced as I could expect. Still I am the only one ready. The steward is sick on his plantation twelve miles off, his son and niggers are here, a good for nothing set. He has a white under steward who has some work in him and another white boy to help, and I have three negro women scrubbing out from top to bottom.

The weather is rainy, sloppy, warm and misty, everything is wet and uncomfortable, yet I have pushed things so that I at least am ready. Smith is sleeping on the floor in my room on a bed I bought for the cadets and he is waiting for his furniture from New Orleans. None of the other professors are here excepting Mr. Vallas whom I have told you about. There have been forty-three pay appointments and sixteen public, so we may expect fifty or sixty this year, which is a reasonable number as this is no time to begin. Everybody has made arrangements for this winter. Had we begun in November it would have been better. Still as this affair is designed to last forever it may be well to commence moderately first.

I had rather a lonely Christmas, nobody here but my poor drummer and myself. The three negro women rushed to my room at daylight and cried “Christmas gift, Massa,” and the negro boy Henry that chops wood and the old negro woman Amy that cooks in an outhouse for the carpenters all claimed Christmas of me thinking I am boss and as rich as Croesus himself. I disbursed about $5 in halves as each of them had done me some service uncompensated.

The old cook Amy always hid away for me the last piece of butter and made my breakfast and dinner better than the carpenters’, always saying she “knowed” I wasn't used to such kind of living. She don't know what I have passed through. Negroes on plantations are generally allowed holiday the whole week, but we can't give it here, as this week is devoted to cleaning up after the dirt of plastering, painting and tobacco spitting over seventy-two rooms, halls and galleries. An immense quantity of dirt is cleaned away, but enough yet remains to find fault with.

As to Christmas I had invitation to General Graham's, to a Mr. Henarie's in Alexandria and Professor Vallas, all declined, because of the property exposed here, which it was not prudent to leave unprotected. Soon all these things will be distributed, others will be here and sentinels to guard when I take my holiday. . .

SOURCES: Walter L. Fleming, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 93-5

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: December 15, 1864

Jocko's hut was not across the river as I supposed and wrote yesterday, but on the same side we were on. At about ten o'clock last night we went to his abiding place as directed and knocked. After a long time an old black head was stuck out of the window with a nightcap on. The owner of the head didn't know Jocko or anything about him; was short and crusty; said: “Go way from Dar” Kept talking to him and he scolding at being disturbed. Said he had rheumatics and couldn't get out to let us in. After a long time opened the door and we set down on the door step. Told him we were yankees and wanted help. Was the funniest darky we have met yet. Would give something for his picture as he was framed in his window in the moonlight talking to us, with the picturesque surroundings, and us yankees trying to win him over to aid us. Finally owned up that he was Jocko, but said he couldn't row us across the river. He was lame and could not walk, had no boat, and if he had the river was so swift he couldn't get us across, and if it wasn't swift, the rebels would catch him at it and hang him. Talked a long time and with much teasing. By degrees his scruples gave way, one at a time. Didn't know but he might row us across if he only had a boat, and finally didn't know but he could find a boat To get thus far into his good graces took at least three hours. Went looking around and found an old scow, fixed up some old cars, and we got in; before doing so however, he had warmed up enough to give us some boiled sweet potatoes and cold baked fish. Rowed us way down the river and landed us on the noted Miller plantation and a mile in rear of the negro houses. Jocko, after we forced our acquaintance on him with all kind of argument, proved to be a smart able bodied old negro, but awful afraid of being caught helping runaways. Would give something for his picture as he appeared to us looking out of his cabin window. Just an old fashioned, genuine negro, and so black that charcoal would make a white mark on him. Took us probably three miles from his hut, two miles of water and one of land, and then started back home after shaking us a dozen times by the hand, and “God blessing us.” Said “Ole Massa Miller's niggers all Union niggers,” and to go up to the huts in broad day light and they would help us. No whites at home on the plantation. We arrived where Jocko left us an hour or so before daylight, and lay down to sleep until light. I woke up after a while feeling wet, and found the tide had risen and we were surrounded with water; woke up the boys and scrambled out of that in a hurry, going through two feet of water in some places. The spot where we had laid down was a higher piece of ground than that adjoining. Got on to dry land and proceeded to get dry. At about ten o'clock Dave went up to the negro huts and made himself known, which was hard work. The negroes are all afraid that we are rebels and trying to get them into a scrape, but after we once get them thoroughly satisfied that we are genuine Yanks they are all right, and will do anything for us. The negroes have shown us the big house, there being no whites around, they having left to escape the coming Yankee army. We went up into the cupola and looked way off on the ocean, and saw our own noble gunboats. What would we give to be aboard of them? Their close proximity makes us discuss the feasibility of going down the river and out to them, but the negroes say there are chain boats across the river farther down, and picketed. Still it makes us anxious, our being so near, and we have decided to go down the river to night in a boat and see if we can't reach them It is now the middle of the afternoon and we lay off from the huts eighty rods, and the negroes are about to bring us some dinner. During the night we traveled over oyster beds by the acre, artificial ones, and they cut our feet. Negroes say there are two other runaways hid a mile off and they are going to bring them to our abiding place. Later, — Negroes have just fed us with corn bread and a kind of fish about the size of sardines, boiled by the kettle full, and they are nice. Fully as good as sardines. Think I know now where nearly all the imported sardines come from. Negroes catch them by the thousand, in nets, put them in kettles, and cook them a few minutes, when they are ready to eat. Scoop them out of the creeks The two other runaways are here with us. They are out of the 3d Ohio Cavalry. Have been out in the woods for two weeks. Escaped from Blackshear and traveled this far. I used to know one of them in Savannah. We do not take to them at all, as they are not of our kind. Shall separate to night, they going their way and we going ours. Have secured a dug-out boat to go down the Ogechee River with to-night. The negroes tell us of a Mr. Kimball, a white man, living up the country fifteen miles, who is a Union man and helps runaways, or any one of Union proclivities. He lays up the river, and our gunboats lay down the river. Both have wonderful charms for us, and shall decide before night which route to take. Are on rice plantation, and a valuable one. Before the “wall” there were over fifteen hundred negroes on this place. Cotton is also part of the production. Have decided to go down the river and try to reach our gunboats It's two very hazardous undertaking, and I have my doubts as to its successful termination.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 141-3

George L. Stearns to Susan Howe Hillard, June 10, 1861

[June 10, 1861.]

My Dear Mrs. Hillard:

It is so many thousand soldiers; so many million negroes; and so many hundred millions of dollars. My mind is confused with it all, but I trust we shall live through this distracted condition of affairs and see blue sky again.

There was a man who lived in Medford, who was called Bill Hall. He traded with the West Indies, and it was “molasses and niggers” and 'niggers and molasses;' and he did not feel quite sure which was which; but he had an idea that if the niggers were liberated he should lose his molasses. There are a good many like him in the city of Boston, but the time is approaching when they will be obliged to discriminate between negroes and molasses, and recognize that the negro is a man and not a kind of merchandise.

Yours faithfully,

George L. Stearns.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 250

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: November 30, 1864

Doctortown Station, No. 5.—Ha! Ha! My boy, you are a prisoner of war again. Once more with a blasted rebel standing guard over me, and it all happened in this wise: Just before dark I went up to that house I spoke of in my writings yesterday. Walked boldly up and rapped at the door; and what was my complete astonishment when a white woman answered my rapping. Asked me what I wanted, and I told her something to eat. Told me to come in and set down. She was a dark looking woman and could easily be mistaken from my hiding place of the day for a negro. Began asking me questions. Told her I was a rebel soldier, had been in the hospital sick and was trying to reach home in the adjoining county. Was very talkative; told how her husband had been killed at Atlanta, &c. She would go out and in from a shanty kitchen in her preparation of my supper. I looked out through a window and saw a little darky riding away from the house, a few minutes after I went inside Thought I had walked into a trap, and was very uneasy. Still the woman talked and worked, and I talked, telling as smoothe lies as I knew how. For a full hour and a half sat there, and she all the time getting supper. Made up my. mind that I was the same as captured, and so put on a bold face and made the best of it. Was very well satisfied with my escapade anyway, if I could only get a whack at that supper before the circus commenced. Well, after a while heard some hounds coming through the woods and towards the house. Looked at the woman and her face pleaded guilty, just as if she had done something very mean. The back door of the house was open and pretty soon half a dozen large blood hounds bounded into the room and began snuffing me over; about this time the woman began to cry. Told her I understood the whole thing and she need not make a scene over it. Said she knew I was a Yankee and had sent for some men at Doctortown. Then five horsemen surrounded the house, dismounted and four of them came in with guns cocked prepared for a desperate encounter. I said: “good evening, gentlemen.” “Good evening,” said the foremost, '”we are looking for a runaway yankee prowling around here.” “Well,” says I, “you needn't look any farther, you have found him.” “Yes, I see,” was the answer. They all sat down, and just then the woman said “supper is ready and to draw nigh.” Drawed as nigh as I could to that supper and proceeded to take vengeance on the woman. The fellows proved to be home guards stationed here at Doctortown. The woman had mounted the negro boy on a horse just as soon as I made my appearance at the house and sent for them. They proved to be good fellows. Talked there at the house a full hour on the fortunes of war, &c, Told them of my long imprisonment and escape and all about myself. After a while we got ready to start for this place. One rebel rode in front, one on each side and two in the rear of me. Was informed that if I tried to run they would shoot me. Told them no danger of my running, as I could hardly walk. They soon saw that such was the case after going a little way, and sent back one of the men to borrow the woman's horse. Was put on the animal's back and we reached Doctortown not far from midnight. As we were leaving the house the woman gave me a bundle; said in it was a shirt and stockings. Told her she had injured me enough and I would take them. No false delicy will prevent my taking a shirt. And so my adventure has ended and have enjoyed it hugely. Had plenty to eat with the exception of the two days, and at the last had a horseback ride. How well I was reminded of my last ride when first taken prisoner and at the time I got the coverlid. In the bundle was a good white shirt, pair of stockings, and a chunk of dried beef of two pounds or so. One of the captors gave me ten dollars in Confederate money. Now am in an old vacant building and guarded and it is the middle of the afternoon. Many citizens have visited me and I tell the guard he ought to charge admission; money in it. Some of the callers bring food and are allowed to give it to me, and am stocked with more than can conveniently carry. Have had a good wash up, put on my clean white shirt with standing collar, and new stockings and am happy. Doctortown is a small village with probably six or eight hundred population, and nigger young ones by the scores. Am treated kindly and well, and judge from conversations that I hear, that the battles are very disastrous to the rebels and that the war is pretty well over. All the negroes are hard pressed, fortifying every available point to contest the advance of the Union Army. This is cheering news to me. My escape has given me confidence in myself, and I shall try it again the first opportunity. A woman has just given me a bottle of milk and two dollars in money. thanked her with my heart in my mouth. Having been captured and brought to this place, am here waiting for them to get instructions as to what they shall do with me. They say I will probably be sent to the prison at Blackshear, which is forty or fifty miles away Think I should be content to stay here with plenty to eat. Am in a good clean room in a dwelling. Can talk with any one who chooses to come and see me. The room was locked during the night, and this morning was thrown open, and I can wander through three rooms. Guard is off a few rods where he can see all around the house. Occasionally I go out doors and am having a good time. Later. — Have seen a Savannah paper which says Sherman and his hosts are marching toward that city, and for the citizens to rally to repel the invader. My swollen ankle is being rubbed today with ointment furnished by an old darky. I tell you there are humane people the world over, who will not see even an enemy suffer if they can help it. While I have seen some of the worst people in the South, I have also seen some of the very best, and those, too, who were purely southern people and rebels. There are many pleasant associations connected with my prison life, as well as some directly to the opposite.

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 127-9

Diary of 1st Sergeant John L. Ransom: November 25, 1864

This morning got up cold and stiff; not enough covering. Pushed off in the direction pointed out by the darkey of yesterday. Have come in the vicinity of negro shanties and laying in wait for some good benevolent colored brother. Most too many dogs yelping around to suit a runaway Yankee. Little nigs and the canines run together. If I can only attract their attention without scaring them to death, shall be all right. However, there is plenty of time, and won't rush things. Time is not valuable with me. Will go sure and careful. Don't appear to be any men folks around; more or less women of all shades of color. This is evidently a large plantation; has thirty or forty negro huts in three or four rows. They are all neat and clean to outward appearances. In the far distance and toward what I take to be the main road is the master's residence. Can just see a part of it. Has a cupola on top and is an ancient structure. Evidently a nice plantation. Lots of cactus grows wild all over, and is bad to tramp through. There is also worlds of palm leaves, such as five cent fans are made of. Hold on there, two or three negro men are coming from the direction of the big house to the huts. Don't look very inviting to trust your welfare with. Will still wait, McCawber like, for something to turn up. If they only knew the designs I have on them, they would turn pale. Shall be ravenous by night and go for them. I am near a spring of water, and lay down flat and drink. The “Astor House Mess” is moving around for a change; hope I won't make a mess of it. Lot of goats looking at me now, wondering, I suppose, what it is. Wonder if they butt? Shoo! going to rain, and if so I must sleep in one of those shanties. Negroes all washing up and getting ready to eat, with doors open No, thank you; dined yesterday. Am reminded of the song: “What shall we do, when the war breaks the country up, and scatters us poor darkys all around.” This getting away business is about the best investment I ever made. Just the friendliest fellow ever was. More than like a colored man, and will stick closer than a brother if they will only let me. Laugh when I think of the old darky of yesterday's experience, who liked me first rate only wanted me to go away. Have an eye on an isolated hut that looks friendly. shall approach it at dark. People at the hut are a woman and two or three children, and a jolly looking and acting negro man. Being obliged to lay low in the shade feel the cold, as it is rather damp and moist. Later.—Am in the hut and have eaten a good supper. shall sleep here to-night. The negro man goes early in the morning, together with all the male darky population, to work on fortifications at Fort McAllister. Says the whole country is wild at the news of approaching Yankee army. Negro man named “Sam” and woman “Sandy.” Two or three negroes living here in these huts are not trustworthy, and I must keep very quiet and not be seen. Children perfectly awe struck at the sight of a Yankee. Negroes very kind but afraid. Criminal to assist me. Am five miles from Doctortown. Plenty of "gubers" and yams. Tell them all about my imprisonment. Regard the Yankees as their friends. Half a dozen neighbors come in by invitation, shake hands with me, scrape the floor with their feet, and rejoice most to death at the good times coming. “Bress de Lord,” has been repeated hundreds of times in the two or three hours I have been here. Surely I have fallen among friends. All the visitors donate of their eatables, and although enough is before me to feed a dozen men, I give it a tussle. Thus ends the second day of my freedom, and it is glorious

SOURCE: John L. Ransom, Andersonville Diary, p. 123-4

John Brown to His Family, November 8, 1859

Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 8, 1859.

Dear Wife And Children, Every One, — I will begin by saying that I have in some degree recovered from my wounds, but that I am quite weak in my back and sore about my left kidney. My appetite has been quite good for most of the time since I was hurt. I am supplied with almost everything I could desire to make me comfortable, and the little I do lack (some articles of clothing which I lost) I may perhaps soon get again. I am, besides, quite cheerful, having (as I trust) “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” to “rule in my heart,” and the testimony (in some degree) of a good conscience that I have not lived altogether in vain. I can trust God with both the time and the manner of my death, believing, as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for God and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing the cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote, than all I have done in my life before. I beg of you all meekly and quietly to submit to this, not feeling yourselves in the least degraded on that account. Remember, dear wife and children all, that Jesus of Nazareth suffered a most excruciating death on the cross as a felon, under the most aggravating circumstances. Think also of the prophets and apostles and Christians of former days, who went through greater tribulations than you or I, and try to be reconciled. May God Almighty comfort all your hearts, and soon wipe away all tears from your eyes! To him be endless praise! Think, too, of the crushed millions who “have no comforter.” I charge you all never in your trials to forget the griefs “of the poor that cry, and of those that have none to help them.” I wrote most earnestly to my dear and afflicted wife not to come on for the present, at any rate. I will now give her my reasons for doing so. First, it would use up all the scanty means she has, or is at all likely to have, to make herself and children comfortable hereafter. For let me tell you that the sympathy that is now aroused in your behalf may not always follow you. There is but little more of the romantic about helping poor widows and their children than there is about trying to relieve poor “niggers.” Again, the little comfort it might afford us to meet again would be dearly bought by the pains of a final separation. We must part; and I feel assured for us to meet under such dreadful circumstances would only add to our distress. If she comes on here, she must be only a gazing-stock throughout the whole journey, to be remarked upon in every look, word, and action, and by all sorts of creatures, and by all sorts of papers, throughout the whole country. Again, it is my most decided judgment that in quietly and submissively staying at home vastly more of generous sympathy will reach her, without such dreadful sacrifice of feeling as she must put up with if she comes on. The visits of one or two female friends that have come on here have produced great excitement, which is very annoying; and they cannot possibly do me any good. Oh, Mary! do not come, but patiently wait for the meeting of those who love God and their fellow-men, where no separation must follow. “They shall go no more out forever.” I greatly long to hear from some one of you, and to learn anything that in any way affects your welfare. I sent you ten dollars the other day; did you get it? I have also endeavored to stir up Christian friends to visit and write to you in your deep affliction. I have no doubt that some of them, at least, will heed the call. Write to me, care of Captain John Avis, Charlestown, Jefferson County, Virginia.

“Finally, my beloved, be of good comfort.” May all your names be “written in the Lamb's book of life !” — may you all have the purifying and sustaining influence of the Christian religion! — is the earnest prayer of

Your affectionate husband and father,

John Brown.

SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 585-7

William T. Sherman to Ellen Ewing Sherman, October 29, 1859

Steamer L. M. Kennett [at Cairo], Saturday, Oct. 29, 1859.

. . . Should my health utterly fail me or abolition drive me and all moderate men from the South, then we can retreat down the Hocking and exist until time puts us away under ground. This is not poetically expressed but is the basis of my present plans.

I find southern men, even as well informed as ——— as big fools as the abolitionists. Though Brown's whole expedition proves clearly that [while] the northern people oppose slavery in the abstract, yet very few [will] go so far as to act. Yet the extreme southrons pretend to think that the northern people have nothing to do but to steal niggers and to preach sedition.

John's¹ position and Tom's² may force me at times to appear opposed to extreme southern views, or they may attempt to extract from me promises I will not give, and it may be that this position as the head of a military college, south may be inconsistent with decent independence. I don't much apprehend such a state of case, still feeling runs so high, where a nigger is concerned, that like religious questions, common sense is disregarded, and knowledge of the character of mankind in such cases leads me to point out a combination of events that may yet operate on our future.

I have heard men of good sense say that the union of the states any longer was impossible, and that the South was preparing for a change. If such a change be contemplated and overt acts be attempted of course I will not go with the South, because with slavery and the whole civilized world opposed to it, they in case of leaving the union will have worse wars and tumults than now distinguish Mexico. If I have to fight hereafter I prefer an open country and white enemies. I merely allude to these things now because I have heard a good deal lately about such things, and generally that the Southern States by military colleges and organizations were looking to a dissolution of the Union. If they design to protect themselves against negroes and abolitionists I will help; if they propose to leave the Union on account of a supposed fact that the northern people are all abolitionists like Giddings and Brown then I will stand by Ohio and the northwest.

I am on a common kind of boat. River low. Fare eighteen dollars. A hard set aboard; but at Cairo I suppose we take aboard the railroad passengers, a better class. I have all my traps safe aboard, will land my bed and boxes at Red River, will go on to Baton Rouge, and then be governed by circumstances.

The weather is clear and cold and I have a bad cough, asthma of course, but hope to be better tomorrow. I have a stateroom to myself, but at Cairo suppose we will have a crowd; if possible I will keep a room to myself in case I want to burn the paper³ of which I will have some left, but in case of a second person being put in I can sleep by day and sit up at night, all pretty much the same in the long run. . .

_______________

¹ John Sherman. — Ed.

² Thomas Ewing Jr., brother of Mrs. Sherman. - Ed.

³ Nitre paper burned to relieve asthma.— Ed.

SOURCE: Walter L. Fleming, Editor, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 43-5

Congressman Robert Toombs to Governor George W. Crawford, February 16, 1846

Washington, D. C, Ho. or Reps., Feb. 6, 1846.

Dear Crawford, I received your letter of the 31st ult. last night. Lest you may not receive the speech I first sent, I send you another by this mail. The authorities on the Galphin claim to [which] you refer I will consult in a few days. I think from your statement of the case it is “in pint.” This is a very bad body before which to argue such a question, but if it can be got through the Senate and is backed by a strong report in this House I think it could be got through without much difficulty. A majority report favourable would certainly settle it, but the committees of this House are very badly constituted for any just purpose. They [are] nearly as rabid against all sorts of claims as the Locos in the Georgia legislature. They have promised a good deal in the way of reform, and instead of honestly retrenching actual abuses, which they have neither the honesty or the firmness to do, they desire to retrench by defeating all sort of claims, honest as well as dishonest, against the government.

I suppose you have the defective receipts sent you by Mr. Stephens. You will perceive from the nature of the objections that it [is] impossible ever to settle with the government without legislation, and I am decidedly of opinion that a gross appropriation for a full settlement will be the very best we can do, if we can carry it. If you can get the Secretary of War to recommend or acquiesce in it, it can I think be carried, and I very much wish you could bring him to that point. Without it I see little or no chance of ever getting any considerable portion of the remaining claim, if indeed we can get anything more.

I am glad to hear from you that you will not be obliged “to stop” during your administration. I had supposed your only resource against such a calamity would be in the act of 1843 authorizing you to raise money to pay off that debt by new 6 per cents. You will probably recollect at that time I favoured that policy in any event. I don't care to pay that debt. I would much prefer letting it remain the 25 or 30 years, when I doubt not its interest and much of the principal can be paid from the road,¹ and the experience of the last five years is very conclusive that all railroads judiciously located will pay, and I think ours will be one of the very best in the South. I perceive from the newspapers that you are adopting the policy of raising the wind by means of the 6 per cents. If they are pressed gradually on the market they will rise, unless we have war.

I do not think a war in the least probable. Mr. Polk never dreamed of any other war than a war upon the Whigs. He is playing a low grog-shop politician's trick, nothing more. He would be as much surprised and astonished and frightened at getting into war with England as if the Devil were to rise up before him at his bidding. The Democratic Party had declared our title to “all Oregon” “clear and unquestionable.” Mr. Polk adopted and asserted the same thing in his inaugural speech. Both moves were political blunders. It became necessary to retrieve them. He was bound to offer 49°. He supposed as the British Gov[ernment] had refused that proposition when made with more advantageous additions than were embraced in his proposition that that Gov[ernment] would do so again. It was an affectation of moderation when he knew that it was the best we could ever get. He withdraws the proposition and begins his game of “bluster,” with the full conviction that the Whig Party, true to their fatality to blunders, would raise the shout of peace, peace, and which would make him, the vilest poltroon that ever disgraced our Government, the head of the war party. His party were already committed to him to 54° 40', they would stand by him, and he expected finally to be forced by the British Whigs and Southern Calhoun men to compromise; but he greatly hoped that he would not be forced even to this alternative until he had “all Oregon” on every Democratic banner in the Union for his “second heat.” I have not the least doubt but that he fully calculated that the “notice” would be rejected by a combination between the Whigs and Calhoun men of this Congress, and then he could have kept it open for a new presidential campaign. That these were the objects of the Administration I have not the least doubt. Hence I urged the Whigs to stand up and give him the power to give the notice whenever he thought proper, which would have “blocked” him. But they would save themselves and their party for the same reason that the lad did in scripture, “because” their friends “had much goods.” Wall street howled, old Gales was frightened into fits at the possibility of war, and the Whig press throughout the country screamed in piteous accents peace, peace, with the vain foolish hope of gaining popular confidence by their very fears, and like the magnetic needle, they expected to tremble into peace. Nothing could be more absurd. If we have peace they are disarmed, and whatever may be the terms of accommodation they will be stopped from uttering a word of complaint. If war comes, no people were ever foolish enough to trust its conduct to a “peace party,” for very good sufficient reasons. If the country should be beaten and dishonored they will be called upon to patch up a dishonorable peace, but in no other event.

There is another view of this question, purely sectional, which our people don't seem to understand. Some of our Southern papers seem to think we are very foolish to risk a war to secure anti-slave power. They look only at the surface of things. If we had control of the government and could control this question, I have not the least doubt that Calhoun is right in saying that his “masterly inactivity” policy is the only one which ever could acquire “all Oregon”. It can never be done in any other way except to give the notice and stand still, which would effect the same object rightfully; but notice and action never will secure all Oregon. Mark the prediction. Notice will force an early settlement. That settlement will be upon or near the basis of 49°, and therefore a loss of half the country. Now one of the strongest private reasons which governs me is that I don't [care] a fig about any of Oregon, and would gladly get ridd of the controversy by giving it all to anybody else but the British if I could with honor. The country is too large now, and I don't want a foot of Oregon or an acre of any other country, especially without “niggers.” These are some of my reasons for my course which don't appear in print.

I deeply regret that the Whigs, especially of the Senate, have given and will give a different direction to the question. If Polk wants war he can make it in spite of any let or hindrance from them. If he does not want [it], he will not need their aid to keep out of it; but they “gabble” and “chatter” about the peace of the country and the horrors of war as if they had any real power over either question. . . .

P. S. — We are still on Oregon. The question will be taken on Monday. “Notice” will pass this time, in what form is doubtful, but I think unqualified. Negotiations are undoubtedly renewed and are now pending on the subject.

_______________

¹ The Western & Atlantic Railroad.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 72-5

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 27 - July 1, 1861

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 27th I left Chicago for Niagara, which was so temptingly near that I resolved to make a detour by that route to New York. The line from the city which I took skirts the southern extremity of Lake Michigan for many miles, and leaving its borders at New Buffalo, traverses the southern portion of the state of Michigan by Albion and Jackson to the town of Detroit, or the outflow of Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie, a distance of 284 miles, which was accomplished in about twelve hours. The most enthusiastic patriot could not affirm the country was interesting. The names of the stations were certainly novel to a Britisher. Thus we had Kalumet, Pokagon, Dowagiac, Kalamazoo, Ypsilanti, among the more familiar titles of Chelsea, Marengo, Albion, and Parma.

It was dusk when we reached the steam ferry-boat at Detroit, which took us across to Windsor; but through the dusk I could perceive the Union Jack waving above the unimpressive little town which bears a name so respected by British ears. The customs' inspections seemed very mild; and I was not much impressed by the representative of the British crown, who, with a brass button on his coat and a very husky voice, exercised his powers on behalf of Her Majesty at the landing-place of Windsor. The officers of the railway company received me as if I had been an old friend, and welcomed me as if I had just got out of a battle-field. “Well, I do wonder them Yankees have ever let you come out alive?” “May I ask why?” “Oh, because you have not been praising them all round, sir. Why even the Northern chaps get angry with a Britisher, as they call us, if he attempts to say a word against those cursed niggers.”

It did not appear the Americans are quite so thin-skinned, for whilst crossing in the steamer a passage of arms between the Captain, who was a genuine John Bull, and a Michigander, in the style which is called chaff or slang, diverted most of the auditors, although it was very much to the disadvantage of the Union champion. The Michigan man had threatened the Captain that Canada would be annexed as the consequence of our infamous conduct. “Why, I tell you,” said the Captain, “we'd just draw up the negro chaps from our barbers’ shops, and tell them we’d send them to Illinois if they did not lick you; and I believe every creature in Michigan, pigs and all, would run before them into Pennsylvania. We know what you are up to, you and them Maine chaps; but Lor' bless you, sooner than take such a lot, we'd give you ten dollars a head to make you stay in your own country; and we know you would go to the next worst place before your time for half the money. The very Bluenoses would secede if you were permitted to come under the old flag.”

All night we travelled. A long day through a dreary, illsettled, pine-wooded, half-cleared country, swarming with mosquitoes and biting flies, and famous for fevers. Just about daybreak the train stopped.

“Now, then,” said an English voice; “now, then, who's for Clifton Hotel? All passengers leave cars for this side of the Falls.” Consigning our baggage to the commissioner of the Clifton, my companion, Mr. Ward, and myself resolved to walk along the banks of the river to the hotel, which is some two miles and a half distant, and set out whilst it was still so obscure that the outline of the beautiful bridge which springs so lightly across the chasm, filled with furious hurrying waters, hundreds of feet below, was visible only as is the tracery of some cathedral arch through the dim light of the cloister.

The road follows the course of the stream, which whirls and gurgles in an Alpine torrent, many times magnified, in a deep gorge like that of the Tête Noire. As the rude bellow of the steam-engine and the rattle of the train proceeding on its journey were dying away, the echoes seemed to swell into a sustained, reverberating, hollow sound from the perpendicular banks of the St. Lawrence. We listened. “It is the noise of the Falls,” said my companion; and as we walked on the sound became louder, filling the air with a strange quavering note, which played about a tremendous uniform bass note, and silencing every other. Trees closed in the road on the river side; but when we had walked a mile or so, the lovely light of morning spreading with our steps, suddenly through an opening in the branches there appeared, closing up the vista — white, flickering, indistinct, and shroud-like — the Falls, rushing into a grave of black waters, and uttering that tremendous cry which can never be forgotten.

I have heard many people say they were disappointed with the first impression of Niagara. Let those who desire to see the water-leap in all its grandeur, approach it as I did, and I cannot conceive what their expectations are if they do not confess the sight exceeded their highest ideal. I do not pretend to describe the sensations or to endeavor to give the effect produced on me by the scene or by the Falls, then or subsequently; but I must say words can do no more than confuse the writer's own ideas of the grandeur of the sight, and mislead altogether those who read them. It is of no avail to do laborious statistics, and tell us how many gallons rush Over in that down-flung ocean every second, or how wide it is, how high it is, how deep the earth-piercing caverns beneath. For my own part, I always feel the distance of the sun to be insignificant, when I read it is so many hundreds of thousands of miles away, compared with the feeling of utter inaccessibility to anything human which is caused by it when its setting rays illuminate some purple ocean studded with golden islands in dreamland.

Niagara is rolling its waters over the barrier. Larger and louder it grows upon us.

“I hope the hotel is not full,” quoth my friend. I confess, for the time, I forgot all about Niagara, and was perturbed concerning a breakfastless ramble and a hunt after lodgings by the borders of the great river.

But although Clifton Hotel was full enough, there was room for us, too; and for two days a strange, weird kind of life I led, alternating between the roar of the cataract outside and the din of politics within; for, be it known, that at the Canadian side of the Falls many Americans of the Southern States, who would not pollute their footsteps by contact with the soil of Yankee-land, were sojourning, and that merchants and bankers of New York and other Northern cities had selected it as their summer retreat, and, indeed, with reason; for after excursions on both sides of the Falls, the comparative seclusion of the settlements on the left bank appears to me to render it infinitely preferable to the Rosherville gentism and semi-rowdyism of the large American hotels and settlements on the other side.

It was distressing to find that Niagara was surrounded by the paraphernalia of a fixed fair. I had looked forward to a certain degree of solitude. It appeared impossible that man could cockneyfy such a magnificent display of force and grandeur in nature. But, alas! it is haunted by what poor Albert Smith used to denominate “harpies.” The hateful race of guides infest the precincts of the hotels, waylay you in the lanes, and prowl about the unguarded moments of reverie. There are miserable little peep-shows and photographers, bird-stuflfers, shell-polishers, collectors of crystals, and proprietors of natural curiosity shops.

There is, besides, a large village population. There is a watering-side air about the people who walk along the road worse than all their mills and factories working their water-privileges at both sides of the stream. At the American side there is a lanky, pretentious town, with big hotels, shops of Indian curiosities, and all the meagre forms of the bazaar life reduced to a minimum of attractiveness which destroy the comfort of a traveller in Switzerland. I had scarcely been an hour in the hotel before I was asked to look at the Falls through a little piece of colored glass. Next I was solicited to purchase a collection of muddy photographs, representing what I could look at with my own eyes for nothing. Not finally by any means, I was assailed by a gentleman who was particularly desirous of selling me an enormous pair of cow’s-horns and a stuffed hawk. Small booths and peep-shows corrupt the very margin of the bank, and close by the remnant of the " Table Rock," a Jew (who, by the by, deserves infinite credit for the zeal and energy he has thrown into the collections for his museum), exhibits bottled rattlesnakes, stuffed monkeys, Egyptian mummies, series of coins, with a small living menagerie attached to the shop, in which articles of Indian manufacture are exposed for sale. It was too bad to be asked to admire such lusus naturӕ as double-headed calves and dogs with three necks by the banks of Niagara.

As I said before, I am not going to essay the impossible or to describe the Falls. On the English side there are, independently of other attractions, some scenes of recent historic interest, for close to Niagara are Lundy's Lane and Chippewa. There are few persons in England aware of the exceedingly severe fighting which characterized the contests between these Americans and the English and Canadian troops during the campaign of 1814. At Chippewa, for example, Major General Riall who, with 2000 men, one howitzer; and two twenty-four-pounders, attacked a, force of Americans of a similar strength, was repulsed with a loss of 500 killed and wounded; and on the morning of the 25th of July the action of Lundy's Lane, between four brigades of Americans and seven fieldpieces, and 3100 men of the British and seven field-pieces, took place, in which the Americans were worsted, and retired with a loss of 854 men and two guns, whilst the British lost 878. On the 14th of August following, Sir Gordon Drummond was repulsed with a loss of 905 men out of his small force in an attack on Fort Erie; and on the 17th of September an American sortie from the place was defeated with a loss of 510 killed and wounded, the British having lost 609. In effect the American campaign was unsuccessful; but their failures were redeemed by their successes on Lake Champlain, and in the affair of Plattsburg.

There was more hard fighting than strategy in these battles, and their results were not, on the whole, creditable to the military skill of either party. They were sanguinary in proportion to the number of troops engaged, but they were very petty skirmishes considered in the light of contests between two great nations for the purpose of obtaining specific results. As England was engaged in a great war in Europe, was far removed from the scene of operations, was destitute of steam-power, whilst America was fighting, as it were, on her own soil, close at hand, with a full opportunity of putting forth all her strength, the complete defeat of the American invasion of Canada was more honorable to our arms than the successes which the Americans achieved in resisting aggressive demonstrations.

In the great hotel of Clifton we had every day a little war of our own, for there were —— but why should I mention names? Has not government its bastiles? There were in effect men, and women too, who regarded the people of the Northern States and the government they had selected very much as the men of ’98 looked upon the government and people of England; but withal these strong Southerners were not very favorable to a country which they regarded as the natural ally of the abolitionists, simply because it had resolved to be neutral.

On the Canadian side these rebels were secure. British authority was embodied in a respectable old Scottish gentleman, whose duty it was to prevent smuggling across the boiling waters of the St. Lawrence, and who performed it with zeal and diligence worthy of a higher post. There “was indeed a withered triumphal arch which stood over the spot where the young Prince of our royal house had passed on his way to the Table Rock, but beyond these signs and tokens there was nothing to distinguish the American from the British side, except the greater size and activity of the settlements upon the right bank. There is no power in nature, according to great engineers, which cannot be forced to succumb to the influence of money. The American papers actually announce that “Niagara is to be sold;” the proprietors of the land upon their side of the water have resolved to sell their water privileges! A capitalist could render the islands the most beautifully attractive places in the world.

Life at Niagara is like that at most watering-places, though it is a desecration to apply such a term to the Falls; and there is no bathing there, except that which is confined to the precincts of the hotels and to the ingenious establishment on the American side, which permits one to enjoy the full rush of the current in covered rooms with sides pierced, to let it come through with undiminished force and with perfect security to the bather. There are drives and picnics, and mild excursions to obscure places in the neighborhood, where only the roar of the Falls gives an idea of their presence. The rambles about the islands, and the views of the boiling rapids above them, are delightful; but I am glad to hear from one of the guides that the great excitement of seeing a man and boat carried over occurs but rarely. Every year, however, hapless creatures crossing from one shore to the other, by some error of judgment or miscalculation of strength, or malign influence, are swept away into the rapids, and then, notwithstanding the wonderful rescues effected by the American blacksmith and unwonted kindnesses of fortune, there is little chance of saving body corporate or incorporate from the headlong swoop to destruction.

Next to the purveyors of curiosities and hotel-keepers, the Indians, who live in a village at some distance from Niagara, reap the largest profit from the crowds of visitors who repair annually to the Falls. They are a harmless and by no means elevated race of semi-civilized savages, whose energies are expended on whiskey, feather fans, bark canoes, ornamental moccasins, and carved pipe-stems. I had arranged for an excursion to see them in their wigwams one morning, when the news was brought to me that General Scott had ordered, or been forced to order the advance of the Federal troops encamped in front of Washington, under the command of McDowell, against the Confederates, commanded by Beauregard, who was described as occupying a most formidable position, covered with entrenchments and batteries in front of a ridge of hills, through which the railway passes to Richmond.

The New York papers represent the Federal army to be of some grand indefinite strength, varying from 60,000 to 120,000 men, full of fight, admirably equipped, well disciplined, and provided with an overwhelming force of artillery. General Scott, I am very well assured, did not feel such confidence in the result of an invasion of Virginia, that he would hurry raw levies and a rabble of regiments to undertake a most arduous military operation.

The day I was introduced to the General he was seated at a table in the unpretending room which served as his boudoir in the still humbler house where he held his head-quarters. On the table before him were some plans and maps of the harbor defences of the Southern ports. I inferred he was about to organize a force for the occupation of positions along the coast. But when I mentioned my impression to one of his officers, he said, “Oh, no, the General advised that long ago; but he is now convinced we are too late. All he can hope, now, is to be allowed time to prepare a force for the field, but there are hopes that some compromise will yet take place.”

The probabilities of this compromise have vanished; few entertain them now. They have been hanging Secessionists in Illiniois, and the court-house itself has been made the scene of Lynch law murder in Ogle county. Petitions, prepared by citizens of New York to the President, for a general convention to consider a compromise, have been seized. The Confederates have raised batteries along the Virginian shore of the Potomac. General Banks, at Baltimore, has deposed the police authorities “proprio motu,” in spite of the protest of the board. Engagements have occurred between the Federal steamers and the Confederate batteries on the Potomac. On all points, wherever the Federal pickets have advanced in Virginia, they have Encountered opposition and have been obliged to halt or to retire.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

As I stood on the veranda this morning, looking for the last time on the Falls, which were covered with a gray mist, that rose from the river and towered unto the sky in columns which were lost in the clouds, a voice beside me said, “Mr. Russell, that is something like the present condition of our country, mists and darkness obscure it now, but we know the great waters are rushing behind, and will flow till eternity.” The speaker was an earnest, thoughtful man, but the country of which he spoke was the land of the South. “And do you think,” said I, “when the mists clear away the Falls will be as full and as grand as before?” “Well,” he replied, “they are great as it is, though a rock divides them; we have merely thrown our rock into the waters, — they will meet all the same in the pool below.” A colored, boy, who has waited on me at the hotel, hearing I was going away, entreated me to take him on any terms, which were, I found, an advance of nine dollars, and twenty dollars a month, and, as I heard a good account of him from the landlord, I installed the young man into my service. In the evening I left Niagara on my way to New York.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 360-7