Gerrit Smith to the Chairman of the Jerry Rescue Committee, August 27,1859

[August 27, 1859.]

For many years I have feared, and published my fears, that slavery must go out in the blood. My speech in Congress on the Nebraska Bill was strongly marked by such fears. These fears have grown into belief. So debauched are the white people by slavery, that there is not virtue enough left in them to put it down. . . . The feeling among the blacks, that they must deliver themselves, gains strength with fearful rapidity. . . . No wonder is it that in this state of facts which I have sketched (the failure of the Liberal Party, the Free Soil Party, the Republican Party, to do anything for the slaves) intelligent black men in the States and Canada should see no hope for their race in the practice and policy of white men. No wonder they are brought to the conclusion that no resource is left to them but in God and insurrections. For insurrection then we may look any year, any month, any day. A terrible remedy for a terrible wrong! But come it must unless anticipated by repentance, and the putting away of the terrible wrong.

It will be said that these insurrections will be failures — that they will be put down. Yes, but, nevertheless, will not slavery be put down by them? For what portions are there of the South that will cling to slavery after two or three considerable insurrections shall have filled the whole South with horror? And is it entirely certain that these insurrections will be put down promptly and before they can have spread far? Will telegraphs and railroads be too swift for even the swiftest insurrections? Remember that telegraphs and railroads can be rendered useless in an hour. Remember, too, that many who would be glad to face the insurgents, would be busy in transporting their wives and daughters to places where they would be safe from that worst fate which husbands and fathers can imagine for their wives and daughters.

SOURCE: Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 240-1

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Governor John A. Andrew, May 9, 1861

Department of Annapolis, Headquarters,

ANNAPOLIS, May 9, 1861

To his Excellency, JOHN A. ANDREW, Governor and Commander-in-Chief

SIR: I have delayed replying to your excellency's despatch of the 25th of April in my other despatches, because, as it involved disapprobation of an act done, couched in the kindest language, I suppose the interests of the country could not suffer in the delay; and incessant labor up to the present moment has prevented me giving full consideration to the topic. Temporary illness which forbids bodily activity gives me now a moment's pause.

The telegraph, with more than usual accuracy, has rightly informed your excellency that I had offered the services of the Massachusetts troops under my command to aid the authorities in Maryland in suppressing the threatened slave insurrection. Fortunately for us all the rumor of such an outbreak was without a substantial foundation. Assuming, as your excellency does in your despatch, that I was carrying on military operations in an enemy's country when a war a l'outrance was to be waged, my act might be an act of discussion. And in that view, acting in the light of the Baltimore murders and the apparent hostile position of Maryland, your excellency might, without mature reflection, have come to the conclusion of disapprobation expressed in your despatch. But the facts, especially as now aided by their results, will entirely justify my act and reinstate me in your excellency’s good opinion.

True, I landed on the soil of Maryland against the formal protest of its governor and of the corporate authorities of Annapolis, and expecting opposition only from insurgents assembled in riotous contempt of the laws of the State. Before, by letter, at the time of landing, by personal interview, I had informed Governor Hicks that the soldiers of the Union, under my command, were armed only against the insurgents and disturbers of the peace of Maryland and of the United States. I received from Governor Hicks assurances of the loyalty of the State to the Union, — assurances which subsequent events have fully justified. The mayor of Annapolis also informed me that the city authorities would in no wise oppose me, but that I was in great danger from the excited and riotous crowds of Baltimore, pouring down upon me and in numbers beyond the control of the police. I assured both the governor and the mayor that I had no fear of a Baltimore or other mob, and that, supported by the authorities of the State and city, I should suppress all hostile demonstrations against the laws of Maryland and the United States, and that I would protect both myself and the city of Annapolis from any disorderly persons whatsoever. On the morning following my landing, I was informed that the city of Annapolis and environs were in danger from an insurrection of the slave population, in defiance of the laws of the State. What was I to do? I had promised to put down a white mob and to preserve and enforce the laws against that. Ought I to allow a black one any preference in the breach of the laws? I understood that I was armed against all infractions of the laws, whether by white or black, and upon that understanding I acted, certainly with promptness and efficiency; and your excellency’s shadow of disapprobation, arising from a misunderstanding of the facts, has caused all the regret I have for that action. The question seemed to me to be neither military nor political, and was not to be so treated. It was simply a question of good faith and honesty of purpose. The benign effect of my course was instantly seen. The good but timid people of Annapolis, who had fled from their houses at our approach, immediately returned; business assumed its accustomed channels; quiet and order prevailed in the city; confidence took the place of distrust, friendship of enmity, brotherly kindness of sectional hate, and I believe to-day there is no city in the Union more loyal than the city of Annapolis. I think, therefore, I may safely point to the results for my justification. The vote of the neighborhood county of Washington, a few days since, for its delegate to the legislature, wherein four thousand out of five thousand votes were thrown for a delegate favorable to the Union, is among the many happy fruits of firmness of purpose, efficiency of action, and integrity of mission. I believe, indeed, that it will not require a personal interchange of views, as suggested in your despatch, to bring our minds in accordance; a simple statement of the facts will suffice.

But I am to act hereafter, it may be, in an enemy's country, among a servile population, when the question may arise, as it has not yet arisen, as well in a moral and Christian as in a political and military point of view. What shall I do? Will your excellency bear with me a moment while this question is discussed?

I appreciate fully your excellency’s suggestion as to the inherent weakness of the rebels, arising from the preponderance of their servile population. The question, then, is, “In what manner shall we take advantage of that weakness?” By allowing, and of course arming, that population to rise upon the defenceless women and children of the country, carrying rapine, arson, and murder – all the horrors of San Domingo a million times magnified – among those whom we hope to reunite with us as brethren, many of whom are already so, and all who are worth preserving will be, when this horrible madness shall have passed away or be thrashed out of them? Would your excellency advise the troops under my command to make war in person upon the defenceless women and children of any part of the Union, accompanied with brutalities too horrible to be named? You will say, “God forbid.” If we may not do so in person, shall we arm others to do so over whom we can have no restraint, exercise no control, and who, when once they have tasted blood, may turn the very arms we put in their hands against ourselves as a part of the oppressing white race? The reading of history, so familiar to your excellency, will tell you the bitterest cause of complaint which our fathers had against Great Britain in the War of the Revolution was the arming by the British Ministry of the red men with the tomahawk and the scalping knife against the women and children of the colonies, so that the phrase “May we not use all the means which God and Nature have put in our power to subjugate the colonies?” has passed into a legend of infamy against the leader of that ministry who used it in Parliament. Shall history teach us in vain? Could we justify ourselves to ourselves? Although with arms in our hands amid the savage wildness of camp and field, we may have blunted many of the finer moral sensibilities in letting loose four millions of worse than savages upon the homes and hearths of the South. Can we be justified to the Christian community of Massachusetts? Would such a course be consonant with the teachings of our holy religion? I have a very decided opinion on the subject, and if anyone desires, as I know your excellency does not, this unhappy contest to be prosecuted in that manner, some instrument other than myself must be found to carry it on. I may not discuss the political bearings of this topic. When I went from under the shadow of my roof tree I left all politics behind me, to be resumed when every part of the Union is loyal to the flag, and the potency of the government through the ballot-box is established.

Passing the moral and the Christian view, let us examine the subject as a military question. Is not that state already subjugated which requires the bayonets of those armed in opposition to its rulers to preserve it from the horrors of a servile war? As the least experienced of military men, I would have no doubt of the entire subjugation of a State brought to that condition. When, therefore, — unless I am better advised, — any community in the United States who have met me in honorable warfare, or even in the prosecution of a rebellious war in an honorable manner, shall call upon me for protection against the nameless horrors of a servile insurrection, they shall have it, and from the moment that call is obeyed I have no doubt we shall be friends and not enemies.

The possibilities that dishonorable means of defence are to be taken by the rebels against the government I do not now contemplate. If, as has been done in a single instance, my men are to be attacked by poison, or, as in another, stricken down by the assassin's knife and thus murdered, the community using such weapons may be required to be taught that it holds within its own border a more potent means for deadly purposes and indiscriminate slaughter than any which it can administer to us.

Trusting that these views may meet your excellency's approval, I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

BENJ. F. BUTLER

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 38-41

Brigadier-General Benjamin F. Butler to Governor Thomas H. Hicks, April 23, 1861

Headquarters, 3rd Brigade Mass. Vol. Milit. ANNAPOLIS, MD. Apr. 23, 1861

To His Excellency THOMAS H. HICKS, Governor of Maryland

SIR: I did myself the honor in my communication of yesterday, wherein I asked permission to land in the State of Maryland, to inform you that the portion of the Militia of the United States under my command were armed only against the disturbers of the peace of the State of Maryland and of the United States. I have understood, within the last hour, that some apprehensions are entertained of an insurrection of the negro population of this neighborhood. I am anxious to convince all classes of persons that the forces under my command are not here in any way to interfere or countenance an interference with the laws of the State. I therefore am ready to coöperate with your Excellency in suppressing most promptly and efficiently any insurrection vs. the laws of the State of Maryland. I beg therefore that you announce publicly that any portion of the forces under my command is at your Excellency's disposal, to act immediately for the preservation and quietness of the peace of this community. I have the honor to be,

Very respectfully, Yours,

BENJ. F. BUTLER, Brig. Gen. Comdg.

SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 26-7

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Friday, January 17, 1862

Froze last night to harden mud; cold and clear this morning; warm and bright all day. We feel rather lonely — so many gone. One regiment departed.

We hear of the resignation of Cameron and Welles. What does this mean? I think we must gain by it. I hope such men as Holt and Stanton will take their places. If so, the Nation will not lose by the change.

Read Nat Turner's insurrection of 1831. I suspect there will be few such movements while the war continues. The negroes expect the North to set them free, and see no need of risking their lives to gain what will be given them by others. When they discover their mistake and despair of other aid, then troubles may come.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 189-90

William Barton Rogers to Henry Darwin Rogers, November 29, 1859

Boston, November 29, 1859.

. . . The doings at Harper's Ferry have made an impression which will long be felt. The execution of Brown, to take place on Friday, will sadden and embitter the hearts of the great majority north of the Potomac. The conduct of Wise has been, I think, weak and absurd; the course of the Court of Appeals, harsh if not iniquitous. I know well the horrors of an apprehended insurrection,¹ and I can make large allowance for those who are affected by them, for I remember the morbid fears which prevailed after the Southampton tragedy. But it amazes me to find Governor Wise surrounding the helpless prisoner by a cordon of more than one thousand soldiers, and forbidding, as he has done, all approach to the place of execution.

I shall write you, dear Henry, by the steamer of Saturday. We are all well. Mr. Savage, who has been slightly lamed, now walks out. Hillard, since his return, has been suffering the effects of his very boisterous passage. Charles Sumner looks well, but I think his disease is rather healed over than eradicated. . . .

Congress is about to organize, and I fear with the prospect of a session of extraordinary turbulence. Already Mason and other extreme men of the South are applying the match to the magazine of combustibles gathered in Washington, by calling for an investigation by Congress of the Harper's Ferry invasion, as they call it. Throughout the Northern States, especially New England and the Northwest, the effect of Brown's mistaken enterprise, with the revelation of heroic self-renunciation which has accompanied it, has been to deepen and extend the hostility to the slave power. The contrast between the trembling fears of a whole State and the resolute bravery, for principle's sake, of one man is most impressive. The purpose of Brown seems to have been to liberate a large number of the slaves and assist them in escaping from the State. But he forgot the horrors and crimes of a servile revolt, to which his effort, if successful, would surely have led, and he must have been strangely ignorant, or deceived, to believe that he could aid the general emancipation of the slaves by such an attempt. He might have given occasion to an appalling loss of life, perhaps almost to the extermination of the blacks in Virginia. Perhaps the impression he has made in the South may hasten in Virginia, at least, the adoption of some prospective cure for this most perilous evil. The whole matter is full of sad suggestions to me. . . .

_______________

¹ Of the slaves.

SOURCE: Emma Savage Rogers & William T. Sedgwick, Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers, Volume 2, p. 16-7

George Bancroft to Elizabeth Davis Bancroft, December 16, 1861

Monday, December 16, 1861.

MY DEAR WIFE,  . . . Keeping down my sorrow  at heart for the woes of our poor country, which under  incompetent hands is going fast to ruin, I have much  to say of my proceedings yesterday, more than I can  find time for. But here is the Outline. I breakfasted with Mr. Chase, which occupied from 8½ to l0¼. His views are good; his integrity and ability make him the  first man in the cabinet; but he cannot find money so  abundantly as to meet the extravagant and excessive  demands on the government. His constitutional views on the south go but a little beyond mine; he applies to all the states in rebellion what I think there is no doubt may be applied to those formed out of Louisiana.

I wished to see Lander,¹ and asked where he lived. Mr. Chase was so good as to offer to go with me. I found in Lander a man, if not of genius, of inspiration; brave, hardy, fearless, of immense executive ability; full of ideas, a poet and a very good one. He married about 14 months ago a person of whom he seemed very fond; and she in return, enters into his tales of battles and his zeal for desperate service. “The Lord thinks for me,” he said to me. He has written a poem which he calls “Inspiration,” in which he carries out the thought that underlies the remark I have just quoted. What he repeated of it to me I liked very much. He said he had not shown the poem to his wife till he had been married six months; but when he read or rather repeated it to her and she entered into his conception, she rose in his affection a hundred per cent. They seemed very happy: he is recovering from the bad wound he got at Edward's Ferry, and she was his companion, and nurse, and delight. I was so attracted that I remained with him till after one o'clock.

Just at three I went by appointment to the President. We discussed when we had met before: he remembered seeing me at Springfield, Illinois, but had forgotten our interview at Brady's. He wanted to know if I had seen Gen. McClellan. I said no. “I will take off my slippers,” said he, “and draw on my boots and take you over.”  I liked the novelty of the thing. He went through the processes of getting ready, and we walked to McClellan's. The President rang, and began asking the servant if he could see McClellan, and then checked that form of speech, and sent in word, who were waiting to see him. The general came in to us very soon, and we sat talking on indifferent things, the army, the prospect in Tennessee, the railroad recommended by the President from Kentucky south. Of all silent, uncommunicative, reserved men, whom I ever met, the general stands among the first. He is one, who if he thinks deeply keeps his thoughts to himself. However with what I knew before, I was able to extract something; and I shall probably see him again. The President is turning in his thoughts the question of his duty in the event of a slave insurrection; he thinks slavery has received a mortal wound, that the harpoon has struck the whale to the heart. This I am far from being able to see.

I invited myself to dine with the Hoopers. We had Sumner, and two others. In the evening young Lowell² came in, of whom by the way, I spoke at large to McClellan, giving him the praises that are his due. Sumner at once vindicates and censures the administration. After this I called on Gen. Heintzelman, one of the bravest and best soldiers in the army. He was in the Bull's Run fight. I wound up the evening with a long talk with the famous Griffin, of Griffin's batteries, who, if not overvalued by his superior Barry, would have saved the battle of Bull's Run. . . .

__________

¹ Gen. F. W. Lander, author of Rhode Island to the South and other war poems.

² Charles Russell Lowell

SOURCE: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, The Life and Letters of George Bancroft, Volume 2, p. 145-7

Major General George B. McClellan’s Proclamation to the People of Western Virginia.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE OHIO,

Cincinnati, May 26, 1861.

To the Union Men of Western Virginia:

VIRGINIANS: The General Government has long enough endured the machinations of a few factious rebels in your midst. Armed traitors have in vain endeavored to deter you from expressing your loyalty at the polls. Having failed in this infamous attempt to deprive you of the exercise of your dearest rights, they now seek to inaugurate a reign of terror, and thus force you to yield to their schemes, and submit to the yoke of the traitorous conspiracy dignified by the name of Southern Confederacy.

They are destroying the property of citizens of your State and ruining your magnificent railways. The General Government has heretofore carefully abstained from sending troops across the Ohio, or even from posting them along its banks, although frequently urged by many of your prominent citizens to do so. I determined to await the result of the late election, desirous that no one might be able to say that the slightest effort had been made from this side to influence the free expression of your opinion, although the many agencies brought to bear upon you by the rebels were well known.

You have now shown, under the most adverse circumstances, that the great mass of the people of Western Virginia are true and loyal to that beneficent Government under which we and our fathers have lived so long. As soon as the result of the election was known the traitors commenced their work of destruction. The General Government cannot close its ears to the demand you have made for assistance. I have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and brothers – as enemies only to the armed rebels who are preying upon you. Your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected.

Notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe that our advent among you will be signalized by interference with your slaves understand one thing clearly – not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part. Now that we are in your midst, I call upon you to fly to arms and support the General Government.

Sever the connection that binds you to traitors. Proclaim to the world that the faith and loyalty so long boasted by the Old Dominion are still preserved in Western Virginia, and that you remain true to the Stars and Stripes.

GEO. B. McCLELLAN,

Major-General, Commanding.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 2 (Serial No. 2), p. 48-9

New Orleans and the War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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