Showing posts with label Slave Labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slave Labor. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Diary of Corporal David L. Day: December 10, 1861

A WALK INTO THE COUNTRY.

The weather holds warm and springlike. We have no need of overcoats, unless doing guard duty nights. The people here tell us it is an unusually mild fall, but that we shall get right smart lots of cold and snow before many days. I took a walk of a few miles into the country yesterday, on a tour of observation. I noticed what appeared to me a great extent of good land, but very badly improved. Occasionally I saw a farm where things seemed to be kept up snug and showed some evidences of thrift, but more of them looked as though the owners studied to see how shiftless they could be and still manage to live. Buildings and fences are going to decay; fields of corn are yet unharvested, the cattle and hogs running through and destroying them. I asked one man why he didn't harvest his corn. “Oh,” he said, “there is no hurry about that, I have got all winter to do it in, and the corn is just as well off in the field as anywhere.” I came to the conclusion that his plan of harvesting was about as fast as he wanted it to eat. I said to another man I met, “You have good land about here, sir; easy of cultivation and close to a market. I suppose you make a pile of money?” “Oh, no,” he said, “you are mistaken; right poor land about yere, one can hardly make a living on it, but you go over yere a few miles to some creek [the name of which I have forgotten], and you will find right good land; make as much again corn on it as you can on this.” I asked, “What do you value this land at?” “Well,” he replied, “we reckon the land around yere worth about $10 an acre; reckon some of it mought be bought for a little less, but the land around Annapolis is worth from $25 to $50 an acre.” I made up my mind that a man with an ordinary degree of enterprise, with our improved implements for farming and with hired labor, might take this land and make money on it. I am unable to see any profits from slave labor in Maryland; it is poor help at the best; besides they have to be clothed and fed several months in a year during which time they are net earning much, and there is always on a farm employing a dozen or more field hands, a lot of old men and women and small children who are not earning anything, but still have to be supported.

SOURCE: David L. Day, My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Mass. Volunteer Infantry, p. 14-5

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Amos A. Lawrence to David R. Atchison, March 31, 1855

(cottage Farm Near) Boston, March 31, 1855.

My Dear Sir, — I take the liberty to address you upon a subject in which I have a common interest with yourself, viz.: the settlement of Kansas. Since the repeal of the “Missouri Compromise” by the last Congress, this Territory has attracted the attention of distant not less than of the neighboring States; for it is evident that there must be decided the question whether there shall be slave or free labor over a vast region of the United States now unsettled. You and your friends would make slave States, and we wish to prevent your doing so. The stake is a large one, and the ground chosen. Let the fight be a fair one. It is to secure this that I address you. Your influence is requisite to restrain your people from doing great injustice to actual settlers, and provoking them to retaliatory measures, the consequences of which would be most deplorable. I beg you, my dear sir, to use your efforts to avert so great an evil.

Let the contest be waged honorably, for unless it be so, no settlement of the question can ever be final. It is already reported here that large bodies of Missourians will cross over merely to vote, and that they may gain this election as they did the last. But how delusive to suppose that settlers who have come from one to two thousand miles with their families will acquiesce in any election gained by such means, or that any future election can be satisfactory which is not conducted according to law. The advantage of proximity is yours; your people can afford to be not only just, but generous, in this matter. The repeal of the law which secured this Territory against the introduction of slavery is considered by most men in the “free States” to be a breach of the national faith; and it is not unreasonable for those who have gone there to find a home to expect a compliance with the laws as they are. Those from New England have gone in good faith and at their own expense. They are chiefly farmers; but among them are good representatives from all professions. Some have considerable property, but all have rights and principles which they value more than money, and, I may say, more than life itself. Neither is there any truth in the assertion that they are abolitionists. No person of that stripe is known to have gone from here; nor is it known here that any such have gone from other States. But oppression may make them abolitionists of the most dangerous kind.

There has been much said in regard to an extensive organization here, which is wholly untrue. I assure you, sir, that what has been undertaken here will be carried on fairly and equitably. The management is in the hands of men of prudence, of wealth and determination; they are not politicians, nor are they aspirants for office: they are determined, if it be possible, to see that justice is done to those who have ventured their all in that Territory. May I not hope, sir, that you will second this effort to see that the contest shall be carried on fairly? If fairly beaten you may be sure that our people will acquiesce, however reluctant; but they never will yield to injustice.

Respectfully yours,
A. A. L.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 89-92

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: September 7, 1863

Batteries Wagner and Gregg and Fort Sumter have been evacuated! But this is not yet the capture of Charleston. Gen. Beauregard telegraphed yesterday that he was preparing (after thirty-six hours' incessant bombardment) to evacuate Morris Island; which was done, I suppose, last night. He feared the loss of the garrisons, if he delayed longer; and he said Sumter was silenced. Well, it is understood the great Blakely is in position on Charleston wharf. If the enemy have no knowledge of its presence, perhaps we shall soon have reports from it.

Gen. Lee, it is said, takes two corps d’armée to Tennessee, leaving one in Virginia. But this can be swelled to 50,000 men by the militia, conscripts, etc., which ought to enable us to stand a protracted siege, provided we can get subsistence. Fortune is against us now.

Lieut.-Col. Lay reports great defection in North Carolina, and even says half of Raleigh is against “the Davis Government.”

The Secretary of War has called upon the Governor for all the available slave labor in the State, to work on the defenses, etc.

The United States flag of truce boat came up to City Point last night, bringing no prisoners, and nothing else except some dispatches, the nature of which has not yet transpired.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2p. 36

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Diary of William Howard Russell: June 5, 1861

The smart negro who waited on me this morning spoke English, I asked him if he knew how to read and write. — “We must not do that, sir.” “Where were you born?” — “I were raised on the plantation, Massa, but I have been to New Orleans;” and then he added, with an air of pride, “I s'pose, sir, Massa Burnside not take less than 1500 dollars for me.” Down-stairs to breakfast, the luxuries of which are fish, prawns, and red meat which has been sent for to Donaldsonville by boat rowed by an old negro. Breakfast over, I walked down to the yard, where the horses were waiting, and proceeded to visit the saccharine principality. Mr. Seal, the overseer of this portion of the estate, was my guide, if not philosopher and friend. Our road lay through a lane formed by a cart track, between fields of Indian corn just beginning to flower — as it is called technically, to “tassel — and sugar-cane. There were stalks of the former twelve or fifteen feet in height, with three or four ears each, round which the pea twined in leafy masses. The maize affords food to the negro, and the husks are eaten by the horses and mules, which also fatten on the peas in rolling time.

The wealth of the land is inexhaustible: all the soil requires is an alternation of maize and cane; and the latter, when cut in the stalk, called “ratoons,” at the end of the year, produces a fresh crop, yielding excellent sugar. The cane is grown from stalks which are laid in pits during the winter till the ground has been ploughed, when 'each piece of cane is laid longitudinally on the ridge and covered with earth, and from each joint of the stalk springs forth a separate sprout when the crop begins to grow. At present the sugar-cane is waiting for its full development, but the negro labor around its' stem has ceased. It is planted in long continuous furrows, and although the palm-like tops have not yet united in a uniform arch over the six feet which separates row from row, the stalks are higher than a man. The plantation is pierced with wagon roads, for the purpose of conveying the cane to the sugar-mills, and these again are intersected by and run parallel with drains and ditches, portions of the great system of irrigation and drainage, in connection with a canal to carry off the surplus water to a bayou. The extent of these works may be estimated by the fact that there are thirty miles of road and twenty miles of open deep drainage through the estate, and that the main canal is fifteen feet wide, and at present four feet deep; but in the midst of this waste of plenty and wealth, where are the human beings who produce both? One must go far to discover them; they are buried in sugar and in maize, or hidden in negro quarters. In truth, there is no trace of them, over all this expanse of land, unless one knows where to seek; no “ploughboy whistles o'er the lea;” no rustic stands to do his own work; but the gang is moved off in silence from point to point, like a corps d’armée of some despotic emperor manoeuvring in the battle-field.

Admitting everything that can be said, I am the more persuaded from what I see, that the real foundation of slavery in the Southern States lies in the power of obtaining labor at will at a rate which cannot be controlled by any combination of the laborers. Granting the heat and the malaria, it is not for a moment to be argued that planters could not find white men to do their work if they would pay them for the risk. A negro, it is true, bears heat well, and can toil under the blazing sun of Louisiana, in the stifling air between the thick-set sugar-canes; but the Irishman who is employed in the stokehole of a steamer is exposed to a higher temperature and physical exertion even more arduous. The Irish laborer can, however, set a value on his work; the African slave can only determine the amount of work to be got from him by the exhaustion of his powers. Again, the indigo planter in India, out from morn till night amidst his ryots, or the sportsman toiling under the midday sun through swamp and jungle, proves that the white man can endure the utmost power of the hottest sun in the world as well as the native. More than that, the white man seems to be exempt from the inflammatory disease, pneumonia, and attacks of the mucous membrane and respiratory organs to which the blacks are subject; and if the statistics of negro mortality were rigidly examined, I doubt that they would exhibit as large a proportion of mortality and sickness as would be found amongst gangs of white men under similar circumstances. But the slave is subjected to rigid control; he is deprived of stimulating drinks in which the free white laborer would indulge; and he is obliged to support life upon an antiphlogistic diet, which gives him, however, sufficient strength to execute his daily task.

It is in the supposed cheapness of slave labor and its profitable adaptation in the production of Southern crops, that the whole gist and essence of the question really lie. The planter can get from the labor of a slave for whom he has paid £200, a sum of money which will enable him to use up that slave in comparatively a few years of his life, whilst he would have to pay to the white laborer a sum that would be a great apparent diminution of his profits, for the same amount of work. It is calculated that each field-hand, as an able-bodied negro is called, yields seven hogsheads of sugar a year, which, at the rate of fourpence a pound, at an average of a hogshead an acre, would produce to the planter £140 for every slave. This is wonderful interest on the planter's money; but he sometimes gets two hogsheads an acre, and even as many as three hogsheads have been produced in good years on the best lands; in other words, two and a quarter tons of sugar and refuse stuff, called “bagasse,” have been obtained from an acre of cane. Not one planter of the many I have asked has ever given an estimate of the annual cost of a slave's maintenance; the idea of calculating it never comes into their heads.

Much depends upon the period at which frost sets in; and if the planters can escape till January without any cold to nip the juices and the cane, their crop is increased in value each day; but it is not till October they can begin to send cane to the mill, in average seasons; and if the frost does not come till December, they may count upon the fair average of a hogshead of 1200 pounds of sugar to every acre.

The labor of ditching, trenching, cleaning the waste lands, and hewing down the forests, is generally done by Irish laborers, who travel about the country under contractors, or are engaged by resident gangsmen for the task. Mr. Seal lamented the high prices of this work; but then, as he said, It was much better to have Irish to do it, who cost nothing to the planter, if they died, than to use up good field-hands in such severe employment.” There is a wonderful mine of truth in this observation. Heaven knows how many poor Hibernians have been consumed and buried in these Louisianian swamps, leaving their earnings to the dramshop-keeper and the contractor, and the results of their toil to the planter. This estate derives its name from an Indian tribe called Houmas; and when Mr. Burnside purchased it for £300,000, he received in the first year £63,000 as the clear value of the crops on his investment.

The first place I visited with the overseer was a new sugarhouse, which negro carpenters and masons were engaged in erecting. It would have been amusing, had not the subject been so grave, to hear the overseer's praises of the intelligence and skill of these workmen, and his boast that they did all the work of skilled laborers on the estate, and then to listen to him, in a few minutes, expatiating on the utter helplessness and ignorance of the black race, their incapacity to do any good, or even to take care of themselves.

There are four sugar-houses on this portion of Mr. Burnside's estate, consisting of grinding-mills, boiling-houses, and crystallizing sheds.

The sugar-house is the capital of the negro quarters, and to each of them is attached an enclosure, in which there is a double row of single-storied wooden cottages, divided into two or four rooms. An avenue of trees runs down the centre of the negro street, and behind each hut are rude poultry-hutches, which, with geese and turkeys, and a few pigs, form the perquisites of the slaves, and the sole source from which they derive their acquaintance with currency. Their terms are strictly cash. An old negro brought up some ducks to Mr. Burnside last night, and offered the lot of six for three dollars. “Very well, Louis; if you come to-morrow, I'll pay you.” “No, massa; me want de money now.” “But won't you give me credit, Louis? Don't you think I'll pay the three dollars?” “Oh, pay some day, massa, sure enough. Massa good to pay de tree dollar; but this nigger want money now to buy food and things for him leetle family. They will trust massa at Donaldsville, but they won't trust this nigger.” I was told that a thrifty negro will sometimes make ten or twelve pounds a year from his corn and poultry; but he can have no inducement to hoard; for whatever is his, as well as himself, belongs to his master.

Mr. Seal conducted me to a kind of forcing-house, where the young negroes are kept in charge of certain old crones too old for work, whilst their parents are away in the cane and Indian corn. A host of children of both sexes were seated in the veranda of a large wooden shed, or playing around it, very happily and noisily. I was glad to see the boys and girls of nine, ten, and eleven years of age were at this season, at all events, exempted from the cruel fate which befalls poor children of their age in the mining and manufacturing districts of England. At the sight of the overseer, the little ones came forward in tumultuous glee, babbling out, “Massa Seal,” and evidently pleased to see him.

As a jolly agriculturist looks at his yearlings or young beeves, the kindly overseer, lolling in his saddle, pointed with his whip to the glistening fat ribs and corpulent paunches of his woolly-headed flock. “There's not a plantation in the State,” quoth he, “can show such a lot of young niggers. The way to get them right is not to work the mothers too hard when they are near their time; to give them plenty to eat, and not to send them to the fields too soon.” He told me the increase was about five per cent, per annum. The children were quite sufficiently clad, ran about round us, patted the horses, felt our legs, tried to climb up on the stirrup, and twinkled their black and ochrey eyes at Massa Seal. Some were exceedingly fair; and Mr. Seal, observing that my eye followed these, murmured something about the overseers before Mr. Burnside's time being rather a bad lot. He talked about their color and complexion quite openly; nor did it seem to strike him that there was any particular turpitude in the white man who had left his offspring as slaves on the plantation.

A tall, well-built lad of some nine or ten years stood by me, looking curiously into my face, “What is your name?” said I. “George,” he replied. “Do you know how to read or write?” He evidently did not understand the question. “Do you go to church or chapel?” A dubious shake of the head. “Did you ever hear of our Saviour?” At this point Mr. Seal interposed, and said, “I think we had better go on, as the sun is getting hot,” and so we rode gently through the little ones; and when we had got some distance he said, rather apologetically, “We don't think it right to put these things into their heads so young, it only disturbs their minds, and leads them astray.”

Now, in this one quarter there were no less than eighty children, some twelve and some even fourteen years of age. No education — no God — their whole life — food and play, to strengthen their muscles and fit them for the work of a slave. “And when they die?” “Well,” said Mr. Seal, “they are buried in that field there by their own people, and some of them have a sort of prayers over them, I believe.” The overseer, it is certain, had no fastidious notions about slavery; it was to him the right thing in the right place, and his summum bonum was a high price for sugar, a good crop, and a healthy plantation. Nay, I am sure I would not wrong him if I said he could see no impropriety in running a good cargo of regular black slaves, who might clear the great back wood and swampy undergrowth, which was now exhausting the energies of his field-hands, in the absence of Irish navvies.

Each negro gets five pounds of pork a week, and as much Indian corn bread as he can eat, with a portion of molasses, and occasionally they have fish for breakfast. All the carpenters’ and smiths’ work, the erection of sheds, repairing of carts and ploughs, and the baking of bricks for the farm buildings, are done on the estate by the slaves. The machinery comes from the manufacturing cities of the North; but great efforts are made to procure it from New Orleans, where factories have been already established. On the borders of the forest the negroes are allowed to plant corn for their own use, and sometimes they have an overplus, which they sell to their masters. Except when there is any harvest pressure on their hands, they have from noon on Saturday till dawn on Monday morning to do as they please, but they must not stir off the plantation on the road, unless with special permit, which is rarely granted.

There is an hospital on the estate, and even shrewd Mr. Seal did not perceive the conclusion that was to be drawn from his testimony to its excellent arrangements. “Once a nigger gets in there, he'd like to live there for the rest of his life.” But are they not the happiest, most contented people in the world — at any rate, when they are in hospital? I declare that to me the more orderly, methodical, and perfect the arrangements for economizing slave labor — regulating slaves — are, the more hateful and odious does slavery become. I would much rather be the animated human chattel of a Turk, Egyptian, Spaniard, or French Creole, than the laboring beast of a Yankee or of a New England capitalist.

When I returned back to the house I found my friends enjoying a quiet siesta, and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to idleness, not at all disagreeable with a thermometer worthy of Agra. Even the mocking-birds were roasted into silence, and the bird which answers to our rook or crow sat on the under branches of the trees, gaping for air with his bill wide open. It must be hot indeed when the mocking-bird loses his activity. There, is one, with its nest in a rose-bush trailed along the veranda under my window, which now sits over its young ones with outspread wings, as if to protect them from being baked; and it is so courageous and affectionate, that when I approach quite close, it merely turns round its head, dilates its beautiful dark eye, and opens its beak, within which the tiny sharp tongue is saying, I am sure, “Don't for goodness' sake disturb me, for if you force me to leave, the children will be burned to death.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 270-6

Monday, August 15, 2016

Amos A. Lawrence to David R. Atchison, March 31, 1855

(Cottage Farm Near) Boston, March 31, 1855.

My Dear Sir, — I take the liberty to address you upon a subject in which I have a common interest with yourself, viz.: the settlement of Kansas. Since the repeal of the “Missouri Compromise” by the last Congress, this Territory has attracted the attention of distant not less than of the neighboring States; for it is evident that there must be decided the question whether there shall be slave or free labor over a vast region of the United States now unsettled. You and your friends would make slave States, and we wish to prevent your doing so. The stake is a large one, and the ground chosen. Let the fight be a fair one. | It is to secure this that I address you. Your influence is requisite to restrain your people from doing great injustice to actual settlers, and provoking them to retaliatory measures, the consequences of which would be most deplorable. I beg you, my dear sir, to use your efforts to avert so great an evil.

Let the contest be waged honorably, for unless it be so, no settlement of the question can ever be final. It is already reported here that large bodies of Missourians will cross over merely to vote, and that they may gain this election as they did the last. But how delusive to suppose that settlers who have come from one to two thousand miles with their families will acquiesce in any election gained by such means, or that any future election can be satisfactory which is not conducted according to law. The advantage of proximity is yours; your people can afford to be not only just, but generous, in this matter. The repeal of the law which secured this Territory against the introduction of slavery is considered by most men in the “free States” to be a breach of the national faith; and it is not unreasonable for those who have gone there to find a home to expect a compliance with the laws as they are. Those from New England have gone in good faith and at their own expense. They are chiefly farmers; but among them are good representatives from all professions. Some have considerable property, but all have rights and principles which they value more than money, and, I may say, more than life itself. Neither is there any truth in the assertion that they are abolitionists. No person of that stripe is known to have gone from here; nor is it known here that any such have gone from other States. But oppression may make them abolitionists of the most dangerous kind.

There has been much said in regard to an extensive organization here, which is wholly untrue. I assure you, sir, that what has been undertaken here will be carried on fairly and equitably. The management is in the hands of men of prudence, of wealth and determination; they are not politicians, nor are they aspirants for office: they are determined, if it be possible, to see that justice is done to those who have ventured their all in that Territory. May I not hope, sir, that you will second this effort to see that the contest shall be carried on fairly? If fairly beaten you may be sure that our people will acquiesce, however reluctant; but they never will yield to injustice.

Respectfully yours,
A. A. L.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 89-92

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 8, 1861

I tried to write, as I have taken my place in the steamer to Mobile to-morrow, and I was obliged to do my best in a room full of people, constantly disturbed by visitors. Early this morning, as usual, my faithful Wigfall comes in and sits by my bedside, and passing his hands through his locks, pours out his ideas with wonderful lucidity and odd affectation of logic all his own. “We are a peculiar people, sir! You don't understand us, and you can't understand us, because we are known to you only by Northern writers and Northern papers, who know nothing of us themselves, or misrepresent what they do know. We are an agricultural people; we are a primitive but a civilized people. We have no cities — we don't want them. We have no literature — we don't need any yet. We have no press — we are glad of it. We do not require a press, because we go out and discuss all public questions from the stump with our people. We have no commercial marine — no navy — we don't want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce, and you can protect your own vessels. We want no manufactures: we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides. But with the Yankees we will never trade — never. Not one pound of cotton shall ever go from the South to their accursed cities; not one ounce of their steel or their manufactures shall ever cross our border.” And so on. What the Senator who is preparing a bill for drafting the people into the army fears is, that the North will begin active operations before the South is ready for resistance, “Give us till November to drill our men, and we shall be irresistible.” He deprecates any offensive movement, and is opposed to an attack on Washington, which many journals here advocate.

Mr. Walker sent me over a letter recommending me to all officers of the Confederate States, and I received an invitation from the President to dine with him to-morrow, which I was much chagrined to be obliged to refuse. In fact, it is most important to complete my Southern tour speedily, as all mail communication will soon be suspended from the South, and the blockade effectually cuts off any communication by sea. Rails torn up, bridges broken, telegraphs down — trains searched — the war is begun. The North is pouring its hosts to the battle, and it has met the paeans of the conquering Charlestonians with a universal yell of indignation and an oath of vengeance.

I expressed a belief in a letter, written a few days after my arrival (March 27th), that the South would never go back into the Union. The North think that they can coerce the South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong; but I am convinced that the South can only be forced back by such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the feet of Russia. It may be that such a conquest can be made by the North, but success must destroy the Union as it has been constituted in times past. A strong Government must be the logical consequence of victory, and the triumph of the South will be attended by a similar result, for which, indeed, many Southerners are very well disposed. To the people of the Confederate States there would be no terror in such an issue, for it appears to me they are pining for a strong Government exceedingly. The North must accept it, whether they like it or not.

Neither party — if such a term can be applied to the rest of the United States, and to those States which disclaim the authority of the Federal Government — was prepared for the aggressive or resisting power of the other. Already the Confederate States perceive that they cannot carry all before them with a rush, while the North have learned that they must put forth all their strength to make good a tithe of their lately uttered threats. But the Montgomery Government are anxious to gain time, and to prepare a regular army. The North, distracted by apprehensions of vast disturbance in their complicated relations, are clamoring for instant action and speedy consummation. The counsels of moderate men, as they were called, have been utterly overruled.

The whole foundation on which South Carolina rests is cotton and a certain amount of rice; or rather she bases her whole fabric on the necessity which exists in Europe for those products of her soil, believing and asserting, as she does, that England and France cannot and will not do without them. Cotton, without a market, is so much flocculent matter encumbering the ground. Rice, without demand for it, is unsalable grain in store and on the field. Cotton at ten cents a pound is boundless prosperity, empire, and superiority, and rice or grain need no longer be regarded.

In the matter of slave-labor, South Carolina argues pretty much in the following manner: England and France (she says) require our products. In order to meet their wants, we must cultivate our soil. There is only one way of doing so. The white man cannot live on our land at certain seasons of the year; he cannot work in the manner required by the crops. He must, therefore, employ a race suited to the labor, and that is a race which will only work when it is obliged to do so. That race was imported from Africa, under the sanction of the law, by our ancestors, when we were a British colony, and it has been fostered by us, so that its increase here has been as great as that of the most flourishing people in the world. In other places, where its labor was not productive or imperatively essential, that race has been made free, sometimes with disastrous consequences to itself and to industry. But we will not make it free. We cannot do so. We hold that slavery is essential to our existence as producers of what Europe requires; nay more, we maintain it is in the abstract right in principle; and some of us go so far as to maintain that the only proper form of society, according to the law of God and the exigencies of man, is that which has slavery as its basis. As to the slave, he is happier far in his state of servitude, more civilized and religious, than he is or could be if free or in his native Africa. For this system we will fight to the end.

In the evening I paid farewell visits, and spent an hour with Mr. Toombs, who is unquestionably one of the most original, quaint, and earnest of the Southern leaders, and whose eloquence and power as a debater are greatly esteemed by his countrymen. He is something of an Anglo-maniac, and an Anglo-phobist — a combination not unusual in America — that is, he is proud of being connected with and descended from respectable English families, and admires our mixed constitution, whilst he is an enemy to what is called English policy, and is a strong pro-slavery champion. Wigfall and he are very uneasy about the scant supply of gunpowder in the Southern States, and the difficulty of obtaining it.

In the evening had a little reunion in the bedroom as before. — Mr. Wigfall, Mr. Keitt, an eminent Southern politician, Col. Pickett, Mr. Browne, Mr. Benjamin, Mr. George Sanders, and others. The last-named gentleman was dismissed or recalled from his post at Liverpool, because he fraternized with Mazzini and other Red Republicans à ce qu’ on dit. Here he is a slavery man, and a friend of an oligarchy. Your “Rights of Man” man is often most inconsistent with himself, and is generally found associated with the men of force and violence.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 179-82

Sunday, September 6, 2015

John M. Forbes to William Curtis Noyes, July 28, 1862

Boston, July 28,1862.

My Dear Sir, — Hardly a day passes that I do not see some article which ought to be republished in each of the loyal States: Evarts's letter, your New York resolutions, one day, something from the “Evening Post” or “Tribune,” another, something better from the rebels, proclaiming themselves “aristocrats and masters bound to rule us.”

It seems to me that we need a publishing committee with headquarters in New York, and a member at each principal point. When anything good comes out, it can always be copied without cost, and a quantity of slips struck off at insignificant expense. These should be sent with the indorsement of a member of the committee to each important newspaper. The chief cost would be in postage, and this might fairly be obviated to a large extent by calling upon members of Congress for franks for an object of such public interest. If you approve of the idea, perhaps you will talk with Mr. Bryant and other leading men, and act. I shall be away all summer, but I suggest for Boston James B. Thayer, a lawyer, brother of W. S. Thayer, formerly connected with the “Evening Post,” now consul-general to Egypt. Party and personal interests ought to be carefully kept out of it, and the vigorous prosecution of the war made its chief object. Such an article as I inclose would just now be of great value in raising recruits, and opening the eyes of the people to the real nature of the contest, aristocracy vs. popular government, and slave labor vs. free labor. It is pretty clear that your leaders are “marching on” in New York, and it is now mainly important to enlighten the working classes.

If they could see where the real support of the war lies, it is my belief that they would force the administration and the generals to fire into the enemy's powder magazine, and then we should soon come down to Mr. Seward's sixty days' duration of the war! Please return me the inclosed cutting, which I mean to make worth several recruits, and oblige,

Yours truly,
J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 324-5

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 8, 1861

How it does rain! Last night there were torrents of water in the streets literally a foot deep. It still runs in muddy whirling streams through the channels, and the rain is falling incessantly from a dull leaden sky. The air is warm and clammy. There are all kind of rumors abroad, and the barbers' shops shook with “shaves” this morning. Sumter, of course, was the main topic. Some reported that the President had promised the Southern Commissioners, through their friend Mr. Campbell, Judge of the Supreme Court, not to use force in respect to Pickens or Sumter. I wrote to Mr. Seward, to ask him if he could enable me to make any definite statement on these important matters. The Southerners are alarmed at the accounts they have received of great activity and preparations in the Brooklyn and Boston navy yards, and declare that “treachery” is meant. I find myself quite incapable of comprehending their position.How can the United States Government be guilty of  “treachery” toward subjects of States which are preparing to assert their independence, unless that Government has been guilty of falsehood or admitted the justice of the decision to which the States had arrived?

As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove over to the Smithsonian Institute, and was most kindly received by Professor Henry, who took me through the library and museum, and introduced me to Professor Baird, who is great in natural history, and more particularly in ornithology. I promised the professors some skins of Himalayan pheasants, as an addition to the collection. In the library we were presented to two very fine and lively rock snakes, or pythons, I believe, some six feet long or more, which moved about with much grace and agility, putting out their forked tongues and hissing sharply when seized by the hand or menaced with a stick. I was told that some persons doubted if serpents hissed; I can answer for it that rock snakes do most audibly. They are not venomous, but their teeth are sharp and needle like. The eye is bright and glistening; the red forked tongue, when protruded, has a rapid vibratory motion, as if it were moved by the muscles which produce the quivering hissing noise. I was much interested by Professor Henry's remarks on the large map of the continent of North America in his study: he pointed out the climatic conditions which determined the use, profits, and necessity of slave labor, and argued that the vast increase of population anticipated in the valley of the Mississippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness attached to it, were fallacious. He seems to be of opinion that most of the good land of America is already cultivated, and that the crops which it produces tend to exhaust it, so as to compel the cultivators eventually to let it go fallow or to use manure. The fact is, that the influence of the great mountain-chain in the west, which intercepts all the rain on the Pacific side, causes an immense extent of country between the eastern slope of the chain and the Mississippi, as well as the district west of Minnesota, to be perfectly dry and uninhabitable; and, as far as we know, it is as worthless as a moor, except for the pasturage of wild cattle and the like.

On returning to my hotel, I found a note from Mr. Seward, asking me to visit him at nine o'clock. On going to his house, I was shown to the drawing-room, and found there only the Secretary of State, his son, and Mrs. Seward. I made a parti carré for a friendly rubber of whist, and Mr. Seward, who was my partner, talked as he played, so that the score of the game was not favorable. But his talk was very interesting. “All the preparations of which you hear mean this only. The Government, finding the property of the State and Federal forts neglected and left without protection, are determined to take steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to protect them. But we are determined in doing so to make no aggression. The President's inaugural clearly shadows out our policy. We will not go beyond it — we have no intention of doing so — nor will we withdraw from it.” After a time Mr. Seward put down his cards, and told his son to go for a portfolio which he would find in a drawer of his table. Mrs. Seward lighted the drop light of the gas, and on her husband's return with the paper left the room. The Secretary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read slowly and with marked emphasis, a very long, strong, and able despatch, which he told me was to be read by Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, to Lord John Russell. It struck me that the tone of the paper was hostile, that there was an undercurrent of menace through it, and that it contained insinuations that Great Britain would interfere to split up the Republic, if she could, and was pleased at the prospect of the dangers which threatened it.

At all the stronger passages Mr. Seward raised his voice, and made a pause at their conclusion as if to challenge remark or approval. At length I could not help saying, that the despatch would, no doubt, have an excellent effect when it came to light in Congress, and that the Americans would think highly of the writer; but I ventured to express an opinion that it would not be quite so acceptable to the Government and people of Great Britain. This Mr. Seward, as an American statesman, had a right to make but a secondary consideration. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political heresy which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign countries alluding to it, Mr. Seward thinks he can establish the supremacy of his own Government, and at the same time gratify the vanity of the people. Even war with us may not be out of the list of those means which would be available for re-fusing the broken union into a mass once more. However, the Secretary is quite confident in what he calls “reaction.” “When the Southern States,” he says, “see that we mean them no wrong — that we intend no violence to persons, rights, or things — that the Federal Government seeks only to fulfil obligations imposed on it in respect to the national property, they will see their mistake, and one after another they will come back into the union.” Mr. Seward anticipates this process will at once begin, and that Secession will all be done and over in three months — at least, so he says. It was after midnight ere our conversation was over, much of which of course I cannot mention in these pages.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 68-71

Monday, December 29, 2014

William Gilmore Simms to William Porcher Miles, probably January 13, 1861

Sunday1 Night, 12 P. M.

I am sleepless, my dear Miles, and must write. If you should be sleepless also, it is not improbable but that my letters will help you to a soporific condition. It seems to me that you will have a little respite. The opening fire upon the Star of the West changes materially the aspect of things to the Federal government, and they will hardly think to send supplies to Sumter except under cover of armed vessels, which is the inauguration of open war upon the State, which the President and cabinet will hardly attempt unless under authority of Congress. Congress alone, I believe, has the power to declare war. There is no telling, however, what may be done when the power is under the hands of a weak administration, counseled and governed, in fact, by a person whose whole training has endowed [him] with military ideas as paramount to all.2 We must, of course, prepare for two dangers, treachery and assault. But it strikes me that the unexpected fire of Fort Morris will compel a pause in the Federal councils, for the better maturing of plans, and some respite for preparation will be allowed you. Not an hour should be lost in preparation. To have numerous guns, to bear equally upon an assailing squadron and Fort Sumter, seems to be the necessity. Looking at the map, I note that Mount Pleasant is distant from Fort Sumter some two miles, while I estimate Moultrie to be some one and a quarter. A battery at Mount Pleasant, cutting the western angle of Sullivan's Island, seems to be in direct range with Sumter, and if within reach of heavy cannon, then a battery of earth at this point, with half a dozen thirty-two pounders, might operate successfully against it, at all events compel a very useful diversion of its fires. So I find that on the sandhills below Fort Johnson, and on the sandhills at the extreme western verge of Fort Morris, batteries of say three heavy cannon each might face Fort Sumter, framed of logs faced with iron and filled in with sand, which could contribute largely to its distraction, if not its injury. On these sandhills, also, you possess an advantage in their elevation, which will tend to reduce the superiority of Sumter in height. Two or three batteries along these hills and at these points, mere bastions, having two or three guns each of heavy calibre, could be thrown up very suddenly, assuming, as I do, that you can command, from the popular patriotism, any amount of slave labor. I would have them so planted as not to face the portholes of Sumter, yet be able to take them at an angle. Shot entering a porthole obliquely would be more mischievous, perhaps, than if direct, since the zigzag course they would pursue would be likely to kill every man on one side or other of the guns, besides abrading the embrasure very seriously. In reference to Wappoo Cut, let me mention that, as the obvious entrance to that cut is by the Stono, there is an old fort, once thought a pretty strong one, at the mouth of the Stono, on Cole's Island. This might be manned by volunteers from the precinct, officered by some good military man. It covers Bird Key [?] and is very well placed, though still, I think, it would be good policy to stop up Wappoo Cut, or keep an armed schooner in Ashley River, at the mouth of it. I am writing, you perceive, without the slightest knowledge of what has been done; and it is quite probable that all my suggestions have been anticipated. If, however, you fancy there is anything in them, communicate with Jamison and any military friends on whose judgment you rely. Ranging timbers properly mortised might be prepared by the mechanics of the city, and the iron bars laid on, if desired, before shipment to the desired points. It is my impression that old Fort Johnson ranges Moultrie in the same line with Sumter. If so, it is a question how far it would be proper to use the former place with heavy cannon which might range across the strait. You should employ all the heavy cannon you can. Jamison told me that you had an abundance. Unless Fort Morris has numerous pieces, she could hardly play any efficient game with many assailing vessels. I do not know where Fort Morris is placed, but suppose it to be fronting equally the Ship and the Twelve-feet channel. In that event, unless the sandhills interpose, it is under the range of Fort Sumter, provided the distance be within three miles, as I suppose it to be. I should have said four, but for the threat of Anderson to fire on Fort Morris. A battery between Fort Morris and the Lighthouse, on the edge of the sandhills, might rake the Ship Channel with a plunging fire, yet I should think be out of range and even sight of Fort Sumter. I think I said, in a previous letter, that in sighting the guns for long distances telescopes should be used; of course, I meant only the ordinary ship spyglasses, of which a sufficient number for each battery could be obtained in the city. With another battery to second Fort Morris, each of twelve guns at least, and heavy ones, you could give a telling account of all entering vessels. They might all be sunk with good gunnery. But two shot only taking effect out of eighteen fired, would seem to show that the gunnery was not sufficiently practiced. I write only from report. To-night, I learn that (on dit) there has been a mutiny in Fort Sumtsr, and that Anderson has had to shoot one of his men, and put ten more in irons; and that this was the reason why he did not fire on Forts Morris and Moultrie. By the “Mercury” it is said that some negotiations are on foot which will prevent bloodshed. The inference is that Fort Sumter will be given up. This is hardly probable. I suspect treachery. We should suspect nothing else. Anderson wishes communication with the city. If opportunity is allowed him to see what we are doing, or to hear of it, or if he is allowed to corrupt mercenaries, we shall have worse mischief. We must not be too confiding, too easy of faith, too courteous, even to an enemy, who, if he had the right feeling, would at once resign his command and throw up his position on the distinct ground of his Southern birth and associations. He should be kept corked up closely, until we are quite ready to draw him off. If he still keep his position, and we are to have an attempt by the war steamers, Fort Sumter must and will take part in it; the vital point is how to neutralize his action in the engagement. I see but the one suggested, to keep as many batteries at work on him, breaching and otherwise, and a cloud of vessels and men ready for scaling, as will effectively divert his regards from those forts which are designed for the defense of the harbor. And unless Fort Morris be made strong in guns, I see that vessels of heavy draft in deep water may shell it ad libitum, while the smaller craft passes in. I am very doubtful whether a fort on the east end of Sullivan's can do more than cover the Maffit and Rattlesnake channels, if these. It can hardly do much mischief to vessels entering the Ship Channel. Something will depend upon the calibre of its guns. Do, if you can spare a half hour, write me, in charity, how we stand, and with what degree of preparation, and believe me

W. GlLMORE SlMMS
_______________

1 Probably the Sunday that followed the firing on the Star of the West, i. e. January 13, 1861.

2 It seems plain that Simms here alludes to General Winfield Scott. Cass had had a military training, hut he had resigned from the Cabinet when the above was written.

SOURCE: William Peterfield Trent, William Gilmore Simms, p. 255-60

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, February 10, 1861

Shady Hill, 10 February, 1861.

. . . Well, since I wrote last to you, great things have been going on here. It has been no time for writing letters, for the speculations of one day were forgotten the next in the new aspect of affairs. Not even yet is there any certainty as to the result of our present troubles and excitements, so far as the South is concerned. It is still doubtful whether the states that have already left the Union will be the only ones to do so, or whether the whole body of Slave States will go off and set up an attempt at a Confederacy to be managed in the interest of the owners of slaves, and for the protection and extension of slavery. There is little to choose between the two. For many reasons, political, social, and economical, it would be desirable to keep the northern tier of Slave States united with the Free States; but on the other hand, if they go off, the Free States no longer have any connection with or responsibility for Slavery. For my own part I have been hopeful from the beginning that the issue of these troubles, whatever it might be, would be for the advantage of the North, and for the permanent and essential weakening of the Slave power; and I see no reason to change this opinion. The truth is that it is the consciousness of power having gone from their hands that has induced the revolutionists of the South to take the hasty, violent, and reckless steps they have done. It is not the oppression of the North, it is not any interference with the interests of the South, it is not John Brown, or Kansas, or the principles of the Republican party, that are the causes of secession, — but it is the fact that the South, which has heretofore, from the beginning, controlled the government of the country, is now fairly beaten, and that it prefers revolution to honest acknowledgment of defeat and submission to it. But disunion is no remedy for defeat; the South is beaten in the Union or out of it. If the Slave States had accepted in a manly way their new position they would have secured their own interests. Slavery would not have been interfered with. But the course they have pursued has already done more work in damaging Slavery as an institution than all the labours of the Abolitionists could have effected for years. The competition for the supply of cotton which has now been effectually roused will be the great means by which slave labour will be rendered unprofitable to the owners of slaves; and as soon as they find this out Slavery will cease to be defended as a Divine Institution, and as the necessary basis of the best form of society. In fact we are seeing now the beginning of the death struggles of Slavery; and there is no ground for wonder at the violence of its convulsions. Civil war between the Free and the Slave States is a remote possibility. It will be hard to drive us of the North into it. But we are quite ready to fight, if need be, for the maintenance of the authority of the Civil Government, (threatened by a prejudiced attack of the Southern revolutionists on Washington,) and, I hope, also for the freedom of the Territories. But I trust that fighting will not be required, and I believe that Mr. Lincoln will be quietly inaugurated on the 4th March. He has shown great courage and dignity in holding his tongue so completely since his election.

I could fill twenty sheets with the rumours, the fancies, and the theories of the day, but by the time my letter reaches you they would not be worth so much as last year's dead leaves. Of course there is no other news with us, for the intensity of the interest in public affairs lessens that of the other events, and diminishes the number of the events themselves. . . .

Emerson's new volume has been a great success here, and has met with far more favour than it seems to have done in England. Ten thousand copies of it have gone off here in spite of the political excitements. I do not wonder that the English critics do not like the book, for every year the imaginative and mystic element of the intellect, as it shows itself in literature, is getting more and more scouted at by them, — but I do not wonder at the abusive vulgarity of the article in the “Saturday Review.” The book is the most Emersonian, good and bad, of all his books; certainly a book to do good to any one who knows how to think. But Emerson's books, as you know, are not nearly so good as himself. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 216-8