Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 26, 1865

Cloudy and cool; rained all night. No news from the South, this morning. But there is an ugly rumor that Beauregard's men have deserted to a frightful extent, and that the general himself is afflicted with disease of mind, etc.

Mr. Hunter is now reproached by the slave-owners, whom he thought to please, for defeating the Negro bill. They say his vote will make Virginia a free State, inasmuch as Gen. Lee must evacuate it for the want of negro troops.

There is much alarm on the streets. Orders have been given to prepare all the tobacco and cotton, which cannot be removed immediately, for destruction by fire. And it is generally believed that Lieut.-Gen. A. P. Hill's corps has marched away to North Carolina. This would leave some 25,000 men to defend Richmond and Petersburg, against, probably, 60,000.

If Richmond be evacuated, most of the population will remain, not knowing whither to go.

The new Secretary of War was at work quite early this morning. The "Bureau of Conscription" and the Provost Marshal's office are still "operating," notwithstanding Congress has abolished them both.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 434

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: September 4, 1864

Showery.

Atlanta has fallen, and our army has retreated some thirty miles; such is Hood's dispatch, received last night.

The cheering in Grant's camp yesterday was over that event. We have not had sufficient generalship and enterprise to destroy Sherman's communications.

Some 40,000 landowners, and the owners of slaves, are at their comfortable homes, or in comfortable offices, while the poor and ignorant are relied upon to achieve independence, and these, very naturally, disappoint the President's expectations on momentous occasions.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 277

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, August 22, 1863

Mr. Chase called and took me this evening for a two hours' ride. We went past Kalorama north, crossed Rock Creek near the Stone Mill, thence over the hills to Tenallytown, and returned through Georgetown. The principal topic of conversation, and the obvious purpose of this drive was a consultation on the slavery question, and what in common parlance is called the reconstruction of the Union with the incidents. After sounding me without getting definite and satisfactory answers, he frankly avowed his own policy and determination. It is unconditional and immediate emancipation in all the Rebel States, no retrograde from the Proclamation of Emancipation, no recognition of a Rebel State as a part of the Union, or any terms with it except on the extinction, wholly, at once, and forever, of slavery.

I neither adopted nor rejected his emphatic tests, for such he evidently meant them. The questions are of vast magnitude, and have great attending difficulties. The reestablishment of the Union is a practical and important question, and it may come up in a way and form which we cannot now anticipate, and not improbably set aside any hypothetical case which may at this time be presented. I consider slavery, as it heretofore existed, has terminated in all the States, and am not for intruding speculative political theories in advance to embarrass official action.

North Carolinians are just now beginning to discuss the subject of disconnecting their State from the Confederacy. I asked Chase if he believed Congress would refuse to recognize her and the government attempt to exclude her from the Union if she came forward and proposed to resume her place, with slavery, like Maryland and the other Border States. He said much would depend on the President, — all in fact, for were the President to acquiesce in her return it could not be prevented, but on the other hand, if he planted himself firmly, and with Jacksonian will on the Proclamation, he had no doubt North Carolina would be excluded or refused her original place in the Union, unless she modified her constitution and abolished slavery. He was confident if the Government persisted in emancipation the State would ultimately yield.

“That,” said I, “brings up other questions touching the powers and limitations of the Federal Government. Where is the authority for Congress, or a fraction of Congress, to exclude a State, or to prescribe new conditions to one of the original States, on which one of the original commonwealths which founded and established the government shall hereafter compose a part of the Federal Union? Where is the authority for the President or Congress to deprive her of rights reserved and guaranteed to all, — to dictate her local policy, — these restrictive conditions being new, not a part of the Federal compact or known to the Constitution. The States must have equal political rights or the government cannot stand on the basis of 1789.”

He replied that those States had severed their connection with the Union without cause, had broken faith and made war on the government. They had forfeited their rights. They no longer retained the position they once had. They were to be subjugated, conquered. In order to be restored to the Union they must be required to put away the cause of disturbance, the source of rebellion, disunion, and strife. The welfare of the nation, the security and perpetuity of the Union demanded this. To admit them now to a full and equal participation with ourselves, without extinguishing slavery, would be with the aid of their sympathizing friends to place the government in the hands of the slaveholders.

That there may be something to be apprehended, were all the Rebels and their old party associates in the Free States to reunite and act in concert, I admit may be true, but this is not a supposable case. The Rebels will not all come back at once, were pardon and general amnesty extended to them. There is also, bear in mind, deep and wide hostility to the Confederate proceedings through almost the whole South, and the old party associates of Davis and others in the North are broken up and pretty thoroughly alienated. The reestablishment of the Union and harmony will be a slow process, requiring forbearance and nursing rather than force and coercion. The bitter enmities which have been sown, the hate which has been generated, the blood which has been spilled, the treasure, public and private, which has been wasted, and, last and saddest of all, the lives which have been sacrificed, cannot be forgotten and smoothed over in a day; we can hardly expect it in a generation. By forbearance and forgiveness, by wise and judicious management, the States may be restored to their place and the people to their duty, but let us not begin by harsh assumptions, for even with gentle treatment the work of reconciliation and fraternity will be slow. Let us be magnanimous. Ought we not to act on individuals and through them on the States?

This inquiry seemed to strike him favorably, and I elaborated it somewhat, bringing up old political doctrines and principles which we had cherished in other days. I reminded him that to have a cordial union of the States they must be equal in political rights, and that arbitrary measures did not conduce to good feeling and were not promotive of freedom and good will. As regards individuals who have made war on the government and resisted its laws, they had forfeited their rights and could be punished and even deprived of life, but I knew not how we could punish States as commonwealths except through their people. A State could not be struck out of existence like an individual or corporation.

Besides, it must be remembered, we should be classing the innocent with the guilty, punishing our true friends who had already suffered greatly in the Union cause as severely as the worst Rebels. We could have no ex post facto enactments, could not go beyond existing laws to punish Rebels; we should not do this with our friends, and punish them for wrongs committed by others. We could now exact of Rebels the oath of allegiance before pardon, and could perhaps grant conditional or limited pardons, denying those who had been active in taking up arms the right to vote or hold office for a period. Such as came in on the terms granted would build up loyal communities.

In these general outlines we pretty much agreed, but there is, I apprehend, a radical difference between us as regards the status of the States, and their position in and relation to the general government. I know not that I clearly comprehend the views of Chase, and am not sure that he has fully considered and matured the subject himself. He says he makes it a point to see the President daily and converse on this subject; that he thinks the President is becoming firm and more decided in his opinions, and he wants me to second him. Stanton he says is all right, but is not a man of firm and reliable opinions. Seward and Blair he considers opponents. Bates he says is of no account and has no influence. Usher he classes with himself, though he considers him of no more scope than Bates. Seward he says is unreliable and untruthful. The President he compliments for honesty of intentions, good common sense, more sagacity than he has credit for, but [he thinks he] is greatly wanting in will and decision, in comprehensiveness, in self-reliance, and clear, well-defined purpose.

The reëstablishment of the Union is beset with difficulties. One great embarrassment, the principal one, is the intrusion of partyism. Chase, I see, is warped by this. It is not strange that he should be, for he has aspirations which are likely to be affected by these issues. Others are in like manner influenced. I believe I have no personal ambition to gratify, no expectations. There is no office that I want or would accept in prospect, but my heart is in again beholding us once more United States and a united people.

It appears to me Mr. Chase starts out on an error. The Federal Government has no warrant to impose conditions on any of the States to which all are not subjected, or to prescribe new terms which conflict with those on which our fundamental law is based. In these tempestuous days, when to maintain its existence the Federal Government is compelled to exercise extraordinary powers, statesmen and patriots should take care that it does not transcend its authority and subvert the system. We are testing the strength and inviolability of a written constitution. To impose conditions on the States which are in rebellion is allowable on no other premise than that they actually seceded and left the Union. Now, while it is admitted and we all know that a majority of the people in certain States have rebelled and made war on the central government, none of us recognize or admit the right or principle of secession. People — individuals — have rebelled but the States are sovereignties, not corporations, and they still belong to and are a part of the Union. We can imprison, punish, hang the Rebels by law and constitutional warrant, but where is the authority or power to chastise a State, or to change its political status, deprive it of political rights and sovereignty which other States possess?

To acknowledge that the States have seceded — that the Union is dissolved — would be to concede more than I am prepared for. It is the error into which Mr. Seward plunged at the beginning, when he insisted that a blockade authorized by international law should be established instead of a closure of the ports by national law, and that the Rebels should be recognized as belligerents. The States have not seceded; they cannot secede, nor can they be expelled. Secession is synonymous with disunion. Whenever it takes place, we shall belong to different countries.

Slavery has received its death-blow. The seeds which have been sown by this war will germinate. Were peace restored to-morrow and the States reunited with the rotten institution in each of them, chattel slavery would expire. What is to be the ultimate effect of the Proclamation, and what will be the exact status of the slaves and the slave-owners, were the States now to resume their position, I am not prepared to say. The courts would adjudicate the questions; there would be legislative action in Congress and in the States also; there would be sense and practical wisdom on the part of intelligent and candid men who are not carried away by prejudice, fanaticism, and wild theories. No slave who has left a Rebel master and come within our lines, or has served under the flag, can ever be forced into involuntary servitude.

The constitutional relations of the States have not been changed by the Rebellion, but the personal condition of every Rebel is affected. The two are not identical. The rights of the States are unimpaired; the rights of those who have participated in the Rebellion may have been forfeited.

This subject should not become mixed with partyism, but yet it can scarcely be avoided. Chase gathers it into the coming Presidential election; feels that the measure of emancipation which was decided without first consulting him has placed the President in advance of him on a path which was his specialty.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 410-5

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 14, 1861

The Eutaw House is not a very good specimen of an American hotel, but the landlord does his best to make his guests comfortable, when he likes them. The American landlord is a despot who regulates his dominions by ukases affixed to the walls, by certain state departments called “offices” and “bars,” and who generally is represented, whilst he is away on some military, political, or commercial undertaking, by a lieutenant; the deputy being, if possible, a greater man than the chief. It requires so much capital to establish a large hotel, that there is little fear of external competition in the towns. And Americans are so gregarious that they will not patronize small establishments. I was the more complimented by the landlord's attention this morning when he came to the room, and in much excitement informed me the news of Fort Sumter being bombarded by the Charleston batteries was confirmed, “And now,” said he, “there's no saying where it will all end.” After breakfast I was visited by some gentlemen of Baltimore, who were highly delighted with the news, and I learned from them there was a probability of their State joining those which had seceded. The whole feeling of the landed and respectable classes is with the South. The dislike to the Federal Government at Washington is largely spiced with personal ridicule and contempt of Mr. Lincoln. Your Marylander is very tenacious about being a gentleman, and what he does not consider gentlemanly is simply unfit for any thing, far less for place and authority. The young draftsman, of whom I spoke, turned up this morning, having pursued me from Washington. He asked me whether I would still let him accompany me. I observed that I had no objection, but that I could not permit such paragraphs in the papers again, and suggested there would be no difficulty in his travelling by himself, if he pleased. He replied that his former connection with a Black Republican paper might lead to his detention or molestation in the South, but that if he was allowed to come with me, no one would doubt that he was employed by an illustrated London paper. The young gentleman will certainly never lose any thing for the want of asking. At the black barber's I was meekly interrogated by my attendant as to my belief in the story of the bombardment. He was astonished to find a stranger could think the event was probable. “De gen'lemen of Baltimore will be quite glad ov it. But maybe it'll come bad after all.” I discovered my barber had strong ideas that the days of slavery were drawing to an end. “And what will take place then, do you think?” “Wall, sare, 'spose colored men will be good as white men.” That is it. They do not understand what a vast gulf flows between them and the equality of position with the white race which most of those who have aspirations imagine to be meant by emancipation. He said the town slave-owners were very severe and harsh in demanding larger sums than the slaves could earn. The slaves are sent out to do jobs, to stand for hire, to work on the quays and docks. Their earnings go to the master, who punishes them if they do not bring home enough. Sometimes the master is content with a fixed sum, and all over that amount which the slave can get may be retained for his private purposes. Baltimore looks more ancient and respectable than the towns I have passed through, and the site on which it stands is undulating, so that the houses have not that flatness and uniformity of height which make the streets of New York and Philadelphia resemble those of a toy city magnified. Why Baltimore should be called the “Monumental City” could not be divined by a stranger. He would never think that a great town of 250,000 inhabitants could derive its name from an obelisk cased in white marble to George Washington, even though it be more than 200 feet high, nor from the grotesque column called “Battle Monument,” erected to the memory of those who fell in the skirmish outside the city in which the British were repulsed in 1814. I could not procure any guide to the city worth reading, and strolled about at discretion, after a visit to the Maryland Club, of which I was made an honorary member. At dark I started for Norfolk in the steamer “Georgiana.”

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 77-9

John M. Forbes to Nassau W. Senior, December 10, 1861

Boston, December 10,1861.

My Dear Me. Senior, — I have yours of the 20th ulto. I shall read with much interest your article upon the nature of our government, and am glad you came to the same conclusion which everybody here long since arrived at except Calhoun and his gang of conspirators.

I don't blame Lord Russell for being puzzled at any question which you say has two sides to it; but I do blame him for jumping at his conclusions in such hot haste that he could not await the arrival of our new minister, whose explanation might have given him some light.

You don't blame the doctor (Medico) when, called to a serious case, he happens to take the dark view of it, and sentences the patient to “dissolution;” but you do think him a blunderer if he hastens to tell the victim that he has only to make his arrangements for his funeral!

Louis Napoleon, by quietly holding back his opinions and then uttering them covered up with sugared words, puts himself, with the masses of our people, where England was a few months since, our natural ally! Of course it is an enormous humbug, and thinking men are not gulled by it, but none the less [the situation] operates to inflame the old animosities that had grown out of two wars and that had been just forgotten.

Another thing must not be forgotten. The French press has not the chance, even when it has the will, to do the mischief that yours and ours has. We hardly read anything from the French papers; they still less read American papers, and this makes the grand difference between our situation as relating to the two countries.

You read our New York “Herald” edited by a renegade Scotchman . . . and you take it for the representative of American journalism! The “Herald” is really the organ of the seceders, it was so openly until after Sumter surrendered; and only came over nominally to the Northern side under the terrors of mob law. It has since served its masters still better by sowing the seeds of dissension between us and England.

We, with perhaps equal blindness, permit the “Times” and half a dozen other papers to stand for “England.” I look for a grand paper duello upon the Trent question, and shall be relieved if it goes no further. Should the questions assume a warlike aspect, we shall only be driven the sooner to our last desperate resort, emancipation. We are now only divided into two parties at the North, viz.: those who would use the negro when we can see no other way of conquering; and secondly, those who would use the negro at once, wherever he can be used to strengthen us or weaken the enemy! The logic of events has been from day to day settling this question, and if our talking men in Congress can only be patient or self-denying in the outpouring of patriotic words, we shall go on fast enough. . . .

You cannot believe we shall subjugate ten millions of people. Nor I; but classify these ten millions and all is changed. At least two are avowed loyalists in the border States; four more are blacks ready to help us when we will let them; three more are poor whites whose interests are clearly with us and against their would-be masters. How long will it be before the avowals of their masters, aided by the suffering of the war, will open their eyes?

This leaves one million, of all ages and sexes, who, through owning slaves and connection with slaveholders, may think they have a class interest in the success of the rebellion. This class we can crush out— or what will be left of them after the war debt of the rebels reaches its proper value — whenever we can divide the four million of poor whites, by an operation upon their eyes!

But if I underrate the difficulty, the necessity for doing it now is all the greater! If hard now, how much harder will it be after we shall have, as you desire, permitted them to separate. Now they have no manufactures, no foreign alliances, no warlike stores except what they stole from us, and these rapidly diminishing. They have missed their first spring in which lies the strength of a conspiracy; while our cold Anglo-Saxon blood is just getting roused from the lethargy of a long peace and of overmuch prosperity. We are just ready to begin to fight. We all feel that what is now a war between the people and a small class would, after a separation, become a war of sections. As for peace, nobody believes it possible; a truce we might have, to give them time to gather breath! It is only a question between war to the end now and a chronic state of war with two standing armies, two navies, two corps of diplomatists seeking alliances in every court in Europe, to end in another death struggle. There is no peace for us, unless we either conquer the arrogant slave-owner classes who have so long ruled us and bullied you, or permit them by a compromise to continue and extend their combination with our baser class and to drag us into a grand slave empire which shall absorb the West Indies and Mexico and Central America.

A bold stand at the polls by the North in 1850 would have given us the victory peacefully; now we must fight for it, or yield to the basest faction that ever ruled a country. Better a ten years' war than this; but it will not be a long war.

The conspirators counted upon an early success in arms and a division of the North. Foiled in this, their only hope is in foreign intervention. I have no doubt what you tell me is true of Louis Napoleon, still less that he secretly gave the rebels hopes of aid, nor that they have construed your course to favor them. Had you squarely taken the same ground that we did towards your Canadian rebels, this hope would have been extinguished; and now, if you want cotton, if you want trade, if you want to pave the way to a real alliance with the only free nation besides yourselves on the globe, you ought to help us in all legitimate ways. You should encourage our loan, you should sharpen your police to detect the outfit of hostile vessels, you should hold the Nashville strictly accountable for her acts of pillage and destruction, giving her the experience of a long trial in your courts, if only to discourage other pirates from being their own judges of what property they may appropriate.

Do this and the war will be short. Four months ago an offer from you to do what we should have readily done when your Indian empire was threatened, had it seemed necessary or proper, would have ended the war before this, — namely, to throw open to us for purchase your armories and your ironclad shipyards. We might not have accepted the offer, but it would have destroyed the rebels' last hope. I don't complain of your not doing it, but simply indicate what for the sake of both countries I wish might have been your policy!

As for the Sault Ste. Marie, the pine lands must wait for the prairie farmers to build again; but the developments in our mineral lands are said to be magnificent, and to promise results next summer.

Very truly yours,

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 253-7