Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 13, 1860

Stocks have fallen heavily today, and I think they will fall much lower before this game is played out.²⁰ One can buy in yet more profitably a fortnight hence. Southern securities are waste paper in Wall Street. Not a dollar can be raised on them. Who wants to buy paper that must be collected by suit in the courts of South Carolina and Georgia?

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²⁰ Many business men thought the panic worse than in 1857; and numerous firms failed as their Southern paper became worthless.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 62

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 15, 1860

Tonight I heard Lieber’s lecture at the Law School. Matter good and well arranged; manner bad—dreamy, dozy, and maundering. . . .

No material progress in the political crisis. Stocks have rallied a little here. Perhaps the febrile symptoms and cerebral disturbance of the South seem a shade easier. But the reign of terror in South Carolina continues unmitigated. Mrs. Sally Hampton, now in New York, wants to go home to Columbia, S. C., or thereabouts, and requires an escort, of course. Her husband can’t come North without exposing himself to a conviction of “incivisme,” and Mr. George Baxter, her papa, cannot go South without danger of being tarred and feathered as a Northerner and a possible Abolitionist. So Mrs. Sally Hampton and her three pretty babies still abide in Second Avenue. Willie Alston and Pringle meant to spend another month here, but their neighbors write them that they must come home. Their loyalty to the South will be suspected if they keep away. So they return, reluctantly. . . .

We are generally reconciling ourselves to the prospect of secession by South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, little Florida, and perhaps Mississippi, too. We shall be well rid of them. Perhaps the prevalence of this feeling— the cordial consent of the North—will keep them from seceding. I think these porcine communities incline to run out of the Union merely because they think we want to keep them in. One should never pull a pig in the direction one wants it to travel. They have long governed us and controlled our votes by the threat of secession. They naturally think secession will be a crushing calamity to the North and the severest punishment they can inflict on us for electing Lincoln.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 62-3

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 17, 1860

Things in general look bluish-gray. Prophesyings of panic and crisis, and of still worse calamity, are heard in our streets. But people try to amuse themselves; for example, Henry Fearing has just been giving a sumptuous dinner to a dozen men at the New York Club, and Giraud Foster is to give another at the Union. Charles E. Strong, Jem Strong, and H. H. Ward as umpires are to decide which dinner was the more brilliant success, and the giver of the second best pays for both. A very pleasant transaction, no doubt, but just at this time it impresses me disagreeably. It seems like some gorgeous Heliogabalic Convivium of the days when the Empire was in decadence. . . .

Memoranda of the crisis. Stocks fell heavily today. The Trust Company declines receiving deposits payable on demand, or for less than six months. A Charleston savings bank has decided to act on a by-law or a provision of its charter authorizing it to insist on ninety days’ notice of every draft. Doubt and distrust reign in Wall Street. The best paper is negotiated with difficulty. William and Edmund Schermerhorn, Edward Bancker, and other croakers think we are drawing near to the worst period of crisis and depression this city has ever known. Mr. Samuel B. Buggies confidently expects another suspension of specie payment before next spring, perhaps before January. Per contra, John A. Stevens is sure this flurry will be over, and everything in its normal stride again within thirty days. Everyone admits that our financial condition was never sounder than at this time. But a vague apprehension of some undefined change and revolution has destroyed confidence in securities and property of every kind.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 63

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Sunday, November 19, 1860

A most gloomy day in Wall Street. Everything at a deadlock. First-class paper not negotiable; demand for money greater than in October, 1857. Stocks falling. It's said the banks resolved today to buy three millions of exchange on London. This may probably see the machine going again, for the time at least, and enable the West and South to begin moving their grain and cotton. . . .

Very few now deny the probability of secession by the Cotton States, and South Carolina is given up as hopeless. Our national mottoes must be changed to “e pluribus duo” (at least) and “United we stand, divided we stand easier.” It is generally conceded, moreover, that if federal coercion be applied to a single seceding state, the whole South will range itself against the government.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 63-4

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 20, 1860

Wall Street was a shade less disconsolate this morning. Stocks rallied at the First Board but began to waver and fall again at the Second. The banks cannot bring about a decisive reaction; the disease is too deep-seated.

The revolutionary movement in South Carolina and the Gulf States seems, on the whole, to be gaining strength and consistency. No signs yet of any “sober second thought.” Conservatism and common-sense (if any be left in the Cotton States), are still intimidated and silent. Probably the Border States, led by Virginia, will try to mediate and pacify. Dissolution of the Union and re-opening of the slave trade would be disastrous to them, so they naturally desire to make peace. But their mediation will probably be upon the basis of recognition by the North of the extremest Southern exactions (slave trade excepted). The North must consent that slavery be introduced into the territories; Massachusetts, Vermont, Wisconsin, and other states must repeal their “personal liberty” laws that interfere with the Fugitive Slave Law. That plan will not work. Those state laws ought to be repealed, but the South has no right to demand their repeal and make their enactment an excuse for treason, because they are utterly unconstitutional and mere nullities, and no one doubts the United States Supreme Court would so adjudge them.

If these traitors succeed in dismembering the country, they will have a front place in the Historical Gallery of Celebrated Criminals. No political crime was ever committed as disastrous to mankind and with so little to provoke or excuse the wrong as that which these infamous disunionists are conspiring to perpetrate. . . .

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 64

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 22, 1860

Wall Street has breathed more freely these two days. News this afternoon that all the banks from Charleston to Philadelphia have suspended. I don't know that we need suffer in consequence.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 64

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 24, 1860

Stocks all up today and Wall Street very jolly. But they will go lower yet, and Wall Street will look more blue than it has looked these thirty years before a.d. 1860 is ended.

 Dr. Peters, and George Anthon, and Charley Peters dined here. After dinner with Ellie and George Anthon to Academy of Music on Robert Cutting’s invitation to the rehearsal of La Juive Stigelli, Fabbri, Anna Bishop, Formes, and others. A pleasant and sunny evening. Opera in dishabille, and a splendid revelation of Bohemia.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 27, 1860

Nothing new in Wall Street, except that stocks are all down again. Secession certainly gains favor at the South, and grows more threatening every day. But there are symptoms of backing down at the North. There are demonstrations toward repeal of the obnoxious "personal liberty bills’’ of certain Northern states. It seems likely that Republican leaders and wire-pullers have concluded on a policy of concession and conciliation. I hope it may be in time to prevent terrible mischief.

These "personal liberty laws’’ are unconstitutional and void. They are mere nullities, and do no harm to the South. What one nigger has South Carolina lost by the legislation of Vermont or Wisconsin? The clamor about them is a palpable humbug. Still they ought to be repealed, being wrong in spirit and interest.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 65

Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 23, 1860

Fine day. Tonight’s anti-Lincoln or Fusion Torchlight procession was “a big thing.’’ It was more numerous than any political demonstration I have ever witnessed. It began to pass No. 24 Union Square (where I joined Ellie) a little before ten. We got tired of lanterns, Roman candles, red shirts, and the like by a little after eleven, and came home. The rear-guard had not then reached Union Square. We could see the distant line of lights still flowing down Fourteenth Street. It's now a quarter past twelve, and band after band is still audible as the procession goes down Fourth Avenue. Its route was up Broadway, through Fourteenth Street to Fifth Avenue, through Fifth Avenue to Twenty-sixth Street, and then down Fourth Avenue and the Bowery. The Fusionists have certainly turned out in great force. (There goes “Dixie’s Land”; another band is passing the corner.) There were delegations from Brooklyn, Newark, Paterson, and other cities, but this city furnished the great majority, and this certainly looks as if the Fusionists’ boast of 40,000 majority in the city and county of New York might be justified. Here come more drums.

Talked with Mr. Ruggles about this crisis. He is constitutionally timid when people are angry and excited and Southern bluster has somewhat impressed him. Perhaps his anxiety is well grounded, for blusterers may be mischievous. Both North and South seem to him deeply diseased with sectional animosity, and he thinks the Cotton States may probably commit some overt act of treason and secession when Lincoln’s election is announced. Stocks have fallen heavily today.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 52

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, April 18, 1864

The steamer Chenango exploded her boilers in New York Harbor, and I feared there might have been mischief, such as [an] incendiary shell in the coal, but the reports indicate that such was not the case.

I am gratified to find so many sagacious and able naval officers sustaining me and my course in relation to Du Pont. There is no man in the service who is so skillful and successful at intrigue as S. F. Du Pont. He has his cliques and has laid his plans adroitly, and may, for a time, be successful in deceiving the public by artful means, but it cannot last. Truth is mighty and will prevail.

Stocks have had a heavy fall to-day in New York, and there are reported failures. It is a temporary check, I apprehend, a reaction or pause resulting from some action of Mr. Chase in New York. He has doubtless effected a loan with the banks, and they have closed on some of their customers. Money, or investments, are tending to government securities, rather than railroad and other like investments, for the moment.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 14-5

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: June 25, 1862

Today New York was in a fever and stocks went down, down, down, because Lincoln and General Pope went up to West Point by special train last night to see General Scott, who it was reported was going back to Washington with them, which also occasioned intense excitement, when, behold! he went as far as Jersey City and there remained at one of the stations. Lincoln being called upon to make a speech came upon the platform and told the people that if they could only know the object of his visit, they would find it much less important than they supposed, but that he couldn't tell them what it was, because Stanton was very particular about the press, and he didn't know what would happen to him if he should "blab."

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 29

The Rothschilds and Mr. Peabody . . .

. . . bet enormously, in the way of operating in the stock market and the solution of the Trent difficulties would be peaceful.  They speculated for a rise – that is to say, bought stocks largely when they had declined – believing that Mason and Slidell would be given up.  Of course they won vast sums.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 8, 1862, p. 2

How Dr. Russell Got The Letter Of The Washington Telegraph Censor – Stock Gambling – A Banker Goes Shares On The Trent News

The following is taken from the Judiciary Committee’s Report on the Censorship of the press at Washington:

The Censor testified that on Friday, December 27, at 2 o’clock P. M., he received positive orders to suppress all dispatches concerning the matter, but at forty-five minutes after two he allowed the following dispatch to go:

“Samuel Wood, New York Hotel, New York: – Act as though you heard some very good news, for yourself and me, as soon as you get this.

W. H. RUSSELL”

The committee say that any man of ordinary discernment might have detected in that dispatch the contraband information, and that Mr. Russell has not, by his letters to the London Times entitled himself to privileges which were denied to our own citizens.  Stock speculations were active and remunerative, and the committee think Mr. Russell’s friend made a good thing out of the good news.  H. G. Fant, a banker of the city, was examined by the committee, in reference to his operations in stock upon the Trent affair.  Mr. Fant had read in the Herald that Mason and Slidell were to be given up, and he put to work Mr. Robert J. Corwin to ascertain whether the communication had been made to Lord Lyons.  He ascertained in the Department of the Interior, that it had.  Mr. Fant invested in stocks, and Mr. Corwin’s share of the profits was $1,300.

The reporters for the press were not allowed to send a word over the wires about the settlement of the Trent affair.  Mr. Fant, a banker, used Mr. Corwin to pump the Secretary of the Interior.  Mr. Smith was pumped, and Mr. Corwin pocketed, as his share $1,300.  Then, Dr. Russell advised his friend Samuel Wood, of New York.  How much Mr. Wood made, and what fell to the share of the special correspondent of the London Times is not stated.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 4

The War News

England, France and Spain Meditate the Recognition of the Southern Confederacy.

NEW FRAUDS UPON THE GOVERNMENT BROUGHT TO LIGHT.

Secretary Chase Urges Immediate Action on the Legal Tender Bill.

Jeff. Davis to take command in person at Manassas.

PANIC IN THE NEW YORK STOCK MARKET.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport Iowa, Monday Morning, February 3, 1862, p. 1

Fluctuation in the N. Y. Stock Market

NEW YORK, February 1

The stock market took a heavy downward surge to-day, amounting at one time almost to a panic – influenced by the unfavorable news by the Africa yesterday.  The decline in some instances is equal to 4 per cent., with heavy sales; but at the close there is a decided rally – some descriptions recovering ½@1 per cent. From the lowest points.  The real cause of the decline is seen in the heavy fall in those stocks which were most affected by the belligerent attitude of England in the Mason & Slidell capture.  Pacific Mail, Erie, Old Stock Erie preferred and Michigan Central are most pressed for sale, being generally most sensitive to new foreign trouble.  Gold quiet and fluctuations from day to day have settled down to ½ percent.  Brokers buy at 1.08¾ and sell at 1.08½.  At the brokers’ board there is less doing in it.  The price is $1.03½ cash and $1.08½  buyers option.  Money market unchanged.  Supply good. 6 per cent. on all prime paper current.  5½ @ 6½ per cent. on foreign exchange.  Market closed steady.  A better inquiry is looked for by the Boston steamer on Tuesday, from importers, several heavy cargoes having within a few days arrived.  Best bills on London $1.13¼@1.13½.  There have been small sales of Treasury 73 10 notes at 2@2½  per cent. discount at the Board, and we have heard of private transactions at the same rates for the clear, and at about 3 percent for the endorsed bills.  The supply this week is apparently smaller.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport Iowa, Monday Morning, February 3, 1862, p. 1

A Straw

The day on which President Lincoln was inaugurated, March 4, 1861, U. S. six per cent. stocks sold at 92 1-2.  After increasing the public debt, which then stood at $76,455,000 to some $350,000,000, that same stock is now selling in the market at 94.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 29, 1862, p. 2

A Hopeful Sign

Wall street was jubilant on Saturday. When government sixes reached par, three rousing cheers were given by the Board of Brokers. Not only are some people’s pockets filled by this good news, but the hears of loyal men, everywhere, greatly cheered.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2