Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: Tuesday, May 12, 1863

Last night I sat at this desk writing a letter to General Jackson, urging him to come up and stay with us, as soon as his wound would permit him to move. I went down stairs this morning early, with the letter in my hand, and was met by the overwhelming news that Jackson was dead! A telegram had been sent to Colonel Smith by a courier from Staunton. Doubt was soon thrown upon this by the arrival of some one from Richmond, who said he had left when the telegram did, and there was no such rumor in Richmond. So, between alternate hope and fear, the day passed. It was saddened by the bringing home of General Paxton's remains, and by his funeral. At five this evening the startling confirmation comes — Jackson is indeed dead! My heart overflows with sorrow. The grief in this community is intense; everybody is in tears. What a release from his weary two years' warfare! To be released into the blessedness and peace of heaven!  . . . How fearful the loss to the Confederacy! The people made an idol of him, and God has rebuked them. No more ready soul has ascended to the throne than was his. Never have I known a holier man. Never have I seen a human being as thoroughly governed by duty. He lived only to please God; his daily life was a daily offering up of himself. All his letters to Mr. F. and to me since the war began, have breathed the spirit of a saint. In his last letter to me he spoke of our precious Ellie, and of the blessedness of being with her in heaven. And now he has rejoined her, and together they unite in ascribing praises to Him who has redeemed them by his blood. Oh, the havoc death is making! The beautiful sky and the rich, perfumed spring air seemed darkened by oppressive sorrow. Who thinks or speaks of victory? The word is scarcely ever heard. Alas! Alas! When is the end to be?

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 164-5

John Lothrop Motley to Mary Benjamin Motley, Monday, July 22, 1861

Monday, July 22.

The battle was renewed yesterday at Bull Run, and, as I anticipated when I began this letter, the rebel batteries have been carried one after another, and the enemy beaten back to Manassas. A general engagement must now follow at once, unless they retreat toward Richmond. There is no need of my saying anything more, because the papers will give you, by telegraph to Halifax, later intelligence than I can possibly send. Perhaps the success which I now chronicle may not prove to be authentic. Yesterday Mr. William Dwight came over to Woodland Hill, and read us a couple of spirited letters from his son Wilder, major in the Massachusetts Second. It appears, as you will see in the papers, that Patterson has been superseded by Banks. This I hardly understand. Banks has great talent, and has generally succeeded in everything he has undertaken; but he is not an army man, and has had no experience in actual service. We are still in the dark here as to the important fact whether Johnston has retired from Winchester and effected his junction with Beauregard at Manassas, or whether he may still be cut off by the Patterson division moving from Charlestown. Of course you will get this information by Thursday's (25th) telegram to Halifax.

To their great disappointment, no doubt, Gordon's regiment has been detailed from the column to which it belonged, and has been sent from Charlestown to Harper's Ferry. It is a responsible and important duty, and the discipline and energy of this regiment were relied upon to quell all secession at so important a point in the rear, when the great advance was making into the heart of Virginia. But it is a great sell for Gordon and his comrades, for it keeps them for a time at a distance from the great scene of action. Wilder Dwight, in his letter, mentions cases in which the inhabitants of Martinsburg and its vicinity had been maltreated by the rebel army. After the occupation of the place by the Union troops, one evening, a farmer of the vicinity invited Gordon and his officers to supper. He said the rebels took from him and from all his neighbors everything they wanted, and paid nothing for them except receipts in the name of the Confederacy — and “there ain't any Confederacy,” he said. At Harper's Ferry he makes the same report. Women come in and tell of their husbands and sons having been impressed. Men complain of being driven from their homes, and of other maltreatment. And, in short, you have here, from an unimpeachable witness, evidence that, even in Eastern Virginia, the very hotbed of secession, the rebellion is not over-popular, and that the Stars and Stripes are hailed, by some of the inhabitants at least, as the symbols of deliverance from a reign of terror. I shall leave my letter open, in order to add a P. S. to-morrow.

P. S., July 23, 11:30 A. M.

Read this sheet first.

I have had half a dozen minds about sending you the foregoing pages. Since they were written the terrible defeat of Sunday evening has occurred. We are for the moment overwhelmed with gloom. I pity you and my children inexpressibly, to be alone there. On the whole, I have decided to send my letter as it stands. There is no doubt that our troops behaved admirably during the whole of Sunday; that they charged and carried battery after battery of rifled cannon; that the colonels of regiments led on their men on foot, rifle in hand, loading and firing like privates; that our men repeatedly crossed bayonets with the enemy and drove them off the field. This went on for nine hours. In the evening it appears that Johnston effected his junction with Beauregard, and then a panic, commenced by teamsters, together with reporters, members of Congress, and outsiders generally, who had no business on the field at all, was communicated to the troops, who fled in disorder. The accounts are very conflicting as to the behavior of our men after seven o'clock P. M. of Sunday.

There is no doubt that we have sustained a great defeat. The measure of our dishonor, which I thought last night so great as to make me hang my head forever, I cannot now thoroughly estimate. We must wait for the official reports, both as to the number of killed and wounded (which vary for our side from 4000 to 200!), and for the more important matter of deciding whether we have been utterly disgraced as well as defeated. In a brief note which I wrote early this morning I told you that I should send for you to come home immediately. I sympathize most deeply with your position. You have many kind friends — none can be kinder; but the situation admits of no consolation. Do not, however, believe the sensational reports which have harrowed us here yesterday. We were very much outnumbered; that is certain. We fought well the whole of the day, but we were outgeneraled and defeated aftr nine hours' hard fighting. Whether we have lost everything, even honor, cannot be decided for a few days. I shall try to write by the intermediate steamer, but certainly by the next Cunarder, this day week, and I will then let you know what I think you had best do. I don't feel now as if I could come into England again. Don't show this letter to any one. I hope you are not in London, and that you are with the Hugheses.

God bless you and my dear children.

Ever your affectionate

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 187-90

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, May 5, 1865

Richmond, Va., May 5, 1865.

It was intended we should march through the city to-day, but the condition of the men after their long march from Burksville, and the appearance of the weather, threatening a storm, the march was postponed till to-morrow. I think it will take us from eight to ten days to march across. I hope to be in Alexandria by the fourteenth or fifteenth. I have not seen anyone here except the Wises and Tuckers. I have heard of a great many people here whom I formerly knew, but besides my occupation, I have been indisposed to visit any of them, because I know they all feel bitter, and many are really in distress, which I am powerless to relieve.

Last evening Markoe Bache, who had been to see his friend Custis Lee, was told by him that his father, General Lee, would be glad to see me. I called there to-day and had a long talk with him. I endeavored to convince him of the expediency and propriety of his taking the oath of allegiance, not only on his own account, but for the great influence his example would have over others. General Lee said he had personally no objections, that he was willing, and intended to submit to the Constitution and laws of the United States, but that now he was a paroled prisoner of war, and he was unwilling to change his present status until he could form some idea of what the policy of the Government was going to be towards the people of the South. I argued with him that it was impossible for the Government to decide how they were to be treated, until it was satisfied they had returned to their allegiance, and that the only practicable way of showing this was by taking the oath. He admitted that the military power of the Confederacy had been destroyed, and that practically there was now no Confederate Government. The Government of the United States was the only one having power and authority, and those who designed living under it, should evince their determination by going through this necessary form. He also spoke a great deal of the status of the negro, which is really the great and formidable question of the day; but I did not devise any very practicable suggestions. I had a long and interesting talk, and left him, really sad to think of his position, his necessities, and the difficulties which surround him.

Lyman has sent me a Boston paper, with a very excellent article written by himself, which I will send you.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 278-9

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 20, 1865

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, April 20, 1865.

I am glad you were so prompt in putting your house in mourning for the loss of the President, and I am also glad to see the press in Philadelphia take so much notice of you.

Lyman,¹ much to my sorrow and regret, leaves me to-day, he considering the destruction of Lee's army as justifying his return home. Lyman is such a good fellow, and has been so intimately connected personally with me, that I feel his separation as the loss of an old and valued friend.

I have had for the last two days as guest at my headquarters Mr. Charles J. Faulkner, late Minister to France. He is on his way to Richmond, to assist in bringing back Virginia to the Union. He acknowledges the Confederacy destroyed, is in favor of a convention of the people to rescind the ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, and ask to be received into the Union. This is in my judgment the best course to be pursued. Mr. Faulkner goes from here to Richmond. We also had yesterday the arrival of a Confederate officer from Danville, who reported the rumored surrender of Johnston, and the flight of Jeff. Davis to the region beyond the Mississippi, from whence I have no doubt he will go into Mexico, and thence to Europe.

_______________

¹ Theodore Lyman, aide-de-camp to General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 274

John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, March 15, 1861

31 Hertford Street,

March 15, 1861.

My Dearest Mother:  . . . It is not for want of affection and interest, not from indolence, but I can hardly tell you how difficult it is to me to write letters. I pass as much of my time daily as I can at the State Paper Office, reading hard in the old MSS. there for my future volumes; and as the hours are limited there to from ten till four, I am not really master of my own time.

I am delighted to find that the success of the “United Netherlands” gives you and my father so much pleasure. It is by far the pleasantest reward for the hard work I have gone through to think that the result has given you both so much satisfaction. Not that I grudge the work, for, to say the truth, I could not exist without hard labor, and if I were compelled to be idle for the rest of my days, I should esteem it the severest affliction possible.

My deepest regret is that my work should be for the present on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Before leaving the subject of the new volumes, I should like to say that I regret that no one has sent me any of the numerous reviews and notices in the American papers and magazines to which you allude. I received a number of the New York “Times” from the governor, and also the “Courier,” containing notices. The latter, which was beautifully and sympathetically written, I ascribed to Hillard's pen, which I do not think I can mistake. If this be so, I hope you will convey my best thanks to him.

These are the only two which have been sent to me, and it is almost an impossibility for me to procure American newspapers here. Of course both Mary and Lily, as well as myself, would be pleased to see such notices, and it seems so easy to have a newspaper directed to 31 Hertford Street, with a three-cent stamp. Fortunately, I recently subscribed to the “Atlantic Monthly,'” and so received the March number, in which there is a most admirably written notice, although more complimentary than I deserve. It is with great difficulty that I can pick up anything of the sort, and I fear now that as the time passes it will be difficult for me to receive them from America.

The Harpers have not written to me, but I received a line from Tom showing that the book was selling very well considering the times. As to politics I shall not say a word, except that at this moment we are in profound ignorance as to what will be the policy of the new administration, how the inauguration business went off, and what was the nature of Mr. Lincoln's address, and how it was received, all which you at home at this moment have known for eleven days. I own that I can hardly see any medium between a distinct recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent foreign power, and a vigorous war to maintain the United States government throughout the whole country. But a war without an army means merely a general civil war, for the great conspiracy to establish the Southern Republic, concocted for twenty years, and brought to maturity by Mr. Buchanan's cabinet ministers, has, by that wretched creature's connivance and vacillation, obtained such consistency in these fatal three months of interregnum as to make it formidable. The sympathy of foreign powers, and particularly of England, on which the seceders so confidently relied to help them on in their plot, has not been extended to them. I know on the very highest authority and from repeated conversations that the English government looks with deepest regret on the dismemberment of the great American Republic. There has been no negotiation whatever up to this time of any kind, secret or open, with the secessionists. This I was assured of three or four days ago.  . . . At the same time, I am obliged to say that there has been a change, a very great change, in English sympathy since the passing of the Morrill Tariff Bill. That measure has done more than any commissioner from the Southern Republic could do to alienate the feelings of the English public toward the United States, and they are much more likely to recognize the Southern Confederacy at an early day than they otherwise would have done. If the tariff people had been acting in league with the secessionists to produce a strong demonstration in Europe in favor of the dissolution of the Union, they could not have managed better.

I hear that Lewis Stackpole is one of the most rising young lawyers of the day, that he is very popular everywhere, thought to have great talents for his profession, great industry, and that he is sure to succeed. You may well suppose with how much delight we hear such accounts of him.

My days are always spent in hard work, and as I never work at night, going out to dinners and parties is an agreeable and useful relaxation, and as I have the privilege of meeting often many of the most eminent people of our times, I should be very stupid if I did not avail myself of it; and I am glad that Lily has so good an opportunity of seeing much of the most refined and agreeable society in the world.

The only very distinguished literary person that I have seen of late for the first time is Dickens. I met him last week at a dinner at John Forster's. I had never even seen him before, for he never goes now into fashionable company. He looks about the age of Longfellow. His hair is not much grizzled and is thick, although the crown of his head is getting bald. His features are good, the nose rather high, the eyes largish, grayish, and very expressive. He wears a mustache and beard, and dresses at dinner in exactly the same uniform which every man in London or the civilized world is bound to wear, as much as the inmates of a penitentiary are restricted to theirs. I mention this because I had heard that he was odd and extravagant in his costume. I liked him exceedingly. We sat next each other at table, and I found him genial, sympathetic, agreeable, unaffected, with plenty of light, easy talk and touch-and-go fun without any effort or humbug of any kind. He spoke with great interest of many of his Boston friends, particularly of Longfellow, Wendell Holmes, Felton, Sumner, and Tom Appleton. I have got to the end of my paper, my dearest mother, and so, with love to the governor and A–––, and all the family great and small, I remain

Most affectionately your son,

J. L. M.

P. S. I forgot to say that another of Forster's guests was Wilkie Collins (the "Woman in White's" author). He is a little man, with black hair, a large white forehead, large spectacles, and small features. He is very unaffected, vivacious, and agreeable.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 117-21

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to John Lothrop Motley, February 16, 1861

Boston, February 16, 1861.

My Dear Motley: It is a pleasing coincidence for me that the same papers which are just announcing your great work are telling our little world that it can also purchase, if so disposed, my modest two-volume story. You must be having a respite from labor. You will smile when I tell you that I have my first vacation since you were with us, — when was it? in ’57? — but so it is. It scares me to look on your labors, when I remember that I have thought it something to write an article once a month for the “Atlantic Monthly”; that is all I have to show, or nearly all, for three and a half years, and in the meantime you have erected your monument, more perennial than bronze, in these two volumes of alto-relievo. I will not be envious, but I must wonder — wonder at the mighty toils undergone to quarry the ore before the mold could be shaped and the metal cast. I know you must meet your signal and unchallenged success with little excitement, for you know too well the price that has been paid for it. A man does not give away the best years of a manhood like yours without knowing that his plant has got to pay for his outlay. You have won the name and fame you must have foreseen were to be the accidents of your career. I hope, as you partake the gale with your illustrious brethren, you are well ballasted with those other accidents of successful authorship.

I am thankful for your sake that you are out of this wretched country. There was never anything in our experience that gave any idea of it before. Not that we have had any material suffering as yet. Our factories have been at work, and our dividends have been paid. Society — in Boston, at least — has been nearly as gay as usual. I had a few thousand dollars to raise to pay for my house in Charles Street, and sold my stocks for more than they cost me. We have had predictions, to be sure, that New England was to be left out in the cold if a new confederacy was formed, and that the grass was to grow in the streets of Boston. But prophets are at a terrible discount in these times, and, in spite of their predictions, Merrimac sells at 1125. It is the terrible uncertainty of everything — most of all the uncertainty of opinion of men. I had almost said of principles. From the impracticable abolitionist, as bent on total separation from the South as Carolina is on secession from the North, to the hunker, or submissionist, or whatever you choose to call the wretch who would sacrifice everything and beg the South's pardon for offending it, you find all shades of opinion in our streets. If Mr. Seward or Mr. Adams moves in favor of compromise, the whole Republican party sways like a field of grain before the breath of either of them. If Mr. Lincoln says he shall execute the laws and collect the revenue though the heavens cave in, the backs of the Republicans stiffen again, and they take down the old revolutionary king's arms, and begin to ask whether they can be altered to carry Minie bullets.

In the meantime, as you know very well, a monstrous conspiracy has been hatching for nobody knows how long, barely defeated in its first great move by two occurrences —Major Anderson's retreat to Fort Sumter, and the exposure of the great defalcations. The expressions of popular opinion in Virginia and Tennessee have encouraged greatly those who hope for union on the basis of a compromise; but this evening's news seems to throw doubt on the possibility of the North and the border States ever coming to terms; and I see in this same evening's paper the threat thrown out that if the Southern ports are blockaded fifty regiments will be set in motion for Washington! Nobody knows, everybody guesses. Seward seems to be hopeful. I had a long talk with Banks; he fears the formation of a powerful Southern military empire, which will give us trouble. Mr. Adams predicts that the Southern Confederacy will be an ignominious failure.

A Cincinnati pamphleteer, very sharp and knowing, shows how pretty a quarrel they will soon get up among themselves. There is no end to the shades of opinion. Nobody knows where he stands but Wendell Phillips and his out-and-outers. Before this political cataclysm we were all sailing on as quietly and harmoniously as a crew of your good Dutchmen in a trekschuit. The club has flourished greatly, and proved to all of us a source of the greatest delight. I do not believe there ever were such agreeable periodical meetings in Boston as these we have had at Parker's. We have missed you, of course, but your memory and your reputation were with us. The magazine which you helped to give a start to has prospered since its transfer to Ticknor and Fields. I suppose they may make something directly by it, and as an advertising medium it is a source of great indirect benefit to them. No doubt you will like to hear in a few words about its small affairs. I don't believe that all the Oxfords and Institutes can get the local recollections out of you. I suppose I have made more money and reputation out of it than anybody else, on the whole. I have written more than anybody else, at any rate. Miss Prescott's stories have made her quite a name. Wentworth Higginson's articles have also been very popular. Lowell's critical articles and political ones are always full of point, but he has been too busy as editor to write a great deal. As for the reputations that were toutes faites, I don't know that they have gained or lost a great deal by what their owners have done for the “Atlantic.” But oh, such a belaboring as I have had from the so-called “Evangelical” press for the last two or three years, almost without intermission! There must be a great deal of weakness and rottenness when such extreme bitterness is called out by such a good-natured person as I can claim to be in print. It is a new experience to me, but is made up by a great amount of sympathy from men and women, old and young, and such confidences and such sentimental épanchements that if my private correspondence is ever aired I shall pass for a more questionable personage than my domestic record can show me to have been.

Come, now, why should I talk to you of anything but yourself and that wonderful career of well-deserved and hardly won success which you have been passing through since I waved my handkerchief to you as you slid away from the wharf at East Boston? When you write to me, as you will one of these days, I want to know how you feel about your new possession, a European name. I should like very much, too, to hear something of your every-day experiences of English life, how you like the different classes of English people you meet — the scholars, the upper class, and the average folk that you may have to deal with. You know that, to a Bostonian, there is nothing like a Bostonian's impression of a new people or mode of life. We all carry the Common in our heads as the unit of space, the State House as the standard of architecture, and measure off men in Edward Everetts as with a yardstick. I am ashamed to remember how many scrolls of half an hour's scribblings we might have exchanged with pleasure on one side, and very possibly with something of it on the other. I have heard so much of Miss Lily's praises that I should be almost afraid of her if I did not feel sure that she would inherit a kindly feeling to her father and mother's old friend. Do remember me to your children; and as for your wife, who used to be Mary once, and I have always found it terribly hard work to make anything else of, tell her how we all long to see her good, kind face again. Give me some stray half-hour, and believe me always your friend,

O. W. Holmes

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 113-7

Major-General George G. Meade to John Sergeant Meade,* November 17, 1864

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, November 17, 1864.

Well, the election is over, and nobody hurt. In the army it passed off very quietly, Mr. Lincoln receiving two votes to McClellan's one. This result was fully anticipated by me—indeed, McClellan's vote was larger than I expected.

The election being over, it is now to be hoped the earnest attention and best energies of the Government and people will be devoted to raising and sending men enough so to swell our armies that our onward movement will be irresistible, and the Confederacy convinced that further resistance is useless. There are significant signs that our enemies are beginning to feel the exhaustion and effects of a three years' war. Among these the most important is the proposition of Mr. Davis to arm forty thousand slaves, who are to receive their freedom as a boon for faithful services. They are to be employed, it is ingeniously said, as engineer troops, and to act as a reserve to be called on in an emergency. This is a plausible disguise, to sound the temper of the Southern people on the question of arming and freeing the slaves. Nothing but the conviction of the necessity of this measure could ever have justified its enunciation. It has produced the most violent discussions pro and con in the Southern journals, and bids fair to be as great a firebrand with them as it has been with us. My own judgment is it will be abandoned, for although the number as yet is fixed at forty thousand, as a test, to see if the negroes can be relied on and will fight, I believe that the experiment will prove that the arming the slaves is more dangerous to the Confederacy than to us. I have no doubt that many will be faithful to their masters, but the great body will, after being armed, desert to us or go back to their homes. Now, in view of the position the South has always taken on this subject the change of ground can only be attributed to desperation, and a conviction that the war in its present gigantic proportions cannot much longer be carried on by the whites at the South. Should this theory be correct, the end cannot be far distant, when we have such armies in the field, as we ought to and I hope soon will have.

I have recently picked up a story in verse by Owen Meredith, called “Lucille.” I don't suppose you are well enough to read a great deal. The story is quite interesting, and told with much pathos, though I don't think the poetry very superior.

We have recently had an influx of John Bulls in the form of officers and others. You would have been delighted to see the admirable display of whiskers, fine clothes, etc. An amusing incident occurred with Rosencrantz, who was showing a couple of them our lines. On finding him a foreigner, they were delighted and said, now you can tell us what the American officers really think of us. “Veil,” said Rosey, “they no like you, they say, ‘ven this war be over they vill take Canada.’” “God bless me, you don’t say so,” they exclaimed, and did not ask Rosey any more questions of this nature. Approaching a part of the lines, where it was dangerous from sharpshooters, Rosey said they had better not go, but they pooh-poohed him, and he started on. Pretty soon the balls began to fly pretty thick and close, when they changed their mind, expostulated, and finally begged Rosey to turn back, but he had his dander up and replied, “No, ve vill go on, ve vill go on,” and go on he did, and return, fortunately without any one being hit.

_______________

* Son of General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 242-4

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 1, 1861

Troops are coming in from all directions, cavalry and infantry; but I learn that none scarcely are accepted by the State. This is great political economy, with a vengeance! How is Gov. Letcher to be ready to fight in a few days? Oh, perhaps he thinks the army will spontaneously spring into existence, march without transportation, and fight without rations or pay! But the Convention has passed an act authorizing the enlistment of a regular army of 12,000 men. If I am not mistaken, Virginia will have to put in the field ten times that number, and the confederacy will have to maintain 500,000 in Virginia, or lose the border States. And if the border States be subjugated, Mr. Seward probably would grant a respite to the rest for a season.

But by the terms of the (Tyler and Stephens) treaty, the Confederate States will reimburse Virginia for all her expenses; and therefore I see no good reason why this State, of all others, being the most exposed, should not muster into service every well-armed company that presents itself. There are arms enough for 25,000 men now, and that number, if it be too late to take Washington, might at all events hold this side of the Potomac, and keep the Yankees off the soil of Virginia.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 30

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 25, 1861

Ex-President Tyler and Vice-President Stephens are negotiating a treaty which is to ally Virginia to the Confederate States.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 27

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 12, 1861

To-day I beheld the first secession flag that had met my vision. It was at Polecat Station, Caroline County, and it was greeted with enthusiasm by all but the two or three Yankees in the train. One of these, named Tupps, had been questioned so closely, and his presence and nativity had become so well known, that he became alarmed for his safety, although no one menaced him. He could not sit still a moment, nor keep silence. He had been speculating in North Carolina the year before, and left some property there, which, of course, he must save, if needs be, at the risk of his life. But he cared nothing for slavery, and would never bear arms against the South, if she saw fit to “set up Government business for herself.” He rather guessed war was a speculation that wouldn't pay. His volubility increased with his perturbation, and then he drank excessively and sang Dixie. When we reached Richmond, he was beastly drunk.

Arrived at the Exchange Hotel, Richmond. A storm rages above, and below in the minds of men; but the commotion of the elements above attracts less attention than the tempest of excitement agitating the human breast. The news-boys are rushing in all directions with extras announcing the bombardment of Fort Sumter! This is the irrevocable blow! Every reflecting mind here should know that the only alternatives now are successful revolution or abject subjugation. But they do not lack for the want of information of the state of public sentiment in the North. It is in vain that the laggards are assured by persons just from the North, that the Republican leaders now composing the cabinet at Washington were prepared to hail the event at Charleston as the most auspicious that could have happened for the accomplishment of their designs; and that their purpose is the extinction of slavery, at least in the border States; the confiscation of the estates of rebels to reimburse the Federal Government for the expenses of the war which had been deliberately resolved on; and to gratify the cupidity of the “Wide-Awakes,” and to give employment to foreign mercenaries.

But it is not doubtful which course the current of feeling is rapidly taking. Even in this hitherto Union city, secession demonstrations are prevalent; and the very men who two days ago upheld Gov. Letcher in his conservatism, are now stricken dumb amid the popular clamor for immediate action. I am now resolved to remain in Richmond for a season.

After tea I called upon Gov. Wise, who occupied lodgings at the same hotel. He was worn out, and prostrated by a distressing cough which threatened pneumonia. But ever and anon his eagle eye assumed its wonted brilliancy. He was surrounded by a number of his devoted friends, who listened with rapt attention to his surpassing eloquence. A test question, indicative of the purpose of the Convention to adjourn without action, had that day been carried by a decided majority. The governor once rose from his recumbent position on the sofa and said, whatever the majority of Union men in the Convention might do, or leave undone, Virginia must array herself on one side or the other. She must fight either Lincoln or Davis. If the latter, he would renounce her, and tender his sword and his life to the Southern Confederacy. And although it was apparent that his physique was reduced, as he said, to a mere “bag of bones,” yet it was evident that his spirit yet struggled with all its native fire and animation.

Soon after President Tyler came in. I had not seen him for several years, and was surprised to find him, under the weight of so many years, unchanged in activity and energy of body and mind. He was quite as ardent in his advocacy of prompt State action as Wise. Having recently abandoned the presidency of the Peace Congress at Washington, in despair of obtaining concessions or guarantees of safety from the rampant powers then in the ascendency, he nevertheless believed, as did a majority of the statesmen of the South, that, even then, in the event of the secession of all the Southern States, presenting thus a united front, no war of great magnitude would ensue. I know better, from my residence in the North, and from the confessions of the Republicans with whom I have been thrown in contact; but I will not dissent voluntarily from the opinions of such statesmen. I can only, when my opinion is desired, intimate my conviction that a great war of the sections might have been averted, if the South had made an adequate coup d'etat before the inauguration of Lincoln, and while the Democratic party everywhere was yet writhing under the sting and mortification of defeat. Then the arm of the Republican party would have been paralyzed, for the attitude of the Democratic party would at least have been a menacing one; but now, the Government has been suffered to fall into the possession of the enemy, the sword and the purse have been seized, and it is too late to dream of peace — in or out of the Union. Submission will be dishonor. Secession can only be death, which is preferable.

Gov. Wise, smiling, rose again and walked to a corner of the room where I had noticed a bright musket with a sword-bayonet attached. He took it up and criticised the sword as inferior to the knife. Our men would require long drilling to become expert with the former, like the French Zouaves; but they instinctively knew how to wield the bowie-knife. The conversation turning upon the probable deficiency of a supply of improved arms in the South, if a great war should ensue, the governor said, with one of his inevitable expressions of feeling, that it was not the improved arm, but the improved man, which would win the day. Let brave men advance with flint locks and old-fashioned bayonets, on the popinjays of the Northern cities — advance on, and on, under the fire, reckless of the slain, and he would answer for it with his life, that the Yankees would break and run. But, in the event of the Convention adjourning without decisive action, he apprehended the first conflict would be with Virginians — the Union men of Virginia. He evidently despaired, under repeated defeats, of seeing an ordinance of secession passed immediately, and would have preferred “resistance” to “secession.”

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 16-18

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 19, 1861

MONTGOMERY, Ala., – The brand-new Confederacy is making or remodeling its Constitution. Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be General-in-Chief or President. Keitt and Boyce and a party preferred Howell Cobb¹ for President. And the fire-eaters per se wanted Barnwell Rhett.

My brother Stephen brought the officers of the “Montgomery Blues” to dinner. “Very soiled Blues,” they said, apologizing for their rough condition. Poor fellows! they had been a month before Fort Pickens and not allowed to attack it. They said Colonel Chase built it, and so were sure it was impregnable. Colonel Lomax telegraphed to Governor Moore² if he might try to take it, “Chase or no Chase,” and got for his answer, “No.” “And now,'” say the Blues, “we have worked like niggers, and when the fun and fighting begin, they send us home and put regulars there.” They have an immense amount of powder. The wheel of the car in which it was carried took fire. There was an escape for you! We are packing a hamper of eatables for them.

I am despondent once more. If I thought them in earnest because at first they put their best in front, what now? We have to meet tremendous odds by pluck, activity, zeal, dash, endurance of the toughest, military instinct. We have had to choose born leaders of men who could attract love and secure trust. Everywhere political intrigue is as rife as in Washington.Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh that he could “toil terribly” was an electric touch. Above all, let the men who are to save South Carolina be young and vigorous. While I was reflecting on what kind of men we ought to choose, I fell on Clarendon, and it was easy to construct my man out of his portraits. What has been may be again, so the men need not be purely ideal types.

Mr. Toombs³ told us a story of General Scott and himself. He said he was dining in Washington with Scott, who seasoned every dish and every glass of wine with the eternal refrain, “Save the Union; the Union must be preserved.” Toombs remarked that he knew why the Union was so dear to the General, and illustrated his point by a steamboat anecdote, an explosion, of course. While the passengers were struggling in the water a woman ran up and down the bank crying, “Oh, save the red-headed man!” The red-headed man was saved, and his preserver, after landing him noticed with surprise how little interest in him the woman who had made such moving appeals seemed to feel. He asked her, “Why did you make that pathetic outcry?” She answered, “Oh, he owes me ten thousand dollars.” “Now, General,” said Toombs, “the Union owes you seventeen thousand dollars a year!” I can imagine the scorn on old Scott's face.

______________

¹A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served in Congress, and in 1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor of Georgia, and in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's Administration. In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional Congress which adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided over each of its four sessions.

² Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama in 1859. In 1861, before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United States forts and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State troops.

³ Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early acquired fame as a lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became known in 1842 as a “State Rights_Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he was active in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the United States Senate from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced advocate of the sovereignty of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. He was a member of the Confederate Congress at its first session and, by a single vote, failed of election as President of the Confederacy. After the war, he was conspicuous for his hostility to the Union.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 6-8

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 8, 1861

Burlington, New Jersey.—The expedition sails to-day from New York. Its purpose is to reduce Fort Moultrie, Charleston harbor, and relieve Fort Sumter, invested by the Confederate forces. Southern born, and editor of the Southern Monitor, there seems to be no alternative but to depart immediately. For years the Southern Monitor, Philadelphia, whose motto was “The Union as it was, the Constitution as it is,” has foreseen and foretold the resistance of the Southern States, in the event of the success of a sectional party inimical to the institution of African slavery, upon which the welfare and existence of the Southern people seem to depend. And I must depart immediately; for I well know that the first gun fired at Fort Sumter will be the signal for an outburst of ungovernable fury, and I should be seized and thrown into prison.

I must leave my family — my property — everything. My family cannot go with me — but they may follow. The storm will not break in its fury for a month or so. Only the most obnoxious persons, deemed dangerous, will be molested immediately.

8 O'clock P.m. — My wife and children have been busy packing my trunk, and making other preparations for my departure. They are cheerful. They deem the rupture of the States a fait accompli, but reck not of the horrors of war. They have contrived to pack up, with other things, my fine old portrait of Calhoun, by Jarvis. But I must leave my papers, the accumulation of twenty-five years, comprising thousands of letters from predestined rebels. My wife opposes my suggestion that they be burned. Among them are some of the veto messages of President Tyler, and many letters from him, Governor Wise, etc. With the latter I had a correspondence in 1856, showing that this blow would probably have been struck then, if Fremont had been elected.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 13-4

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, March 5, 1861

Shady Hill, 5 March, 1861.

Is it not a great satisfaction to have the dignity and force of the government once more asserted? To feel that there are strong and honest hands to hold it, in place of the feeble and false ones which for four months past have let it fall?

Lincoln's Inaugural is just what might have been expected from him, and falls but little short of what might have been desired. It is manly and straightforward; it is strong and plain enough to afford what is so greatly needed, a base upon which the sentiments of the uncorrupted part of the Northern people can find firm ground; and from which their course of action can take direction. But what will the seceded States say about it — still more, what will they do? I incline to believe that they will not try violence, and that their course as an independent Confederacy is nearly at an end.

Congress could not have done less harm than it has done in passing the proposal for a Constitutional Amendment.¹ I am sorry that Lincoln should have volunteered any approbation of the proposal, — though I have little fear that the Amendment can be adopted by a sufficient number of States to make it part of the Constitution. I do not wish to bind the future. I fully adopt the principle in regard to “domestic institutions” (what a euphuistic people about slavery we are!) of the Republican platform, but I do not want Congress bound never to pass laws to prevent the internal Slave Trade. Let Slavery alone in each state, — very well; but let us not promise never to try to stop Virginia from being nothing but a breeding ground of slaves.

The first act of this great play of Destruction of the Union has ended well. It seems now as if before the play were ended it would be generally found out that, as you and I have believed from the beginning, its proper name is, Destruction of the Slave Power.

When the history of American Slavery is written its open decline and fall will be dated from the day in which the South Carolina Declaration of Independence was signed. . . .

_______________

¹ The Thirteenth Amendment as proposed by Congress in 1861, and approved by Lincoln in his inaugural address, forbade the passage of any amendment empowering Congress “to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” As adopted and declared in force before the end of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 219-20

John Lothrop Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, March 15, 1861

31, Hertford Street,

March 15th, 1861.

My Deaeest Mother, — . . . . . It is not for want of affection and interest, not from indolence, but I can hardly tell you how difficult it is to me to write letters. I pass as much of my time daily as I can at the State Paper Office, reading hard in the old MSS. there for my future volumes; and as the hours are limited there to from ten till four, I am not really master of my own time.

I am delighted to find that the success of the “United Netherlands” gives you and my father so much pleasure. It is by far the pleasantest reward for the hard work I have gone through to think that the result has given you both so much satisfaction. Not that I grudge the work, for, to say the truth, I could not exist without hard labour, and if I were compelled to be idle for the rest of my days, I should esteem it the severest affliction possible.

My deepest regret is that my work should be for the present on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Before leaving the subject of the new volumes, I should like to say that I regret that no one has sent me any of the numerous reviews and notices in the American papers and magazines to which you allude. I received a number of the New York Times from the governor, and also the Courier, containing notices. The latter, which was beautifully and sympathetically written, I ascribed to Hillard's pen, which I do not think I can mistake. If this be so, I hope you will convey my best thanks to him.

These are the only two which have been sent to me, and it is almost an impossibility for me to procure American newspapers here. Of course both Mary and Lily, as well as myself, would be pleased to see such notices, and it seems so easy to have a newspaper directed to 31, Hertford Street, with a three cent stamp. Fortunately I recently subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly, and so received the March number, in which there is a most admirably written notice, although more complimentary than I deserve. It is with great difficulty that I can pick up anything of the sort, and I fear now that as the time passes it will be difficult for me to receive them from America.

The Harpers have not written to me, but I received a line from Tom showing that the book was selling very well considering the times. As to politics, I shall not say a word, except that at this moment we are in profound ignorance as to what will be the policy of the new administration, how the inauguration business went off, and what was the nature of Mr. Lincoln's address, and how it was received, all which you at home at this moment have known for eleven days. I own that I can hardly see any medium between a distinct recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent foreign power, and a vigorous war to maintain the United States Government throughout the whole country. But a war without an army means merely a general civil war, for the great conspiracy to establish the Southern Republic, concocted for twenty years, and brought to maturity by Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet Ministers, has, by that wretched creature's connivance and vacillation, obtained such consistency in these fatal three months of interregnum as to make it formidable. The sympathy of foreign powers, and particularly of England, on which the seceders so confidently relied to help them on in their plot, has not been extended to them. I know on the very highest authority and from repeated conversations that the English Government looks with deepest regret on the dismemberment of the great American Republic. There has been no negotiation whatever up to this time of any kind, secret or open, with the secessionists. This I was assured of three or four days ago. At the same time I am obliged to say that there has been a change, a very great change, in English sympathy since the passing of the Morrill Tariff Bill. That measure has done more than any commissioner from the Southern Republic could do to alienate the feelings of the English public towards the United States, and they are much more likely to recognise the Southern Confederacy at an early day than they otherwise would have done. If the tariff people had been acting in league with the secessionists to produce a strong demonstration in Europe in favour of the dissolution of the Union, they could not have managed better.

I hear that Lewis Stackpole is one of the most rising young lawyers of the day, that he is very popular everywhere, thought to have great talents for his profession, great industry, and that he is sure to succeed. You may well suppose with how much delight we hear such accounts of him.

My days are always spent in hard work, and as I never work at night, going out to dinners and parties is an agreeable and useful relaxation, and as I have the privilege of meeting often many of the most eminent people of our times, I should be very stupid if I did not avail myself of it; and I am glad that Lily has so good an opportunity of seeing much of the most refined and agreeable society in the world.

The only very distinguished literary person that I have seen of late for the first time is Dickens. I met him last week at a dinner at John Forster's. I had never even seen him before, for he never goes now into fashionable company. He looks about the age of Longfellow. His hair is not much grizzled and is thick, although the crown of his head is getting bald. His features are good, the nose rather high, the eyes largish, greyish and very expressive. He wears a moustache and beard, and dresses at dinner in exactly the same uniform which every man in London or the civilised world is bound to wear, as much as the inmates of a penitentiary are restricted to theirs. I mention this because I had heard that he was odd and extravagant in his costume. I liked him exceedingly. We eat next each other at table, and I found him genial, sympathetic, agreeable, unaffected, with plenty of light easy talk and touch-and-go fun without any effort or humbug of any kind. He spoke with great interest of many of his Boston friends, particularly of Longfellow, Wendell Holmes, Felton, Sumner, and Tom Appleton.

I have got to the end of my paper, my dearest mother, and so with love to the governor and A––, and all the family great and small, I remain,

Most affectionately your son,

J. L. M.

P.S. — I forgot to say that another of Forster's guests was Wilkie Collins (the “Woman in White's” author). He is a little man, with black hair, a large white forehead, large spectacles, and small features. He is very unaffected, vivacious, and agreable.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Volume 1, p. 362-5

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to John Lothrop Motley

Boston, February 16th, 1861.

My Dear Motley,—It is a pleasing coincidence for me that the same papers which are just announcing your great work are telling our little world that it can also purchase, if so disposed, my modest two volume story. You must be having a respite from labour. You will smile when I tell you that I have my first vacation since you were with us — when was it? in ’57? — but so it is. It scares me to look on your labours, when I remember that I have thought it something to write an article once a month for the Atlantic Monthly; that is all I have to show, or nearly all, for three and a half years, and in the meantime you have erected your monument more perennial than bronze in these two volumes of alto relievo. I will not be envious, but I must wonder — wonder at the mighty toils undergone to quarry the ore before the mould could be shaped and the metal cast. I know you must meet your signal and unchallenged success with little excitement, for you know too well the price that has been paid for it. A man does not give away the best years of a manhood like yours without knowing that his planet has got to pay for his outlay. You have won the name and fame you must have foreseen were to be the accidents of your career. I hope, as you partake the gale with your illustrious brethren, you are well ballasted with those other accidents of successful authorship.

I am thankful for your sake that you are out of this wretched country. There was never anything in our experience that gave any idea of it before. Not that we have had any material suffering as yet. Our factories have been at work, and our dividends have been paid. Society — in Boston, at least — has been nearly as gay as usual. I had a few thousand dollars to raise to pay for my house in Charles Street, and sold my stocks for more than they cost me. We have had predictions, to be sure, that New England was to be left out in the cold if a new confederacy was formed, and that the grass was to grow in the streets of Boston. But prophets are at a terrible discount in these times, and, in spite of their predictions, Merrimac sells at 1125. It is the terrible uncertainty of everything — most of all the uncertainty of opinion of men. I had almost said of principles. From the impracticable Abolitionist, as bent on total separation from the South as Carolina is on secession from the North, to the Hunker, or Submissionist, or whatever you choose to call the wretch who would sacrifice everything and beg the South's pardon for offending it, you find all shades of opinion in our streets. If Mr. Seward or Mr. Adams moves in favour of compromise, the whole Republican party sways like a field of grain before the breath of either of them. If Mr. Lincoln says he shall execute the laws and collect the revenue though the heavens cave in, the backs of the Republicans stiffen again, and they take down the old revolutionary king's arms, and begin to ask whether they can be altered to carry minie bullets.

In the meantime, as you know very well, a monstrous conspiracy has been hatching for nobody knows how long, barely defeated in its first great move by two occurrences — Major Anderson's retreat to Fort Sumter, and the exposure of the great defalcations. The expressions of popular opinion in Virginia and Tennessee have encouraged greatly those who hope for union on the basis of a compromise; but this evening's news seems to throw doubt on the possibility of the North and the Border States ever coming to terms; and I see in this same evening's paper the threat thrown out that if the Southern ports are blockaded, fifty regiments will be set in motion for Washington! Nobody knows, everybody guesses. Seward seems to be hopeful. I had a long talk with Banks; he fears the formation of a powerful Southern military empire, which will give us trouble. Mr. Adams predicts that the Southern Confederacy will be an ignominious failure.

A Cincinnati pamphleteer, very sharp and knowing, shows how pretty a quarrel they will soon get up among themselves. There is no end to the shades of opinion. Nobody knows where he stands but Wendell Phillips and his out-and-outers. Before this political cataclysm we were all sailing on as quietly and harmoniously as a crew of your good Dutchmen in a treckschuyt. The Club has flourished greatly, and proved to all of us a source of the greatest delight. I do not believe there ever were such agreeable periodical meetings in Boston as these we have had at Parker's. We have missed you, of course, but your memory and your reputation were with us. The magazine which you helped to give a start to has prospered since its transfer to Ticknor and Fields. I suppose they may make something directly by it, and as an advertising medium it is a source of great indirect benefit to them. No doubt you will like to hear in a few words about its small affairs. I don't believe that all the Oxfords and Institutes can get the local recollections out of you. I suppose I have made more money and reputation out of it than anybody else, on the whole. I have written more than anybody else, at any rate. Miss Prescott's stories have made her quite a name. Wentworth Higginson's articles have also been very popular. Lowell's critical articles and political ones are always full of point, but he has been too busy as editor to write a great deal. As for the reputations that were toutes faites, I don't know that they have gained or lost a great deal by what their owners have done for the Atlantic. But oh! such a belabouring as I have had from the so-called “Evangelical” press for the last two or three years, almost without intermission! There must be a great deal of weakness and rottenness when such extreme bitterness is called out by such a good-natured person as I can claim to be in print. It is a new experience to me, but is made up by a great amount of sympathy from men and women, old and young, and such confidences and such sentimental épanchements, that if my private correspondence is ever aired, I shall pass for a more questionable personage than my domestic record can show me to have been.

Come now, why should I talk to you of anything but yourself and that wonderful career of well-deserved and hardly-won success which you have been passing through since I waved my handkerchief to you as you slid away from the wharf at East Boston? When you write to me, as you will one of these days, I want to know how you feel about your new possession, a European name. I should like very much, too, to hear something of your everyday experiences of English life, — how you like the different classes of English people you meet—the scholars, the upper class, and the average folk that you may have to deal with. You know that, to a Bostonian, there is nothing like a Bostonian's impression of a new people or mode of life. We all carry the Common in our heads as the unit of space, the State House as the standard of architecture, and measure off men in Edward Everetts as with a yard-stick. I am ashamed to remember how many scrolls of half-an-hour's scribblings we might have exchanged with pleasure on one side, and very possibly with something of it on the other. I have heard so much of Miss Lily's praises, that I should be almost afraid of her if I did not feel sure that she would inherit a kindly feeling to her father and mother's old friend. Do remember me to your children; and as for your wife, who used to be Mary once, and I have always found it terribly hard work to make anything else of, tell her how we all long to see her good, kind face again. Give me some stray half-hour, and believe me always your friend,

O. W. Holmes

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Volume 1, p. 359-62

Major-General Thomas J. Jackson to Rev. Dr. Robert H. Morrison, March 28, 1863

Near Fredericksburg. March 28th, 1863.

Rev. Dr. R. H. Morrison:

Dear Sir, — Knowing that you take a deep interest in the progress of the church, I write to say that on yesterday the proclamation of our President for a day of humiliation and prayer received in the army a more general response than I have seen on any similar occasion since the beginning of the war.  . . . It was arranged among the chaplains that each one of them should preach twice yesterday — once to their own troops, and once to other troops, thus giving an opportunity of having the Gospel preached as extensively as practicable. I trust that yesterday was a solemn day throughout the Confederacy, and hope its good fruits will be abundant, and that God in His mercy will give us a speedy peace, so marked by His interposing hand that all shall recognize and acknowledge it as His gift.

I feel a deep interest in seeing a Christian daily paper established. I believe there is not a single daily paper in the country but which violates the Sabbath by printing on that holy day for its Monday's issue. I have thought upon this subject for several years, and it appears to me that now is a good time to start such a paper whilst our country is in trouble, and is looking to God for assistance. How can we consistently ask God to bless us when we continue to encourage, for the gratification of curiosity, a disregard for His holy law? Such a paper as it appears to me is demanded would give us as early news as is at present received at the printing-office on Sunday, as the paper, which would be mailed on Monday, would be printed on Saturday instead of Sunday. If such a paper could be established, it might be the means of influencing the future course of our country. What do you think of such an undertaking?

Very truly yours,

T. J. Jackson.

SOURCE: Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), p. 401-2

Jackson and Calhoun --- A Striking Picture

A scene at the White House in 1833, at the lodging of John C. Calhoun the same night, and death-bead scene at the Hermitage, were this graphically portrayed by Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, in the debate on the Confiscation Bill.  It is a very striking picture:–

MR. PRESIDENT:– If Calhoun had been executed for his treason in 1833, there would have been no rebellion now; and perhaps he came nearer his execution than most people are aware.  You will know the conspirators in South Carolina proceeded to the commission of the overt act.

Calhoun was the chief adviser.  General Jackson knew it well, and determined that the law should be put in execution against him; not against the poor misguided men that followed, but against the chief conspirator.  He had resolved on his prosecution and trial, and if convicted, his execution for treason.  He said that if he had an Attorney General that would not draw an indictment, he would find one that would.  Things were approaching the crisis.  Calhoun became aware of Jackson’s determination, and sent Letcher of Kentucky to confer with him on the subject, and to learn his real intentions.  He went to the President’s house.  It was already late at night.  The President received him with his usual courtesy; but, sir, that mild blue eye, which at times would fill with tears and overflow like that of a woman, was kindled up that night with unwonted fire.    He reasoned with him for a while, then paced the floor.  His indignation became fully aroused.  At times he stormed in passion towering and sublime, till rising in passion to is full height, his frame dilating and quivering, every feature flowing with the living fire within, with that oath which in him never seemed profane, but the struggle of a great soul to take hold of the Almighty for the strength of his purpose, he declared to Letcher that if another step was taken, by the Eternal, he would try Calhoun for treason, and if convicted, he would hang him on a gallows as high as Haman’s.

Letcher could not misunderstand his purpose.  He saw that he was terrible in earnest.  From that interview he hastened to the lodgings of Calhoun.  He had retired to his bed.

He knocked at his bed chamber and was admitted.  Calhoun received him sitting up in bed, with his cloak around him – Letcher detailed all that occurred, giving the entire conversation between him and Jackson and described the old hero as he took that oath.

There sat Calhoun, drinking in eagerly every word, and as Letcher proceeded, he became pale as death, and trembled like an aspen leaf.  Yes, sir, Calhoun, great as he was in intellect, quaked in his bed!  And for what?  Was it from fear or cowardice?  Ah, no.  It was the consciousness of guilt.  He was the arch traitor, who, like Satan in Paradise, brought death into the world and all our woe.  Within one week he came into the Senate, and voted for every section of Mr. Clay’s bill and Gen. Jackson was prevailed upon not to prosecute him for his crime.

I have been told, upon authority upon which I rely, that during the last days of Gen. Jackson at the Hermitage he was slowly sinking under the ravages of consumption – that mysterious disease, which while it wastes the body, leaves, if possible, the mind more clear, and nearer to inspiration – he had a conversation with his family physician and friend.

While lying upon his bed one day, and speaking of his past Administration, he inquired:

What act in my Administration, in your opinion, will posterity condemn with the greatest severity?

The Physician replied that he was unable to answer – that it might be the removal of the deposits.

Oh, no! said the General.

Then it may be the specie Circular?

Not at all!

What is it, then?

I can tell you, said he, rising up in his bed, his eyes kindaling up:  I can tell you.  Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act of my life.

Sir, does not this seen inspiration now?  If Calhoun, the originator of the conspiracy to dissolve the Union, and to build up the Southern Confederacy, had been executed for his reason, we would have had now rebellion now.

The greater part of the whole country which formerly produced the sea island cotton is now thoroughly restored to the Union.  The laborers are there – the soil and climate.  It needs only assurance of protection to revive the cultivation of the staple, as well as to produce vast quantities of corn and forage for our troops.  Since this war must be conducted by marches and battles and sieges, why neglect the best means to make them successful and their results permanent?  It is worthy of notice that thus far the portions of territory which once recovered we have most firmly held, are precisely those in which the greatest proportion of colored men are found.  By their assistance, our armies will be able permanently to operate in and occupy the country; and in labor for the army, in raising its and their own supplies, full occupation can be given them, and with this there will be neither occasion or temptation to them to emigrate to a northern and less congenial climate.

Judging by experience, no colored man will leave his home.  All possibility of competition from negro labor in the North is avoided in giving colored men protection and employment upon the soil which they have thus far cultivated, and the right to which has been vacated by the original proprietors, deeply involved in the crimes of treason and rebellion.  No great territory has been permanently reduced without depriving the leaders of its people of their land and property.  It is these that give power and influence.  Few men have commanding genius and talent to exercise dangerous influences over their fellow men without the adventitious aid of Money and property.  By striking down this system of compulsory labor which enables the leaders of the rebellion to control the resources of the people, the rebellion would die of itself.

– Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, October 17, 1862, p. 1.  The bottom of this page of the newspaper was torn diagonally from the lower left to the middle of the right.  This article was also published in the Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph, Ashtabula, Ohio, Saturday Morning, December 27, 1862, p. 1, and I have relied heavily on it to reconstruct this Union Sentinel article.