Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Saturday, May 9, 1863

Started again by stage for Munroe at 4.30 A.M. My companions were, the Mississippi planter, a mad dentist from New Orleans (called, by courtesy, doctor), an old man from Matagorda, buying slaves cheap in Louisiana, a wounded officer, and a wounded soldier.

The soldier was a very intelligent young Missourian, who told me (as others have) that, at the commencement of these troubles, both he and his family were strong Unionists. But the Lincolnites, by using coercion, had forced them to take one side or the other— and there are now no more bitter Secessionists than these people. This soldier (Mr Douglas) was on his way to rejoin Bragg's army. A Confederate soldier when wounded is not given his discharge, but is employed at such work as he is competent to perform. Mr Douglas was quite lame; but will be employed at mounted duties or at writing.

We passed several large and fertile plantations. The negro quarters formed little villages, and seemed comfortable: some of them held 150 or 200 hands. We afterwards drove through some beautiful pine forests, and were ferried across a beautiful shallow lake full of cypresses, but not the least like European cypress trees.

We met a number more planters driving their families, their slaves, and furniture, towards Texas — in fact, everything that they could save from the ruin that had befallen them on the approach of the Federal troops.

At 5 P.M. we reached a charming little town, called Mindon, where I met an English mechanic who deplored to me that he had been such a fool as to naturalise himself, as he was in hourly dread of the conscription.

I have at length become quite callous to many of the horrors of stage travelling. I no longer shrink at every random shower of tobacco-juice; nor do I shudder when good-naturedly offered a quid. I eat voraciously of the bacon that is provided for my sustenance, and I am invariably treated by my fellow travellers of all grades with the greatest consideration and kindness. Sometimes a man remarks that it is rather “mean” of England not to recognise the South; but I can always shut him up by saying, that a nation which deserves its independence should fight and earn it for itself — a sentiment which is invariably agreed to by all.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 83-4

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 5, 1861

Very warm, and no cold water, unless one went to the river. The hotel baths were not promising. This hotel is worse than the Mills House or Willard's. The feeding and the flies are intolerable. One of our party comes in to say that he could scarce get down to the hall on account of the crowd, and that all the people who passed him had very hard, sharp bones. He remarks thereupon to the clerk at the bar, who tells him that the particular projections he alludes to are implements of defence or offence, as the case may be, and adds, “I suppose you and your friends are the only people in the house who haven't a bowie-knife, or a six-shooter, or Derringer about them.” The house is full of Confederate congressmen, politicians, colonels, and place-men with or without places, and a vast number of speculators, contractors, and the like, attracted by the embryo government. Among the visitors are many filibusters, such as Henningsen, Pickett, Tochman, Wheat.¹ I hear a good deal about the association called the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Protestant association for securing the Gulf provinces and States, including— which has been largely developed by recent events — them in the Southern Confederacy, and creating them into an independent government.

Montgomery has little claims to be called a capital. The streets are very hot, unpleasant, and uninteresting. I have rarely seen a more dull, lifeless place; it looks like a small Russian town in the interior. The names of the shopkeepers indicate German and French origin. I looked in at one or two of the slave magazines, which are not unlike similar establishments in Cairo and Smyrna. A certain degree of freedom is enjoyed by some of the men, who lounge about the doors, and are careless of escape or liberty, knowing too well the difficulties of either.

It is not in its external aspects generally that slavery is so painful. The observer must go with Sterne, and gaze in on the captives’ dungeons through the bars. The condition of a pig in a sty is not, in an animal sense, anything but good. Well fed, over fed, covered from the winds and storms of heaven, with clothing, food, medicine, provided, children taken care of, aged relatives and old age itself succored and guarded — is not this——? Get thee behind us, slave philosopher! The hour comes when the butcher steals to the sty, and the knife leaps from the sheath.

Now there is this one thing in being an [ăvaέ ăvδpὣv¹] that be the race of men bad as it may, a kind of grandiose character is given to their leader. The stag which sweeps his rivals from his course is the largest of the herd; but a man who drives the largest drove of sheep is no better than he who drives the smallest. The flock he compels, must consist of human beings to develop the property of which I speak, and so the very superiority of the slave master in the ways and habits of command proves that the negro is a man. But, at the same time the law which regulates all these relations between man and his fellows, asserts itself here. The dominant race becomes dependent on some other body of men, less martial, arrogant, and wealthy, for its elegances, luxuries, and necessaries. The poor villeins round the Norman castle forge the armor, make the furniture, and exercise the mechanical arts which the baron and his followers are too ignorant and too proud to pursue; if there is no population to serve this purpose, some energetic race comes in their place, and the Yankee does the part of the little hungry Greek to the Roman patrician.

The South has at present little or no manufactures, takes everything from the Yankee outside or the mean white within her gates, and despises both. Both are reconciled by interest. The one gets a good price for his manufacture and the fruit of his ingenuity from a careless, spendthrift proprietor; the other hopes to be as good as his master some day, and sees the beginning of his fortune in the possession of a negro. It is fortunate for our great British Catherine-wheel, which is continually throwing off light and heat to the remotest parts of the world — I hope not burning down to a dull red cinder in the centre at last — that it had not to send its emigrants to the Southern States, as assuredly the emigration would soon have been checked. The United States has been represented to the British and Irish emigrants by the Free States — the Northern States and the great West — and the British and German emigrant who finds himself in the South, has drifted there through the Northern States, and either is a migratory laborer, or hopes to return with a little money to the North and West, if he does not see his way to the possession of land and negroes.

After dinner at the hotel table, which was crowded with officers, and where I met Mr. Howell Cobb and several senators of the new Congress, I spent the evening with Colonel Deas, Quartermaster-General, and a number of his staff, in their quarters. As I was walking over to the house, one of the detached villa-like residences so common in Southern cities, I perceived a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and women, in front of a plain brick building which I was informed was their Baptist meeting-house, into which white people rarely or never intrude. These were domestic servants, or persons employed in stores, and their general appearance indicated much comfort and even luxury. I doubted if they all were slaves. One of my companions went up to a young woman in a straw-hat, with bright red-and-green ribbon trimmings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and a rainbow-like gown, blown out over her yellow boots by a prodigious crinoline, and asked her “Whom do you belong to?” She replied, “I b'long to Massa Smith, sar.” Well, we have men who “belong” to horses in England. I am not sure if Americans, North and South, do not consider their superiority to all Englishmen so thoroughly established, that they can speak of them as if they were talking of inferior animals. To-night, for example, a gallant young South Carolinian, one Ransome Calhoun,³ was good enough to say that “Great Britain was in mortal fear of France, and was abjectly subdued by her great rival.” Hence came controversy, short and acrimonious

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¹ Since killed in action.

² This is as close of an approximation to the words printed in the original text as I could get.  Please see original text for the exact typography.

³ Since killed.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 164-7

Diary of William Howard Russell: April 25, 1861

Sent off my letters by an English gentleman, who was taking despatches from Mr. Bunch to Lord Lyons, as the post-office is becoming a dangerous institution. We hear of letters being tampered with on both sides. Adams's Express Company, which acts as a sort of express post under certain conditions, is more trustworthy; but it is doubtful how long communications will be permitted to exist between the two hostile nations, as they may now be considered.

Dined with Mr. Petigru, who had most kindly postponed his dinner party till my return from the plantations, and met there General Beauregard, Judge King, and others, among whom, distinguished for their esprit and accomplishments, were Mrs. King and Mrs. Carson, daughters of my host. The dislike, which seems innate, to New England is universal, and varies only in the form of its expression. It is quite true Mr. Petigru is a decided Unionist, but he is the sole specimen of the genus in Charleston, and he is tolerated on account of his rarity. As the witty, pleasant old man trots down the street, utterly unconscious of the world around him, he is pointed out proudly by the Carolinians as an instance of forbearance on their part, and as a proof, at the same time, of popular unanimity of sentiment.

There are also people who regret the dissolution of the Union — such as Mr. Huger, who shed tears in talking of it the other night; but they regard the fact very much as they would the demolition of some article which never can be restored and reunited, which was valued for the uses it rendered and its antiquity.

General Beauregard is apprehensive of an attack by the Northern “fanatics” before the South is prepared, and he considers they will carry out coercive measures most rigorously. He dreads the cutting of the levees, or high artificial works, raised along the whole course of the Mississippi, for many hundreds of miles above New Orleans, which the Federals may resort to in order to drown the plantations and ruin the planters.

We had a good-humored argument in the evening about the ethics of burning the Norfolk navy yard. The Southerners consider the appropriation of the arms, moneys, and stores of the United States as rightful acts, inasmuch as they represent, according to them, their contribution, or a portion of it, to the national stock in trade. When a State goes out of the Union she should be permitted to carry her forts, armaments, arsenals, &c, along with her, and it was a burning shame for the Yankees to destroy the property of Virginia at Norfolk. These ideas, and many like them, have the merit of novelty to English people, who were accustomed to think there were such things as the Union and the people of the United States.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 136-7

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: November 19, 1861

To-day Monsieur Paul, French Consul, applied in person for passports on behalf, I believe, of some French players (Zouaves) to Norfolk. Of course I declined granting them. He grew enthusiastic, and alleged that British subjects had enjoyed the privilege. He said he cared nothing for the parties applying in this instance; but he argued vehemently against British subjects being favored over French subjects. I sent a note concerning our interview to the Secretary; and while Monsieur Paul still sat in the office, the following reply came in from the Secretary: “All you need do is to say to the French Consul, when he calls, that you obey your instructions, and have no authority to discuss with him the rights of French subjects. J. P. B.” Monsieur Paul departed with “a flea in his ear.” But he received an invitation to dine with the Secretary to-day.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 94