Senator James W. Grimes to E. H. Stiles, September 14, 1865

Burlington, September 14, 1865.

I am astonished to learn, as I do by your letter of the 12th inst., that any one has asserted or believed for one moment that I do not fully, freely, and as enthusiastically as I am capable of doing it, support the entire Republican ticket in the pending canvass. You say the report is that I am indifferent to the result “on account of the uncalled-for and unwise action of the Union convention on the suffrage question.” I certainly did regard that action as uncalled for and impolitic, and had I been a member of the convention I would have opposed the introduction into the platform of any new issue upon any subject, however just I might believe the principle to be. I would have opposed it because I believe that there has been no time during the last four years when it was more necessary that the Union party of the nation should present an unbroken front and stand as a unit, than at the present moment, and I would have done nothing, consented to nothing, that would have a tendency to repel a single voter from a support of the Union party, which is the support of the Union itself. I believe every vote withdrawn at this time from the support of the Union ticket withdraws just that much moral support from the Administration, and that that support is just as necessary to the Government in the present crisis as it was necessary to support our armies when in the field.

The very fact that in my view the convention erred by introducing a local issue into the canvass when the minds of the people are very properly engrossed by the transcendently great national issues pressing upon them, so far from begetting “indifference,” would give me much greater anxiety as to the result of the election, and would call forth a corresponding exertion, did not I know that the people of Iowa thoroughly understand the questions before them, and cannot be diverted from their support of the Government by any side-issue like this of negro suffrage in this State.

There is not an intelligent man in the State who does not fully comprehend all the subjects legitimately embraced in this canvass.

The Union party seek simply to fulfill in good faith their obligations assumed during the war, and to secure to the country as the fruits of four years' struggle permanent unity, peace, and prosperity.

We all know that the Democratic party desire and intend to coalesce with the returned rebels from the South. By that means, if they can succeed in distracting the supporters of the Government and secure a few Northern States, they hope to obtain control of the Government, and then will follow the assumption of the rebel debt, the restoration of slavery under a less odious name, and the return of the leaders of the rebellion to power. It was to this end that the farce was enacted a few weeks ago at Des Moines of nominating a Soldiers' ticket By The Democratic Party.

But of this folly it is hardly worth while to speak. I have neither seen nor heard of a man who is likely to be deceived by it. It is only calculated to make the actors in it ridiculous, and its only final result will be to add one disappointed man to the Democratic party.

No, my dear sir, there never was a time in the history of the Government when it was more incumbent upon every good citizen to support the Union ticket, whatever may be his intentions on the subject of universal suffrage, than now; and if I believed that there was the slightest doubt about the result, though I am admonished by my physician that I can no longer safely speak out-of-doors, as I should generally be compelled to do, I would at once enter personally into the canvass, and use what strength I have to urge upon the people the importance of the contest. But there is no need of it. The people will not be deceived or misled on this subject. The jugglery at Des Moines, when Colonel Benton received the nomination of the men who, during the last four years, have thrown every possible impediment in the way of the Union cause, was too transparent to deceive any one.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 280-2

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

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: April 18, 1862

Father says that they (the Committee) had various interviews with the President and were very much charmed with him. He was much perplexed in regard to the contrabands, and said “He prayed that if it were possible that cup might pass from them.” He seemed favorably impressed with the plan they proposed, but the main object they had in view (to have Mr. Olmsted nominated as Military Governor) had failed, as Mr. Chase had already offered the place to someone else. They succeeded, however, in causing the Administration to take a more active interest in the question.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 25

Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, June 17, 1861

Washington, June 17, '61.

I am not so hopeful about the future as you are — the Administration seem to me sadly in want of a policy — the war goes on well, but the country will soon want to know exactly what the war is for.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 212

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Lyman to Elizabeth Russell Lyman, October 26, 1863

Headquarters Army Of Potomac

October 26, 1863

Ah! we are a doleful set of papas here. Said General Meade: “I do wish the Administration would get mad with me, and relieve me; I am sure I keep telling them, if they don't feel satisfied with me, to relieve me; then I could go home and see my family in Philadelphia.” I believe there never was a man so utterly without common ambition and, at the same time, so Spartan and conscientious in everything he does. He is always stirring up somebody. This morning it was the cavalry picket line, which extends for miles, and which he declared was ridiculously placed. But, by worrying, and flaring out unexpectedly on various officers, he does manage to have things pretty ship-shape; so that an officer of Lee's Staff, when here the other day, said: “Meade's move can't be beat.” Did I tell you that Lee passed through Warrenton and passed a night. He was received with bouquets and great joy.  . . . The last three nights have been cool, almost cold, with some wind, so that they have been piling up the biggest kind of camp-fires. You would laugh to see me in bed! First, I spread an india-rubber blanket on the ground, on which is laid a cork mattress, which is a sort of pad, about an inch thick, which you can roll up small for packing. On this comes a big coat, and then I retire, in flannel shirt and drawers, and cover myself, head and all, with three blankets, laying my pate on a greatcoat folded, with a little india-rubber pillow on top; and so I sleep very well, though the surface is rather hard and lumpy. I have not much to tell you of yesterday, which was a quiet Sunday. Many officers went to hear the Rebs preach, but I don't believe in the varmint. They ingeniously prayed for “all established magistrates”; though, had we not been there, they would have roared for the safety of Jeff Davis and Bob Lee! . . .

SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, p. 38-9

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: August 17, 1861

Mr. Field and the Curtises took tea here. Mr. Gay¹ was to have come but for some reason didn't. These fearful times make us so suspicious! I know that we all go to bed tonight fearing that he had bad news and wanted to let us pass a quiet night and not hear it until tomorrow. It seems always as though we were walking over mines, which may at any moment blow up and destroy all we love most.

We never knew before how much we loved our country. To think that we suffer and fear all this for her! The Stars and Stripes will always be infinitely dear to us now after we have sacrificed so much to them, or rather to the right which they represent. What can be the end of all this misery? Nothing seems to be done by us and everything is done by the Rebels. Discontent with the Administration is growing fast, and if they don't do something, there are many people who will be disgusted with war and ask for peace. “How long, oh Lord, how long?” It is true what Mrs. Child² says: “The Lord is tedious, but He's sure.” We must do something soon. It's impossible that this inaction should continue much longer. This suspense is horrible.

_______________

¹ Sidney Howard Gay, managing editor, New York Tribune.

² Lydia Maria Child, author.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 16-7

Senator James W. Grimes to Senator William P. Fessenden, October 12, 1862

Burlington, October 12, 1862.

I have been absent nearly four weeks canvassing the State, and only returned last evening. I knew of the death of your son¹ before I left home. I attempted on two occasions to write to you, but failed to send or even complete either letter. I know the anguish that you must feel, and I feared that I would but open your wounds afresh. I think that the last conversation I had with you in Washington was in your room, and about Samuel. You know very well what I thought of him. I always thought that there were the elements of great success in him, and that he would one day be a credit to himself, his family, and to the country. If I knew how to do it I would condole with you. You know that you have my deepest sympathy in your affliction.

I have ceased to write or talk about the generals and the Administration. The men of brains are still overslaughed and ignored, and it would seem that they are to continue to be.

Our election takes place day after to-morrow. I have traveled nearly four weeks, speaking every day. I think we shall elect all six of our Congressmen, and they will all be capital men. My wife sends love. When I came home she was full of praises of your tax-bill speech,² pronouncing it the best she had seen from you. I tried to laugh her out of it, but, woman-like, she adheres to that opinion. Did you ever hear any one else say that?

_______________

¹ Mortally wounded at Bull Run, Virginia, August 30, 1862.

² June 6, 1862.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 217

Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Cabot Jackson Lowell, April 24, 1861

Washington, April 24, '61.

My Dear Mother, — I was fortunate enough to be in Baltimore last Sunday and to be here at present: how Jim and Henry will envy me.

By a happy succession of blunders, the Administration has got into a delightful embarrassment — it may pull through — mats fen doute.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 203

Senator James W. Grimes to Salmon P. Chase, July 29, 1862

Burlington, July 29, 1862.

I have now been at home ten days. Permit me to tell you what conclusions I have reached from my intercourse with the people of Iowa.

The people are far in advance of the Administration and of Congress in their desire for a vigorous prosecution of the war. They are unanimous for the confiscation bill, and execrate every man who opposed its passage, or who now opposes its stringent execution. There is but little disposition to enlist until it is known what the course of the Administration is to be on this subject.

I need not tell you that the expressions of confidence in the management of the President, his prudence, sagacity, etc., are in a measure enforced, and proceed from the confessed necessity of supporting him as the only tangible head of the loyal Government, and not from any real confidence in his wisdom. Rely upon it, if things drift along as at present, no volunteers will take the field, and the tax law will become so odious that it will require a larger army to enforce it than to put down the rebellion. Sixty days will determine whether we are longer to have a Government, and the Administration must decide it. It is folly to disregard the sentiment of the country in such a time as this — it is worse; it is wickedness. Either Mr. Lincoln disregards it, or else he willfully keeps himself in ignorance of it. Good men, the best we have, are beginning to utter expressions of despair; and they are not cowed by fear of the strength of the enemy, but by apparent weakness of our friends. I beg you not to be misled by the proceedings of war-meetings in our large towns. Volunteers will come when a “war policy” is declared and acted upon, and not to any considerable extent before. Speeches and resolutions will not bring them.

I thought I comprehended somewhat the popular sentiment before I left Washington. In this I was mistaken. It is far more ardent and extreme than even I ever supposed. It is nonsense to attempt to frighten the masses by the story that rigorous measures will “nail up the door against reconciliation of contending sections.” We have too much at stake, the Government is of too much value, too much of the best blood of the nation is calling to us for vindication, to justify us in neglecting any methods to put the rebellion down known to civilized warfare. Would to God every man connected with the Administration could travel incognito through the country, and get the true expression of the people on these subjects! Instead of getting a knowledge of that sentiment from impartial sources, it now comes to the President and his cabinet from newspapers edited by men in office, from applicants for place, from sycophants, and from cowards who dare not tell a man in power what he knows to be the truth, if he supposes it will be unpleasant to him.

I pray and hope, but I confess that my hope is becoming daily fainter and fainter. I know you will pardon this intrusion upon you. I felt that it was a necessity that I should let out my soul on this subject, and I know no one else to write to but you. I have written very frankly, but very honestly. I hope the country is not in so bad a condition as I fear it to be in. In my opinion, if wisdom rules the hour at Washington, a rigorous confiscation war policy will first be declared, and then a conscription of one hundred thousand men made at once. Men will not volunteer into the old regiments. One volunteer in an old regiment is worth three fresh men in a new regiment. A conscription of one hundred thousand men would be of more value to the country than three hundred thousand volunteers, and, of course, cost only one-third as much. But why should I advise?

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 215-6

Senator James W. Grimes to Elizabeth S Nealley Grimes, November 6, 1861

Washington, November 6, 1861.

I reached Washington last night, weary with the journey, and disgusted with what I heard from quite authentic sources of the course of the Administration. If the other Northwestern members feel as I do, there will be something more during the coming session than growling and showing our teeth. And, from what I hear, they do feel excited and incensed.

SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 153

The Negro Question

The Chicago Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, and Missouri Republican are the three leading pro-slavery journals at the West, and it is from these sheets that all the little whipper-snapper papers of the Vallandigham school obtain their stable of their editorials.  Though intensely slavery, and broadly sympathizing with the rebels, yet the forbearance of the Government, which they constantly abuse, permits them to live, and, like the carrion crow, fatten upon the vile aliment they serve up to the rebellious spirit of the country.  Our space forbids, or we should like to publish entire, a recent letter of the Washington correspondence of the first named paper, just to show our readers the kind of matter that is rebel editors are sowing broadcast throughout the loyal north.  We give an extract:

NIGRITUDINOUS.

Such a charcoal Sanhedrim as the Republican side of the House of representatives cannot be found elsewhere, except in the legislative councils of Liberia and Hayti.  Negrophobia has seized the entire party of the administration; they have the nigger on the brain, nigger in the bowels, nigger in the eyes, nigger, nigger, everywhere.  Steam power is surpassed, the caloric engines obsolete; water power, law power, constitution power, and all the powers, physical, moral and political, have found their superior in the great nigger power that moves the huge unwieldy, reeking and stewing mass of rottenness which makes up this administration and its party.

White soldiers, sick and wounded, wives and children of these soldiers, white men any and everywhere, may suffer agony, despair, famine, everything, and on humanitarian doctrines are preached for them by these nigger charmed saints of republicanism – no governmental disbursements for their support.  But for twenty-five thousand fat, shiny, greasy fragrant niggers, the government is giving a perennial entertainment.  This number of sable aristocrats, without labor, without care, without the asking, even, are fed, clothed and housed, by the administration of Abraham Lincoln at Hilton Head alone.  There are at least thirty thousand more negroes supported by the government in the same way at Fortress Monroe, Washington, and throughout the army of the West.  The Constitutional government of the United States is keeping a grand national “dance house,” AT A COST OF $50,000 PER DAY.  And every grain of wheat, every kernel of corn, every potato raised in the great Northwest, must be taxed to help pay for this philo-niggerous experiment of the abolitionists of New England.

Any one at all posted in the matter knows that the above is a consummate falsehood; the no negroes are supported in idleness at the expense of the Government, but that they are made to work and earn their livelihood.  The cheapest way in which our Government can hold the South in subjection, after it shall have been conquered, is to employ the acclimated negroes of the South for the purpose.  If the troops from the North be stationed at the various forts in the South which it will be necessary to keep manned, more in proportion will die from the effects of the climate than have been killed in battle.  Our Generals are right in employing negroes, who are accustomed to work, instead of imposing burthens upon soldiers who are unused to hard labor, and would soon sink under the enervating influence of the climate.  The pittance paid the negroes, about which this wiseacre snarls, would speedily be swallowed up in doctors’ fees, and the lists of mortality would soon swell to enormous length.  Yet even such frothy talk as the gibberish uttered by this knave, has its effect upon some weak minds; upon men who are unaccustomed to think for themselves, and who absorb everything they need, without the sense to discriminate between the most ridiculous falsehoods, and the unvarnished truth.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 16, 1862, p. 2