Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, February 13, 1865

Headquarters Army Of The Potomac, February 13, 1865.

There is no chance for peace now. The South has determined to fight another campaign, and it is to be hoped the North will be equally united, and turn out men to fill up all our present armies and form others at the same time.

Grant returned from Washington to-day. He forgot to say anything about the court of inquiry, so I have to-day telegraphed Mr. Stanton, asking him to have the proceedings published.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 263

John M. Forbes to Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, August 21, 1861

Naushon, August 21,1861.

My Dear Doctor, — I have yours of the 19th. I confess to being one of that average class which constitutes the majority of our people, who as yet hesitate at the dreadful experiment of insurrection; if it comes as a necessity, an alternative to the subversion of republican institutions, we should not hesitate a moment. There seem to me three reasons against it at this time, apart from our natural shrinking from a measure of this sort upon humane grounds.

1st. It may unite the border States against us, and check any tendency to division in the cotton States.

2d. It will, if resorted to from anything but obvious, stern necessity, divide the North.

3d. Its success as a weapon against the South is by no means certain. It is, to my mind, — with the light of the past four months' quiet among the blacks, and of John Brown's experience, — very uncertain unless resorted to under favorable circumstances. At present it seems to me worth more as a weapon to hold in reserve to threaten with, than one to strike with.

If resorted to now it would be in a hesitating, uncertain manner by our administration, and from that, if nothing else, would be likely to fail. Once tried, and failed in, a great source of terror to the South and of confidence to the North is lost.

I go therefore for holding it in reserve until public sentiment, which is the chief motive power behind the administration, drives them to use it decisively. Our people throughout have been ahead of our government, which has followed rather laggingly: — it is not a leading, but a following administration. It does not act, even now, readily when first urged by the popular tide. Nothing but the full force of the current starts it. If we could get a good hurricane to help the tide, it might sweep away some of the weaker materials in the Cabinet, and possibly put a leader in their place who would thenceforward draw after him the Cabinet and the people.

Your suggestion, then, even if it were the best thing, seems to me premature. As to urging on the government to vigor, to making serious war with shot and hemp, there would not, there could not, be two opinions with the people. Governor Andrew could give the hint to our Massachusetts papers, and they would all readily sound the trumpet for vigor and for discipline, and the “Evening Post” and such papers would readily help.

As to anything more, or in the direction you suggest, I want to see the demand come from the people, from the democracy, rather than from either the leaders or the abolitionists!

Perhaps the poverty of the South may soon begin to afflict the slaves, and they may lead off. If they do, the responsibility is not ours.

Very truly yours,

John M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 239-40

Major-General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Mead, September 25, 1864

Headquarters Army of The Potomac, September 25, 1864.

To-day we had a visit from Mr. Secretary Seward and Mr. Congressman Washburn. I had some little talk with Mr. Seward, who told me that at the North and at the South, and everywhere abroad, there was a strong conviction the war would soon terminate, and, said he, when so many people, influenced in such different ways, all unite in one conviction, there must be reason to believe peace is at hand. He did not tell me on what he founded his hopes, nor did I ask.

Sheridan's defeat of Early will prove a severe blow to the rebs, and will, I think, compel them to do something pretty soon to retrieve their lost prestige. There have been rumors they were going to evacuate Petersburg, and I should not be surprised if they did contract their lines and draw in nearer Richmond. I never did see what was their object in defending Petersburg, except to check us; it had no other influence, because, if we were able to take Richmond, we could take Petersburg; and after taking the one when resisted, the other would be more easily captured.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 2, p. 230

Diary of Mary Boykin Chesnut: February 28, 1861

In the drawing-room a literary lady began a violent attack upon this mischief-making South Carolina. She told me she was a successful writer in the magazines of the day, but when I found she used “incredible” for “incredulous,” I said not a word in defense of my native land. I left her “incredible.” Another person came in, while she was pouring upon me her home troubles, and asked if she did not know I was a Carolinian. Then she gracefully reversed her engine, and took the other tack, sounding our praise, but I left her incredible and I remained incredulous, too. Brewster says the war specks are growing in size. Nobody at the North, or in Virginia, believes we are in earnest. They think we are sulking and that Jeff Davis and Stephens¹ are getting up a very pretty little comedy. The Virginia delegates were insulted at the peace conference; Brewster said, “kicked out.”

The Judge thought Jefferson Davis rude to him when the latter was Secretary of War. Mr. Chesnut persuaded the Judge to forego his private wrong for the public good, and so he voted for him, but now his old grudge has come back with an increased venomousness. What a pity to bring the spites of the old Union into this new one! It seems to me already men are willing to risk an injury to our cause, if they may in so doing hurt Jeff Davis.

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¹ Alexander H. Stephens, the eminent statesman of Georgia, who before the war had been conspicuous in all the political movements of his time and in 1861 became Vice-President of the Confederacy.

SOURCE: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary, A Diary From Dixie, p. 10-11

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: April 15, 1861 - 2nd Entry

To-day the secession fires assumed a whiter heat. In the Convention the Union men no longer utter denunciations against the disunionists. They merely resort to pretexts and quibbles to stave off the inevitable ordinance. They had sent a deputation to Washington to make a final appeal to Seward and Lincoln to vouchsafe them such guarantees as would enable them to keep Virginia to her moorings. But in vain. They could not obtain even a promise of concession. And now the Union members as they walk the streets, and even Gov. Letcher himself, hear the indignant mutterings of the impassioned storm which threatens every hour to sweep them from existence. Business is generally suspended, and men run together in great crowds to listen to the news from the North, where it is said many outrages are committed on Southern men and those who sympathize with them. Many arrests are made, and the victims thrown into Fort Lafayette. These crowds are addressed by the most inflamed members of the Convention, and never did I hear more hearty responses from the people.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p.19-20

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, April 29, 1861

Shady Hill, 29 April, 1861.

I wish we could have a long talk together. Your last note found its answer in my heart. Everything is going on well here. The feeling that stirs the people is no outburst of transient passion, but is as deep as it is strong. I believe it will last till the work is done. Of course we must look for some reaction, — but I have no fear that it will bear any proportion to the force of the present current.

It seems to me to be pretty much settled by this unanimity of action at the North that we are not to have a divided Union. I almost regret this result, for I wish that the Southern States could have the opportunity of making a practical experiment of their system as a separate organization, and I fear lest when the time of settlement comes the weakness of the North may begin to show itself again in unmanly compliances.

But our chief danger at the present moment is lest the prevailing excitement of the people should overbear the wiser, slower, and more far-sighted counsels of Mr. Seward, — for it is he who more than any one else has the calmness and the prudence which are most requisite in this emergency. I am afraid that he is not well supported in the Cabinet, and I more than ever wish that he could have been our President. I am not satisfied that Mr. Lincoln is the right man for the place at this time.

Sumner dined with our Club on Saturday.¹ He did not make a good impression on me by his talk. He is very bitter against Seward; he expressed a great want of confidence in Scott, thinking him feeble and too much of a politician to be a good general; he doubts the honour and the good service of Major Anderson. There is but one man in the country in whom he has entire confidence, and in him his confidence is overweening.

After Sumner had gone Mr. Adams² came in and talked in a very different and far more statesmanlike way. His opinions are worthy of confidence. I think he is not thoroughly pleased with the President or the Cabinet, — but in him Mr. Seward has a strong ally.

You see that Caleb Cushing has offered his services to Governor Andrew. I understand that two notes passed on each side, — one a formal tender from Cushing of his services, which the Governor replied to with equal formality, stating that there is no position in the Massachusetts army which he can fill. Cushing's first letter was accompanied by another private one in which he offered himself to fill any position and expressed some of his sentiments on the occasion. To this Andrew answers that in his opinion Mr. Cushing does not possess the confidence of the community in such measure as to authorize him — the Governor — to place him in any position of responsibility, and that, even if this were not the case, Mr. Cushing does not possess his personal confidence to a degree which would warrant him in accepting his services. This is excellent. It is no more than Cushing deserves. Neither the people nor the Governor have forgotten, and they will never forgive, his speeches last November or December, or his previous course. . . .³

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¹ The Saturday Club of Boston.

² Charles Francis Adams was appointed minister to England, March 20, 1861.

³ Cushing had presided at the Democratic National Convention which nominated Breckinridge to run against Lincoln.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 231-3

Diary of Judith W. McGuire: May 15, 1861

Busy every moment of time packing up, that our furniture may be safely put away in case of a sudden removal. The parlor furniture has been rolled into the Laboratory, and covered, to keep it from injury; the books are packed up; the pictures put away with care; house linen locked up, and all other things made as secure as possible. We do not hope to remove many things, but to prevent their ruin. We are constantly told that a large army would do great injury if quartered near us; therefore we want to put things out of the reach of the soldiers, for I have no idea that officers would allow them to break locks, or that they would allow our furniture to be interfered with. We have a most unsettled feeling — with carpets up, curtains down, and the rooms without furniture; but a constant excitement, and expectation of we know not what, supplants all other feelings. Nothing but nature is pleasant, and that is so beautiful! The first roses of the season are just appearing, and the peonies are splendid; but the horrors of war, with which we are so seriously threatened, prevent the enjoyment of any thing. I feel so much for the Southerners of Maryland; I am afraid they are doomed to persecution, but it does seem so absurd in Maryland and Kentucky to talk of armed neutrality in the present state of the country! Let States, like individuals, be independent — be something or nothing. I believe that the very best people of both States are with us, but are held back by stern necessity. Oh that they could burst the bonds that bind them, and speak and act like freemen! The Lord reigneth; to Him only can we turn, and humbly pray that He may see fit to say to the troubled waves, “Peace, be still!” We sit at our windows, and see the bosom of our own Potomac covered with the sails of vessels employed by the enemies of our peace. I often wish myself far away, that I, at least, might not see these things. The newspapers are filled with the boastings of the North, and yet I cannot feel alarmed. My woman's heart does not quail, even though they come, as they so loudly threaten, as an avalanche to overwhelm us. Such is my abiding faith in the justice of our cause, that I have no shadow of doubt of our success.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 14-5

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, February 10, 1861

Shady Hill, 10 February, 1861.

. . . Well, since I wrote last to you, great things have been going on here. It has been no time for writing letters, for the speculations of one day were forgotten the next in the new aspect of affairs. Not even yet is there any certainty as to the result of our present troubles and excitements, so far as the South is concerned. It is still doubtful whether the states that have already left the Union will be the only ones to do so, or whether the whole body of Slave States will go off and set up an attempt at a Confederacy to be managed in the interest of the owners of slaves, and for the protection and extension of slavery. There is little to choose between the two. For many reasons, political, social, and economical, it would be desirable to keep the northern tier of Slave States united with the Free States; but on the other hand, if they go off, the Free States no longer have any connection with or responsibility for Slavery. For my own part I have been hopeful from the beginning that the issue of these troubles, whatever it might be, would be for the advantage of the North, and for the permanent and essential weakening of the Slave power; and I see no reason to change this opinion. The truth is that it is the consciousness of power having gone from their hands that has induced the revolutionists of the South to take the hasty, violent, and reckless steps they have done. It is not the oppression of the North, it is not any interference with the interests of the South, it is not John Brown, or Kansas, or the principles of the Republican party, that are the causes of secession, — but it is the fact that the South, which has heretofore, from the beginning, controlled the government of the country, is now fairly beaten, and that it prefers revolution to honest acknowledgment of defeat and submission to it. But disunion is no remedy for defeat; the South is beaten in the Union or out of it. If the Slave States had accepted in a manly way their new position they would have secured their own interests. Slavery would not have been interfered with. But the course they have pursued has already done more work in damaging Slavery as an institution than all the labours of the Abolitionists could have effected for years. The competition for the supply of cotton which has now been effectually roused will be the great means by which slave labour will be rendered unprofitable to the owners of slaves; and as soon as they find this out Slavery will cease to be defended as a Divine Institution, and as the necessary basis of the best form of society. In fact we are seeing now the beginning of the death struggles of Slavery; and there is no ground for wonder at the violence of its convulsions. Civil war between the Free and the Slave States is a remote possibility. It will be hard to drive us of the North into it. But we are quite ready to fight, if need be, for the maintenance of the authority of the Civil Government, (threatened by a prejudiced attack of the Southern revolutionists on Washington,) and, I hope, also for the freedom of the Territories. But I trust that fighting will not be required, and I believe that Mr. Lincoln will be quietly inaugurated on the 4th March. He has shown great courage and dignity in holding his tongue so completely since his election.

I could fill twenty sheets with the rumours, the fancies, and the theories of the day, but by the time my letter reaches you they would not be worth so much as last year's dead leaves. Of course there is no other news with us, for the intensity of the interest in public affairs lessens that of the other events, and diminishes the number of the events themselves. . . .

Emerson's new volume has been a great success here, and has met with far more favour than it seems to have done in England. Ten thousand copies of it have gone off here in spite of the political excitements. I do not wonder that the English critics do not like the book, for every year the imaginative and mystic element of the intellect, as it shows itself in literature, is getting more and more scouted at by them, — but I do not wonder at the abusive vulgarity of the article in the “Saturday Review.” The book is the most Emersonian, good and bad, of all his books; certainly a book to do good to any one who knows how to think. But Emerson's books, as you know, are not nearly so good as himself. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 216-8

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, December 17, 1860

Shady Hill, 17 December, 1860.

. . . In these present times of alarm and suspense my chief fear is lest we of the North should fail to see that the time has now come when the dispute between the North and the South can be settled finally, and therefore ought to be settled and not deferred. I am afraid lest we may yield some part of our convictions and be false to our principles. The longer we stave off settlement by compromises and concessions, the heavier will be the reckoning when the day of settlement at length comes. This is no time for timid counsels. Safety no less than honour demands of us to take a firm stand, and to shrink from none of the consequences of the resolute maintenance of our principles, — the principles of justice and of liberty. I believe that New England is stronger than New Africa. A nominal union is not worth preserving at the price that is asked for it.

For my own part I think it most likely that we shall come at length to the rifle and the sword as the arbitrators of the great quarrel, — and I have no fear for the result. The discipline of steel is what we need to recover our tone. But I pity the South; and look forward with the deepest sorrow and compassion to the retribution they are preparing for themselves. The harvest they must reap is one of inevitable desolation. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 215-6

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 11, 1860

Shady Hill, 11 December, 1860.

. . . Confusion and alarm are the order of the day with us. The movement for the breaking-up of the Union has acquired a most unexpected force. No one could have supposed beforehand that the South would be so blind to its own interests, so deaf to every claim of safety and honour, as to take such a course as it has done since the election a month ago. This course if followed out must bring ruin to the Southern States, and prolonged distress to the North. We are waiting on chance and accident to bring events. Everything in our future is uncertain, everything is possible. The South is in great part mad. Deus vult perdere. There is no counsel anywhere; no policy proposed. Every man is anxious; no one pretends to foresee the issue out of trouble. I have little hope that the Union can be preserved. The North cannot concede to the demands of the South, and even if it could and did, I doubt whether the result would be conciliation. The question is now fairly put, whether Slavery shall rule, and a nominal Union be preserved for a few years longer; or Freedom rule and the Union be broken up. The motives which the Southern leaders put forward for disunion are mere pretexts; their real motives are disappointed ambition, irritated pride, and the sense that power which they have so long held has now passed out of their hands.

There is little use in speculating on the consequences of disunion. If but one or two States secede, if the terrorism now established in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and which has strength to control every expression of sentiment opposed to disunion, — if this terrorism be broken through, and a chance be given for the conservative opinion in these States to manifest itself, it is possible that secession may take place without violence. But if, on the other hand, the excited feeling now prevalent should extend and gather force, peaceable secession becomes hardly possible, and all the horrors of servile insurrection and civil war loom up vaguely in the not distant future.

At present there is universal alarm; general financial pressure, great commercial embarrassment. The course of trade between the North and the South is interrupted; many manufacturing establishments are closed or working on short time; there are many failures, and many workmen thrown out of employment. This general embarrassment of business is shared in by foreign commerce, and must be sympathetically felt in England. The prospects of the next cotton crop are most uncertain.

The North stands in a perfectly fair position. It waits for action on the part of the South. It has little to regret in its past course, and nothing to recede from. It would not undo the election of Mr. Lincoln if it could; for it recognizes the fact that the election affords no excuse for the course taken by the South, that there was nothing aggressive in it and nothing dangerous to real Southern interests. It feels that this is but the crisis of a quarrel which is not one of parties but of principles, and it is on the whole satisfied that the dispute should be brought to a head, and its settlement no longer deferred. It is, however, both astonished and disappointed to find that the South should prefer to take all the risks of ruin to holding fast to the securities afforded to its institutions and to all the prosperity established by the Union. It is a sad thing, most sad indeed, to see the reckless flinging away of such blessings as we have hitherto enjoyed; most sad to contemplate as a near probability the destruction of our national existence; saddest of all to believe that the South is bringing awful calamities upon itself. But on the other hand there is a comfort in the belief that, whatever be the result of present troubles, the solution of Slavery will be found in it; and that the nature of these difficulties, the principles involved in them, and the trials that accompany them, will develop a higher tone of feeling and a nobler standard of character than have been common with us of late.

All we have to do at the North is to stand firm to those principles which we have asserted and which we believe to be just, — to have faith that though the heavens fall, liberty and right shall not fail, and that though confusion and distress prevail for the time in the affairs of men there is no chance and no anarchy in the universe.

We are reaping the whirlwind, — but when reaped the air will be clearer and more healthy.

I write hastily, for it is almost the mail hour, and I want to send this to you to-day. But even were I to write at length and with all deliberation, I could do no more than show you more fully the condition of anxious expectancy in which we wait from day to day, and of general distress among the commercial community.

Of course in these circumstances there is little interest felt in other than public affairs. It is a bad time for literature; the publishers are drawing in their undertakings; — and among other postponements is that of your poems. So much do our personal concerns depend on political issues. The only new book of interest is Emerson's.¹ It was published a day or two since and could not have appeared at a fitter time, for it is full of counsels to rebuke cowardice, to confirm the moral principles of men, and to base them firmly on the unshaken foundations of eternal laws. It is a book to be read more than once. It is full of real wisdom, but the wisdom is mingled with the individual notions of its author, which are not always wise. . . .

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¹ The Conduct of Life.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 212-5

Arthur H. Clough to Charles Eliot Norton, July 4, 1861

London: July 4, 1861.

On coming back from abroad ten days ago I received two letters from you, one of which I had received by copy from my wife at Athens. Many thanks for them; they were very interesting, and I hope you will not be discouraged by my brief acknowledgments from writing further. I am still invalided, and am to go abroad again the day after to-morrow. I have achieved a good deal already, having seen Athens and Constantinople. I was half-tempted to come over to pay you the visit you so kindly proposed, but I should have had to return early in September, and I hope some year to spend a September on your side. I have just made a call on a former acquaintance in America, Miss E. H., of Concord, who brought me a letter from Emerson moreover. She tells me that in New England, she believes, people do not expect that the Southern States will ever be brought back into the Union, and that it is not the object simply to make them return; it being indeed hardly possible that the States, North and South, should ever again live together in union, but that the war is rather in vindication of the North and its rights, which have been trampled upon by the South. Is this true, in your judgment? Certainly it does seem hardly conceivable that South Carolina should ever return. On what terms then would the North be willing to make peace, and what conditions would it require in limine before entering upon the question of separation?

As for the feeling here, you must always expect statesmen to be cold in their language, and the newspapers impertinent and often brutal. Beyond this, I think people here had been led to suppose at the outset that the Northern feeling was strong against civil war, (and so it was I suppose,) and that the principle of separation was conceded; the indignation being merely at the mode adopted for obtaining it. And the attack on Fort Sumter which caused so sudden a revulsion of feeling with you was naturally attended with no such change here. But coexisting with all this, I believe there is a great amount of strong feeling in favour of the North.

Technically we are wrong, I suppose, and as a matter of feeling, we are guilty of an outrage in recognising the South as a belligerent power, but as a matter of convenience between your government and ours, I suppose the thing is best as it is.

Miss H. will take to Emerson four photographs of Rowse's picture of me; one for you: it may be better than nothing.

My nervous energy is pretty well spent for to-day, so I must come to a stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work.

Lord Campbell's death is rather the characteristic death of the English political man. In the cabinet, on the bench, and at a dinner party, busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning a vessel has burst. It is a wonder they last so long. I shall resign if it proves much of a strain to me to go on at this official work. Farewell.

SOURCE: Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 316-7

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 6, 1859

Shady Hill, 6 December, 1859.

. . . Have you read the accounts of John Brown's invasion of Virginia, of his capture, trial, and death? If so you have been greatly interested in the man. His scheme was a mad one; he was legally punishable with death; but he is not the less a martyr in the cause of freedom. The whole affair has excited the deepest feeling both at the North and the South. Its results promise to be great, — whether good or not Heaven only knows. John Brown's name will be famous in our history, — and perhaps even more than famous. He is of a race of men rare in all time and lands, rare especially in our days; he was one of those men who thought themselves commissioned to do the work of the Lord, — and were ready to meet death or whatsoever else in the cause. Pray read his speech at the close of his trial; and read too the account of his death. We have had nothing like it since the days of the Regicides. He mounts his coffin to be driven to the gallows, and looks round on the landscape, and says, “What a fine prospect!” There has been no rhetoric or mere words in his talk; and the letters he has written from prison add a noble chapter to the volume of the literature of the cell.¹ . . .

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¹ Above Norton's mantelpiece in his study at Ashfield, there hung a photograph of Lincoln, and, near it, one of “Old Brown.”

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 196-7

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 19, 1860

19th December, '60.

No, I did not speak in Philadelphia, because the mayor thought he could not keep [the peace], and feared a desperate personal attack upon me. The invitation has been renewed, but I have declined it, and have recalled another acceptance to speak there. It would be foolhardy just now. I am very sorry for the Mayor.

There must be necessarily trouble of some kind from this Southern movement. But I think the North will stand firmly and kindly to its position. If the point shall be persistently made by the South, as it has been made so far, the nationalization of slavery or disunion, the North will say, and I think calmly, Disunion, and God for the right. The Southerners are lunatics, but what can we do? We cannot let them do as they will, for then we should all perish together.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 138-9

Francis W. Pickens* to SenatorRobert M. T. Hunter, December 10, 1859

(Private.)

St. Petersburg, [russia], December 10,1859.

My Dear Sir; I wrote Mason a week or so ago and enclosed him his letter which I had published in the leading paper of this city, and you will now pardon me for enclosing you a letter in the same paper, the leading court paper, written from N[ew] York, and I would most respectfully call your attention to it, as it embraces exactly the current ideas that now prevail throughout Europe as to the weakness, of the South and the general belief that the North are about to “Conquer and subjugate the South.” We are looked upon and studiously represent as being in the condition of Mexico and the South American States. And I would cautiously suggest, that one leading object of McLain [?] in travelling in England and the Continent this last summer, was to spread these ideas, and most particularly to ascertain the feelings of the public men in England in reference to a rupture which he anticipated as certain. I will not say this certain, but it is my firm impression from various sources of information. We are certainly on the eve of very great events and I do not wish to be so presumptious as to advise any one in your distinguished position, but it does seem to me that it would be more impressive for Virginia to say less through newspapers and through them, to use more calm language and a firmer higher tone. She is a great state and has a great name. She made the Constitution and the Union, and she has a right to be heard. Under the circumstances in which she is placed, if the Legislature were, by a unanimous vote, to demand a Convention of the States, under the forms of the Constitution, and propose new Guarantees and a new League, giving security and peace to her, from the worst form of war, waged upon her, through the sanction of her border states, it would produce a profound impression. And if the South were to join in this demand, unless the Northern people immediately took decided steps themselves to put down forever the vile demagogues who have brought the country to the verge of ruin, a convention could not be resisted. And if after a full and truthful hearing, new securities and guarantees were refused, then the Southern States stand right before the world and posterity, in taking their own course to save their power and independence, be the consequences what they may.

Under the old articles of Confederation the Union had practically fallen to pieces and the wisest men thought it could not be saved, and yet in Convention of able and wise men, face to face and eye to eye, disclosing truthfully the dangers with which they were surrounded, the present Constitution was formed for a more perfect union and adopted by the States. So too now, when new dangers are developed, a full and manly discription in a Constitutional Convention of all the Statrs, may develop new remedies, and even a new league or covenant suited to the demands of the country. I merely suggest these things most respectfully, for I dread to see any hasty or ill-advised, ill conceived measures resorted to, which will end in bluster and confusion. Every thing ought to be done by the state as a state, with a full comprehension of the gravity of the matter and the momentous consequences involved. I think we ought to endeavor faithfully to save the Constitution and the Federal Union, if possible, and if not, then it is our duty to save ourselves. Even if the two sections were compelled to have separate internal organizations and separate Executives, still they might be united under a League or Covenant for all external and foreign intercourse, holding the free interchange of unrestricted internal and domestic trade as the basis of competing peace and union by interest. I merely throw out this idea, as I know your philosophical mind will readily comprehend it in all its details and bearings. It is a subject that I have thought of before, and it is forced up by the present unfortunate condition of affairs in our country. At this distance from home, I am filled with pain and apprehension for the future. I know and feel that we have arrived at a point where we will require stern and inflexible conduct united with thorough knowledge to carry us through safely. There is no time for ultraism of factious moves. There must be firmness and wisdom, and it must come from the States, and especially from Virginia moving as a state determined to protect her people and their rights, without the slightest reference to partizan contests of any kind whatever. Excuse me for writing thus freely, but our former relations justify it, and I sincerely desire to know the councils of wise and true men of the South. True I am here, but at the first tap of the drum I am ready for my own home and my own country.

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* A Representative in Congress from South Carolina, 1834-1843.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter, 1826-1876,p. 275-7

Senator William P. Fessenden to William Willis, December 22, 1860

December 22.

Your letter was quite welcome. In these times I am glad to get an encouraging word, especially from calm and moderate men, for I fear sometimes that indignation may get the better of my judgment.

We have troubles and rumors of worse to come. If the Southern gentlemen are to be believed, one half the slave States are already out of the Union, and the rest are sure to follow. In our committee-room, for instance, Mr. Toombs says his State now feels no interest in the tariff, but he votes to postpone it to the 4th of March in order that no harm may be done the country while Georgia does remain a part of it. Even Mr. Hunter fears that by the middle of January the Republicans will be strong enough to pass any bill they like. There is much of this kind of flourish, but there is great anxiety to have the Republicans do something, make some proposition, and not stand still and see the country go to destruction. “They don't think there is much hope, but if the Republicans would tender sufficient guarantees, perhaps the thing might be deferred a little longer.” Any man with half an eye can see what all this means. It was begun for the purpose of frightening us into an abandonment of our position, thus strengthening the South and disgracing the Republicans. Unfortunately, however, the public mind had been so excited and poisoned that the leaders soon lost control of the movement, and they are now pushed on in their own despite. They are not happy. Jeff. Davis says as little as possible, and there is an affectation of ease about most of them which indicates concern of mind. We cannot conceal from ourselves that the country has suffered and must suffer still more. But I regard this as the crisis of our fate. Concession under menace would be fatal to us as a party; and what is vastly more and worse, it would prostrate the North forever at the feet of slavery. It is only by preserving a firm and uncompromising attitude that we can rescue the government from its downward tendency and place it upon the side of freedom where the fathers designed it should stand. While, therefore, perceiving and fully appreciating the danger, I am not disposed to avoid it by timidity or by qualifying in any way the platform of principles on which we stand. If the Union can only be saved by acknowledging the power of a minority to coerce the majority through fear of disruption, I am ready to part company with the slave States and trust God and the people for reconstruction on narrower ground, but on a sounder and safer basis.

SOURCE: Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden, Volume 1, p. 117-9

The Generals vs. the Politicians

It is a significant fact that all the volunteer Generals of our armies who have spoken on the [missing text] regard slavery as the vital point of [missing text]on, and insist on directing all our blows against it.  We have already published the views of a number of the Democratic Generals in the field to this effect.  We now give an extract from a recent speech of General Sickles, a thorough-going pro-slavery Democrat in the days of peace, to the same purport:

Now, I have a word or two to say to my fellow citizens, and especially to those who have hitherto done me the honor to concur with me in my views of public affairs. In the event of the result of the war terminating in emancipation I wish to say that men’s minds should at once be disabused of any false notions they may have conceived. The laboring men of the North need not suppose that the freed men of the South will ever interfere with or become competitors with them in the labor market of the North. It must be borne in mind that since this great convulsion of the country the South has not been able to produce enough of rice, cotton, tobacco, corn, sugar, and the other staples for which she is so famed. The demand of the world has been great, but she could not meet them. For more than a year not more than one-half of their usual crops have been produced. And remember the demand is always increasing for all the staples of the South produced by negro labor. Remember that there is more cotton land, and rice and sugar land now uncultivated in the South than there has been hitherto cultivated by all the planters who flourished there but a single year ago. Remember that [this demand must go on continually increasing, and the supply be greatly diminished for years to come, before capital can resume its former channels. Cannot every man see that when peace shall be restored, the demand for negro labor in the South will be so increased that all the blacks throughout the country will be drawn by attraction towards the South, and there be entirely absorbed? So that, so far from the labor of the blacks ceasing to be in demand on the cessation of war and the restoration of peace, the demand for the great staples of rice, tobacco, sugar and cotton — which will and must be scarce — will call the service of every black laborer into instantaneous and continuous requisition, and a new impulse will be given to every branch of productive industry. The prosperity of the North, meanwhile, is not to cease. Capital, enterprise, thrift are still here among us, and will be then as now; and we will not only have the same demand for labor with liberal wages, and the same reward for enterprise and industry, but, in my humble judgment, every branch of trade and commerce and domestic industry .will rise into new life when the Union and the constitution shall be vindicated and peace restored.]

– 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.  I have used Friends’ Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal, Volume 16, No. 1, September 6, 1862, p. 9-10, contained within the brackets, to complete this article.

John W. H. Underwood to Congressman Howell Cobb, February 2, 1844

Clarksville, Geo., February 2nd, 1844.

My Dear Sir: I hope you are not too deeply engaged with the affairs of this great republic to pass idly by a letter from one of your constituents in the true sense of the word. I am a native Georgian and true American citizen, and feel a deep and abiding interest in the perpetuity of our institutions, and I feel that I hazard nothing when I say that the continual agitation of the abolition question will blow into fragments, aye into dust that cannot be seen, our glorious Union which cost the blood of the best set of men that ever lived or died. It is not the South that alone is interested in this momentous question. The same torch (lit by the abolitionists of the North) that will consume our humble cottages at the South will also cause the northeastern horizon to coruscate with the flames of northern palaces.

Sir, it is no spirit of flattery that I say I felt proud as a Georgian when I read your manly effort in favour of the extension of the 21st rule. For myself, if I was in Congress I would forestall the agitation of the question, if the Members of Congress from the non-slaveholding States will force discussion upon that question. The true course, in my humble opinion, for the Southern Members to pursue would be to shake the dust of the Capitol from their feet and return to the bosom of their families. Come back to us, and we will take such measures as will best defend us from their incendiary proceedings and will convince the sticklers for the right of petition that there is another appeal when life, liberty and property are at stake.

I am as ardently attached to our Union and institutions as any man, but when our Northern brethren, forgetful of the spirit of compromise which resulted in the formation of our Constitution, and regardless of our rights as members of this Union, force issues upon us which were intended by the framers of our government to be buried and closed forever, it is time that we should hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, “enemies in war, in peace friends.” I am opposed to any temporizing on this question; it should be met at the threshold, at the door; the assailants should be met and never suffered to enter the citadel till they walk over our prostrate bodies. What will it avail us at the South for the incendiaries to cease their work after our throats are cut and our houses burned? Sir, the negroes in Georgia are already saying to each other that great men are trying to set them free and will succeed, and many other expressions of similar import. And if the agitation of the subject is continued for three months longer we will be compelled to arm our Militia and shoot down our property in the field. If the thing is not already incurable, tell the agitators we had rather fight them than our own negroes, and that we will do it too. They shall not skulk behind our negro population and thus save themselves; if fighting must be done, we will fight white folks at the North — those who are moving heaven and earth to provoke insurrection at the South. I have expressed myself as I feel, and it is the feeling of the whole South. Please let me hear from you.

_______________

 * John W. H. Underwood was a member of Congress from Georgia, 1859-1861.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 54-5

Shall Demagogues rule our Country?

The Democrat is puzzled.  It thinks it very strange if the Democratic party be dead, as some of its leaders have asserted, that republicans should kick its carcass.  It is true the old Democratic party is occasionally held up as a warning; that the civil war is instanced as the fruits of its policy in upholding slavery; and its most favored leader, now in retirement at Wheatland, pointed at as the man under whose administration the war was fomented; still it is not at that defunct political organization the blows of the republican party are aimed, but at the effort that is being made to resurrect it.  In the present distracted condition of the country the people of the North should be one in sentiment, one for the Union under all circumstances and not paralyze their strength by divisions among themselves.

If the Democratic party be dead, argues our neighbor, what the necessity of keeping up the Republican organization?  We answer, because it chimes with the popular sentiment of the North and the fact of its ceasing to exist would be taken as prima facie evidence that its principles were no longer entertained by the people, and the consequence would be, the immediate revival of the Democratic party on the broad basis of slavery as its foundation.  But as they are pro-slavery in principle, they hope with the aid received from the slaveholders of the South, after peace shall have been declared, to have a powerful political organization.  Hence, the leniency toward rebel slaveholders, which they constantly preach, their opposition to every enactment that favors the confiscation of rebel property, and their desire for compromise.  While they know that their party must be organized upon a slavery basis, they are not blind to the fact that it cannot receive much strength from the North, but must look for its element of power to the South.

It was the political demagogues of the South that seized upon the favorable moment to plunge our country into civil war.  Had the judgment of the people been consulted, there would have been no war.  So it is now with the same class of “rule or ruin” men, who, wishing for power, and regardless of the means of obtaining it, would combine the elements of treason into a political party, that they may be foisted into office.  If they succeed in their nefarious intentions our government will be founded upon Sicilian soil, liable at any moment to be disrupted by the internal fires of civil dissension.

Never in the history of our country has there been a time more favorable to the founding of our Republic upon a rock, against which the storms of party strife may beat without avail, then than the present.  If now the great question of human slavery – which contains within it the seeds of dissolution, and with which incorporated in it no nation can long exist on earth – be settled – the very God of Heaven will smile upon us, and we shall become the most prosperous and powerful people on the face of the globe.  But if we throw aside our present advantages, disregard our present opportunities, and permit ourselves to be ruled by a parcel of demagogues, who will fasten this incubus upon us, we will have gained nothing by civil war, and still continue to live under a Government possessing the same element of discord that came so near effecting our ruin.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 22, 1862, p. 2

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Mrs. Eliza Walter Smith & Helen Smith, June 21, 1862

HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. INF.,

LAGRANGE, TENNESSEE, June 21, 1862.

DEAR MOTHER AND HELEN:

We are now encamped at Lagrange, a most beautiful town in Tennessee, surrounded by lovely scenery, the country slightly undulating, watered by Wolf River, a clear, cold, and swift-running stream. This was the famous hunting-ground of the Chickasaw Indians, and here what was called the lost district, the disputed ground between Mississippi and Tennessee, to battle for which the militia was called out years ago. The place is celebrated for its college and female seminaries, and the very great beauty of its suburban residences. Its railroad facilities, its pure water, and healthy atmosphere have made it in past times a favorite resort for wealthy citizens from Memphis, Mobile, and further South, and luxury and refinement have characterized its inhabitants. Our troops were received here with chilling reserve. The stores were closed, the hotels refused accommodations to officers, and ladies, who had been unable to escape by flight to the plantations or elsewhere, shut themselves up. The men had pretty much all managed to get away. As the few, however, who were left came in contact with the rank and file, and began to discover that we were not the Goths and Vandals they had been led to believe, and also that the great lever, gold, was ready to be plied and piled, they wonderfully changed countenances, began to brighten, and the larders, poorly supplied, however, were opened. . . .

Our brigade had been here but a day when we were ordered to Holly Springs, distant some twenty-five miles south. We made there a forced march, going, returning, destroying a bridge and trestlework of a railroad within three days. We had a slight skirmish at a place nine miles beyond Holly Springs, in which we lost four wounded and killed eight of the enemy. Their infantry occupied the city, but fled at our approach. I was appointed Provost of the city, and my regimental flag floated from the Court-House. The history of that flag in this regard is somewhat remarkable — in a future letter I will give it to you. Holly Springs, as you know, is one of the principal cities of Mississippi, surrounded by magnificent plantations, in the midst of the cotton-growing region. The people are very rich, or rather have been, and are the true representatives of the South. Our reception there was somewhat different from what it had been here. All the prominent gentlemen of the town called upon me in my official capacity, and many of them tendered me the hospitalities of their houses, which in one or two instances I accepted. They had lost a great deal by the burning of cotton. Many of the wealthiest men had been ruined. They did not seem to sympathize with their own army that was devastating the land. The plantations along the march were very beautiful, the houses are built with a great deal of taste, the spacious lawns and parks and cultivated grounds kept trim and neat. This is the season for cultivating cotton, and hosts of slaves were in the fields, stopping work and running to the fences to see us pass, and to chaff with the men. They understand just as well what is going on as their masters. They seem fat and happy enough, but are pretty ragged. Suffering will be rife, however, through whatever regions these armies pass, and the South will groan at the desolation of its land. Bitterly, bitterly, will they rue the grievous sins they have committed, but never again will they be forced into union. The United States no longer exist, between the North and the South is a great gulf fixed, and the hearts of the people will never bridge it. We may conquer, but never subdue. Their lands are beautiful, their climate lovely, fruits and flowers, and magnificent forest trees. The holly and the pine, the live oak, the mimosa, the bay, the magnolia, are grand, and the mocking bird and thrush make them vocal. The people are strong in intellect, but enervated in body. The women are pretty, but pale. After all, perhaps Providence is working out some great design through the agency of this bloody war. It is a strange fact that our Northern men stand the effects of the climate better than those to the manner born. Perhaps a new infusion of better blood will regenerate. . . . I have this moment, even as I write, received an order to hold my troops in readiness to march towards Memphis at two o'clock this day. It is now twelve M. So you see there is but little time for private griefs or private joys. This is one great drawback to comfort in the army, you never know what will happen to you the next moment, and no sooner do you begin to rejoice that your “lines are cast in pleasant places,” than you are ordered off, you know not where. I keep Stephen worried out of his wits. . . . I entered the army the 9th day of last September, nearly ten months have past. In all that time I have never been absent from my post one single day or night.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 215-7

Foreign News by the Steamer Scotia

NEW YORK, May 21.

The steamer Scotia arrived at one o’clock this p.m.

The Sumter remained at Gibraltar.

Mr. Longard stated in the House of Commons that as far as the Government knew, Mr. Mercier’s visit to Richmond was without instruction from France, and was attended with no practical result whatever.  The Paris correspondent of the New Confederate organ, the Index, asserts that M. Mercier was under instructions to ascertain certain points, and will report in person to the Emperor.

The Independence Belge asserts that the object of Lavelette’s recent visit to London was to induce England to consent to a common intervention in American, and England agreed, on condition that the Roman question was first settled.  The French government gave ear to this, and it has led a conference relative to intervention.

Mr. Layard, in announcing the conclusion of a slave treaty in the House of Commons, said its conditions gave every person hope that the traffic will effectually be suppressed.

Mr. Bright said Earl Russell’s late statement, that he hoped in a few months the Northern States would allow the independence of the South, had paralyzed business in Lancashire for the time being, and showed how little he knew of the sentiment of the north.

The Times editorially speaks of the distress in Lancashire, and says it is for the honor of the nation that this distress be known, that the world may see the sacrifices made in the cause of neutrality.

The Times regards the new slave trade treaty as the first fruits of secession, but says it is not a blow at the South but a victory over the North.

The Paris correspondent of the London Herald says it’s beyond  a question that the recognition of the South is seriously contemplated by the French government.

The Bourse was flat – 70 to 80c.

Rumors of the approaching solution of the Roman Question are getting more general.  It is reported that the Papal government is prepared for sudden departure.

LONDON, P. M., May 10th. – Consols further declined, closing to-day at 92 1-2a29 3-4; Ill C. 49 1-4a46 3-4 discount; Erie 32 1-4a32 3-4.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 22, 1862, p. 1