At early dawn this morning, looking out of the sleeping car,
I saw through the mist a broad, placid river on the right, and on the left high
wooded banks running sharply into the stream, against the base of which the
rails were laid. West Point, which is celebrated for its picturesque scenery,
as much as for its military school, could not be seen through the fog, and I
regretted time did not allow me to stop and pay a visit to the academy. I was
obliged to content myself with the handiwork of some of the ex-pupils. The only
camaraderie I have witnessed in America exists among the West Point men. It is
to Americans what our great public schools are to young Englishmen. To take a
high place at West Point is to be a first-class man, or wrangler. The academy turns
out a kind of military aristocracy, and I have heard complaints that the Irish
and Germans are almost completely excluded, because the nominations to West
Point are obtained by political influence; and the foreign element, though
powerful at the ballot-box, has no enduring strength. The Murphies and Schmidts
seldom succeed in shoving their sons into the American institution. North and
South, I have observed, the old pupils refer everything military to West Point.
“I was with Beauregard at West Point. He was three above me.” Or, “McDowell and
I were in the same class.” An officer is measured by what he did there, and if
professional jealousies date from the state of common pupilage, so do lasting
friendships. I heard Beauregard, Lawton, Hardee, Bragg, and others, speak of
McDowell, Lyon, McClellan, and other men of the academy, as their names turned
up in the Northern papers, evidently judging of them by the old school
standard. The number of men who have been educated there greatly exceeds the
modest requirements of the army. But there is likelihood of their being all in
full work very soon.
At about nine, A. M., the train reached New York, and in
driving to the house of Mr. Duncan, who accompanied me from Niagara, the first
thing which struck me was the changed aspect of the streets. Instead of
peaceful citizens, men in military uniforms thronged the pathways, and such
multitudes of United States flags floated from the windows and roofs of the
houses as to convey the impression that it was a great holiday festival. The
appearance of New York when I first saw it was very different. For one day,
indeed, after my arrival, there were men in uniform to be seen in the streets,
but they disappeared after St. Patrick had been duly honored, and it was very
rarely I ever saw a man in soldier's clothes during the rest of my stay. Now,
fully a third of the people carried arms, and were dressed in some kind of
martial garb.
The walls are covered with placards from military companies
offering inducements to recruits. An outburst of military tailors has taken
place in the streets; shops are devoted to militia equipments; rifles, pistols,
swords, plumes, long boots, saddle, bridle, camp belts, canteens, tents,
knapsacks, have usurped the place of the ordinary articles of traffic. Pictures
and engravings — bad, and very bad — of the “battles” of Big Bethel and Vienna,
full of furious charges, smoke and dismembered bodies, have driven the French
prints out of the windows. Innumerable "General Scott's" glower at
you from every turn, making the General look wiser than he or any man ever was.
Ellsworths in almost equal proportion, Grebles and Winthrops — the Union
martyrs — and Tompkins, the temporary hero of Fairfax court-house.
The “flag of our country” is represented in a colored
engraving, the original of which was not destitute of poetical feeling, as an
angry blue sky through which meteors fly streaked by the winds, whilst between
the red stripes the stars just shine out from the heavens, the flag-staff being
typified by a forest tree bending to the force of the blast. The Americans like
this idea — to my mind it is significant of bloodshed and disaster. And why
not! What would become of all these pseudo-Zouaves who have come out like an
eruption over the States, and are in no respect, not even in their baggy breeches,
like their great originals, if this war were not to go on? I thought I had had
enough of Zouaves in New Orleans, but dȋs aliter visum.
They are overrunning society, and the streets here, and the
dress which becomes the broad-chested, stumpy, short-legged Celt, who seems
specially intended for it, is singularly unbecoming to the tall and slightly-built
American. Songs “On to glory,” “Our country,” new versions of “Hail Columbia,”
which certainly cannot be considered by even American complacency a “happy land”
when its inhabitants are preparing to cut each other's throats; of the “star-spangled
banner,” are displayed in booksellers’ and music-shop windows, and patriotic
sentences emblazoned on flags float from many houses. The ridiculous habit of
dressing up children and young people up to ten and twelve years of age as
Zouaves and vivandières
has been caught up by the old people, and Mars would die with laughter if he
saw some of the abdominous, be-spectacled light infantry men who are hobbling along
the pavement.
There has been indeed a change in New York; externally it is
most remarkable, but I cannot at all admit that the abuse with which I was
assailed for describing the indifference which prevailed on my arrival was in
the least degree justified. I was desirous of learning how far the tone of
conversation “in the city” had altered, and soon after breakfast I went down
Broadway to Pine Street and Wall Street. The street in all its length was
almost draped with flags — the warlike character of the shops was intensified.
In front of one shop window there was a large crowd gazing with interest at
some object which I at last succeeded in feasting my eyes upon. A gray cap with
a tinsel badge in front, and the cloth stained with blood was displayed, with
the words, “Cap of Secession officer killed in action.” On my way I observed
another crowd of women, some with children in their arms standing in front of a
large house and gazing up earnestly and angrily at the windows. I found they
were wives, mothers, and sisters, and daughters of volunteers who had gone off
and left them destitute.
The misery thus caused has been so great that the citizens
of New York have raised a fund to provide food, clothes, and a little money — a
poor relief, in fact, for them, and it was plain they were much needed, though
some of the applicants did not seem to belong to a class accustomed to seek aid
from the public. This already! But Wall Street and Pine Street are bent on
battle. And so this day, hot from the South and impressed with the firm resolve
of the people, and finding that the North has been lashing itself into fury, I
sit down and write to England, on my return from the city. “At present dismiss
entirely the idea, no matter how it may originate, that there will be, or can
be, peace, compromise, union, or secession, till war has determined the issue.”
As long as there was a chance that the struggle might not
take place, the merchants of New York were silent, fearful of offending their
Southern friends and connections, but inflicting infinite damage on their own
government and misleading both sides. Their sentiments, sympathies, and
business bound them with the South; and, indeed, till “the glorious uprising”
the South believed New York was with them, as might be credited from the tone
of some organs in the press, and I remember hearing it said by Southerners in
Washington, that it was very likely New York would go out of the Union! When
the merchants, however, saw the South was determined to quit the Union, they resolved
to avert the permanent loss of the great profits derived from their connection
with the South by some present sacrifices. They rushed to the platforms — the
battle-cry was sounded from almost every pulpit — flag-raisings took place in
every square, like the planting of the tree of liberty in France in 1848, and
the oath was taken to trample Secession under foot, and to quench the fire of
the Southern heart forever.
The change in manner, in tone, in argument, is most
remarkable. I met men to-day who last March argued coolly and philosophically
about the right of Secession. They are now furious at the idea of such
wickedness — furious with England, because she does not deny their own famous
doctrine of the sacred right of insurrection. “We must maintain our glorious
Union, sir.” “We must have a country.” “We cannot allow two nations to grow up
on this Continent, sir.” “We must possess the entire control of the
Mississippi.” These “musts,” and can’ts,” and “won'ts,” are the angry
utterances of a spirited people who have had their will so long that they at
last believe it is omnipotent. Assuredly, they will not have it over the South
without a tremendous and long-sustained contest, in which they must put forth
every exertion, and use all the resources and superior means they so abundantly
possess.
It is absurd to assert, as do the New York people, to give
some semblance of reason to their sudden outburst, that it was caused by the
insult to the flag at Sumter. Why, the flag had been fired on long before
Sumter was attacked by the Charleston batteries! It had been torn down from
United States arsenals and forts all over the South; and but for the accident
which placed Major Anderson in a position from which he could not retire, there
would have been no bombardment of the fort, and it would, when evacuated, have
shared the fate of all the other Federal works on the Southern coast. Some of
the gentlemen who are now so patriotic and Unionistic, were last March prepared
to maintain that if the President attempted to reenforce Sumter or Pickens, he
would be responsible for the destruction of the Union. Many journals in New
York and out of it held the same doctrine.
One word to these gentlemen. I am pretty well satisfied that
if they had always spoken, written, and acted as they do now, the people of
Charleston would not have attacked Sumter so readily. The abrupt outburst of
the North and the demonstration at New York filled the South, first with
astonishment, and then with something like fear, which was rapidly fanned into
anger by the press and the politicians, as well as by the pride inherent in
slaveholders.
I wonder what Mr. Seward will say when I get back to
Washington. Before I left, he was of opinion — at all events, he stated — that
all the States would come back, at the rate of one a month. The nature of the
process was not stated; but we are told there are 250,000 Federal troops now
under arms, prepared to try a new one.
Combined with the feeling of animosity to the rebels, there
is, I perceive, a good deal of ill-feeling towards Great Britain. The Southern
papers are so angry with us for the Order in Council closing British ports
against privateers and their prizes, that they advise Mr. Rust and Mr. Yancey
to leave Europe. We are in evil case between North and South. I met a reverend
doctor, who is most bitter in his expressions towards us; and I dare say,
Bishop and General Leonidas Polk, down South, would not be much better
disposed. The clergy are active on both sides; and their flocks approve of
their holy violence. One journal tells, with much gusto, of a blasphemous
chaplain, a remarkably good rifle shot, who went into one of the skirmishes
lately, and killed a number of rebels — the joke being, in fact, that each time
he' fired and brought down his man, he exclaimed, piously, “May Heaven have
mercy on your soul!” One Father Mooney, who performed the novel act, for a
clergyman, of “christening” a big gun at Washington the other day, wound up the
speech he made on the occasion, by declaring “the echo of its voice would be sweet
music, inviting the children of Columbia to share the comforts of his
father's home.” Can impiety and folly and bad taste go further?
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 367-72
