John L. Motley to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, September 22, 1863

Vienna,           

September 22, 1863.

My Dear Holmes: I am perfectly aware that I do not deserve to receive any letters or anything else from you. You heap coals on my head, and all I can say is that I hope you have several chaldrons on hand for me of the same sort. Pour on. I will endure with much gratitude and without shame. Your last letter was not to me, but to two young women under my roof, and gave them infinite delight, as you may well suppose, as well as to Mary and myself. I shall, however, leave the answering of that letter to them. The youngest of the two is not the less welcome to us after her long absence from the domestic hen-coop; she has so much to say of you and yours, and of all the kindness you heaped upon her, and of all the thousand matters belonging to you all. Your last letter to me bears date June 7. It is much occupied with Wendell's wound at Fredericksburg, and I thank you for assuming so frankly that nothing could be more interesting to us than the details which you send us. I trust sincerely that he has now fully recovered. Colonel Holmes has most nobly won his spurs and his advancement. I am always fond of citing and daguerreotyping him as a specimen of the mob of mercenaries and outcasts of which the Union army is composed. You may be sure I do him full justice, and even if I allow it to be supposed that there are within our ranks five hundred as good as he, it is an inference which can do the idiots no harm who suppose the slave-holding rebels to be all Sidneys and Bayards.

When you wrote me last, you said on general matters this: “In a few days we shall get the news of the success or failure of the attacks on Port Hudson and Vicksburg. If both are successful, many will say that the whole matter is about settled.” You may suppose that when I got the great news I shook hands warmly with you in the spirit across the Atlantic. Day by day for so long we had been hoping to hear the fall of Vicksburg. At last, when that little concentrated telegram came announcing Vicksburg and Gettysburg on the same day and in two lines, I found myself alone. Mary and Lily had gone to the baths of Schwalbach to pick up the stray chicken with whom you are acquainted. There was nobody in the house to join in my huzzas but my youngest infant. And my conduct very much resembled that of the excellent Philip II. when he heard of the fall of Antwerp, for I went to Susie's door, screeching through the keyhole, “Vicksburg is ours!”' just as that other pere de famille, more potent, but I trust not more respectable than I, conveyed the news to his Infanta (vide for the incident an American work on the Netherlands, I., p. 329, and the authorities there cited). It is contemptible on my part to speak thus frivolously of events which stand out in such golden letters as long as America has a history. But I wanted to illustrate the yearning for sympathy which I felt. You who were among people grim and self-contained usually, who I trust were falling on each other's necks in the public streets and shouting with tears in their eyes and triumph in their hearts, can picture my isolation. I have never faltered in my faith, and in the darkest hours, when misfortunes seemed thronging most thickly upon us, I have never felt the want of anything to lean against; but I own I did feel like shaking hands with a few hundred people when I heard of our Fourth of July, 1863, work, and should like to have heard and joined in an American cheer or two. Well, there is no need of my descanting longer on this magnificent theme. Some things in this world may be better left unsaid. You and I at least know how we both feel about Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, and I shall at least not try to add to the eloquence of these three words, which are destined to so eternal an echo. I wonder whether you or I half a dozen years ago were sufficiently up in geography to find all the three places on the map.

And now let me thank you a thousand times for your oration. It would have been better for me to write on the first impulse, perhaps, when I had first read it, but on the whole I think not. I felt no doubt that I should like it better and better after each reading, and so after devouring it in the very mistily printed journal which you sent, and next day in the clearer type of the respectable daily, I waited till the neat pamphlet which I knew was coming should arrive. Well, I have read it carefully several times, and I am perfectly satisfied. This I consider very high praise, because I had intense expectations both from the hour and the man. If I had had the good luck to be among the hearers — for I know how admirably you speak, and the gift you have of holding your audience in hand by the grace and fervor of your elocution as apart from the substance of your speech — I know how enthusiastic I should have been. There would have been no louder applause than mine at all the many telling and touching points. The whole strain of the address is one in which I entirely sympathize, and I think it an honor to Boston that such noble and eloquent sentiments should have resounded in ears into which so much venom has from time to time been instilled, and met with appreciation and applause.

Unless I were to write you a letter as long itself as an oration, I could not say half what I would like to say, and this is exactly one of the unsatisfactory attributes of letter-writing. It is no substitute for the loose, disjointed talk. I should like nothing better than to discuss your address with you all day long, for, like all effusions of genius, it is as rich in what it suggests as in what it conveys. What I liked as well as anything was the hopeful, helpful way in which you at starting lift your audience with you into the regions of faith, and rebuke the “languid thinkers” for their forlorn belief, and the large general views which after that ascent you take of the whole mighty controversy, than which none in human history is more important to mankind. Then I especially admire the whole passage referring to the Saracenic conflict in Christian civilization. Will you allow me to say that I have often and often before reading your oration fallen into the same view of moralizing, and that when the news of the battle of Gettysburg reached me I instantly began to hope it might prove more decisively our battle of Tours than I fear, magnificent victory as it was, it has proved? Your paragraphs about the Moors are brilliant and dashing sketches.

I must confess, however, that you seem to me far too complimentary about the slaveholders. Perhaps it may be my ignorance, but I have always been skeptical as to what you call “the social elegances and personal graces of their best circles.” Is it not a popular delusion to extend the external charms of a few individuals, or possibly a very small number of families, over a whole class? I ask in ignorance merely. It has been my lot to see a good deal of European aristocracies, and, without abating a jot of my reverence for and belief in the American people, I have never hesitated to say that a conservatory of tropical fruit and flowers is a very brilliant, fragrant, and luxurious concern. Whether it be worth while to turn a few million freehold farms into one such conservatory is a question of political arithmetic which I hope will always be answered in one way on our side of the water. Non equidem invideo, miror magis. Another passage which especially delighted me was your showing up of neutrals. Again you will pardon me if I have often thought of Dante's cattivo coro in this connection. You will not object to this sympathetic coincidence, I hope. But I must pause, because, as I said before, I could go on talking of the oration for an hour. You can have no doubt whatever that it is triumphantly successful and worthy to take its place among your collected works. Do you wish higher praise? How is it, I often ask, that people, although they may differ from you in opinion on such grave matters as you have thus publicly discussed, can be otherwise than respectful to your sentiments?

I have not much to say of matters here to interest you. We have had an intensely hot, historically hot, and very long and very dry summer. I never knew before what a drought meant. In Hungary the suffering is great, and the people are killing the sheep to feed the pigs with the mutton. Here about Vienna the trees have been almost stripped of foliage ever since the end of August. There is no glory in the grass nor verdure in anything. In fact, we have nothing green here but the Archduke Maximilian, who firmly believes that he is going forth to Mexico to establish an American empire, and that it is his divine mission to destroy the dragon of democracy and reestablish the true Church, the Right Divine, and all sorts of games. Poor young man!

Ever sincerely yours,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 342-8

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, April 25, 1864

Reverses in North Carolina are bad at this time. The death of Flusser is most unfortunate. I presume the blame of the disasters will be attributed to the Navy, which, in fact, is merely auxiliary to the army. Letter-writers and partisan editors who are courted and petted by the military find no favor with naval men, and as a consequence the Navy suffers detraction.

Burnside's army corps passed through Washington to-day, whites, blacks, and Indians numbering about 30,000. All the indications foreshadow a mighty conflict and battle in Virginia at an early day.

Fox and Edgar have gone to Fortress Monroe. Calls for naval aid and assistance come up from that quarter.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 17

Frederick Douglass to Major George L. Stearns, August 1, 1863

RochESTER, August 1st, 1863.

MAJOR GEORGE L. STEARNS:

My Dear Sir, Having declined to attend the meeting to promote enlistments, appointed for me at Pittsburgh, in present circumstances, I owe you a word of explanation. I have hitherto deemed it a duty, as it certainly has been a pleasure, to coöperate with you in the work of raising colored troops in the free States to fight the battles of the Republic against slaveholding rebels and traitors. Upon the first call you gave me to this work I responded with alacrity. I saw, or thought I saw, a ray of light, brightening the future of my whole race, as well as that of our war-troubled country, in arousing colored men to fight for the nation's life. I continue to believe in the black man's arm, and still have some hope in the integrity of our rulers. Nevertheless, I must for the present leave to others the work of persuading colored men to join the Union army. I owe it to my long abused people, and especially to those already in the army, to expose their wrongs and plead their cause. I cannot do that in connection with recruiting. When I plead for recruits I want to do it with all my heart, without qualification. I cannot do that now. The impression settles upon me that colored men have much over-rated the enlightenment, justice, and generosity of our rulers at Washington. In my humble way I have contributed somewhat to that false estimate. You know that when the idea of raising colored troops was first suggested, the special duty to be assigned them was the garrisoning of forts and arsenals in certain warm, unhealthy, and miasmatic localities in the South. They were thought to be better adapted to that service than white troops. White troops trained to war, brave and daring, were to take fortifications, and the blacks were to hold them from falling again into the hands of the rebels. Three advantages were to arise out of this wise division of labor: 1st, The spirit and pride of white troops was not to waste itself in dull, monotonous inactivity in fort life; their arms were to be kept bright by constant use. 2d, The health of white troops was to be preserved. 3d, Black troops were to have the advantage of sound military training and to be otherwise useful, at the same time that they should be tolerably secure from capture by the rebels, who early avowed their determination to enslave and slaughter them in defiance of the laws of war. Two out of the three advantages were to accrue to the white troops. Thus far, however, I believe that no such duty as holding fortifications has been committed to colored troops. They have done far other and more important work than holding fortifications. I have no special complaint to make at this point, and I simply mention it to strengthen the statement that, from the beginning of this business, it was the confident belief among both the colored and white friends of colored enlistments that President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, would certainly see to it that his colored troops should be so handled and disposed of as to be but little exposed to capture by the rebels, and that, if so exposed, as they have repeatedly been from the first, the President possessed both the disposition and the means for compelling the rebels to respect the rights of such as might fall into their hands. The piratical proclamation of Jefferson Davis, announcing slavery and assassination to colored prisoners, was before the country and the world. But men had faith in Mr. Lincoln and his advisers. He was silent, to be sure, but charity suggested that being a man of action rather than words he only waited for a case in which he should be required to act. This faith in the man enabled us to speak with warmth and effect in urging enlistments among colored men. That faith, my dear sir, is now nearly gone. Various occasions have arisen during the last six months for the exercise of his power in behalf of the colored men in his service. But no word comes to us from the war department, sternly assuring the rebel chief that inquisition shall yet be made for innocent blood. No word of retaliation when a black man is slain by a rebel in cold blood. No word was said when free men from Massachusetts were caught and sold into slavery in Texas. No word is said when brave black men, according to the testimony of both friend and foe, fought like heroes to plant the star-spangled banner on the blazing parapets of Fort Wagner and in so doing were captured, mutilated, killed, and sold into slavery. The same crushing silence reigns over this scandalous outrage as over that of the slaughtered teamsters at Murfreesboro; the same as over that at Milliken's Bend and Vicksburg. I am free to say, my dear sir, that the case looks as if the confiding colored soldiers had been betrayed into bloody hands by the very government in whose defense they were heroically fighting. I know what you will say to this; you will say “Wait a little longer, and, after all, the best way to have justice done to your people is to get them into the army as fast as you can.” You may be right in this; my argument has been the same; but have we not already waited, and have we not already shown the highest qualities of soldiers, and on this account deserve the protection of the government for which we are fighting? Can any case stronger than that before Charleston ever arise? If the President is ever to demand justice and humanity for black soldiers, is not this the time for him to do it? How many 54ths must be cut to pieces, its mutilated prisoners killed, and its living sold into slavery, to be tortured to death by inches, before Mr. Lincoln shall say, “Hold, enough!”

You know the 54th. To you, more than to any one man, belongs the credit of raising that regiment. Think of its noble and brave officers literally hacked to pieces, while many of its rank and file have been sold into slavery worse than death; and pardon me if I hesitate about assisting in raising a fourth regiment until the President shall give the same protection to them as to white soldiers.

With warm and sincere regards,

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

SOURCE: Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 418-20

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, August 25, 1863

The Rebel accounts of things at Charleston speak of Sumter in ruins, its walls fallen in, and a threatened assault on the city. I do not expect immediate possession of the place, for it will be defended with desperation, pride, courage, Nullification chivalry, which is something Quixotic, with the Lady Dulcineas to stimulate the Secession heroes; but matters are encouraging.

Thus far, the Navy has been the cooperating force, aiding and protecting the army on Morris Island.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 427

William Cullen Bryant to the Soldiers of the Union Army, January 1, 1865

Soldiers Of The Union Army: I have been desired by the conductor of the “Soldiers’ Friend” to address a few words to you at the opening of a new year. I take, the occasion to offer you my warmest congratulations on what you have accomplished in the past year, and what you may expect to accomplish in the year before you.

At the beginning of the year 1864 the rebel generals presented a formidable front to our armies. Lee, at the head of a powerful force, occupied the banks of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, threatening Washington and Pennsylvania. Early and his rebel cavalry held the wide valley of the Shenandoah. Johnston, with a formidable army, had posted himself at Atlanta, deemed an impregnable position, in which the rebels had stored the munitions of war in vast magazines, and collected the machinery by which they were fabricated.

A glance at the history of the past year will show you how all this state of things has been rapidly changed.

It will show General Grant transferred from the West, and invested with the command of our armies, pressing Lee by a series of splendid and hotly contested victories southward to Richmond, where Grant now holds the first general of the rebel army and its choicest troops unwilling prisoners.

It will show General Sheridan sweeping down the valley of the Shenandoah, and, by a series of brilliant successes, driving Early from the field.

It will show General Sherman leaving his position in Tennessee, and, by a series of able movements, reaching Atlanta, flanking and defeating Hood, capturing Atlanta, giving that stronghold of rebellion to the flames, and then making a triumphant march of three hundred miles through the heart of Georgia down to Savannah, which yields at the first summons, while the troops which held it save themselves from capture by flight.

It will show General Thomas, left in Tennessee by Sherman to deal with Hood, luring that commander from his advantageous position, and then falling upon his troops with an impetuosity which they cannot resist, till, by defeat after defeat, his broken and diminished army has become a mere band of fugitives.

It will show Mobile Bay entered by our navy, under the gallant Farragut, and held by him until the Federal troops shall be ready to occupy the town from the land side. It will show Wilmington, that principal mart of the blockade-runners, menaced both by sea and land, and Charleston trembling lest her fate may be like that of Savannah.

The year closes in these events, which, important as they are in themselves, are no less important in the consequences to which they lead, and which, as the ports of the enemy fall into our hands, as their resources one by one are cut off, their communications broken, and their armies lessened by defeat and desertion, promise the early disorganization of the rebellion, a speedy end of all formidable resistance to the authority of the Government, and the abandonment of the schemes formed by the rebel leaders, in utter despair of their ability to execute them.

Soldiers! This is your work! These are your heroic achievements; for these a grateful country gives you its thanks. Millions of hearts beat with love and pride when you are named. Millions of tongues speak your praise and offer up prayers for your welfare. Millions of hands are doing and giving all they can for your comfort, and that of the dear ones whom you have left at your homes. The history of the present war will be the history of your courage, your constancy, and the cheerful sacrifices you have made to the cause of your country.

I feel that you need no exhortation to persevere as you have begun. If I did, I would say to the men at the front: Be strong; be hopeful! your crowning triumph cannot be far distant. When it arrives, our nation will have wiped out a dark stain, which we feared it might yet wear for ages, and will stand in the sight of the world a noble commonwealth of freemen, bound together by ties which will last as long as the common sympathies of our race.

To those who suffer in our hospitals, the wounded and maimed in the war, I would say: The whole nation suffers with you; the whole nation implores Heaven for your relief and solace. A grateful nation will not, cannot, forget you.

The nation has voted to stand by you who have fought or are fighting its battles. This great Christian nation has signified to the Government its will that the cause, in which you have so generously suffered and bled, shall never be abandoned, but shall be resolutely maintained until the hour of its complete triumph. Meantime, the salutation of the new year, which I offer you, comes from millions of hearts as well as from mine, mingled in many of them with prayers for your protection in future conflicts, and thanksgiving for your success in those which are past. May you soon witness the glorious advent of that happy new year, when our beloved land, having seen the end of this cruel strife, shall present to the world a union of States with homogeneous institutions, founded on universal freedom, dwelling together in peace and unbroken amity, and when you who have fought so well, and triumphed so gloriously, shall return to your homes, amid the acclamations of your countrymen, wiser and more enlightened, and not less virtuous than when you took up arms for your country, with not one vice of the camp to cause regret to your friends.

William C. Bryant.

January 1, 1865.

SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, Volume 1, p. 221-3

Diary of Sergeant George G. Smith: July 4, 1862

Ladies of New Orleans presented the 13th Conn. Vols, with a beautiful flag. Many of the rebel army paroled at Fort Jackson and St. Philip came into the city of New Orleans and were there without means of support, no alternative was open to them but to enlist in the Union armies. So General Butler issued an order to any of the Northern troops that wanted to go home to put in an application for a discharge and it would be granted, their places to be filled with paroled rebel prisoners. Recruiting offices were also opened for two new regiments of infantry and one of cavalry. I did not see any very early opportunity for promotion in the 13th, and there was a possible chance in one of the new regiments, so I put in an application for a discharge.

SOURCE: George G. Smith, Leaves from a Soldier's Diary, p. 24-5

Diary of Corporal Charles H. Lynch: October 31, 1864

Arrived at Jersey City all right, this morning. Crossed the Hudson River by Cortlandt Street ferry. On the march up Cortlandt Street we were hooted and jeered at by the toughs. We passed along without taking any notice of it. Our march was up Broadway. At Martinsburg, West Virginia, we were sent off with cheers. In New York City which had many thousands of its good citizens in the Union army, Union soldiers were insulted as they marched on through the streets. At the railroad station, Fourth Avenue and 27th Street, we were soon on board train for New Haven.

We enjoyed the trip. When we crossed the line cheers were given for good old Connecticut. We arrived late this afternoon. Line formed, we marched through the streets, making a good appearance, every man doing his best, from the drum corps all down the line. Passed under a large Lincoln banner, cheered by each company as we passed along. We marched out to Grapevine Point, East Haven, going into camp at Conscript Camp, there to remain on duty until further orders. This camp is used by the state. All recruits are sent here and sent from here to the different regiments.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 133