Diary of Adam Gurowski: July 1861

It seems to me that the destinies of this admirable people are in strange hands. Mr. Lincoln, honest man of nature, perhaps an empiric, doctoring with innocent juices from herbs; but some others around him seem to be quacks of the first order. I wish I may be mistaken.

The press, the thus called good one, is vacillating. Best of all, and almost not vacillating, is the New York Evening Post. I do not speak of principles; but the papers vacillate, speaking of the measures and the slowness of the administration.

The President's message; plenty of good, honest intentions; simple, unaffected wording, but a confession that by the attack on Sumpter, and the uprising of Virginia, the administration was, so to speak, caught napping. Further, up to that day the administration did not take any, the slightest, measure of any kind for any emergency; in a word, that it expected no attacks, no war, saw no fire, and did not prepare to meet and quench one.

It were, perhaps, better for Lincoln if he could muster courage and act by himself according to his nature, rather than follow so many, or even any single adviser. Less and less I understand Mr. Lincoln, but as his private secretary assures me that Lincoln has great judgment and great energy, I suggested to the secretary to say to Lincoln he should be more himself.

Being tete-a-tete with McDowell, I saw him do things of details which in any, even half-way organized army, belong to the speciality of a chief of the staff. I, of course, wondered at it. McDowell, who commands what in Europe would be called a large corps, told me that General Scott allowed him not to form a complete staff, such a one as he, McDowell, wished.

And all this, so to speak, on the eve of a battle, when the army faces the enemy. It seems that genuine staff duties are something altogether unknown to the military senility of the army. McDowell received this corps in the most chaotic state. Almost with his own hands he organized, or rather put together, the artillery. Brigades are scarcely formed; the commanders of brigades do not know their commands, and the soldiers do not know their generals—and still they consider Scott to be a great general!

The Congress, well-intentioned, but entangled in formulas, slowly feels its way. The Congress is composed of better elements than is the administration, and it is ludicrous to see how the administration takes airs of hauteur with the Congress. This Congress is in an abnormal condition for the task of directing a revolution; a formula can be thrown in its face almost at every bold step. The administration is virtually irresponsible, more so than the government of any constitutional nation whatever. What great things this administration could carry out! Congress will consecrate, legalize, sanction everything. Perhaps no harm would have resulted if the Senate and the House had contained some new, fresher elements directly from the boiling, popular cauldron. Such men would take a position at once. Many of the leaders in both Houses were accustomed for many years to make only opposition. But a long opposition influences and disorganizes the judgment, forms not those genuine statesmen able to grasp great events. For such emergencies as are now here, terrible energy is needed, and only a very perfect mind resists the enervating influence of a protracted opposition.

Suggested to Mr. Seward that the best diplomacy was to take possession of Virginia. Doing this, we will find all the cabinets smooth and friendly.

I seldom saw a man with greater facility of labor than Seward. When once he is at work, it runs

torrent-like from his pen. His mind is elastic. His principal forte is argument on any given case. But the question is how far he masters the variegated information so necessary in a statesman, and the more now, when the country earnestly has such dangerous questions with European cabinets. He is still cheerful, hopeful, and prophesies a speedy end.

Seward has no Know-Nothingism about him. He is easy, and may have many genuine generous traits in his character, were they not compressed by the habits of the, not lofty, politician. At present, Seward is a moral dictator; he has Lincoln in his hand, and is all in all. Very likely he flatters him and imposes upon his simple mind by his over-bold, dogmatic, but not over-correct and logical, generalizations. Seward's finger is in all the other departments, but above all in the army.

The opposition made to Seward is not courageous, not open, not dignified. Such an opposition betrays the weakness of the opposers, and does not inspire respect. It is darkly surreptitious. These opponents call Seward hard names, but do this in a corner, although most of them have their parliamentary chair wherefrom they can speak. If he is bad and mischievous, then unite your forces and overthrow him; if he is not bad, or if you are not strong enough against him, do not cover yourself with ridicule, making a show of impotent malice. When the Senate confirmed him, every one throughout the land knew his vacillating policy; knew him to be for compromise, for concessions; knew that he disbelieved in the terrible earnestness of the struggle, and always prophesied its very speedy end. The Senate confirmed Seward with open eyes. Perhaps at the start his imagination and his patriotism made him doubt and disbelieve in the enormity of treason he could not realize that the traitors would go to the bitter end. Seemingly, Seward still hopes that one day or another they may return as forlorn sheep. Under the like impressions, he always believed, and perhaps still believes, he shall be able to patch up the quarrel, and be the savior of the Union. Very probably his imagination, his ardent wishes, carry him away, and confuse that clear insight into events which alone constitutes the statesman.

Suggested to Sumner to demand the reduction of the tariff on certain merchandises, on the plea of fraternity of the working American people with their brethren the operatives all over Europe; by it principally I wished to alleviate the condition of French industry, as I have full confidence in Louis Napoleon, and in the unsophisticated judgment of the genuine French people. The suggestion did not take with the Senate.

When the July telegraph brought the news of the victory at Romney (Western Virginia), it was about midnight. Mr. Seward warmly congratulated the President that "the secession was over." What a far-reaching policy!

When the struggle will be over, England, at least her Tories, aristocrats, and politicians, will find themselves baffled in their ardent wishes for the breaking of the Union. The free States will look tidy and nice, as in the past. But more than one generation will pass before ceases to bleed the wound inflicted by the lies, the taunts, the vituperations, poured in England upon this noble, generous, and high-minded people; upon the sacred cause defended by the freemen.

These freemen of America, up to the present time, incarnate the loftiest principle in the successive, progressive, and historical development of man. Nations, communities, societies, institutions, stand and fall with that principle, whatever it be, whereof they are the incarnation; so teaches us history. Woe to these freemen if they will recede from the principle; if they abandon human rights; if they do not crush human bondage, this sum of all infamies. Certainly the question paramount to all is, to save and preserve pure self-government in principle and in its direct application. But although the question of slavery seems to be incidental and subordinate to the former, virtually the question of slavery is twin to the former. Slavery serves as a basis, as a nurse, for the most infamous and abject aristocracy or oligarchy that was ever built up in history, and any, even the best, the mildest, and the most honest oligarchy or aristocracy kills and destroys man and self-government.

From the purely administrative point of view, the principle whose incarnation is the American people, the principle begins to be perverted. The embodiment of self-government fills dungeons, suppresses personal liberty, opens letters, and in the reckless saturnalias of despotism it rivals many from among the European despots. Europe, which does not see well the causes, shudders at this delirium tremens of despotism in America.

Certainly, treason being in ebullition, the holders of power could not stand by and look. But instead of an energetic action, instead of exercising in full the existing laws, they hesitated, and treason, emboldened, grew over their heads.

The law inflicted the severest capital punishment on the chiefs of the revolt in Baltimore, but all went off unharmed. The administration one day willingly allows the law to slide from its lap, and the next moment grasps at an unnecessary arbitrary power. Had the traitors of Baltimore been tried by courtmartial, as the law allowed, and punished, few, if any, traitors would then have raised their heads in the North.

Englishmen forget that even after a secession, the North, to-day twenty millions, as large as the whole Union eight years ago, will in ten years be thirty millions; a population rich, industrious, and hating England with fury.

Seward, having complete hold of the President, weakens Lincoln's mind by using it up in hunting after comparatively paltry expedients. Seward-Scott's influence neutralizes the energetic cry of the country, of the congressmen, and in the Cabinet that of Blair, who is still a trump.

The emancipation of slaves is spoken of as an expedient, but not as a sacred duty, even for the maintenance of the Union. To emancipate through the war power is an offence to reason, logic, and humanity; but better even so than not at all. War power is in its nature violent, transient, established for a day; emancipation is the highest social and economical solution to be given by law and reason, and ought to result from a thorough and mature deliberation. When the Constitution was framed, slavery was ashamed of itself, stood in the corner, had no paws. Now-a-days, slavery has become a traitor, is arrogant, blood-thirsty, worse than a jackal and a hyena; deliberately slavery is a matricide. And they still talk of slavery as sheltered by the Constitution; and many once anti-slavery men like Seward, etc., are ready to preserve it, to compromise with the crime.

The existence of nations oscillates between epochs when the substance and when the form prevails. The formation of America was the epoch when substance prevailed. Afterward, for more than half a century, the form was paramount; the term of substance again begins. The Constitution is substance and form. The substance in it is perennial; but every form is transient, and must be expanded, changed, re-cast.

Few, if any, Americans are aware of the identity of laws ruling the universe with laws ruling and prevailing in the historical development of man. Rarely has an American patience enough to ascend the long chain from effect to cause, until he reaches the first cause, the womb wherein was first generated the subsequent distant effect. So, likewise, they cannot realize that at the start the imperceptible deviation from the aim by and by widens to a bottomless gap until the aim is missed. Then the greatest and the most devoted sacrifices are useless. The legal conductors of the nation, since March 6th, ignore this law.

The foreign ministers here in Washington were astonished at the politeness, when some time ago the Department sent to the foreign ministers a circular announcing to them that armed vessels of the neutrals will be allowed to enter at pleasure the rebel blockaded ports. This favor was not asked, not hoped for, and was not necessary. It was too late when I called the attention of the Department to the fact that such favors were very seldom granted; that they are dangerous, and can occasion complications. I observed that during the war between Mexico and France, in 1838, Count Mole, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Premier of Louis Philippe, instructed the admiral commanding the French navy in the Mexican waters, to oppose, even by force, any attempt made by a neutral man-of-war to enter a blockaded port. And it was not so dangerous then as it may be in this civil war. But the chief clerk adviser of the Department found out that President Polk's administration during the Mexican war granted a similar permission, and, glad to have a precedent, his powerful brains could not find out the difference between then and now.

The internal routine of the ministry, and the manner in which our ministers are treated abroad by the Chief at home, is very strange, humiliating to our agents in the eyes of foreign Cabinets. Cassius Clay was instructed to propose to Russia our accession to the convention of Paris, but was not informed from Washington that our ministers at Paris, London, etc., were to make the same propositions. When Prince Gortschakoff asked Cassius Clay if similar propositions were made to the other cosigners of the Paris convention, our minister was obliged to confess his utter ignorance about the whole proceeding. Prince Gortschakoff good-naturedly inquired about it from his ministers at Paris and London, and enlightened Cassius Clay.

No ministry of foreign affairs in Europe would treat its agents in such a trifling manner, and, if done, a minister would resent it.

This mistake, or recklessness, is to be credited principally to the internal chief, or director of the department, and not to the minister himself. By and by, the chief clerks, these routinists in the former coarse traditions of the Democratic administrations, will learn and acquire better diplomatic and bureaucratic habits.

If one calls the attention of influential Americans to the mismanagement in the organization of the army; to the extraordinary way in which everything, as organization of brigades, and the inner service, the quartermaster's duty, is done, the general and inevitable answer is, "We are not military; we are young people; we have to learn." Granted; but instead of learning from the best, the latest, and most correct authorities, why stick to an obsolete, senile, musty, rotten, mean, and now-a-days impracticable routine, which is all-powerful in all relating to the army and to the war? The Americans may pay dear for thus reversing the rules of common sense.

General Scott directs from his sleeping room the movements of the two armies on the Potomac and in the Shenandoah valley. General Scott has given the order to advance. At least a strange way, to have the command of battle at a distance of thirty and one hundred miles, and stretched on his fauteuil. Marshal de Saxe, although deadly sick, was on the field at Fontenoy. What will be the result of this experimentalization, so contrary to sound reason?

Fighting at Bull Run. One o'clock, P. M. Good news. Gen. Scott says that although we were 40-100 in disadvantage, nevertheless his plans are successful—all goes as he arranged it-all as he foresaw it. Bravo! old man! If so, I make amende honorable of all that I said up to this minute. Two o'clock, P. M. General Scott, satisfied with the justness and success of his strategy and tactics-takes a nap.

Evening. Battle lost; rout, panic. The army almost disbanded, in full run. So say the forerunners of the accursed news. Malediction! Malediction!

What a horrible night and day! rain and cold; stragglers and disbanded soldiers in every direction, and no order, nobody to gather the soldiers, or to take care of them.

As if there existed not any military or administrative authority in Washington! Under the eyes of the two commanders-in-chief! Oh, senility, imbecility, ignominy! In Europe, a commander of a city, or any other military authority whatever, who should behave in such a way, would be dismissed, nay, expelled, from military service. What I can gather is, that the enemy was in full retreat in the centre and on one flank, when he was reinforced by fresh troops, who outflanked and turned ours. If so, the panic can be explained. Even old veteran troops generally run when they are outflanked.

Johnston, whom Patterson permitted to slip, came to the rescue of Beauregard. So they say. It is en petit Waterloo, with Blucher-Johnston, and Grouchy-Patterson. But had Napoleon's power survived after Waterloo, Grouchy, his chief of the staff, and even Ney,¹ for the fault at Quatre-bras, would have been court-martialed and shot. Here these blind Americans will thank Scott and Patterson.

Others say that a bold charge of cavalry arrived on our rear, and threw in disorder the wagons and the baggage gang. That is nothing new; at the battle of Borodino some Cossacks, pouncing upon the French baggage, created a panic, which for a moment staggered Napoleon, and prevented him in time from reinforcing Ney and Davoust. But McDowell committed a fault in putting his baggage train, the ambulances excepted, on a road between the army and its reserves, which, in such a manner, came not in action. By and by I shall learn more about it.

The Congress has made a worse Bull Run than the soldiers. Not a single manly, heroic word to the nation and the army. As if unsuccess always was dishonor. This body groped its way, and was morally stunned by the blow; the would-be leaders more than the mass.

Suggested to Sumner to make, as the Romans did, a few stirring words on account of the defeat. Some mean fellows in Congress, who never smelt powder, abused the soldiers. Those fellows would have been the first to run. Others, still worse, to show their abject flunkeyism to Scott, and to humbug the public at large about their intimacy with this fetish, make speeches in his defence. Scott broadly prepared the defeat, and now, through the mouths of flunkeys and spit-lickers,² he attempts to throw the fault on the thus called politicians.

The President telegraphed for McClellan, who in the West, showed rapidity of movement, the first and most necessary capacity for a commander. Young blood will be infused, and perhaps senility will be thrown overboard, or sent to the Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.

At Bull Run the foreign regiments ran not, but covered the retreat. And Scott, and worse than he, Thomas, this black spot in the War Department, both are averse to, and when they can they humiliate, the foreigners. A member of Congress, in search of a friend, went for several miles up the stream of the fugitive army; great was his astonishment to hear spoken by the fugitives only the unmixed, pure Anglo-Saxon.

My friend, J. Wadsworth, behaved cool, brave, on the field, and was devoted to the wounded. Now, as always, he is the splendid type of a true man of the people.

During the days

Poor, unhappy McDowell! when he prepared the army, he was well aware that an eventual success would be altogether attributed to Scott; but that he, McDowell, would be the scapegoat for the defeat. Already, when on Sunday morning the news of the first successes was known, Scott swallowed incense, and took the whole credit of it to himself. Now he accuses the politicians.

Once more. Scott himself prepared the defeat. Subsequent elucidation will justify this assertion. One thing is already certain: one of the reasons of the lost battle is the exhaustion of troops which fought and the number here in Washington is more than 50,000 men. Only an imbecile would divide the forces in such a way as to throw half of it to attack a superior and entrenched enemy. But Scott wished to shape the great events of the country in accordance with his narrow, ossified brains, and with his peculiar patriotism; and he did the same in the conduct of the war.

I am sure some day or other it will come out that this immense fortification of Manassas is a similar humbug to the masked batteries; and Scott was the first to aggrandize these terrible national nightmares. Already many soldiers say that they did not see any fortifications. Very likely only small earthworks; if so, Scott ought to have known what was the position and the works of an enemy encamped about thirty miles from him. If he, Scott, was ignorant, then it shows his utter imbecility; if he knew that the fortifications were insignificant, and did not tell it to the troops, then he is worse than an incapable chief. Up to the present day, all the military leaders of ancient and modern times told their troops before a battle that the enemy is not much after all, and that the difficulties to overcome are rather insignificant. After the battle was won, everything became aggrandized. Here everybody, beginning with Scott, ardently rivalled how to scare and frighten the volunteers, by stories of the masked batteries of Manassas, with its several tiers of fortifications, the terrible superiority of the Southerners, etc., etc. In Europe such behavior would be called treason.

The administration and the influential men cannot realize that they must give up their old, stupid, musty routine. McClellan ought to be altogether independent of Scott; be untrammelled in his activity; have large powers; have direct action; and not refer to Scott. What is this wheel within a wheel? Instead of it, Scott, as by concession, cuts for McClellan a military department of six square miles. Oh, human stupidity, how difficult thou art to lift!

Scott will paralyze McClellan as he did Lyon and Butler. Scott always pushed on his spit-lickers, or favorites, rotten by old age. But Scott has pushed aside such men as Wool and Col. Smith; refused the services of many brave as Hooker and others, because they never belonged to his flunkeys. Send to McClellan a plan for the reorganization of the army.

1st. True mastership consists in creating an army with extant elements, and not in clamoring for what is altogether impossible to obtain.

2d. The idea is preposterous to try to have a large thus-called regular army. A small number, fifteen to twenty thousand men, divided among several hundreds of thousands of volunteers, would be as a drop of water in a lake. Besides, this war is to be decided by the great masses of the volunteers, and it is uncivic and unpatriotic to in any way nourish the wickedly-assumed discrimination between regulars and volunteers.

3d. Good non-commissioned officers and corporals constitute the sole, sound, and easy articulations of a regiment. Any one who ever was in action is aware of this truth. With good non-commissioned officers, even ignorant lieutenants do very little harm. The volunteer regiments ought to have as many good sergeants and corporals as possible.

4th. To provide for this want, and for reasons mentioned above, the relics of the regular army ought to be dissolved. Let us have one army, as the enemy has.

5th. All the rank and file of the army ought to be made at once corporals and sergeants, and be distributed as much as possible among the volunteers.

6th. The non-commissioned regulars ought to be made commissioned officers, and with officers of all grades be distributed and merged in the one great army.

For the first time since the armaments, I enjoyed a genuine military view. McClellan, surrounded as a general ought to be, went to see the army. It looks martial. The city, likewise, has a more martial look than it had all the time under Scott. It seems that a young, strong hand holds the ribbons. God grant that McClellan may preserve his western vigor and activity, and may not become softened and dissolved by these Washington evaporations. If he does, if he follows the routine, he will become as impotent as others before him. Young man, beware of Washington's corrupt but flattering influences. To the camp to the camp! A tent is better for you than a handsome house. The tent, the fumes of bivouacs, inspired the Fredericks, the Napoleons, and Washingtons.

Up to this day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable aim; but here * *

_______________

¹ That such would have been the presumed fate of Ney at the hands of Napoleon, I was afterwards assured by the old Duke of Bassano, and by the Duchess Abrantes.

² Foremost among them was the editor of the New York Times, publishing a long article wherein he proved that he had been admitted to General Scott's table, and that the General unfolded to him, the editor, the great anaconda strategy. Exactly the thing to be admired and gulped by a man of such variegated information as that individual.

That little villianish "article" had a second object: it was to filch subscribers from the Tribune, which broke down, not over courageously.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 60

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, June 2, 1866

There was no Cabinet-meeting yesterday, and labor in the Department was suspended on account of the funeral of Lieutenant-General Scott.

Seward sends me a note in pencil, signed by his initials, with a telegraph from Dart, District Attorney of Western New York, stating that Captain Bryson wanted two tugs to assist him in guarding the river. Seward says, in pencil, that the President thinks I had better charter the steamers. He sent his clerk, Mr. Chew, with this note. The whole thing was one of those low, intriguing, petty, contemptible proceedings, shunning responsibility, to which Seward sometimes resorts. I am sorry to write so of one in his position and an associate, but I expressed the matter to Chew without hard words, showing Seward's weakness, [and saying] that this is a war on the Irish in which he, Stanton, and Grant fear to do their duty, but wish me to assume it.

I called on the President and spoke of the management of this Fenian movement a little earnestly, and a little freely. Reminded him that I had some weeks ago, when the subject was brought forward in Cabinet, suggested that the Irish population was an element in our politics, and, therefore, it seemed proper that there should be unity in the Cabinet and among high officials. I consequently proposed that General Grant, who was stationing the military forces on the frontiers West and South, should make a formal communication in accord with the Secretary of War, which all could approve and with which we should all be identified. Stanton was alarmed, I saw; did not think it necessary to take such steps; and from that time the subject has been dropped. I remarked to the President that the proceedings had been singular; that this Fenian movement had appeared to me to be a great bubble, nevertheless there was no denying the fact that large numbers were engaged in it; that they had large supplies of arms; that along our frontier from Eastport to Detroit there had been gatherings of armed men threatening to cross into Canada; that we had sent a naval force by request to Eastport; that our only gunboat on the Lakes had been detained by special request at Buffalo; and now the Secretary of State was calling on me to charter steamers and arm them; chartering vessels for military purposes belonged properly to the Army or War Department. By treaty stipulation we are to have but one naval vessel on the Lakes. Where, I asked him, were the revenue cutters which performed police duty? In all this time the War Department has done nothing. No proclamation has been issued. How and by what authority are we to capture or interfere with prisoners?

The President said it would be well to communicate with Commander Bryson, of the naval steamer Michigan, and ascertain whether additional vessels were wanted. I said that we had revenue cutters on the Lakes, but none were at Buffalo, where they were most wanted; that the Michigan had been detained there now some weeks awaiting a cutter. He thought I had better see the Secretaries of Treasury and State.

McCulloch was confident there were cutters at Buffalo, but on sending for the clerk in charge he found he was mistaken. He said he had turned the whole subject of Fenianism over to Attorney-General Speed, who is devoted to Stanton and Seward.

Seward was in a fog. Did not want to issue a proclamation. I asked what the naval vessels were to do, what authority I had to charter steamers if there was not a state of war. If it was police duty, he or the Treasury should attend to it. I inquired about the military. He said Stanton wanted to keep clear of this question. I well knew this, and he wants me to do duties which belong to him and thus enlist the Irish element against the Administration.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 518-20

Robert C. Winthrop to John J. Crittenden, May 13, 1852

BOSTON, May 13, 1852.

MY DEAR MR. CRITTENDEN,—I received a welcome letter from you weeks ago, for which I have often thanked you in spirit, and now tender you my cordial acknowledgments in due form. I trust that we are going to meet you all again this summer. You must come to Newport and resume your red republican robes and bathe off the debilities of a long heat at Washington. I wish you could be here at Commencement, July 22. Between now and then the great question of candidacy will be settled. How? How? Who can say? However it be, this only I pray,—give us a chance in Massachusetts to support it effectively. I do believe that we can elect Webster, Fillmore, Scott, or Crittenden, if there shall not be an unnecessary forcing of mere shibboleths down our throats. There is not an agitator in the whole Whig party here—no one who cares to disturb anything that has been done. As to the fugitive slave law, though I never thought it a wise piece of legislation, nor ever believed that it would be very effective, I have not the slightest doubt that it will long survive the satisfaction of the South and stand on the statute-book after its efficiency has become about equal to that of '93. But tests and provisos are odious things, whether Wilmot or anti-Wilmot. Webster is here, and his arrival has been the signal for a grand rally among his friends. There is no doubt but Massachusetts would work hard for him if he were fairly in the field, and I think there will be a general consent that he shall have the votes of all our delegates; but, what are they among so many? Do not let anybody imagine, however, that we shall bolt from the regular nominee, whoever he be, unless some unimaginably foolish action should be adopted by the convention.

Believe me, my dear sir, always most cordially and faithfully your friend and servant,

R. C. WINTHROP.

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 36

Senator Joseph R. Underwood to John J. Crittenden, June 19, 1852

WASHINGTON, June 19, 1852.

DEAR SIR,—Conversing to-day with Mr. Clay, I gave him a brief account of my observations at Baltimore. I told him that the division in the Whig Convention might result in withdrawing Mr. Fillmore, Mr. Webster, and General Scott, in which event I said, from what I had heard, it was not improbable that you would receive the nomination.

I then ventured to ask him whether a difference between him and you, of which I had heard rumors, still existed, and whether he would be reconciled to your nomination. He replied to this effect:

"Mr. Crittenden and myself are cordial friends, and if it be necessary to bring him forward as the candidate, it will meet with my hearty approbation." Supposing it may be agreeable to you to retain this evidence of Mr. Clay's good feeling and friendship, I take pleasure in placing it in your possession.

With sincere esteem, your obedient servant,

J. R. UNDERWOOD.

Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 37

Colonel Henry W. Slocum to Clara Rice Slocum, July 25, 1861

[Washington Infirmary, July 25, 1861]

My Dear Clara:

I attended services at Manassas last Sunday, but before the meeting closed I was obliged to depart for this city. For particulars see the New York daily papers.

I am now bolstered up in bed, making my first attempt at writing. I am as happy as a clam in high water. My regiment covered itself with glory. It was one of the first in, and the last out. Not a man showed the white feather. They fought until all their ammunition was expended, and when the stampede commenced, General McDowell ordered the officers to form all the regiments in line so as to make another stand, or, at least, make an orderly retreat. . . . Finally, he gave up the attempt, and we were ordered to retreat.

After going a few rods the General made another attempt to check the utter rout of our troops. He again ordered the regiments to form in line, but ours was the only one that could be formed again. The General then cried out in a loud voice, "Soldiers, form on that noble regiment! We must make a stand.” . . . This same attempt was repeated a third time, with the same result. A person told me to-day that General McDowell reported all this to General Scott, with a high encomium on the regiment.

All this may appear singular in view of the accounts of the battle given in the New York papers, wherein our regiment is not even mentioned. . . . But the truth is known in quarters where I desire to have it known. It is all right.

I had almost forgotten to tell you about my wound. It is doing well, and pains me but little. I would agree to take another just like it if I could thereby secure as good conduct on the part of my regiment when it takes the field again.

SOURCE: New York (State). Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga, In Memoriam : Henry Warner Slocum, 1826-1894, p. 70

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, May 29, 1866

At the Cabinet-meeting word was received of the death of Lieutenant-General Scott at West Point at the advanced age of eighty. He was great in stature, and had great qualities with some singular weaknesses or defects. Vanity was his great infirmity, and that was much exaggerated by political or party opponents. He had lofty political aspirations in former years, but they had expired before him. Courteous, deferential, and respectful to his official superiors always, he expected and required the same from others. Though something of a politician, I do not think his judgment and opinion in regard to public affairs were always correct or reliable. In the early stages of the late Civil War I thought, and still think, his counsels were not wise, and yet they received extraordinary favor and had great weight with President Lincoln. My impressions are that Mr. Seward persuaded the President that the opinions and advice of General Scott were of more value than those of any others or all others, and Seward was before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration thought to be the coming man. This he used and contrived by flattery to infuse into General S. the advice on public affairs which he wished to have commended to the President when he made military inquiries.

The course of the General at the beginning of our troubles was equivocal and unreliable. He began right and with good advice to Mr. Buchanan to garrison the forts of the South. A small military force in different localities would have served as rallying-points, strengthened the union sentiment and checked disunion. But he seemed to have doubted his own advice, halted, and after Congress convened in 1860 would fall into Mr. Seward's views and was ready to let the "wayward sisters go in peace." He, in those days, imbibed an impression, common among the politicians in Washington, that Mr. Lincoln, the newly elected President, was unequal to the position, for he had not figured on the national arena. It was supposed, therefore, that one of his Cabinet would be the managing man of the incoming administration, and that Mr. Seward, his principal competitor in the Republican nominating convention, who was to be the Secretary of State, would be that manager. This was the expectation of Mr. Seward himself, as well as of General Scott and others. He had been a conspicuous party leader for twenty years, with a reputation much overrated for political sagacity, and with really very little devotion to political principles, which he always subordinated to his ambition. It was not surprising that General Scott viewed him as the coming man, and as Mr. Seward was a man of expedients more than principle, he soon made it obvious that he intended to have no war, but was ready to yield anything—the Constitution itself if necessary to satisfy the Secessionists. The General under this influence abandoned his early recommendations and ultimately advised surrendering all the forts.

The Senate, after many caucuses on the part of the Republican members, have an amendment of the Constitution modified from that reported by the construction, or obstruction, committee. This amendment may be less offensive than that which passed the House by excluding one of the States from any voice or participation, but it ought not to receive the sanction of the Senate. Yet I have little doubt that it will and that the canvassing has been a process of drilling the weak and better-minded members into its support. Disgraceful as it may seem, there is no doubt that secret party caucus machinery has been in operation to carry through a Constitutional Amendment. Senators have committed themselves to it without hearing opposing arguments, or having any other discussion than that of a strictly party character in a strictly private meeting. Of course this grave and important matter is prejudged, predetermined. Eleven States are precluded from all representation in either house, and, of the Senators in Washington, all not pledged to a faction are excluded from the caucus when the decision is made. This is the statesmanship, the legislation, the enlightened political action of the present Congress. Such doctrines, management, and principles, or want of principles, would sooner or later ruin any country.

I happen to know that Fessenden had long interviews with Stanton last week, though I know not the subject matter of their conferences. Fessenden sometimes hesitates to support a wrong measure. Seward has a personal party in Congress,—men who seldom act on important questions in opposition to him and his views. All of these men vote in opposition to the President's policy. Raymond alone vacillates and trims, but this is with an understanding, for Raymond and Seward could, if necessary, carry others with them, provided they were earnestly disposed.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 514-7

Diary of Dr. Alfred L. Castleman, September 23, 1861

As a description of the appearance of the country in which we were settled, I here introduce a letter written at this date to a friend:

CAMP ADVANCE, Sept. 23, 1861.

A short time since I undertook, from a single feature in the marred and distorted face of this country, to give you some idea of the effects of the war on Virginia, and of how dearly she is paying for her privilege of being shamefully servile to South Carolina. It may not be uninteresting for you, now, to know, to know something of its general appearance as it is, and as it was; and yet when I tell you that my attempt to describe one scene fell far short of the reality, you may imagine something of the difficulty of undertaking, in a single letter, to convey any adequate idea of the whole. When Gov. Pickens said last spring to the Carolinians: "You may plant your seeds in peace, for Virginia will have to bear the brunt of the war," he cast a shadow of the events which were coming on the head of this superannuated "mother of States and of statesmen."

Chain Bridge is about seven miles from the Capitol in Washington, and crosses the Potomac at the head of all navigation; even skiffs and canoes cannot pass for any distance above it, though a small steam tug runs up to the bridge, towing scows loaded, principally, with stone for the city. The river runs through a gorge in a mountainous region, and from here to Georgetown, a suburb of Washington, is unapproachable on the Virginia side. There are very few places where even a single footman can, with safety, get down the precipitous banks to the water. The river then is a perfect barrier to any advance by the enemy from this side, except at Georgetown, Chain Bridge, and Long Bridge, at the lower end of Washington City. On the Columbia side is a narrow plateau of land, along which runs the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal, and a public road. These occupy the entire plateau till you come near Georgetown, where the country opens out, making room for fine rolling farms of exceeding fertility, with here and there a stately mansion overlooking road, city, canal and river, making some of the most beautiful residences I ever beheld. On Meridian Hill, a little north of the road from Washington to Georgetown, stands the old Porter Mansion, from which one of the most aristocratic families in America were wont to overlook the social, political, and physical movements of our National Capital; from which, too, they habitually dispensed those hospitalities which made it the resort, not only of the citizens of Columbia and Maryland, but also of the F. F. V.'s, for whom it had especial attractions. All around it speaks in unmistakable language of the social and pecuniary condition of those who occupied the grounds. Even the evidences of death there speak of the wealth of the family. The tombstone which marks the place of repose of one of its members, and on which is summed up the short historical record of her who sleeps within, tells of former affluence and comfort.

A little further on we pass the Kalorama House—the name of the owner or the former occupant I have not learned, but it is one of the most magnificent places that imagination can picture. You enter the large gate, guarded by a beautiful white cottage for the janitor, and by a circuitous route through a dense grove of deciduous and evergreen forest, you rise, rise, rise, by easy and gradual ascent, the great swell of ground on which stands the beautiful mansion, shut out from the view of the visitor till he is almost on the threshold, but overlooking even its whole growth of forest, and the whole country for miles around.

You next pass Georgetown. The plateau begins to narrow, and the dimensions of the houses grow correspondingly less, but they are distributed at shorter intervals till you reach the bridge.

This is what it was. What is it? In passing the Porter mansion, the stately building, with its large piazza shaded by the badly damaged evergreens, and covered more closely by the intermingling branches of every variety of climbing rose, of the clamatis and the honeysuckle, invite you to enter, but the seedy hat and thread-bare coat appearance of the old mansion, give notice that the day of its prosperity is passing away. You would cool yourself in the shade of its clumps of evergreens, but at every tree stands tied a war horse, ready caparisoned for the "long roll" to call him into action at any moment, and, lest you be trampled, you withdraw, and seek shelter in the arbor or summer house. Here, too, "grim-visaged war presents his wrinkled front," and under those beautiful vines where fashion once held her levees, the commissary and the soldiers now parley over the distribution of pork and beef and beans. In the sadness, inspired by scenes like these, you naturally withdraw, to a small enclosure of white palings, over the top of which is seen rising a square marble column. As you approach, large letters tell you that ELIZABETH PORTER lies there, and the same engraving also tells you that she is deaf to the surrounding turmoil, and has ceased to know of the passions which caused it. That marble rises from a broad pedestal, on one side of which are two soldiers with a pack of cards, and the little pile of money which they received a few days ago, is rapidly changing hands. On the opposite side are two others busily engaged in writing, perhaps of the glories and laurels they are to win in this war; but I venture the opinion, never once to express an idea of the misery and despair of the widows and orphans at whose expense their glories are to be won! On the third side of the pedestal stand a tin canteen, two tin cups, and a black bottle! The fourth awaits a tenant. Again, for quiet, you approach the mansion. As you step on the threshold, half lost, no doubt, in musing over what you have witnessed, instead of the hospitable hand extended with a cordial "Walk in, sir," you are startled by the presented bayonet, and the stern command to "halt; who are you and your busines?" A good account of yourself will admit you to spacious rooms with black and broken walls, soiled floors, window sills, sash and moulding, all disfigured or destroyed by the busy knife of the universal Yankee. This room is occupied by the staff of some regiment or brigade. The next is a store room for corn, oats, hay, and various kinds of forage. The house has been left unoccupied by its owners, and is now taken possession of by any regiment or detachment which happens to be stationed near.

Tired of this desolation in the midst of a crowd, you pass through long rows of white tents, across the little valley which separates you from the hill of Kalorama. Your stop here will be short, for after having climbed the long ascent and reached the house, you find the windows all raised, and anxious lookers-out at every opening. From the first is presented to your view a face of singular appearance, thickly studded with large, roundish, ash-colored postules, slightly sunken in the center. The next presents one of different aspect—a bloody redness, covered here and there with scaly excrescences, ready to be rubbed off, and show the same blood redness underneath. In the next, you find another change—the redness paling, the scales dropping, and revealing deep, dotted pits, and you at once discover that the beautiful house of Kalorama is converted into a pest house for soldiers. Shrinking away from this, you pass through a corner of Georgetown, and then enter the narrow valley between the high bluffs and the Potomac. Onward you travel towards the bridge, never out of the sight of houses, the fences unbroken, the crops but little molested, the country in the peace and quietness of death almost; for the houses, farms, crops, are all deserted, in consequence of the war which is raging on the opposite side of that unapproachable river; and you travel from our National Capital through seven miles of fine country, inviting, by its location and surroundings, civilization and refinement in the highest tone, without passing a house—save in Georgetown—in which the traveler would find it safe to pass a night—indeed I can recall but one which is inhabited by whites. On all these farms scarcely a living thing is to be seen, except the few miserably-ragged and woebegone—looking negroes, or some more miserable—looking white dispensers of bad whisky, who seem to have taken possession of them because they had been abandoned by their proper occupants. The lowing of herds is no longer heard here; the bleating of flocks has ceased, and even Chanticleer has yielded his right of morning call to the bugle's reveille. "If such things are done in the green tree, what may we expect in the dry?" Cross the bridge into Virginia, and you will see.

Gloomy as is the prospect just passed, it saddens immeasurably from the moment you cross the Virginia line. In addition to the abandonment and desolation of the other side, destruction here stares you in the face. Save in the soldier and his appendants, no sign of life in animal larger than the cricket or katy-did, greets you as you pass. Herds, flocks, swine, and even fowls, both wild and domestic, have abandoned this country, in which scenes of civil life are no longer known. Houses are torn down, fences no longer impede the progress of the cavalier, and where, two months ago, were flourishing growths of grain and grass, the surface is now bare and trodden as the highway. Even the fine growths of timber do not escape, but are literally mowed down before the march of the armies, lest they impede the messengers of death from man to man. And this is in the nineteenth century of Christianity—and these the results of the unchristian passions of fathers, sons and brothers, striving against the lives and happiness of each other. Alas! Poor Virginia! Your revenues are cut off, your industry paralysed, your soil desecrated, your families in exile, your prestige gone forever.

But as so many others are writing of exciting scenes, I fear you will grow impatient for my description of the last battles for my account of anthropophagi—of men who have their heads beneath their shoulders—but I have no tact for describing unfought battles, or for proclaiming imperishable glories won to-day, never to be heard of after to-morrow. When we have a fight worth describing, I shall tell you of it. In the meantime I am "taking notes," and "faith I'll print 'em." If the rebels will not give us a fight to make a letter of, I will, at my first leisure, for fear my men forget their Hardee and Scott, have a graphic dress parade, in which our different regiments shall contribute at least a battalion, to pass review before you. Then let him who loses laugh, for he who wins is sure to. Till then good night.

SOURCE: Alfred L. Castleman, The Army of the Potomac. Behind the Scenes. A Diary of Unwritten History; From the Organization of the Army, by General George B. McClellan, to the close of the Campaign in Virginia about the First Day January, 1863, p. 31-7

Senator Charles Sumner to George Sumner, September 30, 1851

The field of our national politics is still shrouded in mist. Nobody can clearly discern the future. On the Whig side, Fillmore seems to me the most probable candidate; and on the Democratic side, Douglas. I have never thought Scott's chances good, while Webster's have always seemed insignificant. His course lately has been that of a madman. He declined to participate in any of the recent celebrations,¹ cherishing still a grudge because he was refused the use of Faneuil Hall. The mayor told me that Webster cut him dead, and also Alderman Rogers, when they met in the apartments of the President. The papers-two Hunkers — have hammered me for calling on the President.² It is shrewdly surmised that their rage came from spite at the peculiarly cordial reception which he gave me. Lord Elgin I liked much; he is a very pleasant and clever man, and everybody gave him the palm among the speakers. I was not present at the dinner, and did not hear him.

There is a lull now with regard to Cuba. The whole movement may have received an extinguisher for the present; but I think we shall hear of it when Congress meets, in a motion to purchase this possession of Spain. This question promises to enter into the next Presidential election. The outrages caused by the Fugitive Slave bill continue to harass the country. There will be no end to them until that bill becomes a dead letter. It is strange that men can be so hardened to violations of justice and humanity, as many are now, under the drill of party. Mr. Webster has done more than all others to break down the North; and yet he once said, in taunt at our tameness, “There is no North!” The mischief from his course is incalculable. His speech at the reception of the President was regarded—and I think justly—by many Englishmen as insulting.

Our State politics promise to be very exciting. There has been a prodigious pressure upon me to take the field; but thus far I have declined. Under present circumstances I do not see my way to speaking. I am unwilling to defend the coalition, as in so doing I shall seem to be defending my own election; and I do not wish to seem to pursue Winthrop. His defeat seems to me inevitable, though in a contest like the present there must be an allowance for accidents and for treachery.

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¹ Railroad Jubilee, Sept. 15, 1851.

² September 17, in Boston, on the occasion of the Railroad Jubilee. Sumner, as already seen, had strongly condemned President Fillmore a year before for approving the Fugitive Slave bill.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 254-5

Julia Gardiner Tyler to Julianna MacLachlan Gardiner, April 18, 1861

SHERWOOD FOREST, VA., April 18, 1861.

By my last letter from the President the convention was sitting with closed doors. The vote was probably taken yesterday, and it must have been for secession, as we have heard a great cannonading all day in the direction of Richmond. Who can wish it otherwise? I assure you, judging from the country, such is the exasperated feeling of wrong that every able-bodied man from every family is ready to shoulder his musket and will do so at the call. Mr. Douthat is the captain of our volunteer troopers here. It numbers eighty well-horsed, well-armed, and well-drilled and brave, true, high-toned gentlemen, who love the right and scorn the wrong. Captain Douthat says he expects to be the first to fall, but he is ready to die, if needs be, in the defense of his rights.

There is such a determined spirit of resistance throughout the South that, with the secession of the Border slave-States, I hope Lincoln will change his course and acknowledge the Southern Confederacy. It rests with him to prevent or urge a most unnatural and bloody war. The idea of any State meeting his demand! It is disgraceful.

The sentiments you express are so generous and becoming, and so like those of the boasted matrons of the Revolution, that I take every occasion to repeat them, and you are admired accordingly. I should think the citizens of New York who are opposed to this onslaught on their Southern kinsmen would now make a demonstration and form a party against coercion where States are concerned.

I enclose you Gov. Pickens' despatch to the President. It will make you realize the occurrences at Charleston. Return it at once, as I wish to preserve it. John Tyler, Jr., is a clerk in the War Department at Montgomery. We knew nothing of it until the President received through him those telegraphic despatches from the Secretary of War (Mr. Walker), announcing the commencement of hostilities, which you may have seen in some of the newspapers. Mr. Semple intends to resign the instant the State secedes, or before if ordered upon any secret or avowedly hostile expedition. Gen Scott was expected in Richmond yesterday, to offer, it is said, his services to Virginia. But the papers tell you all this. I have no time for more. The children are well. Julia is still in Richmond and quite well. My cough, I am glad to say, has passed away. I hope Harry is well and very studious.

Your affectionate daughter,

Julia.

Only to think who became aids to Gen. Beauregard at Charleston,—the senators who retired from their seats in Washington on the secession of South Carolina. Gov. Manning, and even Senator Wigfall, of Texas, on his way home, stopped to assist. They all exposed themselves to the fire, and Mr. Wigfall received the surrender. He is a splendid fellow-all spirit and bravery and intellect. I met him at Washington; and his wife is the kind of noble, high-spirited woman you would most admire. Think of the enthusiasm of old Edmund Ruffin,¹ our noted agriculturist!

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¹ He fired the first gun at Charleston, and, when the Confederacy went down, wrapped himself in the Confederate flag and blew his brains out.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 646-7

Julia Gardiner Tyler to Julianna MacLachlan Gardiner, April 25, 1861

SHERWOOD FOREST, CHARLES CITY CO., April 25, 1861.

In these times you must write often, if only a few words. I have no letters to-day from you, but if I continue to be disappointed, I will consider it owing to the mail obstructions, and not torture myself with doubts of your health and safety. I want you to write me what the people of Staten Island are doing, and whether they think themselves in danger of the mob, which I should think might well be feared in New York.

The President came down on Saturday and remained until yesterday (Tuesday). He brought Julia with him, and also carried her back. Matters are rapidly coming to the point; whether they will reach it or stop short of so unnatural a battle as that waged between the two sections will be depends upon the action of the President in Washington. I see no prospect of a change in his course, and so fighting will be the order of the day. This whole country is now under arms, and the whole South will soon be one vast camp of brave men, whose rallying cry will be, “Fight for your homes and your firesides." The South is invaded, and all effort for peace must now come from the North.

It is a real disappointment to me to see New York city so ready to engage in this wicked war. We hear the famous seventh regiment has been destroyed ere it reached Washington. And so it will be. I do not think Providence will suffer the unoffending to fall. Rumors, however, that want confirmation do not occupy much our thoughts. I suppose that rumor will prove a false one. "Fuss and Feathers" has distinguished himself. You ought to hear how he is spoken of by his family and State.¹

Col. Lee, a splendid man every inch of him, is in command of the Virginia forces. He married, you remember, the daughter of G. W. Parke Custis. He can only lead to victory, if this shocking war continues.

The President writes me to-day Mrs. Clopton and daughter, from Old Point, were on board the boat yesterday, fleeing from their home. Their furniture will be sent after them in a few days. They said that the Massachusetts company that landed at Old Point for the Fort were the scum of the earth. We have not decided what we shall do about the Villa. The measles has now gone through my family. Aleck, the last to have it, is now rapidly recovering. He was a very sick child for two or three days, but the disease has now left him, and he will leave his bed to-morrow. I have recovered entirely from my cold, and the family are all well. The President is in firmer health than for many past years. He is full of business now.

I would like to write you more freely, but I suppose it would not be prudent. I do not wish to write anything that would excuse a delay of my letters. We are very much concerned as to Robert Tyler; have had threatening letters in regard to him anonymously, and we see in the papers that Southerners are sought for by the mob at Philadelphia. He wrote to his father every few days; the letters have ceased, and I hear to-day that none are found on returning to Richmond. Strange! if there is no foul play, he has found it necessary to be silent and secret. We hear he is in Baltimore, from one of our neighbors, to which place he fled, literally chased by the mob away from his home. What next we shall hear, who can tell? . . .

Your affectionate daughter,

Julia

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¹ "The general-in-chief of the army, in 1860, stood by the Union and made war on his State; and so did other officers, both of the land and sea service; for the soldier's and sailor's household gods commonly are found with his regiment or in his ship."—Fears for Democracy, p. 239.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 647-8

Diary of Adam Gurowski: May 1861

RUMORS that the President, the administration, or whoever has it in his hands, is to take the offensive, make a demonstration on Virginia and on Baltimore. But these ups and downs, these vacillations, are daily occurrences, and nothing points to a firm purpose, to a decided policy, or any policy whatever of the administration.

A great principle and a great cause cannot be served and cannot be saved by half measures, and still less by tricks and by paltry expedients. But the administration is tossed by expedients. Nothing is hitherto done, and this denotes a want of any firm decision.

Mr. Seward's letter to Dayton, a first manifesto to foreign nations, and the first document of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is bold, high-toned, and American, but it has dark shadows; shows an inexperienced hand in diplomacy and in dealing with events. The passages about the frequent changes in Europe are unnecessary, and unprovoked by anything whatever. It is especially offensive to France, to the French people, and to Louis Napoleon. It is bosh, but in Europe they will consider it as une politique provocatrice.

For the present complications, diplomatic relations ought to be conducted with firmness, with dignity, but not with an arrogant, offensive assumption, not in the spirit of spread-eagleism; no brass, but reason and decision.

Americans will find out how absolute are the laws of history, as stern and as positive as all the other laws of nature. To me it is clear that one phasis of American political growth, development, &c., is gone, is finished. It is the phasis of the Union as created by the Constitution. This war—war it will be, and a terrible one, notwithstanding all the prophecies of Mr. Seward to the contrary—this war will generate new social and constitutional necessities and new formulas. New conceptions and new passions will spring up; in one word, it will bring forth new social, physical, and moral creations: so we are in the period of gestation.

Democracy, the true, the noble, that which constitutes the signification of America in the progress of our race—democracy will not be destroyed. All the inveterate enemies here and in Europe, all who already joyously sing the funeral songs of democracy, all of them will become disgraced. Democracy will emerge more pure, more powerful, more rational; destroyed will be the most infamous oligarchy ever known in history; oligarchy issued neither from the sword, nor the gown, nor the shop, but wombed, generated, cemented, and sustained by traffic in man.

The famous Russell, of the London Times, is what I always thought him to be—a graphic, imaginative writer, with power of description of all he sees, but not the slightest insight in events, in men, in institutions. Russell is not able to find out the epidermis under a shirt. And they make so much fuss about him; Seward brings him to the first cabinet dinner given by the President; Mrs. Lincoln sends him bouquets; and this man, Russell, will heap blunders upon blunders.

The pressure on the administration for decided, energetic action increases from all sides. Seldom, anywhere, an administration receives so many moral kicks as does this one; but it seems to stand them with serenity. Oh, for a clear, firm, well-defined purpose!

The country, the people demands an attack on Virginia, on Richmond, and Baltimore; the country, better than the military authorities, understands the political and military necessities; the people has the consciousness that if fighting is done instantly, it will be done cheaply and thoroughly by a move of its finger. The administration can double the number of men under arms, but hesitates.

What slow coaches, and what ignorance of human nature and of human events. The knowing ones, the wiseacres, will be the ruin of this country. They poison the sound reason of the people.

What the d---- is Seward with his politicians' policy? What can signify his close alliance with such outlaws as Wikoff and the Herald, and pushing that sheet to abuse England and Lord Lyons? Wikoff is, so to speak, an inmate of Seward's house and office, and Wikoff declared publicly that the telegram contained in the Herald, and so violent against England and Lord Lyons, was written under Seward's dictation. Wikoff, I am told, showed the MS. corrected in Seward's handwriting. Lord Lyons is menaced with passports. Is this man mad? Can Seward for a moment believe that Wikoff knows Europe, or has any influence? He may know the low resorts there. Can Seward be fool enough to irritate England, and entangle this country? Even my anglophobia cannot stand it. Wrote about it warning letters to New York, to Barney, to Opdyke, to Wadsworth, &c.

The whole District a great camp; the best population from the North in rank and file. More intelligence, industry, and all good national and intellectual qualities represented in those militia and volunteer regiments, than in any—not only army, but society in Europe. Artisans, mechanics of all industries, of trade, merchants, bankers, lawyers; all pursuits and professions. Glorious, heart-elevating sight! These regiments want only a small touch of military organization.

Weeks run, troops increase, and not the first step made to organize them into an army, to form brigades, not to say divisions; not yet two regiments manœuvring together. What a strange idea the military chief or chiefs, or department, or somebody, must have of what it is to organize an army. Not the first letter made. Can it be ignorance of this elementary knowledge with which is familiar every corporal in Europe? When will they start, when begin to mould an army?

The administration was not composed for this emergency, and is not up to it. The government hesitates, is inexperienced, and will unavoidably make heaps of mistakes, which may endanger the cause, and for which, at any rate, the people is terribly to pay. The loss in men and material will be very considerable before the administration will get on the right track. It is painful to think, nay, to be sure of it. Then the European anti-Union politicians and diplomats will credit the disasters to the inefficiency of self-government. The diplomats, accustomed to the rapid, energetic action of a supreme or of a centralized power, laugh at the trepidation of ours. But the fault is not in the principle of self-government, but in the accident which brought to the helm such an amount of inexperience. Monarchy with a feeble head is even in a worse predicament. Louis XV, the Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, Gustavus IV., &c., are thereof the historical evidences.

May the shock of events bring out new lights from the people! One day the administration is to take the initiative, that is, the offensive, then it recedes from it. No one understands the organization and handling of such large bodies. They are to make their apprenticeship, if only it may not to be too dearly paid. But they cannot escape the action of that so positive law in nature, in history, and, above all, absolute in war.

Wrote to Charles Sumner, suggesting that the ice magnates send here from Boston ice for hospitals.

The war now waged against the free States is one made by the most hideous sauvagerie against a most perfectioned and progressive civilization. History records not a similar event. It is a hideous phenomenon, disgracing our race, and it is so, look on it from whatever side you will.

A new man from the people, like Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, acts promptly, decisively; feels and speaks ardently, and not as the rhetors. Andrew is the incarnation of the Massachusetts, nay, of the genuine American people. I must become acquainted with Andrew. Thousands of others like Andrew exist in all the States. Can anybody be a more noble incarnation of the American people than J. S. Wadsworth? I become acquainted with numerous men whom I honor as the true American men. So Boutwell, of Massachusetts, Curtis Noyes, Senator Wade, Trumbull, Walcott, from Ohio, Senator King, Chandler, and many, many true patriots.

Senator Wilson, my old friend, is up to the mark; a man of the people, but too mercurial.

Captain or Major Lyon in St. Louis, the first initiator or revelator of what is the absolute law of necessity in questions of national death or life. Lyon jumped over formulas, over routine, over clumsy discipline and martinetism, and saved St. Louis and Missouri.

It is positively asserted that General Scott's first impression was to court-martial Lyon for this breach of discipline, for having acted on his own patriotic responsibility.

Can Scott be such a dried-up, narrow-minded disciplinarian, and he the Egeria of Lincoln! Oh! oh! Diplomats tell me that Seward uses the dictatorial I, speaking of the government. Three cheers for the new Louis XIV.!

Governor Banks would be excellent for the Intendant General de l'Armée: they call it here General Quartermaster. Awful disorder and slowness prevail in this cardinal branch of the army. Wrote to Sumner concerning Banks.

Gen. Butler took Baltimore; did what ought to have been done a long time ago. Butler did it on his own responsibility, without orders. Butler acted upon the same principle as Lyon, and, horrabile dictu, astonished, terrified the parleying administration. Scott wishes to put Butler under arrest; happily Lincoln resisted his boss (so Mr. Lincoln called Scott before a deputation from Baltimore). Scott, Patterson, and Mansfield made a beautiful strategical horror! They began to speak of strategy; plan to approach Baltimore on three different roads, and with about 35,000 men. Butler did it one morning with two regiments, and kicked over the senile strategians in council.

The administration speaks with pride of its forbearing, that is, parleying, policy. The people, the country, requires action. Congressus impar Achilli: Achilles, the people, and Congressus the forbearing administration.

Music, parades, serenades, receptions, &c., &c., only no genuine military organization. They do it differently on the other side of the Potomac. There the leaders are in earnest.

Met Gov. Sprague and asked him when he would have a brigade; his answer was, soon; but this soon comes very slow.

News from England. Lord John Russell declared in Parliament that the Queen, or the English government, will recognize the rebels in the condition of "belligerents." O England, England! The declaration is too hasty. Lord John cannot have had news of the proclamation of the blockade when he made that declaration. The blockade could have served him as an excuse for the haste. English aristocracy and government show thus their enmity to the North, and their partiality to slavers. What will the anglophiles of Boston say to this?

Neither England or France, or anybody in Europe, recognized the condition of "belligerents" to Poles, when we fought in Russia in 1831. Were the Magyars recognized as such in 1848-49? Lord Palmerston called the German flag hard names in the war with Denmark for Schleswig-Holstein; and now he bows to the flag of slavers and pirates. If the English statesmen have not some very particular reason for this hasty, uncalled-for condescension to the enemies of humanity, then curse upon the English government. I recollect that European powers recognized the Greeks "belligerents" (Austria opposed) in their glorious struggle against the slavers, the Turks. But then this stretching of positive, international comity,—this stretching was done in the interest of freedom, of right, and of humanity, against savages and slaughterers. On the present occasion England did the reverse. O England, England, thou Judas Iscariot of nations! Seward said to John Jacob Astor, and to a New York deputation, that this English declaration concerning "belligerents" is a mere formality, having no bearing at all. I told the contrary to Astor and to others, assuring them that Mr. Seward will soon find, to the cost of the people and to his own, how much complication and trouble this mere formality will occasion, and occasion it before long. Is Seward so ignorant of international laws, of general or special history, or was it only said to throw dust? Wrote about the "belligerents" a warning letter to the President.

Butler, in command of Fortress Monroe, proposes to land in Virginia and to take Norfolk; Scott, the highest military authority in the land, opposes. Has Scott used up his energy, his sense, and even his military judgment in defending Washington before the inauguration? He is too old; his brains, cerebellum, must be dried up.

Imbecility in a leader is often, nay always, more dangerous than treason; the people can find out easily, too—treason, but is disarmed against imbecility.

What a thoughtlessness to press on Russia the convention of Paris? Russia has already a treaty with America, but in case of a war with England, the Russian ports on the Pacific, and the only one accessible to Americans, will be closed to them by the convention of Paris.

The governors of the States of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania assure the protection of their respective States to the Union men of the Border States. What a bitter criticism on the slow, forbearing policy of the administration. Mr. Lincoln seems to be a rather slow intellect, with slow powers of perception. However, patience; perhaps the shock of events will arouse and bring in action now latent, but good and energetic qualities. As it stands now, the administration, being the focus of activity, is tepid, if not cold and slow; the circumference, that is, the people, the States, are full of fire and of activity. This condition is altogether the reverse of the physiological and all other natural laws, and this may turn out badly, as nature's laws never can be with impunity reversed or violated.

The diplomats complain that Seward treats them with a certain rudeness; that he never gives them time to explain and speak, but interrupts by saying, "I know it all," etc. If he had knowledge of things, and of the diplomatic world, he would be aware that the more firmness he has to use, the more politeness, even fastidiousness, he is to display. Scott does not wish for any bold demonstration, for any offensive movement. The reason may be, that he is too old, too crippled, to be able to take the field in person, and too inflated by conceit to give the glory of the active command to any other man. Wrote to Charles Sumner in Boston to stir up some inventive Yankee to construct a wheelbarrow in which Scott could take the field in person.

In a conversation with Seward, I called his attention to the fact that the government is surrounded by the finest, most complicated, intense, and well-spread web of treason that ever was spun; that almost all that constitutes society and is in a daily, nay hourly, contact with the various branches of the Executive, all this, with soul, mind, and heart is devoted to the rebels. I observed to him that si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti. Napoleon suffered more from the bitter hostility of the faubourg St. Germain, than from the armies of the enemy; and here it is still worse, as this hostility runs out into actual, unrelenting treason. To this Mr. Seward answered with the utmost serenity, "that before long all this will change; that when he became governor of New York, a similar hostility prevailed between the two sections of that State, but soon he pacified "everything." What a Merlin! what a sorcerer!

Some simple-minded persons from the interior of the State of New York questioned Mr. Seward, in my presence, about Europe, and "what they will do there?" To this, with a voice of the Delphic oracle, he responded, "that after all France is not bigger than the State of New York." Is it possible to say such trash even as a joke?

Finally, the hesitations of General Scott are overcome. "Virginia's sacred soil is invaded;" Potomac crossed; looks like a beginning of activity; Scott consented to move on Arlington Heights, but during two or three days opposed the seizure of Alexandria. Is that all that he knows of that hateful watchword—strategy—nausea repeated by every ignoramus and imbecile ?

Alexandria being a port of entry, and having a railroad, is more a strategic point for the invasion of Virginia than are Arlington Heights.

The brave Ellsworth murdered in Alexandria, and Scott insisted that Alexandria be invaded and occupied by night. In all probability, Ellsworth would not have been murdered if this villanous nest had been entered by broad daylight. As if the troops were committing a crime, or a shameful act! O General Scott! but for you Ellsworth would not have been murdered.

General McDowell made a plan to seize upon Manassas as the centre of railroads, the true defence of Washington, and the firm foothold in Virginia.

Nobody, or only few enemies, were in Manassas. McDowell shows his genuine military insight. Scott, and, as I am told, the whole senile military council, opposed McDowell's plan as being too bold. Do these mummies intend to conduct a war without boldness?

Thick clouds of patriotic, well-intentioned harpies surround all the issues of the executive doors, windows, crevasses, all of them ready to turn an honest, or rather dishonest, penny out of the fatherland. Behind the harpies advance the busy-bodies, the would-be well-informed, and a promiscuous crowd of well-intentioned do-nothings.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 37-49

John Tyler to Julianna MacLachlan Gardiner,* May 2, 1861

RICHMOND, May 2, 1861.

MY DEAR MRS GARDINER: I have but a moment ago received your letter from the hands of Mrs. Pegram, and regret to perceive the nervous concern you feel in relation to the safety of our dear Julia and the children. Be assured that they will always be in safety. The vaunts and terrible boasts of the North are one thing-the execution of them another. In mustering their troops in the large cities, they, of course, are more expeditious than it can be done in the country; but we are ready for them, and number in Virginia at this moment more troops under arms and in the field, panting for the conflict, than they can arm, provision, and support for a campaign.

The whole State is clad in steel, under the command of the most accomplished leaders. General Scott is too old and infirm to take the field, while our commander, General Lee, a son of Harry Lee of the Revolution, the most accomplished officer and gentlemen, will lead our armies. The volunteers have come in such numbers that thousands are ordered home. Our fighting men in the State number 120,000. North Carolina and Tennessee have followed our lead, while the further South sends us succours. Our people are filled with enthusiasm. I had never supposed it possible that so much enthusiasm could prevail among men. In a week from this time, James River will bristle with fortifications, and Charles City will be far safer than Staten Island.

No one of all these hosts is boastful; none blood-thirsty; all generous and brave. Why, my dear Mrs. Gardiner, judging from the tone of the papers, the North has fallen back on the age of barbarism. The era of Robespierre was never more savage. I would not trust any one bearing my name, even our little Pearl, to New York, if the Herald, Tribune, Courier, and Enquirer, and Times are the true exponents of Northern sentiments.¹ No, my family and myself here are safe. The mob sent out relieves your cities, it is true, but other mobs will rise up to overthrow order. If I find our situation dangerous on the river, we will go to the mountains, or other retreats in Virginia.

Little Julia is well and happy. All are well at Sherwood Forest. With my congratulations to the Colonel on account of his boy, and affectionate regards to his wife.

I am, most truly yours,

JOHN TYLER.

_______________

* Mrs. Gardiner's residence was on Staten Island, New York. She had, annually exchanged visits with her daughter, Mrs. Tyler, who was wont to visit her in the summer.

¹ The New York Courier and Enquirer advised the most rigid system of blockade on the South, that the negroes should be let loose on the whites, men, women and children indiscriminately, and to prostrate the levees of the Mississippi, so as to drown the rebels on the lower Mississippi, “just as we would drown out rats infesting the hull of a ship." The New York Tribune said that "Virginia was a rich and beautiful State, the very garden of the Confederacy," and advised that her lands should be parcelled out among the pioneers who are on their way to Washington at this moment in regiments." The Philadelphia Transcript bellowed that desolation must be "carried from the Potomac to the Rio Grande." "If necessary, myriads of Southern lives must be taken; Southern bodies given to the buzzards; Southern fields consigned to sterility, and Southern towns surrendered to the flames." The Southerners "should not be permitted to return to peaceful and contented homes. They must find poverty at their fireside, and see privation in the anxious eyes of mothers, and the rags of children." The Westchester Democrat, in urging on the Pennsylvania troops, said that Baltimore had "always been celebrated for the beauty of its women; that the fair were ever the reward of the brave, and that Beauty and Booty had been the watchword of New Orleans."—See Howison's History of the War.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 643-4