Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

TREATY OF PEACE, FRIENDSHIP, LIMITS, AND SETTLEMENT BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE UNITED MEXICAN STATES CONCLUDED AT GUADALUPE HIDALGO, FEBRUARY 2, 1848; RATIFICATION ADVISED BY SENATE, WITH AMENDMENTS, MARCH 10, 1848; RATIFIED BY PRESIDENT, MARCH 16, 1848; RATIFICATIONS EXCHANGED AT QUERETARO, MAY 30, 1848; PROCLAIMED, JULY 4, 1848.

In the name of Almighty God:

The United States of America and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war which unhappily exists between the two Republics and to establish upon a solid basis relations of peace and friendship, which shall confer reciprocal benefits upon the citizens of both, and assure the concord, harmony, and mutual confidence wherein the two people should live, as good neighbors have for that purpose appointed their respective plenipotentiaries, that is to say: The President of the United States has appointed Nicholas P. Trist, a citizen of the United States, and the President of the Mexican Republic has appointed Don Luis Gonzaga Cuevas, Don Bernardo Couto, and Don Miguel Atristain, citizens of the said Republic; Who, after a reciprocal communication of their respective full powers, have, under the protection of Almighty God, the author of peace, arranged, agreed upon, and signed the following: Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic.

ARTICLE I

There shall be firm and universal peace between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, without exception of places or persons.

ARTICLE II

Immediately upon the signature of this treaty, a convention shall be entered into between a commissioner or commissioners appointed by the General-in-chief of the forces of the United States, and such as may be appointed by the Mexican Government, to the end that a provisional suspension of hostilities shall take place, and that, in the places occupied by the said forces, constitutional order may be reestablished, as regards the political, administrative, and judicial branches, so far as this shall be permitted by the circumstances of military occupation.

ARTICLE III

Immediately upon the ratification of the present treaty by the Government of the United States, orders shall be transmitted to the commanders of their land and naval forces, requiring the latter (provided this treaty shall then have been ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic, and the ratifications exchanged) immediately to desist from blockading any Mexican ports and requiring the former (under the same condition) to commence, at the earliest moment practicable, withdrawing all troops of the United States then in the interior of the Mexican Republic, to points that shall be selected by common agreement, at a distance from the seaports not exceeding thirty leagues; and such evacuation of the interior of the Republic shall be completed with the least possible delay; the Mexican Government hereby binding itself to afford every facility in its power for rendering the same convenient to the troops, on their march and in their new positions, and for promoting a good understanding between them and the inhabitants. In like manner orders shall be despatched to the persons in charge of the custom houses at all ports occupied by the forces of the United States, requiring them (under the same condition) immediately to deliver possession of the same to the persons authorized by the Mexican Government to receive it, together with all bonds and evidences of debt for duties on importations and on exportations, not yet fallen due. Moreover, a faithful and exact account shall be made out, showing the entire amount of all duties on imports and on exports, collected at such custom-houses, or elsewhere in Mexico, by authority of the United States, from and after the day of ratification of this treaty by the Government of the Mexican Republic; and also an account of the cost of collection; and such entire amount, deducting only the cost of collection, shall be delivered to the Mexican Government, at the city of Mexico, within three months after the exchange of ratifications.

The evacuation of the capital of the Mexican Republic by the troops of the United States, in virtue of the above stipulation, shall be completed in one month after the orders there stipulated for shall have been received by the commander of said troops, or sooner if possible.

ARTICLE IV

Immediately after the exchange of ratifications of the present treaty all castles, forts, territories, places, and possessions, which have been taken or occupied by the forces of the United States during the present war, within the limits of the Mexican Republic, as about to be established by the following article, shall be definitely restored to the said Republic, together with all the artillery, arms, apparatus of war, munitions, and other public property, which were in the said castles and forts when captured, and which shall remain there at the time when this treaty shall be duly ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic. To this end, immediately upon the signature of this treaty, orders shall be despatched to the American officers commanding such castles and forts, securing against the removal or destruction of any such artillery, arms, apparatus of war, munitions, or other public property. The city of Mexico, within the inner line of intrenchments surrounding the said city, is comprehended in the above stipulation, as regards the restoration of artillery, apparatus of war, &c.

The final evacuation of the territory of the Mexican Republic, by the forces of the United States, shall be completed in three months from the said exchange of ratifications, or sooner if possible; the Mexican Government hereby engaging, as in the foregoing article to use all means in its power for facilitating such evacuation, and rendering it convenient to the troops, and for promoting a good understanding between them and the inhabitants.

If, however, the ratification of this treaty by both parties should not take place in time to allow the embarcation of the troops of the United States to be completed before the commencement of the sickly season, at the Mexican ports on the Gulf of Mexico, in such case a friendly arrangement shall be entered into between the General-in-Chief of the said troops and the Mexican Government, whereby healthy and otherwise suitable places, at a distance from the ports not exceeding thirty leagues, shall be designated for the residence of such troops as may not yet have embarked, until the return of the healthy season. And the space of time here referred to as, comprehending the sickly season shall be understood to extend from the first day of May to the first day of November.

All prisoners of war taken on either side, on land or on sea, shall be restored as soon as practicable after the exchange of ratifications of this treaty. It is also agreed that if any Mexicans should now be held as captives by any savage tribe within the limits of the United States, as about to be established by the following article, the Government of the said United States will exact the release of such captives and cause them to be restored to their country.

ARTICLE V

The boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, otherwise called Rio Bravo del Norte, or Opposite the mouth of its deepest branch, if it should have more than one branch emptying directly into the sea; from thence up the middle of that river, following the deepest channel, where it has more than one, to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico; thence, westwardly, along the whole southern boundary of New Mexico (which runs north of the town called Paso) to its western termination; thence, northward, along the western line of New Mexico, until it intersects the first branch of the river Gila; (or if it should not intersect any branch of that river, then to the point on the said line nearest to such branch, and thence in a direct line to the same); thence down the middle of the said branch and of the said river, until it empties into the Rio Colorado; thence across the Rio Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower California, to the Pacific Ocean.

The southern and western limits of New Mexico, mentioned in the article, are those laid down in the map entitled “Map of the United Mexican States, as organized and defined by various acts of the Congress of said republic, and constructed according to the best authorities. Revised edition. Published at New York, in 1847, by J. Disturnell,” of which map a copy is added to this treaty, bearing the signatures and seals of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries. And, in order to preclude all difficulty in tracing upon the ground the limit separating Upper from Lower California, it is agreed that the said limit shall consist of a straight line drawn from the middle of the Rio Gila, where it unites with the Colorado, to a point on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, distant one marine league due south of the southernmost point of the port of San Diego, according to the plan of said port made in the year 1782 by Don Juan Pantoja, second sailing-master of the Spanish fleet, and published at Madrid in the year 1802, in the atlas to the voyage of the schooners Sutil and Mexicana; of which plan a copy is hereunto added, signed and sealed by the respective Plenipotentiaries.

In order to designate the boundary line with due precision, upon authoritative maps, and to establish upon the ground land-marks which shall show the limits of both republics, as described in the present article, the two Governments shall each appoint a commissioner and a surveyor, who, before the expiration of one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, shall meet at the port of San Diego, and proceed to run and mark the said boundary in its whole course to the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte. They shall keep journals and make out plans of their operations; and the result agreed upon by them shall be deemed a part of this treaty, and shall have the same force as if it were inserted therein. The two Governments will amicably agree regarding what may be necessary to these persons, and also as to their respective escorts, should such be necessary.

The boundary line established by this article shall be religiously respected by each of the two republics, and no change shall ever be made therein, except by the express and free consent of both nations, lawfully given by the General Government of each, in conformity with its own constitution.

ARTICLE VI

The vessels and citizens of the United States shall, in all time, have a free and uninterrupted passage by the Gulf of California, and by the river Colorado below its confluence with the Gila, to and from their possessions situated north of the boundary line defined in the preceding article; it being understood that this passage is to be by navigating the Gulf of California and the river Colorado, and not by land, without the express consent of the Mexican Government.

If, by the examinations which may be made, it should be ascertained to be practicable and advantageous to construct a road, canal, or railway, which should in whole or in part run upon the river Gila, or upon its right or its left bank, within the space of one marine league from either margin of the river, the Governments of both republics will form an agreement regarding its construction, in order that it may serve equally for the use and advantage of both countries.

ARTICLE VII

The river Gila, and the part of the Rio Bravo del Norte lying below the southern boundary of New Mexico, being, agreeably to the fifth article, divided in the middle between the two republics, the navigation of the Gila and of the Bravo below said boundary shall be free and common to the vessels and citizens of both countries; and neither shall, without the consent of the other, construct any work that may impede or interrupt, in whole or in part, the exercise of this right; not even for the purpose of favoring new methods of navigation. Nor shall any tax or contribution, under any denomination or title, be levied upon vessels or persons navigating the same or upon merchandise or effects transported thereon, except in the case of landing upon one of their shores. If, for the purpose of making the said rivers navigable, or for maintaining them in such state, it should be necessary or advantageous to establish any tax or contribution, this shall not be done without the consent of both Governments.

The stipulations contained in the present article shall not impair the territorial rights of either republic within its established limits.

ARTICLE VIII

Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever.

Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States.

In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guarantees equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States.

ARTICLE IX

The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic, conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States. and be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States, according to the principles of the Constitution; and in the mean time, shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion without; restriction.

ARTICLE X

[Stricken out]

ARTICLE XI

Considering that a great part of the territories, which, by the present treaty, are to be comprehended for the future within the limits of the United States, is now occupied by savage tribes, who will hereafter be under the exclusive control of the Government of the United States, and whose incursions within the territory of Mexico would be prejudicial in the extreme, it is solemnly agreed that all such incursions shall be forcibly restrained by the Government of the United States whensoever this may be necessary; and that when they cannot be prevented, they shall be punished by the said Government, and satisfaction for the same shall be exacted – all in the same way, and with equal diligence and energy, as if the same incursions were meditated or committed within its own territory, against its own citizens.

It shall not be lawful, under any pretext whatever, for any inhabitant of the United States to purchase or acquire any Mexican, or any foreigner residing in Mexico, who may have been captured by Indians inhabiting the territory of either of the two republics; nor to purchase or acquire horses, mules, cattle, or property of any kind, stolen within Mexican territory by such Indians.

And in the event of any person or persons, captured within Mexican territory by Indians, being carried into the territory of the United States, the Government of the latter engages and binds itself, in the most solemn manner, so soon as it shall know of such captives being within its territory, and shall be able so to do, through the faithful exercise of its influence and power, to rescue them and return them to their country, or deliver them to the agent or representative of the Mexican Government. The Mexican authorities will, as far as practicable, give to the Government of the United States notice of such captures; and its agents shall pay the expenses incurred in the maintenance and transmission of the rescued captives; who, in the mean time, shall be treated with the utmost hospitality by the American authorities at the place where they may be. But if the Government of the United States, before receiving such notice from Mexico, should obtain intelligence, through any other channel, of the existence of Mexican captives within its territory, it will proceed forthwith to effect their release and delivery to the Mexican agent, as above stipulated.

For the purpose of giving to these stipulations the fullest possible efficacy, thereby affording the security and redress demanded by their true spirit and intent, the Government of the United States will now and hereafter pass, without unnecessary delay, and always vigilantly enforce, such laws as the nature of the subject may require. And, finally, the sacredness of this obligation shall never be lost sight of by the said Government, when providing for the removal of the Indians from any portion of the said territories, or for its being settled by citizens of the United States; but, on the contrary, special care shall then be taken not to place its Indian occupants under the necessity of seeking new homes, by committing those invasions which the United States have solemnly obliged themselves to restrain.

ARTICLE XII

In consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States, as defined in the fifth article of the present treaty, the Government of the United States engages to pay to that of the Mexican Republic the sum of fifteen millions of dollars.

Immediately after the treaty shall have been duly ratified by the Government of the Mexican Republic, the sum of three millions of dollars shall be paid to the said Government by that of the United States, at the city of Mexico, in the gold or silver coin of Mexico The remaining twelve millions of dollars shall be paid at the same place, and in the same coin, in annual installments of three millions of dollars each, together with interest on the same at the rate of six per centum per annum. This interest shall begin to run upon the whole sum of twelve millions from the day of the ratification of the present treaty by the Mexican Government, and the first of the installments shall be paid at the expiration of one year from the same day. Together with each annual installment, as it falls due, the whole interest accruing on such installment from the beginning shall also be paid.

ARTICLE XIII

The United States engage, moreover, to assume and pay to the claimants all the amounts now due them, and those hereafter to become due, by reason of the claims already liquidated and decided against the Mexican Republic, under the conventions between the two republics severally concluded on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and thirty-nine, and on the thirtieth day of January, eighteen hundred and forty-three; so that the Mexican Republic shall be absolutely exempt, for the future, from all expense whatever on account of the said claims.

ARTICLE XIV

The United States do furthermore discharge the Mexican Republic from all claims of citizens of the United States, not heretofore decided against the Mexican Government, which may have arisen previously to the date of the signature of this treaty; which discharge shall be final and perpetual, whether the said claims be rejected or be allowed by the board of commissioners provided for in the following article, and whatever shall be the total amount of those allowed.

ARTICLE XV

The United States, exonerating Mexico from all demands on account of the claims of their citizens mentioned in the preceding article, and considering them entirely and forever canceled, whatever their amount may be, undertake to make satisfaction for the same, to an amount not exceeding three and one-quarter millions of dollars. To ascertain the validity and amount of those claims, a board of commissioners shall be established by the Government of the United States, whose awards shall be final and conclusive; provided that, in deciding upon the validity of each claim, the board shall be guided and governed by the principles and rules of decision prescribed by the first and fifth articles of the unratified convention, concluded at the city of Mexico on the twentieth day of November, one thousand eight hundred and forty-three; and in no case shall an award be made in favour of any claim not embraced by these principles and rules.

If, in the opinion of the said board of commissioners or of the claimants, any books, records, or documents, in the possession or power of the Government of the Mexican Republic, shall be deemed necessary to the just decision of any claim, the commissioners, or the claimants through them, shall, within such period as Congress may designate, make an application in writing for the same, addressed to the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be transmitted by the Secretary of State of the United States; and the Mexican Government engages, at the earliest possible moment after the receipt of such demand, to cause any of the books, records, or documents so specified, which shall be in their possession or power (or authenticated copies or extracts of the same), to be transmitted to the said Secretary of State, who shall immediately deliver them over to the said board of commissioners; provided that no such application shall be made by or at the instance of any claimant, until the facts which it is expected to prove by such books, records, or documents, shall have been stated under oath or affirmation.

ARTICLE XVI

Each of the contracting parties reserves to itself the entire right to fortify whatever point within its territory it may judge proper so to fortify for its security.

ARTICLE XVII

The treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, concluded at the city of Mexico, on the fifth day of April, A. D. 1831, between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, except the additional article, and except so far as the stipulations of the said treaty may be incompatible with any stipulation contained in the present treaty, is hereby revived for the period of eight years from the day of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, with the same force and virtue as if incorporated therein; it being understood that each of the contracting parties reserves to itself the right, at any time after the said period of eight years shall have expired, to terminate the same by giving one year's notice of such intention to the other party.

ARTICLE XVIII

All supplies whatever for troops of the United States in Mexico, arriving at ports in the occupation of such troops previous to the final evacuation thereof, although subsequently to the restoration of the custom-houses at such ports, shall be entirely exempt from duties and charges of any kind; the Government of the United States hereby engaging and pledging its faith to establish and vigilantly to enforce, all possible guards for securing the revenue of Mexico, by preventing the importation, under cover of this stipulation, of any articles other than such, both in kind and in quantity, as shall really be wanted for the use and consumption of the forces of the United States during the time they may remain in Mexico. To this end it shall be the duty of all officers and agents of the United States to denounce to the Mexican authorities at the respective ports any attempts at a fraudulent abuse of this stipulation, which they may know of, or may have reason to suspect, and to give to such authorities all the aid in their power with regard thereto; and every such attempt, when duly proved and established by sentence of a competent tribunal, They shall be punished by the confiscation of the property so attempted to be fraudulently introduced.

ARTICLE XIX

With respect to all merchandise, effects, and property whatsoever, imported into ports of Mexico, whilst in the occupation of the forces of the United States, whether by citizens of either republic, or by citizens or subjects of any neutral nation, the following rules shall be observed:

1. All such merchandise, effects, and property, if imported previously to the restoration of the custom-houses to the Mexican authorities, as stipulated for in the third article of this treaty, shall be exempt from confiscation, although the importation of the same be prohibited by the Mexican tariff.

2. The same perfect exemption shall be enjoyed by all such merchandise, effects, and property, imported subsequently to the restoration of the custom-houses, and previously to the sixty days fixed in the following article for the coming into force of the Mexican tariff at such ports respectively; the said merchandise, effects, and property being, however, at the time of their importation, subject to the payment of duties, as provided for in the said following article.

3. All merchandise, effects, and property described in the two rules foregoing shall, during their continuance at the place of importation, and upon their leaving such place for the interior, be exempt from all duty, tax, or imposts of every kind, under whatsoever title or denomination. Nor shall they be there subject to any charge whatsoever upon the sale thereof.

4. All merchandise, effects, and property, described in the first and second rules, which shall have been removed to any place in the interior, whilst such place was in the occupation of the forces of the United States, shall, during their continuance therein, be exempt from all tax upon the sale or consumption thereof, and from every kind of impost or contribution, under whatsoever title or denomination.

5. But if any merchandise, effects, or property, described in the first and second rules, shall be removed to any place not occupied at the time by the forces of the United States, they shall, upon their introduction into such place, or upon their sale or consumption there, be subject to the same duties which, under the Mexican laws, they would be required to pay in such cases if they had been imported in time of peace, through the maritime custom-houses, and had there paid the duties conformably with the Mexican tariff.

6. The owners of all merchandise, effects, or property, described in the first and second rules, and existing in any port of Mexico, shall have the right to reship the same, exempt from all tax, impost, or contribution whatever.

With respect to the metals, or other property, exported from any Mexican port whilst in the occupation of the forces of the United States, and previously to the restoration of the custom-house at such port, no person shall be required by the Mexican authorities, whether general or state, to pay any tax, duty, or contribution upon any such exportation, or in any manner to account for the same to the said authorities.

ARTICLE XX

Through consideration for the interests of commerce generally, it is agreed, that if less than sixty days should elapse between the date of the signature of this treaty and the restoration of the custom houses, conformably with the stipulation in the third article, in such case all merchandise, effects and property whatsoever, arriving at the Mexican ports after the restoration of the said custom-houses, and previously to the expiration of sixty days after the day of signature of this treaty, shall be admitted to entry; and no other duties shall be levied thereon than the duties established by the tariff found in force at such custom-houses at the time of the restoration of the same. And to all such merchandise, effects, and property, the rules established by the preceding article shall apply.

ARTICLE XXI

If unhappily any disagreement should hereafter arise between the Governments of the two republics, whether with respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, or with respect to any other particular concerning the political or commercial relations of the two nations, the said Governments, in the name of those nations, do promise to each other that they will endeavour, in the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so arising, and to preserve the state of peace and friendship in which the two countries are now placing themselves, using, for this end, mutual representations and pacific negotiations. And if, by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one republic against the other, until the Government of that which deems itself aggrieved shall have maturely considered, in the spirit of peace and good neighbourship, whether it would not be better that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of commissioners appointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature of the difference, or the circumstances of the case.

ARTICLE XXII

If (which is not to be expected, and which God forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two republics, they do now, with a view to such calamity, solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world to observe the following rules; absolutely where the nature of the subject permits, and as closely as possible in all cases where such absolute observance shall be impossible:

1. The merchants of either republic then residing in the other shall be allowed to remain twelve months (for those dwelling in the interior), and six months (for those dwelling at the seaports) to collect their debts and settle their affairs; during which periods they shall enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing, in all respects, as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations; and, at the expiration thereof, or at any time before, they shall have full liberty to depart, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hindrance, conforming therein to the same laws which the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations are required to conform to. Upon the entrance of the armies of either nation into the territories of the other, women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in general all persons whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, unmolested in their persons. Nor shall their houses or goods be burnt or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor their fields wasted, by the armed force into whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if the necessity arise to take anything from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at an equitable price. All churches, hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, and other establishments for charitable and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the same protected in the discharge of their duties, and the pursuit of their vocations.

2. In order that the fate of prisoners of war may be alleviated all such practices as those of sending them into distant, inclement or unwholesome districts, or crowding them into close and noxious places, shall be studiously avoided. They shall not be confined in dungeons, prison ships, or prisons; nor be put in irons, or bound or otherwise restrained in the use of their limbs. The officers shall enjoy liberty on their paroles, within convenient districts, and have comfortable quarters; and the common soldiers shall be disposed in cantonments, open and extensive enough for air and exercise and lodged in barracks as roomy and good as are provided by the party in whose power they are for its own troops. But if any officer shall break his parole by leaving the district so assigned him, or any other prisoner shall escape from the limits of his cantonment after they shall have been designated to him, such individual, officer, or other prisoner, shall forfeit so much of the benefit of this article as provides for his liberty on parole or in cantonment. And if any officer so breaking his parole or any common soldier so escaping from the limits assigned him, shall afterwards be found in arms previously to his being regularly exchanged, the person so offending shall be dealt with according to the established laws of war. The officers shall be daily furnished, by the party in whose power they are, with as many rations, and of the same articles, as are allowed either in kind or by commutation, to officers of equal rank in its own army; and all others shall be daily furnished with such ration as is allowed to a common soldier in its own service; the value of all which supplies shall, at the close of the war, or at periods to be agreed upon between the respective commanders, be paid by the other party, on a mutual adjustment of accounts for the subsistence of prisoners; and such accounts shall not be mingled with or set off against any others, nor the balance due on them withheld, as a compensation or reprisal for any cause whatever, real or pretended Each party shall be allowed to keep a commissary of prisoners, appointed by itself, with every cantonment of prisoners, in possession of the other; which commissary shall see the prisoners as often as he pleases; shall be allowed to receive, exempt from all duties a taxes, and to distribute, whatever comforts may be sent to them by their friends; and shall be free to transmit his reports in open letters to the party by whom he is employed. And it is declared that neither the pretense that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article. On the contrary, the state of war is precisely that for which it is provided; and, during which, its stipulations are to be as sacredly observed as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of nature or nations.

ARTICLE XXIII

This treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof; and by the President of the Mexican Republic, with the previous approbation of its general Congress; and the ratifications shall be exchanged in the City of Washington, or at the seat of Government of Mexico, in four months from the date of the signature hereof, or sooner if practicable. In faith whereof we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty of peace, friendship, limits, and settlement, and have hereunto affixed our seals respectively. Done in quintuplicate, at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on the second day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight.

N. P. TRIST

LUIS P. CUEVAS

BERNARDO COUTO

MIGL. ATRISTAIN

SOURCE:  J. C. Bancroft Davis, Treaties and Conventions Concluded Between the United States of America and Other Powers, Since July 4, 1776, Revised Edition, p. 562-73

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Major-General Henry W. Halleck, May 22, 1863

NEAR VICKSBURG, May 22, 1863,

VIA MEMPHIS, May 25.

General H. W. HALLECK,

Washington, D.C.:

Vicksburg is now completely invested. I have possession of Haynes' Bluff and the Yazoo; consequently have supplies. To-day an attempt was made to carry the city by assault, but was not entirely successful. We hold possession, however, of two of the enemy's forts, and have skirmishers close under all of them. Our loss was not severe. The nature of the ground about Vicksburg is such that it can only be taken by a siege. It is entirely safe to us in time, I would say one week, if the enemy do not send a large army upon my rear. With the railroad destroyed to beyond Pearl River, I do not see the hope that the enemy can entertain of such relief.

I learn that Jeff Davis has promised that if the garrison can hold out for fifteen days he will send 100,000 men, if he has to evacuate Tennessee to do it.

What shall I do with the prisoners I have?

U. S. GRANT,

Major-General.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 1 (Serial No. 36), p. 37

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Wednesday, July 1, 1863

A detail of the Seventeenth Iowa came out this morning to relieve us, and a team came this afternoon to haul our baggage, but we have not yet received orders to leave. Captain McLoney went down to the headquarters of the picket officers to get an order to move. The report is that our men blew up another rebel fort. It is said that a man on one of our mortar boats made a wager that he could pull the lanyard longer and fire a larger number of shells than any of his comrades, but he was overcome by the concussion and dropped dead just as he stepped from the boat. He gave up his life for a vain wish.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 125

33rd Ohio Infantry

Organized at Portsmouth, Ohio, August 5 to September 13, 1861. Left State for Kentucky September 13 and Joined Gen. Nelson at Maysville, Ky. Attached to 9th Brigade, Army of the Ohio, October to December, 1861. 9th Brigade, 3rd Division, Army of the Ohio, to September, 1862. 9th Brigade, 3rd Division, 1st Corps, Army of the Ohio, to November, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Center 14th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to January, 1863. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 14th Army Corps, to July, 1865.

SERVICE. – Capture of Hazel Green, Ky., October 23, 1861. Operations against Williams' invasion of the Blue Grass Region, Ky., November-December. Action at Ivy Mountain November 8. Piketon, Ky., November 8-9. Duty at Bacon Creek till February, 1862. Advance on Bowling Green, Ky., February 10-15, and on Nashville, Tenn., February 22-25. Occupation of Nashville February 25 to March 17. Advance on Murfreesboro, Tenn., March 17-19. Occupation of Shelbyville and Fayetteville and advance on Huntsville, Ala., March 29-April 11. Capture of Huntsville April 11. (Pittinger's Raid on Georgia Central Railroad April 7-12, Detachment.) Advance to Decatur, Ala., April 11-14. Duty along Memphis & Charleston Railroad till August. Action at Battle Creek June 21. Moved to Bridgeport and occupy Fort McCook at mouth of Battle Creek. Action at Battle Creek August 27 (6 Cos.), and at Bridgeport August 27 (4 Cos.). March to Louisville, Ky., in pursuit of Bragg, August 28-September 26. Pursuit of Bragg into Kentucky October 1-15. Battle of Perryville, Ky., October 8. March to Nashville, Tenn., October 16-November 7, and duty there till December 26. Advance on Murfreesboro, Tenn., December 26-30. Battle of Stone's River December 30-31, 1862, and January 1-3, 1863. Duty at Murfreesboro till June. Middle Tennessee or Tullahoma Campaign June 23-July 7. Hoover's Gap June 24-26. Occupation of Middle Tennessee till August 16. Passage of the Cumberland Mountains and Tennessee River and Chickamauga (Ga.) Campaign August 16-September 22. Davis Cross Roads or Dug Gap September 11. Battle of Chickamauga September 19-21. Rossville Gap September 21. Siege of Chattanooga, Tenn., September 24-November 23. Reopening Tennessee River October 26-29. Brown's Ferry October 27 (Detachment). Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign November 23-27. Orchard Knob November 23. Lookout Mountain November 23-24. Mission Ridge November 25. Ringgold Gap, Taylor's Ridge, November 27. Demonstration on Dalton, Ga., February 22-27, 1864. Tunnel Hill, Buzzard's Roost Gap and Rocky Faced Ridge February 23-25. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1 to September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge May 8-11. Buzzard's Roost Gap or Mill Creek May 9. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Advance on Dallas May 18-26. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5. Pickett's Mill May 27. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Pine Hill June 11-14. Lost Mountain June 15-17. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Ruff's Station July 4. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Buckhead, Nancy's Creek, July 18. Peach Tree Creek July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Utoy Creek August 6-7. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Red Oak August 29. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Operations against Hood in North Georgia and North Alabama September 29-November 3. Cassville November 7. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Taylor's Hole Creek, Averysboro, N. C., March 16. Battle of Bentonville March 19-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 20-May 19. Grand Review May 24. Moved to Louisville, Ky., June 6. Mustered out at Louisville, Ky., July 12, 1865.

Regiment lost during service 7 Officers and 130 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 3 Officers and 192 Enlisted men by disease. Total 332.

SOURCE: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Part 3, p. 1512

Major-General Ulysses S. Grant to Rear-Admiral David D. Porter, May 22, 1863 – 8:30 p.m.

NEAR VICKSBURG, MISS., May 22, 1863 – 8.30 p.m.

Rear-Admiral DAVID D. PORTER,

Commanding Mississippi Squadron:

Your note, dated 2 p.m., is just received. I had sent you a dispatch stating that the assault at 10 a.m. was not successful, although not an entire failure. Our troops succeeded in gaining positions close up to the enemy's batteries, which we yet hold, and, in one or two instances, getting into them. I now find the position of the enemy so strong that I shall be compelled to regularly besiege the city. I would request, therefore, that you give me all the assistance you can with the mortars and gunboats. McArthur has been ordered to join McClernand, but I wish to countermand the order, if it has not already been executed. I have no means of communicating with General McArthur, except by way of Young's Point. Will you do me the favor to forward to him the accompanying?

 U.S. GRANT.

P. S. – If the gunboats could come up and silence the upper water battery and clear the southern slope of the second range of hills from the Yazoo Bottom, it would enable Sherman to carry that position, and virtually give us the city. The mortar-boats, I think, could be brought with security to within 1 mile or less of the bluff, on the Mississippi shore, from which they could rain shells into the city. Let me beg that every gunboat and every mortar be brought to bear upon the city.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 24, Part 3 (Serial No. 38), p. 337-8

John Brown to John Brown Jr., December 6, 1850

SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Dec. 6, 1850.

DEAR SON JOHN, — Your kind letter is received. By same mail I also have one from Mr. Perkins in answer to one of mine, in which I did in no very indistinct way introduce some queries, not altogether unlike those your letter contained. Indeed, your letter throughout is so much like what has often passed through my own mind, that were I not a little sceptical yet, I should conclude you had access to some of the knocking spirits.¹ I shall not write you very long, as I mean to write again before many days. Mr. Perkins's letter, to which I just alluded, appears to be written in a very kind spirit; and so long as he is right-side up, I shall by no means despond; indeed, I think the fog clearing away from our matters a little. I certainly wish to understand, and I mean to understand, “how the land lies” before taking any important steps. You can assist me very much about being posted up: but you will be able to get hold of the right end exactly by having everything done up first-rate, and by becoming very familiar, and not by keeping distant. I most earnestly hope that should I lose caste, my family will at least prove themselves worthy of respect and confidence; and I am sure that my three sons in Akron can do a great job for themselves and for the family if they behave themselves wisely. Your letter so well expresses my own feelings, that were it not for one expression I would mail it with one I have just finished, to Mr. Perkins. Can you not all three effectually secure the name of good business men this winter? That you are considered honest and rather intelligent I have no doubt.

I do not believe the losses of our firm will in the end prove so very severe, if Mr. Perkins can only be kept resolute and patient in regard to matters. I have often made mistakes by being too hasty, and mean hereafter to “ponder well the path of my feet.” I mean to pursue in all things such a course as is in reality wise, and as will in the end give to myself and family the least possible cause for regret. I believe Mr. Newton is properly authorized to take testimony. If so, I wish you to ascertain the fact and write me; if not, I want you to learn through Mr. Perkins who would be a suitable person for that business, as I expect before many weeks to want your testimony, and I want you to give me the name. I forgot to write to Mr. Perkins about it, and have sealed up my letter to him. I mentioned about your testimony, but forgot what I should have written.

Your affectionate father,

JOHN BROWN.

__________

¹ This was the period when the Fox family, at Rochester, N. Y., were astonishing the world with their knockings and the messages from another world which these were supposed to convey. John Brown, Jr., was inclined to believe in the reality of this “rat-hole revelation” (as Emerson described it to Henry Ward Beecher); but his father was sceptical. He talked with his son at the American House, Springfield, in 1848, concerning this matter, and told him that the Bible contains the whole revelation of God; that since that canon was closed, “the book has been sealed.” In his later years he was less confident of this; and in 1859, when he last talked with John Brown, Jr., on the subject, he said he had received messages, as he believed, from Dianthe Lusk, which had directed his conduct in cases of perplexity. Milton Lusk has been a believer in “Spiritualism” for many years; indeed, he is naturally heretical, and was excommunicated by the church in Hudson, in 1835.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 78-9

Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, April 23, 1861

CINCINNATI, April 23, 1861.

DEAR UNCLE : — No doubt the accounts sent abroad as to the danger we are in from Kentucky are much exaggerated. Kentucky is in no condition to go out immediately. If the war goes on, as I think it ought, it is probable that she will leave us, and that we shall be greatly exposed, but she has no arms, and almost no military organization. Even their secession governor is not prepared to precipitate matters under these circumstances. We are rapidly preparing for war, and shall be on a war footing long before Kentucky has decided what to do.

Lucy dislikes to leave here just now. She enjoys the excitement and wishes to be near her mother and the rest of us; but as for camping down in Spiegel Grove and roughing it, she thinks that will be jolly enough, and as soon as we are quiet here, she will be very happy to go into quarters with you. . . .

A great many gentlemen of your years are in for the war. One old fellow was rejected on account of his gray hair and whiskers. He hurried down street and had them colored black, and passed muster in another company.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

Yours of the 22nd just received. Fremont has done well. We are sending about four thousand [volunteers] from here, if all are accepted, besides [having] eight thousand more stay-at-homes. I am acting captain of our crack rifle company. I shall go into the ranks as a private in a week or two.

S. BIRCHARD.

 SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 10-11

Brigadier General Thomas J. Jackson to Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, October 1, 1861

CAMP NEAR FAIRFAX COURT-HOUSE, Oct. 1st.

Yesterday I rode down to the station, and while there President Davis, very unexpectedly to me, arrived in a single car; the remaining part of the train, I suppose, stopped at the Junction to unload. He looked quite thin. His reception was a hearty cheer from the troops. He took his seat in an ambulance-like carriage, and as he passed on his way to the Court-House the air rang with the soldiers' welcoming cheers. He was soon met by a troop of horse, and a horse for himself. Leaving his carriage and mounting his horse, he proceeded on his way, escorted by the cavalry, about four thousand of the First Corps (General Beauregard). The troops belonged to Generals Longstreet, D. R. Jones, and Philip St. George Cocke. It was quite an imposing pageant. . . .

Yesterday I saw President Davis review. He took up his quarters with General Beauregard, where, in company with Colonels Preston, Harmon, and Echols, I called upon him this morning at about half-past ten o'clock. He looks thin, but does not seem to be as feeble as yesterday. His voice and manners are very mild. I saw no exhibition of that fire which I had supposed him to possess. The President introduced the subject of the condition of my section of the State, but did not even so much as intimate that he designed sending me there. I told him, when he spoke of my native region, that I felt a very deep interest in it. He spoke hopefully of that section, and highly of General Lee.

SOURCE: Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), p. 194-5

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, July 11, 1862

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

CAMP “JUPITER AMMON,” July 11, 1862.

MY DEAR WIFE:

I am here at an important point on the State line of Mississippi and Tennessee at what is called “Ammon's Bridge.” I have a separate command of infantry, artillery, and cavalry under my sole control, so that for the present I feel pretty independent. I conduct my camp as I please and scout and patrol the country to suit myself. I came down for an engagement with a detachment of cavalry, known as “Jackson's Cavalry,” but they would not stay for me. It has been my constant ill fortune always to fail in getting an engagement when I have been alone in command. I have been in plenty of skirmishes, but never in one on my own hook.

The first opportunity I ever had for distinction, was when I made the march through the swamp to “Gauss” just two days before the battle of Shiloh and of which I gave you description. I went down alone with my regiment to trap a body of cavalry, passing at night six miles beyond our own lines and within one half mile of the enemies' camp. We lay in sight of their camp fires all night and could hear them talking. I was balked in my manoeuvre, however, by delay on the part of the 5th Ohio Cavalry, who had been detailed to act in concert with me, but who failed in keeping time, and my quarry made its escape by another ford. I feel anxious to fight one battle of my own. All this is uninteresting to you, of course. I am encamped now at a very pretty place. The woods right on the banks of Wolf River that abounds with fish; and it is a swift-running stream with sandy bottom. I have also a remarkably fine cold spring, giving abundance of delicious water, and here I expect to stay for some days. I hope to recuperate, for I have been much troubled with diarrhoea, which I fear has become chronic. I have never been relieved even for a day since the affair at Shiloh; save this trouble, my health is fair. The weather is becoming very warm, we can only make marches early in the morning or late in the evening. Our horses wilt down — nothing but negroes and slaves can stand labor in this climate. On my last march to Holly Springs, I was encamped for four days just on the edge of a large cotton field. In that vicinity cotton has been the great crop, but this year there as elsewhere the cotton fields have mostly been planted with corn. The corn here is very large, tasseled out, roasting ears, almost ripe. Blue grass, herd grass, clover, or timothy won't grow here. Oats and wheat hardly worth gathering, but potatoes, corn, cotton, sweet potatoes and fruits of all kinds, particularly peaches and apples, thrive wonderfully. I never saw such blackberries as I have seen here, growing on vines twenty feet or more high, so high that the topmost branches could not be reached by a man on horseback, and the berry almost fabulous in size, an inch and a half long, perfectly sweet and without core. A man could easily pick half a bushel in an hour, and I suppose we had twenty bushels a day brought into camp while near the patch. Almost all our Northern fruits, I doubt not, would grow with equal profusion if properly cultivated here. Most of the people I meet here are well bred, but not always well educated. They are invariably and persistently secession in their politics, but generally opposed to the war. It is absurd to think of conquering an union, and I believe that an attempt to subjugate these people will be equally futile. There is a bitterness, a rancor of hostility, particularly on the part of their women and children, of which you can have no conception. I have never for one moment changed my views in this regard, so often expressed to you, and in your hearing, before the breaking out of hostilities. The war will teach them to respect the courage of the North, but it has made two peoples, and millions of lives must be sacrificed before its termination. Governor Tod has appealed to the people of Ohio for five thousand. He had better go to drafting. Ohio must contribute fifty thousand, and those right speedily. The resources of this country have always been underrated; this is another absurdity. Their people live far better than we in Ohio out of the cities. I know this to be a fact, for I am daily an eye-witness. A man here with twelve or fifteen hundred acres is a prince. His slaves fare better than our working farmers. His soil is more kindly, his climate better, and better than all, he understands the science of living. He enjoys life more than we do, and so do his wife and children; and they all know this. They are determined to be independent, and they will be. There is no house I go to but where I find the spinning wheel and loom at work. Their hills are covered with sheep and cattle, their valleys literally seas of corn. As long as the Northerner's foot is on the soil just so long there will be some one to dispute its possession, inch by inch, and meanwhile they will find resources for themselves in food and raiment. It is a magnificent country, such timber I never saw. The white oaks would gladden the eyes of the Coleraine coopers. I have noticed many a one eight, perhaps nine feet in diameter at the base, straight, rifted, and running up without catface or flaw, sixty, seventy, eighty feet to the first limb; beeches, hickory, holly, chestnut, all in the same proportions; and that most gorgeous and beautiful tree, the magnolia, in all its pride of blossom, each bloom perfect in beauty, velvety in leaf and blossom and fragrant as the spicy gales from Araby, or a pond lily or attar of roses, or a fresh pineapple, any or all combined, the tree graceful and majestic, proud in bearing so lovely a bloom. The flora of the country is truly beautiful. I am not enough of a botanist to know, nor have I the memory to bear in mind the name of the plants I do know, that are made to bloom in our greenhouses, and here grow wild; but through the woods and along the roadside many and many a one I see growing in wild and splendid luxuriance, wasting their blushes and “fragrance on the desert air,” that a prince might envy and covet for his garden. I do not remember whether I made mention to you of the azalias that were just bursting into bloom on the 6th and 7th of April, and that while sore pressed in the heat of battle, I was absurd enough to gather a handful of them; but so it was. The whole woods at a certain part of the battlefield were bedecked with them and the whole air laden with their perfume. Col. Tom Worthington got off a very pretty poem about the subject.

Kiss all my dear little ones and read them my letters, that is, if you can manage to decipher the pencil. Some day, perhaps, if God spares our lives, I shall be able to entertain them with stories of my campaign in the sunny South, tell them of the beautiful singing birds, the wonderful butterflies and gorgeous beetles, of the planter's life and of the flocks of little niggers all quite naked, that run to the fences and gaze on us as we march by, and of the wenches in the cotton field that throw down the shovel and the hoe and begin to dance like Tam O' Shanter witches, if our band strikes up; and of the beautiful broad piazzas and cool wide-spreading lawns of the rich planters' houses. Some day we'll have a heap to talk about.

I have no very late news from Richmond, but what we have got has had a tendency to depress our spirits a good deal. We feel McClellan will be outgeneralled after all. If he does not succeed in taking Richmond, we are in for a ten years' war at least. Some of those poor people in the South are heartily sick of it, while we shall plant their soil thick with graves of our own dead.

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 221-4

Major General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 20, 1863

CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA., April 20, 1863.

I can see by the public journals that the navy are in the affair at Charleston about to imitate the bad example of the army by squabbling among themselves after a battle with greater energy than they display fighting the enemy. DuPont will undoubtedly have to bear the brunt of the failure at Charleston, but as I see the Tribune most warmly and energetically espouses his cause, I presume he is all safe. I never had any idea the ironclads would be able to do much more than they did. They are simply able to stand fire, but have no more offensive power, indeed not as much as ordinary vessels of war.

I see Seymour has been sent by Hunter to endeavor to have countermanded the order sending the ironclads to the Mississippi. This order, if ever given, was in my judgment very injudicious, for these vessels will be of no use on that river in reducing the works of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The only service they can be put to there would be to patrol the river between the two places, and prevent supplies to the rebels from the Red River Country.

Yesterday the Richmond papers announced the fall of Suffolk, and we were all pretty blue; but this morning we have a telegram from General Peck reporting that he has stormed and carried a battery of six guns that the enemy had built, and had captured a portion of an Alabama regiment that was defending it. This is great news, not so much for the actual amount of the success, as for the facts — first, that it is the reverse of what the rebels had reported, and, second, because it is the first time in this war that our troops have carried a battery in position at the point of the bayonet, an example, I trust, will be speedily and often imitated by us.

Day before yesterday, I was astonished at receiving a very beautiful bouquet of flowers, which had attached to it a card on which was written, “With the compliments of Mrs. A. Lincoln.” At first I was very much tickled, and my vanity insinuated that my fine appearance had taken Mrs. L’s eye and that my fortune was made. This delusion, however, was speedily dissolved by the orderly who brought the bouquet inquiring the road to General Griffin's and Sykes's quarters, when I ascertained that all the principal generals had been similarly honored.

I understand George¹ joined his regiment up the river, the day after he arrived. He went up in a violent storm.

___________

¹ Son of General Meade.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 367-8

General Robert E. Lee to John C. Breckinridge, February 22, 1865

HEADQUARTERS, PETERSBURG, February 22, 1865.

HON. J. C. BRECKINRIDGE,

Sec. of War, Richmond, Va.

SIR: I have just received your letter of the 21st. I concur fully as to the necessity of defeating Sherman. I hope that General Beauregard will get his troops in hand at least before he can cross the Roanoke. If any additions can be given him, it cannot be south of that stream. The troops in the Valley are scattered for subsistence, nor can they be concentrated for the want of it. The infantry force is very small. At the commencement of winter I think it was reported under 1,800. That in western Virginia you know more about than I do, and there are only two regiments in western North Carolina. These united would be of some assistance. At the rate that Beauregard supposes Sherman will march, they could not be collected at Greensboro in time, still, I hope to make some use of them. But you may expect Sheridan to move up the Valley and Stoneman from Knoxville as Sherman draws near Roanoke. What, then, will become of those sections of country? I know of no other troops that could be given to Beauregard. Bragg will be forced back by Schofield, I fear, and until I abandon James River nothing can be sent from this army.

Grant, I think, is now preparing to draw out by his left with the intent of enveloping me. He may wait till his other columns approach nearer, or he may be preparing to anticipate my withdrawal. I cannot tell yet. I am endeavoring to collect supplies convenient to Burkeville. Everything of value should be removed from Richmond. It is of the first importance to save all powder.  The cavalry and artillery of the army are still scattered for want of provender, and our supply and ammunition trains, which ought to be with the army in case of a sudden movement, are absent collecting provisions and forage, some in western Virginia and some in North Carolina. You will see to what straits we are reduced. But I trust to work out.

With great respect, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.

SOURCE: John William Jones, Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man, p. 356-7

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Tuesday, June 30, 1863

Our company was mustered at 9 o'clock this morning by Captain McLoney. Major Foster came in today and made a demand upon the general picket officers that our company be relieved from picket duty at this place. We had a fine time at this place. Our work here has not been laborious, but we had to be on constant duty and ready with all accouterments on, for any emergency. The abundance of canebrakes here fortunately made it unnecessary for us to sleep on the ground.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 125

32nd Ohio Infantry

Organized at Mansfield, Ohio, August 20 to September 7, 1861. Left State for Grafton, W. Va., September 15, thence moved to Cheat Mountain Summit. Attached to Kimball's Brigade, Cheat Mountain, District West Virginia, to November, 1861. Milroy's Brigade, Reynolds' Command, Cheat Mountain, District West Virginia, to March, 1862. Milroy's Brigade, Dept. of the Mountains, to June, 1862. Piatt's 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Corps, Pope's Army of Virginia, to July, 1862. Piatt's Brigade, White's Division, Winchester, Va., to September, 1862. Miles' Command, Harper's Ferry, W. Va., September, 1862. Captured September 15, 1862. 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 17th Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee, January to December, 1863. 2nd Brigade, 3rd Division, 17th Army Corps, to July, 1864. 1st Brigade, 4th Division, 17th Army Corps, to April, 1865. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 17th Army Corps, to July, 1865.

SERVICE. – Action at Greenbrier River, W. Va., October 3-4, 1861. Duty at Greenbrier till December. Action at Camp Allegheny December 13. Duty at Beverly December, 1861, to April, 1862. Expedition on the Seneca April 1-12. Action at Monterey April 12. At Staunton till May 7. Battle of McDowell May 8. Battle of Cross Keys June 8. Duty at Strasburg and Winchester till September. Evacuation of Winchester September 2. Defence of Harper's Ferry, W. Va., September 12-15. Maryland Heights September 12-13. Regiment surrendered September 15. Paroled September 16 and sent to Annapolis, Md., thence to Chicago, Ill., and to Cleveland, Ohio. Exchanged January 12, 1863. Moved to Memphis, Tenn., January 20-25, 1863, thence to Lake Providence, La., February 20, and to Milliken's Bend, La., April 17. Movement on Bruinsburg and turning Grand Gulf April 25-30. Battle of Port Gibson May 1. Raymond May 12. Jackson May 14. Champion's Hill May 16. Siege of Vicksburg, Miss., May 18-July 4. Assaults on Vicksburg May 19 and 22. Surrender of Vicksburg July 4, and garrison duty there till February, 1864. Expedition to Monroe, La., August 20-September 2, 1863. Expedition to Canton October 14-20. Bogue Chitto Creek October 17. Meridian Campaign February 3-March 2. Baker's Creek February 5. Moved to Clifton, Tenn., thence march to Ackworth, Ga., April 21-June 8. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign, June 8-September 8. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Nickajack Creek July 2-5. Howell's Ferry July 5. Chattahoochie River July 6-17. Leggett's or Bald Hill July 20-21. Battle of Atlanta July 22. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Lovejoy Station September 2-6. Operations against Hood in North Georgia and North Alabama September 29-November 3. Shadow Church and Westbrook's near Fairburn October 2. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Louisville November 30. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Salkehatchie Swamp, S. C., February 2-5. River's Bridge, Salkehatchie River, February 3. South Edisto River February 9. Orangeburg February 11-12. Columbia February 15-17. Fayetteville, N. C., March 11. Battle of Bentonville March 20-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 20. Grand Review May 24. Moved to Louisville, Ky., June 8. Mustered out July 20, 1865.

Regiment lost during service 5 Officers and 99 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 2 Officers and 143 Enlisted men by disease. Total 240.

SOURCE: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Part 3, p. 1511-2

John Brown to his Children, December 4, 1850

SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Dec. 4, 1850.

DEAR SONS JOHN, JASON, FREDERICK, AND DAUGHTERS, — I this moment received the letter of John and Jason of the 29th November, and feel grateful not only to learn that you are all alive and well, but also for almost everything your letters communicate. I am much pleased with the reflection that you are all three once more together, and all engaged in the same calling that the old patriarchs followed. I will say but one word more on that score, and that is taken from their history: “See that ye fall not out by the way,” and all will be exactly right in the end. I should think matters were brightening a little in this direction, in regard to our claims; but I have not yet been able to get any of them to a final issue. I think, too, that the prospect for the fine-wool business rather improves. What burdens me most of all is the apprehension that Mr. Perkins expects of me in the way of bringing matters to a close what no living man can possibly bring about in a short time, and that he is getting out of patience and becoming distrustful. If I could be with him in all I do, or could possibly attend to all my cares, and give him full explanations by letter of all my movements, I should be greatly relieved. He is a most noble-spirited man, to whom I feel most deeply indebted; and no amount of money would atone to my feelings for the loss of confidence and cordiality on his part. If my sons, who are so near him, conduct wisely and faithfully and kindly in what they have undertaken, they will, beyond the possibility of a doubt, secure to themselves a full reward, if they should not be the means of entirely relieving a father of his burdens.

I will once more repeat an idea I have often mentioned in regard to business life in general. A world of pleasure and of success is the sure and constant attendant upon early rising. It makes all the business of the day go off with a peculiar cheerfulness, while the effects of the contrary course are a great and constant draft upon one's vitality and good temper. When last at home in Essex, I spent every day but the first afternoon surveying or in tracing out old lost boundaries, about which I was very successful, working early and late, at two dollars per day. This was of the utmost service to both body and mind; it exercised me to the full extent, and for the time being almost entirely divested my mind from its burdens, so that I returned to my task very greatly refreshed and invigorated.

John asks me about Essex. I will say that the family there were living upon the bread, milk, butter, pork, chickens, potatoes, turnips, carrots, etc., of their own raising, and the most of them abundant in quantity and superior in quality. I have nowhere seen such potatoes. Essex County so abounds in hay, grain, potatoes, and rutabagas, etc., that I find unexpected difficulty in selling for cash oats and some other things we have to spare. Last year it was exactly the reverse. The weather was charming up to the 15th November, when I left, and never before did the country seem to hold out so many things to entice me to stay on its soil. Nothing but a strong sense of duty, obligation, and propriety would keep me from laying my bones to rest there; but I shall cheerfully endeavor to make that sense my guide, God always helping. It is a source of the utmost comfort to feel that I retain a warm place in the sympathies, affections, and confidence of my own most familiar acquaintance, my family; and allow me to say that a man can hardly get into difficulties too big to be surmounted, if he has a firm foothold at home. Remember that.

I am glad Jason has made the sales he mentions, on many accounts. It will relieve his immediate money wants, a thing that made me somewhat unhappy, as I could not at once supply them. It will lessen his care and the need of being gone from home, perhaps to the injury somewhat of the flock that lies at the foundation, and possibly to the injury of Mr. Perkins's feelings on that account, in some measure. He will certainly have less to divide his attention. I had felt some worried about it, and I most heartily rejoice to hear it; for you may all rest assured that the old flock has been, and so long as we have anything to do with it will continue to be, the main root, either directly or indirectly. In a few short months it will afford another crop of wool.

I am sorry for John's trouble in his throat; I hope he will soon get relieved of that. I have some doubt about the cold-water practice in cases of that kind, but do not suppose a resort to medicines of much account. Regular out-of-door labor I believe to be one of the best medicines of all that God has yet provided. As to Essex, I have no question at all. For stock-growing and dairy business, considering its healthfulness, cheapness of price, and nearness to the two best markets in the Union (New York and Boston), I do not know where we could go to do better. I am much refreshed by your letters, and until you hear from me to the contrary, shall be glad to have you write me here often. Last night I was up till after midnight writing to Mr. Perkins, and perhaps used some expressions in my rather cloudy state of mind that I had better not have used. I mentioned to him that Jason understood that he disliked his management of the flock somewhat, and was worried about that and the poor hay he would have to feed out during the winter. I did not mean to write him anything offensive, and hope he will so understand me.

There is now a fine plank road completed from Westport to Elizabethtown. We have no hired person about the family in Essex. Henry Thompson is clearing up a piece of ground that the “colored brethren” chopped for me. He boards with the family; and, by the way, ho gets Ruth out of bed so as to have breakfast before light, mornings.

I want to have you save or secure the first real prompt, fine-looking, black shepherd puppy whose ears stand erect, that you can get; I do not care about his training at all, further than to have him learn to come to you when bid, to sit down and lie down when told, or something in the way of play. Messrs. Cleveland & Titus, our lawyers in New York, are anxious to get one for a plaything; and I am well satisfied, that, should I give them one as a matter of friendship, it would be more appreciated by them, and do more to secure their best services in our suit with Pickersgill, than would a hundred dollars paid them in the way of fees. I want Jason to obtain from Mr. Perkins, or anywhere he can get them, two good junk-bottles, have them thoroughly cleaned, and filled with the cherry wine, being very careful not to roil it up before filling the bottles, — providing good corks and filling them perfectly full. These I want him to pack safely in a very small strong box, which he can make, direct them to Perkins & Brown, Springfield, Mass., and send them by express. We can effect something to purpose by producing unadulterated domestic wines. They will command great prices.¹  It is again getting late at night; and I close by wishing every present as well as future good.

Your affectionate father,

JOHN BROWN.

__________

¹ This fixes the date of the anecdote told by Mr. Leonard concerning the wines which Brown had to exhibit; it must have been after this time, and probably in 1851. John Brown, Jr., has been for many years cultivating the grape on an island in Lake Erie, and his brother Jason is now doing the same in Southern California. Their principles, however, forbid them to make wine.

SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 75-8

Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, April 20, 1861

CINCINNATI, April 20, [1861].

DEAR UNCLE:— . . . I have joined a volunteer home company to learn drill. It is chiefly composed of the Literary Club. Includes Stephenson, Meline, John Groesbeck, Judge James, McLaughlin, Beard, and most of my cronies. We wish to learn how to “eyes right and left,” if nothing more.

A great state of things for Christian people, and then to have old gentlemen say, as you do, “I am glad we have got to fighting at last” Judge Swan and Mr. Andrews and the whole Methodist clergy all say the same. Shocking! One thing: Don't spend much on your house or furniture henceforth. Save, save, is the motto now. People who furnish for the war will make money, but others will have a time of it.

Mother thinks it is a judgment on us for our sins. Henry Ward Beecher, who is now here, says it is divine work, that the Almighty is visibly in it.

Sincerely,

R. B. HAYES.

S. BIRCHARD.

 SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 10

Brigadier General Thomas J. Jackson to Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, September 26, 1861

September 26, 1861

I did not have room enough in my last letter, nor have I time this morning, to write as much as I desired about Dr. Dabney's sermon yesterday. His text was from Acts, seventh chapter and fifth verse. He stated that the word God being in italics indicated that it was not in the original, and he thought it would have been better not to have been in the translation. It would then have read: “Calling upon and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He spoke of Stephen, the first martyr under the new dispensation, like Abel, the first under the old, dying by the hand of violence, and then drew a graphic picture of his probably broken limbs, mangled flesh and features, conspiring to heighten his agonizing sufferings. But in the midst of this intense pain, God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, permitted him to see the heavens opened, so that he might behold the glory of God, and Jesus, of whom he was speaking, standing on the right hand of God. Was not such a heavenly vision enough to make him forgetful of his sufferings? He beautifully and forcibly described the death of the righteous, and as forcibly that of the wicked. . . .

Strangers as well as Lexington friends are very kind to me. I think about eight days since a gentleman sent me a half-barrel of tomatoes, bread, etc., and I received a letter, I am inclined to think from the same, desiring directions how to send a second supply. I received from Colonel Ruff a box of beautifully packed and delicately flavored plums; also a bottle of blackberry vinegar from the Misses B. What I need is a more grateful heart to the “Giver of every good and perfect gift.”

SOURCE: Mary Anna Jackson, Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), p. 193-4

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith to Elizabeth Budd Smith, July 10, 1862

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

CAMP NEAR MOSCOW, July 10, 1862.

. . . I wrote you a long letter from this point about the first inst., which I entrusted to a division train going to Memphis. This train was attacked by the enemy's cavalry and a sharp skirmish ensued, in which they had twenty-eight killed. We lost eighteen, and what the fate of my letter is I do not know. If the “Secesh” get it I trust they will find its perusal interesting. We have been marching and countermarching until our troops are well-nigh done out. Water is hard to be got in this country at this season of the year, and we suffer very much from thirst and the heat of the sun. Although fatigued, my health continues good, but my duties are very arduous. You can have no conception of the suffering attendant upon a march of a whole division with three or four batteries of artillery, over these roads. There has been no rain for a long time; as the train proceeds the dust rises and the whole heavens for miles in extent are obscured, the light of the sun dimmed, while the atmosphere becomes so thick that one can scarcely breathe. We commence our march at about four o'clock, halt about ten, or at four o'clock in the evening, going to camp about ten. Camp for me is simply to dismount at the tree under which I propose to lie. There I lie down and go to sleep.

I have this moment received orders to march and must close here. . . .

SOURCE: Walter George Smith, Life and letters of Thomas Kilby Smith, p. 220-1

Major General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, April 18, 1863

April 18, 1863.

To-day is fine and beautiful, and if we only have a continuance of such weather, we shall soon be on the move. I suppose the sooner we get off the better. General Hooker seems to be very sanguine of success, but is remarkably reticent of his information and plans; I really know nothing of what he intends to do, or when or where he proposes doing anything. This secrecy I presume is advantageous, so far as it prevents the enemy's becoming aware of our plans. At the same time it may be carried too far, and important plans may be frustrated by subordinates, from their ignorance of how much depended on their share of the work. This was the case at Fredericksburg. Franklin was not properly advised, that is to say, not fully advised, as to Burnside's plan. I am sure if he had been so advised, his movements would have been different.

I suppose you have seen Jeff Davis's proclamation on the subject of food. It undoubtedly is a confession of weakness, but we should be very careful how we allow ourselves to be led astray by it. Not a single exertion on our part should be relaxed, not a man less called out than before. We might as well make up our minds to the fact that our only hope of peace is in the complete overpowering of the military force of the South, and to do this we must have immense armies to outnumber them everywhere. I fear, however, that this plain dictate of common sense will never have its proper influence. Already I hear a talk of not enforcing the conscription law. Certainly no such efforts are being made to put the machinery of the law into motion as would indicate an early calling out of the drafted men. In the course of the next month and the one ensuing, all the two-year and nine-month men go out of service. Of the latter class there were called out three hundred thousand. How many are in service I don't know. I do know, however, that this army loses in the next twenty days nearly twenty-five thousand men, and that I see no indication of their being replaced. Over eight thousand go out of my corps alone. These facts have been well-known at Washington for some time past, and pressed upon the attention of the authorities, and perhaps arrangements unknown to me have been made to meet the difficulty.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 366-7

General Robert E. Lee to John C. Breckinridge, February 21, 1865

(Confidential.)

HEADQUARTERS, PETERSBURG, February 21, 1865.

HON. J. C. BRECKINRIDGE,

Sec. of War, Richmond.

SIR: I have had the honor to receive your letter of yesterday's date. I have repeated the orders to the commanding officers to remove and destroy everything in enemy's route. In the event of the necessity of abandoning our position on the James River, I shall endeavor to unite the corps of the army about Burkeville (junction of Southside and Danville Railroad), so as to retain communication with the North and South as long as practicable, and also with the West.

I should think Lynchburg or some point west the most advantageous place to which to remove stores from Richmond. This, however, is a most difficult point at this time to decide, and the place may have to be changed by circumstances.

It was my intention in my former letter to apply for Gen. J. E. Johnston, that I might assign him to duty should circumstances permit. I have had no official report of the condition of General Beauregard's health; it is stated from many sources to be bad; if he should break entirely down, it might be fatal. In that event I should have no one with whom to supply his place. I therefore respectfully request that General Johnston may be ordered to report to me, and that I may be informed where he is.

With great respect, your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE,

General.

SOURCE: John William Jones, Life and Letters of Robert Edward Lee: Soldier and Man, p. 355-6

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Monday, June 29, 1863

Fighting is still going on and our guns around Vicksburg seem to be making a new onslaught today. Our men blew up another rebel fort, but did not attempt to rush in, since the guns from the other forts are so arranged as to defend any other point along the fortifications. Everything on the outer lines has been quiet. I came in from picket this morning. The boys of my company are all in fine spirits, and although the blackberries are getting scarce, peaches and apples, which are plentiful around here, will soon be ripe.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 124-5

31st Ohio Infantry

Organized at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, August 4, 1861. Left State for Louisville, Ky., September 27, thence moved to Camp Dick Robinson, Ky., October 2, and duty there till December 12. Attached to Thomas' Command, Camp Dick Robinson, Ky., to November, 1861. 12th Brigade, Army of the Ohio, to December, 1861. 12th Brigade, 1st Division, Army of the Ohio, to January, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, Army of the Ohio, to September, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 3rd Corps, Army of the Ohio, to November, 1862. 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, Centre 14th Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, to January, 1863. 1st Brigade, 3rd Division, 14th Army Corps, to July, 1865.

SERVICE. – March to Somerset, Ky., December 12, 1861, and to relief of Gen. Thomas at Mill Springs, Ky., January 19-21, 1862. Moved to Louisville, Ky., February 10-16, thence to Nashville, Tenn., February 18-March 2. March to Savannah, Tenn., March 20-April 8. Advance on and siege of Corinth, Miss., April 29-May 30. Pursuit to Booneville May 31-June 6. March to Iuka, Miss., with skirmishing June 22, thence to Tuscumbia, Ala., June 26-28, and to Huntsville, Ala., July 18-22. Action at Trinity, Ala., July 24 (Co. "E"). Courtland Bridge July 25. Moved to Dechard, Tenn., July 27. March to Louisville, Ky., in pursuit of Bragg August 21-September 26. Pursuit of Bragg into Kentucky October 1-15. Battle of Perryville, Ky., October 8. March to Nashville, Tenn., October 22-November 6, and duty there till December 26. Advance on Murfreesboro December 26-30. Battle of Stone's River December 30-31. 1862, and January 1-3, 1863. Duty at Murfreesboro till March 13, and at Triune till June. Middle Tennessee or Tullahoma Campaign June 23-July 7. Hoover's Gap June 24-26. Occupation of Middle Tennessee till August 16. Passage of Cumberland Mountains and Tennessee River, and Chickamauga (Ga.) Campaign August 16-September 22. Battle of Chickamauga September 19-21. Siege of Chattanooga, Tenn., September 24-November 23. Sequatchie Valley October 5. Reopening Tennessee River October 26-29. Brown's Ferry October 27. Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign November 23-27. Orchard Knob November 23. Mission Ridge November 24-25. Duty at Chattanooga till February, 1864, and at Graysville till May. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1-September 8. Demonstrations on Rocky Faced Ridge May 8-11. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Advance on Dallas May 18-25. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Pine Mountain June 11-14. Lost Mountain June 15-17. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Ruff's Station, Smyrna Camp Ground, July 4. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Peach Tree Creek July 19-20. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Utoy Creek August 5-7. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Operations against Hood in North Georgia and North Alabama September 29-November 3. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Near Milledgeville November 23. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Fayetteville, N. C., March 11. Battle of Bentonville March 19-21. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 20. Grand Review May 24. Moved to Louisville, Ky., June 5, and duty there till July. Mustered out July 20, 1865.

Regiment lost during service 2 Officers and 77 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 1 Officer and 153 Enlisted men by disease. Total 233.

SOURCE: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Part 3, p. 1511

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, September 3, 1864

New York City is shouting for McClellan, and there is a forced effort elsewhere to get a favorable response to the almost traitorous proceeding at Chicago. As usual, some timid Union men are alarmed, and there are some, like Raymond, Chairman of the National Committee, who have no fixed and reliable principles to inspire confidence, who falter, and another set, like Greeley, who have an uneasy, lingering hope that they can yet have an opportunity to make a new candidate. But this will soon be over. The Chicago platform is unpatriotic, almost treasonable to the Union. The issue is made up. It is whether a war shall be made against Lincoln to get peace with Jeff Davis. Those who met at Chicago prefer hostility to Lincoln rather than to Davis. Such is extreme partisanism.

We have to-day word that Atlanta is in our possession, but we have yet no particulars. It has been a hard, long struggle, continued through weary months. This intelligence will not be gratifying to the zealous partisans who have just committed the mistake of sending out a peace platform, and declared the war a failure. It is a melancholy and sorrowful reflection that there are among us so many who so give way to party as not to rejoice in the success of the Union arms. They feel a conscious guilt, and affect not to be dejected, but discomfort is in their countenances, deportment, and tone. While the true Unionists are cheerful and joyous, greeting all whom they meet over the recent news, the Rebel sympathizers shun company and are dolorous. This is the demon of party, — the days of its worst form, — a terrible spirit, which in its excess leads men to rejoice in the calamities of their country and to mourn its triumphs. Strange, and wayward, and unaccountable are men. While the facts are as I have stated, I cannot think these men are destitute of love of country; but they permit party prejudices and party antagonisms to absorb their better natures. The leaders want power. All men crave it. Few, comparatively, expect to attain high position, but each hopes to be benefited within a certain circle which limits, perhaps, his present ambition. There is fatuity in nominating a general and warrior in time of war on a peace platform.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 – December 31, 1866, p. 135-6

George B. McClellan to Thurlow Weed, June 13, 1863

(Private)

OAKLANDS, N. J., June 13, 1863.

MY DEAR SIR:

Your kind note is received.

For what I cannot doubt that you would consider good reasons, I have determined to decline the compliment of presiding over the proposed meeting of Monday next.

I fully concur with you in the conviction that an honorable peace is not now possible, and that the war must be prosecuted to save the Union and the Government, at whatever cost of time and treasure and blood.

I am clear, also, in the conclusion that the policy governing the conduct of the war should be one looking not only to military success, but also to ultimate re-union, and that it should consequently be such as to preserve the rights of all Union-loving citizens, wherever they may be, as far as compatible with military security. My views as to the prosecution of the war remain, substantially, as they have been from the beginning of the contest; these views I have made known officially.

I will endeavor to write you more fully before Monday.

In the meantime believe me to be, in great haste, truly your friend,

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.

HON. THURLOW WEED, New York.

SOURCE: Allen Thorndike Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln: By Distinguished Men of His Time, p. xxxv-xxxvi

Abraham Lincoln's Memorandum Concerning His Probable Failure of Re-election, August 23, 1864

Executive Mansion

Washington, Aug. 23, 1864.

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.

A. LINCOLN

[Endorsed on the back:]

William H. Seward

W. P. Fessenden

Edwin M. Stanton

Gideon Welles

M. Blair

J. P. Usher

August 23. 1864.

SOURCES: SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 7, p. 514; this memorandum can be found at the The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.

Abraham Lincoln to Elihu B. Washburne, October 26, 1863

Private & confidential

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Oct. 26. 1863.

Hon. E. B. Washburne

My dear Sir

Yours of the 12th. has been in my hands several days. Inclosed I send the leave of absence for your brother, in as good form as I think I can safely put it. Without knowing whether he would accept it, I have tendered the Collectorship at Portland, Me, to your other brother, the Governor.

Thanks to both you and our friend Campbell, for your kind words and intentions. A second term would be a great honor and a great labor, which together, perhaps I would not decline, if tendered.

Yours truly

A. LINCOLN

SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 6, p. 540

John C. Fremont’s Acceptance of the Radical Democratic Party’s Nomination for President of the United States, June 4, 1864

New York, June 4, 1864.

GENTLEMEN: In answer to the letter which I have had the honor to receive from you, on the part of the representatives of the people assembled at Cleveland, the 31st of May, I desire to express my thanks for the confidence which led them to offer me the honorable and difficult position of their candidate in the approaching Presidential election.

Very honorable, because in offering it to me you act in the name of a great number of citizens who seek above all things the good of their country, and who have no sort of selfish interest in view. Very difficult, because in accepting the candidacy you propose to me, I am exposed to the reproach of creating a schism In the party with which I have been identified.

Had Mr. Lincoln remained faithful to the principles he was elected to defend, no schism could have been created, and no contest could have been possible. This is not an ordinary election. It is a contest for the right even to have candidates, and not merely, as usual, for the choice among them. Now, for the first time since 76, the question of constitutional liberty has been brought directly before the people for their serious consideration and vote. The ordinary rights secured under the Constitution and the laws of the country have been violated and extraordinary powers have been usurped by the Executive. It is directly before the people now to say whether or not the principles established by the Revolution are worth maintaining.

If, as we have been taught to believe, those guarantees for liberty which made the distinctive name and glory of our country, are in truth inviolably sacred, then here must be a protest against the arbitrary violation which had not even the excuse of a necessity. The schism is made by those who force the choice between a shameful silence or a protest against wrong. In such considerations originated the Cleveland Convention. It was among its objects to arouse the attention of the people to such facts, and to bring them to realize that, while we are saturating Southern soil with the best blood of the country in the name of liberty, we have really parted with it at home.

To-day we have in the country the abuses of a military dictation without its unity of action and vigor of execution — an Administration marked at home by disregard of constitutional rights, by its violation of personal liberty and the liberty of the press, and as a crowning shame, by its abandonment of the right of asylum, a right especially dear to all free nations abroad. Its course has been characterized by a feebleness and want of principle which has misled European powers and driven them to a belief that only commercial interests and personal aims are concerned, and that no great principles are involved in the issue. The admirable conduct of the people, their readiness to make every sacrifice demanded of them, their forbearance and silence under the suspension of everything that could be suspended, their many acts of heroism and sacrifices, were all rendered fruitless by the incapacity, or to speak more exactly, by the personal ends for which the war was managed. This incapacity and selfishness naturally produced such results as led the European powers, and logically enough, to the conviction that the North, with its greatly superior population, its immense resources, and its credit, will never be able to recover the South. Sympathies which would have been with us from the outset of this war were turned against us, and in this way the Administration has done the country a double wrong abroad. It created hostility, or at best indifference, among those who would have been its friends if the real intentions of the people could have been better known, while, at the same time, it neglected no occasion for making the most humiliating concessions.

Against this disastrous condition of affairs the Cleveland Convention was a protest.

The principles which form the basis of its platform have my unqualified and cordial approbation, but I cannot so heartily concur in all the measures which you propose. I do not believe that confiscation extended to the property of all rebels, is practicable and if it were so, I do not think it a measure of sound policy. It is, in fact, a question belonging to the people themselves to decide, and is a proper occasion for the exercise of their original and sovereign authority. As a war measure, in the beginning of a revolt which might be quelled by prompt severity, I understand the policy of confiscation, but not as a final measure of reconstruction after the suppression of an insurrection.

In the adjustments which are to follow peace no considerations of vengeance can consistently be admitted.

The object of the war is to make permanently secure the peace and happiness of the whole country, and there was but a single clement in the way of its attainment. This element of slavery may be considered practically destroyed in the country, and it needs only your proposed amendment of the Constitution, to make its extinction complete.

With this extinction of slavery the party divisions created by it have also disappeared. And if in the history of the country there has ever been a time when the American people, without regard to one or another of the political divisions, were willed upon to give solemnly their voice in a matter which involved the safety of the United States, it is assuredly the present time.

If the Convention at Baltimore will nominate any man whose past life justifies a well-grounded confidence in his fidelity to our cardinal principles, there, is no reason why there should be any division among the really patriotic men of the country. To any such I shall be most happy to give a cordial and active support.

My own decided preference is to aid in this way, and not to be myself a candidate. But if Mr. Lincoln should be nominated — us I believe it would be fatal to the country to indorse a policy and renew a power which has cost w the lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the country on the road to bankruptcy — there will remain no other alternative but to organize against him every element of conscientious opposition with the view to prevent the misfortune of his re-election.

In this contingency, I accept the nomination at Cleveland, and, as a preliminary step, I have resigned my commission in the army. This was a sacrifice it gave me pain to make. But I had for a long time fruitlessly endeavored to obtain service. I make this sacrifice now only to regain liberty of speech, and to leave nothing in the way of discharging to my utmost ability the task you have set for me.

With my earnest and sincere thanks for your expressions of confidence and regard, and for the many honorable terms in which you acquaint me with the actions of the Convention, I am, gentlemen,

Very respectfully and truly yours,

J. C. FREMONT.

To Worthington G. Snethen of Maryland, Edward Gilbert of New York, Casper Butz of Illinois, Charles E. Moss of Missouri, N. P. Sawyer of Pennsylvania, a Committee, &c.

SOURCE: Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America, during the Great Rebellion, p. 413-4

Alexander K. McClure to Abraham Lincoln, June 30, 1863

Time 11 05 AM

United States Military Telegraph,

War Department,

Washington, D. C., June 30 1863

Philadelphia June 30

President Lincoln

Have been twenty four hours from home Hoping to hasten the organization of troops It seems impossible to do so to an extent at all commensurate with the emergency Our people are paralyzed for want of confidence & leadership & unless they can be inspired with hope we shall fail to do anything worthy of our State or Govt I am fully persuaded that to call McClellan to a command here would be the best thing that could be done He could rally troops from Penna & I am well assured that New York & New Jersey would also respond to his call with great alacrity with his efficiency in organizing men & the confidence he would inspire early & effectual relief might be afforded us & great service rendered to the Army of the Potomac Unless we are in some way rescued from the hopelessness now prevailing we shall have practically an inefficient conscription & be powerless to help either ourselves or the National Govt After free consultation with trusted friends of the Administration I hesitate not to urge that McClellan be called here – He can render us & you the best service & in the present crisis no other considerations should prevail without military success we can have no [political] success no matter who command In this request I reflect what seems to be an imperative necessity rather than any preference of my own

A K McClure

SOURCE: The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Abraham Lincoln to Alexander K. McClure, June 30, 1863

Washington City,

June 30 1863

A. K. McClure

Philadelphia

Do we gain anything by opening one leak to stop another? Do we gain any thing by quieting one clamor, merely to open another, and probably a larger one?

A. LINCOLN

SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 6, p. 311

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Sunday, June 28, 1863

I was sent out on picket duty today and everything is quite still along the line. It is also quiet at the front, except along General Logan's Division, where the rebel sharpshooters are trying to silence our batteries. News came that Port Hudson had not been taken, and that instead General Hooker was falling back. The little news we get from the Potomac is discouraging, but since we are so sure of a victory here at Vicksburg, we can stand discouraging reports from the Potomac.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 124