Virginia Secession Convention, June 17, 1861

SECOND SESSION.

FOURTH DAY.

RICHMOND, Monday, June 17, 1861.

The Convention assembled at 10 o’clock.—Prayer by the Rev. Mr. Peterkin.

The Chair called for reports from Committees, and the Secretary read the list, but no response was made.

Mr. FISHER.—Mr. President, I am instructed to ask that the Committee on Post Offices be discharged from further duty, the whole subject having been turned over to the Confederate Government, and no further business being before the committee.

There being no objection, the Committee was thereupon discharged.

The Chair announced the committee on Railroads to be Messrs. Morris, Cox of Chesterfield, Harvie, Johnson of Richmond City, and Marye.

Mr. STAPLES.—Not being present when the Ordinance of Secession was signed, I ask leave to append my name to that instrument.

The PRESIDENT.—There is a general order upon that subject, which will enable the gentleman to sign the Ordinance without the leave of the convention.

Mr. JOHNTSON.—A document has reached my hand from a county where I do not belong, but, nevertheless, I take the liberty of laying the same before the Convention. As the subject referred to is one upon which this body can properly take no action, I simply present it, and ask that it be laid upon the table.

A VOICE.—Have it read!

Mr. JOHNSTON.—That is hardly worth while, for I can state its object in three words. It is simply a petition from the county of Washington, asking for the establishment of an election precinct. I move that it be laid upon the table.

The motion was agreed to.

The PRESIDENT.—When this body last adjourned it was in secret session, and if there is no other business before the Convention, I shall direct the lobbies and galleries to be cleared preparatory to resuming the consideration of the subject then under discussion.

The Convention accordingly went into secret session, in which it remained until half past two o’clock, when the doors were again thrown open.

RECEPTION BY HON. JEFFERSON DAVIS.

The PRESIDENT then laid before the Convention the following communication in response to a letter addressed by him to the President of the Confederate States, in accordance with a resolution offered by Mr. DORMAN, that the latter be invited to state when it would be convenient for him to receive the members of the Convention.

SPOTSWOOD HOUSE, June 16, 1861.

 

HON. JOHN JANNEY, President, etc.—

 

Sir:—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 15th inst., communicating to me the resolution of the Virginia State Convention to visit me at such hour as it may appoint.

 

It will afford me great pleasure to receive you and the members of the Convention at eight o’clock on Monday evening of the 17th instant. I have the honor to be,

 

Very respectfully, yours,

JEFFERSON DAIVS.

COURTESIES TO SECRETARY WALKER.

 The PRESIDENT also laid before the body the following communication from the Hon. L. P. Walker, Secretary of War:

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.

Richmond, June 15, 1861.

 

To the Hon. JOHN JANNEY, President of the Virginia State Convention:

 

SIR:— Your letter inviting me, “in obedience to a resolution of the Virginia State Convention, unanimously adopted,” to occupy a privileged seat, provided in the Hall of the Convention, is before me.

 

Return to the Convention, if you please, my profound acknowledgement of their courtesy; and accept, for yourself, assurances of distinguished consideration.

 

L. P. WALKER,

Secretary of War.

Mr. TYLER.—I move that when this Convention adjourns, it be to meet at half-past seven o’clock this evening at this place.

The motion was agreed to.

On Motion of Mr. TYLER, the communication of Secretary WALKER was laid upon the table.

Mr. TYLER.—I now propose for adoption the following resolutions:

Resolved, That this convention has heard with high satisfaction of the brilliant victory recently obtained by the combined forces of North Carolina and Virginia at Bethel, in the county of York, the first regular conflict between those who, under usurped authority, have invaded our soil and the brave defenders of that soil, and it being altogether appropriate that our troops should receive a suitable meed of applause for their gallantry and good conduct;

Be it therefore resolved, That in the name of the people of Virginia, this convention expresses its high admiration of the gallantry and good conduct of the officers and men engaged in the battle of Bethel on the 10th instant, where they repelled and put to flight more than four times their numbers;

Resolved, That the conduct of Col. John B. Magruder, the commander of the Confederate forces, of Col. D. A. Hill, the commander of the North Carolina troops, and of the officers under their command, evinced in the opinion of this convention high military skill, united to unshrinking valor;

Resolved, That copies of the foregoing resolutions be forwarded to Col. Magruder, with the request that he will cause the same to be publicly read to the troops under his command.

Mr. TYLER. I desire to say, Mr. President in regard to these resolutions, that the North Carolina Legislature received with rapturous applause the account of the battle of Bethel Church, and of the noble action of the North Carolina troops upon that occasion; and so inspired were they by the intelligence of the gallantry of their commander, Col. Hill, that (if the papers are to be relied upon.) they immediately promoted him to the grade of a Brigadier General.

Sir, when you come to estimate the value and importance of that battle, considering that it is the first regular action that has occurred on our soil—though I would, by no means forget the bold and gallant stand made by the Fauquier Rifles—and when you calculate the circumstances by which our little army was surrounded and the battle was fought, it is impossible not to confess that it stands by the side of the most brilliant military achievements that history every recorded.

At the battle of Agincourt, in former days, we are told that the English fought in the proportion of one against ten, and obtained a victory; but it must be remembered that it was then against an undisciplined rabble, under no military restraint, and unfamiliar with even the rudiments of military discipline; but here we have had to encounter troops acquainted with the art of war, well drilled and formidable.

They marched up to your ramparts; they advanced against you four to one, and your handful of men dissipated them like chaff before the wind. I cannot imagine anything more brilliant than this engagement. I cannot conceive of braver or more undaunted men, or of military skill more consummate or successful in its results. Cheerfully do I contribute the praise which properly belongs to the achievement, and to the noble volunteers who participated in it.

You will remember that we were to be overcome by these invaders; that all these disturbances of the country were to pass away like a morning dream. When the enemy came upon the field, it is said they talked with derision particularly of North Carolinians, as mere cornstalk troops, whom they were to drive from their sight without a blow; and yet those same corn stalk troops, under the orders of their gallant leader, by one single dash of the bayonet, put the enemy to flight and relieved themselves from the further embarrassment of their presence.

[A VOICE.—They whipped the Zouaves, the crack regiment.]

Yes, I thank the gentleman for the suggestion. We have whipped their best regiment off the field without difficulty, and thank God, with the loss of but one man. We brought against their four thousand but eight hundred muskets, and almost in the twinkling of an eye that four thousand was dispersed, and victory perched upon our banners.

There is but one occurrence of a similar kind in our history with which I can compare it; it took place upon the celebrated battlefield of Buena Vista. You all well remember the gallant conduct of the present President upon that occasion. It was supposed that the day was lost, that our handful of five thousand were to be trampled upon by a host of twenty thousand Mexicans; but whose heart did not thrill with joy on reading the account of the momentary retreat under Col. Davis until he found a better position when, coming to a right about, the order of “forward march” was given, and they dashed into the ranks of the enemy. Another brilliant incident deserves to be mentioned in connection with Bragg’s battery of Flying artillery—the same gentleman who is now commanding our Southern troops at Pensacola.

I received the account from the lips of Gen. Taylor himself. He had with him but two hundred men. A body of four thousand Mexicans were advancing, and the fate of the day depended upon that contest. Gen. Taylor was close by to encourage him by his presence—standing there, as the brave old man told me, with no expectation of leaving the field alive. The fire opened, the enemy recoiled, hesitated, and finally retreated before the little force, and the day was hours. And now, as then, when you compare the disparity of our numbers engaged in the late conflict at Bethel, you have cause to exult, proudly exult, in the character of the achievement and the conduct of our troops.

Mr. President, I am restrained from making any discrimination among either our officers or soldiers in referring to the recent battle. All behaved nobly and all alike deserve commendation. But if I were to make any distinction of the gallant Major of the Howitzers, whom we all well know and appreciate. But I abstain. I trust, Mr. President—and this is one of the great objects of these resolutions independent of a rendition of a tribute of respect and applause to those who deserve it—this example will stimulate all to meet the invaders and drive them from the soil without hesitating to count either their own or the number of the enemy—to meet them dauntlessly—meet them as has been done by this handful at Bethel, and my life upon a victory will crown our [endeavors] at every stop.

RAILRAOD BETWEEN WINCHESTER AND STRASBURG.

Mr. R. Y. CONRAD—I desire to call the attention of the Convention to an ordinance of considerable importance in regard to the railroad connection between Winchester and Strasburg. I move that it be taken up and put upon its passage.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. CONRAD—It may be necessary to state in regard to this ordinance, that it is intended to authorized the construction, by the Manassas Railroad Company, of a military road from Strasburg to Winchester, a distance of about eighteen miles. Winchester is now the Headquarters of the whole force under the Headquarters of the whole force under the command of General Johnson, who has fallen back upon that town which will probably be a point of conflict. This road was deemed so important by the Governor and council as well as by the Commander in Chief, that they have not only recommended the adoption of the Ordinance, but have agreed, without authority from the Convention, to advance the sum of fourteen thousand five hundred dollars to pay the revenue duties on the rail road iron proposed to be used in its construction. They have also made a contract, depending upon the approval of this Convention, with the Manassas Gap road, by which the work will be done without any expense to the State. The only difficulty in regard to the passage of the Ordinance of which I am aware grows out of the fact that the connection between Strasburg and Winchester has heretofore been a subject of controversy in our Legislature. But I have to state that the causes of that controversy have been entirely removed by the present condition of the country. The rival which caused the opposition thus made no longer exists or can exist. It was formerly supposed that this road might be prejudicial to the interests of Alexandria; but the President of the Manassas Rail Road Company authorizes me to stat that he is now anxious for its construction; and that he himself made the proposition concerning this contract, which has been approved by the Governor and Council and General Lee. I hope, therefore, it may be unnecessary to make any further statement to the Convention in reference to the matter. If there be any such occasion, I think I can satisfy the members of this convention of the propriety and importance, in every point of view, of granting the authority for the construction of the road.

Mr. GREGORY.—I desire to submit a motion which I have never before made in any deliberative body. This is a question of some interest, and likely to require the consideration of the Convention longer than the present late hour will warrant. I move that we do now adjourn.

The PRESIDENT. The Chair would suggest the propriety of taking a recess until half past seven o’clock.

Mr. GREGORY.—That ought to have been my motion, and I now make it.

Mr. BORST.—I hope the gentleman will withdraw his motion for five minutes, as I believe that this matter may be settled without further discussion.

Mr. GREGORY.—I should prefer to have it lay over until we meet again.

The Convention then took a recess until half past 7 o’clock, p.m.

EVENING SESSION.

VISIT TO THE PRESIDENT.

The Convention re-assembled at half past seven o’clock.

At ten minutes to eight, the body adjourned and preceded by Hon. Jon Janney, the President and Hon. John Tyler, visited the Hon. Jefferson Davis at his parlors, in the Spotswood Hotel, the members being severally introduced to the Chief Magistrate by Mr. Eubank, the Secretary of the Convention. There were also present Hon. Messrs. Toombs, Memminger and Mallory of the cabinet, and Mr. Brown, the Assistant Secretary of State. An hour having been spent in the interchange of courtesies, the gentlemen retired.

SOURCES: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 660-1; “Virginia Secession Convention,” Richmond Enquirer, Semi-Weekly Edition, Tuesday Morning, June 18, 1861, p. 2

John Tyler to John Rutherford, November 1, 1861

SHERWOOD FOREST, Nov. 1, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter has been duly received, and I have read with the highest pleasure your article in the Enquirer of the 29th October. It does me full justice, and is the more agreeable to me as proceeding from one whose past life has been without reproach of any the slightest kind, and whose name is everywhere and by every person repeated with honor. I know not what will be the termination of the approaching election. My own motives are faithfully set forth in my card to the public. At my time of life, with all my personal surroundings, the place of ease and comfort would be my own fireside; but when I look to the condition of the State, and how greatly she is threatened, I can take no counsel from my own desires, remembering that on another occasion even the "widow's mite" was esteemed the most valuable. So I feel that I have no right to withhold any particle of service from the public cause which others may esteem me capable of rendering. Express to Mrs. Rutherfoord [sic] my constant and most sincere regard, and believe me to be always, most truly and faithfully, your friend,

J. TYLER.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 665

Lewis E. Harvie to Lyon G. Tyler, May 15, 1885

CHULA P. O., May 15, 1885.

MY DEAR SIR: I regret that I am unable to give you the information you wish. Your honored father, my friend, and myself were on the commission to treat with Mr. Stephens, and the whole committee were unanimous, and reported in favor of uniting under one government with the other Confederate States. Who prepared the report I have forgotten. I regret that I cannot give you the information.

I esteemed your father as highly as any man I ever knew. I may say that I reverence his memory. He had the entire trust and confidence of every member of the Virginia convention, and exercised and wielded more influence and control over its deliberations and acts than any man in it. He won its confidence in a speech in reply to Mr. Summers, who made a report of the proceedings of the "Peace Congress" held in Washington, and secured the admiration and confidence of the whole convention, when he was so weak that he could speak only at intervals and the convention adjourned again and again to hear him. His influence, and, I may say, control, over the convention, during its whole term, was irresistible. It would be a labor of love to recite to you evidences of the esteem in which he was held, and the estimate placed on his patriotism and love of Virginia, by men of all parties, however conflicting and diversified and distinct their views and sentiments.

I recollect one among other occasions when he changed by the force of his eloquence and patriotism the action of the convention by a defense of General Scott and Mr. Clay, who were assailed; and how he triumphantly carried the proposition through the convention (almost by acclamation) to invite General Scott to come to the rescue of his State. It was the most masterly and triumphant appeal to which I ever listened, and left us who opposed it in a minority of sixteen, all told. General Scott and Mr. Clay were both Virginians, and, while he had differed with them both, they had reflected honor and lustre on her, their common mother, and he made an appeal to the convention of Virginia that electrified the whole body.

He was subsequently elected to the Confederate Congress, almost by acclamation, over two of the ablest and most popular men in the Richmond district, after he had been subjected to obloquy and vituperation for strangling the Bank of the United States and admitting Texas into the Union. His devotion to Virginia and her confidence in him were commensurate.

Such and so sincere was my appreciation of his character, and the estimate that I placed on his valuable and brilliant career that characterized his public conduct, that I invariably paid my respects to him as soon as he took his seat in convention.

It gives me pleasure now to recur to my past intercourse with him. I trust that his son will ascribe the prolixity of my reply to the sincerity of my esteem for one who loved and was beloved by Virginia with equal fervor.

Respectfully and truly yours,

LEWIS E. HARVIE.

Lyon G. Tyler, Esq., Richmond, Va.

SOURCE: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p. 668-9

Diary of Edward Bates: April 20, 1859

Today was published in St Louis papers (copied from the New York Tribune) a recent letter of mine to the Whig Committee of New York, in answer to their call upon me for my views and opinions on the politics of the country, and the signs of the times.¹

St. Louis, Feb. 24, 1859.

 

To Messrs. J. PHILIPS PHOENIX, WILLIS BLACKSTONE, H. M. BININGER, DAVID J. LILET AND H. R. SMITH, Committee, New York.

 

Sirs: A short time ago I was favored with your note of the 7th inst., covering a resolution of the Committee, to the effect that it is inexpedient at this time further to discuss or agitate the Negro question, but rather to turn the attention of the people to other topics — "topics of general importance, such as our Foreign Relations, including the Extension of Territory; the building of Railroads for National purposes; the improvement of our Harbors, the navigation of our Rivers to facilitate Internal Commerce; the subject of Currency, and a Tariff of Duties, and other means of developing our own internal resources, our home wealth, and binding together by ties of national and fraternal feelings, the various parts and sections of our widely extended Republic."

 

Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide field, in asking for my "opinion upon the subject, and my views as to the signs of the times." Books have been written upon these matters, and speeches delivered by the thousand ; and yet the argument seems as far from being exhausted as it was at the beginning ; and I take it for certain that you do not expect or desire me to discuss at large, all or any of these interminable quarrels. That I have opinions upon all or most of them, is true — not the opinions of this or that party, ready to be abandoned or modified to suit this or that platform, but my own opinions — perhaps the more fixed and harder to be changed because deliberately formed in the retirement of private life, free from the exigencies of official responsibility and from the perturbations of party policy. They are my own opinions, right or wrong.

 

As to the Negro question — I have always thought, and often declared in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections, and by those bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the sorrowful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice.

 

As to the power of the General Government to protect the persons and properties, and advance the interests of the people, by laying taxes, raising armies and navies, building forts and arsenals, light houses, moles, and breakwaters, surveying the coasts and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes, and harbors, and making roads — I should be very sorry to doubt the existence of the power, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the constituted authorities have the means in their hands, and are convinced that its exercise is necessary to protect the country and advance the prosperity of the people.

 

In my own opinion, a government that has no power to protect the harbors of its country against winds and waves and human enemies, nor its rivers against snags, sands and rocks, nor to build roads for the transportation of its armies and its mails and the commerce of its people, is a poor, impotent government, and not at all such a government as our fathers thought they had made when they produced the Constitution which was greeted by intelligent men everywhere with admiration and gratitude as a government free enough for all the ends of legal liberty and strong enough for all the purposes of national and individual protection. A free people, if it be wise, will make a good constitution; but a constitution, however good in itself, did never make a free people. The people do not derive their rights from the government, but the government derives its powers from the people; and those powers are granted for the main, if not the only, purpose of protecting the rights of the people. Protection, then, if not the sole, is the chief end of government.

 

And it is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful — whether a Navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an Army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a Tariff, to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital.

 

Of the existence of the power and duty of the Government to protect the People in their persons, their property, their industry and their locomotion, I have no doubt; but the time, the mode and the measure of protection, being always questions of policy and prudence, must of necessity be left to the wisdom and patriotism of those whose duty it is to make laws for the good government of the country. And with them I freely leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only, constitutional depository of the power.

 

As to our Foreign Policy generally, I have but little to say. I am not much of a progressive, and am content to leave it where Washington [Jefferson] placed it, upon that wise, virtuous, safe maxim — "Peace [. . .] with all nations; entangling alliance[s] with none." The greedy and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acquisition, which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of my sympathy. I view it as a sort of political gluttony, as dangerous to our body politic as gluttony is to the natural man — producing disease certainly, hastening death, probably. Those of our politicians who are afflicted with this morbid appetite are wont to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, as giving countenance to their inordinate desires. But the cases are wholly unlike in almost every particular. Louisiana was indispensable to our full and safe enjoyment of an immense region which was already owned, and its acquisition gave us the unquestioned control of that noble system of Mississippi waters, which nature seems to have made to be one and indivisible, and rounded off the map of the nation into one uniform and compacted whole. Nothing remained to mar and disfigure our national plat, but Florida, and that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value, than because it would form a dangerous means of annoyance, in case of war with a Maritime Power, surrounded as it is, on three sides by the ocean, and touching three of our present States, with no barrier between. The population of Louisiana and Florida, when acquired, was very small compared with the largeness of the territory; and, lying in contact with the States, was easily and quickly absorbed into and assimilated with the mass of our people. Those countries were acquired, moreover, in the most peaceful and friendly manner, and for a satisfactory consideration.

 

Now, without any right or any necessity, it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all the continent south of us, and the adjacent islands. Cuba is to be the first fruit of our grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we can, by war and conquest if we must.² But Cuba is only an outpost to the Empire of Islands and continental countries that are to follow. A leading Senator³ has lately declared (in debate on the Thirty Million bill⁴) that we must not only have Cuba, but all the islands from Cape Florida to the Spanish Main, so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and make them our "mare clausum" like the Mediterranean, in old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled both its shores, from the pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont.⁵ This claim of mare nostrum implies, of course, that we must own the continent that bounds our sea on the west, as well as the string of islands that inclose it on the east — that is, Mexico, Central America, and all South America, so far south at least as the Orinoco.⁶ In that wide compass of sea and land there are a good many native governments, and provinces belonging to the strongest maritime powers, and a narrow continental isthmus which we ourselves, as well as England and France, are wont to call the highway of nations. To fulfill the grand conception, and perfect our tropical empire, we must buy or conquer all these torrid countries, and their mongrel populations. As to buying them, it strikes me that we had better waite [sic] awhile, at least until the Government has ceased to borrow money to pay its current expenses. And as to conquering them, perhaps it would be prudent to pause and make some estimate of costs and contingencies, before we rush into war with all maritime Europe and half America.

 

I am not one of those who believe that the United States is not an independent and safe nation, because Cuba is not a part of it. On the contrary, I believe that we are quite capable of self-defense, even if the "Queen of the Antilles" were a province of England, France or Russia; and surely, while it remains an appendage of a comparatively feeble nation, Cuba has much more cause to fear us than we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen, I cannot help doubting the honesty of the cowardly argument by which we are urged to rob poor old Spain of this last remnant of her Western empire, for fear that she might use it to rob us.

 

But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole of the country — continental and insular — from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home Territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people.⁷ Can we hope to do better with the various mixed races of Mexico, Central and South America, and the West India Islands? Some of those countries have been trying for fifty years to establish republican governments on our model, but in every instance have miserably failed; and yet, there was no obstacle to complete success but their own inaptitude.

 

For my part, I should be grieved to see my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of Governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such Governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility; but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and islands south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social — diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the head and weakness in the members.

 

Our own country, as it is, in position, form and size, is a wonder which proclaims a wisdom above the wit of man. Large enough for our posterity, for centuries to come: All in the temperate zone, and therefore capable of a homogeneous population, yet so diversified in climates and soils, as to produce everything that is necessary to the comfort and wealth of a great people: Bounded east and west by great oceans, and bisected in the middle by a mighty river, which drains and fructifies the continent, and binds together the most southern and northern portions of our land by a bond stronger than iron. Beside all this, it is new and growing — the strongest on the continent, with no neighbor whose power it fears, or of whose ambition it has cause to be jealous. Surely such a country is great enough and good enough for all the ends of honest ambition and virtuous power.

It seems to me that an efficient home-loving Government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggression abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defense of their existence; but the conquest of our county by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities; and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

 

If our Government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries, the advancement of Commerce, the increase of Agriculture, the growth and stability of Manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening and securing the internal trade and travel of our country ; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.

 

The present position of the Administration is a sorrowful commentary upon the broad democracy of its professions. In theory, the people have the right and ability to do anything; in practice, we are verging rapidly to the One-Man power.

The President, the ostensible head of the National Democrats, is eagerly striving to concentrate power in his own hands, and thus to set aside both the People and their Representatives in the actual affairs of government. Having emptied the Treasury, which he found full, and living precariously upon borrowed money, he now demands of Congress to entrust to his unchecked discretion the War power, the Purse and the Sword. First, he asks Congress to authorize him, by statute, to use the Army to take military possession of the Northern Mexico, and hold it under his protectorate, and as a security for debts due to our citizens⁸ — civil possession would not answer, for that might expose him, as in the case of Kansas, to be annoyed by a factious Congress and a rebellious Territorial Legislature.

Secondly: Not content with this, he demands the discretionary power to use the Army and Navy in the South, also in blockading the coast and marching his troops into the interior of Mexico and New Granada, to protect our citizens against all evil-doers along the transit routes of Tehuantepec and Panama.⁹ And he and his supporters in Congress claim this enormous power upon the ground that, in this particular at least, he ought to be the equal of the greatest monarch of Europe. They forget that our fathers limited the power of the President by design, and for the reason that they had found out by sad experience that the monarchs of Europe were too strong for freedom.

 

Third: In strict pursuance of this doctrine, first publicly announced from Ostend,¹⁰ he demands of Congress to hand over to him thirty millions of dollars to be used at his discretion, to facilitate his acquisition of Cuba.¹¹ Facilitate how ? Perhaps it might be imprudent to tell.

 

Add to all this, the fact (as yet unexplained) that one of the largest naval armaments which ever sailed from our coast is now operating in South America, ostensibly against a poor little republic far up the Plate River,¹² to settle some little quarrel between the two Presidents.¹³ If Congress had been polite enough to grant the President's demand of the sword and the purse against Mexico, Central America and Cuba, this navy, its duty done at the south, might be made, on its way home, to arrive in the Gulf very opportunely, to aid the " Commander-in-Chief " in the acquisition of some very valuable territory.

 

I allude to these facts with no malice against Mr. Buchanan, but as evidences of the dangerous change which is now obviously sought to be made in the practical working of the Government — the concentration of power in the hands of the President, and the dangerous policy, now almost established, of looking abroad for temporary glory and aggrandizement, instead of looking at home, for all the purposes of good government — peaceable, moderate, economical, protecting all interests alike, and by a fixed policy, calling into safe exercise all the talents and industry of our people, and thus steadily advancing our country in everything which can make a nation great, happy, and permanent.

 

The rapid increase of the Public Expenditures (and that, too, under the management of statesmen professing to be peculiarly economical) is an alarming sign of corruption and decay.

 

That increase bears no fair proportion to the growth and expansion of the country, but looks rather like wanton waste or criminal negligence. The ordinary objects of great expense are not materially augmented — the Army and Navy remain on a low peace establishment— the military defenses are little, if at all, enlarged — the improvement of Harbors, Lakes and Rivers is abandoned, and the Pacific Railroad is not only not begun but its very location is scrambled for by angry sections, which succeed in nothing but mutual defeat. In short, the money to an enormous amount (I am told at the rate of $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year) is gone, and we have little or nothing to show for it. In profound peace with foreign nations, and surrounded with the proofs of National growth and individual prosperity, the Treasury, by less than two years of mismanagement, is made bankrupt, and the Government itself is living from hand to mouth, on bills of credit and borrowed money!

 

This humiliating state of things could hardly happen if men in power were both honest and wise. The Democratic economists in Congress confess that they have recklessly wasted the Public Revenue; they confess it by refusing to raise the Tariff to meet the present exigency, and by insisting that they can replenish the exhausted Treasury and support the Government, in credit and efficiency, by simply striking off their former extravagances.

 

An illustrious predecessor of the President is reported to have declared "that those who live on borrowed money ought to break." I do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of opinion that the Government, in common prudence (to say nothing of pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace, it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least, to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as to foster and protect the Industry of the country employed in our most necessary and important manufactures.

 

Gentlemen, I cannot touch upon all the topics alluded to in your letter and resolution. I ought rather to beg your pardon for the prolixity of this answer. I speak for no party, because the only party I ever belonged to has ceased to exist as an organized and militant body.

 

And I speak for no man but myself.

 

I am fully aware that my opinions and views of public policy are of no importance to anybody but me, and there is good reason to fear that some of them are so antiquated and out of fashion as to make it very improbable that they will ever again be put to the test of actual practice.

 

Most respectfully,

EDWARD BATES.

The Republican publishes the letter to gratify the curiosity of my numerous friends throughout the country, but gives no opinion, neither praise nor censure.

The Evening News is rapturous in its applause, and glorifies me without measure or moderation.

The New York City papers eagerly published the letter, with few editorial comments, for the most part with moderate praise — I have seen only the Tribune (Greel[e]y's¹⁴) The Times (Raymond's¹⁵) the Express (Brooks'¹⁶) and the Herald (Bennett's¹⁷)[.]

I expected a sour reception from the Republican papers — Especially the Tribune and Times — on account of my openly opposing the further agitation of the Negro question. The Tribune,¹⁸ tho' well pleased with the rest of the letter, is clearly not well pleased with that part, but makes a distinction in my favor, between the two kinds of opposition to aggitation [sic] — one (with which he charges Hiram Ketchum¹⁹) he characterises as subserviency to the 'Slave power' and a tacit aid to their efforts to propagate and extend slavery. The other (which he supposes may be my position) a desire to stop the slavery aggitation [sic], with a view to more national questions, but with a readiness to resist the efforts of the Southern propagandists in their efforts to spread slavery where we do not find it.

The letter I think, is well written and effective. But some of my friends, I am sure, think me imprudent, in coming out so plainly upon the subjects treated of. I am not so timid, perhaps not so prudent as they — Upon the whole, the letter has been most favorably received in St Louis.

_______________

¹ This present version of the letter is that of the New York Tribune of April 16, 1859.

² This was the substance of the Ostend Manifesto which Buchanan as Minister to Great Britain had joined Ministers John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé in promulgating. As Secretary of State under President Polk, Buchanan had tried to buy Cuba. In his second, third, and fourth annual messages he urged Congress to cooperate with him in securing it by negotiation.

³ Robert Toombs of Georgia: Whig state legislator, 1837-1840, 1841-1844 ; states' rights Democratic congressman, 1845-1853 ; U. S. senator, 1853-1861. He was later a leader in the Georgia Secession Convention, and congressman, brigadier-general, and secretary of State under the Confederacy.

⁴ January, 1859, Senate Reports, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., ser. no. 994, doc. no. 351. The bill purposed to appropriate $30,000,000 "to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba by negotiation." Senator Slidell (infra, Nov. 24, 1859, note 89) introduced it on January 10. 1859 (Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 277) ; it was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Relations of which he was chairman, on January 24, 1859 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538) ; it was debated at great length on January 24, February 9-10, February 15—17, February 21, and February 25 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538-544, 904-909, 934-940, 960968, 1038, Appendix [155-169], 1058-1063, 1079-1087, 1179-1192, 1326-1363) ; but because of opposition, it was withdrawn on February 26 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 13S51387). At the next session, on December 8, 1859, Senator Slidell reintroduced this bill (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 53), had it referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on December 21 (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 199), reported it out favorably to the Senate on May 30, 1860, but because of opposition did not push it (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 2456). He promised to call it up again at the next session, but when that time arrived was too busy seceding to bother about Cuba.

⁵ On January 24, Toombs had said, "Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Caribbean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America . . . that development, that progress throughout the tropics [is] the true, fixed unalterable policy of the nation." Ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 543.

⁶ I. e., as far as Venezuela.

⁷ Bitterness over the slavery question had reached the point of armed conflict, raids, and murder in Kansas in 1855-1856, and Utah was at this time subject to frequent Indian raids. It was in 1859, too, that the Republicans tried to prohibit polygamy in Utah and the Democrats succeeded, probably with slavery in other territories in mind, in preventing Congressional legislation on the subject.

⁸ Dec. 6, 1858, James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 514. See infra, Feb. 15, 1860.

⁹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 516_517.

¹⁰ Supra, April 20, 1859, note 2.

¹¹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 508-511.

¹² Rio de La Plata in South America.

¹³ An expedition of some 19 ships, 200 guns, and 2.500 men which was sent against Paraguay because a vessel of that nation had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch. A mere show of force sufficed to secure both an apology and an indemnity on February 10, 1859. The President of Argentina was so interested and so pleased that he presented the commander with a sword.

¹⁴ Infra, Feb. 2, 1860, note 47.

¹⁵ Infra, Feb. 4, 1860, note 61.

¹⁶ Infra, Sept. 20, 1860, note 12.

¹⁷ James Gordon Bennett: journalist in Boston, New York, and Charleston; then Washington correspondent; next editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer, 1829-1832, and of the Pennsylvanian, 1832-1833 ; and finally editor-owner of the New York Herald, 18351867. He made the Herald one of the most enterprising and spectacular of papers and kept it independent. He had supported Taylor (Whig) in 1848, Pierce (Democrat) in 1852, Fr6mont (Republican) in 1856, and was to support Douglas against Lincoln in 1860 and Lincoln against McClellan in 1864, Johnson against the Radicals in 1865-1866 and the Radicals against Johnson in 1866-1867. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Bennett wished to let the Southern States go in peace, but when war came he supported it.

¹⁸ For editorial comment see the New York Tribune, April 16, 1859.

¹⁹ Chairman of the Whig General Committee of New York City. Bates originally sent his letter to Ketchum in February, but it disappeared and he had to recopy it out of his letter-book and resend it for publication. Ibid., April 16, 1859. Ketchum represented moderate anti-Seward opinion in New York, was a delegate to the National Union Convention in Baltimore, but opposed the formation of a third party. He promised to support Mr. Bates if he were nominated by the Republicans.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 1-10

Edward Bates to the Whig Committee of New York, February 24, 1859

St. Louis, Feb. 24, 1859.

To Messrs. J. PHILIPS PHOENIX, WILLIS BLACKSTONE, H. M. BININGER, DAVID J. LILET AND H. R. SMITH, Committee, New York.

Sirs: A short time ago I was favored with your note of the 7th inst., covering a resolution of the Committee, to the effect that it is inexpedient at this time further to discuss or agitate the Negro question, but rather to turn the attention of the people to other topics — "topics of general importance, such as our Foreign Relations, including the Extension of Territory; the building of Railroads for National purposes; the improvement of our Harbors, the navigation of our Rivers to facilitate Internal Commerce; the subject of Currency, and a Tariff of Duties, and other means of developing our own internal resources, our home wealth, and binding together by ties of national and fraternal feelings, the various parts and sections of our widely extended Republic."

Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide field, in asking for my "opinion upon the subject, and my views as to the signs of the times." Books have been written upon these matters, and speeches delivered by the thousand ; and yet the argument seems as far from being exhausted as it was at the beginning ; and I take it for certain that you do not expect or desire me to discuss at large, all or any of these interminable quarrels. That I have opinions upon all or most of them, is true — not the opinions of this or that party, ready to be abandoned or modified to suit this or that platform, but my own opinions — perhaps the more fixed and harder to be changed because deliberately formed in the retirement of private life, free from the exigencies of official responsibility and from the perturbations of party policy. They are my own opinions, right or wrong.

As to the Negro question — I have always thought, and often declared in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections, and by those bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the sorrowful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice.

As to the power of the General Government to protect the persons and properties, and advance the interests of the people, by laying taxes, raising armies and navies, building forts and arsenals, light houses, moles, and breakwaters, surveying the coasts and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes, and harbors, and making roads — I should be very sorry to doubt the existence of the power, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the constituted authorities have the means in their hands, and are convinced that its exercise is necessary to protect the country and advance the prosperity of the people.

In my own opinion, a government that has no power to protect the harbors of its country against winds and waves and human enemies, nor its rivers against snags, sands and rocks, nor to build roads for the transportation of its armies and its mails and the commerce of its people, is a poor, impotent government, and not at all such a government as our fathers thought they had made when they produced the Constitution which was greeted by intelligent men everywhere with admiration and gratitude as a government free enough for all the ends of legal liberty and strong enough for all the purposes of national and individual protection. A free people, if it be wise, will make a good constitution; but a constitution, however good in itself, did never make a free people. The people do not derive their rights from the government, but the government derives its powers from the people; and those powers are granted for the main, if not the only, purpose of protecting the rights of the people. Protection, then, if not the sole, is the chief end of government.

And it is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful — whether a Navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an Army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a Tariff, to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital.

Of the existence of the power and duty of the Government to protect the People in their persons, their property, their industry and their locomotion, I have no doubt; but the time, the mode and the measure of protection, being always questions of policy and prudence, must of necessity be left to the wisdom and patriotism of those whose duty it is to make laws for the good government of the country. And with them I freely leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only, constitutional depository of the power.

As to our Foreign Policy generally, I have but little to say. I am not much of a progressive, and am content to leave it where Washington [Jefferson] placed it, upon that wise, virtuous, safe maxim — "Peace [. . .] with all nations; entangling alliance[s] with none." The greedy and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acquisition, which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of my sympathy. I view it as a sort of political gluttony, as dangerous to our body politic as gluttony is to the natural man — producing disease certainly, hastening death, probably. Those of our politicians who are afflicted with this morbid appetite are wont to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, as giving countenance to their inordinate desires. But the cases are wholly unlike in almost every particular. Louisiana was indispensable to our full and safe enjoyment of an immense region which was already owned, and its acquisition gave us the unquestioned control of that noble system of Mississippi waters, which nature seems to have made to be one and indivisible, and rounded off the map of the nation into one uniform and compacted whole. Nothing remained to mar and disfigure our national plat, but Florida, and that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value, than because it would form a dangerous means of annoyance, in case of war with a Maritime Power, surrounded as it is, on three sides by the ocean, and touching three of our present States, with no barrier between. The population of Louisiana and Florida, when acquired, was very small compared with the largeness of the territory; and, lying in contact with the States, was easily and quickly absorbed into and assimilated with the mass of our people. Those countries were acquired, moreover, in the most peaceful and friendly manner, and for a satisfactory consideration.

Now, without any right or any necessity, it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all the continent south of us, and the adjacent islands. Cuba is to be the first fruit of our grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we can, by war and conquest if we must.² But Cuba is only an outpost to the Empire of Islands and continental countries that are to follow. A leading Senator³ has lately declared (in debate on the Thirty Million bill⁴) that we must not only have Cuba, but all the islands from Cape Florida to the Spanish Main, so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and make them our "mare clausum" like the Mediterranean, in old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled both its shores, from the pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont.⁵ This claim of mare nostrum implies, of course, that we must own the continent that bounds our sea on the west, as well as the string of islands that inclose it on the east — that is, Mexico, Central America, and all South America, so far south at least as the Orinoco.⁶ In that wide compass of sea and land there are a good many native governments, and provinces belonging to the strongest maritime powers, and a narrow continental isthmus which we ourselves, as well as England and France, are wont to call the highway of nations. To fulfill the grand conception, and perfect our tropical empire, we must buy or conquer all these torrid countries, and their mongrel populations. As to buying them, it strikes me that we had better waite [sic] awhile, at least until the Government has ceased to borrow money to pay its current expenses. And as to conquering them, perhaps it would be prudent to pause and make some estimate of costs and contingencies, before we rush into war with all maritime Europe and half America.

I am not one of those who believe that the United States is not an independent and safe nation, because Cuba is not a part of it. On the contrary, I believe that we are quite capable of self-defense, even if the "Queen of the Antilles" were a province of England, France or Russia; and surely, while it remains an appendage of a comparatively feeble nation, Cuba has much more cause to fear us than we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen, I cannot help doubting the honesty of the cowardly argument by which we are urged to rob poor old Spain of this last remnant of her Western empire, for fear that she might use it to rob us.

But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole of the country — continental and insular — from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home Territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people.⁷ Can we hope to do better with the various mixed races of Mexico, Central and South America, and the West India Islands? Some of those countries have been trying for fifty years to establish republican governments on our model, but in every instance have miserably failed; and yet, there was no obstacle to complete success but their own inaptitude.

For my part, I should be grieved to see my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of Governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such Governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility; but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and islands south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social — diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the head and weakness in the members.

Our own country, as it is, in position, form and size, is a wonder which proclaims a wisdom above the wit of man. Large enough for our posterity, for centuries to come: All in the temperate zone, and therefore capable of a homogeneous population, yet so diversified in climates and soils, as to produce everything that is necessary to the comfort and wealth of a great people: Bounded east and west by great oceans, and bisected in the middle by a mighty river, which drains and fructifies the continent, and binds together the most southern and northern portions of our land by a bond stronger than iron. Beside all this, it is new and growing — the strongest on the continent, with no neighbor whose power it fears, or of whose ambition it has cause to be jealous. Surely such a country is great enough and good enough for all the ends of honest ambition and virtuous power.

It seems to me that an efficient home-loving Government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggression abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defense of their existence; but the conquest of our county by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities; and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

If our Government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries, the advancement of Commerce, the increase of Agriculture, the growth and stability of Manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening and securing the internal trade and travel of our country ; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.

The present position of the Administration is a sorrowful commentary upon the broad democracy of its professions. In theory, the people have the right and ability to do anything; in practice, we are verging rapidly to the One-Man power.

The President, the ostensible head of the National Democrats, is eagerly striving to concentrate power in his own hands, and thus to set aside both the People and their Representatives in the actual affairs of government. Having emptied the Treasury, which he found full, and living precariously upon borrowed money, he now demands of Congress to entrust to his unchecked discretion the War power, the Purse and the Sword. First, he asks Congress to authorize him, by statute, to use the Army to take military possession of the Northern Mexico, and hold it under his protectorate, and as a security for debts due to our citizens⁸ — civil possession would not answer, for that might expose him, as in the case of Kansas, to be annoyed by a factious Congress and a rebellious Territorial Legislature.

Secondly: Not content with this, he demands the discretionary power to use the Army and Navy in the South, also in blockading the coast and marching his troops into the interior of Mexico and New Granada, to protect our citizens against all evil-doers along the transit routes of Tehuantepec and Panama.⁹ And he and his supporters in Congress claim this enormous power upon the ground that, in this particular at least, he ought to be the equal of the greatest monarch of Europe. They forget that our fathers limited the power of the President by design, and for the reason that they had found out by sad experience that the monarchs of Europe were too strong for freedom.

Third: In strict pursuance of this doctrine, first publicly announced from Ostend,¹⁰ he demands of Congress to hand over to him thirty millions of dollars to be used at his discretion, to facilitate his acquisition of Cuba.¹¹ Facilitate how ? Perhaps it might be imprudent to tell.

Add to all this, the fact (as yet unexplained) that one of the largest naval armaments which ever sailed from our coast is now operating in South America, ostensibly against a poor little republic far up the Plate River,¹² to settle some little quarrel between the two Presidents.¹³ If Congress had been polite enough to grant the President's demand of the sword and the purse against Mexico, Central America and Cuba, this navy, its duty done at the south, might be made, on its way home, to arrive in the Gulf very opportunely, to aid the " Commander-in-Chief " in the acquisition of some very valuable territory.

I allude to these facts with no malice against Mr. Buchanan, but as evidences of the dangerous change which is now obviously sought to be made in the practical working of the Government — the concentration of power in the hands of the President, and the dangerous policy, now almost established, of looking abroad for temporary glory and aggrandizement, instead of looking at home, for all the purposes of good government — peaceable, moderate, economical, protecting all interests alike, and by a fixed policy, calling into safe exercise all the talents and industry of our people, and thus steadily advancing our country in everything which can make a nation great, happy, and permanent.

The rapid increase of the Public Expenditures (and that, too, under the management of statesmen professing to be peculiarly economical) is an alarming sign of corruption and decay.

That increase bears no fair proportion to the growth and expansion of the country, but looks rather like wanton waste or criminal negligence. The ordinary objects of great expense are not materially augmented — the Army and Navy remain on a low peace establishment— the military defenses are little, if at all, enlarged — the improvement of Harbors, Lakes and Rivers is abandoned, and the Pacific Railroad is not only not begun but its very location is scrambled for by angry sections, which succeed in nothing but mutual defeat. In short, the money to an enormous amount (I am told at the rate of $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year) is gone, and we have little or nothing to show for it. In profound peace with foreign nations, and surrounded with the proofs of National growth and individual prosperity, the Treasury, by less than two years of mismanagement, is made bankrupt, and the Government itself is living from hand to mouth, on bills of credit and borrowed money!

This humiliating state of things could hardly happen if men in power were both honest and wise. The Democratic economists in Congress confess that they have recklessly wasted the Public Revenue; they confess it by refusing to raise the Tariff to meet the present exigency, and by insisting that they can replenish the exhausted Treasury and support the Government, in credit and efficiency, by simply striking off their former extravagances.

An illustrious predecessor of the President is reported to have declared "that those who live on borrowed money ought to break." I do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of opinion that the Government, in common prudence (to say nothing of pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace, it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least, to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as to foster and protect the Industry of the country employed in our most necessary and important manufactures.

Gentlemen, I cannot touch upon all the topics alluded to in your letter and resolution. I ought rather to beg your pardon for the prolixity of this answer. I speak for no party, because the only party I ever belonged to has ceased to exist as an organized and militant body.

And I speak for no man but myself.

I am fully aware that my opinions and views of public policy are of no importance to anybody but me, and there is good reason to fear that some of them are so antiquated and out of fashion as to make it very improbable that they will ever again be put to the test of actual practice.

Most respectfully,

EDWARD BATES.

_______________

² This was the substance of the Ostend Manifesto which Buchanan as Minister to Great Britain had joined Ministers John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé in promulgating. As Secretary of State under President Polk, Buchanan had tried to buy Cuba. In his second, third, and fourth annual messages he urged Congress to cooperate with him in securing it by negotiation.

³ Robert Toombs of Georgia: Whig state legislator, 1837-1840, 1841-1844; states' rights Democratic congressman, 1845-1853; U. S. senator, 1853-1861. He was later a leader in the Georgia Secession Convention, and congressman, brigadier-general, and secretary of State under the Confederacy.

⁴ January, 1859, Senate Reports, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., ser. no. 994, doc. no. 351. The bill purposed to appropriate $30,000,000 "to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba by negotiation." Senator Slidell (infra, Nov. 24, 1859, note 89) introduced it on January 10. 1859 (Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 277) ; it was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Relations of which he was chairman, on January 24, 1859 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538) ; it was debated at great length on January 24, February 9-10, February 15—17, February 21, and February 25 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538-544, 904-909, 934-940, 960968, 1038, Appendix [155-169], 1058-1063, 1079-1087, 1179-1192, 1326-1363) ; but because of opposition, it was withdrawn on February 26 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 13S51387). At the next session, on December 8, 1859, Senator Slidell reintroduced this bill (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 53), had it referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on December 21 (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 199), reported it out favorably to the Senate on May 30, 1860, but because of opposition did not push it (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 2456). He promised to call it up again at the next session, but when that time arrived was too busy seceding to bother about Cuba.

⁵ On January 24, Toombs had said, "Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Caribbean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America . . . that development, that progress throughout the tropics [is] the true, fixed unalterable policy of the nation." Ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 543.

⁶ I. e., as far as Venezuela.

⁷ Bitterness over the slavery question had reached the point of armed conflict, raids, and murder in Kansas in 1855-1856, and Utah was at this time subject to frequent Indian raids. It was in 1859, too, that the Republicans tried to prohibit polygamy in Utah and the Democrats succeeded, probably with slavery in other territories in mind, in preventing Congressional legislation on the subject.

⁸ Dec. 6, 1858, James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 514. See infra, Feb. 15, 1860.

⁹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 516-517.

¹⁰ Supra, April 20, 1859, note 2.

¹¹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 508-511.

¹² Rio de La Plata in South America.

¹³ An expedition of some 19 ships, 200 guns, and 2.500 men which was sent against Paraguay because a vessel of that nation had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch. A mere show of force sufficed to secure both an apology and an indemnity on February 10, 1859. The President of Argentina was so interested and so pleased that he presented the commander with a sword.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 1-9

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 1, 1861

It is said the pickets of the Fourteenth Indiana and the enemy's cavalry came in collision to-day, and that three of the latter were killed.

It is now 9 P. M. Sergeants are calling the roll for the last time to-night. In half an hour taps will be sounded and the lights extinguished in every private's tent. The first call in the morning, reveille, is at five; breakfast call, six; surgeon's call, seven; drill, eight; recall, eleven; dinner, twelve; drill again at four; recall, five; guard-mounting, half-past five; first call for dress-parade, six; second call, half-past six; tattoo at nine, and taps at half-past. So the day goes round.

Hardee for a month or more was a book of impenetrable mysteries. The words conveyed no idea to my mind, and the movements described were utterly beyond my comprehension; but now the whole thing comes almost without study.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 41

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 2, 1861

Jerrolaman went out this afternoon and picked nearly a peck of blackberries. Berries of various kinds are very abundant. The fox-grape is also found in great plenty, and as big as one's thumb.

The Indianians are great ramblers. Lieutenant Bell says they can be traced all over the country, for they not only eat all the berries, but nibble the thorns off the bushes.

General Reynolds told me, this evening, he thought it probable we would be attacked soon. Have been distributing ammunition, forty rounds to the man.

My black horse was missing this morning. Conway looked for him the greater part of the day, and finally found him in possession of an Indiana captain. It happened in this way: Captain Rupp, Thirteenth Indiana, told his men he would give forty dollars for a sesesh horse, and they took my horse out of the pasture, delivered it to him, and got the money. He rode the horse up the valley to Colonel Wagner's station, and when he returned bragged considerably over his good luck; but about dark Conway interviewed him on the subject, when a change came o'er the spirit of his dream. Colonel Sullivan tells me the officers now talk to Rupp about the fine points of his horse, ask to borrow him, and desire to know when he proposes to ride again.

A little group of soldiers are sitting around a camp-fire, not far away, entertaining each other with stories and otherwise. Just now one of them lifts up his voice, and in a melancholly strain sings:

Somebody —— “is weeping

For Gallant Andy Gay,

Who now in death lies sleeping

On the field of Monterey.”

While I write he strikes into another air, and these are the words as I catch them:

“Come back, come back, my purty fair maid!

Then thousand of my jinture on you I will bestow

If you’ll consent to marry me;

Oh, do not say me no.”

But the maid is indifferent to jintures, and replies indignantly:

“Oh, hold your tongue, captain, your words are all in vain;

I have a handsome sweetheart now across the main,

And if I do not find him I’ll mourn continuali.”

More of this interesting dialogue between the captain and the pretty fair maid I can not catch.

The sky is clear, but the night very dark. I do not contemplate my ride to the picket posts with any great degree of pleasure. A cowardly sentinel is more likely to shoot at you than a brave one. The fears of the former do not give him time to consider whether the person advancing is friend or foe.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 41-3

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 3, 1861

We hear of the enemy daily, Colonel Kimball, on the mountain, and Colonel Wagner, up the valley, are both in hourly expectation of an attack. The enemy, encouraged by his successes at Manassas, will probably attempt to retrieve his losses in Western Virginia.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 43

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 4, 1861

At one o'clock P. M. General Reynolds sent for Two of Colonel Wagner's companies had been surrounded, and an attack on Wagner's position expected to-night. The enemy reported three thousand strong. He desired me to send half of my regiment and two of Loomis' guns to the support of Wagner. I took six companies and started up the valley. Reached Wagner's quarters at six o'clock. Brought neither tents nor provisions, and to-night will turn in with the Indianians.

It is true that the enemy number three thousand; the main body being ten or fifteen miles away. Their pickets and ours, however, are near each other; but General Reynolds was misinformed as to two of Wagner's companies. They had not been surrounded.

To-morrow Colonel Wagner and I will make a reconnoissance, and ascertain if the rebels are ready to fight. Wagner has six hundred and fifty men fit for duty, and I have four hundred. Besides these, we have three pieces of artillery. Altogether, we expect to be able to hoe them a pretty good row, if they should advance on us. Four of the enemy were captured to-day. A company of cavalry is approaching. "Halt! who comes there?" cries the sentinel. "Lieutenant Denny, without the countersign." "All right," shouts Colonel Wagner, "let him come.” I write with at least four fleas hopping about on my legs.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 43-4

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 5, 1861

To-day we felt our way up the valley eight miles, but did not reach the rebels.

To-night our pickets were sure they heard firing off in the direction of Kanawha. If so, Cox and Wise must be having a pleasant little interchange of lead.

The chaplain of the Thirteenth Indiana is the counterpart of Scott's Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, or the fighting friar of the times of Robin Hood. In answer to some request he has just said that he will "go to thunder before doing it." The first time I saw this fighting parson was at the burnt bridge near Huttonville. He had two revolvers and a hatchet in his belt, and appeared more like a firebrand of war than a minister of peace. I now hear the rough voice of a braggadocio captain in the adjoining tent, who, if we may believe his own story, is the most formidable man alive. His hair-breadth escapes are innumerable, and his anxiety to get at the enemy is intense. Is it not ancient Pistol come again to astonish the world by deeds of reckless daring?

We have sent out a scouting party, and hope to learn something more of the rebels during the night. Wagner, Major Wood, Captain Abbott, and others are having a game of whist.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 44-5

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 6, 1861

Our camp equipage came up to-day, so that we are now in our own tents.

Four of my companies are on picket, scattered up the valley for miles, and half of the other two are doing guard duty in the neighborhood of the camp. I do not, by any means, approve of throwing out such heavy pickets and scattering our men so much. We are in the presence of a force probably twice as large as our own, and should keep our troops well in hand.

Our scouts have been busy; but, although they have brought in a few prisoners, mostly farmers residing in the vicinity of the enemy's camp, we have obtained but little information respecting the rebels. I intend to send out a scouting party in the morning. Lieutenant Driscoll will command it. He is a brave, and, I think, prudent officer, and will leave camp at four o'clock, follow the road six miles, then take to the mountains, and endeavor to reach a point where he can overlook the enemy and estimate his strength.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 45-6

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 7, 1861

The scouting party sent out this morning were conveyed by wagons six miles up the valley, and were to take to the mountains, half a mile beyond. I instructed Lieutenant Driscoll to exercise the utmost caution, and not take his men further than he thought reasonably safe. Of course perfect safety is not expected. Our object, however, is to get information, not to give it by losing the squad.

At eleven o'clock a courier came in hot haste from the front, to inform us that a flag of truce, borne by a Confederate major, with an escort of six dragoons, was on the way to camp. Colonel Wagner and I rode out to meet the party, and were introduced to Major Lee, the son, as I subsequently ascertained, of General Robert E. Lee, of Virginia. The Major informed us that his communication could only be imparted to our General, and a courier was at once dispatched to Huttonville.

At four o'clock General Reynolds arrived, accompanied by Colonel Sullivan and a company of cavalry. Wagner and I joined the General's party, and all galloped to the outpost, to interview the Confederate major. His letter contained a proposition to exchange prisoners captured by the rebels at Manassas for those taken at Rich mountain. The General appointed at day on which a definite answer should be returned, and Major Lee, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Owen and myself, rode to the outlying picket station, where his escort had been halted and detained.

Major Lee is near my own age, a heavy set, but well-proportioned man, somewhat inclined to boast, not overly profound, and thoroughly impregnated with the idea that he is a Virginian and a Lee withal. As I shook hands at parting with this scion of an illustrious house, he complimented me by saying that he hoped soon to have the honor of meeting me on the battlefield. I assured him that it would afford me pleasure, and I should make all reasonable efforts to gratify him in this regard. I did not desire to fight, of course, but I was bound not to be excelled in the matter of knightly courtesy.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 46-7

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 8, 1861

Major Wood, Fifteenth Indiana, thought he heard chopping last night, and imagined that the enemy was engaged in cutting a road to our rear.

Lieutenant Driscoll and party returned to-day. They slept on the mountains last night; were inside the enemy's picket lines; heard reveille sounded this morning, but could not obtain a view of the camp.

Have just returned from a sixteen-mile ride, visiting picket posts. The latter half of the ride was after nightfall. Found officers and men vigilant and ready to meet an attack.

Obtained some fine huckleberries and blackberries on the mountain to-day. Had a blackberry pie and pudding for dinner. Rather too much happiness for one day; but then the crust of the pudding was tolerably tough. The grass is a foot high in parts of my tent, where it has not been trodden down, and the gentle grasshopper makes music all the day, and likewise all the night.

Our fortifications are progressing slowly. If the enemy intends to attack at all, he will probably do so before they are complete; and if he does not, the fortifications will be of no use to us. But this is the philosophy of a lazy man, and very similar to that of the Irishman who did not put roof on his cabin: when it rained he could not, and in fair weather he did not need it.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 47-8

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 9, 1861

Pickets report firing, artillery and musketry, over the mountain, in the direction of Kimball.

The enemy's scouts were within three miles of our camp this afternoon, evidently looking for a path that would enable them to get to our rear. Fifty men have just been sent in pursuit; but owing to a little misunderstanding of instructions, I fear the expedition will be fruitless. Colonel Wagner neither thinks clearly nor talks with any degree of exactness. He has a loose, slip-shod, indefinite way with him, that tends to confusion and leads to misunderstandings and trouble.

I have been over the mountain on our left, hunting up the paths and familiarizing myself with the ground, so as to be ready to defeat any effort that may be made to turn our flank. Colonel Owen has been investigating the mountain on our right. The Colonel is a good thinker, an excellent conversationalist, and a very learned man.

Geology is his darling, and he keeps one eye on the enemy, and the other on the rocks.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 48-9

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 10, 1861

My tent is on the bank of the Valley river. The water, clear as crystal, as it hurries on over the rocks, keeps up a continuous murmur.

There will be a storm to-night. The sky is very dark, the wind rising, and every few minutes a vivid flash of lightning illuminates the valley, and the thunder rolls off among the mountains with a rumbbling, echoing noise, like that which the gods might make in putting a hundred trains of celestial artillery in position.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 49

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 11, 1861

Lieutenant Bowen, of topographical engineers, and myself, with ten men, carrying axes and guns, started up the mountain at seven o'clock this morning, followed a path to the crest, or dividing ridge, and felled trees to obstruct the way as much as possible. Returned to camp for dinner.

During the afternoon Lieutenant W. O. Merrill, Lieutenant Bowen, and I, ascended the mountain. again by a new route. After reaching the crest, we endeavored to find the path which Lieutenant Bowen and I had traveled over in the morning, but were unable to do so. We continued our search until it became quite dark, when the two engineers, as well as myself, became utterly bewildered. Finally, Lieutenant Merrill took out his pocket compass, and said the camp was in that direction, pointing with his hand. I insisted he was wrong; that he would not reach camp by going that way. He insisted that he would, and must be governed by some general principles, and so started off on his own hook, leaving us to pursue our own course. Finally Bowen lost confidence in me, said I was not going in the right direction at all, and insisted that we should turn squarely around, and go the opposite way. At last I yielded with many misgivings, and allowed him to lead. After going down a thousand feet or more, we found ourselves in a ravine, through which a small stream of water flowed. Following this, we finally reached the valley. We knew now exactly where we were, and by wading the river reached the road, and so got to camp at nine o'clock at night.

Merrill, who was governed by general principles, failed to strike the camp directly, strayed three or four miles to the right of it, came down in Stewart's run valley, and did not reach camp until about midnight.

On our trip to-day, we found a bear trap, made of heavy logs, the lid arranged to fall when the bear entered and touched the bait.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 49-50

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 12, 1861

This is the fourth day that Captain Cunard's company has been lying in the woods, three miles from camp, guarding an important road, although a very rough and rugged one. Companies upon duty like this, remain at their posts day and night, good weather and bad, without any shelter, except that afforded by the trees, or by little booths constructed of logs and branches. From the main station, where the captain remains, sub-pickets are sent out in charge of sergeants and corporals, and these often make little houses of logs, which they cover with cedar boughs or branches of laurel, and denominate forts. In the wilderness, to-day, I stumbled upon Fort Stiner, the head-quarters of a sub-picket commanded by Corporal William Stiner, of the Third. The Corporal and such of his men as were off duty, were sitting about a fire, heating coffee and roasting slices of fat pork, preparing thus the noonday meal.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 50-1

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 13, 1861

At noon Colonel Marrow, Major Keifer, and I, took dinner with Esquire Stalnaker, an old-style man, born fifty years ago in the log house where he now lives. Two spinning-wheels were in the best room, and rattled away with a music which carried me back to the pioneer days of Ohio. A little girl of five or six years stole up to the wheel when the mother's back was turned, and tried her skill on a roll. How proud and delighted she was when she had spun the wool into a long, uneven thread, and secured it safely on the spindle. Surely, the child of the palace, reared in the lap of luxury and with her hands in the mother's jewel-box, could not have been happier or more triumphant in her bearing.

These West Virginians are uncultivated, uneducated and rough, and need the common school to civilize and modernize them. Many have never seen a railroad, and the telegraph is to them an incomprehensible mystery.

Governor Dennison has appointed a Mr. John G. Mitchell, of Columbus, adjutant of the Third.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 51

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 14, 1861

Privates Vincent and Watson, sentinels of a sub-picket, under command of Corporal Stiner, discovered a man stealing through the woods, and halted him. He professed to be a farm hand; said his employer had a mountain farm not far away, where he pastured cattle. A two-year-old steer had strayed off, and he was looking for him. His clothes were fearfully torn by brush and briars. His hands and face were scratched by thorns. He had taken off his boots to relieve his swollen feet, and was carrying them in his hands. Imitating the language and manners of an uneducated West Virginian, he asked the sentinel if he "had seed anything of a red steer." The sentinel had not. After continuing the conversation for a time, he finally said: "Well, I must be a goin'; it is a gettin' late, and I am durned feared I won't git back to the farm afore night. Good day." "Hold on," said the sentinel; "better go and see the Captain." "O, no; don't want to trouble him; it is not likely he has seed the steer, and it's a gettin' late.” "Come right along," replied the sentinel, bringing his gun down; "the Captain will not mind being troubled; in fact, I am instructed to take such men as you to him."

Captain Cunard questioned the prisoner closely, asked whom he worked for, how much he was getting a month for his services, and, finally, pointing to the long-legged military boots which he was still holding in his hands, asked how much they cost. "Fifteen dollars," replied the prisoner." "Fifteen dollars! Is not that rather more than a farm hand who gets but twelve dollars a month can afford to pay for boots?” inquired the Captain. "Well, the fact is, boots is a gettin' high since the war, as well as every thing else." But Captain Cunard was not satisfied. The prisoner was not well up in the character he had undertaken to play, and was told that he must go to head-quarters. Finding that he was caught, he at once threw off the mask, and confessed that he was Captain J. A. De Lagniel, formerly of the regular army, but now in the Confederate service. Wounded at the battle of Rich mountain, he had been secreted at a farm-house near Beverly until able to travel, and was now trying to get around our pickets and reach the rebel army. He had been in the mountains five days and four nights. The provisions with which he started, and which consisted of a little bag of biscuit, had become moldy. He thought, from the distance traveled, that he must be beyond our lines and out of danger.

De Lagniel is an educated man, and his wife and friends believe him to have been killed at Rich mountain. He speaks in high terms of Captain Cunard, and says, when the latter began to question him, he soon found it was useless to play Major Andre, for Paulding was before him, too sharp to be deceived and too honest to be bribed. When De Lagniel was brought into camp he was wet and shivering, weak, and thoroughly broken down by starvation, cold, exposure, and fatigue. The officers supplied him with the clothing necessary to make him comfortable.

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 51-3

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel John Beatty: August 15, 1861

I have a hundred axmen in my charge, felling timber on the mountain, and constructing rough breastworks to protect our left flank.

General Reynolds came up to-day to see De Lagniel. They are old acquaintances, were at West Point together, and know each other like brothers.

The irrepressible Corporal Casey, who, in fact, had nothing whatever to do with the capture of De Lagniel, is now surrounded by a little group of soldiers. He is talking to them about the prisoner, who, since it is known that he is an acquaintance of General Reynolds, has become a person of great importance in the camp. The Corporal speaks in the broadest Irish brogue, and is telling his hearers that he knew the fellow was a sesesh at once; that he leveled his musket at him and towld him to halt; that if he hadn't marched straight up to him he would have put a minnie ball through his heart; that he had his gun cocked and his finger on the trigger, and was a mind to shoot him anyway. Then he tells how he propounded this and that question, which confused the prisoner, and finally concludes by saying that De Lagniel might be d----d thankful indade that he escaped with his life.

The Corporal is the best-known man in the regiment. He prides himself greatly on the Middle Fork "skrimage." A day or two after that affair, and at a time when whisky was so scarce that it was worth its weight in gold, some officers called the Corporal up and asked him to give them an account of the "skrimage." Before he entered upon the subject, it was suggested that Captain Dubois, who had the little whisky there was in the party, should give him a taste to loosen his tongue. The Corporal, nothing loth, took the flask, and, raising it to his mouth, emptied it, to the utter dismay of the Captain and his friends. The dhrap had the effect desired. The Corporal described, with great particularity, his manner of going into action, dwelt with much emphasis on the hand-to-hand encounters, the thrusts, the parries, the final clubbing of the musket, and the utter discomfiture and mortal wounding of his antagonist. In fact by this time there were two of them; and finally, as the fight progressed, a dozen or more bounced down on him. It was lively! There was no time for the loading of guns. Whack, thump, crack! The head of one was broken, another lay dying of a bayonet thrust, and still another had perished under the sledge-hammer blow of his fist. The ground was covered now with the slain. He stood knee-deep in secesh blood; but a bugle sounded away off on the hills, and the d----d scoundrels who were able to get away ran off as fast as their legs could carry them. Had they stood up like men he would have destroyed the whole regiment; for, you see, he was just getting his hand in. "But, Corporal," inquired Captain Hunter, "what were the other soldiers of your company doing all this time?" "Bless your sowl, Captain, and do you think I had nothing to do but to watch the boys? Be jabers, it was a day when every man had to look after himself."

SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 53-5