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LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

863 BROAD"WAY. 
^o. 79. 

A LETTER TO HON. E. D. MORGAN, 

SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES, 

ON THE 

AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION ABOLISHmG SLAVERY. 



EESOLUTIONS, 

PASSED BY THE NEW YORK UNION LEAGUE CLUB, 



CONCEENXNG 



conditioins of peace with the insurgents. 



BY FRANCIS LIEBER 



FRANCIS LIEBER, 

President. 

J. A. STEVENS, 

Secretary. 

W. T. BLODGEH, 

Ch. Executive Com. 




MORRIS KETCHTJM, 

Treasurer. 

LE GRAND B: CANNON, 
Ch. Finance Com. 

JAMES McKATE, 

Ch- Publication Com. 



NEW YORK. 

1865. 



A LETTER TO SENATOR E. D. MORGAN, ON THE AMENDMENT 
OF THE CONSTITUTION EXTINGIHSHING SLAVERY. 

Sir : As the flection on the eighth of November last has added 
one of the highest national acts to the history of our kind, so 
the amendment of the Constitution, which yesterday passed the 
House of Representatives, will be the greatest effect of the pres- 
ent revolt, if three fourths of the State Legislatures will give 
their assent, as we all hope they will do. 

The same year, 1*788, saw the framing of our Constitution and 
the first cultivation of the cotton plant in Geoi'gia ; and in course 
of time this plant caused renewed vitality and expansion to Slav- 
ery, festering in our great polity, until the gangrene broke out in 
the deep woe of a wide and bitter civil war. The year 1865 will 
cure our system of this poisonous malady. Seventy-seven years 
is a long period ; the reckless Rebellion has brought grief to all, 
and anguish to many hearts ; but if the effect of this fearful 
period be the throwing off of the malignant virus, the nation will 
stand purified, and the dire inconsistency which has existed so 
long between our Bill of Rights of the Fourth of July, and our 
fostering protection of extending bondage, will at last pass 
away. The sacrifices which we have made will not have been 
too great. 

The amendment which is now offered to the American people 
runs thus : 

" Neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude, except as a pun- 
ishment FOR CRIME, WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CON- 
VICTED, SHALL EXIST WITHIN THE UnITED StaTES OR ANY PLACE SUBJECT 
TO THEIR JURISDICTION." 

These are simple and straightforward words, allowing of no 
equivocation, yet, considered in connection with certain passages 
of the Constitution, they require some remarks, which I address 
to you. Sir, as one of the United States Senators from New York, 
and as my neighbor in this city. 

The amendment extinguishes Slavery in the whole dominion of 
the United States. The Constitution as it now stands (Article 1, 
section 2, paragraph 3), however, directs that Representatives 
*' shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be 
included within the Union, according to their respective numbers, 
which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free 
persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons." 

If, then, " all other persons," that is slaves, are declared free, 
and the foregoing provision of the Constitution is not amended, 
we simply add two fifths to the basis of apportionment of Repre- 
sentatives in the Southern States — in other words, the number of 
Representatives in Congress from the States in which Slavery 
has existed will be increased by the present amendment. As, 



however, these States, and especially those in which the colored 
citizens exceed in number the whites, will not give the common 
suffrage to the citizens of African extraction (as indeed many of 
the Northern States, for instance, Pennsylvania, do not give it, 
and as other States give the right of voting to colored people, on 
the condition of possessing freeholds only), the result of the 
amendment as now proposed, without a supplementary amend- 
ment, would be an increased number of Southern Representatives 
in Congress of the same number of white citizens. In this case 
the Rebellion, though ultimately subdued at the cost of torrents 
of our blood and streams of our wealth, would be rewarded with 
an enlarged representation. No loyal citizen can wish for such 
a consummation. How is this difficulty to be avoided ? 
Let us first remember the following three points : 

1. In the practice of every State of the Union those citizens 
vote for electors of the President of the United States who have 
the right to vote for Representatives in Congress. Immediately 
after the adoption of the Constitution of the United States the 
Legislat*es of several States elected the electors ; but a more 
national spirit soon prevailed and in all the different States of the 
Union the people elected the electors except in South Carolina. 
There the Legislature retained the election of electors down to 
the breaking out of the Rebellion, on the avowed ground that 
thus the State obtained a greater influence, this election of elec- 
tors in South Carolina always taking place after the election by 
the people had been consummated in all the other States. 

2. In every State those citizens who have a right to vote for 
the most numerous branch of the State Legislature have also the 
right to vote for Members of Congress. 

3. In every State of the Union it is the State itself which de- 
termines by its own Constitution who shall have the right to vote 
for members of the State Legislature. 

These considerations, then, would lead to the suggestion that 
the apportionment of members of Congress ought to be made 
according to the numbers of citizens who in each State have the 
right to vote for the State Legislature or for its most numerous 
branch. 

This suggestion may be expressed in an amendment, additional 
to the one just passed, in such words as these : 

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States 
which may be included within this Union, according to the re- 
spective number of male citizens of age having the qualifications 
requisite for electing members of the most numerous branch of 
the respective State Legislatures. The enumeration of said citi- 
zens shall be made by each census of the United States. 

You will observe that the words used in this proposition of an 
amendment have been taken, as far as it was feasible, from the 
Constitution itself. Article 1, section 2, paragraphs 1 and 3. 

Believing, as I do, that this subject deserves the attention of 
the American people, I have not hesitated to make use of your 



Yh^j 



permission to address to you this public letter, and have the 
honor to be, sir, your very obedient servant, 

Francis Lieber, 

Hon. E. D. Morgan, Senator of the United States, Washington. 
New York, February 1, 1865. 



At the monthly meeting of the New York Union League Club^ 
on February 9, 1865, the following resolutions were ofi'ered by 
Francis Lieber, and unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, The American people ardently desire the re-estab- 
lishment of peace in this country ; and whereas, the conclusion 
of peace with the insurgents now in arms against the country is 
frequently called for ; and whereas, it is fit for this large asso- 
ciation of loyal citizens solemnly to express their opinion on a 
subject important to all, and pregnant with consequences both 
grave and lasting ; therefore, 

Resolved, That the American people, by all their saerifices of 
blood and wealth, are, indeed, seeking the re-establishment of 
peace in this land, disturbed as it continues to be by its rebellious 
citizens ; but we discountenance every idea of a conclusion of 
peace with traitors as a contracting party, which would amount 
to an acknowledgment of them as a separate power capable of 
making treaties. 

Resolved, That it is a grave error to maintain that we have 
acknowledged our enemy as a belligerent in the sense of the law 
of nations, and that this acknowledgment gives him the standing 
of a public enemy, capable of contracting treaties. On the con- 
trary, the United States, for the sake of humanity only, have ap- 
plied the rules of regular warfare to the present rebellion — a 
generous conduct which the enemy has requited with barbarous 
cruelty towards our captured sons and brothers, and with a cal- 
lous disregard of many of the rules of humanity, faith, and honor,, 
which civilized people observe in modern wars. 

Resolved, That no re-establishment of peace can take place, 
and that no conference with any insurgents whatever ought to be 
entered into, except on the following basis and premises, distinct- 
ly and plainly laid down and defined, namely : 

1. No armistice on any account ; 

2. No foreign mediation ; 

3. No slavery ; 

4. No assumption of the Southern debt ; 

5. No state rights inconsistent with the supreme and para- 
mount authority of the Union, and, above all, no right of seces- 
sion ; 

6. No diminution of our country by one inch of land or one 
drop of water. 

Resolved, That the President and Secretary communicate 
these resolutions to the kindred associations of the land, inviting 
them to express their opinion on the subject of the same. 



LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

863 BROADl¥AT. 

JVo. 80. 

AMERSCi FOR FREE WORKING MEiN. 



Mechanics, Farmers and Laborers, Read! 



HOW SLAVER! INJURES TH[ FREE WORKING 



THE SLAVE-LABOR SYSTEM 

THE FREE WOEKING-MAN'S WORST ENEMY. 
By CHARLES NORDHOFF, 



FRANCIS LIBBER, 

President. 

L A. STEVENS, Jr., 

Secretary. 

W, T. BLODGETT, 

CJt. ExeciUive Conu. 




MORRIS KETCflUl, 

lyeasurer, 

LE GRAND B. CANNON, 

Ch. Financt Com. 

JAMES McKAYE, 

Ch. Publication Com. 



NEW YORK; 
Published by thk Loyal Publication Societt. 

1865. 



PABT8 OF THIS PAMPHLET HAVE APPEARED IN THE EDITOEIAL 
COLUMNS OF THE NEW YOKK " EVENING POST." 



CONTENTS. 



Free workingmen forced to be slave-guards, . 

The free laborer injured by the slave, ... 

Free workingmen must give way to slaves, . 

The fat for the slave, the lean for the free workingman 

Slaves are trained to mechanical pursuits. 

Why free workingmen hate the slaves, . . , 

Free workingmen are "pests to society," 

How free workingmen are overtaxed in slave states. 

Enormous and unequal taxation of free workingmen, 

How slaves outvote free workingmen. 

Free workingmen fly from the slave states, . • 

Slavery exterminates free mechanics, . . . 

Slavery shuts out Germans and Irishmen, . « 

How to lessen taxation, , 

We cannot afford slavery, , . . • • 
Virginia and Pennsylvania compared, . • , 
Slavery lowers the value of land, .... 
Slavery leaves no chance for small farmers, . , 
Why the slave states lack capital, . , , 



rioi 
3 
5 

6 
7 
8 
10 
11 
14 
15 
17 
19 
21 
22 
26 
27 
28 
31 
34 
36 



What Oemocralic Leaders \M of Slaverf. 



" Speaking for myself, slavery is to me the most repugnant 
of all human institutions. Jl^o man alive should hold me in 
elavery ; and if it is my business no man, with my consent, shall 
hold another. Thus I voted in 1851, in Ohio, with my party, 
which made the new constitution of my own State. I have 
never defended slavery ; nor has my party." 

Speech of Hon. /S. S. Cox, of Ohio, in the Souse of jRepre- 
eentatives, Jan. 12, 1865. 

Mr. Brooks, of New York, in defending slavery, " did not 
pretend to speak for the democratic party. Indeed, he doea 
not profess to speak for it, but rather as an old line Whig, hav- 
ing now his views independent of all machines of party. 
During the last session he held that slavery was dead. Gentle- 
men should not object to his eulogizing the deceased, but by so 
doing he does not intend, nor does he if he intends, commit any 
democrat to his moral convictions." 

/Speech of Hon. S. S, Cox, of Ohio, in the House ofEeprS' 
eentatives, Jan. 12, 1865. 

" The democratic party of the free states are neither the ad- 
vocates nor the apologists for slavery. Democracy and slavery 
are natural enemies. Impressed with the value of free labor 
there is not a democrat in the North who would not resist the 
establishment of slavery in a free state." 

Speech of Hon. William S. Holman, of Indiana, in the 
House of Representatives, Jan. 13, 1865. 

"J have ever believed slavery wrong. The North have al- 
ways believed it. Hardly one can at present be found who will 
claim that elavery is now, or has ever been, other than an evil. 
* * The South, by rebellion, has absolved the demo- 



u 

cratic party at the North from all obligation to stand up lons^er 
for the defence of its 'corner-stone.' They are now using the 
very system which this amendment proposes to abolish, for the 
overthrow of our government, founded on the broad principles 
of right, justice, and humanity." 

******* 

" I cannot but conclude, from the best light I can obtain, that 
the operation of this measure will he most beneficial to the non- 
slaveholding white population of the Southern States.. When 
these poorer laboring classes shall no longer have to contend 
with and struggle against and be degraded by slave labor, then, 
and not until then, will they come into the enjoyment of bless- 
ings such as are now fully enjoyed by the honest, toiling work- 
ingmen of the North. 

" When labor shall be free at the South, then will it command 
and have the respect which is its just due. Then will millions of 
the white men of the North participate and share in the bless- 
ings thus secured. The masses of our native and foreign-born 
laborers, now toiling in the severer climate of the North, will be 
invited to enter upon these newly-opened fields, for their in- 
dustry and occupation. The now hidden resources of the States 
South will be developed by the brain and muscle of the north- 
ern laborer. 

" The existence in our country of antagonistic systems of labor 
tas brought upon the nation the terrible calamity of a wasting 
civil war, with all its desolations. It has cost the country the 
lives of hundreds of thousands of its best and bravest sons, and 
has wasted her material resources. 

" The day has come when this conflict of labor is to end, and 
the question is forced upon us by the South. They alone are 
resposible for it." 

Speech of Hon. M. F. Odell, of New Yorh, in the Hou86 
^f Representatives^ Jan. 9th, 1865. 

" I am opposed to the re-admission into the Union, with the 
rights of slave property of any State which our triumphant ar- 
mies have subjected." 

Speech of Hon. Elijah Ward, of New YorTc, in the lionise of 
Representatives, Jan. 9th, 1865. 

"I believe, and have ever believed since I was capable of 
thought, that it is a great afflicti<m to any country where it pre- 
vails ; and, bo believing, I can never vote for any measure cal- 
culated to enlarge its area, or to render more permanent its 
duration. In some latitudes, and for some agricultural staples, 



Ill 

slave labor may be, to the master, the most valuable species of 
labor, though this I greatly doubt. Iii others, and particularly 
in my own State, I am convinced that it is the very dearest 
species of labor; and in all, as far as national wealth and power 
and happiness are concerned, I am persuaded it admits of no 
comparison with the labor of freemen ; and, above all, disguise 
it as we may, if the laws of population shall not be changed by 
Providence, or man's nature shall not be changed, it is an insti- 
tution, sooner or later, pregnant with fearful peril. 

" I shall not stop to inquire, as I before intimated, whether 

the institution has produced the present war or not. However 

that may be, one thing, in ray judgment, is perfectly clear, now 

that the war is upon us : that a jprosjpei'oxis and permanent jpeace 

cannot he secured if the institivtimi is permitted to survive. 
******* 

" As we at present are, I cease to hope that the government 

can be restored and preserved so as to accomplish the great ends 

for which it was established, unless slavery be extinguished. 
******* 

" If suffered to continue, it will ever prove a fruitful topic of 
excitement and danger to our continuing peace and union. Ter- 
minate it, and the imagination of man, I think, is unable to 
conceive of any other subject which can give rise to fratricidal 

etrife. 

******* 

" I think the honor and good name as well as the interest and 
safety of the country require, the abolition of slavery through- 
out our limits." 

. Speech of Hon. Beverdy Johnson, of Main/land, in the United 
States Senate, April ^th, 1864. 

" The question of slavery is rapidly diminishing in import- 
ance ; whether for good or evil, it is passing away. 

Speech of Hon. D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, in the House 
0^ J^epresentatives, Jan. Qth, 1865. 

Mr. Yeaman, of Kentucky, justified " anti-slavery measures " 
by quoting a letter signed by John J. Crittenden, William T. 
Barry, R. C, Anderson, J. Cabell Breckinridge, G. Robertson, 
John Rowen and B. W. Patton, all of Kentucky, urging the 
Domination of Henry Clay to the Presidency, and saying of 
Clay: 

" We apprehend that no mistake could be greater than that 



which would impute to him the wish to extend the acknowl- 
edged evils of slavery ; for we are persuaded that no one enter- 
tains a stronger sense of its mischiefs than he does, or a more 
ardent desire, by all prudent and constitutional means, to extir- 
pate it from our land." 

Mr. Yeaman added : " Shall a man be told that it is wrong 
or disgraceful to hold opinions that have been sanctioned by the 
minds and hearts of such men." 

Speech of Hon. George H. Yeaman^ of Kentucky^ in the^ 
House of Representatives^ Jan. ^th^ 1865. 

" Slavery is the chief lever by which the rebel leaders have 
wielded the Southern mind; and for that reason it has lost 
nearly all the sympathy and support it once maintained." 

Speech of Hon. Austin A. Kiiig^ of Missouri^ in the House 
of HepresentativeSy Jan. IZth^ 1865. 

" At the last session I voted against the proposed amendment, 

but when the question is again taken, I intend to record my 

name in the affirmative." 

******* 

" "We never can have peace until we in some way dispose of 
the institution." 

Speech of Hon. James S. Hollins, of Missou7^, in the House 

of Representatives y Jan. 14 ^A, 1865. 

" The demoratic party never advocated slavery as a moral in- 
stitution. That is a question which will not admit of discus- 
sion." 

New York Leader, {organ of Tammany Hall^ Jan. Ithy 
1865. 

"The triumphs of our army and navy have put the rebels in 
8uch straits that they no longer refuse to listen to propositions 
of peace; and the plan of getting rid of slavery legally by a 
constitutional amendment which shall recognise and respect the 
rights of States, is a democratic measure, suggested by demo- 
crats, and it ought to be supported by democrats." 

New York Leader, {organ of Tammany Hall^ Jan. 14^A, 
1865. 



How Slaver} Injures Free Workinpen. 



The slave-labor system gives to the capitalist many unjust 
advantages over the poor free workman ; it gives to a dozen 
slave-owners, with a thousand slaves, as many votes in the Le- 
gislature, and as great a political power in the State as is pos- 
sessed by five hundred free workingmen ; it discourages schools, 
prevents the formation of villages and towns ; and gives to 
slave mechanics, slave shoemakers, slave blacksmiths, slave car- 
penters, slave wheelwrights, the labor, and to their wealthy 
masters the profits, which of right belong to the free working- 
man. To quote the words of the governor of a slave state, 
Governor Cannon, of Delaware, " Slave labor is uncompen- 
sated, white labor is compensated ; when the two are brought 
into competition, white labor is crowded out. If capital owns 
its labor, the avenues to honest livelihood are forever closed to 
the white." 

AVhen a slave commits murder in Virginia, or any of the 
other Slave States, he is hanged, and his owner is paid for him 
the price he could have sold him for before the crime was com- 
mitted. He is paid for the slave out of the treasury of the State ; 
that is to say, the tax-payers pay the slavelwlder for his slave. 

When a farmer's bull does mischief and is killed, does the 
State pay the farmer ? When a farmer's horse becomes unman- 
ageable and is killed, does the State pay for him ? Not at all. 
It is only the slave, the peculiar property of the rich, for whom 
the tax-payers are taxed. The poor man's horse or cow may be 
killed without payment to the owner. 



4 HOW SLAVERY INJURES THE FREE WORKINGMAW. 

FREE "WOKKINGMEN, AS SLAVE-GUARDS. 

In the Slave States, whether in the city or in the country, 
a patrol of the white men is kept np at night — ^for what ? 
To secure the persons and property of free workingmen l liot 
at all ; but to look after the slaves of the rich : to prevent the 
slaves from running away ; to keep them from visiting strange 
plantations ; to catch them and bring them back, if they stray 
into the woods. " An ordinance organizing and establishing 
patrols for the police of slaves in the Parish Court of St. Landry, 
in Louisiana," which lies before us, describes minutely the or- 
ganization of such patrols. " Every free white male person, 
between the ages of 16 and 60," is bound to do patrol duty. 
The parish (county) is to pay for " all books, blanks, papers, 
laws, &c., required for the organization of the patrols." Captains 
of patrols are to see that the enrollment for this duty includes 
every man ; and anyone who neglects or refuses to serve, " at ' 
any hour of the day or night" which may be appointed, shall be 
fined or imprisoned. Six pages of the pamphlet are then taken 
up with defining the powers and duties of the patrols towards 
■^the slaves. They have no other duty to perform, as the title, 
indeed, asserts. They are " patrols for the police of the slaves." 
They are not to look out for horse-thieves, or to hunt for stolen 
cattle ; it is made no part of their duty to guard the lives and 
property of the white workingmen of the county. " Every free 
white male, between 16 to 60," in the county is required to 
mount guard over the peculiar property of the few wealthy 
planters. 

Kow the parish of St. Landry had, in 1860, according to the 
census, 10,703 whites, and 11,436 slaves. According to the last 
census there were 3,953,587 slaves, and somewhat less than 400,- 
000 slaveholders in the country — an average of ten slaves to 
each owner. At that rate the slaves in the parish of St. Laudry 
would be owned by eleven hundred and forty-three of the 
10,703 whites (for children and women own slaves as well as 
men) ; and the whole fvee jpopulation cf the county was taxedy 
in time, labor ^ and money, to care for the pi'oporiy of a little 
more than a tenth, and those tJie wealthiest part. 

Do not suppose that the white workingmen of the Slave States 
have not felt the oppression of this burden. Where they have 



THE FREE LABOREE Al^TD THE SLAVE. O 

been permitted, tliey have complained. Thus, in an address of 
Mr. Pierpoint, of Yirginia, delivered in 1 60, he remarked : 

" The clerk or mechanic needs no protection of the law ; he 
is one of the sovereign lodi/ guard to protect and keep in sub- 
ordination the maste7'''s slaves. Yet his income — the labor of 
his weary hand and aching head, is taxed two per cent, to buy 
arms aim erect armories in which to manufacture the muni- 
tions of war, with which to equip himself , to defend the master 
in his right to his slaves.''^ 

An address to the working people of Yirginia, in 1860, called 
attention to the fact that " if a bull or a steer of one of our far- 
mers becomes vicious, so as to be a public nuisance, he is or- 
dered by the law to be killed, and his loss falls upon his owner, 
and upon him alone ; but if it happens that a slave of one of the 
Eastern Yirginia capitalists becomes vicious and commits crime, 
'he is hanged or transported, and it is provided hy law that his 
owner shall he paid his assessed value out of the State Treasury.''^ 

The appropriation, by the Yirginia Legislature, in 1856, for 
patrols, and as pay to slave owners for vicious slaves hanged or 
transported, amounted to over forty thousand dollars ! At the 
same time, every laboring man in the State, with an income 
above $250 per annum, had to pay a heavy income tax, while 
the slaves of the rich w^ere almost totally exempted from taxa- 
tion. 

THE FREE LABOREE AND THE SLAVE. 

The system of bond-labor is antagonistic to that of free lobar ^ 
and breeds in the masters a contempt for the workingman, as well 
as for his vocation. This is perfectly natural, and indeed unavoid- 
able. The slave-owner is a competitor in the slave-niarlcet against 
the free workingman. He lives upon the labor of his slaves, 
and he regards with dislike the free laborers who come into 
the market to bid against him and the labor he controls. 

This fact is notorious in the South. It has long attracted the 
attention of free white workingmen there, but they have 
been too weak to resist the powerful slave-holders. In 1860, 
Robert C. Tharin, of Alabama, once a law-partner of the 
notorious William L. Yancey, endeavored to set up a newspaper 
called the J^on- Slaveholder^ to urge the passage of a law forbid- 
ding the employment of slaves except in agricultural labor and as 



6 HOW SLAVERY mjURES THE FKEK WORKmOMAN. 

servants. He thus sought to protect the free mechanics, and 
secure them employment. J^or this Mr. Tharin was summarily 
driven from the State. 

Mr. Tharin, exposing the sopistries of William L. Yancey, 
writes : 

" He had seen the rich man's negro * come in contact ' with 
the poor white blacksmith, the poor white bricklayer, carpenter, 
wheel right, and agriculturist. Me had seen the pre;ference in- 
variahly given to the rich man's negro in all such pursuits and 
trades ; like me, he had heard the complaints of the poor white 
mechanic of the South against this very negro equality the rich 
planters were rapidly bringing about. These things he had heard 
and seen in Charleston, JS"ew Orleans, Mobile, Montgomery, 
and Wetumpka 

" Have not the planters ^w* years condemned evenj mechanic 
in the South to negro equality f^' exclaims Mr. Tharin. "I 
never envied the planters of Wetumpka, or, indeed, of any part • 
of the South. My dislike to them arose from their contemptible 
meanness, their utter disregard of decency, their supercilious 
arrogance, and their daily usurpations of powers and privileges 
at variance with my rights, and the rights of my class." 

FREE WOEKINGMEN MUST GIVE WAY TO SLAVES. 

In 1853 the free mechanics of Concord, Cabarras county, l^orth 
Carolina, held a meeting, at which they complained that the 
" wealthy owners of slave mechanics were in the habit of under- 
lidding them in contracts." The free mechanic who led in this 
movement was driven from the town. A Long Island carpenter 
removed to a southern town ; he was asked for an estimate for 
certain work in his trade. The person who proposed to have 
it done demurred at the. price, and remarked that he coidd do 
Zetter to buy a carpenter^ let him do the work and sell him 
again when it was done. The free carpenter, being a man of 
sense, packed up his tools and returned to New York, where 
a rich man cannot huy a carpenter and sell him again. 

Olmsted relates, in his " Texas Journey," that at Austin, the 
capital of the state, the German mechanics complained that 
when the labor for building the state capital was given out, 
many of them came with offers, but were utiderlid ly tha 



FKEE WOKKINGMEN MUST GIVE "WAT TO SLAVES. ^ 

ownerh of slave-mechanics. But wlien the free mechanics had 
left town, in search of employment elsewhere, the slave owners 
threw lip their contracts, and, having no longer any opposition, 
obtained new contracts at advanced prices. 

In the iron mines and furnaces near the Cumberland river, 
in Tennessee, before the war, several thousand men found em- 
ployment — but almost without an exception they were slaves. 
One company had a capital of $700,000 — and owned seven hun- 
dred slaves. Of course an equal number of free worlcmen were 
rolled of employment, and had either to starve, .or emigrate to 
the Free States, as so many thousands have done. 

THE " FAT " FOE THE SLAVE, AND THE " LEAX " FOK THE FIlEE 
WOKKINGMAJSr. 

Printers call that work which is most quickly and easily done, 
and which is the best paid, " fat ; " that which is hard to do aud 
poorly paid, they call " lean." Kow, in all mechanical and 
other labor performed in the Slave States, the slave constantly 
gets the best, the easiest — Xhefatj the free mechanic or laborer, 
if he is employed at all, gets only the leavings of the slave, the 
lean. This comes about, because the slave-owner is a wealthy 
and influential man, who is able to select the lightest tasks for 
his slave ; by this the slave-owner of course makes the greatest 
profit, and incurs the least expense. But the free white work- 
ingman must stand aside, or take that task which the slave-owner 
will not have. 

In Virginia, a wealthy slave-owner told Olmsted that he used 
Hussey's reaper rather than McCormick's, because " it was moro 
readily repaired by the slave-hlachsmith on the farm." Another 
planter in Virginia employed a gang of Irishmen in draining 
some land. But mark the reasons he gave for this use of free 
labor. " It's dangerous work" (unwholesome), said he ; " and a 
negro'' s life is too valuable to Be risked at it. If a negro dies, it 
is a considerable loss, you know." This slaveholder did not care 
how many Irishmen died in his malarious ditches. So, too, on 
the southwestern steamboats, slaves are employed to do the 
lightest and least dangerous labor / but Irish and German free 
workingmen are employed to ^perform the exhausting and dan- 



8 HOW SLAVKET INJmiES THE FREE WORKINGMAir. 

gerous work. Thus, on the Alabama river, Olmsted observed 
that slaves were sent upon the bank to roll down cotton bales, 
but Irishmen were kept below to drag them away. The mate 
of the boat said, by way of explanation, " The niggers are worth 
too much to be risked here ; if the Paddies are hnocked over- 
board, or get their hacks broke, nobody loses anything^ 

Alfred E. Matthews, of Starke county, Ohio, in his " Journal 
of his Flight" from Mississippi, in 1861, remarks: ^^ I have seen 
free white mechanics obliged to stand aside while their families 
were suffering for the necessaries of life, when slave mechanics, 
owned by rich and influential men, could get jplenty of work / 
and I have heard these same white mechanics breathe the most 
bitter curses against the institution of slavery and the slave 
aristocracy." In his journal at Columbus, Mississippi, he writes : 
" Business is very dull. Many of the free white mechanics have 
nothing to do, and there is a great deal of suffering amongst 
them. Most of what little work is to be done is given tothe slave 
mechanics. An intelligent carpenter, an acquaintance of one of 
the persons in the office where I was engaged, came up one day 
and told his friend that his family were suffering for provisions ; 
he had no money, and could not get work at anytliing. He 
assured me this was the case with others of his acquaintance." 
This was in a town of three thousand five hundred inhabitants. 

SLAVES AEE TKAINED TO MECHANICAL PUESUITS. 

On a rice plantation in South Carolina the planter showed 
Mr. Olmsted " shops and sheds at which blacksmiths, carpenters, 
and other mechanics — all slaves — were at work." Of course, 
this planter emjployed no free mechanics. Indeed, the writer 
of this pamphlet was told by a wealthy Alabamian in 1860, that 
the planters in his region were determined to discontinue alto- 
gether the emjployment of free mechanics. " On my own place," 
said this person, " I have now slave carpenters, slave blacksmiths, 
and slave wheelrights, and thus 1mm independent of free me- 
chanics.^^ 

These instances, culled from southern life, show the bearing 
of the slave system upon the free working population. The 
planters do not need the assistance of the free laboring class ; 
they despise it, and discourage it. What is the result ? Let 



8LAVES AEB TKAINED TO MECHAOTCAL PtrESUlTS. 9 

" mudsill" Hammond, Governor of South Carolina, bear wit- 
ness. In an address before the South Carolina Institute, some 
years ago, he said : 

" According to the best calculations which, in the absence of 
Btatistic facts, can be made, it is believed that of the three hun- 
dred thousand white inhabitants of South Carolina there are 
not less than iifty thousand whose industry, such as it is, is not 
in the present condition of things, and does not promise here- 
after, such a support as every white person in this country is and 
feels himself entitled to." 

In another part of his address he said : " Eighteen or at most 
nineteen dollars will cover the whole necessary annual cost ef a 
full supply of wholesome and palatable food, pm'chased in the 
market," for one person in South Carolina. It would seem, 
therefore, that so completely had the slave system rohbed the 
free worJcingman of the opportunity to malce an honest liveli- 
hood,, that one-sixth of the free white population of South Ca- 
rolina could not earn even the paltry sum of eighteen dollars per 
annum ! So completely have the slaveholders monopolized the 
labor market for their slaves ! 

The bitter hatred of the " free white" in the South for the 
negro has been often spoken of. Does any one wonder at it, 
when he considers that these free men feel the wrongs they 
Buffer, but are too ignorant to trace them to their sources ? They 
hate the slaves, but if they were somewhat more intelligent they 
would hate the slaveholders, who are the authors of all their 
woes. It is because Mr, Lincoln, himself a southern man, and 
a son of one of the oppressed and expatriated free workingmen 
of the South, understands this, that he will not suffer the re-esta- 
blishment of the iniquitous class of monopolists of labor, whose 
hatred for free workingmen has dragged the country into a civil 
war. He aims, not so much to free the slave, as to free the 
loorJcingmen. He sees, as a stateman, that a system which degrades 
and discourages free labor, and whose supporters hate and refuse 
to employ free workingmen, is ruinous to the prosperity of the 
country, and is necessarily the parent of constant dissensions, the 
fruitful source of hatreds, jealousies and heart-burnings. He 
knows as a stateman, that the security of free government rests 
upon the virtue, intelligence and prosperity of the working class : 
2 



10 HOW SLAVEET INJUEES THE FREE ■VVOEKINGMAIT. 

and that if we desire the perpetuity of our Union and liberties, 
we must sweep out of the way a system whose constant and ne- 
cessary tendency is to impoverish and debase the free workingman, 

WHY FREE WOKKINQMEN HATE THE SLAVES. 

They hate the slaves because slavery oppresses them. Turn ' 
where he will, the southern fre& mechanic and laborer finds the 
negro slave preferred hefore him. The planter has his slave 
blacksmith, his slave carpenter, his slave wheelwright, his slave 
engineer, if he needs one. It is now as it was in Marion's day, 
who said : " The people of Carolina form two classes — the rich 
and the poor. The poor are generally very poor, because, noi 
Jfeing necessary to the rich^ wJio have slaves to do all their worky 
they get no employment from them." 

The slaveholders have the political power ; they look only to 
their own interests ; and even where they have established ma- 
nufactures, they have given work by preference to slaves over free 
men and women. " We are hcginning to manufacture with 
slaves" wrote Governor Hammond of South Carolina, in 1845, 
to Thomas Clarkson. A writer in the Augusta Constitution alisty 
quoted approvingly by De Bow, in 1852, said, " for manufactur- 
ing in the hot and lower latitudes, slaves are peculiarly qualified, 
and the time is approcliing when they will he sought as the ope- 
rative most to he preferred and depended on. I could name 
factoriesjn South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, where the 
Buccess of hlach labor has been encouraging." At the Saluda 
Factory, near Columbia, South Carolina, so long ago as 1851, 
one hundred and twenty-eight operatives were employed — all 
slaves. " Slaves not sufiiciently strong to work in the cotton 
fields can attend to the looms and spindles," wrote the superin- 
tendent of this mill ; and he showed how these slaves under- 
worked the free whites : ; 

" Average cost of a slave operative, per annum $75 

" Average cost of a white operative, at least 106 

"Difference $31 

** Or over thirty per cent, saved in the labor alone by using only 
the weakly and deformed slaves." 



WHT FREE "WOBKINGMEN HATE THE 8LAVE9. 11 

Free labor is Mlled "by such nnnatural corrvpetition. A writer 

upon manufactures in the South, in 1852, compared the wages 

paid to operatives in Tennessee with those in Lowell ; " In Lowell, 

labor is paid the fair compensation of eighty cents per day for 

men, and two dollars per week for women, while in Tennessee 

the average compensation for labor does not exceed fifty cents 

per day for men, and one dollar and twenty-five cents per week 

for women." Another writer said : " A female operative in the 

New England cotton factories receives from ten to twelve dollars 

per month ; this is more than a female slave generally hires for 

in the southwest.^'' This was twelve years ago. But he goes 

on to explain how the slaveholder, monopolizing the labor of his 

slaves, has the power to control the labor market and underbid 

the free worJcmafi under any circumstances. "It matters 

nothing to hiin (the slaveholder) how low others can produce the 

article ; he can produce it lower still, so long as it is the best 

use he can make of his labor, and so long as that labor is worth 

keeping." That is to say, a free white mechanic is at the mercy 

of his neighbor, the capitalist, in a slave state, because, if the ca- 

pitalist does not like his price, he can " go and lyuy a carpenter and 

sell him again lohen the worh is done" Thus, while it is true 

that in the long run and on the average free labor is always 

cheaper than slave labor, the capitalist who monopolizes the 

slave labor is able to drive out or starve out the free laborer, 

over whom he and his slaves have an unfair advantage. The 

Blaveholders used to boast that there were no " strikes" in the 

South — here we see the reason. The writer we have quoted 

adds: 

" It is a fact that slaves learn "blacTcsmithing, carpentering, 
loot and shoemalcinq, and in fact all handicraft trades, with aa 
much facility as white men / and Mr. Deering of Georgia, has 
employed slaves in his cotton factory for many years with de- 
cided success." 

FREE WOEKmOMEN AKE " PESTS TO SOCIETT. 

Olmstead, when he asked in the slave states why the white 
laboring men were not employed, was told that they were not 
hired " because you cannot drive them as you do a slave." The 
aristocratic slave-owner refuses to employ a workman whom he 



12 HOW BLAVEBT INJURES THE FREE WOEKINGMAN. 

cannot flog a/nd curse. On a rice plantation in South Carolina 
he found a slave engineer, for whose education in that profession 
his owner had paid five hundred dollars to a steam-engine builder. 
This slave machinist, an able man, lived hetter than any laboring 
free wJiite mam, in the district. His master, who algo owned slave 
blacksmiths, carpenters, and other mechanics, did not employ a 
single freeman, except an overseer. But an estate of the same size 
and value in a free state would have given employment to twentj- 
five or thirty white mechanics of different trades, not to speak 
of a large number of free laborers. 

By the census of 1850 it appears that the average wages of the 
female operatives in the Georgia cotton factories were $7 39 per 
per month ; in Massachusetts it was $14 57 per month. New 
England factory girls were induced by the special offer of high 
wa es to go to Georgia to work in newly-established cotton 
factories, but they found the position so unpleasant, owing to 
the general degradation of the laboring class, they were very 
Boon forced to return. Nor shall we wonder at this when we 
read the following sentiment, which appeared in the Charleston 
Standard, in 1855 : 

" A large portion of the mechanical force that migrate to the 
South are a curse instead of a blessing / they are generally a 
worthless, unprincipled class, enemies to our peculiar institution 
(slavery), and formidable barriers to the success of our native 
mechanics (slaves). Not so, however, with another class who 
migrate southward — we mean that class known as merchants ; 
they are generally intelligent and trustworthy, and they seldom 
fail to discover their true interests. They become slaveholders 
and landed proprietors ; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hun- 
dred they are better qualified to become constituents of our 
institution than a certain class of our native born, who from 
want of capacity are perfect drones in society, continually carp- 
ing about slave competition. * * * The mechanics, the most 
©f them, are pests to society, dangerous among the slave popula- 
tion, and ever ready to form combinations against the interests 
of the slaveholder." 

Is it strange that the ignorant, neglected, despised free white 
workingman of the slave states hates the slave ? He feels that 
the slave injures him in every possible way ; the slave robs him 



FREE WOKKINGMEN' AEE " PESTS TO BOCIETT." 13 

of work ; tlie slave deprives him of bread and clothing for hia 
children ; the slave gets the easiest tasks, the free laborer the 
hardest and most dangerous ; the slave steps before him when- 
ever he looks for a job, and has the preference everywhere, 
"because he is the tool of a capitalist whose influence and wealth 
enable him to grasp — for his own benefit — whatever might be of 
advantage to the free mechanic or laborer. 

The capitalist, in a slave state, is a man with a hundred black 
arms, all bare, all eagerly seeking work, all ready to work for 
less than a free man can support his family decently upon. The 
capitalist is a hundred-armed workman, with enough social 
influence to command work for all his hundred arms, to the 
exclusion of the honest free mechanic and laborer. The slave, 
in the hands of this capitalist, is the most dangerous enemy the 
free workman can have. Suppose a job of work for twenty 
mechanics is to be given out in a southern town — twenty free 
men ofier themselves — ^but a slave-owner comes, with the prestige 
of great wealth, with his social influence and his political power, 
and he gets the preference for his twenty slaves, the profits of 
whose labor go to make him richer^ while his free neighbors 
grow poorer. It is not strange that the southern free working- 
men resent this monstrous wrong — but it is lamentable that they 
make the error of hating the tools with which the wrong is done, 
and not those who use these helpless tools, and the iniquitous 
system which permits it. It is as though a martyr should abhor 
only the thumb-screws which torture him, but regard kindly the 
executioner who applies them ; it is as though a western traveller 
should complain of the scalping knife, but love the Indian 
savage who uses it. 

It is the slave-holder who wrongs the free workingraan. It is 
the slave system .which oppresses him. Make the slave free and 
he is no longer your fatal competitor ; take the slaves away from 
the capitalist, and he has no longer the power to rob you of work ■ 
and bread. Free the negroes, and you redeem the free white 
working-class from the domination of the selfish capitalists, and 
make the blacks themselves harmless to you. It is only while 
they are slaves that the negroes injure the white working 
men. 



14 HOW 8LAVEEY INJURES THE FEEE WOEKINGMAir. 



HOW FREE W0RKIN6MEN ARE OVERTAXED IN SLAVE STATES. 

We have shown how the slave-labor system robs the free 
workingman, the free mechanic and laborer, of employment and 
bread, and thus keeps him poor and helpless — or drives him into 
the free states. But the subjection of free labor in slave states 
does not stop there. Not only is the free workingman con- 
demned by the monopolists of slave labor to idleness and pov- 
erty, but his children are held in ignorance ; his political rights 
are cunningly abridged ; the products of his labor are forced to 
bear an unequal burden of taxation ; and he — the non-slave- 
holding workingman — is compelled by the laws to mount guard 
over the slaves of his wealthy neighbor, or else to pay for such 
a guard. Thus he is injured in every interest, for the benefit of 
the slaveholder. 

In the free states of the Union a poor man's vote counts as 
much as his wealthy neighbor's, and the millionaire enjoys no 
Bpecial political privileges over the carpenter who builds his 
house, or the blacksmith who shoes his horse. "We are accus- 
tomed to think this a good system, but how is it in the slave 
states? Take Virginia as an example. There, while in one 
branch of the Legislature men are represented, in the other 
money and slaves have also a large representation. 

So great was this political power of wealth, that before the 
war ten thousand white men — slaveholders — in Eastern Vir- 
ginia had as much power — as many votes — in the Senate, as 
forty thousand white men — ^non-slaveholders — of Western Vir- 
ginia. 

How did the slaveholders, the aristocrats of Eastern Virginia, 
use this power ? They exempted a great part of their peculiar 
property from taxation, and laid the burden of taxes upon the 
free workingmen of the state. Thev enacted a law by which 
all slaves under twelve years of age were exempted from taxation 
altogether — lut they taxed the calves, the colts, the lambs, of the 
farmers. They limited the tax upon slaves over twelve years 
to one dollar and twenty cents per head ; but they taxed a 
trader with a capital of only six hundred dollars, sixty dollarg 
for his first year's license, and a« heavy duty on his sales after- 
VArds. The slave property of Virginia, before the war, paid about 



HOW FREE WORKDTGMElf ARE OVERTAXED IN SLAVE STATES.' 15 

$300,000 per annum taxes — but if it had been taxed as other 
property was^ accordi/ng to value, it would have contributed 
one million three hundred thousand dollars per annum ! The 
odd million was raised by extra taxes on the earnings of the 
free laborers. 

Not only this — ^<q products oii slave labor were also exempted 
from taxation. Tobacco, com, wheat and oats were not taxed ; 
but the product of free labor, consisting of cattle, hogs, sheep, 
(fee, was heavily taxed ; as were also the earnings of free 
laboring nten, who were obliged to pay an income tax. It was 
asserted by Mr. Peirpoint, in 1860, that " upwards of two hun- 
dred and thirty million dollars of the Virginia slaveholders' 
capital in slaves was exempted from taxation.'''' 

But while the slave owner was so protected, see how it fared 
with the free laborer ? Every free mechanic, artisan, or laborer 
of whatever kind, who was in the employment of any person, 
was obliged, by a special law, to pay an income tax of one-half 
of one per cent, if his inwine did not exceed $250 : of one per 
cent, if hi^ income was under $500 ; of one and a half per cent, 
if it was under $1,000, and two per cent, if he earned over 
$1,000. Our workingmen think the United States income tax 
onerous ; but that, at least, exempts the man who earns less 
than $600. The Virginia slaveholders tempted only themselves I 
They taxed the poor, but left the the rich to pay nothing, 

ENORMOUS AND UNEQUAL TAXATION OP FREE WORKINGMEN DT 

VIRGINIA, 

See how this act worked. In Wheeling there were employed 
in 1859 about 1,500 free men in the iron mills ; these earned an 
average of $400 per annum each. On this they had to pay one 
per cent. — four dollars — making $6,000 per annum ; besides 
eighty cents poll tax, $1,200 more ; total $7,200, drawn from 
1,500 free laboring men. Now this tax was equal to that 
levied on six thousand slaves. That is to say, each free 
workman was taxed four times as heavily as a slave. But take 
note of this : the owner of the slave was not only very lightly 
taxed for his property in him ; he paid no income tax at all. 
That is to say, the net income from the labor of six thousand 



IG , HOW SLAVEET INJTJEE3 THE FEEE WOEKINGMAir. 

slaves might be reckoned in those times at $900,000 per annum. 
On this the masters, the capitalists, who received this sum, paid 
not a cent of income-tax ! Or, take another example : a foreman 
in a factory earned $1,100 per annum ; he had to pay $22 80 
income tax to the State. But a slave-owning capitalist paid no 
more than that as his tax on nineteen slaves ; he trained them 
to mechanical work — ^hired them out in such manner that they 
threw nineteen iree mechanics out of employment — and on the 
proceeds of the labor of these nineteen slaves, amounting to 
$5,700 per annum, he was taxed not a single cent ! 

" There are many poor men in this State," said Mr. 
Pierpoint in 1860, " getting 75, 80, 90, and 100 cents per day, 
with families to support, who all have to pay, in addition to the 
income tax, for everything they own on the face of the earth, 
forty cents on a hundred dollars, while the slaveholder only 
pays 10 cents on the hundred dollars' worth of slaves ! " " Tho 
income tax levied by the slaveholders upon the small incomes 
of free mechanics," Mr. Pierpoint said, " will eat out the 
very vitals of all the manufacturing energy of the State." 
Nor were the free mechanics the only sufferers. " The farmer 
in Western Yirginia (not a slaveholder) who 12 years ago paid 
his tax with 15 dollars, now pays $00, with little increase in 
actual value." Only the slaveholders were exeinpted! 

Thus was slave labor encouraged and free labor made penal 
in the South. Thus, to use Marion's words, the poor became 
poorer and the rich richer. Thus free mechanics were driven 
out of the slave states, taxed out, starved out, until, in 1859, 
Charleston, one of the chief seaports of the South, had not left 
BO much as a single ship-carpenter. Th,us was brought about 
the unhappy condition of the free workingmen, described by 
Mr. Tarver, in " DeBow's Industrial Kesources of the South and 
Southwest." 

" The acquisition of a respectable position in the scale of 
wealth appears so difficult that they decline the hopeless pursuit, 
and many of them settle down into passive idleness, and become 
the ahnost passive subjects of all its consequences. An evident 
deterioration is taking place in this part of the population ; the 
younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious, and 
ta every point of view less respectable than their ancestors." 



HOW SLAVES OUT-VOTE FEEE WORKINGMEN. 17 



HOW SLAVES OTJT-VOTB FEES "WOKKINGMEN. 

These are the effects of the slave labor system upon the 
unfortunate free laborers who are subject to its influence. Bear 
in mind that it is not onlj in Virginia that the free mechanic 
and laborer is thus wronged. In Louisiana, in South Carolina, 
in most ot the slave states, slave property is represented and 
favored in some special manner. In Louisiana the representa- 
tion, under the old system, was apportioned according to the 
whole population — free and slave. Thereby it happened that 
the thousands of free laborers of Kew Orleans were placed at 
the mercy of a few enormously wealthy slave-owning capitalists 
in the sparsely settled river parishes ; and a thousand votes of 
free mechanics had not so much power in the Legislature as two 
hundred and fifty planters^ wtes^ whose slaves filled up a legis- 
lative district. 

South Carolina has always been called the model slave state. 
Her system was and is the admiration of the slaveholding class. 
There the free laborer was entirely debarred from influence, 
totally unrepresented. He could vote — but not for one of his 
own class ; only a slave owner could serve in the Legislature / 
07ily a slave owner could he governor / and the Legislature^ com- 
posed exclusively of slave owners^ appointed the judges, the 
magistrates, the senators, the electors for President. 

Not only this — the Legislature set apart the state Congres- 
eional districts ; and it managed this in such manner that the 
slaveholding interest was alone represented in Congress. The 
lower part of the State, where the slaves were most dense, sent 
four out of the seven representatives to Congress. In the legis- 
lative apportionment the free workingmen of the State were still 
more outraged. Five-sixths of the white population, residing in 
those counties where there were but few slaves, had only seventy- 
eight out of one hundred and twenty-two representatives in the 
Legislature — a little more than one-half. The Pendleton district, 
with over twentj'^-six thousand white inhabitants, but few slaves, 
sent but seven members ; the parishes of St. Philip and St. 
Michael, with less than nineteen thousand whites, but a heavy 
slave population, sent eighteen. 

Kow take notice of the results of this system upon the freo 

a 



18 HOW 8LAVEKY IKJUKE3 THE FSE£ WOKKINGMAir. 

■workingmen. Governor Seabrook, of South Cai'olina, said, in a 
message a few years ago : 

" Education has been provided by the Legislature tut for one 
class of the citizens of the State, which is the wealthy class. For 
the middle and poorer classes of society it has done nothing, 
since no organized system has been adopted for that purpose. 
* * « * * Yen years ago twenty thousand adults, besides 
chii;i2^sn, were unable to read or write, in South Carolina. Has 
our free school system dispelled any of this ignorance? Are 
there not reasonable fears to be entertained that the number has 
increased since that period 2 " 

In the Charleston Standard, in Kovember, 1855, was advanced 
by eminent South Carolinians the atrocious doctrine that the 
State should educate only its capitalists and the officers and 
overseers who, under the order of the capitalists, should com- 
mand and direct the laborers. Chancellor Harper, one of the 
foremost men of the State, said, in a public address printed by 
De Bow, and received with general approval : 

" "Would you do a benefit to the horse, or the ox, by giving 
him a cultivated understanding or fine feelings ? So far as the 
mere laborer has the pride, the knowledge, and the aspiration of 
a free man, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel 
its infelicity." 

And what was the effect of this system upon the free work- 
ingmen of the State % Let Governor Hammond, one of its chief 
citizens, reply. Fifty thousand, he said, a sixth of the white 
population of the State, were unable to earn their living. He 
added : " Most of them now follow agricultural pursuits, in 
"feeble but injurioiis competition with slave lahorP And another 
writer, whose essay on cotton and cotton manufactures at the 
South is printed by De Bow, remarks that " a degree and extent 
of poverty and destitution exist in the Southern States among a 
certain class of people, almost unknown in the manufacturing 
districts of the Korth. » « * Boys and girls by thousands, 
destitute both of employment and the means of education, grow 
up to ignorance and poverty, and too many of them to vice and 
crime." 

Such are some — but not all — the disabilities imder which the 



FREE WOEKINGMEN FLY FROM THE SLAVE STATES. 19 

free workingman labors, in a State where the slave-labor system 
prevails. Deprived of employment, left without education, 
misrepresented in the legislative halls by men whose interests 
are opposed to his, and before whom he is powerless, the free 
laborer grows poorer as his wealthy neighbor grows richer ; and 
looking at these things we cease to wonder at the persistent emi- 
gration from the eastern slave states, westward, of which Mr. 
Tarver said, speaking of South Carolina, " That necessity must 
be strong and urgent which induces thirty per cent, of thejpojpu- 
lation of a State^ in the short space of ten years, to hreah all the 
social and individual ties which hind man to the place of his 
lirth, and seek their fortunes in other lands" 

FEEE WOEKINGMEN FLY FKOM THE SLAVE STATES. 

The slave states are the most sparsely populated of the Union ; 
their soil is rich, their climate kindly, they abound in mineral 
wealth ; everything there favors the workingman — yet the work- 
ingmen of the free states refuse to go there ; and a constant 
and large stream of emigration has set for years^from the slave 
states into the free states. . The free workingmen of the slave 
states have fled from the oppression and blight of the slave in- 
stitution, to the part of the Union where all labor is free and 
paid. 

If we take the census report of 1850, we find that the slave 
states had sent nearly six times as many of their population into 
free territory as the free states had sent into slave territory. We 
find that Kentucky had sent on to free soil sixty thousand more 
persons than all the free states had sent into slave soil. Little 
Maryland had sent more than half as many persons into free 
territory as all the slave states had sent into slave territory. 
Virginia had sent sixty thousand more persons into free territory 
than all the free states had sent upon the slave soil. Kentucky 
and Tennessee were but little behind the other states we have 
mentioned. 

This shows the course of emigration. But it is even more 
clearly shown in some interesting tables contained in the 
last census report — that for 1860. In a table of " Internal Mi- 
gration" we find that there were in the country, and returned 



20 HOW SLAVERY INJUEES THE FEEB WORKINGMAN. 

by the census-takers, 399,700 persons bom in Virginia, but Uv- 
ing in other states ; 344,765 persons born in Tennessee, but 
living in other states ; 272,606 persons bom in North Carolina, 
but living in other states ; 137,258 persons born in Maryland, 
but living in other states ; 32,493 persons bom in Delaware, but 
living in other states ; 331,904 persons born in Kentucky, but 
living in other states. 

Now it is true that not all these 1,518,726 persons who 
had migrated from only the border line of slave states were 
living in the free states, but by far the greater number were. 
The " course of internal migration" is exhibited in a table of the 
Census Report. There we find that emigrants from Virginia 
have removed " chiefly" to Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, and Indi- 
ana; from Kentucky they have removed chiefly to Missouri, 
Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. From Maryland they have removed 
chiefly to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of 
Columbia. From Delaware they have migrated chiefly to Penn- 
eylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Indiana. From Tennessee they 
have removed chiefly to Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Illinois. 

But this table shows us a far more remarkable fact. From 
the southern tier of slave states the migration was chiefly into 
other slave states, in a western or northwestern direction 
towards the free states. From the border slave states the migra- 
tion was chiefly into the free states, and into that slave state 
(Missouri) which promised first to become free. But from the 
free states, which sent forth also a large stream of emigrants, 
there was no emigration to slave states ; all, with insignificant 
exceptions, removed to other free states. 399,700 Virginians 
had removed chiefly to Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana ; 
but of 582,512 Pennsylvanians, just across the line, it is re- 
corded that they removed " chiefly" to Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, 
and Iowa. 331,904 Kentuckians had removed " chiefly" to Mis- 
souri, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio; but 593,043 persons bora 
across the river, in free Ohio, had removed chiefly to Indiana, 
Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. These contrasts hold good of the 
whole table. From no free state has there been emigration to 
the slave states ; but from every border slave state there has 
been a very heavy migration to the free states. 

Observe, that this course of migration is unusual and unnatm-al. 



6LAVEEY EXTERMINATES FEEB MECHAinCS. 21 

The tendency, in all the history of the world, has been the other 
way. Tribes and families have fled from the bleak climate and 
barren soil of the North to the milder climate and more generous 
Boil of the South. A French writer, the Count de Segur, says : 
" The human race does not march in that direction ; it turns its 
back to the North ; the sun attracts its regards, its desires, and 
its steps. It is no easy matter to arrest this great current." 
In other countries all emigration has turned to the Southward, 
by an instinctive movement ; but with us the horror of slavery, 
the aversion of the free laborer to come in contact and competi- 
tion with slave labor, has sufficed to conquer even this strong 
instinctive tendenc3% 

Bear in mind, too, that the South has lost, by this migration, 
the best class of her citizens. The indolent masters remained ; the 
slaves remained ; those free whites who were too poor and helpless 
and ignorant either to desire or to be able to remove, remained ; 
but there has been a constant drain of the yeomanry of the border 
Blave states — the forehanded farmers and industrious mechanics, 
the class whom a state can least afford to lose. These men and 
their families have helped to fill our northwestern territories and 
states ; and have taken the places of the thousands who ren^Dved 
from the border free states to the northwest. They have faced 
unwonted winters and harder conditions of life — why ? Because 
these free worhingmen felt slavery to he a curse, a har to all 
Iheir efforts. They were not abolitionists — they brought into 
the free states with them their curious hatred of the negro, as 
though it was the slave and not the master who was their 
oppressor. 

SLAVERY EXTERMINATES FREE MECHANICS, ' 

Charles J. Faulkner, of Virginia, said, in 1832, in the legisla* 
ture of that state : " Slavery hanishes free white labor / it ex- 
terminates the mechanic, the artisan, the manufacturer, it deprives 
them of hreadP And C. C. Clay, of Alabama, not less eminent 
in the South than Mr. Faulkner, said a few years ago : " Our 
wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are 
buying out their poorer iieighbors, extending their plantations 
and adding to their force. The wealthy few, who are able to 



S8 HOW SLAVEBT INJCBES THE FREE WOEKINGMAKr. 

Kve on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, 
are thus pushing off the many who are merely independent. 
Thus the white population has decreased^ and the slave increased^ 
almost pari passu in several counties of our state. In 1825 
Madison county cast about three thousand votes ; now she can- 
not cast more than two thousand three hundred. In travelling 
that country one will discover numerous farm-houses, once the 
abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied hy 
slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated. He will see the 
moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages, 
and will find ' one only master grasps the whole domain,' that 
once lurnished happy homes for a dozen white families." 

Thus southern men, themselves slaveholders, bear witness to 
the causes which lead to the great and constant migration of the 
most valuable class of citizens from the slave to the free states. 
The agriculturist and the mechanic alike, the blacksmith, the 
carpenter, the farmer, all are " pushed off," to use the expressive 
phrase of Mr. Clay, to make way for the masters and their slaves. 

SLAVERY SHUTS THE SOUTH AGAINST GERMANS AND IRISHMEN. 

If a considerable part of the white workingmen of the slave 
states have migrated to the free states, it is equally true that of 
the thousands ot German, Irish and othe^* workingmen who 
have, with their families, sought our shores, the southern states 
have received but an insignificant fraction. 

To the industry and thrift of this part of our population a large 
share of our prosperity and wealth is owing ; without the help 
of their strong arms, the free states, though thriving and populous, 
and receiving increase from the South, must have advanced much 
more slowly than they have. This fact has been generally re- 
cognized amongst us. Indeed, in the western states special 
inducements have been held out to immigrants, so strongly have 
the people there felt the need of their labor and the advantage 
of their presence. Consider, then, what has been the loss of the 
South, which has utterly failed to attract this class, while at the 
same time it was drained to a considerable extent of its own free 
working class. 

If we compare free states with slave states, we find that while 



BLAVERT SHUTS OUT G£E1IAN8 AND lEISHMEK. 23 

South Carolina had in 1860 but 9,986 foreign bom citizens. 
Massachusetts had 260,114 ; Virginia had but 35,058 foreigners, 
but Pennsyslania, her neighbor, had 430,505 ; Georgia, the em- 
pire state of the South, had but 11,671, but Kew York had 
998,640 ; Mississippi had only 8,558, but lUinois had 324,643, 
Tennessee had 21,226, and Kentucky 59,799 ; but Ohio had 
328,254, and Indiana 118,184. Little Ehode Island, with an 
insignificant territory and a dense population of 133 to the 
square mile, had attracted 37,394 foreign emigrants ; but North 
Carolina, with a milder and more varied climate, a fertile soil, 
ready access by sea, and the advantage of a profitable fishery and 
several other special pursuits, not to speak of an immensely 
greater territory, had been able to attract to her borders but 
3,299 foreign emigrants. 

iNTor must we fail to notice that in those states where slavery 
languished or had but a slender hold, emigrants at once increased 
in numbers. Maryland had 77,536, nearly seven times as many 
as Georgia ; Delaware had 9,165, nearly three times as many as 
Korth Carolina ; and Missouri had 160,541, as many within fif- 
teen thousand as all the slave states east of the Mississippi, ex- 
cept Maryland and Delaware. That is to say, Missouri, which 
was in the popular belief certain to become a free state before 
many years, was able to attract to her soil nearly as many emi- 
grants as Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 
North and South Carolina and Virginia together ! Still, slavery 
told against Missouri when compared with the free states. With 
a milder climate, immensely greater mineral resources and a 
nearer and cheaper access to great markets, Missouri had attracted 
but 13.59 per cent, of foreigners, while Iowa had 15.7i per 
cent., Minnesota 33.78 per cent., and Wisconsin 35.69 per cent. 

The census report shows that of the foreign born population 
the free states have received over eighty-six and one-half per 
cent., and the slave states less than fourteen. It shows the 
States which have received the smallest percentage of this accre- 
tion to be North Carolina, Ai'kansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and 
South Carolina — all slave states. And it shows also the singu- 
lar fact, that while eight foreign emigrants have settled in the 
free states to one in the slave states, the number of slaves — ^if 
we add the insignificant number of free colored — gives just one 
to 'every eight of our population. 



24 HOW SLAVEEY INJUEES THE FREE WOEKINGMANr. 

FREE WOEKINGMEN KEPT OUT OF THE FINEST PAET OF THE UNION". 

Is it no Tnatter to worTcingmen that they are thus driven out 
andhcjit out of the largest^ most fertile^ and pleasantest part of 
the Union by the slave-labor Bystein, tvhich there robs them of 
work, and attacks their rights ? In the mild climate of the bor- 
der slave states, the seasons are longer, the productions more 
varied ; trades which can be pursued in the North during only 
eight or nine months, may be carried on there all the year 
round ; food is or ought to be cheaper ; the workingman and 
his family need fewer and less costly clothes ; in many ways 
the conditions of life are easier, for the mechanic and laborer 
as well as the farmer, than in the colder North. But that 
great region the slavemasiers closed against the free worhing 
men, and preserved for themselves and their slaves. 

The climate is not too hot in any of those states for white 
men and women to labor in the fields. Governor Hammond, 
of South Carolina, said : " The steady heat of our summers is 
not so prostrating as the short but sudden and frequent heats 
of northern summers." White men work on the levee in 
New Orleans in midsummer, and have the severest labor put 
upon them at that. He who writes this has rolled cotton 
and sugar upon the levee of New Orleans in the month of 
July, and screwed cotton in Mobile Bay in August. Dr. Cart- 
wright, the great apostle of slavery, rightly remarked : " Here 
in New Orleans the large part of the drudgery — work requir- 
ing exposure to the sun^ as railroad mahing, street paving^ 
dray driving, ditohijig, and luilding is performed hy white 
peopW This severe labor was put upon the free white working- 
men ; the slave-owners reserved the light tasks for their slaves. 

In Alabama, by the census of 1850, sixty-seven t*housand, in 
Mississippi, fifty-five thousand, in Texas forty-seven thousand 
white men^ non-slaveholders, labored in the fields, and took no 
hurt. Cotton was cultivated in Texas, before the war, with 
perfect success, by white men ; the Germans managed even to 
raise more pounds to the acre, pick it cleaner, and to get a 
higher price for it, than the neighboring planters. Olmsted 
mentions an American in Texas who would not employ slave 
labor, and who, with white men as his help, " produced more 
h^les to the hand than any planter around him." 



THE SOUTHERN CLIMATE HEALTHFUL. 25 

The mortality reports ot the census show that the soutliem 
states are not peculiarly unhealthful. In Alabama, the deaths, 
per cent., were less than in Connecticut ; in Georgia they are 
1.23 per cent., in New York, 1.22 ; in South Carolina they are 
1.44 percent., in Massachusetts, 1.76, which is precisely the 
same as in Louisiana, notoriously, till General Butler cleaned 
New Orleans and drove out the yellow fever, the most sickly 
state in the South. 

Nothingy therefore, has Tcept free worJcing7nen out of these 
states — nearer to the great marJcets of the world, having more 
abundant mineral wealth, and in eveinj way more favorably sit- 
uated than the cold Northeast and the far away Northwest—^ 
except the fatal competition of the slaveowners. To avoid that, 
millions of workingmen, native and foreign born, have removed 
to the northwest, until at last the tide of emigration has even 
trenched upon the inhospitable desert, and has spread beyond 
the extreme limits of arable land, and far beyond the profitable 
reach of markets. The Northwestern farmer has burned his 
corn because he could not afford to send it to the distant sea- 
board — was it no loss to him that slavery kept him out of the 
fertile fields of Virginia and North Carolina ? 

Even had slavery remained in full vigor, the time had come 
when free labor, seeking new outlets and greater opportunities, 
would have pressed hardly upon it. If slavery is swept away, 
free workingmen will hereafter have opportunity in the South, 
and to all that great region a boundless future of wealth and 
prosperity opens up. The abandoned farms, the mouldering 
villages, the empty cottages, will once more be filled with the 
busy and cheerful hum of the labor of freemen. 

Their cunning will repair the waste of unskillful slave 
labor ; their ingenious toil will redeem the barren fields of Vir- 
ginia and other southern states. The tide of emigration, sweep- 
ing in that direction, may repeat in the South the marvellous 
results which it has accomplished during the last twenty-five 
years in the Northwest ; Virginia will be another Minnesota, 
North Carolina a new Iowa, and in Tennessee will be repeated 
the story of Ohio. 



26 HOW 6LAVERT INJUKES THE FREE WORKINGMAIT. 

HOW TO LESSEN THE BURDEN OF TAXATION. 

"WTien a man falls into debt, and is anxious to free himself of 
it, what does he do ? He works harder, and lives more frugally, 
He tries to make a dollar more per week, and to live on a dollar 
less. In that way he may hope to get clear of debt. Well, as 
with a man, so it is with a nation : we have incurred a great 
debt ; and henceforth, we must, as a people, live more econo- 
mically, and use, to better advantage, our property and our 
strength. We can no longer afford to exhaust our soil, by " art- 
less " methods of culture ; we can no longer afford to employ 
half a dozen men to do one man's work; we can no longer 
afford to use poor tools, to do with a hoe the work of a plough, 
to reap by hand instead of by steam, to work by main strength 
and stupidness, instead of intelligently. 

It is not enough that one part of the country shall do its best — 
the resources of all parts must be fully developed. It is not fair 
to the working men of the free states, that they shall pay heavier 
taxes, in order that slaveholders may indulge their fancy for 
dull, plodding, unskilled slave labor. It is not fair that we of 
the North should bear a heavy burden, more than our proper 
Bhare of the common debt, when, by the use of proper means, 
by throwing the Southern states open to free labor, and to 
skilled labor, its resources can be rapidly developed to the point 
where those states will be as populous, and as wealthy, as the 
free states. 

If we can discover a way to make the whole country popur 
lous, and to make the whole nation prosperous, the weiglit of 
taxation will be much lightened; increased numbei-s and in- 
creased wealth will enable us to bear, without suffering, burdens 
under which we might sink if these elements of strength were 
lacking. 

WE CANNOT AFFORD SLAVERY. 

We cannot afford to omit measures which will add to our 
ability to pay taxes. There was a time when we might live 
after a slipshod fashion, but hereafter it is important to every 
man in the country, and especially to the workingmen and their 
**«Qilies, that the natural resources of the whole country shall be 



SLAVERY A COSTLY BLUNDEB. 2? 

wisely and effectively developed. It is easy to show tliat the 
Southern states have enormous and inexhaustible wealth of iron, 
coal, copper, and many other things ; but if that mineral wealth, 
is to remain, in future as in the past, in the bowels of the earth ; 
if Virginia, with the richest coal and iron deposits, is hereafter, 
as heretofore, to buy both coal and iron in Pennsylvania ; if 
Tennessee, abounding in minerals, is to continue to be cursed 
with a slave-labor system, which forbids the development of 
her greatest sources of wealth ; if we do not use the only means 
in our power, or any one's power, to bring out that wealth, and 
thus add enormously to the general wealth of the country — 
which can only be done by extirpating slave-labor, and substitut- 
ing free labor in its place — why then, we may as well reconcile 
ourselves — we free working men of the North — to paying per- 
petually much the heaviest share of the national taxation. 

A shrewd foreign traveller once remarked that the slave- 
labor system was such a costly economical blunder, that no 
European nation could afford it ; only a country having no debt^ 
and scarcely any expenses, could indulge in it. The time has 
come when we, too, can no longer afford it. If the working 
men of the free states wish to lift from their hacks sotne portion 
efthe hea/oy burden of taxation^ they must insist that the south- 
ern states shall le thrown open to free labor ^ in order that this 
vast region shall be enabled to yield an equal share of the na 
tional revenue. It cannot do this till it is equally wealthy ; but, 
as we shall proceed to show, the slave labor system has made it 
poorer instead of richer, for many years. 

How are we to equalize the burden ? By making Yirginia 
as populous and wealthy as Pennsylvania, Kentucky as Ohio, 
Tennessee and Georgia as New York, South Carolina as Massa- 
chusetts, Mississippi as Iowa. The Lynchburg Virginian wrote 
Bome years ago : 

" The coal fields of Virginia are the most extensive in the 
world ; and the coal is of the best and purest quality ; her iron 
deposits are altogether inexhaustible, and in many instances so 
pure that it is malleable in its primitive state ; and many of 
these deposits are in the vicinity of extensive coal fields. She 
has, too, very extensive deposits of copper, lead, and gypsum. 
Her rivers are numerous and bold, generally with fall enough 
for extensive water power." 



28 now SLAVERY INJUEES THE FEEE "VVOEKIKGIIAN. 



VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA COMPAEED, 

But these coal and iron and copper and lead deposits of Yir- 
ginia, greater than those of Pennsylvania, and lying in a finer 
climate, are almost untouched. And because they are so, the 
whole industry of the state has suffered. The census of 1850 
gave the following values to agricultural lands in the adjoining 
States of Pennsylvania andTirginia : 

V u c e- J 1 ;j . , ^^ Virginia. In Penn'a. 

Kuraber of acres of improved land in farmsj 10,380,135 8,626,619 

Number unimproved 15,792,176 6,294728 

Cash value of farma in Virginia, eight dollars; ia Pennsylvania, twenty-Jivt 
dollars per acre. 

Does any one need to be told which state is able to pay and 
"will pay the largest amount of revenue to the government ? Is 
it not easy to see that, with the same policy in Virginia which 
has prevailed in Pennsylvania, that state would in a very few 
years be as populous, as wealthy, and as great a source of reve« 
nue, as her neighbor ? And is it not to the interest of every 
free workingman, every tax-payer, that this should be brought 
about ? 

The Southern states, if we include Missouri and Kentucky, 
have an area of 851,508 square miles ; the free states have an 
area of only 612,597 square miles. The South has a milder 
climate, shorter winters, a far more fertile soil, immensely 
greater mineral wealth, more abundant natural water communi- 
cations with the sea, than the North. Yet in 1850, by the 
census, the total value of the real and personal property of the 
free states was $1,161,081,000 greater than that of the real and 
personal property of the South, including three millions of 
slaves. But in 1860, according to the census of that year, the 
total value of real and personal property in the free states was 
$2,657,165,268 greater than that of the South. The wealth of 
the free states, excluding the territories, was in 1860, in round 
numbers, nine thousand two hundred and eighty -seven millions ; 
that of the slave states, including Missouri, six thousand six 
hundred and thirty millions, also including the slaves ! 

Now if, by wise measures, by encouraging the mechanic arts, 
fostering free schools, developing mineral resources, and, in 



"FO COMMEECE, 170 MmmG, KO MAinrFACTUEES." 29 

short, treating the South as' we treated the Northwest, we can 
make it increase as rapidly, after the war, in free population, 
and in wealth, as the Northwest has, we may expect this differ- 
ence to disappear in a very few years ; we may expect the South 
to become as prosperous and as wealth}^, in a few years, as the 
North is. In that case it will contribute a revenue to the gov- 
ernment greater than the whole North does at this time. That 
is to say, we can doiible our revenue without iticreasitig our 
taxation, or we can raise the same revenue with half the taxes. 

But to do that we mast do away with the wasteful and ruinous 
system of slave-labor which has made sterile the lands of the 
South, driven out her mechanics and artisans, made poor her 
people, and decreased her wealth. We cannot afford to waste 
anything ; but Olmsted wrote to a Texan friend as the fruit of 
" a large class of observations :" 

" The natural elements of wealth in the soil of Texas will 
have been more exhausted in ten years, and with them the re- 
wards offered by Providence to labor will have been more 
lessened than without slavery would have been the case in two 
hundred. After two hundred years' occupation of similar soils 
by a free laboring community, I have seen no such evidence of 
exhaustion as in i'exas I have after ten years of slavery." 

TESTIMONY OP SLAVEHOLDERS. 

In IF 59 Charleston had not a single ship-carpenter. In 1859 
Governor Wise, of Virginia, said to his people : 

" Commerce has long ago spread her sails, and sailed away 
from you. You have not, as yet, dug more coal than enough 
to warm yourselves at your own hearths ; you have set no tilt- 
hammer of Yulcan to strike blows worthy of gods in your own 
iron foundries ; you have not yet spun more that coarse cotton 
enough, in the way of manufacture, to clothe your own slaves. 
Y^oic have no com^merce, no mining, no manufactures. Ton 
have relied alone on the single power of agriculture, and such 
agriculture! Your sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your 
inattention to your only source of ■wealth has seared the very 
bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on 
a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed deer 
through the sedge-patches to procure a tough beefsteak. The 
present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia." 



80 now SLAVERY INJUEES THE FREE WOEKINGMAir. 

Thomas Marshall, another slaveholder, said : 

" Slavery is ruinous to the whites ; it retards improvement, 
roots out an industrious population^ banishes the yeomanry of 
the country ' deprives the spinner ^ the weaver^ the smithy tha 
ahoemalcei-j the carpenter, o/' employment and support" 

In little more than ten years Wisconsin lands became vrortli 
on an average nine dollars and li fly-four cents per acre; but 
after two hundred and fifty years those of Virginia, with all her 
natural advantages, were worth but eight dollars and twenty- 
seven cents per acre. Yirginia, free, might have had as rapid 
an increase as Massachusetts ; she would have had in 1850, that 
is to say, a population of 7,751,324 whites, instead of 894,800. 
Consider what would have been her wealth, with such an, 
enormous population. Consider what would have been her 
ability, with her minerals, her water-power, her grain fields and 
her seacoast, to contribute to the national revenue. 

If we want to lighten the burden of taxation, we must give . 
the South the same opportunity for growth and increase which 
has made the West and Northwest so populous and rich in the 
last twenty-five years. But to do that, we must encourage free 
labor there — for it is the free Avorkingraan who makes the land 
rich — and the free man will not and cannot toil in competition 
■with the slave. 

THE WASTEFUT.NESS OF SLAVE LABOR. 

The slave-labor system exhausts the soil, wastes its prodncts, 
and c'jntirbutes less — a very great deal less — to the national 
wealth, than the more skilful and intelligent free labor. The 
slave warkman cannot be trusted with machinery ; he cannot 
be trusted with the best tools ; he must have — so the slave- 
holders themselves have said — the coarsest, rudest tools ; any- 
tbino- else he breaks. Now every workingman knows that 
with heavy, rough tools he cannot accomplish as much as an- 
other man can with light, well-made, handy tools. Every 
working- man knows that it makes a world of difference what 
sort of a plough, what sort of an axe, what sort of a plane, what 
sort of a hammer he uses. He wants the best; he knows that 
it pays him to have the best ; and he knows, too, that if he can 



WASTEFULNESS OF SLAVE LABOK. 31 

make a machine saw, or plane, or mortice, or do anything 
else for him, that is so much gained — so much more money 
made in a given time. But the slave laborer cannot be trusted 
with any of these helps. Is it a wonder that with a system 
wJiigIi thus prevents the, use of the hesi tools and machinery, the 
South is poor ? 

It is a fact, proved by the census, that labor in Massachusetts 
is four times as productive as i7i /South Carolina. The average 
value of the product per heal of the cotton factories of Massa- 
chusetts was in 1855, $725 — ten times greater than the average 
value of the products of labor in South Carolina. The State of 
Massachusetts, with the help of skilled and industrious free 
labor, sent annually into the commerce of the world, values 
greater than that of the eritire cotton crop of the South / Such 
is the enormous diiierence between slave labor and free labor. 

Mr. Guthi-ie, in his report on the finances, in 1854-5, pre- 
pared a table from' the census report, showing the average value 
of products per head in the different States. A comparison of 
some of the Free States with some of the Slave States, will 
show how much more productive is free labor than slave labor. 
In Massachusetts, with a bleak climate and a sterile soil, the 
average product per head of the population is valued at $166 60 ; 
in South Carolina but $56 91 ; in New York, $111 94 ; in 
Georgia, the Empire State of the South, $61 45 ; in Pennsyl- 
vania, $99 30 ; in Yirginia, $59 42 ; in Ohio, $75 82 ; in Ar- 
kansas, $52 04 ; and in North Carolina, $49 38. 

SLAVERY LOWEES THE VALUE OF LAITD. 

But this is not all ; slave labor not only produces far less, and 
thus adds less to the taxable wealth of the community ; it at 
the same time wastes and ruins the substance of the country. It 
ruins the soil. The cotton planters were continually removing 
westward, with their slaves, to new lands ; and Olmstead reports 
that in Texas even, recently settled as it is, he already found the 
two curses of the planter — worn out and abandoned plantations 
and " poor whites." In North Carolina, six bushels of wheat to the 
acre is counted a fair crop. Compare Virginia and Pennsyl- 
vania, and we find, by the census report, that the actual crops 



S3 HOW 8LATEET INJUEES THE FEEE ■WOEKINGMAM'. 

per acre of corn were, in Virginia eighteen, and in Pennsyl- 
vania thirty-six bushels ; of tobacco, in Virginia — whose speci- 
ality is tobacco — 630 pounds per acre, in Pennsylvania 730 
pounds. Under the slave-labor system of the South, according 
to Mr. Gregg, an accredited writer on the southern side, South 
Carolina had, before the war, one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
sand white persons " who ought to work and who do not, or 
who are so employed as to be wholly unproductive to the State." 
Does anyone imagine that it is not the slave system, but the 
climate, which is to blame for this enormous and rninous waste 
of labor and of the natural resources of the South ? In Virginia, 
wherever, before the war, free labor got the upper hand, and 
slavery was driven out, there productions were at once largely 
increased. The Charleston Standard remarked, in 1857, " The 
Virginia journalists have frequently borne witness to the fact, 
that in many districts where large estates have been divided and 
sold to small farmers, the land is turning off from three to six 
times as much produce as it did a few years ago." In Cahill, 
Mason, Brooke, and Tyler counties, Virginia, which had, before 
the war, a free laboring population, with slaves but one in fif- 
teen to the freemen, but no advantages of towns in or near 
them, land was worth, in 1855, $7 75 per acre. In Southamp- 
ton, Surrey, James Town, and ll^Tew Kent counties, in the same 
state, where the slave population was as 1 to 2, the land was 
ioorth hut half as muohy $4 50 per acre. In Fairfax county the 
slave population was much reduced within the last twenty five 
years ; free laboring men took the places of the slave laborers ; 
and the County Commissioners reported otiicially : 

" In appearance, the county is so changed, in many parts, that 
a traveller, who passed over it ten years ago, would not now 
recognize it. Thousands and thousands of acres had been culti- 
vatea in Tobacco, by the former proprietors, would not pay the 
cost, and were abandoned as worthless, and became covered with 
a wilderness of pines. These lands have been purchased by 
northern emigrants / the large tracts divided and subdivided, 
and cleared of pines; and neat farm-houses and barns, with 
smiling fields of grain and grass, in the season, salute the de- 
lighted gaze of the beholder. Ten years ago, it was a mooted 
question whether Fairfax lands could be made productive ; and, 
il* so, would they pay the cost '\ This problem iias been satisfac- 



SLATEEY IMP0VEIIISHE3 THE LAND. 33 

torilj solved by many, and, in consequence of the above altered 
state of things, school-Jiousea and churches have doubled in iv^rn- 
her." 

That is to say, slavery makes a rich country poor, free labor 
makes a poor country ricli ; slave labor— improvident, wasteful, 
unskillful — rots out the heart of the land, and, finally, leaves the 
soil when it can no longer make a living from it : free labor 
comes in, and, in ten years, restores the soil, and works it at so 
great a profit that the face of the country is changed, and 
" churches and schools are doubled," But mark ! until slave 
labor is driven out^ free lahor will not come in. The two sys- 
tems cannot work together. Which, then, shall we protect — 
the slavemaster, who impoverishes the country, or the free 
laborer who enriches it ? 

The Wheeling Intelligencer^ then published in a slave state, 
spoke out on this question, some ten years ago, in the following 
'words : 

" The present great and pressing want of our state, like that 
of the whole United States, is cultivation and improvement, not 
enlargement and annexation, and the obvious and the onlj^mode 
of a rapid growth of our state or city is such a change of public 
policy as shall invite to our aid and co operation our Caucasian 
cousins, the intelligent, moral, and industrious artizans, mechan- 
ics, miners, manufacturers, and commercial men of Europe and 
the northern states, to share our taxation, develop our resources, 
and make ours a white mail's coithtry^ with all the energy, edu- 
cation, love of order, of freedom, and of order characteristic of 
the Anglo-Saxon race. The history of the world, and especially 
of the States of this Union, shows most conclusively thatj92<&^2C 
prosperity bears an almost mathematical jn'oporiion to the degree' 
of frcedojn enjoyed by all the inhabitajits of the state. Men 
will always work better for the cash than for the lash. The free 
laborer will produce and save as much, and consume and waste 
as little as he can. The slave, on the contrary, will produce and 
save as little, and consume and waste as much as possible. 
Hence states and counties filled with the former class must 
necessarily flourish and increase in population, arts, manvifac- 
tures, wealth, and education, because they are animated and in- 
cited by all the vigor of the will ; while states filled with the 
latter class must exhibit comparative stagnation, because it is the 
universal law of nature that force and fear end in ruin and 
decay." 

5 



34 HOW SLAVBBT INJUEES THE FEEE WOEKINGMAN. 



EFFECTS OF FKEE AND SLAVE LABOR CONTKASTED. 

In the newlj settled free states we find villages, towns, clmrches, 
Bcliools, and other conveniences of civilization springing np in 
the immediate track of the settlers ; in the slave states, on the 
contrary, these are to a great extent lacking. The free work- 
ingman of Iowa, or Minnesota, may count upon being ahle to 
send his children to good schools, to attend clinrch with iiis 
family, to enjoy the profits of a sale in an adjacent village for 
all the " small truck" of his farm, if he is a farmer; or if he is 
a mechanic, to obtain employment, through.the gathering of the 
population in villages and towns, to afford him a comfortable 
living. In the slave states, on the contrary, even in the oldest 
settled of them, towns and villages are few and far apart ; the 
small farmer can find no sale for his chickens, eggs, vegeta- 
bles or fruits ; the free mechanic is restricted to the few cities 
where alone he can find employment ; all inducements to any 
methods of mechanical labor, or of farming, not practised in 
cities or upon great slave plantations, are lacking. 

So few are the towns, even in the long settled states of Georgia 
and South Carolina, that a large part of the railroad stations 
are numbered — as station 1 , station 2, station 14 ; and where, as 
at Millen, and other points, a name is given, there is, in most 
cases, no town or village, but only a depot for cotton. 

SLAVERY LEAVES NO CHANCE FOR SMALL FARMERS. 

Of course, in such a country, with such a state of affairs, 
the small farmer, and the country carpenter, blacksmith, 
wheelwright, &c., have no chance to live. The small farmer, 
with us in the free states, carries his chickens, eggs, feathers, 
turkeys, pigs, apples, and other minor produce to the " store," 
in the next village, and with this produce often clothes his fam- 
ily, and keeps up the supply of tea, coffee and sugar, while the 
staple of his farm, his grain or cattle, go to pay the cost of labor, 
and other expenses, and to form the balance of profit, which 
laid by, makes him yearly a more comfortable and independent 
man. But in the slave states this small farmer is surrounded 
by great plantations ; no town or village is near him where ho 



BLAVEKY GIVES NO CHANCE TO SMALL FAISMERS. 35 

can sell the profitable " small truck ;" he must neglect this 
important source of profit for the man of few acres ; he toils 
away in the cotton fiehl, and his wife toils with him,' and tliey 
are no better oif at the year's end than at the beginning. 

Moreover, he does nut enjoy the intellectual benefit of a 
weekly visit to a town or village ; his children have no school 
provided for them ; lie and his wife cannot often go to church. 
He is de])rived, too, of the numberless conveniences which the 
numerous villages and towns, even in the most recently settled 
free states, afibrd to the farmer there. If he needs the services 
of a carpenter, or tailor, .or blacksmith, or wagon maker, of 
any meclianic, the farmer of the slave states must either set out 
on a long journey over bad roads, for fifty or sixty miles — or he 
must do without. In South Carolina, to this day, the country 
people are obliged, in tliis way, to make their own rude, heavy, 
inconvenient wagons, often without a tire on .the wheels, which 
are not unfrequently of solid wood. They must make their own 
ill-fitting harness ; they must build their own rude cabins ; no 
mason, or plasterer, or carpenter, or skilled mechanic can be 
found to help them ; on the rich plantations such mechanics are 
found — lut they are slaves. 

There is thus, in the condition of society which is created by 
the slave labor system, no room^ and no encourageinent for the 
free mechanic and the small farmer^ who make up the bulk of 
our population in the free states, and whose industry, and thrift 
and intelligence make the country prosperous and happy. 

Does any one ask why this is so? Why has slavery this 
singular and disastrous efiect ? Because the wealthy own slaves, 
and " do not need the services of the free workingmen," to 
quote once more the words of Marion. The rich planter living 
upon his estate, owns his slave mechanics, goes North or to Eu- 
rope when he wants to amuse himself, and has no interest in the 
social advancement of the county in which he happens to be 
settled. What should he care for schools f his children have 
tutors at home, or go to northern colleges. Why should he 
seek to form or elevate society around him? When he wants 
" company " he goes to Charleston, or Savannah, or Mobile, or 
New Orleans, or New York. Why should he buy the small 
farmer's " truck " ? His own slaves ?'aise all he wants. Why 



'36 HOW 6LAVERT INJUEES THE FKEE WOEKINGMAIT. 

elionld he employ free mechanics ? He prefers to l)uy a carpen- 
ter and sell him again when the work is done. Moreover, he 
w(!Uid not help to support the village store, if there was one — 
for he buys his supplies at wholesale in the great city. He 
does not need the village tailor, for his clothes are made in New 
York. His wife does not not employ the village milliner, for 
she gets her dresses from J^ew Orleans, or New York, or 
Paris. 

In short, the planter has no interest in the county where he 
happens to own soil, except to raise as much cotton off the land 
as possible ; he spends the proceeds away from homo. 

WHY THE SLAVE STATES LACK CAPrFAL. 

But with this, there has been a singular complaint amongst 
the planters, which meets one in almost every essay printed by 
DeBow ; a complaint of a lack of capital. " The south needs 
capital " was the constant cry, " Our tanneries will not succeed, 
because of our limited capital," says a writer on the resources of 
Georgia. " For the last twenty years, floating capital, to the 
amount of $500,000 per annum has left Charleston, and gone 
out of the state " complained Governor Hammond, in a famous 
essay on Southern Industry. " Ninety millions of capital," he 
Bays in another place, " has been drained out of South Carolina 
in twenty years ;" and another writer, urging the establishment 
of manufactories in the south, admits that " we have not the 
capital to spare." We do not hear such complaints in the free 
states. Our workmen are not idle, our mines are not undevel- 
oped, our manufactories are not stopped for want of capital. 

But they would be, if the manufacturer — or mine owner — had 
not only to buy his machinery, hut also his workmen. No com- 
pany, however wealthy, could afford to run a mill in Lowell, or 
work a coal mine in Pennsylvania, or keep up a furnace in Pitts- 
burgh, if it had to provide means, not only to pay for its machinery 
but to buy also its working men and women. All the industry 
of the free states would come to a stand still if this system 
should suddenly be forced upon us. No wonder the manu- 
facturing industi'y of the South was never set going " for lack of 
capitaL" 



"WHY SLAVE STATES LACK CAPITAL, 37 

But this same mischief has injured the South in other ways. 
Look, for instance, at this : Take two men, both farmers ; let one 
remove to Texas, the other to Iowa; let each have his land pur- 
chased ; and have five thousand dollars over. Each needs a carpen- 
ter to build a comfortable house for him. 'J he lowan gives 
notice in the newspapers — which are glad to print such intelli- 
gence — that carpenters can get higher wages in his neighborhood 
than farther East; and he readily gets the services of an enter- 
prising young mechanic. But the Texan ? He mu£u huy hi» 
carjpent&r ; he must pay probably two thousand dollars for the 
man. He has but three thousand left — the lowan has spent 
only the wages of a carpenter while he needed him. 

That done, each requires three laborers to clear and cultivate 
the new land. The lowan advertises, offers good wages, and 
gets his men without trouble ; the Te,can must jpay out his re- 
maining three thousand dollars for three sluves. He has now 
all his money invested — the lowan, however, has yet the greater 
part of his in hand. He is able to purchase the best implements 
— but the Texan must manage without or run in debt. He is 
able to contribute to the building of a school and church ; but 
the Texan, in the first place, has no money left for such pur- 
poses ; and in the next place, the children of his slaves must 
not be educated. Therefore^ his own children have no school or 
church. The lowan, having still say two thousand dollars in 
hand, may set up a friend, in a mill, or a store — and both will 
be supported by the laboring population which he has gathered 
about him, who are earning wages and will purchase clothing and 
provisions. But the Texan has no money to loan for such enter- 
prises; and if he had, they could not succeed, for his slaves have 
no wages to spend, and he gets his supplies at wholesale, from, 
his factor in New Orleans or Shreveport. 

Let any one, farmer or laboring man, answer, who is the most 
comfortable, whose children have the best chance to grow up 
intelligent, who has the most money at command, the Texan 
slave owner, or the lowan farmer? who builds up around 
him the most quickly, a thriving community? who gives em- 
ployment to free mechanics ? whose skill and capital is most pro- 
ductive of wealth and progress, and happiness, to the neighbor- 
hood? 



©8 HOW SLAVEKY INJURES THE FKEB WOKiaNaMAJir. 

"We see by this instance, how it is that in the Sonth they 
always " lacked capital." The Texan emptied his purse before 
he got fairly started ; the lowan liad money in hand M'hen liis 
farm was thoroughly furnished. The Texan was condemned 
by the slave system to live in solitude — the lowan at once, and 
necessarily, gatiiered a little company about him, of working- 
men, and mechanics, and their families, and if he selected his 
farm wisely, he saw within a year a little village spring up near 
bim, with its schools, church, stores, and proper supply of me- 
chanics of different kinds. 

Mechanics avd laboring men^ rememher^ that the s'nve sj/s- 
tem leaves no room for you ! It shuts yni, out ! The Southern 
planter does not need you ; he cannot bear your independent 
ways; he "buys a carjienter when he waTits one." lie and his 
fellow planters have, 1or half a centui-y, shut up, against you 
and your families, the finest part of the Union ; lohile stnvery 
lasts you can gain no foolhuVl there ^ for evry slaveholder U 
your enemy / your children can have no schools there ; you can 
have none of the conveniences of life ; you cannot even get em- 
ployment. But do away with the slave system, make all labor 
free, take away from the rich planter liis fatal monopoly, let 
every man who works be paid wages according to liis ability, 
and let every employer pay just wages to his workmen, and 
you can safely go to the South, and take wilh you the society, 
the schools, the churches, the frequent villages and towni*, all 
the conveniences o± civilization, which the slave labor system 
has not. 

Slavery is the free workingman's worst enemy ; lot this truth 
be sjDread abroad amongst you, free workingmen of the !Noiih 
^nd South ! Then, for your own sakes, and for the sake of your 
children, whmn yoti do not wish to grow up tii the ovrrero^odtd 
Jt'orth, let slavery die. In the South, if slavery is abolished, 
the wages of mechai^ics and laboring men- mvH f<>r vxDiy yeins 
to cowe be very high. That whole vast region is almost with- 
out skilled labor; free mechanics have bren driven from it. A 
region greater than all the free states, as /iealt/.f>-l, tr/fh a finer 
climate, more ahundani rnineral resources, cheaper lands and a 
richer soil, lies open before you and. your faaiiHen. You have 
only to possess it, and with your skill and energy subdue it. 



WHY SLAVE STATES LACE: CAPITAL. 39 

Then yon will not feel the hard struggle which severe climate, 
and tenement houses, and lack of employment, and the op- 
pression caused by an overcrowded labor market, subjected 
you to in the North. JBut you can never enter that land of 
€ase and plenty ; without jwst striking down your Jatal enemy 
slavery I 



Loyal Leagues^ Clubs, or individuals may obtain any 
of our Publications at the cost j>rice, by application to the 
Executive Committee, or by calling at the Rooms of the Society, 
No. 863 Broadway, where all information may be obtained 
relating to the Society. 



MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN 



THE CAMPAIGN ON THE TORKTOWN PENINSULA. 



BT 



FREDERICK MILNES EDaE, 

Anthor of ' Slavery Doomed,' ' Destruction of the American Carrying Trade,' 

'President Lincoln's Successor,' 'The Alabama and the Kearsajge,' SiO. 

and late Special Correspondent of the Morning Star with the 

Armies of the United States. 




Nero fork: 

PUBLISHED BY THE LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETy. 
1865. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 

Page 

nrrBODTTCTOBT 1 

CHAPTER IL 

DISAFFEABA.NCE OF THE CONFEDEEATES FROM THE LINES OF UANASSAS 10 

CHAPTER III. 

BMBABKATION OF THE AEMT OF THE POTOMAC FOB THE PBSriNSUIA . 18 

CHAPTER IV. 

ASTAKCB OF OENEKAI. m'DOWELl's COBPS TJFON WABBENGTON JUNCTION 37 

CHAPTER V. 

AMEEICAN lEON-CLADS , . . 49 

CHAPTER VL 

A OENEBAI. VIEW OF AFFAIE3 . . . . . • • - ©S 

CHAPTER Vn. 

THE TOBKTOWN PENINSULA ....•••• M 

CHAPTER VnL 

IN IfEONT OF YOEKTOWN • • • 7* 

CHAPTER rX. 

BVACUATION OP YOBKTO-WN •••• •••80 



IV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

Page 

BATTLE OF -WEST FOnTT, VA.. ... , • • • • VI 

CHAPTER XL 

VHE MABCH TIP THE FENINSTILA ..•••••97 

CHAPTER Xn. 

BATTLE OP ■WILLLkMSBTTEG ...••••• 106 

CHAPTER Xni. 

WHITE HOUSE • • • 109 

• CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LINES OF THE CHICKAHOMINT ...■••• 126 

CHAPTER XV. 

BATTLE OF HAKOYEB COTXBT HOTTSE . . . • • . .138 

CHAPTER XVL 

BATTLE OF FAIB OAKS • 141 

CHAPTER XVII. 

IN SIGHT OF BICHMOND ......■•. 145 

CHAPTER XVIIL 

ON THE CENTBB ..... •••. 171 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BETBEAT ••••••••••• 188 

CONCLUSION ••••••••••• 800 



GENERAL MCCLELLAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTOKT. 

The unparalleled uprising of the American people in the 
spring of 1861, and the unanimous resolve of the Grovern- 
ments and Legislatures of all the Northern States to 
support the newly-elected President in his opposition to 
Secession, swept away for a time every party distinction 
and proved conclusively to the world that the Free North 
was an unit in defence of the integrity of the Republic. 
Foremost amongst those who offered their services and 
lives to the Federal Grovernment in defence of the Union, 
were the recognised chiefs of the Democratic party ; and, 
for the moment, there was every prospect that party dis- 
tinctions had ceased to exist, and minor questions of 
domestic policy had given way to the overwhelming neces- 
sity of subduing the rebellion. 

The leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties, the 
ablest statesmen in the North, the President himself and 
his advisers, failed at the outset to appreciate the magni- 
tude of the crisis. It took many months of half-measures, 
and frequent disasters, to raise them to the height of the 

B 



2 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

situation ; whilst the vast mass of the citizens urged them 
forward by every means in their power, and furnished 
an example of self-sacrificing patriotism which no other 
people in modern times has equalled. When, on the 
memorable 15th day of April, 1861, President Lincoln 
issued his proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers, there 
was a feeling of disappointment throughout the North ; 
for almost every man felt disposed to lay aside his business 
to avenge the insult to his country's flag at Fort Sumter. 
The legislature of the State of New York responded im- 
mediately to the President's call, by voting 30,000 men 
and 3,000,000 dollars to put down the rebellion, and other 
States followed her example with similar enthusiasm. 
When, again, the new Secretary of the Treasury sought for 
monetary aid from the banks of New York and other 
great financial centres, and met with hesitation or refusal 
from the various boards of directors, the shareholders 
themselves convened meetings and compelled those di- 
rectors, their servants, to aid and encourage the Grovern- 
ment to the utmost extent of their ability. Later in the 
year, after the crushing disaster on the Plains of Manassas, 
when President Lincoln demanded 400,000 men ' for three 
years, or the war,' Congress responded by voting him 
500,000, which the people increased to 700,000, and 
would have carried on to a million had not the Grovern- 
mentput a stop suddenly to the volunteering. The whole 
body of the citizens, in fine, with all their time-honoured 
political leaders, advanced the President and Congress alike 
in the energy of their patriotism. Nor was this enthusiasm 
and self-devotion merely confined to the men ; in all the 
cities, towns, villages, and hamlets of the Union-loving 
North, the women met in each other's houses, working 
from morn to night, to provide clothing and hospital 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 3 

necessaries for their husbands, sons, and brothers in the 
field. Party organisations seemed for ever obliterated, 
every political difference or shade being swallowed up in 
the universal cry, * We, the people of the United States, 
are resolved to crush this rebellion, whatever may be the 
cost in time, or treasure, or blood.' 

All the recognised leaders of the Democratic party — 
such men as Dickinson, Johnson, Dix, and Butler — were 
heartily cooperating with the Grovernment in its efforts 
to enforce the national authority. So unexpected a result 
utterly surprised the Southern rebels, for they had calcu- 
lated upon a divided North through the very instru- 
mentality of this Democratic party, which had hitherto 
shown itself so subservient to Southern policy and interests. 
Southern astonishment, however, did not give birth to 
despair. Thoroughly well-informed by certain politicians 
in the free States upon the extent and depth of popular 
sentiment ; knowing the hold taken by ' Democratic ' 
organisation upon the foreign element in the great cities 
of the North, and convinced that the war they had com- 
menced would be a long one, they resolved to reconstruct 
the party with new leaders. Those politicians of the 
Northern democracy who held aloof from the Grovernment 
and viewed the universal uprising of their fellow-citizens 
in stolid silence, if not with treasonable disgust, were of 
too small calibre and restricted influence to be used except 
in a secondary capacity. It was necessary to select some 
person around whom the broken and demoralised demo- 
cracy might rally, and a secret meeting was held for this 
purpose in the city of Baltimore, in the early part of 
the month of June, 1861, at which self-appointed re- 
presentatives of the Northern democracy and Southern 
delegates met in council. The opinions there enun- 

B 2 



4 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 

ciated by the latter were earnestly favourable to a 
restoration of the Union on the former pro-slavery basis, 
but with the exclusion of the New England States ; this 
assurance being obviously motived by the necessity of 
quieting the scruples of their Northern coadjutors. The 
selection of a Democratic chieftain proved, however, to be 
a matter of great difficulty, until it was suggested that, in 
view of the warlike tone of public sentiment in the free 
States, an army officer should be chosen. This proposition 
was received with marks of approbation by all present. 
The suggestion was one that all there could appreciate at 
its full value, for the United States Military Academy, at 
West Point, was intensely ' democratic ' in its politics, and 
had long been under Southern tutelage and careful super- 
vision. During the previous eight years Mr. Jefiferson Davis, 
first as Secretary of War under President Pierce, and sub- 
sequently as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 
Senate on military affairs, during Mr. Buchanan's admin- 
istration — had enjoyed ample opportunities for becoming 
fully acquainted with the abilities and political tendencies 
of the young men there educated ; and, on the other hand, 
in selecting an army officer for training as their future 
standard bearer, the Northern democracy might thereby 
be enabled to turn the warlike enthusiasm of the Free 
States to their own party-interest and profit. The meeting 
adjourned, to re-assemble in a week, the interim being 
devoted by the members to making enquiries as to the 
most available officer for their choice. With but three 
dissentients, Captain G-eorge B. M*=Clellan was the officer 
selected ; and the arguments used in favour of his adoptiou 
were immediately conducive towards making' the choice 
unanimous. As the former 'protege of Mr. Davis, he would 
of course obtain the suffrages of the Southern represesn 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 5 

tatives, whilst his antecedents and personal qualifications 
would naturally commend him to Northern favour. He 
was quite unknown in the political world, but his relatives 
and associates were staunch supporters of the Democratic 
faith. He was a native of Pennsylvania, and he might 
win back that important State to the Democratic ranks ; 
whilst his business relations with the West, as engineer of 
the Illinois Central Eailroad, would insure him supporters 
in that section. 

On the 20th of June, Captain M°Clellan took command 
of the Union forces in the mountainous region of Western 
Virginia, and the Democratic newspapers of the North 
forthwith commenced to put his name prominently before 
the country, and to recommend him as the ablest and 
most promising officer in the army. Although never seen 
upon any battlefield during the engagement, the rapid suc- 
cesses of such subordinates as Rosecrans were immediately 
ascribed to him ; and when he issued his flaming thea- 
trical proclamation announcing that Western Virginia was 
cleared of the rebels, the whole body of the Northern 
people were easily taught to believe that the safety of the 
Republic would be secure in his hands. A strong pres- 
sure was forthwith brought to bear upon the Grovernment 
at Washington ; Lieutenant-Greneral Scott was animad- 
verted upon constantly in the Democratic press, as too 
old for the onerous duties pressing on his attention; 
and where argument failed, ridicule was brought- to bear. 
President Lincoln manfully resisted this growing pressure 
until the night of Sunday, July 2 1st, when the terrible 
and unexpected repulse of the Union army at Bull Run 
forced him to surrender his scruples, and M'^Clellan was 
telegraphed to the same night to come immediately to 
Washington. 



« GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

I had just then arrived in the United States, and, on 
my way to the capital, rode in the same train with the 
new commander of the Array of the Potomac from Phila- 
delphia to Washington. He was accompanied by two 
friends, Major Stoneman (now Major-Greneral) of the 
United States army, and Judge Key of Ohio; and a 
private carriage was added to the train for their conve- 
nience. All three were in plain clothes, except that 
GTeneral M^^Clellan wore a French kepi cap. The journey 
was full of incident, it being known to all aboard who was 
in the train, and he was lustily cheered by the citizens at 
the different stations along the route, and on two occasions 
was forced to address the assembled crowd. When the 
train was slowing off, as we neared Baltimore, the General 
exchanged his kepi for the Major's ' wide-awake,' and the 
three travellers leaped from the train while it was still 
iu motion, and walked quickly through the city to the 
Washington terminus. The precaution was judicious, for 
the ' plug uglies ' and ' blood tubs ' of that terrible Balti- 
more might have impeded his journey to the capital. 

Washington was in a fearful condition on his arrival. 
The disastrous retreat from Bull Eun had filled the city 
with demoralised and riotous soldiery, and it was scarcely 
safe for unarmed persons to walk the streets, even in broad 
daylight. Within forty-eight hours all this disorder dis- 
appeared as though by magic; few volunteers were seen 
away from barracks or east of the Potomac ; a determined 
provost guard patrolled the city constantly, and even 
general officers were arrested who could not produce a 
pass. Naturally enough, M°Clellan received the credit of 
all this rapid imp]"ovement, and yet it was entirely due to 
the advice given him through letter on his arrival, by an 
intimate friend, in whose opinion he had full reliance. 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 7 

Not a single detail of this advice was modified or changed; 
but M<=Clellan is justly entitled to credit for the energy 
with which he carried out his friend's recommendation. 
All must regret that similar energy was not displayed by 
him in the subsequent duties of the campaign. 

General M°Clellan has gained much reputation for his 
organisation of the Army of the Potomac under the second 
call for 500,000 volunteers ; but it does not follow that a 
good drill officer will make a competent commander in 
presence of the enemy. The credit of that organisation 
really belongs to his subordinates, and notably to General 
Seth Williams— a quiet, unassuming officer, who has held 
the position of Adjutant-General of the Army of the 
Potomac under M'Dowell, M<=Clellan himself. Pope, Burn- 
side, Hooker, Meade, and still continues to hold it. 
M<'Clellan had very little to do with the shaping of that 
army beyond two or three reviews, and these were given 
in compliment to foreign notabilities rather than for any 
purposes of instruction. I was best acquainted with the 
division under General Franklin, having passed nearly all 
my time with it from the period of M<=Clellan's arrival at 
Washing-ton until his departure for the Yorktown peninsula, 
and I recollect his reviewing it on a single occasion only. 
The duty of shaping raw recruits into soldiers was left to 
colonels, brigadiers, and division commanders ; the volun- 
teers saw little of those movements which are necessary to 
produce effectiveness as an army ; and it was a subject 
of general complaint, that beyond brigade-drill they were 
trained to nothing else. This fault was apparent through- 
out the entire campaign, corps and division generals 
fighting their commands single- handed, without let, hin- 
drance, or advice from the Commander-in-Chief. Thus 
Hooker struggled alone during a whole day against the 



8 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

rebel army at Williamsburg, until Kearny came to his aid 
without orders; and at Fair Oaks, Sumner threw his corps 
across the Chickahominy, and retrieved a terrible disaster 
without M^Clellaii's knowledge. 

The plans of the Democratic party were most ably 
seconded by the newspapers in its interest. Within a few 
weeks of the new Commander-in-Chief arriving in Wash- 
ington, the troops began to regard him as something 
almost more than human ; they were taught by their 
papers to speak of him as the ' Young Napoleon,' ' Little 
Mac,' &c., and the most extraordinary stories were gravely 
published as to his plans and personal movements. By 
some means or other, only those papers which professed 
fealty to the Democratic party, and the most grovelling 
adulation of the GTeneral, found circulation amongst the 
troops. The IS^ew York Herald and Philadelphia In- 
quirer, in the Eastern armies ; the Chicago Times and 
Cincinnati Enquirer in the Western, deluged the camps ; 
whilst such papers as the New York Tribune and Times, 
the Chicago Journal and Tribune, could with difficulty be 
bought, for the news-agents would not bring them into 
camp. It was by such means that M^'Clellan's reputation 
was built up in the first instance ; and the feeling in his 
favour was still further increased when these Democratic 
organs reiterated from day to day that the Government 
was withholding reinforcements from his army, so as to 
ensure his defeat and damage him politically. But 
Americans are essentially a practical people ; and they 
came to understand, after the Peninsula campaign, that 
all this newspaper hullabaloo was merely made in view of 
Presidential purposes. 

M*=Clellan's position in Washington, from July 1861 to 
the spring of '62, was rather that of a Dictator than of a 



GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 9 

mere Greneral. His house on President's Square was the 
real ' White House ; ' Senators and Members of Congress 
waited in his ante-chambers, and crowds hung around 
his door. On the 1st of Nov. 1861, Lieutenant-General 
Scott resigned the command-in-chief of the Union armies, 
and the young captain of engineers of seven months pre- 
vious vaulted into the position. The Baltimore plot was 
in fair way of realisation. 

Across the Potomac, on the lines of Arlington Heights 
and Alexandria, 150,000 men threw up forts, redoubts, 
and earthworks, and were carefully drilled by their own 
officers; while the * Young Napoleon' passed his time 
pleasantly in the capital. There was occasional picket- 
shooting * in the season,' but no semblance of active opera- 
tions against the enemy, who were pressing them almost 
into the river. Until September the 28th, the rebel flag 
flaunted defiantly in sight of the Capitol itself. 

But the citizens and Grovernment at last grew tired of 
the eternal refrain, ' All quiet on the Potomac,' and the 
' Young Napoleon ' received an order to move on with 
such emphasis that he dared not refuse obedience to the 
mandate. 



CHAPTER II. 

DISAPPEAKANCE OF THE CONFEDERATES FROM THE 
LINES OF MANASSAS. 

"Washington: March 13. 
We have apparently lost sight of the enemy. Some 
suppose the Confederate army has fallen back towards 
Richmond, others assert that a considerable portion of it 
has gone to reinforce Greneral Joseph Johnston in the 
northern part of the State, whilst many express their fears 
that Burnside will be overwhelmed by it before succour 
can reach him. M'^Clellan is slowly creeping into Lower 
Virginia in great force, and Banks has occupied Win- 
chester, without 'opposition ; but whether the former or the 
latter will first attack or be attacked it is impossible to 
say. Perhaps M*'Clellan is merely taking up a position to 
prevent the retreat of Johnston's army upon Richmond, 
and when this is efifected the rebels will be taken between 
his forces and those of Banks. I received a very broad 
hint to this effect a few days ago, and am daily expecting 
another which shall decide whether I attach myself for the 
present to the army of the Greneral-in-Chief or to that of 
his subordinate. I do not think M°Clella»n will attack the 
main body of the Confederates to the southward while 
their northern army threatens his rear, and have therefore 
remained in Washington until events further develope 
themselves. A few hours will carry me to either of the 



GEN; M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 11 

two points, and I shall thus be enabled to witness the first 
engagement. 

There is a stronger outcry than ever against M'^Clellan 
for letting the enemy slip away from Manassas. The 
general opinion is that be has been fooled by the wily foe; 
and the only parties disposed to show confidence in him 
and his plans are the West Point officers, who seem to 
think that a word against him is a reflection, not compli- 
mentary, upon themselves. 

The following order was issued on Tuesday last : — 
' Major- Greneral M*^Clellan having personally taken the 
field at the head of the army of the Potomac, until other- 
wise ordered, he is relieved from the command of the 
other military departments, he retaining command of the 
department of the Potomac' The words in italics cer- 
tainly seem to convey a threat. The same order, contains 
also the following: — 'Ordered also, that the country west 
of the department of the Potomac and east of the depart- 
ment of the Mississippi ' (that is to say, from a line drawn 
due north and south through Knoxville, Tennessee), ' be a 
military department, to be called the Mountain Depart- 
ment, and that the same be commanded by Major-General 
Fremont.' This region includes the extreme mountainous 
districts of Western Virginia, Kentucky, aud Tennessee, 
and does not afford the Pathfinder much field for action. 
General Halleck now commands on both sides of the 
Mississippi river. Hunter and Buell being ordered to report 
henceforward to him. The order winds up as follows : — 
* All the commanders of departments, after the receipt of 
this order by them respectively, will report severally and 
directly to the Secretary of War, and prompt, full, and 
frequent reports will be expected of all and each of them. 

'Abeaham Lincoln.' 



12 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

The main army of the Confederates has, it would appear, 
retreated upon Gordonsville. This place is to the rear of 
the Rappahannock river, and is connected by rail with 
Western and Central Virginia, Tennessee, and the south- 
west. This new position is reported to be much stronger 
even than that of Manassas, but as the greater portion of 
their railroad communication has been destroyed by late 
events in Kentucky and Tennessee, and M'^Clellan is slowly 
advancing, they may not long be able to hold it. 

The following order from the President proves that the 
movements of the different armies of the Union some weeks 
ago were all parts of a settled plan : — 

ExECUTiYE Mansion, Washington: 
January 27, 1862. 
President's General War Order, No. 1. 

Ordere(f, — That the 22nd day of February, 1862, be the day 
for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the 
United States against the insurgent forces. That especially 
The army at and about Fortress Monroe, 
The army of the Potomac, 
The army of Western Virginia, 
The army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, 
The army and flotilla at Cairo, 
And a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, 
be ready for a movement on that day. 

That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective 
commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to 
obey additional orders when duly given. 

That the Heads of Departments, and especially the Secretaries 
of War and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the 
General-in-Chief, with all other commanders and subordinatea 
of land and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and 
full responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order. 

Abraham Lincoln. 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 13 

Perhaps the above may be the reason for the sudden 
evacuation of Manassas by the enemy, and their naval 
movements in Hampton Eoads. Such orders are seldom 
kept secret, and Davis may have learnt what threatened 
him, and ordered a retreat in time. It is believed by 
many qualified to express an opinion on the subject that 
the enemy's design was to sink all the vessels of war at 
Hampton Eoads, and then to sail up the Chesapeake to 
Annapolis and Baltimore, with the object of destroying 
the great fleet of transjiorts now collecting at these two 
ports. Having thus obtained command of those waters, 
they would throw a large force upon Newport News, and 
finally invest Fortress Monroe itself. All this was frustrated 
by the timely arrival of the little ' Monitor.' 

It would be impossible to give you a reasonable idea of 
the panic produced by the devastations of the ii-on-clad 
Confederate battery ' Merrimac' The forts in New York 
Harbour and other Northern ports were immediately filled 
with artillerymen, and it was even proposed to sink stone- 
laden ships on the New York bar so as to prevent the ex- 
pected approach of the terrible destroyer. Although she 
was beaten off the second day by Ericsson's little ' Moni- 
tor,' the apprehension is not entirely allayed ; fears are 
entertained by some that the * Merrimac ' is not injured as- 
represented ; but inasmuch as she has not shown herself 
during the week, these surmises may be incorrect. Mr.. 
Fox, the Assistant-Secretary of the Navy, who was present, 
during the second day's action, says she was damaged the 
previous day by the last broadside of the ' Cumberland ; ' 
the * Monitor' handled her very severely, and the Norfolk 
papers report her ' only slightly injured,' which is as much 
as they would be likely to own to. The Secretary states 
that the ' Merrimac ' was coated all over with tallow, and; 



14 GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, 

the shot of her antagonist would thus be glanced off with- 
out much damage.* She is represented to be armed with 
eight 10-inch guns, and two 100-pounder Armstrongs. 
French officers who went on board her at Norfolk Navy- 
yard report the latter guns to be positively Armstrongs. 
They are not Whitworths, as will be seen from the follow- 
ing circumstance. When the 'Monitor' and ' Merrimac ' 
were closing in on each other, the former was struck in 
her turret by one of these rifle projectiles ; the bolt pene- 
trated the iron four-and-a-half inches deep, and broke off 
short, leaving the iron and portions of the lead around 
immoveably fixed in the tower. The bolt is circular, not 
hexagonal; and, besides, Whitworth's projectiles are of 
iron alone. 

The captain of Her Majesty's frigate 'Einaldo,' which 
arrived a few days since at Fortress Monroe, is stated to 
have expressed the opinion that nothing could take or 
hurt the little 'Monitor.' It is very evident that 100-pound 
rifle shots have scarcely any eff"ect upon her. The only 
projectiles calculated to damage this new class of vessels 
are enormousiy heavier than any yet manufactured in 
Europe — shot, for instance, fifteen or twenty inches in 
diameter — spherical, not rifle, because the initial velocity 
of the former is very much greater than the latter. The 
naval authorities here are now constructing guns of this 
calibre on the Eodman principle, the gun in casting being 
cooled from the centre outwards. Ships like the ' War- 
rior ' and ' La Gloire ' will stand a very poor chance 
against such ordnance as this. 

* An admirable mode of throwing off shot. The turrets of the 'Monitors ' 
vxe alwaj-s coated with it during action, and an American naval commander 
once informed me that he felt satisfied this ' slushing ' was as good a pro- 
tection as an additional inch plate of iron. 



OEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 15 

The report that barges had been sunk in the channel, 
so as to prevent the exit of the * Merrimac,' proves to be a 
canard. Commodore Goldsborough, the flag-officer on 
that station, has returned from Albemarle Sound, and 
hoisted his flag on board the ' Minnesota,' a frigate of the 
same class as the ' Wabash ' and our own ' Mersey.' He 
states his determination to run down the ' Merrimac' under 
full steam when she next makes her appearance, whether 
he sink his own ship or not ; and as her speed is some 
eight knots an hour, whilst that of the battery is only 
five, he may probably make good his design. Several gun- 
boats have arrived at the scene of action during the pre- 
sent week, and their eleven-inch Dahlgrens will probably 
render eflScient service in the next engagement. These 
guns throw a solid shot weighing 1701b. The following 
letter from the chief engineer of the ' Monitor ' will prove 
of interest to the scientific world : — 

Ieon-clad 'Monitoe,' Hampton Boads: 
March 9. 

My dear Sir, — After a stormy passage, which proved us to be 
the finest seaboat I was ever in, we fought the " Merrimac ' for 
more than three hours this afternoon, and sent her back to 
Norfolk in a sinking condition. Iron-clad against iron -clad. 
We manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other with 
mutual fierceness, I consider that both ships were well fought. 
We were struck twenty-two times, pilot-house twice, turret nine 
times, side armour eight times, deck three times. The only 
vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your great loga 
(9 by 12 inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just 
outside where the captain had his eyes, and it has disabled him, 
by destroying his left eye, and temporai-ily blinding the other. 
The log is not quite in two, but is broken and pressed inward one 
and a half inches. She tried to run us down and sink us as she 
did the ' Cumberland' yesterday, but she got the worst of it. Her 



16 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

bow passed over our deck, and our sharp upper edge side cut 
through the light iron she had upon her stern, and well into her 
oak. She will not try that again. She gave us a tremendous 
thump, but did not injure us in the least. We are just able to 
find the point of contact. 

Congress is manfully supporting the President in his 
emancipationist policy, the advocates of freedom proving 
themselves largely in the majority. To-day, the Senate 
has been discussing the bill ' For the release of certain 
'persons ' (not chattels) ' held to service or labour in the 
District of Columbia.' All slaves are to be emancipated, 
their owners to present claims for compensation (if loyal 
citizens) to commissioners appointed by the Secretary of 
the Treasury. No claim will be allowed for slaves brought 
into the district after the passing of the Act ; and kid- 
nappers of negroes from the district, for the purpose of re- 
enslaving them, will be punished on conviction with from 
five to twenty years in the penitentiary. It need not be 
feared that such an enormous amount of debt will be 
caused by this scheme of emancipation as the New York 
Herald and other pro-slavery journals represent. Although 
the offer is made to the Border (not the rebel) States in 
good faith, few slaveholders will probably accept it ; for 
the Government cannot compensate them for the loss of 
political power which they have heretofore enjoyed by the 
three-fifths representation. I speak by book when I state 
that the endorsement of the President's scheme of eman- 
cipation by Congress is mainly intended to give the 
Government a strong basis of future action. Cost what it 
may, slavery is doomed ; and, however much the national 
debt may be increased by a general acceptance of the 
offer, the country will be incalculably richer afterwards. 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 17 

March 14. 

Intelligence has reached this city of a grand concen- 
tration of rebel forces in and around Norfolk. Probably 
some portion of the army lately at Manassas is being 
directed upon that point ; for, if the Confederates lose that 
position, not merely Virginia, but North Carolina also, is 
lost to them. The Federal expedition forming at Annapolis 
is no doubt destined to the Norfolk navy-yard ; and, from 
what I hear, will sail within the next fortnight. Burnside 
is aware of the evacuation of Manassas, and no fears are 
expressed for his safety ; for should the worst come to the 
worst, he can soon regain his transports under protection of 
the gunboats. 

Although the matter is kept a profound secret, I 
believe Commodore Foote's Mississippi expedition has 
akeady sailed from Cairo, and is now on its way down the 
father of waters. Island No. 10 is the new stronghold of 
the rebels ; and Beauregard is in command there with a 
large force, assisted by thirteen gunboats. Island No. 10 is 
some 120 miles north of Memphis, and is flanked on both 
sides the river by precipitous heights and bluffs. The 13- 
inch mortar rafts will be tried here for the first time, and, 
should the island fall, the Mississippi will then be clear to 
New Orleans. I have heard it flatly stated by men whose 
opinions are worthy of notice that this city will be in 
possession of the North within the next two weeks. 

No further intelligence from the army up to 3 p.m. to- 
day. The weather cold and windy, and the roads dj^ying 
fast. 



CHAPTER IIL 

EMBARKA.TION OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 
FOR THE PENINSULA. 

Washington : March 16. 

The army is rapidly returning to its former position, and 
as rapidly embarking for some point unknown but to a few. 
I am unaware whether it be the Greneral's intention to 
occupy and defend the intrenchments and forts evacuated 
by the Confederates. I judge not, however, for the chain 
of batteries round Washington is ample to defend the city, 
and it is scarcely likely that the enemy will return, having 
once quitted. There is an immense fleet of light-draught 
steam transports now lying at Alexandria and the Wash- 
ington wharves, and troops and stores are being shipped 
night and day for a southern destination. Rumour will 
have it that the whole army is going, leaving only sufficient 
to defend the forts. 

' "WTiere are they going ? ' is a question everybody asks, 
and some even pretend to know. The Richmond Examiner 
describes as follows the line of defence taken up by the 
retreated Confederate army, declaring honestly, ' it is 
assumed now as a necessity in view of the great force which 
has been collected on the Potomac' The Examiner 
describes the new line as ' stretching from the Rappahan- 
nock River by a grand circle to Cumberland Gap, in the 
extreme south-western corner of the State, embracing the 



GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 19 

Central and the Virginia and Tennessee railroads, the chief 
cities of Virginia, and the valley of the James, with the 
canals and railroads within its circumference.' Such being 
the case, Greneral M°Clellan will probably seek to land his 
army in their rear, and several points are selected for the 
disembarkation of the troops. I do not think the Rap- 
pahannock is the point intended, because the country 
thereabouts is much cut up, and unsuited for the evolutions 
of large bodies of men ; the York River, however, is a broad, 
deep, and straight stream, and the army might be landed 
within a day's march of the city of Richmond. Then, again, 
the James River offers the advantages of a direct approach 
to the latter capital ; but the banks are probably defended 
by shore batteries, and would require the cooperation of 
gunboats to effect a landing. Others suggest that the 
destination of the army is the Nansemund River, so as to 
cooperate with Burnside and reduce the Norfolk dockyard 
and the cities in the vicinity ; that effected, the army 
would advance upon Richmond, meeting w^ith but little 
opposition in its path. 

I paid a visit to the Smithsonian Institute last evening, 
for the purpose of hearing an anti-slavery lecture by 
Wendell Phillips. The large hall of the institution was 
crowded by a well-dressed and evidently respectable 
audience, and on or near the platform were the Vice- 
President of the Republic, Messrs. Sumner and Wilson, 
and other members of the United States Senate and House 
of Representatives. President Lincoln was not present, 
but Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, his private secretaries, lent 
a quasi indorsement to the lecturer. Mr. Phillips is a 
radical Abolitionist of the Garrison school, and until this 
war advocated the breaking up of the Union as the only 
means of ridding the country of slavery. Now, however, 

C 2 



20 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

that under the war-power the constitution means liberty 
to all, he supports the Grovernment heart and soul, saying 
he is too much a Yankee not to accept liberty with thirty- 
four States, when he can get them. 

The lecturer commenced by stating he had prepared no 
discourse, and his speech, though brilliantly eloquent, cer- 
tainly lacked continuity. He regarded the struggle in 
Kansas as initiatory of the present contest. He lauded 
John Brown as having done more towards making liberty 
the national policy than any man, except William Lloyd 
Grarrison. ' Democracy said to Europe, " I breed heroes ; 
sit you at my feet." ' Mr. Phillips appeared to consider that 
the anti-slavery feeling of the North had forced the Pre- 
sident to adopt the views contained in his late special mes- 
sage to Congress ; the whole import of that message was 
an intimation to the Border States as follows : ' Gentlemen, 
now is your time to sell ; ' but the lecturer expressed his 
conviction that the President's suggestions were rather 
made for the purpose of establishing a future basis of 
action. The gentlemen on and near the platform showed 
by their smiles that Mr. Phillips's conclusions were not alto- 
gether incorrect. He was unacquainted with rail-splitting, 
but he understood that a small wedge was first driven into 
the wood, and larger ones followed after. This message 
of Mr. Lincoln's was the small wedge, and larger ones are 
certain to follow. The sentiment was received with 
laughter and applause by the audience, while those gentle- 
men who are known to be intimately connected with the 
Government accepted the position with an approving 
smile of indorsement. Mr. Phillips regarded the rebellion 
as a conspiracy to get possession of Washington, for the 
purpose of ruling the whole country, and it was a great 
mistake on the part of Jefferson Davis in not taking 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND. THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 21 

possession of the city last winter. ' The South came up to 
the Potomac without men, munitions, or money, but with 
an idea ; and the North came down with men, munitions, 
and monej;, but without an idea. Slavery began the war, 
and the Gov^ernment had the right out of rebellion to 
smite slavery to the dust. He thanked Grod for creating 
Beauregard, if he did, and every South Carolinian that came 
up to the Potomac, as they had given the Government the 
right to destroy slavery. He would send a hundred thou- 
sand men into South Carolina, and force the Government 
into a policy ; and when the yellow fever of the South 
drove out our men, he would garrison the fort with accli- 
matised negroes, under white officers, and hold them against 
the world.' 

It was strange and most satisfactory to hear a man of 
Wendell Phillips's antecedents persuading his hearers to 
support the President ; to hear him ejaculate, ' Go on, old 
man, I am with you.' Times are indeed changed when 
the straight-out Abolitionists, who have ceaselessly and con- 
fessedly endeavoured to break up the Union, can dare to 
address the public in the city of Washington, and be 
listened to and applauded by the Vice-President of the 
United States and the most prominent members of Con- 
gress. Old things have indeed passed away when Wendell 
Phillips, the Cicero of abolition, can league himself with 
Democrats and Eepublicans in furtherance of a common 
policy. There is but one explanation of this seeming 
enigma. The men of the North know that the recon- 
struction of the Union, only possible through subjugation 
of the South, is the certain doom of slavery. Their cause 
must therefore enlist the sympathies and prayers of all 
good men throughout the world, and, above all, of liberty- 
loving Englishmen. 



22 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

The successes of the ' Merrimac ' against wooden ships 
have awakened the whole country to the importance of 
iron-plated batteries, and the uselessness of stone defences 
to harbours and coasts. Little go-ahead Massachusetts, 
who never lets the grass grow under her feet, has already 
determined on building two similar vessels to the 'Monitor,' 
and New York is stirring in the same direction. An 
equally important move is to be made in reference to the 
canals running northward to the great lakes. All the 
locks are to be widened and lengthened, so as to admit 
the passage of iron batteries through the interior of the 
country. The Federal Government is seized with un- 
wonted energy. Several of the new and nearly finished 
sloops-of-war and gunboats are to be iron -plated forthwith, 
and many of the serviceable frigates are to be razeed and 
treated in the same manner. Senator Hale, the chairman 
of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, has introduced 
a bill for the construction of an iron-clad battery of not 
less than five or six thousand tons burden : the vessel is 
to be of -enormous strength and speed, and capable of 
acting as a ram. 1,000,000 dollars are set down for the 
cost of this battery. 13,000,000 dollars additional are 
proposed to be appropriated for iron-clad gunboats, and 
half a million more for extending the facilities of the 
Washington navy-yard, so as to roll and forge plates for 
armoured ships. 783,000 dollars are also set down for 
completing the celebrated Stevens submarine iron floating 
battery, and which has been building at Hoboken, near 
New York, since 1840. This, the first of iron batteries, is 
400 feet long, stronger than anything yet projected in 
Europe or America, and is calculated for a speed of twenty 
miles per hour, or seventeen miles when submerged. 
Those engineers who have been permitted to view the 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 23 

ship, if such it may be termed, assert that never has there 
been such a concentration of strength and locomotive 
power in any vessel yet built. The battery would cer- 
tainly sink any iron-plated ship now afloat. The Emperor 
Napoleon has the reputation in Europe of having first 
designed these iron vessels for war purposes ; but it is 
known here that he obtained his ideas from this self-same 
Stevens battery during his residence in the United States. 
I extract the following from the Philadelphia Ledger. 
War preparations evidently, even in America, cannot be 
carrried on without a large increase of the burdens of the 
people : — 

The public debt of the United States on the 1st of next July, 
it is estimated, will amount to 750,000,000 dollars. If the 
rebellion should be crushed by that time, the Government will 
still require an extraordinary annual expenditure to keep itself 
in a position to master the spirit of discord which the rebellion 
has evoked. The interest on the debt already incurred, some of 
it bearing 7'30 per cent., would amount to about 50,000,000 
dollars, with a sinking fund of 10,000,000 dollars. It is believed 
that the army cannot be reduced with safety to less than 100,000 
men, costing 75,000,000 dollars annually. Our coast defences 
and navy will cost 65,000,000 dollars ; the civil list 50,000,000 
dollars, making a total of 250,000,000 dollars as the annual 
expenditure. The total revenue from the old and new tariffs 
will amount to only 50,000,000 dollars, leaving 200,000,000 
dollars to be raised by extraordinary means. 

March 17, 1 p.m. 
I have just seen a telegram from Cairo, on the Missis- 
sippi, stating that Commodore Foote, with his fleet of 
iron-clad gunboats and 13-inch mortar -rafts, was within 
two miles of 'sland No. 10. Contrary to former reports, 
this island is so far from evacuated, that numerous batteries 
frown on the assailants, and large bodies of troops flank 



24 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

the approaches on the two banks. Beauregard is under- 
stood to be in command of the defenders, and Bishop 
(General) Polk acts as his lieutenant. The despatch was 
dated 10.30 p.m. yesterday (Sunday), and the attack was 
not expected to commence until this morning. Probably 
you will hear of the fall of the place by telegram to 
Boston. Our mail for Europe closes here in two 
hours. 

Island No. 10 is situated nearly opposite the town of 
Obionville, on the left bank of the Mississippi, twelve 
miles below Hickman, and about one hundred and ten 
above the city of Memphis. This island in possession of 
the Union forces, there will probably be little opposition 
thence to New Orleans, which city is represented to be 
undefended up to the present time. A confident belief is 
expressed by parties likely to know, that New Orleans will 
be occupied by the Federal armies within the next fort- 
night: General Halleck will follow the gunboats with his 
forces, and General Butler will enter the city from the 
Gulf. There are few Confederate troops in that vicinity, 
and the inhabitants will rather consent to a surrender 
than submit to a bombardment. 

I hear that General Sherman, in command at Port 
Eoyal, is superseded by General Hunter, lately acting on 
the western bank of the Mississippi. Sherman has a 
horror of responsibility, and is far too cautious and much 
too dyspeptic. 

Major-Gen eral Banks is at present in this city, sum- 
moned here by General M^Clellan. I understand that his 
army (it is ridiculous calling it a mere division) is about to 
march from Northern Virginia to Centreville. This shows 
that the Army of the Potomac proper is likely to embark 
en masse for some Southern point— where, we knoAv not 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 25 

as yet. The embarkation of the troops continues in great 
haste. 

I hear it stated that the bill for emancipation in the 
district of Columbia will receive the President's siofnature 
during the present week. The Confiscation Bill (which 
frees the slaves of rebels, that is to say, all the slaves in 
the Cotton States and Eastern Virginia) is expected to 
pass within two weeks. The good work is making rapid 
headway. 

March 20. 

An army of 150,000 men is not moved in a day. The 
embarkation of troops and materiel at Alexandria still 
continues, while many regiments proceed hence to Anna- 
polis, where an immense fleet of transports awaits their 
arrival. General M'^Clellan has established his head- 
quarters at the former city, and personally superintends 
the embarkation, everything being conducted with com- 
mendable secrecy. The Army of the Potomac has been 
divided into five corps cVarmee, commanded by Major- 
Grenerals M'Dowell, Heintzelman, Keyes, Sumner, and 
Banks ; and I now learn that three corps will be landed at 
different points on the eastern shores of Virginia. I am 
informed that one, at least, will forthwith proceed to For- 
tress Monroe ; and being reinforced there by several regi- 
ments now under General Wool, will cross Chesapeake Bay 
to the mouth of the Nansemund Eiver, and proceed to in- 
vest the city and dockyard of Norfolk. The fears lately 
expressed for the safety of Burnside's army prove to have 
been unfounded, for the General has turned up victorious 
at Newbern, on the Neuse Eiver, far away to the southward. 
The Confederates are known to have concentrated a large 
force at Suffolk in defence of Norfolk ; but, should it be a 
part of the plan of campaign to effect a junction of his 



26 GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

forces with those about to land by the Nansemund, there 
will be little difficulty, for the transports will bring his 
little army in quick time through Pamplico and Albemarle 
Sounds to within a short march of the city. I do not, 
however, think this will be effected for the present : the 
possession of Newbern menaces the important city of 
Beaufort and the still more important railroad jimction at 
Goldsborough. Beaufort, North Carolina, is reached from 
Newbern by a railroad traversing a swamp ; and as sup- 
plies can alone be brought to the former by this route, the 
reduction of the place is merely a question of time. A 
United States casemated work. Fort Macon, commands 
the approaches to the city seaward, and under the guns of 
this fort now rides the Confederate privateer ' Nashville.' 
We shall probably hear shortly that Beaufort, Macon, and 
the ' Nashville ' have lowered their flags to the energetic 
Burnside. Should this general, however, have received 
orders to cut off the railroad communication between Vir- 
ginia and the Gulf States, we shall receive intelligence of 
a fierce contest at Goldsborough, where the rebels have 
lost no time in entrenching themselves and massing some 
of their best regiments. 

Should this movement on Goldsborough be successfully 
accomplished, the result to the South will be incalculably 
damaging. Until the advance of the Union forces, com- 
mencing with the defeat of Zollicoffer, the Confederates 
had enjoyed much greater facilities for transporting troops, 
munitions, and stores than their opponents. The railroads 
in the Slave States, although nothing like so numerous as 
in the North, afforded them a speedier way of reaching the 
Border, and almost supplied the deficiency of other means 
of transportation. The battles of Mill Spring, Forts Henry 
and Donelsou, cut off their western line of communication 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 27 

with the Gulf, and Burnside will shortly endeavour to 
effect a similar result with the road passing southwards 
through the Eastern States. The consequence will be as 
follows. The Union armies, availing themselves of the 
ocean and rivers, will land army after army in the rear of 
the enemy, barring their retreat, and forcing them to 
accept battle under most disadvantageous terms. In the 
West this has already been accomplished to a considerable 
extent, and less than a month will see M^Clellan advancing 
upon Eichmond, with the main army of the rebels pro- 
bably entrenched northwards, on the Eappahannock. 

Commodore Foote finds the taking of Island No. 10 a 
much more difficult matter than he supposed, and we now 
learn that the reported capture of the place was premature. 
I saw a telegram to-day from the gallant sailor, stating 
that the batteries rose one above the other on the island, 
and that he should scarcely be successful in his attack until 
Greneral Pope and his army of 30,000 Union troops made 
a movement in the rear of the defenders. ' He describes 
the position as much stronger than that of Columbus, but 
expresses a belief that a certain 'traverse' (nautical for 
trick or kink) ' would astonish Secesh ! ' The commodore 
represents his rifle-gun practice as perfect, the gunboats 
being armed with rifled 80-pounders, and he speaks highly 
of the efficiency of the jnortar rafts. A 13 -inch shell had 
exploded in the Confederate floating battery, ' putting an 
end to the concern in short metre.' Our latest account 
from the scene of conflict informs us that General Pope 
was still at Madrid, ten miles below the island. He is 
constructing batteries at that point for the purpose of 
cutting off the retreat of the enemy and their gunboats, 
and when these are finished (they may be ere this) he will 
cross the river and attack the Confederates in their rear 



28 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

There does not appear to be any escape for the rebels, and 
we daily expect to hear that 15,000 more prisoners are on 
their way north, and Grenerals Beauregard and Polk about 
to join Buckner and Tilghman at Fort Warren. 

It is difiScult to keep the run of the daily-occurring vic- 
tories of the Union forces. Late intelligence from Port Royal 
tells us of the energetic Dupont capturing town after town 
on the Florida coast. You will gather full particulars of 
these triumphs from the files of American papers, but I 
wish particularly to draw your attention to the occupation 
of St. Augustine, where the townspeople themselves hoisted 
the Union flag. Of course there was an attempt to destroy 
the place by the rebel army previous to evacuating it, but 
fear of remaining too long prevented their carrying out 
their design. The rebels tried a similar action in reference 
to the city of Newborn, just captured by Burnside, the 
citizens vainly opposing them, and throughout the wide 
extent of country now the scene of conflict, this seems 
to be the policy of their leaders. At one of the towns 
in Northern Virginia, just entered by the army under 
Greneral Banks, the retreating rebels fired on the place 
heedless of the women and children inside. They in no 
case consult the wishes of the people, either in respect to 
the cities or the stores of cotton and tobacco ; everything 
is to be burned by order of the Confederate Grovernment, 
and Europeans, forsooth, are to be bamboozled with the 
lie that all this is done out of pure patriotism. The 
Southern papers afford sufficient evidence that the masses 
of the people are allowed to have no voice in the matter. 

March 21. 

The report that Mr. Commissioner Yancey had been 
taken prisoner on board a schooner which was endeavour- 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 29 

ing to run the blockade appears to be confirmed. This 
eminent personage and beau ideal of the Southern slave- 
holding gentleman had cropped his hair close and shaved 
his face clean, clothing himself in the garb of a sailor. 
It is said that a newspaper reporter detected the commis- 
sioner through this disguise. 

Mr. Jefferson Davis has issued a proclamation calling out 
all the militia in his dominions between the ages of sixteen 
and sixty years, ordering them to report to head-quarters by 
companies. Volunteering in the South does not seem to 
answer, or there would be no necessity for such a measure 
as this ; but should he succeed in getting the men it is 
difficult to tell when he will obtain arms for them. How 
different is the patriotism of the Free States !— they have 
given nearly 700,000 men to support their Government, 
although President Lincoln merely asked for 400,000, and 
Congress only voted him 500,000. It was evident that 
volunteering in the North would have gone on to past a 
million, but the War Department put a check on volun- 
teering months ago. It is reported along the lines by 
fugitive negroes that a perfect panic exists throughout the 
South, all business being entirely suspended. And no 
wonder. There is not a Slave State in which the Union 
armies- have not obtained a foothold, and at the most im- 
portant strategic points they are in great force. The able- 
bodied whites are hundreds of miles northward, struggling 
against the fast-advancing foe, and Cottondom is left 
nearly defenceless. At Eichmond the conspirators are 
quarrelling amongst themselves, their former supporters, 
particularly amongst their newspapers, daily attacking the 
management of the war. It is openly asserted that many 
of the Confederate leaders and chiefs of the bureaus at 
Richmond are the spies of Mr. Seward ; and when such 



30 aEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

charges as these are made it is easy to see that the rebel- 
lion is going to the bad. 

3 o'clock P.M. — There is no further news from the West, 
the last telegram to head-quarters being dated from Cairo 
thirty-nine hours ago. I think it is highly probable you 
will hear of the capture of Island No. 10 before the sailing 
of the steamer to-morrow, and with it the whole army of 
defenders. All is quiet elsewhere — a lull before the storm. 

Faibfax Seminaet, Yieginia : March 28. 

I have returned to head-quarters of the First New Jersey 
Brigade, whence I addressed you several letters six months 
ago ; and, as with others of this army of the Potomac, I 
find the four regiments composing it greatly improved in 
appearance, drill, and discipline. The General command- 
ing the brigade, Phillip Kearny, has lately performed an 
act which reflects as much credit on himself as upon the 
officers and men under him. Being offered the rank of 
Greneral of Division, he refused the step unless he could 
take his brigade with him, and when Major-Greneral 
Franklin was requested to consent to the exchange of the 
brigade in question, he positively refused, on the ground 
that it was the best in his division. When the army 
moved forward to Manassas some weeks ago, Greneral 
Kearny was the first to occupy Centreville and Fairfax 
Court House, and some show of dissatisfaction was evinced 
by his command, when the order came to march back to 
their old quarters. Fairfax Seminary is about three miles 
from Alexandria, where the army is embarking as fast as 
circumstances will permit ; but there are rumours that 
General M'Dowell's coi^s d'armee, which includes Frank- 
lin's division, will not leave until the last. The men, I 
need n'ot say, are most anxious to be off, and I hazard the 



GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 31 

prediction that no brigade will render more efficient service 
than that led by General Kearny. It is composed of first- 
rate materiel, well officered, and is the cleanest I have yet 
seen in this army. 

G-eneral M^Clellan has his residence and head-quarters 
within a stone's-throw of where I am writing. The em- 
barkation at Alexandria is carried on under his super- 
vision, and pushed forward with all possible rapidity, but 
not sufficiently so to please the grumblers, who are as 
numerous, if not more so, than similar persons are with 
us. People in civil life have no idea of the immense 
train which must follow an army. Take, for instance, a 
single brigade of 4,000 infantry. Twenty ambulances, 
twenty-five large army wagons, and nearly 200 horses, 
have to be provided for, in addition to ammunition, forage, 
and provisions. The force moving towards Southern 
Virginia by the Potomac and Chesapeake rivers, numbers 
at least 100,000 men, so that if we multiply the above 
items by 25, we may form some idea of the difficulties 
attendant upon the movement of an army. Eecollecting 
the time necessary to embark our own troops and those of 
France at the commencement of the Crimean war, we 
should make proper allowance for the apparent slowness 
of the present operations. 

It is a curious sight to pass through the vast fleet of 
transports now arriving, departing, and loading, at the 
once quiet port of Alexandria, on the Potomac. The 
river steamboats of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, 
have been taken up by the Grovernment, and countless 
schooners and brigs line the shores of the river, giving 
the neighbourhood the appearance of our ' Pool.' Eapid 
snorting little tugs flit about from pier to pier, dragging 
the barks here and there, or steaming away for the South 



32 GEN. m"^clellan and the peninsula campaign. 

with a long line of vessels attached to them. Stalls are 
fitted up for horses on the decks of these sailing craft, 
whilst the tugs themselves are laden with boxes, barrels, 
&c. The steamers are those long, white-painted floating- 
houses, which have become familiar to Englishmen through 
panoramas of the Mississippi — narrow, sharp hulls, over- 
hanging decks, immense paddle-boxes, and a two or three- 
storied edifice running the entire length of the vessel. 
One of these monsters will easily carry 1,000 men — that is 
to say, a complete regiment — officers and all. The city 
itself now presents an exceedingly busy appearance, par- 
ticularly in the neighbourhood of the river, for the 
wharves and warehouses are covered and filled with army 
stores of all sorts. It is not alone at Alexandria that this 
work is going on ; some portion of the troops and mate- 
riel are shipped from Washington, and far more at Anna- 
polis; but two weeks at the least will be necessary to 
enable all to embark. You will thus perceive that the 
army of the Potomac is pushing on to Richmond by the 
river itself. Fortress Monroe being its first resting-place. 

March 29. 
There appears to be a dead-lock in the proceedings at 
Island No. 10, but, strange to say, the public as yet evince 
no impatience. A balloon reconnaissance has been made 
of the enemy's works, and the fact thereby substantiated, 
that Commodore Foote's shells mostly exploded beyond 
the Confederate batteries. The elevation has therefore 
been depressed, and it is confidently expected that the 
works will soon be rendered untenable. Commodore Foote 
lias experienced much difficulty from the rapid current of 
the Mississippi, and the fact that his boats are intended to 
fight with their bows np stream, instead of down. The 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 33 

vessels are only iron-plated over their bows, and were they 
laid broadside on th^ enemy they would probably be sunk 
by the heavy ordnance of the rebels. I think, however, 
there may be an intentional delay in the proceedings, 
more especially as Foote has expressed his belief that the 
works cannot be reduced until the army attacks the rear 
of the defenders. General Pope, at New Madrid, on the 
opposite bank of the river, cannot pass the stream in its 
present swollen condition, but he effectually bars the 
retreat of the Confederate gunboats and transports. 
Greneral Ulysses Grant, the victor of Fort Donelson, is 
now at Savannah, on the Tennessee Kiver, some ninety 
miles in a south-easterly direction from Island No. 10. 
Eighteen miles from Savannah is the town of Corinth, in 
the northern angle of the State of Mississippi, and here 
General Beauregard is assembling a large army for the 
defence of the Mississippi Valley. Generals Polk and 
Cheatham, according to last accounts, have just joined 
him ; and, if we can believe the Southern papers, Beaure- 
gard is now at the head of 80,000 men. We hear, too, 
that the Confederates have changed their plan of cam- 
paign, and that henceforward, instead of weakening them- 
selves by defending numerous points, they will mass their 
forces and hazard their future on the chances of great 
battles. The only objection to this lies in the fact of their 
being much outnumbered by their antagonists, besides 
which the Western troops under Grant are flushed with a 
long series of victories, while the Southerners are more or 
less demoralised. We are daily expecting to hear news of a 
collision between the two armies, and should Beauregard 
be defeated. Island No. 10 must immediately be evacuated, 
since Grant would be able to march westward towards 
Memphis, cutting off four lines of railroad on his passage, 

D 



34 GEN. M<=CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Beauregard's position at Corinth is of the highest stra- 
tegic importance, the town being at the point of inter- 
section of the Memphis and Charleston railroad and the 
Mobile and Ohio line. Its possession by the Federal army 
would thus destroy railroad communication between 
Tennessee and the Atlantic and Gulf States, cutting oflf 
the Confederates from all supplies. The occupation of 
Corinth by the Union army is so necessary to its final 
success that we shall probably hear of Greneral Halleck 
assuming command in person at the expected battle. It 
was rumoured that Jefferson Davis was about to proceed 
west for the purpose of taking the chief command at this 
most important point : but the threatening aspect of affairs 
in Virginia, and the precarious condition of Norfolk and 
Richmond, will probably induce him to postpone the trip. 
- I called this morning upon General M^Clellan, and found 
the officers of his staff preparing to leave during the day 
for Alexandria. The general not being visible at so early an 
hour, I stepped into a tent pointed me by the sentry, and 
was immediately interrogated by a young aide-de-camp as 
to the object of my visit. This officer, apparently some 
two or three-and-twenty years old, was dressed in the 
plain dark blue suit of a captain, the unpretending 
shoulder-straps with two gold lace bars showing his rank. 
Tall and well-formed, his handsome face was bedecked 
with moustache and nascent beard, growing a V Americaine; 
his tent, though roomy, was perfectly Spartan in adorn- 
ment, being somewhat below the average of most of the 
volunteer officers. The narrow bed, about two feet six 
wide, was covered with coarse army blankets, but no sheets, 
.and the entire arrangements betokened a supreme contempt 
of luxury. He sat on his bed and conversed with me for 
half an hour, the subject being the conduct of the war and 



GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 35 

the attitude of the English Government during the present 
troubles of the great Eepublic. The young captain's 
accent was slightly foreign ; otherwise his knowledge of our 
language was perfect, much more than is generally found 
amongst foreigners. I may as well state that I was con- 
versing with the Count of Paris — a fact of which I was at 
first unaware, but learned it subsequently by * guessing,' as 
they say here. The Count is a powerful young fellow, 
physically, and I am sure must be a very agreeable com- 
panion with his comrades, for his observations to me were 
both just and witty, and not in the slightest degree 
tinctured with arrogance. "\Vhatever fortunes may be in 
store for him, I believe he will prove worthy of them, and 
he certainly showed himself perfectly at home amongst 
the Kepublicans of the New World. 

Washington: March 31. (3. p.m.) 

I have come over from the camp to the capital, expecting 

to find telegraphic and other news, but with little result 

for my pains. There is, in fact, a considerable dearth of 

intelligence, both sides in this great struggle being engaged 

in remarshalling their forces for a supreme effort. The 

latest news at this moment (the mail closing for Europe in 

half an hour) is mostly negative. Nothing further from 

Island No. 10, and affairs unsensational at Fortress Monroe. 

We have been expecting a new exodus of the terrible 

' Merrimac' and her iron-plated consorts, the * Yorktown ' 

and ' Jamestown ;' but it is evident that the first was so 

mauled by the little giant ' Monitor,' that she has been 

docked for repairs. Captain Fox, the energetic Assistant 

Secretary of the Navy, says every preparation has been 

made to meet her ; and his quiet self-possessed manner 

satisfies me that she will be worse handled on her next 

exit than heretofore. 

02 



36 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 

Greneral M°Clellan has taken up his quarters on board 
one of the New York river-boats, the ' Commodore,' but I 
tiiink he will not depart until the end of this week. At 
Fortress Monroe there are now the two corps d'armee of 
Grenerals Heintzelman and Keyes, representing about 
70,000 men, and I hear that General M'Dowell's corps 
will leave this week, which will make 40,000 more. I 
believe the latter is to land at the mouth of the York 
Eiver, the best and shortest route to Eichmond. Sumner's 
corps dfarmee is now in and around Manassas, and that 
under Banks is advancing upon the same point by the 
valley of the Shenandoah, but I have no idea or informa- 
tion what their future movements will be. I shall 
probably leave for the South with the force under Greneral 
M'DoweU. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

ADVANCE OF GENEKAL M'DOWELl's CORPS UPON 
WARRINGTON JUNCTION. 

Bbiscoe's Station, Oeange and Axexandkia 
Eailhoad, Vieginia : April 5. 

Brigadier-Gteneral Kearny's command, composed of the 
1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th New Jersey Eegiments, left their 
winter quarters at Alexandra Seminary this morning, and 
embarked on the railroad cars about one mile from the 
latter place. This brigade is the first of General Franklin's 
division of 16,000 men ; and the whole of Major-Greneral 
M'Dowell's corps d'armee, of which it forms a part, is 
under orders to follow it along the line of railroad to the 
banks of the Eappahaunock. An order was issued yesterday 
morning by the Secretary of War, constituting two new 
military departments, M'Dowell being placed at the head 
of the department of the Eappahannock, extending from 
the east of the Potomac Eiver to the Blue Eidge Moun- 
tains, and General Banks commanding in that of the 
Shenandoah, west of the Blue Eidge and east of the 
Alleghanies. M'Dowell's corps d'armee consists of four 
divisions, and is now said to number between 60,000 and 
70,000 men and ninety pieces of artillery. Such is the 
report of men who ought to be acquainted with the true 
state of the case, but your readers can take it cum grano 
satis. The department of the Eappahannock extends 



38 GEN. M'^CLELLA.N AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

south to the city of Eichmond, and the troops are in high 
spirits at the prospect of an early brush with the main 
army of the rebels under Joe Johnston, who is said to be 
entrenching himself between the Eappahannock and 
Kapidan rivers. 

We left the Seminary about eleven o'clock. The 
murning was wet and cheerless, and as we all expected to 
be off soon after reveillee, and the tents had been struck at 
an early hour and packed in the waggons, we were nearly 
wet through before starting. Twenty minutes' walk 
through mud ancle-deep brought us to the railroad, where 
we found four long trains awaiting our arrival, and G-eneral 
Franklin already on the ground to superintend the embark- 
ation. The railroad at this point runs through a valley, 
and it was a cheering sight to watch 4,000 men descending 
from the hills at a quick step to the music of their bands, 
and giving volley after volley of cheers to the General of 
Division. The troops were packed closely in the cars 
or carriages, as we call them, and huddled together on the 
roofs, until there was imminent danger of the latter being 
crushed in ; indeed, it was found necessary, during the 
journey, to support the roofs with poles, the pioneers 
proving themselves particularly handy in the emergency. 
We understood that our destination was .Warrington Junc- 
tion, eight or ten miles beyond Manassas, but the road was 
in so dilapidated a condition, the trains so heavy, and the 
grades so trying, that we alighted at nightfall at Briscoe's, 
and are now encamped about four miles beyond the 
celebrated field of Bull Run. Several times during the trip 
we found the grades too steep for our eogine, and at last 
half our cars were disconnected, and one portion of the 
train was hurried forward to the nearest switch or siding 
(nearly all the railroads in the South are single tracks), 



OEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 39 

when the locomotive returned to fetch the remainder. 
Another time vJe waited for the second train to come up 
and push us over the hill, and we had leisure to examine 
a deserted rebel encampment, or town of well-constructed 
log huts, as it should rather be called. We found nearly 
the entire of the ground in and around this encampment 
covered with graves, the Confederate officers having per- 
mitted the burials to be made within half a dozen yards of 
the huts. Judging by the coarse inscriptions on the head- 
stones, most of the interments belonged to Alabama 
regiments, with a slight sprinkling of Texans, and the 
mortality must have been enormous. 

Catlett's Station, neae Waebington: 
April 6. 

A bright warm sunrise this morning gave us the hope 
of an early spring, but the weather is so changeable in this 
State of Virginia, that we can count only on a single day 
of fine weather. Early hours are the rule in camps, and 
when we got from under the blankets, at six o'clock, the 
men detailed as cooks had already prepared the modest 
breakfast for the troops, and the smoke of a hundred fires 
rose spirally towards the heavens. The four regiments 
composing Greneral Kearny's brigade were encamped on 
four hills lying parallel to each other, and had it not been 
for the pine forests, bounding the prospect, and the nume- 
rous brooks coursing down the slopes, we might have 
thought ourselves in the South Downs of England. Gre- 
neral Kearny possesses the proper military horror of waggon 
trains, and the baggage of officers and men alike had been 
reduced to the minimum ; the former were permitted to 
carry small wall tents, but the latter sheltered themselves 
beneath the uncomfortable tentes d'ahri, which afford 



40 GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

almost as much protection from the weather as a medium- 
sized pocket-handkerchief. The impedimenta carried by 
a private in this army are as follows : — A knapsack 
averaging 30 lbs., a thick woollen blanket, a tin canteen 
holding three pints, five days' rations, forty rounds of am- 
munition, and half one of the above shelter tents. The 
musket is either our long Enfield or the Springfield rifle, 
weighing about the same, but a few of the regiments are 
armed with the ' Minie ' or the * Belgian ; ' here and there 
we find some of the old smooth-bore, but these are being 
rapidly exchanged for the improved weapon. 

The First New Jersey Brigade is the first brigade in the 
first division of Major-Greneral M'Dowell's corps cVarmee, 
which, until the day before yesterday, was the first corps 
in the army of the Potomac. I am marching with the 
first regiment of the brigade, and am in front of the 
advance; but we hear that many Federal troops are 
before us — Greneral Blencker's division among the rest. 
Probably these forces are merely occupying the Confede- 
rate position at Manassas and the approaches towards the 
Rappahannock, to be vacated by them when McDowell's 
corps d'armee has advanced from its winter quarters. 

I breakfasted this morning at the house of a farmer near 
our camp. He of course pretended to be an ' Union man,' 
and opposed to the heresy of Secession ; but little confi- 
dence can be placed in the loyalty of any of the inhabitants 
of States where slavery exists by law. The Border Slave 
States are allied by pride to those of the Gulf, and will do 
anything in their power to assist them, if they get the op- 
portunity. When the Union armies approach, the people 
are either silent and morose, or out of the way ; and this 
is more emphatically the case where Virginia is concerned. 
The policy of the Federal Grovernment, let it be called by 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 41 

what name it may, is really coercion towards the Border 
States, and subjugation towards those of the Gulf.; and if 
the people of the former appear to welcome the Northern 
armies it is only because they fear to evince their real 
feelings. And so must it be so long as anything remains — 
in fact, or hope — of the political power of slavery. The 
farmer at whose house I took breakfast appeared to be a- 
quiet, harmless individual, and seemingly indifferent to 
politics ; he explained that the Southern troops had carried 
off his stock, destroyed his fences, &c., and he also spoke 
on the excessive prices of provisions and clothing since the 
commencement of the war. 

The brigade started from Briscoe's Station at noon, 
marching along the railroad towards Catlett's, distant about 
seven miles The Orange and Alexandria road is almost 
entirely owned by Northern capitalists, and none but white 
labour, mostly Irish, has been engaged upon it. For these 
reasons the Southerners always regard it as an Abolitionist 
line, and I hear that long before the present troubles the 
directors had to keep guards constantly at their bridges to 
prevent their being destroyed. The road runs through a 
very hilly country, and the curves are numerous and sharp, 
and the grades exceedingly heavy; it is said that the 
engineer who built the line received so much extra for 
every curve, so as to avoid the expense of viaducts. The 
sleepers are miserably poor, nothing but raw pine logs of 
no great weight ; it is a wonder that the trains do not 
more frequently run off the track. There must have been 
an immense business carried on upon this road during the 
past twelve months, judging by the dilapidated condition 
of the rails and sleepers ; the former are worn away on the 
outer edge, and very unsafe, and the sleepers are not 
merely rotten and worm-eaten, but the ballasting between 



42 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

them is gone, obliging the troops to step, or rather jump, 
from one to the next. Seven miles of such marching was 
by no means pleasant even to those who did not carry a 
musket and knapsack. A mile or two from Briscoe's we 
got into a more level country, and the scenery became very 
beautiful. I have never yet seen any land which appeared 
60 adapted for wheat as this State of Virginia ; and the 
troops seemed to have the same opinion, for they amused 
themselves during the march with selecting farms and tell- 
ing each other what produce they would raise * after the 
war was over.' The cormtry undulates gradually, and here 
and there are level plains between the hills, intersected in 
all directions by clear running streams. What a magnifi- 
cent State Virginia would be were she consecrated to free 
labour ! As it is, the State is not half cleared of its woods, 
the richest lands are undrained, and the countless brooks 
course down the hills to the many rivers — useless because 
neglected. Virginia might supply half Europe with wheat 
were she settled by men from the Free States ; but there 
is no hope for her so long as she remains under the curse 
of slavery. 

In the Southern States you look vainly for anything hav- 
ing the appearance of a village : now and then you come 
upon a house or two, but the distances between them are so 
remote that your first emotion is one of surprise. As the 
troops marched along the line, we came upon a farmer- 
looking individual who gave us the only God-speed with 
which we have yet been favoured : he looked at us with a 
smiling face, and said, ' Go it, boys ; I'm glad to see so many 
of you.' Such words in such a place naturally astonished us, 
and a dozen voices from the ranks immediately asked him 
what State he was from, when he informed us he was bom 
in New Jersey, but had been settled some years in Virginia, 



GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 43 

Farther on we overtook a Virginian gentleman out with bis 
dogs for a stroll ; but he, of course, had no word of conso- 
lation or look of approval for the invaders of Southern 
rights. These were all the people we met during our walk 
of seven miles; and this walk may be taken as a fair 
sample of what a traveller meets in the Southern country. 
As we neared the termination of the day's march the 
evidences became more frequent of the desolation caused 
by the retreating Confederates. The bridges on the railroad 
were all destroyed, the rails carried off, and the sleepers 
burnt, the object of course being to retard the pursuing 
army. This work of destruction was evidently performed 
in a leisurely and thorough manner. The bridges, being 
all of wood, were burned ; and the stone abutments in 
many cases blown away by gunpowder ; but, notwithstand- 
ing all the ruin, the advancing armies will not long be 
retarded. Several of the bridges have already been built 
anew, and I am informed that during the present week the 
line will be completed from Washington to the banks of the 
Eappahannock Eiver. The measurements have been taken 
all along the road, and the bridges are being rapidly con- 
structed at the capital, and, when finished, they will be 
forwarded by trains to their various destinations. I un- 
derstand that the structure over the Eappahannock was 
no less than 1,200 feet in length, but this has gone the 
same as the rest. At Catlett's Station, and away to the 
latter point, the rails are quite useless : the sleepers 
have been taken, from the road and piled up at equal dis- 
tances, the rails laid on top, and fire applied to the heap ; 
nothing now remains of eight or ten miles of road but 
black ashes and warped and twisted rails. The apparatus 
for supplying water to the locomotives have all disappeared, 
the locomotives and cars have been carried away South, 



44 OEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

and nothing in fine remains put the graded road. Never* 
theless, a few weeks will put the line in far better condition 
than it has been in for years. 

It will of course be asked, Does the South intend con- 
tinuing this terrible work of destruction wherever and 
whenever the Northern armies enter its confines? If 
these railroads and public works are to be destroyed, and 
their towns and cities burned up, what is to become of the 
mass of the Southern people ? Surely the millions of 
Southerners can have no part in this widespread devas- 
tation. 

Waebington Junction: 
April 7. 

Finding that the New Jersey Brigade would remain at 
Catlett's Station during this day, and hearing that the 12th 
Massachusetts regiment was on the other side of the river 
called Cedar Eun, I took a walk of two miles this morning 
in advance of Greneral Kearny's troops, intending to return 
during the afternoon. But, alas ! it has suddenly come on 
to rain in torrents, and I am compelled to remain here for 
the night. Cedar Run is the main branch of the Occoquan 
river, which empties itself into the Potomac some thirty- 
five miles below the city of Alexandria; Bull Eun, on 
which was fought the famous battle last July, is the northern 
fork of the stream. Both branches take their rise in the 
Blue Eidge Mountains, which are plainly distinguishable 
here at a distance of forty miles. 

The 12th Massachusetts regiment forms part of Greneral 
Abercrombie's brigade, and belongs to the fifth corps 
d'armee of the army of the Potomac, commanded by 
G-eneral Banks. I cannot learn how it is that this brigade 
is now stationed at this point, for the late order of the 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 45 

Secretary of War confines the force under Banks to the 
Department of the Shenandoah, on the other side of the 
Bkie Eidge. Maybe the regiments composing it aare 
merely here until the arrival of M'Dowell's corps, but none 
of the officers nor Greneral Abercrombie himself can give 
any explanation. Their orders are simply to remain here 
until further notice, and that is sufficient for soldiers. 
Banks himself is with the advance of his command, at 
Woodstock, whither he has followed the defeated army of 
.Tackson, and it is supposed he will continue to march 
forward into Southern Virginia, while M'Dowell progresses 
in the same direction on this side of the Blue Eidge. 
Fremont's command commences at the eastern confines of 
Banks's Department, that is to say, west of the Alleghanies, 
and he too is advancing southwards. Nobody seems to 
form any opinions as to the strength of the force under 
Major-Greneral Fremont, but it is now being largely in- 
creased by the addition of the brigades under Acting 
Major-^Greneral Blencker. I learn to-day that the division 
has lately been detached from the Department of the 
Potomac, and is now on its way for Staunton, but nothing 
of this was known when I left Washington except in official 
circles. All these movements seem to point to a simul- 
taneous parallel advance of the three armies under 
M'Dowell, Banks, and Fremont, towards Southern Virginia, 
while M*^Clellan, with his three co7ys d'armee, hems in the 
rebels at Eichmond from the other direction. I do not 
think it over-stating the numbers of these different 
commands at 300,000 men. 

I called upon General Abercrombie, whopa I found 
quartered at a miserable little cottage, about a mile from 
the river. He told me that the ' contrabands ' — in other 
words, the negroes— were coming to him in such numbers 



46 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

as to be a serious cause of anxiety, and he expressed his 
fears that the farther the Union armies advanced into the 
Slave States, the more difficult the question would become. 
He is right in this, for the Grovernment must deal with the 
issue on the spur of the moment, and not on political 
grounds alone. The rebel troops clear off everything in 
the shape of provisions as they retire, and the runaway 
slaves seek from the Northern commanders not so much 
liberty as the very necessities of life. While Congress is 
debating the question of emancipation, and philanthropists 
are arguing whether to employ the negroes or to transport 
them nolens volens to remote colonies, the Commissary 
Department of the United States army suddenly finds 
itself charged with an enormous and ever-increasing in- 
cubus, which never entered into its calculations. The 
Union forces have scarcely entered the enemy's country 
as yet, but already the demand for rations more than 
frightens the Federal officers. What will it be when the 
Northern armies penetrate beyond the Border States, and 
enter those districts where the blacks increase at a fai* 
greater ratio than their white masters ? 

April 9. 

I am still at the camp of the 12th Massachusetts, 
blocked in by an impassable ocean of mud. Since the 
day before yesterday, when I quitted Catlett's Station, it 
has ' stormed ' incessantly, rendering it physically im- 
possible for me to return, owing to the rise in the 
numerous streams. A little rivulet, which I stepped across 
on Monday, had become so swollen yesterday morning 
that horses could with difficulty get through it ; and if this 
be the case with a nameless brook, what must it be with 
the rivers ? We are half swallowed up in mud, or rather 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 47 

slush, and visits from tent to tent have now become few 
and far between, for the ' sacred soil ' rises above the 
ankles and almost sucks off one's boots. During the past 
sixty hours it has rained, hailed, mizzled, and snowed, and 
the whole country at the present writing is covered with 
the dreary mantle of winter. The scouts drop in now and 
then, worn out with hunger and exposure, and I have just 
learned that there are no rations for the brigade, owing to 
the non-arrival of the supply train. Colonel Webster* 
tells me that throughout this section of the country the 
land is literally covered with springs, lying only a short 
distance below the surface, and that even on the hills 
water can always be obtained at a depth of only a foot or 
two. The camping ground of this regiment is on a con- 
siderable elevation, and yet we might be at the bottom of 
a valley, judging by the mud around us. 

April 10. 

I managed to effect my return to the New Jersey 
Brigade this morning, in company with Colonel Webster 
and Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan. We rode here on horse- 
back, but it was about as much as the animals could do to 
pull through the mud and swim the torrent of Cedar Eun. 

The first train from Washington in three days arrived 
here this afternoon, bringing us intelligence of a great 
victory in Tennessee over the combined forces of Beaure- 
gard, Polk, Breckinridge, and Bragg, and the equally 
welcome news of the capture of Island No. 10. These 
events may change the present plan of campaign, and 
orders are anxiously looked for by the men and officers of 

* Son of the great statesman, Daniel "Webster. The Colonel was killed 
at the second battle of Bull Eiin, fought August 30, 1862. His body was 
found on the field, the corpse stripped naked to the skin. 



48 GEN. M*CLBLLAN AND THE PENINSULA. CAMPAIGN. 

this brigade. No train has left here for Washington since 
our arrival, the railroad to Catlett's Station having only 
just been completed ; but I am in hopes of despatching 
this letter in time for the mail of Saturday. 

April 11. 
Generals M'Dowell and Franklin have just arrived here 
with orders for the whole of this division to return im- 
mediately to Alexandria, there to be shipped to Fortress 
Monroe. The troops receive the news with acclamation, 
but Major-Greneral M'Dowell, if we may judge by his 
countenance, does not appear to relish the change in the 
programme. The Department of the Eappahannock, 
created a week ago, is apparently knocked on the head. 
The impression seems to be that the late victories in the 
West, by opening up the road to New Orleans, have com- 
pelled the evacuation of Virginia by the Confederates, 
who are now endeavouring to withdraw their armies from 
the Border States into the cotton region. 

April 13. 
After a long and tedious march of upwards of forty 
miles, we arrived at Alexandria this morning, and are in 
hourly expectation of being ordered to embark for South- 
ern Virginia. The offing is full of transports, amongst them 
the immense Pacific mail steamer ' Constitution,' which is 
capable of taking away an entire brigade. Greneral 
Franklin's division will sail immediately, and camp 
rumours are to the effect that we shall land above York- 
town, so as to take the enemy in the rear. You will per- 
ceive that the campaign is now commencing in good 
earnest, and my letters will in consequence be much more 
interestinsr than heretofore. 



CHAPTER V. 

AMEEICAN IKON-CLADS. 

Washington : April 15. 
The contest between the iron-plated batteries Merrimac 
(called by the Confederates the Virginia) and the little 
Monitor {alias the Ericsson), appears to have wakened 
you up in Europe. It will, therefore, be both instructive 
and interesting to learn what Americans are doing in re- 
gard to this new phase in naval construction. I do not 
pretend to any acquaintance with tne movements of the 
Confederates further than what'may be gathered from such 
questionable authorities as the Southern journals, and I 
doubt whether science will be much the loser from the pre- 
vailing ignorance on that subject. The mechanical skill 
of the Slave States has never been remarkable : the manu- 
facture of iron within their confines is of comparatively 
recent date ; and they are necessarily controlled in their 
efforts by the want of many articles. True, we hear rumours 
of numerous floating batteries in process of completion, at 
New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, &c., and we 
learn, also, that the construction is ' turtle-formed ' in all 
instances; but we possess no reliable information on any 
other battery than the now-famous Merrimac. It must be 
borne in mind, too, that the latter is simply a ' make-shift,' 
a floating fort of iron built upon the lower part of the hull 
of a heavy frigate— the idea being taken from the sloping 

£ 



50 GEN, M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

railroad-iron bomb-proof used against Fort Sumter. The 
idea is apparently a good one as against wooden ships ; but 
it remains to be seen whether the ' Merrimac ' can hold her 
ground in contests with such batteries as are now being 
constructed in the Northern States. There are two other 
iron-plated vessels at Norfolk — the ' Yorktown ' and 
* Jamestown;' but these are scarcely worth more than 
passing notice, being slightly-built river boats, and obvi- 
ously unfit to carry heavy armour-plates. We have as yet 
no knowledge whatever of a Confederate iron floating bat- 
tery, ship or ram, which is more than an adaptation of an 
old vessel. 

What the Northern States are doing is most important 
to us to learn, now that we are about plunging ourselves 
still deeper into the quicksand of expenditure. If we must 
have iron fleets, it may be advisable to take other models 
than the * Warrior ' and ' La Grloire,' and to arm them with 
heavier ordnance than one, Iwo, or three hundred pound- 
ers. The United States are reforming their naval affairs 
in everything pertaining to this subject, and I design to 
give you some of their experience based on experiments 
of the past six months. The improvements have reference 
to the following particulars : — 

1. Form of hull. 

2. Description of plates. 

3. Motive power. 

4. ArmaiueuL. 

No particular form of hull has been decided upon as 
most effective, and numerous batteries are being con- 
structed differing materially from each other. Ericsson's 
successful experiment with the 'Monitor' has naturally en- 
listed most people in favour of his plan, and he has been 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, 51 

awarded contracts for six others on that principle. One of 
them, now in course of construction, will be upwards of 
300 feet in length, and covered with 8-inch thick plates, 
only 18 inches of the hull appearing above the water. 
The walls of the revolving turret, 26 feet in diameter, 
will be 18 inches thick, and the armament two 20-inch 
solid shot guns. The 'Warrior' or 'Black Prince' would 
fare no better against this vessel than the ' Cumberland ' 
and ' Ct)ngress' against the 'Merrimac' Another form of 
battery is that of the ' Galena,' which will sail from New 
York to Norfolk during the present week. The 'Galena' 
was built at Mystic, Connecticut, and three or four others 
of similar construction are now nearing completion at 
Philadelphia and elsewhere. Her length is 200 feet, width 
36 feet, draft of water 11^ feet, and burden 738 tons. 
Above the water-line her sides slope inwards at an angle 
of forty-five degrees, and she is completely iron-plated, 
bows, stern, sides, and deck, the weight of the armour 
being 400 tons. She is pierced for six heavy guns, 
throwing solid round shot or elongated projectiles. The 
port-holes are raised and lowered by means of levers, and 
her sides are perfectly smooth the bolt-heads not being 
visible. The speed of the ' Galena' is calculated at twelve 
knots, and she is intended for sea- voyages, not, as in the 
case of the ' Monitor,' for harbour defence alone. I have 
described in a previous letter the plan of the immense 
'Stevens' Battery;' there are still other batteries new in 
progress, modelled after the ' Merrimac,' but these will 
not be completed for some time to come. Amongst them 
is the 50-gun frigate ' Koanoke,' sister ship to the 
' Merrimac' 

There has been a vast amount of experiment on iron 
plates, both by the Government and private individuals, 

E 2 



52 aEN. M*CLELIiAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

single plates being viewed with distrust. There are shields 
composed of layers of iron, with packings of timber and 
caulking between, and plates of thick corrugated iron, 
bolted upon beams, with several inches of oakum inter- 
vening. I have seen at the Navy Department a number 
of damaged plates taken off the gunboats of Foote's 
squadron, after the bombardment of Forts Donelson and 
Henry ; the solid shields, of three and four inches thick, 
were split by the enemy's shot, whilst those composed of 
successive layers were merely indented. One of the former 
was struck by a projectile at an angle of about thirty 
degrees, the iron splitting in the region of the first point 
of contact, and the shot flying off at an angle of about 
twenty degrees. Beyond being indented, the thin plates 
were not damaged. 

The favourite mode of propulsion is by two screws, one 
on each side of the rudder. This enables the vessel to 
turn completely round within her ovm length, and it also 
gives a vast increase of speed and independence of the 
steering apparatus, should the latter become damaged. 
The speed of the batteries, as a general thing, will be in 
the neighbourhood of fifteen miles the hour— of course, 
not including those nearing completion. There is another 
principle which does not seem to have attracted the atten- 
tion of European constructors — namely, the power of 
submersion. 

The contest with the sloping-sided 'Merrimac' has set the 
gun-founders here on the qui vive, and Dahlgren, Parrott, 
and Rodman are now casting guns of vastly greater calibre 
than an3^hing yet talked of in Europe. American artil- 
lerists, like the French, do not believe in breech-loaders, 
but all their guns are remarkable for a great thickness of 
metal at the breech, and, so far as I know, not one of 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 53 

them has ever burst. Eodman's principle is peculiarly 
adapted for heavy cannon, such as 15in. and 20in. bore. 
The vast body of metal is cooled by streams of water 
introduced in a certain manner into the casting, and the 
gun is thus cooled gradually from the interior towards the 
outer surface. The 15-in. ' Union' and 'Lincoln' guns at 
Fortress Monroe are cast on the above principle. The 
form of projectile has attracted much attention from 
scores of inventors, the object being to rip open the 
sloping sides of vessels like the ' Merrimac' Eound shot 
glance off, and conical very seldom st'rike as designed, 
especially at long ranges. I have seen a specimen of a 
number sent to Fortress Monroe, which are intended 
to ' gouge ' the enemy's plates ; they are six inches in 
diameter and fifteen inches long. At a distance of about 
two-thirds from the base the shot assumes the form of the 
neck and shoulder of a bottle; the end is made of steel, 
perfectly flat, the edges sharp, and its diameter three 
inches. The other day I was shown a conical musket-ball 
of glass, which had been fired through a thin iron plate 
without any damage to itself ; may-be we shall eventually 
discover a better substance than iron for projectiles against 
plates of that material. 

The statement has lately been made by a member of our 
Government that by the close of the present year we shall 
have ten iron-plated ships afloat. By the same period the 
United States will have forty! I have been favoured 
with particulars of the following vessels, and you will 
perceive how much more efifective are the American 
batteries than our unwieldy Warriors, and how much less 
costly, too. It must be borne in mind that three re- 
qvusites are looked for in these new ships — invulnerability, 
weight of metal, and speed. The ' Warrior ' and ' Black 



54 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Prince,' if I remember rightly, are partially plated with 
4-inch iron : the batteries constructing here are double 
that thickness. The ordnance on the English ships 
might hammer away all day on vessels like the ' Monitor' 
and ' Stevens Battery' with no more effect than the 
firing of the ' Cumberland ' and ' Congress ' on the 'Mer- 
rimac ;' while one or two shots at close quarters from the 
former would sink the ' Warrior ' to Davy's locker. The six- 
turreted battery which we are about constructing is to be 
armed with 68-pounders— what effect would these have 
against eighteen inches thick of iron of the American 
turret, or the eight-inch-thick iron of the submerged 
deck ? Thirty 68-pounders — in other words, the broad- 
side of a sixty-gun ship — would only throw the same 
amount of metal as the two twenty-inch guns of the 
American vessel. The comparison does not end here. It 
is obvious that as we diminish the number of guns, we 
increase the speed of the battery, inasmuch as greater 
room is given for the engines. The naval authorities of 
the United States have recognised this truth, and the 
floating batteries intended for sea-voyages will not carry 
over fifty men. They will not require more either to 
work the ship or the guns. 

The * Monitor,' now at Fortress Monroe, cost only 
275,000 dollars, or, in English currency, about ^57,000. 
She is 766 tons burden, her displacement 1,038 tons, and 
her draught of water 10 feet; she is armed with two 
11 -inch guns. 

The 'Galena' is now getting her armament on board, 
and will sail for the fortress this week. Her burden is 738 
tons; displacement, 1,294 tons ; draft, 11 7-12 feet; and 
cost, 235,250 dollars. She carries two rifled 100-pounders 
and four 9-inch guns. 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 55 

The ' Stevens' Battery,' commenced twenty years ago at 
Hoboken, opposite New York city, is 3,500 tons burden, 
and her draft 19 feet. The cost of this immense vessel, 
carrying five 15-inch smooth-bore Columbiads and two 
10-inch rifled guns, will only be 1,283,000 dollars (about 
£270,000). These guns command every point of the 
compass, and her broadside will therefore be 3,000 lbs. 
Are the sides of the ' Warrior,' ' Black Prince,' or ' La 
Gloire,' strong enough to resist the shock of a ton and 
a half of metal ? Would it not also be advisable for 
English taxpayers to compare the cost and weight of 
the ' Warrior's ' broadside with those of the ' Stevens' 
Battery,' — in other words, the cost of the two ships 
themselves ? 

The ' Ironsides,' now completing at Philadelphia, and 
to be ready for sea in three months, is 3,486 tons burden; 
displacement, 3,699 tons; draft, 13 feet; and the contract 
price, 780,000 dollars. She will carry two rifled 200- 
pounders, and sixteen 11 -inch guns. 

Six ' Ericsson Batteries ' are now in course of construc- 
tion under the supervision of Ericsson himself, and will be 
in commission by the end of the year. Their burden will 
be 1,085 tons ; displacement, 1,450 tons ; draft, 1 1 feet ; cost, 
400,000 dollars each ; and their armament, two 15-inch 
guns. The little ' Monitor ' proved herself sea-worthy 
except in one particular, namely, the ventilators on deck, 
which being only 4 feet high, allowed the water to wash 
in. All future vessels on this principle will be ventilated 
fhrough the roof of the revolving turret. It must not be 
imagined from the late refusal of the ' Monitor ' to engage 
the ' Merrimac,' that her officers were fearful of the result ; 
the reasons of the declension were as follows : — The 
Government knew that the object of the enemy in coming 



56 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

out was to make a passage to Yorktown for their iron- 
plated ships, the ' Jamestown ' and ' Yorktown ' — and the 
* Monitor ' in emaining at anchor effectually barred the 
channel between the shoals. Had the ' Galena ' been 
there, the challenge of the ' Merrimac ' would have been 
accepted; but it was useless to needlessly imperil the 
safety of the ships of war and transports by permitting 
the * Monitor ' to engage her single-handed. The * Mer- 
rimac,' since her contest a month ago, has been fitted with 
a long prow, designed to crush in the thin iron plates of 
her formidable antagonist beneath her strong upper works ; 
and I hear also that the Confederates had prepared a trap 
for her, had she ventured to follow the ' Merrimac ' into 
the Elizabeth river. Heavy piles were driven across the 
channel, leaving an entrance of only 100 feet ; an old 
United States ship of the line, the ' Germautown,' lay 
moored within this enclosure, and when the * Monitor ' 
should pass the entrance the ship was to be swung round 
so as to bar her exit. You will perceive that the Govern- 
ment is admirably well informed as to the doings of the 
rebels. 

Numbers of these iron batteries, many of them with re- 
volving turrets, are being constructed in the interior of the 
country, some being specially designed for operations in 
the Western rivers. By improvements in the interior 
water communication, deepening channels, widening locks 
of canals, &c., it will be possible to concentrate most of 
these vessels on any required point from the great lakes to 
the Gulf of Mexico. Under two Congressional appropri-- 
ations, 23,000,000 of dollars are devoted to the construc- 
tion of these batteries, and Congress will shortly add to 
this sum 7,000,000 dollars additional, lately voted for im- 
provements in fortifications. The debate in the House of 



aEN. m'^clellan and the peninsula campaign. 57 

Commons has silenced most of the opposition to this 
proposal. 

I would remark in conclusion, that the principle of the 
batteries now being constructed under the auspices of the 
United States Government is the raft, a slightly arched 
deck being placed on a comparatively narrow hull. A 
raft offers but little resistance to the waves, and these 
vessels ought therefore to be good sea-boats ; whilst, at 
the same time, much less surface is exposed to the 
enemy's shot than in the old-fashioned ships of the Warrior 
build. 

I cannot close my remarks on this important topic with- 
out acknowledging the obligations I am under to officers 
of the United States Government for the above informa- 
tion. You will agree with me that their course can alone 
be dictated by the desire to cultivate friendly relations 
with a people whose rulers have not always shown them- 
selves careful to act in a similar spirit. Will it not be 
sound policy for our Government to seek to cultivate the 
most friendly relations with a power whose army numbers 
600,000 men, and whose iron fleet will shortly surpass the 
combined squadrons of the two most powerful nations in 
Europe ? It is false and stupid to suppose that because 
the aims and interests of the English and Arijerican people 
are similar, they must therefore be antagonistic; and 
the day, we may hope, is not far distant when the two 
branches of the Anglo-Saxon race will unite upon a com- 
mon policy, not more for their own advantage than for the 
benefit of the whole human race.* 

* There is mucli ignorance in reference to the American 'Monitors' on 
both sides the Atlantic, some people extravagantly OTcrrating their merits, 
others improperly depreciating them. This class of vessels was not designed 
for the ocean at all, but for harbour and coast service against other iron- 



CHAPTER VI. 

A GKNERAL VIEW OF AFFAIRS. 

April 16. 

The reinforcing of Greneral M*^Clellan is confined to the 
division of Greneral Franklin. Greneral M'Dowell still 
retains his department of the Rappahannock, and his corps 
d^armee, now consisting of three divisions, is concentrat- 
ing itself on the banks of Cedar Run, at Catlett's station. 
An immense pontoon train was sent forward a day or two 
back, from which it may be inferred that M'Dowell will 
cross the Rappahannock before long; but as both the 
scouts and the rimaway negroes report that few rebel 
troops remain between that river and the Rapidan, we 
need scarcely look for active operations in Central Virginia 
for some time to come. The major part of the Confederate 
army is now defending the lines covering Yorktovvn, and, if 
rumour be correct, the enemy at that point numbers some 

• 
clads. Speed is not a requisite in their construction, for they are intended 
to keep in shoal water where sea-going ships cannot get at them. They 
carry but two or four guns of enormous calibre : one of their projectiles, if 
properly landed, would tear a hole in the side of the 'Wamor' or 'La 
Gloire' which would sink or disable her. The monitors have been used in 
siege operations during this war on account of the absence of other vessels; ■ 
but when the sea-going ironclads now in course of construction by the 
United States are completed, the monitors will be kept solely for harbouJ 
defence. No ship built for ocean service can hope to contend successfully 
against two or more of these tiirreted craft in harbour or on the coast» 



GEN. M^CLBLLAN ■ AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 5d 

100.000 .men. We are only permitted to * guess' at 
M^'Clellan's strength, but you may safely put it at 40 per 
cent, more than its opponents, and the siege train I know 
to be unexampled. When at Fortress Monroe in January 
last, I saw several acres of ground covered with heavy ord- 
nance, most of the guns being of 6-inch to 9-inch calibre, 
and these were all waiting to be rifled at the workshops 
lately established there. From all I can gather, the attack 
will not take place for ten days or a fortnight — the armies 
under Burnside, M'Dowell, Banks, and Fremont, being 
tirst required to take up certain positions. I believe 
the new iron ship * Galena ' will co-operate with M°Clellan 
in the assault on the enemy's works, part of Commodore 
Groldsborough's squadron assisting her. 

The Western armies, under Halleck, Grant, and Buell, 
are dealing fearful blows upon the enemy on the northern 
frontier of the cotton States. One hundred continuous 
miles of the Memphis and Charleston railroad are now in 
possession of the Federal commanders, thus destroying the 
communications between Virginia and the Valley of the 
Mississippi ; and simultaneously with this two long bridges 
have been removed on the Mobile and Ohio Eailroad. 
General Halleck has taken supreme command in person of 
the armies under Grant, and Buell, largely increasing their 
numbers by new reinforcements, and we are daily expecting 
intelligence of an attack on the enemy's lines at Corinth. 
We are getting the truth of the two days' battle at Pitts- 
burg Landing, or Shiloh, as the Confederates call it. The 
first day was a splendid success for Beauregard, but 
Monday decided the contest in favour of the North. This 
is now admitted by the rebels themselves, as will be seen 
by the correspondence between Beauregard and Grant after 
the battle. So far as the number of prisoners is concerned, 



60 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

and also the capture of artillery, the advantage appears to 
be largely in favour of the Confederates ; but the latter 
in their retreat left behind them vast quantities of arras, 
ammunition and caissons, and they must now be suffering 
from partial demoralisation. It may be Halleck's intention 
not to attack them at Corinth, until they are still further 
disheartened by the fall of Memphis. Commodore Foote 
and General Pope are now bombarding Fort Pillow, some 
miles above the city, and when it falls nothing more will 
intervene than Fort Eandolph, neither of them being very 
strong. 

The capture of Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the 
Savannah river, clears the way for Dupont's gunboats to 
Fort Jackson, a work which must surrender after a few 
hours' bombardment. The Federal army is now within 
eight miles of the city of Savannah, and with Dupont 
thundering on its river front, they will not be long in 
clearing out its defenders. I should not be surprised at 
the place surrendering without striking a blow. There now 
remain but two United States' forts on the Atlantic coast 
in the hands of the rebels — Fort Sumter, in Charleston 
harbour, and Fort Macon, near Beaufort, North Carolina. 
Burnside has nearly completed his batteries on the islands 
surrounding the latter, and, when they open fire, the fort 
must quickly surrender. 

It is pleasant to turn from these scenes of bloodshed to 
the peaceful events now transpiring in this capital of the 
American Union. The President has to-day signed the 
Bill of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, after a 
hesitation which still further proves the goodness of his 
heart and his far-seeing statesmanship. He expresses his 
fears to Congress that their newly acquired freedom may 
injure some of the negroes, and he suggests a supple- 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 61 

mental bill in favour of ' minors, femmes covertes, insane; 
or absent persons.' It is asserted here that Mr. Lincoln 
consulted no adviser previous to signing this bill, and 
that up to the moment of sending his special message to 
Congress nobody knew what his action would be on the 
question. 

The value of a slave is fixed by this Act at 300 dollars, 
rather a falling off in the price of ' chattels ' on eight 
months ago. It is, however, an immense increase on the 
estimates of Southern planters. When a coloured child 
is born, his owner enters 100 dollars to his own credit in 
his cash-book, and when a negro dies — no matter what 
his assumed value may have been— he enters 100 dollars 
on the other side of the account. There is one clause in 
the Act which is likely to meet with misconstruction in 
Europe — namely, the appropriation for colonising the 
freed slaves. This was adopted to silence the weak- 
nerved, whose name is legion, and to enable any of the 
slaves who see fit to emigrate to more genial climes. The 
measure, notwithstanding, is an extremely bitter pill to 
the residents of this city and the inhabitants of Maryland, 
and still more so to the numerous Irish population. I 
heard a newsboy this evening crying out, ' Second edition 
of the Star-, all the niggers our equals,' in a partially 
Celtic accent, very much to the amusement of the by- 
standers, for the Irish have always proved themselves 
inimical to the coloured race. This may be accounted for 
by the fact of their learning from their pro-slavery demo- 
cratic leaders that if the negroes are set free they will 
soon decrease the scale of wages ; and yet these very men 
assert that the negroes will not work ! It is rumoured 
that the ' coloured folk ' are organising a grand procession, 
* break-down ' and jubilee in honour of their emancipa- 



62 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

tion, and that the Irish swear they will break up the 
fHe if they attempt it. I am quite sure the authorities 
will not permit the rejoicings to be interfered with so long 
as the negroes conduct themselves as peaceable and well- 
disposed people. 

g April 18. 

We have further news from Yorktown. The enemy has 
attempted a midnight attack upon M'^Clellan's lines ; but 
his forces being on the qui vive, and much more nume- 
rous than the assailants, the sortie was repulsed. Jefferson 
Davis has arrived at the scene of operations, and assumed 
command in chief of the rebels. We shall probably have 
a decisive battle there in the course of next week, and 
I trust to be there, and get off with a whole skin. 

There is considerable excitement here relative to the 
visit of M. Mercier, the French Minister, to Norfolk, and 
the expected arrival of a French frigate below this city. 
It is rumoured among the quidnuncs that the object of 
the Minister's trip is to advise the insurgents, on the part 
of his Imperial master, to submit themselves to the 
Federal Grovernment. The tone of French residents in 
Washington has lately changed wonderfully, and it is 
asserted that their Government is preparing to revoke 
its recognition of the belligerent rights of the Confede- 
rates. Perhaps ! I trust, however, that England will be 
beforehand with the Emperor in such action as this. 

The report that Porter's mortar-fleet has entered the 
Mississippi and passed Forts Jackson and Philip without 
their firing a shot, is regarded as a newspaper canard by 
well-informed people. Porter, I am able to state on autho- 
rity, is now on his way to the point in question, and may 
ere this have arrived at his destination, but the Navy 



GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 63 

Department has received no information whatever of the 
fact. Butler is also on his way from Ship Island and Pass 
Christian into Lake Pontchartrain, and we shall shortly 
hear of New Orleans being attacked in front and rear 
simultaneously. It is believed here that the city of Sa- 
vannah is already in possession of Greneral Hunter. 

April 26. 

After some difficulty, I have at length been successful 
in obtaining a pass to join and accompany the array 
of the Potomac, on the Yorktown Peninsula. For 
several days past, I despaired of accomplishing this object : 
officer after officer whom I was advised to see, informed me 
that he had no power to grant my request, and referred me 
to somebody else who always told me the same story. Thus 
marched from one to another, I finally discovered that it 
would be necessary for me to seek an interview with the 
Secretary of War ; but just there was the difficulty, for 
Secretaries of War are usually surrounded with subordinates, 
who desire to know your business before admitting you to 
the presence of the great official. I managed at length to 
penetrate the enceinte, and did not find Mr. Stanton the 
gruff, disagreeable personage he is so generally represented. 
He listened silently, but kindly, to the story of my 
difficulties with his subordinates, and finally wrote me a 
pass with his own hand. 

My English friends here regard me as wonderfully lucky, 
whilst I credit my success to the fair and honourable tone 
adopted by the paper I represent in dealing with American 
affairs. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE TORKTOWN PENINSULA. 



FoBTEBSs MoNBOE, ViBGiNiA. : April 30. 

The *Merrimac' has not made her appearance since my 
last, and it is thought that additions are being made to 
her hull which will require some time to complete. We 
hear that her iron armour is to be extended some two feet 
lower down, but naval officers doubt the truth of this 
rumour, as such an improvement would necessitate her 
lying in dock for many weeks. The ' Merrimac,' be it 
understood, is a fair-weather vessel, and her constitution 
cannot stand easterly winds ; when the wind comes from 
the east, a strong sea sets in through the mouth of the 
Chesapeake Bay, and the Confederate battery engaging 
the ' Monitor ' or any other antagonist would expose her 
wooden bottom while rolling. Perhaps the true explana- 
tion of her absence these many days lies in the fact that 
iron ports are being added to her : hitherto her port-holes 
have been open, and it is found that fragments of shell, 
grape, &c. enter her decks, and necessarily interfere with 
the working of her guns. The preparations made to 
receive her are considerable, and, may be, the enemy have 
obtained some information upon the matter and are afraid 
to let her venture out. Within a mile from this shore lie 
the ' Monitor,' ' Naugatuck,' and ' Gralena,' all iron-plated 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 65 

batteries mounting the heaviest of guns, and at easy dis 
tances are the ' Vanderbilt ' and other ocean mail steamers, 
ready to rush in upon her should she run the gauntlet of 
the former. Perhaps, too, the approach of the army under 
Greneral Burnside has something to do with her remaining 
at home, and it may be, after all, that the ' Monitor ' will 
have to run the enemy's shore batteries on the Elizabeth 
Eiver in order to reach her old antagonist. 

I passed a pleasant hour this morning on board 
Ericsson's wonderful little vessel, and the more I see of 
her the more astonishing she appears ; she is, in fine, the 
pet of all here — soldiers, sailors, and civilians alike, and 
great dissatisfaction is expressed that she was not per- 
mitted to steam in and finish off the ' Merrimac ' at the 
latter's last appearance. Lieutenant Jefifers, her com- 
mander, is on the qui vive the whole time, and most 
anxious to test the improvements made upon his vessel 
since her fight ; her wheel-house, which was formerly the 
weakest part, is now if anything stronger than the turret, 
and no such accident can again occur as that which so 
injured Lieutenant Worden. An inspection of the wheel- 
house would satisfy the most incredulous of the superiority 
of successive plates, one upon the' other, to single solid 
blocks of iron. The house in question is built up with 
blocks of the best hammered iron nine inches thick, and 
yet one of these was broken in half by a rifle shot, leaving 
a crack on the rear side three-eighths of an inch wide. 
"When the turret was struck in a similar manner the out- 
side plate, although but an inch thick, was merely indented, 
and the deck, a single plate of inch iron, suffered no 
worse. The injury would scarcely be noticed until pointed 
out. 

After leaving the * Monitor' I went on board the 

F 



66 GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

* Galena,' which is simply an ordinary sloop of war iroii'- 
plated, and althoujjh much stronger than anything until 
lately heard of, yet by no means to be compared with the 
' Monitor.' Her sides incline inwards at an apparent 
angle of twenty degrees, giving her when looking ' bow 
on ' a very wicked appearance ; the spar deck is narrow, 
and covered from stem to stern with inch iron. This is 
strong enough to resist the ricochetting of any projectiles, 
no matter how heavy, and the only thing which can hurt 
it would be heavy shell thrown from mortars. These 
batteries, however, are intended for close quarters, where 
it would be impossible to obtain sufficient elevation to 
strike the deck at right angles. The port-holes of the 

* Galena ' are simply those of a ship of war iron plated, 
and are moved up and down on their hinges by tackling. 
Her commander. Captain John Eodgers, however, says he 
shall fight her with open ports, and take his chances of 
being damaged by the enemy's shot. The ports of the 
' Monitor ' are pendular and inside the turret, and the 
batteries now constructing will have theirs formed after 
this same fashion. The gun deck of the ' Galena ' pre- 
sents a very unsightly appearance from the great number 
of bolt-heads, and these are likely to cause much confusion 
and injury during action ; her commander is guarding 
against this eventuality by covering up the walls with 
strong canvas and oakum. 

Stevens's little model, called the * Naugatuck,' is almost 
as interesting an object as the strange-looking ' Monitor,' 
and is well deserving the attention of naval constructors. 
She exemplifies three new principles, the power of rapid sub- 
mersion, increased speed combined with rapidity of turning 
and loading the guns by machinery. She is a little craft 
of some 150 tons, wooden built, but her bow covered with 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND TIIB PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 67 

iron armour; when in action, the heads of her gunners 
have two feet and a half of water over them, and they 
may therefore be considered out of danger. The ' Nauga- 
tuck ' carries one 100-pounder Parrott rifle-gun, thirteen 
feet long, and weighing nearly 10,000 lbs. ; this gun is 
fixed on the vessel's deck in the line of the keel, and is 
trained at an object by pointing, not the gun, but the 
vessel herself. Of course, it is not intended to work 
guns in this manner hereafter, the object being merely to 
prove the power of the battery in turning rapidl}'^ on her 
centre, but her commander informs me that the gun can 
be brought to bear upon an object in very much less time 
than by the ordinary method. The recoil is taken up by 
india-rubber springs — an invention also of Mr. Stevens. 
The trunnions work in a square iron block, which runs on 
a solid iron chassis, or way, and sixteen vulcanised india- 
rubber bricks, two inches thick, are compressed by the 
recoil, and send the gun back to its former position, where 
it is again met by blocks of rubber, and held to its place. 
The charge of powder is from ten to fifteen pounds, but 
the recoil never exceeds thirteen inches. Should it be 
necessary to change the india-rubber, this can be effected 
almost instantaneously by withdrawing a pin and putting 
in new bricks. The loading of the gun is another pecu- 
liarity ; the muzzle is lowered beneath the deck, the 
charge hoisted to it on a platform, and rammed hoifte by 
machinery. In the new Stevens battery all this will be 
done by steam, but on board the ' Naugatuck ' tackling is 
employe^, and proves to be far more rapid than the 
ordinary method of loading guns. Mr. Stevens proved by 
actual experiment that no more time is required to load 
any gun, no matter of what calibre, than is suflficient for 
turning a steam-cock twice — once to raise the charge to 

f2 



68 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

the muzzle, and once to let the steam upon the piston 
which rams it home. The day is evidently not far distant 
when slrps of war will do almost everything by machinery, 
and in that case the best mechanics will necessarily be the 
best sailors. 

May 1. 
3 P.M. — Tbe wind has changed from easterly to south- 
west, and as the water is consequently placid almost as 
a mirror, we are in high expectations of a visit from the 
' Merrimac ' and her consorts the ' Jamestown ' and ' York- 
town.' Tbe 'Monitor,' ' Gralena,' and ^Naugatuck' have 
then- steam up, and numerous are the telescopes directed 
towards Sewall's Point, where the enemy's ships first make 
their appearance. 

Nothing of importance has passed before Yorktowu 
during the past three days, and, from all I can learn, the 
present week will go over without M'^Clellan's attempting 
any active movement. The impression seems to be that 
M'Dowell, Banks, and Fremont will first take up certain 
positions menacing Eichmond, thus necessitating the with- 
drawal of part of the enemy's force ; but whether this be 
the intention or not, outsiders are never permitted to 
learn. Greneral Wool signed my pass to M^Clellan's lines 
yesterday, and I intend leaving Fortress Monroe to-morrow 
for the mouth of the York Eiver, in order to take up my 
quarters permanently with the army. The roads, I learn, 
are still almost impassable, even for horses ; but the hot 
summer's sun of to-day will render them somewhat drier, 
althou4>h a week of fine weather is necessary to make them 
of the required consistence. I hope to see another engage- 
ment with the 'Merrimac,' however, between this and 
to-morrow noon, the hour when the steamer leaves For- 
tress Monroe for Shipping Point. 



OEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 69 

4 P.M. — General Wool, commanding this department, 
has just received information of the fall of Fort Macon, 
North Carolina. The capture of this stronghold gives the 
Federal Government entire possession of the coast of that 
State, and Burnside is henceforward free to march upon 
Norfolk. General Wool learns also, by flag of truce from 
the latter place, that the officers of the 'Merrimac' have 
been sent to Yorktown, and that the battery will remain 
at her present anchorage in order to protect the dockyard. 
It is more than possible that this is merely a ruse, on, the 
part of the enemy, to lull suspicion. I am also informed 
that Beauregard has fallen back from Corinth upon Mem- 
phis. He will not long be able to hold this position, for 
the capture of New Orleans leaves Porter and Farragut 
free to enter the Mississippi river with their fleets, and to 
effect a junction with Foote's squadron. From New 
Orleans to Memphis there are few, if any, batteries, the 
banks being generally low and swampy; we may there- 
fore look for the early annihilation of the western rebel 
army, and the reduction of the valley of the Mississippi to 
the Federal rule before hot weather sets in. 

Cheeseman's Creek, Southern Virginia: May 2. 
Thinking there was small likelihood of the reappearance 
of the ' Merrimac,' I left Fortress Monroe this morning at 
10 A.M., and after a pleasant steamboat ride of two hours 
reached the above busy spot in the vicinity of Yorktown. 
Another visit to General Wool put me in possession of 
further particulars relating to the ' Merrimac' Commodore 
Tatnall, who is already known to your readers as the flag- 
officer of the 'Mosquito Fleet' in the South Carolina 
waters, but whose occupation has lately been interferred 
with by Com-modore Dupont's squadron, has commanded 



70 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 

the 'Merrimac' since her engagement with the 'Monitor:' 
an order given him some days ago to run the gauntlet of 
the shipping and batteries in Hampton Roads, and to 
make his way to the York River, w^as demurred to on the 
plea of insufficient depth of water, and on the order being 
emphasised he immediately tendered his resignation. Lieu- 
tenant Catesby Jones, the second in command, adopted the 
same action, and the vessel is therefore without officers for 
the present. This information, obtained from 'contra- 
bands,' may or may not be correct, but the Southern papers 
relieve us of all doubt as to the resignations, while the ex- 
planation has, at all events, the appearance of truth, except 
in regard to the depth of water. York River is a broad and 
deep stream, but the ' Monitor ' is an antagonist not to be 
mastered or evaded. 

Cheeseman's Creek is a branch of the Poquosin, which 
empties itself into Chesapeake Bay a few miles south of 
York River. It would be difficult to make Europeans 
understand by mere description the beauty of these 
Southern bays and harbours, broad and deep streams 
emptying themselves in almost countless numbers along 
the entire coast. Maps must be drawn on a considerable 
scale to give half their names. As usual, however, Southern 
insouciance, or, as we should call it, laziness, has turned 
none of these natural advantages to account, and, if what 
I hear be true, no steamer ever ruffied the placid waters of 
this creek until the arrival of Heintzelman's corps cVarmee 
four week ago. I was unprepared for the scene which 
presented itself as we left the Chesapeake and steered 
towards the landing : ocean steamers, river steamers from 
all the Northern cities, tug-boats, ships, schooners, flat- 
boats, &c., in amazing numbers, and a perfect forest of 
masts far away inland. We steamed through them for 



SEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE P£M^SCLA CAMPAIGN. 71 

nearly four miles, and had it not been for those immense 
floating villages which so excite the astonishment of 
foreigners, I might have supposed we were in our ' Pool.' 
Not one of the vessels, however, but is here on business of 
the army, all supplies from the North coming to this point. 
On the improvised docks thousands of soldiers are engaged 
in landing stores ; 100-pounder rifled guns, mortars of 
all sizes up to 13 inch, shot, shell, biscuit, barrels, flour, 
pork — in fact, an olla podrida of everything useable by 
an army bestrews the shore for miles. Long unbroken 
lines of white-top army wagons roll carelessly towards the 
woods ; camps meet the eye on every point, and the 
excitement is increased by the music of different bands, 
and the distant booming of artillery at Yorktown. I learn 
from a friend in the 1st New Jersey Brigade, temporarily 
encamped at this point, that the heavy guns are only .fired 
by the enemy, we replying occasionally with field-pieces 
alone; the object being to prevent the Confederates know- 
ing the position of the works until the bombardment 
commences in earnest. At night-time the firing is con- 
tinuous, doubtless to hinder our working parties engaged 
in mounting the siege guns along the fourteen miles of 
batteries and entrenchments. 

The 1st Jersey Brigade forms part of Franklin's division, 
and really belongs therefore to the corps d'armee of General 
McDowell. M^'Clellan, however, made a special demand 
for this division some weeks ago, and after considerable 
trouble obtained it. From all I can gather, it is destined 
for special service at no very remote period — no less than 
an attack in conjunction with the fleet upon Gloucester 
Point, directly opposite Yorktown, on the York Eiver. 
We are of course unaware of the enemy's strength at the 
point in question, hut as Franklin's command is about 



72 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

equal to our army at the Alma, and that ten 13-inch 
mortars and a proportionate amount of other ordnance 
will be carried thither, added to the fact of the major por- 
tion of Commodore Groldborough's fleet acting in con- 
junction with the land forces, we may safely presume that 
the enemy is not to be dislodged easily. Grloucester Point 
is less than a mile from Yorktown, and the question pre- 
sents itself whether M<*Clellan will take this point first, or 
wait until his preparations are completed along the entire 
breadth of the peninsula. I may be able to discover this 
to-morrow. 



CHAPTER Vin. 

IN FRONT OF TORKTOWN 

Camp of the 105th Pennsylvania, neab Yorktown : May 3. 
A HARD day's work has given me much valuable infor- 
mation relative to the progress of this siege. Calling 
upon General Seth Williams, the Acting Adjutant- General 
of the army, I learned from him that no civilians are per- 
mitted to enter the trenches, or to pass beyond the lines of 
main guard — in fact, no officer can pass the latter without 
special authorisation from the Commander-in-Chief; and 
so strictly is this rule enforced, that many have been 
placed in arrest for attempting to infringe it. Otherwise 
every facility has been extended to me, and I am now 
placed on the same footing as the gentlemen representing 
American papers. 

The approach to the head-quarters of the army is really 
very beautiful, and greatly enhanced by the first blushes 
of early spring. The only thing to mar my pleasure was 
the villainous roads, if such they may be called, for Vir- 
ginia's attention has not been much devoted to improving 
her means of inter-communication. Mud, mud every- 
where, except where the Northern soldiers have corduroy' d 
the route by placing pine-trees side by side, and strewing 
saplings on the top. In this manner they have transplanted 
guns weighing 17,000 lbs. a distance of twelve miles. 



74 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

and supplies reach an army of more than a hundred thou- 
sand men daily in the same manner. 

Surely there can be no doubt of the efficiency of the 
Quartermaster's and Commissary's departments after the 
statement of the above fact, and yet these ipamense stores 
have first to be brought to the Northern ports, then shipped 
a distance of 200 or 300 miles, landed in the enemy's 
country, and carried in waggons over roads made by ^he 
army itself. What other nation has ever embarked at once 
an army of upwards of 100,000 men, provided, too, with 
fai- more and heavier ordnance than even France has em- 
ployed ? I may hereafter be permitted to give you a list 
of the guns brought hither, but I know already of one 
battery of fifteen rifled 1 00-pounders, each piece weighing 
nearly 10,0001b. ; and I have visited another this after- 
noon mounting five of the same calibre, besides two 200- 
pounders. A Hungarian officer who has served sixteen 
years in the Austrian Artillery, assures me that no Euro- 
pean army ever brought so many field-pieces into the field 
with a single army ; and, for the matter of that, the whole 
country for miles appears to be covered with artillery 
camps. 

General M^Clellan's headquarters are situated on a mag- 
nificent plateau in the midst of, I should judge, 30,000 
men. Less than two miles in front are the enemy's works 
at Yorktown, and the busy scene is greatly enhanced in inte- 
rest by the frequent reports of his guns, and the bursting 
of an occasional shell in the trees. Were they at all cogni- 
sant of the location of these camps they would necessarily 
make the situation unpleasant, but high trees intervene 
and their shots are merely thrown at random. Steam 
sawmills are hard at work all round turning out material 
for the fortifications ; and facing the General's camp. 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 75 

about a quarter of a mile forward. Professor Lowe's new 
balloon hides itself behind the woods or mounts in the air 
for a few minutes' reconnaissance. A little to the right 
we obtain a good view of the famous York River, and if 
we walk half a mile further on we can see Yorktown and 
Gloucester Point and the long line of the enemy's water 
batteries. Creeks and small rivers cut the prospect into 
a very network of beauty, and my glass shows me com- 
panies of men in the distance building bridges, and trains 
of waggons passing to and fro in all directions. It is a 
panorama far too grand and extended for words to de- 
scribe. 

In company with two gentlemen representing a daily 
and illustrated paper of New York city, I called upon 
GTeneral Heintzelman, an officer commanding a corjps 
d^armee 'of some 40,000 men. The Greneral received us 
in the most friendly way imaginable, chatting with us for 
perhaps half an hour. One of his remarks struck me as 
most important, going far to prove, as it does, the im- 
mense value of these new iron-plated ships. ' I would 
sooner,' said he, ' know that the " Merrimac " was taken or 
sunk than have this army (meaning M°Clellan's) rein- 
forced by 60,000 men;' and, he gave solid reasons for his 
opinion too. The large force thrown upon Yorktown, 
numbering upwards of 100,000 troops, receives all its 
supplies down the James and York rivers, and the Fede- 
ral gunboats dare not venture far up these streams, fear- 
ing that the dreaded destroyer may issue forth and treat 
them as she did the Cumberland and the Congress. The 
officers have full confidence in the superior strength and 
capabilities of the ' Monitor,' but something may go wrong 
with her, and they have then no other safety than shal- 
low water and a wide berth. It is simply a fact that the 



76 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMrAIQN. 

*Merrimac,' at Norfolk, blockades the James and York 
rivers, and yet the mouth of the latter is forty miles away 
from that harbour. 

Having obtained permission to visit a newly finished 
battery on the banks of the York Kiver, we bade adieu to 
the G-eneral, and sallied forth in the direction of the camp 
of Berdan's sharpshooters. This regiment is formed of 
picked marksmen, selected from different States, and I 
learn that the crack shots are either Minnesota, Wisconsin, 
or other Western men, and Vermonters or citizens of New 
Hampshire — men in fine who have been weaned on rifles, 
and get most of their meals by shooting for them. Four 
companies are from New York, and one is composed of 
Tyrolese; but the crack individual shot is an elderly 
original who goes by the name of ' California Joe.' He 
is said to have brought down more than a score of the 
enemy from his pit, and is represented never to miss his 
aim in any instance. The rifle used is what we know as 
the Swiss, some of them weighing twenty-five pounds, but 
every man is drilled in the use of his particular choice 
weapon, an.d avails himself of rests, telescopes, &c. All 
the army bears witness to the invaluable services rendered 
by these experienced riflemen, and the fame of their deeds 
now extends over the entire country. Their camp is a 
model of beauty, every company pitching its tents in an 
avenue of evergreens and flowers, and visitors entering 
the inclosure by triumphal arches of different designs. 
The whizzing sound of an occasional shell falling near or 
beyond the camp lends a piquant relish of danger to the 
otherwise peaceful scene. 

A walk of two miles over hills, through valleys, and 
across numerous bridges lately constructed, brought us 
finally to the house where Cornwallis and Washingtou 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 77 

signed the capitulation of York Town, situated on the high 
banks of the York River, and giving a splendid view of 
York Town and Gloucester Point. In what was formerly 
the back garden of the house, the 1st Connecticut Volun- 
teer Artillery have thrown up a battery mounting seven 
guns — five 100-pounders, and two 200 — all of them cast 
and rifled on the Parrott principle. We first entered the 
deserted building and established ourselves On the top 
storey, whence we obtained an admirable view of the 
enemy's water battery, under the bluff on which York 
Town is situated. Our battery had just commenced firing, 
and the enemy was replying at the first about gun for gun, 
theirs being evidently of heavy calibre. The distance was 
about two miles, across water; — perhaps a little over, even 
—and we presented a far better mark than they, being 
not merely on a hill, but in the bright sunshine, whilst 
they were in the shade. Their shots generally fell short;: 
but at last we heard a loud report, and the whizzing, 
fluttering noise of a shell, which flew screaming towards 
us in a direct line, and fell into the water only about 100 
yards in front of us. As they would probably give the 
piece a trifle more elevation the next shot, we judged it 
discreet to descend into the battery, whence we watched 
the contest at our ease for half an hour. I had the pleasure 
of meeting here the Hon. John Tucker, the Assistant- 
Secretary of War. He expressed himself very pleased 
both with the range of the guns and the excellence of the 
firing, and certainly the latter could with difiiculty be 
surpassed. A young gentleman, who but lately joined the 
regiment from civil life, trained and sighted a piece, and 
the shell fell in the river close to the enemy's position. 
He then called for an eighteen-seconds' fuse, and, firing 
the second time, he landed the shell clean in the rebel 



78 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

battery, an enormous geyser of sand and earth rising 
where it fell. Three other shots from different guns pro- 
duced exactly the same effect, and we could see the enemy 
scattering in all directions. When we left, that battery 
was silenced. I am given to understand that a gun of 
heavy calibre and great range burst lately in this work of 
the Confederates, and was shown fragments of the conical 
shell picked up in a field one quarter of a mile beyond 
this point ; these fragments prove it to be of the Blakeley 
manufacture, and there are many such in the rebel States. 
Several were taken by Dupont in Florida. The range of 
the 100-po\md Parrott gun (rifled) is 4^ miles, and I 
much doubt whether its accuracy can be exceeded. It 
is a muzzle-loader, like all American guns. 

Retracing" our steps, we were invited to take tea with 
the major of a Pennsylvania cavalry regiment camped in 
a thick wood. The major related a circumstance to us 
which admirably exemplifies the utter want of energy of 
these slave-State men, their pride and downright stupidity. 
On the outskirts of the wood there resides a farmer, who 
is about the only native who has not run away since the 
approach of the Northern army ; the cavalry have thrown 
their manure in heaps upon his land, and perhaps a couple 
of acres are covered with the mounds lying close to each 
other. A few days ago the major asked the farmer why 
he did not grow more than one stick of Indian corn upon 
a hill. ' Why,' said he doggedly, ' the ground's too poor.' 
* But,' remarked the officer, * we are now manuring it for 
you, and we shall very soon cover in the whole of your 
farm. ' Oh,' replied the Virginian, ' that won't do any good, 
I haven't got any fences.' ' Why, then,' said the major, ' do 
you not get up early in the morning and fell a lot of 
young pines, so as to make a rail fence?' The farmer 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 79 

demurred to this as derogatory to his position to work, 
although assured he should be protected from all inter- 
ference. And yet of such stuff is the people formed who 
are now raving about independence of the South ! 

I am writing from the camp of the 105th Pennsylvanian 
Volunteers, a little in the rear of General M^Clellan's 
quarters, at eleven o'clock p.m. The enemy is keeping up 
a most vigorous cannonading in front of us, hoping to 
stop our working parties. The woods behind us re-echo 
the noise of the guns and screaming of the shell, making 
them appear quite close to us instead of three miles or so 
off. Musketry at this hour, however, would be infinitely 
more startling, but I think the enemy is scarcely likely to 
mark any night soitie. 



CHAPTER IX. 

EVACUATION OF YORKTOWN. 

May i, 8.0 A.ic. 
A NEGRO came into camp this morning, bringing news 
of the evacuation of Yorktown by the rebel army. This 
was, of course, discredited until confirmed by the signal 
corps and advanced pickets, and we now hear that the 
Stars and Stripes float over the deserted town. The feel- 
ing amongst the troops is that of bitter disappointment, 
shared in by officers and men alike ; for there is an uni- 
versal opinion wherever I have been during the past hour 
and a half that they are Qutrageously ' sold,' and their 
leaders utterly incompetent. ' We came here to fight,' 
they say, ' not to turn ditchers ; and we might have 
bagged the whole crowd inside Yorktown weeks ago, if 
M^Clellan had had the pluck.' The evacuation will, of 
course, be heralded as a great Union success, but the army 
calls it by a very different name. 

4.0 P.M. 
I am now writing on board the steamboat ' Hero,' which 
is lying out in stream on the edge of the Chesapeake. 
Where our destination is we can only surmise, the general 
impression being that we shall land near Norfolk. The 
whole of Franklin's division is about to leave for parts 
unknown, and we are momentarily expecting orders to 
depart. 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 81 

The enemy have left all their heavy guns, a portion of 
their camp equipage, and large quantities of commissary 
stores; they blew up their magazine before leaving. 
Through information obtained from stragglers and con- 
trabands, it appears their men had become demoralised on 
hearinor of the fall of New Orleans and Fort Macon, in 
North Carolina, and their officers could no longer place 
confidence in them. The retreat commenced on Thursday, 
and their heavy cannonading of the past five days was 
simply to mask their movements ; if they have also eva- 
cuated their water batteries on the York River we shall 
reach them before they get far distant. 

Colonel Key, of M*Clellan's staff, states his impression, 
which is very probably the conviction also of the General 
himself, that the Confederate army has retreated to the 
Chickahominy Eiver. 

We have rumours of grand successes under Halleck in 
the West, but the particulars are withheld from the public; 
if that General and M^Clellan can only get in the rear of 
the retreating armies, the horrors of a guerilla campaign 
will be avoided. Halleck will do so, for Pope, with 35,000 
men, and Mitchell, with 30,000, have by this time effected 
a junction of their forces south of the latitude of Memphis. 
Rely upon it Burnside is not idle in North Carolina, and 
I hazard the prediction that neither Beauregard's army 
in the West, nor that under Davis and Johnstone, will 
ever reach the cotton States except as demoralised strag- 
glers. It is known to 1 he authorities at Washington that 
Governor Clark, of North Carolina, has been arrested as a 
traitor to the Confederate Government, and carried pri- 
soner to Richmond, the charge being made of his having 
offered to surrender his state to Burnside. North Carolina 
is far more Union than any other member of the so-called 

Q 



82 GEN. M^CLELLAN ANB THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Confederacy, and should it enter into M'Clellan's plan to 
occupy her territory, he will receive every assistance from 
her citizens. I expect to see a large force precipitated 
forthwith upon Weldon and to the westward, our command 
of the sea and the interior waters giving us an immense 
advantage over the enemy. The question now is. Where 
are the Confederates about making a stand ? M'Dowell 
has finished his bridge over the Eappahannock, and is fast 
advancing upon Kichmond ; and Banks will not be long 
in effecting a jimction with him and Fremont. All the 
cavalry and flying artillery of this army are now hastening 
after the retreaters, and M^'Clellan may, by this time, have 
obtained information so as to modify his plans to the ijew 
exigencies of the case. 

10.0 P.M. 

The captain of our steamboat has just received orders to 
be ready to leave at half-past three in the morning, and 
bets are in favour of Lynn Haven, near Norfolk, as our 
destination. Fifteen or more large steamers, each carrying 
a thousand men, lie near our moorings, and a perfect fleet 
of brigs and schooners surround the larger craft. 

York Rivee, opposite Yoektown : May 5, 6.0 a.m. 
The whole of Franklin's division is now lying off this 
place in steamers ; gunboats are in front of us, and our 
troops throng both sides of the stream. "We are waiting 
for the order to leave, the rain again falling in torrents. 
I must close this letter, in the hopes of it reaching New 
York in time for Wednesday's steamer. 

YoEKTowN, ViHGiNiA : May 5, 8 p.m. 
We have lain here all day, momentarily expecting the 
order to move. My friend, Colonel Torbert, of tlie 1st 



GEN. W®CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 83 

New Jersey infantry, has just received instructions to 
weigh anchor at midnight, and proceed up the river to 
West Point, in company with the rest of the brigade, and 
Franklin's division. The latter numbers some 16,000 men, 
and we shall, within the next twelve hours, have landed 
that force, plentifully supplied with artillery, in the rear 
of the retreating Confederates. The distance from York- 
town to West Point, at the head of the York Eiver, is, by 
water, some thirty miles, and a railroad, some forty miles 
long, leads thence to Kichmond. The retreating Confe- 
derates are evidently endeavouring to reach this terminus 
so as to transport their artillery and heavy stores to Peters- 
burg, and thence, south. Query — will they do it ? Ma- 
gruder, we now know for certain, commenced his backward 
movement on Thursday, and perhaps his advance has 
already reached West Point. We, on the other hand, 
have the advantage of this deep and wide river, and our 
gunboats are worth 50,000 men to us. There is a rumour 
that Banks and M'Dowell have just taken, and are now 
occupying, Eichmond. If this be correct, although I 
doubt it, the enemy is hemmed in on this peninsula, and 
must fight from desperation or surrender ; but the question 
depends on the chances of our getting in the enemy's rear, 
or the presence of Banks and M'Dowell at Richmond. All 
day the rain has fallen in torrents, and the roads must be 
in an impassable condition for artillery ; this, however, 
will be less damaging to M'^Clellan than to the enemy, for 
he has command of the river and its tributaries. 

Camp rumours, the stupidest of canards, tell to-day of 
serious reverses to our troops while attacking the rear of 
the retreating Confederates at Williamsburg.* We hear 

» See p. 106, 
o2 



84 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

of six batteries of field-artillery captured, and three colo- 
nels taken prisoners, but the report is on no better au- 
thority than the word of an orderly. One thing, however, 
is certain ; numbers of our men have been wounded or 
killed by torpedos placed in the road, and the feeling of 
the troops is naturally much incensed against an antagonist 
who resorts to such unworthy means. The rapid advance 
of the cavalry and flying artillery soon came up with the 
enemy, and the impression is general that the entire body 
of the main army of the rebels is still on the peninsula. 

I went on shore this morning, with the hope of inspect- 
ing the deserted fortifications, but found that no one under 
the grade of general officer was permitted to enter without 
a special pass. Expecting an order to move, I returned 
to the steamer, meeting on the shore the captain of the 
French frigate ' Grassendi.' He told me the ' Merrimac ' 
was out in the James River, and he was hastening back to 
Fortress Monroe, expecting to witness another engagement 
between her and the ' Monitor.' The captain was present 
at the debut of the * Merrimac,' and has inspected her 
thoroughly above and below, as also her little antagonist. 
He gives the opinion that the former would prove the 
more powerful in deep water and the 'Monitor' in shallow, 
but I am afraid he may possess some of the prejudices 
against change which old salts so generally evince. I 
believe it will be found that the ' Merrimac ' is out in order 
to blockade the James River, so as to cover the passage of 
the retreating Confederates. I hear that Captain Fox, 
the Assistant-Secretary of the Navy, is at Fortress Monroe, 
and I hope, therefore, that the ' Monitor ' and ' Galena ' 
will receive permission to engage her. 



GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 85 

West Point, Virginia: May 6. 

We left Yorktown this morning at eight o'clock, the 
entire of Franklin's division sailing at the same time, 
and presenting an imposing appearance on the magnificent 
York Kiver. This stream is almost as straight and even 
in breadth as a canal, and the banks are more thickly 
settled than any Southern river I have yet seen. Per- 
haps this is owing to the beauty of the country through 
which it runs — a beauty much resembling that of our 
Thames above Kew and Eichmond. The exclamations of 
delight at the scenery were general amongst both officers 
and men, and numbers promised themselves a farm on the 
banks of York River as soon as the war is over. Nothing 
interfered with our passage to the head of the stream, nor 
did anything offer which could excite our interest, and we 
reached West Point after a very quiet and slow passage 
between four and five o'clock in the evening. West Point 
is the south-eastern extremity of the tongue of land formed 
by the Pamunkey and Mattapony rivers, and from it runs 
a railroad to Richmond, which the retreating rebels are 
endeavouring to reach. 

I have obtained some particulars relative to the eva- 
cuation of the rebel lines at Yorktown from officers who 
inspected them yesterday. From the assertions of strag- 
glers and Confederate prisoners, it would appear that the 
enemy were perfectly unprepared for the heavy artillery 
brought against them ; and they preferred to evacuate in 
time, rather than hazard the bombardment which would 
have opened last Monday. Their own works were admi- 
rably well constructed, and we should have had difficulty 
and great loss of life in carrying them. The two points 
of Yorktown and Gloucester Point, 1,000 yards apart, 
and both fortified down to the water's edge, kept the 



86 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

gunboats at a respectful distance ; but our guns were of 
heavier calibre and of much greater range than their 
own, and they left everything to us which they had taken 
months to collect. The guns evidently defended the shores 
of York Eiver at an early period, for the batteries are 
overgrown with long, thick grass. 

On the dock at Yorktown we found two of our 
2001b. Parrott rifle shot, unexploded, packed in boxes to 
forward to Eichmond. One was labelled as follows : — 
'This was thr owned {sic) from a land battery at the mouth 
of Wormley Creek, belonging to the Yankees ; distance 
four and a half miles. Time, two o'clock, April 30, 1862.' 
The second was mai'ked thus : — ' From a Yankee steamer ; 
distance five miles.' The Confederate prisoners in our 
hands express the greatest astonishment at the range of 
our heavy guns ; in places where shell have fallen they 
have driven a post into the ground, and written particulars 
similar to the above. I learn from one of our principal 
artillery officers that shot fired from our battery at 
Wormley Creek passed completely over Yorktown into 
the country beyond — a distance of between five and six 
miles. 



CHAPTER X. 

BATTLE OF WEST POINT, VA. 

May 7, 9 p.m. 
We have been fighting fill day since 8 a.m., and the 
gunboats are still throwing shell into the enemy's lines. 
Although as tired as a man needs be, I must chronicle the 
events of the past twelve hours before courting the 
blankets, believing that those of the morrow will be still 
more exciting. We have been attacked by the enemy in 
force, and remain masters of the field. 

The armies under Generals Lee and Magruder are now ' 
endeavouring to reach Richmond by the road running the 
length of the peninsula, the north-western extremity 
passing by West Point. M^Clellan is following them up, 
his advance treading on their very heels ; and, if what we 
hear be correct, he is now less than ten miles' distance from 
this place. The position of the army under General 
Franklin is on the southern shores of the mouth of the 
Pamunkey River — not at West Point itself — and the road 
the retreating rebels are following passes within threfe 
miles of our encampment. It will thus be seen that we 
are in a position to outflank them and cut off their retreat; 
an operation which will probably be attempted to-morroW 
when our reinforcements have arrived. The rebels, ima- 
gining very properly that we were in comparatively small 
force, hoped to drive us into the river ; and, were it not 
tor the peculiar position taken up by General Franklin, 



88 GEN. M^CUi-BLLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

they might hav» succeeded. Our little army is camping 
on a broad plain at the head of the York River, and dense 
woods and swamps intervene between the contending 
forces, the edge of this almost impassable forest forming a 
Bemicircle, the ends of which rest on the water. A good 
broad road runs from the centre of the arc through the 
woods to the route traversed by the foe whom M*=Clellan 
is following up the peninsula, and there is a distance of 
about a mile and a half from that centre to the water. 
We have thus a broad and level plain on which to 
manoeuvre an army of at least 30,000 men, and a position, 
too, in which an army may defend itself successfully 
against almost any numbers, because the enemy can bring 
forward neither cavalry nor artillery. Add to this the 
presence of the gunboats enfilading the approaches, and 
you will admit that the Confederates are justified in 
regarding us as dangerous neighbours. It is quite proba- 
ble that their retreat upon Richmond will be prevented, 
and, if so, they cannot easily reach the raiboads running 
towards the Grulf States. 

The first intimation given us of the enemy's attack was 
by a negro who approached our pickets in the woods early 
this morning. He informed the officer in command of the 
intended advance, stating at the same time that Greneral 
Lee was only about three miles distant from us, and that 
we should be attacked almost immediately. The first 
sound of musketry was heard a little before eight o'clock, 
and told of a large force in the woods : the diflferent 
regiments did not wait for orders from the general-in- 
command, but formed into line instanter, with an alacrity 
which proved how much their hearts were in the struggle. 
The sound came from the left of the camp of the 1st New 
Jersey, and I immediately went down to head-quarters, 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 89 

where I found the whole of our artillery harnessing up, and 
aides-de-camp galloping about in all directions. Greneral 
Franklin and staff were soon away towards that part of the 
woods whence the musketry proceeded, and were quickly 
followed by Hexamer's Jersey battery of six field-pieces, 
which dashed off in glorious style, with Piatt's Napoleon 
guns hard on their heels. The infantry now began to 
move towards the woods at double quick, their bright 
I'ifles and bayonets reflecting, diamond-like, the sun's rays 
of a calm May morning. With an expedition that could 
not be surpassed, hospitals were established in different 
parts of the field, signal ofiicers placed in trees, and a 
telegraph arranged from the front to the reserves, by 
stationing men within hailing distance of each other. I 
took up my own position on a rising ground in the centre 
of the plain, and had not merely a perfect view of the 
marchings and counter-marchings of the various regiments 
until they entered the woods, but heard the different 
reports brought in to General Slocum, second in command. 
I had not long been in this position when word was sent 
across the fields— * Brigade of enemy on our right ; ' a 
minute afterwards a third battery dashed away in the 
direction indicated, followed by its supports at double 
quick. We had scarcely turned our glasses towards the 
spot, vainly endeavouring to penetrate the thick forest 
wall, when shouts came again from the front of 'Enemy 
coming in on our left.' Out of the woods marched our 
skirmishers and. pickets, driven in by a vastly superior 
force, and it seemed as though our little army were about 
to be surrounded by the entire force of the Confederates. 
Volleys of musketry succeeded each other rapidly, and the 
cry came over the field of 'The 95th are falling back 1' 
This was a Pennsylvania regiment of Zouaves, and we 



90 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

soon had a number of their officers and men brought past, 
us on stretchers, followed by more than a score stragglers 
covered with mud to their waists. The poor fellows had 
been on duty all night in the woods, and to escape from 
the enemy had to plunge through a morass, where many 
of them had stuck fast and were shot before they could 
extricate themselves. The attack finally resolved itself 
into one on our centre, where the road traverses the 
woods*; when this became confirmed, the order was given 
for the infantry to fall back upon the open, and the 
batteries prepared to commence firing. A rebel regiment, 
the 5th Alabama, marched to the very edge of the woods, 
where they were received with a volley of double-shotted 
canister from the New Jersey battery, at the close range 
of 200 yards. The rest of the artillery immediately 
followed suit, changing the ammunition afterwards to 
shell ; and when twenty- four pieces, aided by the gun- 
boats, had fully got into play, little was heard of the enemy 
for some two hours. 

We received numerous reinforcements during the action, 
and towards afternoon, or rather evening, Greneral Franklin 
found himself at the head of two divisions. This night 
and the morrow will bring him a third, and he will then 
be able to assume the offensive with an army of upwards 
of 40,000 men. Nearly all his regiments have moved 
forward into the woods, and at this hour (11 p.m.) 
they are bivouacking in close proximity to the enemy. I 
am writing this letter in the deserted camp of the 1st New 
Jei'sey, on the extreme right of our line, near the con- 
fluence of the Pamunkey with the York River. Every now 
and then the enemy fires towards the shipping from the 
direction of West Point, and the gunboats reply with their 
sonorous eleven-inch guns, waking up a thousand echces 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 91 

in the woods. The sound, however, is in rather too close 
proximity to be altogether pleasant. 

As usual in such cases, there have been many remark- 
able escapes. One man had the muzzle of his rifle carried 
away, the shot glancing downwards and grazing his thumb. 
A friend of mine, an officer on General Slocum's staff, 
rode right into the midst of the enemy, and, when turning 
to retreat, found himself in a shower of musket shot, one 
ball of which carried away the skin of h:s left ear and a 
lock of hair. Another, on Greneral Newton's staff, also 
missed his way in the woods and came upon the enemy; 
they, taking him for a Confederate, asked him the where- 
abouts of Colonel Hampton, the commanding officer of a 
celebrated South Carolina regiment. He replied, with 
great presence of mind, *Back here,' and immediately 
turned his horse's head ; but a well-directed volley killed 
the animal, and he himself fell to the ground, feigning 
death. The rebels approached him, and proceeded to 
rifle his pockets, making several observations derogatory 
to Yankees in general, and himself in particular — so much 
so, in fact, that he broke out laughing, and they imme- 
diately marched him towards their lines. He had not 
gone many steps before a shell burst near to them, followed 
by a second in nearly the same place. 'Eun,' said he, 
' and I'll run, too ; ' and he did it, only in the opposite 
direction to his captors. 

It is almost impossible to give a correct accoimt of the 
killed and wounded in this engagement, but from all I 
can gather, I think 250 will cover our loss. The principal * 
struggle was for possession of a certain fence away back in 
the woods, and the 3 1st and 32nd New York and 95th 
Pennsylvania suffered severely at this point. Supports 
coming up, they made a bayonet charge up to and over the 



92 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSCLA CAMPAIGN. 

fence, the enemy broke in confusion, and we are now 
holding the position with our pickets out beyond. I have 
heard no estimate of the enemy's casualties, but they were 
seen to carry off large numbers of killed and wounded. 
What their force was it would be vain to state, as they 
fought all the time, as they always do, under cover; but 
from the manner in which they drove us backwards until 
the artillery opened upon them, it is probable their 
numbers largely exceeded our own. 

May 8. 

The third division is disembarking from transports 
which arrived early this morning, and we have now 
upwards of 35,000 men on land. I learn that General 
M'^Clellan has sent orders to Franklin to hold this position 
at all hazards until to-night, when he will be here in person. 
The regulars are on their way here, and all the reserve 
artillery as well. Franklin's division will be the vanguard 
of the advancing Federal army, and, as we are to leave 
our baggage, it is obviously intended to make forced 
marches upon the retreating enem}'. In fact, it becomes 
a race between the two armies as to who shall first arrive 
at Richmond. 

The Confederates retired during the night, but we are 
after them in force. 

6. P.M. 

We have employed this day in scouring the woods for 
killed and wounded, and preparing for an early departure. 
A second divieion, under command of Greneral Sedgwick, 
* has reinforced our army, and the advance guard of Fitz John 
Porter's division is already here. We have now a force 
which, in conjunction with the gunboats, may defy any 
numbers the enemy can bring against us. 

A walk to the General Hospital this morning satisfied 



I 



OEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 93 

me more than ever of the atrocities of the rebels. I saw 
one of our dead brought in with a mortal wound in the 
chest, and his throat cut fi-om ear to ear. Another poor 
fellow had his face smashed in by a blow from the butt 
end of a musket, or, which is more probable, by the heel 
of a man's boot, and the wound showed unmistakable 
evidence of having been inflicted when the sufferer lay on 
the ground. The effect upon the troops was immense — 
curses fierce being vented upon an enemy who could be 
guilty of such barbarities. I am sorry to say there is too 
much evidence of these cases being rather general than 
individual, as witness the torpedoes set for the Northern 
army at Yorktown ; but, after all, they are merely a con- 
sequence of that beautiful system of slavery which the South 
is seeking to perpetuate. These assassin-like measures of 
the rebels are slowly but surely driving the North to 
exa§peration. Another effect is also produced — one which 
will have a great result upon the determination of this 
contest and future reconstruction. There are tens of 
thousands of men in the Northern armies — indeed, I 
might say half the volunteers — who gave their services to 
the Grovernnaent under the impression that the war would 
merely restore the former condition of affairs : these, 
officers and privates alike, have hitherto grumbled at the 
emancipationist policy inaugurated by the Government, 
and continually denied that the rebellion had anything 
to do with slavery. I conversed this morning with a 
brigade surgeon from New Jersey, who was one of this class, 
and I discovered, somewhat to my astonishment, that his 
opinions had undergone an entire change in consequence 
of these atrocities. The staffs of different generals afford 
good indications of the current of opinion among the 
Democratic element of the army, and satisfactorily prove 



94 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

to my mind that the whole North is coming round to the 
opinion of the party now in power that the war cannot 
end without the annihilation of slavery. 

Professor Lowe is on here with his balloons. An ascent 
was made this evening to a height of 950 feet, and the 
acting adjutant-general of Franklin's division was enabled 
to distinguish clearly the camp fires of the retreating 
enemy at fifteen miles' distance The New Jersey brigade 
has removed its encampment to the skirts of the woods 
where the battle took place yesterday, and we now lie on 
the road leading to the little town called Eltham, near the 
banks of the Pamunkey Eiver. We are all in expectation 
of quitting this vicinity on the morrow, and reaching the 
enemy by forced marches — in which case I trust it will be 
rather cooler weather than we have enjoyed (?) to-day. 

May 9. 

Thirty thousand troops marched by my tent this after- 
noon between the hours of twelve and five. They took 
the road to Eltham, aad I therefrom judge it is M^'Clellan's 
intention to transport a considerable portion of his army 
across the Pamunkey Eiver to the promontory between 
that stream and the Mattapony. He would thus be 
enabled to avail himself of the railroad between West 
Point and Richmond — no inconsiderable assistance to 
him should he require heavy siege artillery to attack the 
latter place. There is thought to be some appearance of a 
design on the part of the rebels to make their next stand 
for the possession of Eichmond close to that city ; and 
perhaps they think M°Clellan cannot get up his heavy 
artillery from Yorktown to their capital under two or three 
weeks, at wltich period the hot weather will have set in, 
and the Northern troops will find it too hot to fight. A 



GEN. M°CLELLA.N AND THE PENINSULA. CAMPAIflN. 95 

considerable portion of this army — how large I know not — • 
is pushing along the road running parallel to the Paraunkey, 
Major- General Stoneman and the cavalry being this after- 
noon five miles further on towards the point of attack than 
we at this place. M°Clellan himself, I learn, is still at 
Williamsburg, a few miles from Yorktown, near the James 
Kiver, — perhaps he is there superintending the passage of 
troops to the southern bank of that stream ; but why he 
keeps constantly in the rear we cannot surmise satis- 
factorily. The iron-clad battery ' Gralena ' has ascended 
the river, leaving the * Monitor ' to watch the ' Merrimac ; ' 
and this certainly looks as though some such movement 
as that above indicated were intended. A junction with 
Burnside and a rapid advance upon Petersburg would cut 
off Norfolk from reinforcements, and hem in the main 
army of the Confederates upon their new line of the 
Chickahominy. 

We have received no mail since our arrival at this place, 
and I am therefore unacquainted with passing events in 
other sections of the country. Whatever is doing else- 
where is merely secondary in importance — auxiliary, in 
fact — to the operations of the army on the Pamunkey 
Eiver. We have here the three best divisions of M'^Clel- 
lan's command : the celebrated regiment, Berdan's sharp- 
shooters, arrived this afternoon, and I understand that the 
regulars and the artillery of reserve will be here to- 
morrow. With the James Eiver held by Groldsborough's 
fleet, the enemy cannot possibly get away from the vicinity 
of Eichmond ; and this army, in conjunction with the 
forces of Banks, M'Dowell, and Fremont, will strike a 
blow which will annihilate the rebellion. 

The negroes are coming into our lines in droves, and 
affording invaluable assistance to our generals by their 



96 GEN. m'^clellan and the peninsula campaign, 

knowledge of the country and the position of the enemy's 
forces. They march into the camps with the most charm- 
ing confidence in the friendship of the Yankees, whom 
their masters represented to them as tyrants and negro- 
haters, and the information they possess is given without 
any need of questioning. We learn from them that the 
enemy's loss in the late engagement amounted to several 
hundi'eds in killed and wounded, mostly caused by the 
firing from our field-batteries and gunboats. They had two 
divisions engaged, among them some of the crack South- 
em regiments, as the Hampton Legion of South Carolina, 
the Texan Hangers, and the flower of the Alabama troops. 
Had they been able to bring artillery through 'the woods, 
our single division might have been driven into the river ; 
they at all events prevented our executing a flank move- 
ment upon the retreating army from Yorktown, and 
enabled it to reach the Chickahominy without danger 
from us. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE MAECH UP THE PENINSULA. 

Eltham, Vibginia: May 10. 
This little place, on the banks of the Pamunkey Eiver, is 
now the head-quarters of Franklin's and Sedgwick's 
divisions, and in fact the base of operations of that portion 
of M^'Clellan's immediate command which is advancing 
upon Richmond by way of York River. The Pamunkey 
is in reality the York River, and although scarcely indi- 
cated on the map, its breadth at Eltham is that of the 
Thames at Vauxhall. The town itself is scarcely worthy 
the name, being merely a half-dozen houses on the road 
leading through the woods to Richmond ; but it offers 
advantages over the landing at the head of York River in 
consequence of possessing much deeper water and greater 
proximity to the city. The difficulties of the army are 
now really commencing, for everything depends upon the 
question of supplies — that is to say, transportation — and 
the roads here are execrable and very few in number. All 
the provisions and ammunition of this army, which pro- 
bably exceeds 150,000 men, have to be brought from the 
Northern States to Baltimore, then shipped mainly on 
schooners, and towed down the Chesapeake Bay and up 
York River —a distance of 300 miles by water alone. 
The Chesapeake is occasionally a very tempestuous inland 
sea, and we are thus dependent on the winds and waves 

H 



98 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

for all our supplies. Soon we shall have greater facilities, 
for the James Eiver is now said to be opening up to us, 
and we shall thus be in a position to obtain what we 
require through numerous channels. 

Greneral FitzJohn Porter's division is still at the point 
where we landed originally, which, for want of a name, 1 
called West Point. He cannot move forward until the 
two divisions at Eltham leave for the interior, all the 
open ground here being occupied by' troops. I was down 
at the general's quarters this afternoon, and paid a visit 
to the camp of Berdan's Sharpshooters. The tents are by 
no means so picturesque as before Yorktown, but the men 
look forward to digging their rifle-pits within a week or 
two in sight of Eichmond itsel£ Colonel Berdan was in 
high glee at the addition of a new company to his regi- 
ment, just arrived from Minnesota, and he spoke with 
much admiration of the qualities of these Western back- 
woodsmen. I find that only two of the companies are 
armed with the heavy ' target ' or Swiss rifle, the others 
being generally provided with Sharpe's breech-loader, 
mounted with telescopic and globe sights. It is rather 
strange that whilst Americans are thoroughly decided 
against breech-loading cannon, all their inventors should 
be giving their attention to breech-loading muskets. 
There are Sharpe's, Burnside's, Maynard's, Colt's, and 
others whose names I forget. 

May 12. 

I cannot tell where to date from now, as we are in a 
placoi without a name and in the neighbourhood of nowliere 
else. We marched yesterday morning from Eltham, and, 
after turning numerous corners in the woods, finally de- 
bouched into a splendid open country at three miles' dis- 
tance. P'ranklin's division is within eight miles of Kent 



GEN. M*^CLEI-LAN AND THE PENINSULA CAJiPAIGN. 99 

County Court-house, and we leave to-morrow morning at 
daybreak for the latter place, where M*'Clellan's advance 
through the centre of the peninsula has already arrived. 

I have gained much valuable information this morning 
relative to the events of the past twelve months in the 
State of Virginia, from an old widowed lady, whose farm 
is within a stone's throw of our camp. Grenerals Frank- 
lin, Slocum, and Newton, and many of the principal 
officers of this division, have paid her visits since our ar- 
rival; and her house has, in fact, been a shrine which all have 
gladly approached. Mrs. Jennings, for such is the lady's 
name, in addition to being an out-and-out ' Union ' woman, 
possesses great wit and sarcasm, and a pleasant volubility of 
the most attractive kind. Such women as she made Vir- 
ginia ' the mother of Presidents ; ' but under the deterio- 
rating influence of slavery, the race was becoming rapidly 
extinct. Her two eldest sons had been snatched from 
her, and forced to enter the rebel army ; and she informs 
us that not a man nor boy was left to cultivate the 
ground who was capable of bearing arms. It became a 
question of field-labour or absolute starvation, and she, 
her daughters, and younger sons forthwith addressed 
themselves to the cultivation of the ground, raising barely 
sufficient for their own support. For many months past, 
she says, they have been compelled to use meal for coffee : 
sugar was at half a dollar in specie a pound, and all arti- 
cles of clothing could only be obtained at ruinous prices. 
The dress she had on was woven by her own hands in a 
loom, out of cotton raised on her own farm, and I was 
surprised to hear that most Virginia families cultivate 
sufficient of the staple for home consumption. The old 
lady was born in the year 1800, and she told me she 
recollects well the war of 1812, and the marcbing 

H te. 



100 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

of troops in front of her father's house. From her, as 
well as from other residents in the neighbourhood, I learn 
that agriculture is no longer attended to in this section of 
the State ; neither corn nor wheat has been planted, and 
as the inhabitants are mostly poor, starvation is staring 
them in the face. With one solitary exception, a farmer 
who is known to have had intimate relations with the 
rebel leaders, all the inhabitants receive the Union army 
as a deliverer, and Mrs. Jennings assures us that when we 
reach Richmond we shall be astonished at the number of 
loyal persons in that city. 

The head-quarters of the army which attacked our di- 
vision last Wednesday were close to this lady's house, and 
she heard from Confederate officers that their number on 
that occasion was 30,000. The distance from her farm 
to York River was two and a half miles in a straight Hne, 
and the shells from the gunboats passed over her residence 
and burst far beyond. All the troops were not engaged, 
and when the enemy retreated towards evening they re- 
presented to the farmers in the vicinity that they were 
about taking up a new position near to Kent Court-house. 
We are now holding that place with an entire division, 
some miles beyond, and, if I am well informed, our advance 
pickets are within sixteeen miles of Richmond. 

CCMBEHLAND, VlKGmiA : May 13. 

This place, now the head-quarters of General APClellan, 
is situated on the right bank of the Pamunkey River, two 
miles from Kent County Court-house, and about twenty- 
five from Richmond. Like most of the Southern towns, it 
is nought but a collection of half-a-dozen houses ; but the 
approaches are important, and the landing excellent; 
vessels drawing fifteen feet can ascend the stream above 
Cumberland, a distance of nearly 100 miles from York- 



GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 101 

town by water, and nine feet depth is found within a yard 
or two of the banks. The shores on either side are preci- 
pitous and covered with dense forests, and I have seldom 
seen a river more tortuous in its windings or so sylvan in 
beauty. We have here a considerable fleet of schooners 
and light draft vessels laden with provisions and forage 
for this immense army ; and there are four gunboats, 
mounting 9, 10, and 11 -inch guns, which have cleared the 
river of obstructions as far as White House, seven miles 
up stream. The master of one of the steamers tells me 
that in running from Cumberland to Eltham, where the 
Pamunkey flows into York Eiver, he has to steer by every 
point of the compass, so serpentine are the windings ; but 
the stream is broad and deep, and the current not too 
rapid. You will remark that M'^Clellan is availing him- 
self of these numerous streams, in which the Southern 
States are so rich, to bring supplies to his army, and I 
doubt much whether he will ever require to carry army 
stores over land a greater distance than from five to ten 
miles. It is necessary to examine a map on a very large 
scale before you can see half these rivers marked down, 
and most of those which appear but to be unimportant 
streamlets are really of considerable magnitude : the 
Pamunkey, forty miles from its mouth, and seventy-five 
from Too's Point, where the York River empties into the 
Chesapeake, is as large and much deeper than the Thames 
at Battersea. 

I marched with the 4th New Jersey Regiment this morn- 
ing, bringing up the rear of Franklin's division. Reveillee 
sounded at 4.30 a.m., and we commenced our journey at six 
o'clock. Next before us was the 95th Pennsylvania, follow- 
ing on the steps of the 31st and 32nd, and 16th New York, 
5th Maine, 18th New York, 96th Pennsylvania, and so we 



102 GEN. M'^CLELLAN A^;D THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

marcbed until the latter came up to the 3rd New Jersey, 
which finally fell in as rear guard with ourselves. The 
waggon train belonging to each followed its regiment, 
and we were, therefore, an escort to it ; a very necessary 
arrangement, seeing that we were entering the enemy's 
country, and within a few miles of the main Confederate 
•dvvay. The distance to be traversed was only twelve 
milesj but eight hours were barely sufficient to reach 
our destination, owing to the continual stoppages of the 
waggons : add to this a blazing sun and dusty roads, and 
it is easy to understand that the march was not entirely 
agreeable. The scenery, however, was most beautiful, 
hills and valleys, numerous watercourses, and occasional 
farm-houses, dotting the landscape. But a very small 
proportion of the ground is cleared, and that which here- 
tofore was cultivated now mostly lies untille'l. The entire 
male population is in the ranks of the Confederate army, 
and the nesfroes have been driven off to work on fortifica- 
tions. 

General M'^Clellan passed along the road about eight 
A.M.; and we soon learned that the major portion of his 
army was in front of us, and marching towards Cumberland. 
At every cross rt)ad there would be a halt in order to allow 
the passage of teams belonging to other regiments, bri- 
gades, and divisions. Some idea may be foi'med of this 
immense chain of vehicles when I state that the general's 
private train numbered no less than twenty-eight waggons. 
What he wants with such a number I do not profess to 
state ; but I hear many of his general officers complaining 
of the delay that this ' private train ' causes. I hope to 
be able to give you in this letter the precise numbers of 
all the materiel brought by this army from the North. 

We arrived at Kent Court-house about two o'clock, and 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 103 

were met by a mounted officer, wlio informed us that our 
cavalry pickets had been diivenin, and the enemy were 
coming down upon us in force. Greneral M°Clellan and 
all the army but our two New Jersey regiments had turned 
off by the road leading to Cumberland ; but Colonel 
Simpson of the 4th, being senior officer, immediately 
formed the Jersey troops into line of battle, and threw 
out skirmishers towards the foe. A dragoon shortly after 
came in from the front, and informed him that a masked 
battery had been opened upon our cavalry at five miles 
from the village, and the waggon trains were then ordered 
to proceed in all haste by the side road leading to Cum- 
berland. The 14th Eegulars and the New York Zouaves 
now came to our support at double quick, and, much to 
our surprise, they were followed by the 12th, 11th, lOth, 
6th, 4th, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, and 8th Eegulars, and a squadron 
of the Lincoln cavalry. Where they all came from we 
could not imagine, but the force of 10,000 men put our 
minds completely at ease for the safety of our baggage 
train. Believing that we were on the eve of a general 
engagement, I hastened with all speed to Cumberland, a 
distance of two miles, and arrived in time to see M^'Clellan 
ride out with all his staff, a very regiment in numbers, in 
the direction of the point of attack. Three brigades were 
drawn up in line of battle on the brow of a hill, while 
the artillery harnessed up and awaited the order to ad- 
vance. The enemy, after all, failed to show themselves ; 
but the alarm proved satisfactorily that the army was 
ready for any contingencies. The troops had been march- 
ing all day in a hot sun ; they were foot-sore, parched, 
and hungry; and yet they displayed most commendable 
alacrity in preparing to meet the foe. I feel satisfied they 
may be depended on for any service required of them. 



104 GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

even though a summer's campaign in the Gulf States 
should become a necessity. This, however, I do not 
believe ; for there is every prospect of capturing the entire 
Confederate army before it crosses the James River. 

Heintzelman's corps cfarmee is advancing up the penin- 
sula with rapid strides, and Sumner's is to-day at Eltham ; 
to-morrow it will be here, making an addition to our force 
of 35,000 men. Our camping- ground is situated in an 
immense amphitheatre surrounded by hills, except that 
portion which is bounded by the Pamxmkey. This level 
valley is now covered with the tents of 60,000 men, and 
the scene is truly inspiriting, with the music of the bands, 
the countless camp-fires, and the loud neighings of so 
many thousand horses and mules. We hear a rumour 
that the entire army will press forward without delay 
after the enemy, for the droves of negroes coming into 
our lines assert that the Confederates are now evacuating 
Eichmond, and seeking to reach Petersburg, south of the 
James River. 

May 14. 

Two divisions left here to-day for some point further 
on, and it was intended to move the entire army at this 
place to White House, where the railroad crosses the 
Pamunkey River ; for some reason or other the movement 
was but partially carried out, but we all follow to-morrow, 
Franklin's division leading the advance. General Stone- 
man is already at White House, seven miles from here, 
with the vanguard of the army. 

I have heard that to-day which leads me to believe the 
rebel army is preparing to make a final and desperate 
struggle at Richmond. The careful preparations of 
General M'^Clellan and his cautious advance are certainly 
confirmatory of this opinion, added to which intrenching 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN, 105 

tools in enormous quantities are being carried along in 
the transports and by the troops. I should not be sur- 
prised to see a lengthy siege of the Confederate capital, 
carrying us forward into the summer months : the fall of 
Norfolk gives them a considerable addition to their force 
on the peninsula, and Jackson's and Smith's will greatly 
increase it also. There are no fears, however, for the 
result: M'^Clellan's army alone has twelve divisions and 
fifty-eight batteries of field artillery; and the corps of 
Banks, Fremont, and M 'Do well are rapidly advancing from 
Northern Virginia to reinforce it. Meanwhile, the gun- 
boats will not be idle in the James Kiver, now that the 
* Merrimac ' is no longer a terror to them. 

At White House we shall only be some twenty miles' 
distance from Kichmond, and it is scarcely probable that 
the enemy will permit us to proceed further without 
hazarding an engagement. The longer this is postponed, 
the better for the North, for time will thus be given for 
the Union armies to surround the Confederates and cut ofif 
their retreat southwards. The antagonists are too close 
to each other to admit of much further delay. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG. 

From an officer on the staff of Brigadier-General 
Kearny I have to-day heard particulars of the battle at 
Williamsburg. Brigadier-Greneral Hooker, commanding 
the sister division in Heintzelman's corps, was the first to 
come up with the rear-guard of the Confederates at the 
town of Williamsburg. He attacked the enemy with 
fury, when the latter, discovering how small a force they 
had to deal with, returned in almost overwhelming num- 
bers and well-nigh crushed him. Witliin two miles of the 
scene of action was the whole of Sumner's cor s cfm^mee ; 
but not having received orders to advance to Hooker's 
assistance, no command was given to march. 'Where is 
M°Clellan ? ' everybody asked and nobody could tell ; and 
thus one of the finest divisions in the army was nearly 
sacrificed by the absence of the very man responsible for 
its safety. Between four and five o'clock in the afternoon 
Kearny came up at the head of his division ; with a deaf- 
ening cheer the troops followed their gallant chief into 
the thick of the melee, and the day was won. When all 
was over, the rebel army just commencing its retreat from 
the field, M°Clellau makes his appearance. Had he been 
present at the beginning of the engagement, there is 
every probability that the retreating Confederates would 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 107 

only have entered Eichmond a disorganised rabble, for 
Hooker single-handed bad kept tbem at bay since five 
o'clock in the morning, and Sumner with 30,000 • men 
was close by without offering to render the slightest 

assistance.* 

White House, Pamunkey River : 
Virginia, May 17. 

Franklin's late division reached this place on Thursday, 
and the main advance of the Grand Army is now within 
twenty-two miles of the rebel capital. Major-Greneral 
Stoneman, with two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, 
and a battery of six field pieces, is some miles in front of 

* Brigadier-General Hooker says, in his official report of the engagement : 
' History will not be believed when it is told that the noble officers and 
men of my division were permitted to carry on this unequal struggle from 
morning until night, unaided, in the presence of more than 30,000 of their 
comrades with arms in their hands. Nevertheless it is true.' 

So little was General M'Clellan acquainted with the details of the engage- 
ment at Williamsburg, that he absolutely ignored the services of the very 
officer who, at the close of the day, turned what threatened to become a 
disastrous defeat into a complete Union victory. In his despatch to the 
Secretary of War from Williamsburg on May 6, he states : ' The eifect of 
Hancock'' s brilliant engagement yesterday was to tui-n the left of the enemy's 
line of works. He was strongly reinforced (M^Clellan does not say by whom), 
and the enemy abandoned the entire position during the night, leaving all 
his sick and wounded in our hands.' Not a single word for Kearny and his 
division ; the whole credit for Hancock and his brigade alone. General 
Hooker states in his report : ' Between four and five o'clock General Kearny, 
with all his characteristic gallantry, arrived on the ground at the head of 
bis di\-ision, and after having secured their positions, my division was with- 
drawn from the conflict, and held as a reserve until dark, when the battle 
ended, after a prolonged and severe conflict against three times my number, 
directed by the most accomplished general of the rebel army, Major-General 
J. E. Johnstone, assisted by Generals Longstreet, Prj'or, Gohlson, and Pickett, 
with commands selected from the best troops in their army.' 

Was this ignoring of the true state of the case intentional on the part of 
M'Clellan ? It certainly was believed to be so in the corps d'armie of Gene- 
ral Heintzelman. Kearny immediately complained of the injustice done his 
troops, and M'^Clellan was humiliated before the whole country. 



108 GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

US, frequently skirmishing with the rear-guard of the 
enemy, and following them up towards the line of the 
Chickabominy. Our march from Cumberland, whence I 
last wrote you, was trying in the extreme, owing to the 
frightful condition of the roads. Although but five miles 
intervene between the two points, the entire day was 
consumed in the journey, and the troops arrived here 
knocked up, and had to camp it in a pouring rain 
on what was little better than a marsh. At no season 
of the year is this section of Virginia favourable to field 
operations, for when it ceases to rain the sky pours down 
an almost tropical heat. The alluvial is apparently bot- 
tomless, no ' hard ' underlying the surface, and a ramrod 
with scarcely any pressure goes downward to the very head. 
Roads through cuttings exemplify this to the best extent, 
for even then you find nothing but alluvial unmixed with 
stones. Well does Virginia deserve her name ! Little has 
been done, comparatively, towards reclaiming the State 
from its original wilds, and the few roads, if such they be 
called, are merely so many channels which serve to drain 
the interminable woods. What would Virginia become, 
if farmed by men who believe in the dignity of labour, 
and possess the energy and enterprise of northern citizens ? 
Perhaps the day is not far distant, and the State will then 
prove itself the richest in agricultural resources of any in 
the Union. This result, however, can never be brought 
about by the men who now own the land. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

WHITE HOUSE. 

We got from under our blankets at Cumberland in time 
to breakfast at three o'clock in the morning, and the dif- 
ferent regiments composing our division fell into line 
shortly after. A brigade of infantry led the van, followed 
by the artillery and the wagon and ammunition train. 
Smith's division . had gone over the same route the pre- 
vious day, and as the rain had been falling for thirty-six 
hours, you may imagine something of the difficulties ex- 
perienced by those who followed. We would march for 
tive or ten minutes at a time in loose order, arms at will, 
then halt while the pioneers cut down young trees to 
corduroy the swampy road for the wagons to pass over: 
this style of progression irritates and fatigues the men 
infinitely more than any amount of continuous or rapid 
marching; and having already experienced its effects 
upon my own temper and limbs during the journey from 
Eltham to Cumberland, I struck out independently for 
White House, and after two hours' walking, jumping, and 
sticking in the mud, arrived wet through at our destina- 
tion. 

At the present time, there are three divisions encamped 
on this ground, and the entire army is en route to join 
them. No spot in Virginia is more admirably adapted 
for the purposes of a depot than White House, nor is any 



110 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN 

place better fitted for an encampment. The scenery is 
almost a facsimile of the country about Kew and Rich- 
mond, except that the banks of the Pamimkey are much 
higher and the river more serpentine than the Thames ; 
but I am compelled to give the palm of sylvan beauty to 
the American stream, spite of early associations. The 
trees are magnificent : under them Washing-ton and the 
fathers (and grandfathers) of the Republic ' walked and 
talked ' when the ' Old Dominion ' still confessed allegi- 
ance to ' Good King George ; ' and here, too, where I 
now am writing, Colonel Washington first saw the Widow 
Custis, and overstayed his leave under the enchantment of 
her bright eyes. White House is so named after the resi- 
dence of the farmer owning the estate, a magnificent pro- 
perty covering 7,000 acres, and as well stocked with slaves 
and ' other' cattle as any in Virginia. Colonel Lee, son of 
the general-in-chief of the rebel army, is the agent, if not 
owner, of the plantation at the present time, the former 
proprietor, George Custis, having died five or six years 
ago. The Washingtons, Custises, and Lees are all rela- 
tives by marriage, and are among the wealthiest and 
most aristocratic of the ' first families of Virginia.' The 
George Custis referred to above lived to an advanced age, 
and inasmuch as the slave question had not yet assumed 
its present alarming proportions, he was held in great 
respect by all classes of his fellow-citizens. Following 
the example of Washington, he set his negroes free on 
his death -bed— prospectively. In pursuance of a proviso 
in his will, all the slaves will receive their freedom next 
October, and George Custis is therefore looked upon by 
many as a very liberal-minded slaveholder. Perhaps, 
however, his actions previous to his last illness are the 
best indications of his character, particularly as some 



I 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. HI 

people in these United States regard death-bed manumis- 
sions as nothing more nor less than cheating one's de- 
scendants — death-bed repentances, in fact. The negroes 
now here declare, with convincing unanimity, in answer 
to interrogatories, that he was always selling them to the 
dealers; and it is therefore probable that this beautiful 
estate, hallowed by so many ennobling recollections, has 
of late years been ' a nigger-raising farm ' — a place to 
breed ' property ' in, as others breed cattle or rabbits. 
An immense revolution is now working on the Northern 
mind through the army. In Upper Virginia, around 
Alexandria, and towards the Eappahannock, the farms 
are really what they purport to be, but, south of this 
river, agriculture is merely resorted to as forage for 
* stock ' — stock meaning slaves raised for the Southern 
market. In the marches of this army from the head of 
York Eiver, through Eltham, Cumberland, and other vil- 
lages, we have invariably found this to be the case ; and 
whenever we came across any landowner who remained on 
his estate, he thought it sufficient excuse for the system in 
pleading that it was much more profitable than any other. 
Slaves are no longer restored by us to their masters, and 
what is still more^ I can see or hear of no disposition on 
the part of most of the officers in the army to restore 
them : the ' institution ' is cut up, root and branch, in 
the peninsula between the York and James Rivers ; and 
wherever the Northern legions set foot, experience teaches 
the same unvarying lesson. It was so at Port EoyaL 
Phelps was merely three months too hasty in Mississippi. 
Burnside has had to check the impetuosity of his followers 
in North Carolina, whilst we in Virginia are surpassing the 
rest. When we reached Cumberland a few days ago we, 
is usual, captured and confiscated a large amount of grain 



112 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

-and forage belonging to the planter ' owning,' as they say 
here, thereabouts. The individual in question sought out 
one of the principal officers of the staff, and asked him not 
to seize the corn, as he required it to feed his servants, 
meaning his slaves. 'Oh! you haven't got any servants 
now,' replied the officer, and the planter has since had 
leisure to reflect that, were it not for the rebellion of his 
State, his property would not have been confiscated. One 
United States' Quartermaster or Commissary is ten times 
more a practical abolitionist than a dozen theorists like 
Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Grarrison. 

I believe this anti-slavery feeling, this conviction that 
the Union can never be restored except on the ruins of 
the institution which has caused the rebellion, is shared in 
by most of this army. A prominent member of Greneral 
'M'Clellan's staff said to me three days ago : ' If this 
war were to end here, the slave power would regain its 
influence within a few years. We have, as yet, gained 
nothing but emancipation in the District of Columbia.' 
The inference from his remark is obvious ; but I do not 
at all agree with him as to nothing much being gained. 
The whole Northern mind has undergone a change, and 
everything else must, of necessity, follow. 

On his arrival here, Greneral M'^Clellan took up his 
quarters at the White House; but not desiring to deal harshly 
with so influential a family as the Lees, he has since moved 
half a mile to the rear, and sentries are placed around the 
house to prevent anyone entering it. The soldiers grumble 
at this ' kid glove ' deference to rebels. All his staff is 
vsdth him, and the encampment covers several acres in 
extent, the position being considerably in advance of the 
army on the road to Richmond. The tents of our three 
divisions are pitched on a plain of some three or four 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 113 

hundred acres, bounded on one side by the romantic^ 
Pamunkey Eiver, and surrounded elsewhere by a magnifi- 
cent forest. This vast field is covered with thick clover in 
bloom, a foot high, and our thousands of horses are having 
a good time of it generally. 

White House is to he made the basis of our operations 
against Eichmond, and it is now being turned into an im- 
mense depot. The river is absolutely filled with shipping, 
vessels drawing twelve feet of water ascending hither with- 
out difficulty. Several gunboats of 500 tons burden, sister- 
craft to the ' Seneca,' ' Unadilla,' &c., which rendered so 
much service at Port Royal, lie off in the stream, and, 
were it not for the ruins of the railroad bridge, they could 
run still higher. Canal barges, placed side by side, form 
efficient docks, the sides of the river are covered with un- 
ending commissary and ordnance stores, and the ever- 
present Sanitary Commission is erecting its depots andi 
unloading its vessels of their welcome stores. We have- 
telegraphic communication with West Point, and, I 
believe, down the peninsula to Fortress Monroe; for so 
fast as the army advances, the signal corps run the wires 
from tree to tree. The post-office is well managed under- 
military authority. We have postal communication daily 
with the North, and receive letters there with equal; 
regularity. Regimental mails are made up in the evening,, 
delivered to division head-quarters at night, forwarded to 
General M°Clellan's camp at sunrise next morning, and^ 
despatched to Fortress Monroe by steamer about eight- 
o'clock. The mail leaves the latter place for Baltimore 
at five o'clock in the afternoon, reaching the Maryland 
metropolis nejtt day, when the railroads take it up and 
distribute it'through the Northern cities. This letter will 
leave Whit^^ijpuse early on Monday morning, and rea«li^ 



114 aEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

New York late on Tuesday night ; were the Wednesday's 
steamer for Europe starting from Boston I should have to 
post my letter a day earlier. I am given to understand 
these postal arrangements will be continued with equal 
regularity throughout the campaign, and it is a common 
remark amongst the officers and men that they now obtain 
their letters much more rapidly than when the army was 
on the banks of the Potomac. 

May 18. 

Sunday has, indeed, been a day of rest with this army. 
In pursuance of. orders^ from head-quarters, divine ser- 
vice was held in all the regiments here encamped, and, I 
learn, throughout the entire Federal army on this penin- 
sular. The morning was hot and close, and at the hour 
of service, half-past ten, the heat was almost too great for 
ordinary troops to withstand it. At the same hour the 
bands of the different regiments gave the signal for all to 
fall into line ; the men were paraded for a few minutes, 
then formed into hollow squares, face inwards, and the 
chaplains prayed and addressed them during half-an-hour. 
I have never seen so much decorum exhibited by any men 
as was shown by these troops. I scarcely observed one 
who was not uncovered, although on account of the sun 
no order was given to that effect. The chaplain of the 
regiment with which I have taken up my quarters gave 
notice at the close that a prayer-meeting would be held in 
his camp at 7 o'clock in the evening, and one-quarter of 
the regiment took part voluntarily in the proceedings, 
closing with the Doxology, which sounded well in the 
silent evening air. 

When the sun was at its hottest, I rambled inquisitively 
through the interminable lines of tents, and watched the 
thousands of blue-coated soldiers of the Bepitblic rolling 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaX. 115 

in the rich clover beneath the shade of canvas, and a con- 
siderable number reading tracts to their comrades, or silently. 
These they had received from their chaplains; 'Cromwell's 
Soldiers' Bible' being very popular with all. I could not 
but draw most favourable conclusions as to the future of 
these bones and sinews of the Free North, who look upon 
religion as a reality, and no mere form or ceremony. 
Wherever I travel in this country it is the same unvarying 
story — an absolute absence of that infidelity which seems 
to have swallowed up the higher classes of European 
society. Eich and poor alike, men in office and out of it, 
officers of the regular and volunteer services, all evince 
respect for sacred things. Swearing of course abounds 
here to an immense extent, but no one professes, as else- 
where in the ' civilised world,' an ignoring or denial of 
religion. Throughout the free States the churches are 
filled with attentive worshippers, the males predominating ; 
doctrinal distinctions are toned down, and all sects work 
together harmoniously towards a common end. Faith is 
the national characteristic of this people — faith in God 
and themselves ; and history teaches a lie if such faith 
have not been the motto of all nations who have risen to 
supremacy in this world. 

An European roaming through these interminable 
rows of tents, listening to the conversation of soldiers from 
every nation under heaven (I will say Europe, to avoid 
the charge of exaggeration), cannot but remark the absence 
of those ' trooper ' songs and talk so characteristic of 
European armies. The influence of the ' dominant race ' 
is so marked, that with the exception of certain adjectives 
and emphasis obnoxious to the cloth on other than merely 
grammatical grounds, there is a total absence of vicious 
songs and conversation. The Americans, as a race, are 

I 2 



116 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

readers and thinkers 'par excellence ; and, as soldiers, they 
are perfect cormorants for all kinds of literature, especially 
newspapers. The songs in camp are those harmonious 
sentimental negro melodies, national hymns, and the 
favourite of all, grand old ' John Brown.' But it must 
not be supposed that fun is absent either among those * to 
the manor born ' or naturalised citizens. Strolling through 
the camps yesterday, I overhead a smart discussion about 
duty and glory, when a Teuton volunteer gave his opinion 
of the latter in this wise: — * Mein Gott, vat is glory? 
Grlory is ven you are shot in den belly mit a Minie ball, 
and you no like him tree days. Den you roll youself up 
in der Shtripes and der Shtars, and you die like ein leetle 
dog. And you sees your name shpelt wrong in der papers 
next morning. Mein Grott, dat is glory ! ' I thought a worse 
definition might be given of the * bubble reputation.' 

11 o'clock P.M. 

Our division moves forward towards Eichmond to- 
morrow morning at four o'clock, followed by the remainder 
of the army here encamped, and Greneral M°Clellan with 
his entire staff leaves at seven. I am informed that our 
day's march will place us seven miles nearer the rebel 
capital, and I therefore judge we shall sleep to-morrow 
night on the banks of the Chickahominy. The other divi- 
sions in the peninsula are moving rapidly towards that 
stream, and the pickets of the two contending armies will 
probably be in sight of each other within the next forty- 
eight hours. 

The Confederates are making a similar stand here to 
that under Beauregard at Corinth, and in both cases 
out of reach of the gun-boats, which they so much 
fear. Halleck's inaction may perhaps appear strange, but 



GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 117 

the reason will soon be accounted for ; probably, too, 
during the coming week. Generals Sigel and Curtis, the 
victors of Pea Eidge, in Arkansas, have been lost sight 
of for some time. Their armies now turn up 200 miles 
south-east of the Eidge, and within two days' junction with 
General Steel's division at Jacksonport, sixty miles only 
from the Mississippi. Here a fleet is waiting to transport 
them across the river, and they will then be in a position 
to execute a flank movement with 40,000 men upon 
Beauregard at Corinth. 

Bosker's Plantation (20 miles from Eichmond), 
Vieginia: Mij 19. 

The Sixth Army Corps, commamled by General- 
Franklin, left White House this morning at five o'clock, 
and simultaneously with it, FitzJohn Porter's C07'pn 
d^armee, the Fifth, started from this point by a different 
road. Franklin's present command is composed of his old 
division and that of Smith ; Porter's consist of his former 
brigades, with the addition of the Eegulars under Sykes. 
I should estimate the two corps at 30,000 men each, and 
they are certainly made up of the most disciplined and 
reliable troops in the grand army. FitzJohn Porter and 
Franklin are bosom friends of ]\'PClellan, who has long 
endeavoured to make them the equals in rank of oflBcers 
much their seniors. At the period of the last organisation of 
the Army of the Potomac, they were nominated by the 
General-in-chief as corjps commanders ; but Congress 
failing to see any other motive for such advancement than 
a personal one, flatly refused its endorsement. M'^Clellan 
has now the opportunity" to do as he pleases without 
regard to parliamentary objectors ; and although he 
cannot give increased rank or piy, he can award what 



118 GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA. CAMPAIGN. 

commands he may choose. Franklin I have long known, 
as a quiet amiable gentleman, but slow and apathetic as a 
soldier. He will prove a good officer to fall back upon in 
case of emergency, and I believe his errors will all be 
on the side of over-caution — the great failing of this army 
under its present leaders. FitzJohn Porter has many 
more enemies than friends, due in great measure, doubt- 
less, to the unfair partiality shown him by M'^Clellan. 
When the army was in the trenches before Yorktown, 
Porter's troops had little duty to perform, while other 
commands were constantly overworked ; and when General 
Hamilton, commanding the second division in Heintzel- 
man's corps, had sufficient manliness to complain of this 
partiality, he was immediately dismissed, and Kearny 
placed at the head of his division. Porter is the opposite 
of Franklin in manner, being cold, uncordial, and in- 
tensely autocratic. He would make a capital Hetman of 
Cossacks. 

Leaving White House, ere the sun had doffed his grey 
morning robe, we marched backwards from the Pamunkey 
Kiver, and followed the road leading to Tunstall's, so 
named after the landed proprietor. It would seem as 
though the scenery of this State would become more and 
more beautiful the further we progress towards Richmond, 
and certainly nothing that I have yet seen of Virginia at 
all equals the scenery of this day's march. A mile from 
M'^Clellan's camp we passed the residence of Dr. Meakin, 
a wealthy planter who opposed secession at the outset, but 
confesses to a change in opinions since the actual outbreak 
of hostilities. Many officers of our army have visited 
him and his family during our stay at White House, and, 
while admitting his sympathy with his own section, he 
asserts that the North must be successful, as it can show 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 119 

five soldiers to one of the Confederates. This gentleman 
is nearly the sole resident of these parts remaining in the 
district, the others having fled at our approach, or, which 
is more probable, being now in the ranks of Johnston's 
army. Leaving this plantation, the road skirted woods 
bright with the beauties of young spring ; on our right 
the country stretched far away in an undulating plain, 
dotted here and there with well-kept plantations, and 
reminding one strongly of a peaceful English landscape. 
Two miles brought us to the Eichmond and York Eiver 
Eailroad, where we found several companies of a New 
York regiment engaged in rebuilding a bridge over a 
stream, and the remains of the camps of General Stone- 
man's cavalry advance. The scenery now became finer 
than before, and I can only compare it to our Southern 
Downs, with the luxuriant foliage of Windsor in the 
hollows. Occasionally the roads would be arched with 
varied-coloured trees for a distance of several hundred 
yards, and on emerging from the cover we would catch 
sight of hills rising one above the other, and the long lines 
of many thousand bayonets flashing diamond-like on their 
crests. So lovely was everything around, and so perfumed 
the morning air, that many of the troops regretted their 
march did not extend five miles further towards Eichmond. 
Bosher's Plantation is to-day the head-quarters of the 
grand army, M°Clellan being here with all his staff, and 
Franklin's and Porter's corps camping around him. You 
will not find the place marked on any map, and I can 
only explain its position by stating that it is some seven 
miles from White House, twenty from Eichmond, three 
from the Chickahominy, and three-quarters of a mile 
from the Pamunkey. We are still near the gunboats, 
and much of our supplies may still reach us by way of the 



120 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

river. A few days, however, will see the railroad again 
in working order, the enemy having retreated so rapidly 
as to leave the route intact, with the exception of the 
bridges. ^ 

Our march, you will observe, is parallel to the Pamun- 
key, and not as yet direct upon Richmond. This is in 
order to avoid the swampy region of country traversed by 
the Chickahominy. We are, in fact, advancing upon the 
Confederate capital by the hilly ridge forming the backbone 
of the Peninsula, the country north of ns draining itself 
into the Pamunkey, or Upper York Eiver, w'hile the 
streams flowing southwards empty themselves into the 
marshes of the Chickahominy. The entire region, how- 
ever, is far too thickly wooded for us to see far in advance ; 
but Stoneman, with his numerous scouts, is ahead some 
five miles, and keeps the Greneral-in-Chief au courant of 
the enemy's movements. But few of Johnston's men have 
yet been seen, and the impression prevails in camp that 
the rebel commanders are looking for us on the chosen 
line of the Chickahominy. Maybe we shall receive news 
of their presence to-morrow on the banks of the Pamun- 
key, but in any case we are prepared for them, as the 
whole of M^'Clellan's army is within a few hours' march of 
this position. 

Lipscombe's Plantation (18 miles from Richmond): May 20. 
Leaving Bosher's at three o'clock this afternoon, oui 
division marched five miles, and camped at the above place 
two hours after. Our course was not directly towards 
Richmond, the intention being to reach the cross roads in 
the lower corner of Hanover county, whence the route is 
straight for the capital. As we progressed in our march 
the country gradually opened— forests became the excep- 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGIS. 121 

tion, not the rule — and but for the absence of hedges, I 
might have fancied myself in peaceful England. Farm- 
houses, with their numerous out-buildings, sprinkled the 
landscape more frequently, and all had white flags flying 
on the gates or gables, begging from us neutrality. My 
own researches, as also those of officers with whom I have 
since conversed, satisfied me that the universal feeling in 
this section of the State is hostile to the Federal govern- 
ment; but the planters hide their opinions, and receive 
the advancing army with ominous silence. Some of the 
residents were sitting out in their gardens with theii 
families, watching the passing regiments, whilst, in one or 
two cases, the families had left their homes, and naught 
but empty buildings remained. 

During the whole of our march we heard heavy firing 
on our left, and, judging from the direction and distance, 
we put it down to the gunboats on the James Eiver. 

M'Dowell is understood to be on his way to join us 
from Fredericksburg, coming across Hanover county, 
What Banks is doing nobody here pretends to explain ; 
judging from what little information we possess, he has 
lately been compelled to retreat, but matters connected 
with other commands are kept so quiet that it would be 
dangerous to draw any conclusion whatever from his 
movements. 

We passed Greneral M'^Clellan during the march ; he 
had been to Bottom Bridge, on the Chickahominy, and 
was returning in company with general Franklin, the 
Count of Paris, and others. We hear that the division of 
our army, under General Couch, is at Bottom Bridge, the 
road there crossing the river and passing through a swamp 
seven miles in circumference, towards Eichmond. Here 
is the direct route for us to the rebel capital, and the one by 



122 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

which it is understood the Confederates expect to meet ns : 
the road we are taking, though circuitous, is much more 
practicable for our immense parks of artillery and the 
waggon train. General Van Vliet, the quartermaster of 
the army under M'^Clellan's command in the Peninsula, 
informs me there are upwards of 5,000 waggons and 
ambulances (many of them drawn by six horses) under his 
immediate orders. This movement upon Bottom Bridge 
is probably nought but a feint to engage the attention of 
the enemy while we turn their left flank to the northward. 
Meanwhile we know very little of the whereabouts of the 
rest of our army except our own and Couch's, Smith's, and 
Porter's divisions, four only out of the twelve. We hear, 
however, that they are advancing towards Eichmond by 
roads to the southward, their march being much more 
direct than the circuitous route of Franklin's and Porter's 
corps; the two latter are under the immediate eye of the 
General-in-Chief, his camp always accompanying them, 
and they are evidently intended to act as the reserve. 

Cold Harbour (11 miles from Richmond), May 22. 

We marched seven miles yesterday in the hottest part 
of the day, and arrived at Cold Harbour between four and 
five in the afternoon, after ten hours' perspiration. Our 
brigade brought up the rear, instead of being in the ad- 
vance as on the day previous, and we had to wait con- 
tinually for those before us to move on, the artillery much 
delaying us, owing to the badness of the roads in the 
hollows between the bills. The march told greatly upon 
the men, and I am not at all surprised to hear this morning 
that nearly sixty are under the surgeon's care from so long 
exposure to the sun. The waggons of our division did not 
arrive until late at night, and while the troops slept under 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 123 

the shelter tents {tentes cfabri), which are carried on the 
knapsacks, the officers rolled themselves in their blankets, 
and rested with the starlit canopy of heaven above them. 
I had some difficulty at first in ' steeping my senses in 
forgetfulness,' owing to the energetic attacks of ticks, nits, 
beetles, bugs, spiders, mosquitoes, &c., with which Vir- 
ginia swarms, and still more the fear of snakes (two had 
already been killed by one man since our arrival); but 
exhaustion finally got the better of me, and I slept re- 
freshing slumbers, with a mild southern wind blowing 
over me. I awoke this morning at reveillee, with my hair 
and blankets saturated with dew. 

Before leaving yesterday's camping ground, I had a 
conversation with ' a very intelligent contraband,' as the 
slaves are now generally called. He is lately from Rich- 
mond, where he * belongs,' and had previously given in- 
formation to Greneral M°Clellan of much importance. He 
states that three weeks ago the authorities of that city 
caused all the tobacco in the vast storehouses there to be 
hauled into a field at some distance and burnt. Jefferson 
Davis, about the same period, removed his family south- 
wards, and the impression prevailed universally that 
Eichmond was considered no longer tenable by the Con- 
federates. Last Sunday week the authorities went to the 
* coloured ' church, arrested all the congregation during 
service, and sent the males to sink vessels in the James 
River, and the females to attend the hospitals. Much 
grumbling was covertly given vent to by the poor negroes 
on account of their not being permitted to change their 
' Sunday clothes,' bought, by them out of months of hard 
economy. My informant is a man so nearly white, that 
in Europe nobody would suppose he possessed the slightest 
tint of African blood in his veins ; and, though a slave, he 



124 GEN. m'clellan and the peninsula campaign. 

• 

has had the utmost confidence reposed in him by his 
master, buying and selling for him over a great portion of 
the State. He considers the rebel army at Kichmond — 
that is to say, the entire command under Johnston — 
numbers some 125,000 men, basing his opinion upon what 
he has heard and his own knowledge. The force is mainly 
composed of Virginians and conscripts — many old, and 
all comparatively undrilled and undisciplined. He says 
they are preparing to make a ^tand five miles from the 
city; all the negroes for miles round are employed in 
throwing up earthworks, and large forts, built ten months 
ago, surround the capital. Grenerals Magruder, Floyd, and 
Wigfall, with 60,000 men, are on the road we are now 
following. 

Cold Harbour is so named from the fact of an Indian 
having been frozen to death here at the time of the 
first settling of Virginia. The country around, like all 
we have marched through, is comparatively unplanted, 
verifying the assertion of Mrs. Jennings, near Eltham, that 
all the labouring population has been forced into the rebel 
army. The distance of Eichmond by the road is eleven 
miles, but on foot or horseback, through the woods, it is 
only eight. I believe we rest here to-day, in order to 
permit the rest of our army to come up. 

Cold Haeboue : May 24. 
There was no possibility of forwarding this letter in 
time for the steamer from New York, owing to the army 
being on the march. Our progress has been delayed the 
past few days in consequence of the state of the roads, but 
the waggons of our two corps d'armee have made two trips 
to White House since our arrival at this place, and we 
are now in a position to march upon Richmond. The rain 



GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 125 

has poured down incessantly during the last twenty-four 
hours, and our forward movement was countermanded in 
consequence; but we have just received orders (10 p.m.) 
to march to-morrow morning at 8 o'clock, our brigade 
heading the division. 

By this evening M'^Clellan's army will hold the left 
bank of the Chickahominy from the James River to the 
point where the Virginia Central Railroad crosses the 
former stream to the north of the rebel capital. The 
bridge there was destroyed by our troops the night before 
last, so as to prevent any movement of the Confederates 
imder Jackson upon our right flank, audit is believed that 
our division will march to-morrow towards that point and 
cross the Chickahominy immediately after. This, however, 
is only a surmise, the utmost secrecy being maintained. 
We know, however, that Heintzelman's corps hold the 
left of our line, Ke3'es the centre, Porter and Franklin the 
right; and, arguing from the fact of M'^Clellan's head- 
quarters being with the two latter, we judge that the 
main struggle will fall upon us. M'Dowell, it is again 
asserted, is on his way to join us from Fredericksburg, the 
order being given him to effect a junction with the army 
last Monday. The railroad from this point to the head of 
York River (West Point) is now complete, and trains will 
commence running on Monday next. 

The enemy are in force the other side of the Chickaho- 
miny, and it is generally believed that we shall have to 
invest Richmond. Heavy siege guns are being brought to 
our front for that purpose. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IHE LINES OF THE CHICKAHOMINT. 

On the Banks of the Chickahomini 

(Sis Miles from Richmond) : May 26. 

Porter's and Franklin's corps cfarmee, the right wing of 
M*Clellan's army, have now I'eached that point where a 
further advance must bring on a general engagement. 
The two divisions composing Franklin's command are 
encamped in an immense wheat-field, and close in their 
rear, acting as supports, are the troops under FitzJohn 
Porter. Approaching this our present position from our 
previous camping-ground at Cold Harbour, the land gra- 
dually rises towards the river, and our oceans of tents are 
therefore hidden from view of the enemy by the summit 
of the hills in our front. A belt of high trees covers the 
slope facing the foe, and we should be perfectly shielded 
^rom any notice were it not for the smoke of our fires by 
day and the reflection of the lights at night. The enemy 
must be well acquainted with the fact of our present 
position, but for some reason or other they have in no way 
molested us since our arrival ; perhaps they are waiting 
for M*'Clellan to assume the offensive, and, if so, they may 
have to wait for some days to come. I hear on very good 
authority that unless they attack us we shall not make 
any advance until General Wool occupies the city of 
Petersburg, and Fremont and Banks are within close 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 127 

proximity to Richmond, and M'Dowell has effected a 
junction with our right flank. Yet, according to the 
opinion of most here, we are certainly strong enough to 
tackle the foe without further assistance ; else why has he 
80 studiously kept out of our way since the fight at 
Williamsburg ? 

Major-Greneral Wool, at last accounts, was within seven 
miles of Petersburg, at the head of 20,000 men. These 
numbers may be, and probably are, an exaggeration ; but 
the enemy cannot have any considerable force at that 
point, as every available regiment has been drawn away 
for the defence of Richmond. 

The tent in which I am now writing is pitched on the 
edge of the road leading through the woods to the Chicka- 
hominy. A hundred paces bring us to the base of a high 
hill, from the summit of which a magnificent view is 
obtained of the valley separating us from the enemy's 
position, and at a distance of a quarter of mile of open 
flows the river, varying in breadth from twenty to forty 
feet, and generally unfordable. Trees and bushes skirt 
our edge of the stream, affording admirable cover for our 
advanced pickets, and behind a copse at a distance of 
twelve hundred yards we occasionally catch sight of the 
enemy's cavalry videttes. The horizon is bounded by 
woods, judged by artillery officers to be a mile and a half 
from our hill, and midway between the thick groves of 
high trees and the videttes we have detached a battery. 
The ground occupied by the Confederates rises panorama- 
like in front of us, and as their position is considerably 
more elevated than our own, our encampment is altogether 
under fire of their guns. We expected to be shelled by 
them this morning, but both sides seem loth to begin. 

General Stoneman, with two infantry regiments, two of 



128 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

cavalry, and two batteries of flying artillery, is now occu- 
pying Mechanicsville, a village on the northern bank of 
the Chickahominy, two miles from this encampment. A 
deserter caine into his quarters this morning, and reported 
a division in front of us composed of three Georgia bri- 
gades and a couple of field battalions. If this be the 
enemy's proportion of artillery to a division, we are double 
their strength in this arm of the service, without taking 
into account our artillery of reserve numbering twenty-two 
batteries. They also labour under another great disad- 
vantage in the inferiority of their fuses; few of their 
shells burst, and they appear to use none other than those 
on the Boerman principle. Their practice also is generally 
poor, vastly below that of the Federal artillerists both in 
range and precision. 

M'Dowell is represented to be at the head of 40,000 
men. Banks and Fremont have some 35,000 between them, 
and Wool has, it is said, 20,000. When the gi-eat blow 
is struck, M'^Clellan will not have much less than a quarter of 
a million troops under his immediate command, and the 
above additions to his present army will give him forty 
more field batteries at the lowest computation. We hear 
that the Confederates have 200,000 men in and around 
Richmond, but a large portion of these are conscripts, and 
many of them armed merely with pikes. 

Orders from head-quarters lead us to expect an early en- 
gagement. For some days past the musicians of the different 
regiments have had an easy time of it, no music being per- 
mitted, and no calls by fife or drum. Fires also are extin- 
guished at 6 P.M., so that no lurid glare in the heavens may 
point out our position to the enemy. Medical ofl&cers of the 
different cotys cCai-Triee are ordered to report every Sunday 
morning to Dr. Tripler, the chief of M'^Clellan's medical 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 129 

staff, and their reports must give exact information upon the 
number of sick in the camp hospitals, and the prevailing 
complaints. Since the army left Yorktown we have had 
a constant increase of bowel complaints, diarrhoea, &c., 
from impurities in the water : at one camping ground 
we find the streams or springs impregnated with alum, at 
another the water collects in clay beds, and each stopping 
place gives us a liquid which no more resembles aqua 
pura than the decoction which flows between Westminster 
and London bridges. Add to this the ' bread,' as it is 
called officially, or ' hard tack,' its more familiar name, 
made certainly of pure wheaten flour, but baked hard as 
adamant : nobody with the slightest gastronomic ' procli- 
vities ' could ever attain a taste for this substance, although 
the men good-humouredly talk of going without their 
dinners in order to obtain sufficient appetite to enjoy it at 
tea ; and one volunteer told a harder story to his comrades 
than the 'tack' itself, declaring that a shot during a skir- 
mish had struck him in the region of the stomach, but a 
hearty meal of these crackers stopped the missile instanter. 
These biscuits are really indigestible, unless softened 
previous to eating ; but men in the field have little time 
for culinary operations. Two or three days' fresh meat, 
following on a course of salt ' horse' (beef) or pork, will 
also induce diarrhoea ; but perhaps this may be due to 
the rough manner in which the rations are cooked by the 
men themselves. Orders were given yesterday that hence- 
forward no meat shall be broiled or fried; but it is too 
early to determine whether this will have the desired 
effect of checking the complaints. 

I have mentioned in a previous letter that the general 
hospitals of the army are established at "White House, the 
point on the Pamunkey Eiver which we last quitted before 



130 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

pushing into the interior towards Richmond. As we pro- 
gressed through the country to this our present encamp- 
ment, the brigade and division surgeons have set their 
seals upon different houses and outbuildings, in the shape 
of small red flags, taking care, however, not to interfere 
with the owners who have chosen to remain. I understand 
the same course has been pursued on all the other roads 
by which this immense army is approaching Richmond, 
and the medical staff is being greatly increased daily by 
the arrival of volunteer surgeons from the different 
Northern States. And they will all be needed, if we are 
to have as determined a struggle in front of the rebel 
capital as at Williamsburg, Corinth, and Donelson. 

General Order No. 128, issued yesterday, gives precise 
instructions to officers and troops relative to crossing the 
Chickahominy. The men are to be ready for action, in 
light marching order ; knapsacks to be left with baggage 
train ; three days' rations in havresacks ; forty rounds of 
ammunition in cartridge boxes, and twent_j additional in 
the pockets. Limber and caisson boxes must be packed 
to their utmost capacity ; ammunition waggons to be held 
in readiness, but not to cross the river until so ordered, 
following the same rule as the baggage train which will 
be parked under the quartermasters on our present camp- 
ing ground. I hear that the entire army will be thrown 
across the Chickahominy at the same moment, and take 
up a position on the brow of the hills beyond the river, 
only the twenty-two batteries of reserve artillery remain- 
ing on this side tor the purpose of shelling the enemy 
in the woods ; siuli I am informed is the present plan, 
but it is not unliht ly to be seriously modified by circum- 
stances. In any case we shall have an up-hill fight for 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 131 

some three-quarters of a mile, struggling across the open, 
with batteries playing upon us from the woods. 

May 27. 

We have again passed a peaceable day, so far as our 
own division is concerned ; but since noon until the shades 
of evening, we have heard cannonading and musketry in 
the distance. The sound came from a point almost due 
north of us, and we are unable to make out whether it 
arose from the advancing columns of McDowell, or from 
the corps-d^armee under FitzJohn Porter. The former is 
within easy distance of us, if we may credit what is stated 
in camp ; he is reported to have signalled to us by means 
of rockets the night before last, but nobody ventures to 
express a decided opinion as to his exact whereabouts. 
From a conversation with one of M'^Clellan's aids this 
forenoon, I judge he is not far from effecting a junction 
with us, but further information was withheld from me for 
the present. Maybe we are awaiting McDowell's arrival 
before attempting anything at this point. 

FitzJohn Borter marched off this morning in a north- 
westerly direction, with the object of destroying a certain 
portion of the railroad between Richmond and Fredericks- 
burg, so as to prevent the retreat of the army in front of 
McDowell upon the main body under Johnston. The 
firing above referred to may have proceeded from him, but 
in the opinion of many artillery officers the cannonading 
was much farther off. At first we heard it but faintly ; 
after two hours' continuance it broke out apparently ten 
miles nearer this camp, and was subsequently renewed at 
the previous point, but much more distinctly. To- 
morrow we may learn where it actually transpired, but for 
the present we are compelled to content ourselveij with 
mere surmises. 

k2 



132 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

One brigade of this division, with Hexarner's field bat- 
tery, marched this morning into Mechanicsville, two miles 
hence in a north-westerly direction, and about a thousand 
yards from the Chickahominy. A road runs in almost a 
mathematically straight line from this village to Eichmond, 
the distance being less than five miles ; the turnpike-road 
crosses the river by a bridge, which the enemy have par- 
tially destroyed, and before we can undertake any advance 
it must of necessity be repaired. As far as ray walks 
have extended, and from all I gather from others, I esta- 
blish the fact of Confederate pickets lining the opposite 
banks of the Chickahominy for miles on each side of us. 
Last night was peculiarly favourable for conjecturing the 
enemy's force, as the heavens were covered with rain 
clouds, reflecting the camp fires of an army which no one 
estimated at less than 150,000 men. There was a general 
impression, however, that many of the fires were built to 
deceive us ; for a force so large as that represented by the 
reflection above might certainly have kept our army from 
approaching so close to Eichmond. Men and officers ask 
each other, ' Are we being humbugged, or is Joe Johnston 
out-srenerallinof M^Clellan ? ' Time will show. The lurid 
haze reminded me of the sky overhanging Manchester or 
Birmingham at night-time, and was not, I should judge, 
far removed from the trees bounding our horizon to the 
southward. Some officers here believe the enemy are 
playing a sharp game upon us by throwing up heavy bat- 
teries behind the woods in our front ; and the more I see of 
the position across the river, the more I feel satisfied of 
the tremendous struggle now approaching. Yet we re- 
main idle on this side the stream — no reconnaisances to 
obtain information of the enemy's strength and operations 
— no attempt on our part to cross the trumpery ditch. 



GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 133 

From the woods, in whicli we catch an occasional glimpse 
of the enemy's pickets, to the banks of the debatable river 
in the valley, the land forms a perfect natural glacis, up 
which our men must advance for three quarters of a mile, 
exposed to the fire of batteries which all feel are being 
constructed behind the trees. The enemy, as yet, has 
given us no further proof of his existence than by his camp 
fires, and we on our part are strangely careful not to incur 
his hostility. Deserters and ' contrabands ' inform us that 
Beauregard, lately recalled from Corinth, is now in com- 
mand of the left wing of the rebel army covering Eich- 
mond. If this intelligence be correct, he is immediately 
opposed to us, and he certainly will not permit our cross- 
ing without doing everything in his power to prevent us. 
No position could be better chosen for the defence of any 
point than this line of the Chickahominy — a narrow but 
deep river lined with swamps on one bank, the shore on 
the other side rising rapidly for nearly a mile towards the 
woods, and affording no chance of cover to the advancing 
assailants. Still, there are many fords in the stream, 
whilst in some places an active man might leap from one 
bank to the other ; in others, tall trees grow close to the 
water, as though placed there purposely to invite bridge- 
building ; but our army lies .perfectly idle, most of the 
officers silent and morose, the men grumbling. 

Professor Lowe's balloons are up constantly. We have 
had two up in the sky this day, one towards Mechanicsville, 
the other in the vicinity of Bottom's Bridge, where 
the Eichmond and York Eiver railroad crosses the 
Chickahominy. The enemy evidently considers this bal- 
looning a mean sort of way of prying into his private con- 
cerns ; and, certainly, a man 1,000 feet in air has a more 
comprehensive view of things in general than he who 



134 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

• 

reconnoitres off the back of a horse or roof of a house. 
But General M°Clellan confines himself to this one means 
of obtaining information; for I cannot learn, after the 
most diligent enquiry, that any other reconnaissances are 
taken than by these balloons. Now, the country here- 
abouts is one dense forest, covering lofty hills and deep 
valleys, with only here and there a patch of ' open ' : what 
benefit can accrue from ballooning I cannot imagine, un- 
less high elevations enable a man to look through dense 
forests. We have a large cavalry force absolutely lying 
idle. General Stoneman, after driving the retreating 
rebels up the Peninsula in splendid style, is quietly en- 
camped out of the way to the rear of Mechanicsville, he 
himself grumbling at having nothing to do ; his officers 
asking why they have been brought to the Peninsula at 
all, while the privates are listless and disappointed. An 
officer of the 8th Illinois cavalry told me yesterday he 
supposed the horses would soon be cut up into army beef, 
and the men armed with the inevitable spade and set to 
digging. Now and then the balloons do some good. 
Yesterday, for instance, they informed us that a large force 
of the enemy was advancing upon the position of General 
Keyes, near Bottom's Bridge, and the order was imme- 
diately given to hold ourselves in readiness for an attack, 
and perchance a general engagement. The affair passed 
off without result, much to the disgust of the troops, who 
cannot understand our seeming delay. This forenoon, the 
enemy bombarded the balloon from beyond Mechanicsville, 
firing several rifled shot in close proximity to the men 
holding the cords ; one of these struck an oak tree within 
fifty feet of the aeronaut, and the balloon was forthwith 
removed to a safer distance. 

From Mechanicsville, as also from some of the houses in 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 135 

this vicinity, we obtain a view of the steeples of Eichmond, 
but we are not sufficiently near to see the city itself. The 
country is beautiful in appearance, although fearfully 
unhealthy in this region ; and wherever there is high 
ground and absence of trees and undergrowth, farm-houses 
and gentlemen's residences heighten the beauty of the land- 
scape. I have been much surprised at the unvarying 
respect paid to property by the troops composing this 
army. Hedges are never seen in these latitudes, — the 
'green lanes of England' stand alone in their matchless 
loveliness, — but boundaries are marked by pine timbers 
some ten feet long and four inches in width and thickness, 
roughly split with an axe, in fact. President Lincoln 
might describe the modus operandi, if he have not for- 
gotten his first love. Ten or a dozen of these rails, sup- 
ported at both ends at proper distances, make a very 
efficient obstacle to cattle *and other 'insects,' as they call 
buffalo on the prairie ; and being well dried by exposure 
to the sun they are naturally sought after by the troops to 
build fires. When a regiment arrives on a new camping 
ground, so soon as the muskets are stacked and orders 
given to pitch tents, men will be seen running off by hun- 
dreds to bring these coveted rails from the fences ; and it 
is a hard thing to be told, after a long and tedious march 
through the drenching rain and fathomless mud, not to 
touch this property of the rebels, but to cut down green 
wood from the forest. The men very properly say: — ' We 
may be shot down by the rebels, blown to pieces on the 
march by their torpedoes, or murdered in cold blood by 
guerillas ; we may shoot them in return, and, " under 
orders," seize their corn, flour and forage, but we must not 
touch their fences.' When approaching any new camping 
ground, sentries are placed on all the buildings in the 



136 (JEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

neighbourhood, notwithstanding the almost invariable 

abuse showered on ' invaders ' and ' d d Yankees ; ' 

for this section of Virginia is Secessionist to the backbone, 
and firmly convinced that the army of the Potomac is to be 
annihilated in front of Eichmond. It is a mystery from what 
source these orders come to the troops : the Government at 
Washington cannot be a party to them, and it certainly 
seems strange that a population so hostile is to be courted 
and cherished to the great detriment of the Union soldiers. 
The farmers in the South have the assurance to complain 
to the Federal officers of their hay, corn, and oats being 

* stolen ' from them, as they term it, although a receipt is 
always given to them for the amount taken, which receipt 
is payable on presentation to the proper officers. They also 
exact payment in specie for such produce as they sell the 
troops, putting on a most exorbitant value at the same 
time. In no other country would such things be permitted ; 
and it is manifest to all here that measures like these, if 
persisted in, must vitally strengthen the rebellion. 

• You will have heard ere this of the repulse, may be 
defeat, of General Banks in the valley of the Shenandoah. 
This reverse will certainly be magnified into undue pro- 
portions by Southern agents and their sympathisers in 
Europe, but the facts are simply these : — the major portion 
of the army under Banks has been lately withdrawn to 
reinforce the command of McDowell covering Washington, 
the latter having been greatly depleted to increase the army 
of the Potomac, and Banks' small force has necessarily 
been compelled to retire in face of largely superior numbers. 
It has been no secret in this army that such a movement 
dn the part of the enemy was to be expected ; for deserters, 

* contrabands,' and prisoners have informed us that large 
reinforcements have been dispatched from Eichmond to 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 137 

aid * Stonewall ' Jackson. Why then do we not attack the 
enemy in front of us ? It is obvious that we greatly out- 
number our antagonists, or they would long ere this have 
made demonstrations upon our position. ' What are we 
waiting for ?' men ask each other, and nobody volunteers 
to give an explanation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

BATTLE OF HANOVER COURT HOUSE. 

I HAVE at length found out the meaning of yesterday's 
cannonading, and it appears that we actually attacked the 
enemy at Hanover Court House, with malice prepense, 
and won a victory. Since General M^Clsllan took com- 
mand of the army of the Potomac — now ten months ago — 
this is the first time he has been guilty of the indiscretion 
of assuming the offensive; always excepting the fiercely 
contested battle of Williamsburg — but for that he was in 
no sense responsible, ' Fighting Joe Hooker,' as the troops 
delight to call him, having attacked the retreating Con- 
federates ' on his own hook,' and, with the eventual assis- 
tance of Kearny, whipping them handsomely without 
M'^Clellan's being aware that anything like fighting was in 
progress- 
Orders were issued the night before last for Morell's 
division to hold itself in readiness to leave early next 
morning for parts unknown, the men to be in light 
marching order and carrying no other impedimenta than 
their canteens, india-rubber cloths, two days' rations, arms, 
and sixty rounds of ammunition. Reveil beat at 3 a.m., 
the rain poiuing down in torrents and utterly preventing 
the cooking of breakfasts ; but so delighted were the 
troops at the chance of a brush with the enemy, that the 
division set off on its travels with light hearts at seven. 



GEN. M'^CLBLLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 139 

There was much curiosity amongst the men as to where 
they were bound, until it became apparent that Hanover 
Court House was the point of destination, news having 
been brought to head-quarters that the enemy had lately 
been concentrating troops in that vicinity, thus threatening 
our right flank. After marching twelve miles the enemy 
was reached, and the action immediately commenced. 
The Confederate force proved to be two brigades, composed 
of six North Carolina regiments, under command of a former 
member of Congress from that State, Lawrence O'Brian 
Branch, whom the exigencies of war had transformed from 
a civilian into a brigadier-general. Porter's force largely 
outnumbered his opponent's, and yet he came very near 
losing the day by his shameful want of common foresight. 
The object of his expedition was to get in between Branch 
and Eichmond, for the purpose of destroying a portion of 
the Virginia Central Eailroad, thus preventing reinforce- 
ments reaching his antagonist, and then to capture or 
destroy the force opposed to him. The destruction of the 
railroad was rapidly effected by the Twenty-second Massa- 
chusetts regiment; and the first. part of the battle resulted 
in the precipitate but orderly retreat of the Confederates 
in a northerly direction, leaving their wounded and dead 
on the field. But a good joke comes in here. Branch and 
his troops were fresh arrivals from North Carolina, and 
they knew about as much of the country around Eichmond 
as Porter himself. Taking a road which seemingly led 
northwards and westerly, they shortly after described a 
semi-circle and came right upon Porter's rear, capturing 
his hospitals, wounded, and many of his surgeons, and 
produciug the utmost consternation in the Union ranks. 
The battle recommenced with greater intensity than ever, 
but this time Branch was fighting with his back to Eich- 



140 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

mond and his line of retreat well open. Nevertheless, the 
result was the same as before ; the Union troops were too 
numerous and determined, and Branch had to fall back at 
eventide, leaving many of his killed and wounded and five 
hundred prisoners in the hands of his antagonist. 

Porter's men, who have returned to camp, are savage 
that the enemy has thus escaped them. They say that 
if Kearny or Hooker had commanded, not a rebel soldier 
would have got back to Richmond to tell the story. But 
FitzJohn Porter is the bosom friend and constant com- 
panion of M'^Clellan, and the capture of his hospitals 
and wounded will therefore be hushed up, and the action 
at Hanover Court House heralded throughout the country 
as a complete success. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE BATTLE OF FAIR OAKS. 

May 81. 

I WRITE under great excitement around me ; but a news- 
paper correspondent, like a general, must always * possess 
his soul in peace,' and never permit any considerations for 
his own personal safety and ease to interfere with his pho- 
tographing of events. 

I must begin with the weather, for that is likely to prove 
an important item at the present time. It has rained in- 
cessantly during several days past, and the trumpery 
ditch with the long name Chickahominy (' Chicken and 
Hominy ' the soldiers call it for short) has magnified itself 
into a huge river, covering the entire bed of the valley, 
and varying in width from a quarter of a mile to a mile. 
The natives hereabouts say that it takes two days to rise 
and three to fall ; but it will be surprising indeed if the 
immense volume of waters in front of us can subside under 
a week. 

Shortly after noon to-day, we were startled by a distant 
sound of rapid musketry and artillery firing in the direc- 
tion of Bottom's Bridge. All who could leave camp imme- 
diately ran totbe brow of the chain of hills between ourselves 
and the river ; the noise increased rapidly, seeming to ad- 
vance towards us, as though one army or the other were being 
driven, and occasionally we could hear cheering. Officers 



142 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE TENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

who have seen service expressed surprise at the compara- 
tive absence of artillery, the firing being almost entirely 
confined to musketry ; but this was in such volume and 
80 continuous, that everybody is anxious to obtain intelli- 
gence from the scene of action. Orders have just come 
from head-quarters for us to be under arms to-morrow 
morning before daylight ; and we are also informed that 
Heintzelman and Keyes have attacked the enemy and re- 
pulsed him at every point. The troops are in a furor of 
excitement, and bets are high that we shall be in Eichmond 
by Wednesday. 

June 1 (10 P.M.). 

Yesterday's fighting was renewed at at an early hour 
this morning. The whole of Franklin's corps has been 
vainly endeavouring all day to cross the river, the enemy 
having apparently disappeared from our front ; but such 
is the height of the waters that fording is impossible, 
and bridge-building equally so. It was a noble and yet a 
pitiable sight to see the splendid regiments and brigades 
of this corjps cfaimee marching in serried columns to the 
edge of the river, and vainly endeavouring to reach the 
other side ; far as the eye could reach the numerous bodies 
of men studded the banks, while countless horsemen 
hurried to and fro, seeking evidently for some unknown 
means of crossing. 

Late in the afternoon we heard rumours which seriously 
controvert the news of yesterday's success. Faces look 
downcast to-night, for if the intelligence be correct, the 
corps cTarmee under Greneral Keyes has been driven 
back in disorder several miles, and one of his divisions 
absolutely annihilated. The fighting to-day has been 
more favourable to our arms ; at least so it is reported. 



GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 143 

but uobody seems inclined to credit the assurance without 
confirmation. The artillery firing has been much greater 
this day than yesterday, and evidently farther removed 
from us; but we must await news from head-quartera 
before making up our minds as to who are the victors. 

June 2. 

The truth is leaking out at last. The day before yes- 
terday the enemy, taking advantage of the unprecedented 
rise in the Chickahominy, surprised the division under 
General Casey, driving it from its works and capturing its 
camps and artillery. From the reports of my different 
informants I gather that the Confederates have achieved a 
perfect surprise, suddenly rushing into our works at the 
point of the bayonet, capturing all the guns and turning 
them upon our troops. The second division of the corps, 
under Couch, managed to hold its works until reinforce- 
ments arrived at double-quick from Hooker and Kearny ; 
but so overwhelming were the numbers and determination 
of the enemy that, had it not been for the unexpected 
appearance of Sumner's divisions, the entire of the Union 
army south of the Chickahominy might have been driven 
pell-mell into White Oak Swamp. By dint of almost 
superhuman exertions, ' Old Bull Sumner,' as he is called 
in the army, managed to get his divisions somehow across 
the swollen river, and arrived just in time to save us from 
defeat, and to turn a terrible repulse into almost a vic- 
tory. Yesterday morning the engagement was renewed by 
mutual consent of both parties, and we have really achieved 
a triumph, the enemy being driven in disorder at all 
points, and the Union lines considerably advanced towards 
Richmond. 

Many who have hitherto defended General M^Clellau 



144 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

against all critics, assuming that his dilatoriness and ad- 
verseness to attack were the result of deep-laid strategy, 
now find their faith in him seriously shaken. The disaster 
• to Casey's division on Saturday was solely due to M"=Clel- 
lan's fearful want of foresight; for not merely were the 
men composing that command the rawest and least dis- 
ciplined in the army, but the division was thrown forward 
so egregiously in advance of all supports, that a mere tyro 
might have known it was in danger of being cut off by 
the enemy. Worse even than this was the isolating one 
half of his army from the remainder by keeping Porter's, 
Franklin's, and Sumner's corps on the northern bank of 
the Chickahominy, and those of Keyes and Heintzelman 
across the stream. With a rise in the river — always to be 
looked for at this season of the year — the enemy can throw 
the whole of his force upon one half or the other of our 
army ; for he holds the upper waters of the stream, with 
numerous fords and bridges, whilst we have not a picket 
beyond the Virginia Central Railroad, nor any means by 
which to obtain a knowledge of his intentions. Doubtless 
it will be our turn to receive his visit the next ; and yet 
we have no works whatever by which to defend ourselves 
against a movement on our right flank.* 

* Nothing will better show M'^Clellan's entire ignorance of the movements 
of his command than his despatches to the Secretary of War upon this 
engagement. Writing from New Bridge on June 5, he says : — ' My tele- 
graphic despatch of June 1, in regard to the Battle of Fair Oaks, was 
incorrectly published in the papers. I send with this a correct copy, which 
I request may be published at once. I am the more anxious about this, 
since my despatch, as published, would seem to ignore the services of Gen. 
Sumner, which were too valuable and brilliant to be overlooked, botli in the 
difl^eult passage of the stream and the subsequent coifibat.' Now the fact 
is, the papers published the despatch in question as his chief-of-stafF gave 
it to them ; and it was only when, dai/s afterward^!, M'Clellan got to be 
acquainted with the details of the action, that he saw the omission he had 



CHAPTER XVIL 

IN SIGHT OF EICHMOND. 

Mechanicsville (4^ miles from Eichmond): 
June 6. 

The First New Jersey brigade changed its quarters yester- 
day from New Bridge to this place, a charming little 
village on the banks of the now famous Chickahominy. 
Before General Kearny assumed command of Hamilton's 
division at the siege of Yorktown, the Jersey brigade 
held the position of honour in the army of the Potomac, 
being the first brigade in the first division of the first co'iys 
d'^armSe. Kearny's promotion, however, and the assign- 
ment of G-eneral Franklin to the newly-created sixth corps, 
have changed it from the first to the last, and it is now 
the last brigade in the last division of the last corps 
cVanrnee. Notwithstanding this alteration, due to the fact 
of seniority of other officers, it is still at the post of honour, 
being on the extreme right of the line, and guarding the 
most vulnerable point also. 

made, and hastened to rectify it. The case is precisely similar to that of 
Kearny at Williamsburg; but M'=Clellan's conduct in reference to the 
battle of Fair Oaks is even worse, for he imputes blame to Casey's division 
when the fault of its repulse was simply his own. His invariable absence 
from the field of battle, his partiality for certain ofi&cers, and imjust ignoring 
of others, very naturally xipset the popularity manufactured so studiously 
for him by certain politicians and newspapers. At the present day he has 
few supporters in the army other than the Irish, and they are obviously 
attracted by the euphony of his Celtic name. 

L 



146 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

We reached Mechanicsville yesterday afternoon, and 
immediately proceeded to clean and occupy a deserted 
camping ground of the enemy in the woods, beside the 
road leading to the river. I forthwith started to prospect 
the adjoining country, and, still more, to catch a glimpse 
of that city which is the goal of all our labours. The 
* pike ' (turnpike) runs through this apology for a village 
by a gentle descent to the river, and there crosses it by a 
small bridge, distant from Mechanicsville a good half-mile, 
if not three-quarters ; the other side, the ground rises 
rapidly, the hills south of the stream being much bolder 
and loftier than on the north, and less wooded. The 
spires of the Eichmond churches are plainly visible from 
the village with the naked eye, and the sound of bells and 
the railroad whistle may easily be heard. Close to the 
bridge there is a signpost bearing the information, * To 
Eichmond, four and a quarter miles.' 

The bridge is a wooden structure. Almost everything in 
this Southern country seems to be merely wooden and 
temporary, as though the people did not believe it could 
last, or are waiting for some great change. The ' Old 
Dominion ' is no exception to the rule. You occasionally 
come across some substantial looking venerable brick struc- 
ture, with an unmistakable English appearance about it, 
but with tliese very scarce exceptions everything else is 
temporary, wooden, and fragile. The former buildings 
mark the period of Viririma's prosr.i'Tity — the era of her 
Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Madisons ; the latter, the time 
of her decadence — the period of her Hunters, Masons, 
Wises, 'nigger breeding, ' and Fugitive Slave Law. But to 
return to the bridge over the Chickahominy. Two rows of 
strong piles are driven into the bed of the stream ; thick 
beams run from these to either shore, and others again are 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 147 

placed from pile to pile, forming together a bridge 
some forty feet long by about fifteen wide. That portion 
of the structure between our bank and the first row of piles 
has been broken away, but a single three-inch-thick plank 
rests loosely in its place, as though inviting a visit from our 
side. I feel much inclined to try a walk across, merely 
for the say-so of the thing ; but I don't want to go to 
Eichmond without the rest of my friends. 

What may be Greneral M^Clellan's object in holding this 
place, is more than ever a mystery to all here. Early this 
morning I was informed that the upper slope of the hills, 
the other side of the river, was crowded with the enemy's 
working parties ; I immediately stepped out from the 
woods into the open, and found the rebels busily engaged 
in throwing up redoubts and breastworks on either side 
the road. We have a section of artillery pointing towards 
the bridge, and I asked the officer in command whether 
these working parties in such beautiful shelling range 
were to be let alone. He replied that no orders had been 
given to interfere with their operations, but for his own 
part he considered it a crying shame to let such a chance 
pass without a little practising for his men. I walked over 
to the head-quarters of General Taylor, commanding the 
brigade, and learned Irom him, much to my surprise and 
his own ill-concealed disgust, that his orders were precise 
* not to interfere in any way with the enemy's operations.' 
Doubtless the order is dictated by sound, deep strategy; 
but it seemed to me and many others, that if we held the 
hills in front of us, we should have an admirable position 
for flanking the enemy fronting Heintzelman and Keyes, 
threatening Richmond closely at the same time. While 
the rebels are thus working, we are lying idle in camp ; 
and when their redoubts are completed and siege guns 

L 2 



148 GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

mounted, we shall have to evacuate Mechanicsville at full 
speed. 

The other division of this corps crossed the Chicka- 
hominy on Thursday, and when we left New Bridge it was 
safely encamped on the right bank of the river. General 
Sumner had extended his front towards us, so as to cover 
the crossing, and it may be in M'^Clellan's plans to 
advance his line still further in this direction, so as to 
cover the approaches to Richmond at this place. It 
becomes a more difficult matter every day to learn when 
the general advance will be made, and every successive 
move still further mystifies us. There are a thousand and 
one rumours about the camps, and a man need be inspired 
to detect the truth in so vast a mass of error. Certain 
facts however leak out, which, if known to most, are not 
allowed to appear in the Northern journals ; as, for 
instance, the arrival of large reinforcements by way of 
York River, and the placing of heavy siege guns in 
position on the centre of our lines. These are the lOOlb. 
rifled guns which proved themselves so valuable at York- 
town. They are brought by water to West Point, and 
thence transported by rail to the front of the army. 

I should judge from this fact that M"=Clellau intends a 
similar advance upon Richmond to that made upon Corinth 
by Halleck ; else why this seeming delay, which may 
benefit the enemy almost, if not quite, as much as him- 
self? Beauregard's western army being now broken up, 
it is more than probable that portions of it at least will be 
brought here to reinforce Davis and Johnston. Halleck 
telegraphs that none had left the neighbourhood of 
Corinth up to a certain day, but I am satisfied the result 
will prove the contrary. During the whole of last night 
and to-day the arrival of trains at fiichmond has been 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 149 

unceasing, and I feel confident the rebel leaders are 
massing troops at this point who formerly were a portion of 
Beauregard's command. These reinforcements have not 
come by the direct route, General Mitchell having cut off 
200 miles of the Memphis and Charleston railroad ; but it 
was comparatively easy for them to reach Richmond by the 
Mobile and Ohio line, although with great loss of time. 
They would descend to Southern Alabama, and then take 
the lines running towards Virginia ; but, as will be seen 
by reference to a map, the distance is so great that no 
very large proportion of Beauregard's army could arrive 
here in time for the impending battle. 

We hear, but cannot verify the information, that 
Heintzelman has crossed the James River, and that Peters- 
burg is in process of evacuation : this may account for a 
late order of the Secretary of War extending M'^Clellan's 
command to Weldon, in North Carolina, and including 
Fortress Montroe. Those in the way of obtaining more 
information than others, assert that this army has increased 
its numbers in consequence by 25,000 men during the 
past week ; but the lines are so extensive, and prominent 
officers so ambiguous or reticent, that it is an impossibility 
to verify the statement. That very large reinforcements 
are daily arriving, I know however to be correct. 

The enemy opened upon us at New Bridge the day 
before yesterday, and gave us a very pretty specimen of 
artillery practice during some three hours. The banks of 
the Chickahominy seem almost to have been made for such 
practice, either side of the river rising rapidly and affording 
sufficient ' open ' for field and other batteries. The distance 
from height to height varies from 1,200 yards to 3,000 
yards ; and should the fire become too hot, the gunners may 
retreat into the woods at their rear, and find perfect 



150 GEN. M^CLELLAN AKD THE PENIN.STJLA CAMPAiaN. 

security in the hollow. I watched the artillery duel of 
Thursday with much interest, particularly as the practice 
of the enemy was much better than I had hitherto seen. 
They tired rapidly, and changed the position of their field 
pieces so frequently as to lead many to suppose their 
strength was double what it really was. No infantry 
showed themselves, and it required but a small amount of 
penetration to see that their object was merely to learn 
the position of our batteries, and perhaps our strength in 
artillery. Here, however, they were deceived; for the 
reply on our side was made by two batteries only, our 
range proving greatly superior to theirs. We have thirty 
field batteries of six guns each at this point, two-thirds of 
them being rifled ten, twenty, and thirty pounders. Only 
one man on our side was killed, his death occurring from 
the bursting of a shell ; the Prince de Joinville, the Count 
of Paris, General M°Clellan, and other notabilities, being 
near the battery at the time. 

The four regiments composing this brigade have received 
orders to be imder arms to-morrow morning (Sunday) at 
3 A.M. Generals FitzJohn Porter and Franklin came 
over to Mechanicsville this afternoon, and examined the 
enemy's position during half an hour. Putting this fact 
with our anticipated early rising on the morrow, and taking 
into consideration the apparently purposeless firing of the 
enemy on Tliursday, and their choice of Sunday for attacks, 
I feel somewhat anxious about the morning. It is now 
eleven o'clock at night ; but notwithstanding the late hour, 
the discharges of artillery are frequent on our left, and I 
occasionally hear distant musketry. Should my anticipa- 
tions prove correct of a contest to-morrow, the point of 
attack V;'ill not be far removed from this place. M'^Clellan's 
head-quarters are still at New Bridge, four miles east of 



GEN. M®CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 151 

Mechanicsville ; and when we left there yesterday he had 
30,000 men under his immediate eye, and thirty batteries of 
field artillery. Our brigade numbers about 3,200 effectives, 
and we have here three batteries of rifled guns. Stoneman, 
with about an equal force, a portion being cavalry, is some 
two miles north of us, and the telegraphic wire puts us in 
instantaneous communication with M^Clellan. Our best 
safeguard is the swollen, deep Chickahominy in front of 
us, otherwise our little force could not hold this position 
for any length of time. 

A flag of truce came over from the enemy yesterday, 
the object being to inquire after the health of the wounded 
General Pettigrew, captured last Sunday in the battle of 
Fair Oaks. This general is a South Carolinian, and the 
son of a former governor of that State, who bears the 
reputation of being opposed to Secession. The Petti- 
grews are among the wealthiest planters in Cottondom, 
and the family played an important part in the revolu- 
tionary war. The Pettigrew of that period made himself 
remarkable by enunciating the opinion in the first Congress, 
that there ought to he no New Yorkers or South Carolir- 
nians, but only ' AmeHcans.'' Strangely has his descen- 
dant fallen away from the faith when he is thus found 
battling in defence of the doctrine of States' rights, and 
seeking to break up a nation which his grandsire endea- 
voured to consolidate. The bearers of the flag of truce 
brought us news that General Joseph Johnston was 
wounded in the battle of Sunday last, and that General 
Kobert Lee has been appointed commander-in-chief of the 
rebel ' Army of Virginia.' As Johnston was their principal 
commander, the Confederates are scarcely likely to claim 
the battle as a victory. A gentleman, lately arrived from 
the field of action, informed me that the loss of life during 



152 GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

the two days was enormous ; three days after the fight, lie 
saw hundreds of bodies lying in the woods, and beneath the 
abattis— the Confederate uniform more than doubling that 
of their opponents. Sixteen hundred had already been 
interred by the Union troops, and yet it seemed to him 
as though none had been buried, so much remained to be 
done. My informant is of the opinion that our own losses 
were much larger than at first supposed — namely, 2,500 
killed, wounded, and missing ; he thinks 4,000 would be 
much nearer the mark.* 

The weather in Virginia at this season is most disagree- 
able, and dangerous to the health of the troops. Three 
or four broiling hot days, with the thermometer nearly 
90 degrees, are succeeded by cold, wet, easterly winds, 
which produce intermittent and congestive complaints; 
add to this the malaria from the swamps of the Chicka- 
hominy, and you will readily understand that campaigning 
is not quite so couleur de rose as romancers love to paint 
it. I have hitherto managed to keep your correspondent 
in a moderate degree of health, but it is only by a liberal 
use of prophylactics. There is a story told of a cat, which 
had been fed so' long by a soldier on pipeclay and water 
that she would not touch milk. I have almost persuaded 
myself that I like quinine, in doses amounting to ten 
grains per diem. Verily, campaigning hath its bitters ! 

June 9. 

Contrary to general expectation, the enemy permitted 
us to pass Sunday in peace. They, however, worked hard 

* It is now admitted by the Confederates that M'Clelluu might hare 
marched into Richmond after the battle of Fair Oaks with tho greatest 
ease. They were utterly astonished at his unaccountable delay in following 
up his victory. 



\ 



GEN. M^CUELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 153 

all day, if we may judge by that portion of their army 
encamped in front of us ; and, much to the surprise of 
our men nnd officers, they were permitted to continue 
their fortifications without let or hindrance on our part. 
Nobody here, not even the general commanding the 
brigade, can give the reason for our permitting these 
works to continue ; instructions from head-quarters con- 
fine us to holding this bank of the river, forbidding our 
firing at passing bodies of their troops, their pickets, or 
fortifications. This morning they are throwing up another 
work on the opposite side of the road, and when this is 
complete they will have a cross- fire at the bridge from 
half a mile distance, which will keep back any force of 
infantry. 

The main body of the enemy here is hidden behind 
a belt of trees ; but we can see their white tents beyond 
when the sun passes the meridian. They have largely 
increased their force within the past twenty-four hours, 
two encampments showing up between the hills further to 
our right. They seem, indeed, to design turning our flank 
two or three miles higher up the river, or, may be, they 
are preparing to communicate with the retreating army of 
' Stonewall ' Jackson, falling back before Fremont and 
Banks. Stoneman's two regiments of cavalry and his 
light artillery are watching them continually, and our own 
brigade now pickets up the river for two miles beyond 
where the Virginia Central Railroad crosses the Chickaho- 
miny. I think our picketing is on far too profuse a scale, 
both as regards distance and numbers, twelve companies 
out of a single brigade doing duty along four miles of 
front. It was such a fault as this, isolating squads of men 
from support, which led to Greneral Casey's misfortune at 
the battle of Saturday week. 



154 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 

, Our pickets and those of the enemy are in close proxi- 
mity to each other at the bridge, scarcely three hundred 
yards intervening between them. There seems to be a 
mutual desire to let each other alone for the present, 
although batteries are gaping on every height, and our 
men at least are ' spoiling for a fight.' There are cour- 
tesies and amenities even in warfare, and until the moment 
when Federals and Confederates are ordered to cut each 
other's throats, we treat each other with * distinguished 
consideration,' as diplomatists have it. The bridge at 
Mechanicsville is neutral ground, no ' villanous saltpetre ' 
disturbing the long-continued harmony. Yesterday, a 
private of the Third New Jersey Eegiment ran along the 
bridge towards the enemy, waving in his hand a New 
York paper of the 6th inst. ; he was met half-way by a 
Confederate major, who gave him in exchange a copy of the 
Richmond Dispatch of the 7th, which has since been for- 
warded to Greneral M'^Clellan. The New York paper con- 
tained General Halleck's despatch relating to the evacua- 
tion of Corinth and his capture of 10,000 prisoners and 
15,000 stand of arms. ' \Miat,' said the Major, ' Corinth 
evacuated ! that is indeed news ! ' Numerous little epi- 
sodes like the above frequently transpire here, and have a 
tendency to make war appear much less horrible than the 
reality. A week ago some of our pickets at New Bridge 
were boiling cojBfee in the v,'oods on the banks of the river, 
when a Confederate soldier creeped down towards them 
and called out, 'What are you doing there, boys?' 
' Hallo I we're making a cup of cofifee,' was the reply. ' Is 
it real coffee, now ? ' came back to them from the opposite 
bank. ' Yea,' the [ icket answered. ' If I leave my gun 
here and swim acros^^ . will you give me some, and let me 
return again ? ' said the rebel soldier. ' All right,' was the 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 155 

answer, and the murky gray uniform of a Confederate 
shortly joined the picket, and put itself outside a pint of 
the infusion. A hearty meal of biscuit and cold pork 
caused the rebel to reflect upon the copiousness of ' Union ' 
rations as compared with his own, and he told his nevf 
friends, ' We don't get enough to eat on the other side. I 
think I sha'n't go back again.' Thereupon the officer of 
the guard was called, and the deserter was subsequently 
marched to head-quarters. The bottom of the valley in 
the neighbourhood of New Bridge is a conglomeration 
of thickly- wooded islets, swamps, and water-courses. Occa- 
sionally during the day and evening were heard the sounds 
of clarionet from the middle of this morass, the amateur 
awakening the echoes with ' Dixie,' the ' Marseillaise,' 
and other airs fashionable amongst ' Secesh.' Two or 
three rifle-shots from our pickets on the river had little 
effect upon the player beyond making him change hig 
tunes ; for he would reply with ' Yankee-Doodle,' ' Hail 
Columbia,' or the ^Star-spangled Banner,' receiving a 
volley from the other side in answer. Who this strange 
individual is, nobody knows. 1 have set her down (it 
must be her) as some Naiad or Dryad fresh from Arcadia, 
or Minnehaha calling her lost Hiawatha. 

We had unexpected visitors at our camp yesterday — five 
ladies, who did us the honour of passing several hours in 
our company, attending Divine service with us in the 
evening. Four of them were black as the proverbial ace 
of spades, with high cheek-bones, thick features, shiny 
skins, and wonderfully bright eyes full of humour and 
life ; they were dressed in cast-off clothes of their owners, 
but wore no bonnets, and the thick shoes on their enor- 
mous feet told us they were field hands. The fifth was 
* yellow,' though if I were called upon to define her hue ] 



156 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

should define her as a bad-complexioned white skin with 
an incurable affection of the liver ; I judged her to be an 

* amalgamation ' between a mulatto woman and white man, 
the ' tar-brush ' showing itself mainly in the features. She 
evidently possessed full authority over the others, they 
conceding her right to command them without opposition 
or murmur, and she informed us that her owner, a widow, 
had run off when our forces approached, leaving her mis- 
tress of the situation. These much -oppressed slaves cer- 
tainly, evince a remarkable degree of fidelity towards their 
owners, in spite of the ill-treatment continually vented 
upon them. We were all astonished to hear that female 

* chattels,' grown-up women, are frequently ordered to strip 
themselves to the skin, and then receive blows from whips 
or cowhides according to the temper of their owners. The 
coloured girl above told us, ' We (meaning those of her 
light complexion) give more trouble than the rest, for we 
are very much like the white folk, and don't like being 
put upon. My mistress said the other day, before you 
came, she was cursed with a lot of smart niggers, and I 
guess she is too.' In answer to our inquiries, she told us 
that some of our troops had carried off the fowls on the 
plantation, and stolen some of the vegetables; 'but,' she 
added, ' I don't complain much, for I dare say the poor 
fellows are tired of hard biscuit, and we should do the 
same.' She was very pleased to hear that a guard would 
be placed over the premises in future, and that all produce 
should be paid for on removal from the plantation. 

We obtained a full insight into the much-vaunted slave 
system of Virginia from these girls. Their chief complaint 
was that their relatives were taken from them and sold 
South ; two of them were minus their husbands from this 
cause. No regard whatever seems to be paid to their 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 157 

religious interests, none of them having attended Divine 
worship since they were little children. When we told 
them there would be service in the regiment after parade, 
and that they were welcome to be present, they evinced 
much curiosity, and their attention and glances at each 
other during the performance proved how novel it was to 
them. We learned from them that our rapid advance in 
this direction had prevented their owners carrying them 
off, and they promised us visits from many others of their 
class as soon as our presence became known tlirough the 
country. So it is wherever the Northern armies march, 
and the slave-owners know it full well, for they drive off 
their field hands and house servants, fearing the demoral- 
ising influence of the abolitionist Yankees. We are hailed 
as deliverers, and yet the negroes seem to regard freedom 
as nothing more than the right to go where they choose, 
and to keep all the money they can make by their labour. 
I have not yet met a single one with the first idea of 
political advantage accruing to him from this much-desired 
liberty. An elderly coloured man said to me to-day, with 
no small amount of humour and sarcasm, * These niggers 
will begin to think before long they are human.' 

10 P.M. 

We hear good news to-night, and from authority, too, 
which we assuredly ought not to doubt. General M'Dowell 
has received orders to join us here without further delay, 
and there is therefore some probability at last of his 
approach being more than a rumour. Some of my late 
letters may have led you to believe that he had already 
left Fredericksburg with this object ; such was the belief 
of all here, and much astonishment has been shown at his 
strange delay. ^ 



158 QEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

June 10. 

We sent a flag of truce across the river to-day for the 
purpose of giving up four ladies capture'd by Greneral 
Stoneman's advance corps some fortnight ago. The ladies 
in question were Mrs. I^ee, wife of Greneral Eobert Lee, 
her two daughters, and a visitor at their house when they 
were taken. Colonel Torbert* of the 1st New Jersey 
Eegiment, being the officer of the day, was deputed to 
accompany them outside our lines ; in other words, across 
the Meadow bridge over the Chickahominy, two miles 
from this village. The ladies were very affable and pleasant, 
but no reference whatever was made on either side to any 
political matters. The party was stopped on the Confede- 
rate side of the river, and we learned that a Virginia regi- 
ment was guarding the position under the orders of Gene- 
ral Heath. One of the officers expressed to Colonel Torbert 
his satisfaction at seeing the old uniform again. There are 
doubtless many others who feel like him, and only require 
the opportunity to show their true sentiments. 

We learn that the celebrated cavalry officer Ashby was 
killed in the late battle between Jackson and Fremont, 
and that ' an English adventurer, whom Lincoln had made 
a colonel of cavalry,' was captured in the same engagement. 
The RicJiTnond Inquirer gives his name as Sir Percy 
Worden, but means Wyndham ; this gentleman served 
under Garibaldi in Italy, and now commands the 1st New 
Jersey Cavalry in the Union army. 

June 11. 

This day week is the anniversary of the battle of 
Waterloo, and it would not be surprising if M'^Clellan 

* Now Major- General Torbert> chief of Sheridan's cavalry. 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 159 

should select it as the day on which his advance will be 
made. The Confederate army is in the position of our own 
covering Brussels, and the country hereabouts is not dis- 
similar to that around the village of Waterloo, except that 
it is more hilly. ' Stonewall ' Jackson may answer for 
Blucher — he has shown himself as brave and dashing 
as the Prussian — and M'Dowell may turn out another 
Grouchy, if the report of his slowness be correct. There 
is, as yet, no appearance of any part of his army moving, 
and reinforcements are continually arriving by way of 
York Eiver. M'Dowell has not shown up, and we are 
never permitted to know anything of his whereabouts. It 
has poured down rain in torrents during the last thirty-six 
hours, and not merely is the Chickahominy higher than 
ever, and the swamps lakes, but the hills on which we are 
encamped have become morasses where the foot sinks in 
to the ancle. Surely the skies are in league with th<» 
enemy ! 

11 P.M. 

The reason of our strange delay of the past week is now 
explained. General M'^Clellan has been seriously ill, and, 
I am informed, so seriously as to cause fears for his safety. 
Not the slightest suspicion of this fact has leaked out in 
the army; and no better proof can be required of the 
secrecy with which military operations here are conducted 
than that such a fact has been kept secret in the camp 
during upwards of a week. I "hear that the General was 
over the river to-day, but have no means of establishing 
the truth of the report ; a friend of mine just returned 
from head-quarters states to me he was so informed there. 

June 12. 

We were greatly surprised by a visit from General 
M*Clellan this afternoon ; he was accompanied by Generals 



160 GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Franklin and Porter, and a numerous suite; amongst 
whom were the Prince de Joinville, and Colonels Neville 
and Fletcher, of our Household Brigade. The young 
General-in-Chief certainly looked very little like a sick 
man, although but a few days ago he was in such a state 
as to alarm his friends. Many here will not believe he 
has been sick at all, but simply that he has been playing 
the ' old soldier ' for strategic reasons. He was dressed in 
as neglige a costume as one might desire this hot weather: 
a loose blue woollen blouse, jack-boots and straw hat; 
nothing in fact would lead one to suppose he had any 
connection with the army. The party on arriving here 
ascended the hill overlooking the enemy's position, be- 
tween our camps and the river, and passed half-an-hour 
in reconnoitring the lately-thrown-up breastworks and 
redoubts of the rebels. The horses were left out of sight, 
and M'^Clellan, Franklin and Porter, leaving their suite in 
the rear, walked some distance along the heights, and 
finally climbed to the roof of a high barn, whence the 
valley of the Chickahominy may be traced for miles. A 
flag of truce from the enemy was the principal cause of 
this visit. An officer of the 2nd Jersey regiment, on duty 
with his company at what is known as the Meadow-bridge, 
received the flag this morning; the letter was immediately 
despatched to head-quarters, and must have contained 
matter of importance to brigg the General so far along the 
lines to reply to it. The 'Confederate officer bearing the 
flag of truce proved to be a scion of the Virginia house of 
Mason, and a nephew of the Confederate plenipotentiary 
now in England; a short conversation with our own officer 
gave us important information — that is, if the former's 
statements be well founded. He declared laughingly that 
Kichmond was in no more danger of capture than 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 161 

Washington, and that the fight would not come off in this 
vicinity at all, but in Fairfax county ; in other words, near 
the celebrated lines of Manassas. This may be the usual 
Southern bombast ; but I, for one, shall not be surprised 
if there be something of the kind attempted after all. An 
extract from a Mississippi paper, republished in the 
Michmond Inquirer, asserted the same thing within the 
past week. M'Clellan's army now stretches from the 
James Eiver to the Chickahominy, his right flank resting 
on the Virginia Central Eailroad. Drawing a line from 
the point where this road crosses the Chickahominy, to 
White House on the Pamunkey, we have, as nearly as 
necessary, the line of demarcation between the enemy's 
forces and our own — the country south being occupied by 
us, while all north and west is open to the Confederates. 
What is to prevent the latter leaving Eichmond and 
marching either to meet Jackson or to the relief of 
Fredericksburg ? 

M'Dowell has been heard from, and perhaps the move- 
ments of his army may induce the Confederates to make 
such an attempt. One of the three divisions composing 
his corps has already landed at White House (the point 
where the Eichmond and West Point Eailroad crosses the 
Pamunkey Eiver) ; the second is said to be on its way by 
the same route, the Chesapeake and York Eivers ; whilst 
the third is marching southward from Fredericksburg, and 
will, I learn, join us in this direction. Central Virginia is 
thus comparatively free, the force until lately opposed to 
M'Dowell having probably been marched back upon the 
capital. The army under Fremont, Banks, Sigel, and 
Shields, numbering some 60,000 men, are following up 
Jackson through the valley of the Shenandoah. The enemy 
may have learnt of M'Dowell's evacuation of Fredericks- 

M 



162 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

burg, and the prospect of his arrival here, and they are not 
unlikely to effect a diversion towards the Rappahannock, 
especially as by so doing they may assist Jackson, and. stop 
the advance of M'Dowell's third division. Forewarned is 
forearmed. May be M'^Clellan has prepared for this con- 
tingency. 

June 13. 

We changed our camping ground at sunrise this morning, 
moving up the Chickahominy a distance of about a quar- 
ter of a mile. Our present location is in a wood, where 
the dead leaves lie half a foot in depth, and the insects 
are more numerous and ugly than ever. 

Towards noon, our brigade received orders to hold itself 
in readiness to march at a moment's notice, and we soon 
after learned that we were to join our division and cross 
the Chickahominy at what is known as Sumner's bridge, 
four miles below Newbridge. About four o'clock, how- 
ever, we were informed that the enemy were in force at 
Old Church, seven or eight miles in our rear, and word 
was sent for the troops to be prepared to advance in light 
marching order, leaving waggons and baggage under as 
small a guard as possible. Thus stand matters at present, 
and we have the prospect of a night march and tough 
work in the morning. Old Church lies between Hanover 
Court House and Cold Harbour, and the enemy thus 
threatens our depot at White House on the Pamunkey 
Eiver, and the railroad by which supplies are forwarded 
for all OUT army on the Chickahominy. I trust that I 
may be mistaken, but there certainly appears to have been 

an awful ' niuil ' somewhere. 

June 14. 

After closing my record of last evening, we received 
orders countermanding those previously given. We have 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 163 

quietly remained inside our lines all day, and the enemy 
has been remarkably affable towards us. 

The information received here relative to the affairs of 
yesterday has a very black appearance. The following are 
the facts so far as known. A Confederate force, composed 
of six regiments of infantry and two of cavalry, has turned 
our right flank, and got completely in our rear, between 
the Chickahominy and Pamunkey, burnt two schooners 
laden with stores on the latter river, and penetrated as far 
as Tunstall's station on the Eichmond and West Point 
Eailroad, where the attempt was then made to destroy the 
bridges. A heavily-laden train, carrying stores to the 
main portion of the army, was fired into at this point, 
and would infallibly have been captured if, according to 
custom, it had stopped to water at Tunstall's. A waggon 
train coming by the 'pike road from White House was 
almost entirely destroyed; fifty of these huge vehicles 
being burnt or otherwise damaged, the teamsters and 
guards killed, and the horses driven off. Such are the 
details of this daring and well-executed feat of the rebels 
in the very rear of our army. 

Further intelligence may modify these particulars, but 
ther^ can be no washing out the blackness of the affair 
so far as concerns the main facts. The enemy reached 
the Pamunkey Kiver in the vicinity of White House, and 
attacked the most vulnerable portion of the solitary 
railroad by which we receive the supplies of our army; 
in other words, they turn our flank and get nearly twenty 
miles back in our rear without anybody to check them and 
obviously without anybody being aware of their presence. 
OflBcers of high rank complain grievously of this want of 
foresight on the part of their superiors, and are fiercely, 
and most justly so, too, severe on the management of a 

M 2 



164 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

campaign which permits such a person as Mrs. Lee, the 
wife of the principal rebel general, to pass through our 
lines, and, of course, to carry information to the enemy. 
It is almost self-evident that the Confederate raid has 
been planned upon this lady's information, obtained, be 
it remembered, while she remained a prisoner at White 
House. Mrs. Lee had every attention shown her, being 
escorted by cavalry in triumph to the rebel lines. Certain 
United States' officers are wonderfully kid-gloved with 
these Southern aristocrats ; but from what I have seen and 
heard to-day I am satisfied the army does not appreciate 
such politeness. 

Two deserters swam the Chickahominy this afternoon, 
and gave themselves up to our pickets. I was present 
at their examination, and found they belonged to the 
Louisiana brigade, but were both natives of New York 
State. They informed us there are numbers of Northern 
men who have been forced into the Southern ranks, and 
are now seeking to get to the front so as to effect their 
escape. Like the prisoners with whom I have conversed, 
they represent the force in front of Eichmond to be con- 
stantly receiving large additions, and they report also a 
deficiency in rations. 

Midnight. 

Word has just come in that the enemy have crossed the 
Chickahominy, and are in force on our right flank. There 
is therefore every prospect of an engagement at this point 
before daylight. General M'^Clellan moved his quarters 
across the river the day before yesterday, aiuay from the 
threatened point, and we have now only three divisions 
and the brigade of regulars north of the Chickahominy, 
a force of about 35,000 men. The place is evidently 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 165 

Lecoming too hot to hold us much longer, thanks to our 
senseless delay and the time we have given the enemy to 
hurry up overwhelming reinforcements. It almost looks 
as though we were playing his game knowingly. 

June 16. 

Our expectations of an attack yesterday were doomed to 
disappointment, and we now learn that one of our own 
signal officers was the cause of the ' scare.' It appears that 
the individual -in question telegraphed from this end of our 
lines to General M''Clellan,without communicating with any- 
body here, and upon his information we were warned from 
head-quarters to hold ourselves in readiness for an attack. 
The day passed off, however, without the enemy showing 
themselves, and we enjoyed one of the quietest Sundays of 
the campaign. 

Further intelligence relative to the late Confederate raid 
in our rear places the affair in a still more brilliant light for 
the enemy, and damaging one for ourselves. Our pickets 
captured a newsboy this morning, carrying Richmond 
papers to the rebel troops : he had unintentionally strayed 
within our lines, bringing under his arm a bundle of the 
Michmond Dispatch, and you may be sure our soldiers 
seized upon the booty with avidity. The papers contained 
a two-and-a-half column report of the dashing feat per- 
formed by the enemy in our rear, and written, too, with 
little of the usual Southern bombast and exaggerations; 
the affair, in truth, requires no colouring whatever, being 
sufficiently romantic in itself to be spared the attention of 
sensation writers. Apart from the ingenious manner in 
which the story is related, I learn from officers and others 
who have been over the road in the wake of the enemy that 
all the truth is not told in the Eichmond paper ; true, the 



166 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Dispatch sets down the value of the property destroyed at 
three millions of dollars, but if our losses do not reach this 
sum, it is sufficient to know that upwards of one million 
are admitted as the minimum. Two hundred four-horse 
waggons were destroyed, many prisoners taken, and scores 
of valuable horses driven off; yet these losses, considerable 
as they appear, are the lightest we have sustained by the 
enemy's inroad. 

The evident object of the Confederate generals was to 
learn, by reconnoitring, the extent of our force between the 
Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, and for this purpose 
a force was put under General Stuart, consisting of six 
regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and two field-pieces. 
This little army, it would appear, left Eichmond by the 
north, and marched straight to Old Church, between Han- 
over Court House and Cold Harbour, reaching that point 
after driving in our cavalry pickets about Thursday morn- 
ing. The cavalry and field-pieces pushed on henceforward 
alone. The former numbered in all 1,400 men, and were 
portions of four regiments, the colonels of two of them 
being sons of Greneral Lee. They first of all made for the 
Pamunkey Eiver, where they burned a couple of schooners 
laden with forage, and were only deterred from attacking 
the depot of all our supplies by the fear of finding a large 
force at White House. There was nothing of the sort, 
however, incredible as it may appear; and they might just 
as well have destroyed all our stores for anything we could 
have done to prevent them. From the river to the station 
on the West Point Eailroad, called Tunstall's, their march 
was a scene of ruin and devastation; everybody was 
alarmed, regiment aftei' regiment was sent in pursuit, but 
none came up with them ; and they ultimately crossed the 
Chickahominy near Bottom's Bridge, in the very rear of 



GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 167 

the centre of the Federal army now investing Eich- 
mond. 

In accordance with custom in this army, the blame of 
this irruption is thrown upon a subordinate — Brigadier- 
Greneral Cooke. On our extreme right, fronting the 
enemy, the 1st New Jersey Brigade holds the left side of 
the Virginia Central Eailroad, near the Chickahominy ; 
Major-Greneral Stoneman takes up the defence in our rear, 
and GreneVal Cooke has the remainder of the line back to 
the Pamunkey. Cooke, I understand, has never thrown 
out pickets, confining himself to patrols ; but he states in 
defence that picketing was never required of him in his 
orders. Greneral Stoneman, a most adinirable officer, and 
worthy a far more important command than he has hitherto 
possessed, twice complained of Cooke's failure to throw 
out pickets ; so that others are also to blame — not Cooke 
alone. This officer could have no charge of the country 
near Bottom's Bridge, nor at Tunstall's Station, and I 
understand that Sumner and Hooker and Kearny charge 
the entire blame upon M^Clellan. Be the fault where it 
may, the enemy has made a splendid dash through the 
country in our rear, and learned exactly our force between 
the Chickahominy and Pamunkey rivers. To make the 
affair stranger than ever, the rebel com r.ander, Stuart, 
is the son-in-law of Cooke, and the two Lees are the sons 
of the lady whom we put across our lines a few days ago. 

This Confederate raid might have been prevented, if 
our generals had reconnoitred on our right flank, instead 
of depending upon balloon observations for knowledge of 
the enemy's movements. These balloone may be very 
efficient in a level and open country, but they are of far 
less utility in the vicinity of Richmond j fac land, is ex- 
ceedingly hilly and wooded, and it is n-e-JLt to impossible to 



168 GEN. m'^clellan and the peninsula campaign. 

see anything from an elevation of one thousand feet — the 
extreme height of the balloon's elevations ; besides which, 
the weather has lately been too boisterous for aeronautic 
operations. I question much whether ballooning has been 
of any advantage to the Army of the Potomac during the 
war, while it has certainly made the enemy much more 
cautious. 

• June 18. 

We were awakened before daylight this morning, and 
ordered to prepare to march for some point or other the 
moment we were relieved. At sunrise a brigade belonging 
to FitzJohn Porter's corps surrounded our camping ground, 
guarding carefully against being seen by the enemy on the 
other side of the river. Unfortunately, however, our 
waggons were absent after supplies, and as it was im- 
possible for them to get back until night-time, our relief 
returned whence they came, leaving us a fixture at this 
place. The men complain bitterly of what they regard as 
their bad luck, but we are in hopes we shall quit Me- 
chanicsville some time to-morrow. I hear that McCall's 
division of the Pennsylvania reserves (8,500 strong, with 
30 guns) will in future occupy this point. The command 
in question belongs to McDowell's corps d'armee, and 
reached White House from the North a few days ago. 
They were at Dispatch station, on the Chickahominy, this 
morning, and we shall probably see them at Mechanicsville 
during the night. 

The rebels across the river seem most desirous of letting 
us alone, employing all their time in throwing up redoubts 
and breastworks on the hills in front of us. We are not 
permitted to interfere with their labours, to the no small 
astonishment of everybody here ; but we put it down to 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 169 

that mysterious thing called ' strategy, ' although some 
defiDe it by a bad name. Deserters come in daily, all 
belongmg to Louisiana regiments : they creep down to the 
edge of the river, wave a handkerchief to our pickets, and 
then wade or sv?im across. One of them told us to-day 
that a general order on desertion was read at parade last 
night, their troops being assured the Yankees would mal- 
treat them even if they managed to cross the stream. If 
we may believe these deserters, all the Louisiana regiments 
are more or less disaffected, the men watching their 
opportunity to reach the banks of the Chickahominy. 
Perhaps the fall of New Orleans may have something to 
do with this demoralisation. 

We learn an important fact from these deserters — ■ 
Greneral Lee, the new general-in-chief of the Confederates, 
has lately moved his head-quarters to the left of his line, 
nearly opposite the point where the Virginia Central Eail- 
road ci-osses the Chickahominy. This fact, in conjunction 
with the great increase of camps in that direction, induces 
some of our principal engineer oflficers to believe that a 
change is about to be made in the enemy's lines Does the 
change look as though any evacuation of Eichmond were 
intended ? The chiefs of the Federal army express the 
most suprenie confidence that Eichmond will be held : but 
this was also Greneral Heintzelman's conviction with regard 
to Yorktown the very day before it was evacuated. Jefferson 
Davis said lately he could carry on a war during twenty 
years in this State, and many here believe he is preparing 
for such a struggle by changing his front to the Kanawha 
Canal, running from Eichmond towards Lynchburg and the 
Shenandoah Valley, following the course of the James 
Eiver. It may not be necessary to sacrifice his capital to 
this plan of operations ; and holding that canal and the 



170 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

country south and west of it, he may protract the campaign 
through the summer and winter months, and hope to gain 
his ends by political complications in the interim. The 
next eight days will probably decide the question, for 
M'^Clellan has now got every regiment he has so long 
demanded, and his entrenchments I hear are within a day 
or two of completion. 



CHAPTER XVin. 

ON THE CENTRE. 

SotlTH OF THE CHICKAHOMUnT, IN FbONT OP 

KicHMOND : June 20. 
We left Mechanicsville yesterday morning, marched all 
day through a boiling-hot sun, and reached our present 
camping ground towards nightfall. We are now encamped 
at eight or ten miles' distance from Richmond, but neverthe- 
less considerably nearer to the rebel capital and the enemy 
than at any period of our march ; in other words, we are 
on the direct road to Richmond, and we must fight hard 
to get any nearer. The other two brigades of our division 
crossed the Chickahominy on Wednesday, and FitzJohn 
Porter's corps and M'Call's division are now the only 
portion of M'^Clellan's army north of the river. We hear 
they have received orders to join us immediately, and are 
only waiting until King's division of M'Dowell's corps 
reaches them from White House. M'^Clellan will then 
have twelve divisions in front of Richmond, besides the 
reinforcements arrived from the North during the past 
three weeks, but I found it impossible to learn what is the 
gross total of this immense army. Some say 100,000 men, 
others 150,000, but those are silent who could speak 
authoritatively. We have at all events enough to win ; 
but we shall have to fight hard, very hard, before reaching 
Richmond — that is, if the enemy do not evacuate. 



172 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. • 

The road from our former camping ground at Newbridge 
to the Chickahominy was lined with deserted camps, the for- 
mer habitations of tens of thousands of men, who are now 
over the little stream which circumstances have rendered 
famous. The country between the Pamunkey and Chicka- 
hominy bears a mournful aspect of ruin and devastation ; 
fields of down-trodden grain, parched and withered, window- 
less houses, felled trees, putrid horses fouling the air, horns, 
bones, and hides of oxen, with whizzing myriads of flies 
circling spirally above the offal. At one house alone did 
we find a tenant, a sour-faced woman with a young family 
of sourer-faced children, who told me her name was M'Gree, 
and that there were many M'Gees in the Southern army. 
She was a Virginian of indubitable extraction, wizened by 
the influence of Southern institutions. Half of her house 
was given up to domestic servants — shiny, greasy-visaged 
blacks — and an outbuilding in the yard was tenanted by 
the still dirtier and more miserable offspring of the field 
hands. The whole establishment was stamped a curse, 
from the blear-eyed whites to the fat, stupid negroes. The 
M'Gree farm is situated on the road leading from Graines's 
Mills to the Chickahominy, and on the summit of the hills 
looking down upon the valley through which winds the 
river; the road dips rapidly here until it reaches the 
extensive morass known as the Powhitan Swamp. A few 
scorchingly hot days have dried up the deep mud in the 
valley, and we were able to walk dry-shod upon ground 
which a week ago was impassable ; but a mile or more of 
corduroyed road proved to us what difficulties were en- 
countered by the army in its pursuit of the enemy. The 
road in question was admirably well constructed by the 
New York Volunteer Engineers, and must have required 
a vast expenditure of labour. Hundreds of thousands of 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 173 

pine-trees, from eight inches to one foot in thickness, have 
been laid transversely upon each other, and filled in with 
rammed earth, the causeway being deeply ditched on each 
side. The Chickahominy at this point can scarcely be 
called a river ; it is a succession of winding streams, isles, 
and swamps, requiring a bridge some five hundred yards in 
length to span it. The same engineering corps has the credit 
of the erection, and a more solidly constructed affair I never 
walked over. As we approached the head of the bridge, a 
signboard on a huge oak-tree informed us it was constructed 
by the New York Engineer Brigade in five days, the infor- 
mation being prefaced with the notice, ' The Eoad to Rich- 
mond.' The country on the other side rose rapidly, and 
was covered with o ir encampments as far as the eye could 
reach — not very far, however, for the open stands merely 
in the proportion of one to two of forest and wood. A walk 
of two miles brought us to our present camping ground. 
Fair Oaks, close to the railroad, and within a few minutes' 
march of the battle-fields of May 31st and June 1st ; and 
a more execrable camping ground I have not seen in all 
my campaigning experience. 

The country beyond the Chickahominy is even more 
hilly than to the northward, and incomparably more 
swampy. I can imagine no worse locality for health than 
the region now occupied by the Army of the Potomac, and 
easily understand why Virginians, when wishing to de- 
scribe any region as particularly unhealthy, always compare 
it to the swamps of the Chickahominy. Swamp, swamp 
everywhere, on the tops and slopes of the bills, and cover- 
ing the valleys — dry now in some places, but only to 
throw off deadliest miasma. To make matters worse, 
there are upwards of a hundred thousand men occupying 
every foot of ground, hiding their tents in the trees, 



174 GEN. M CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

camping in the hollows, and spreading acres of canvas 
over the hill-sides. Thousands of horses still further 
poison the soil ; and space, in fine, is so limited, that 
garbarge and all else must lie where it falls, fermenting 
and steaming in the sun's rays. We are in the shadow of 
an upas forest, and withia a stone's throw rest the half- 
buried corpses of the many slain in the two days' action of 
Fair Oaks, and the offal of hecatombs of oxen impossible 
to cart away. This foul stratum of decaying animal and 
vegetable matter is washed through by the rains, and be- 
comes more dangerous than ever to life when mixed with 
the poisonous mud. The water is awful : at one camp it 
is blue, at another green, changing elsewhere to brown, 
yellow, or some other tint, but always opaque, odorous, 
and disgusting. Smells ! I am tired of trying to count 
their number : Cologne is a perfumer's shop compared to 
this peninsula, and yet here we must remain until the mo- 
ment comes for us to move. When that will be, nobody 
pretends to say ; but it must be a very near period, or the 
army will be destroyed. I hear dreadful reports of the 
general health — reports which are not permitted to find 
publicity in the Northern press. One brigade arrived here 
a month ago 5,000 strong ; it cannot now take 2,200 into 
the field ; and from all I can gather, regiments originally 
1,000 strong do not now average half that number. Our 
brigade has only been here twenty-four hours, but the 
miasma is already beginning to tell upon us, and several 
of our officers are apparently sickening for typhoid or in- 
termittent. M*"Clellan must indeed move soon, or half his 
army will have to nurse or bury the other half. 

Franklin's and Porter's corps cCarmee hitherto have 
camped in comparatively healthy localities, but still very 
unhealthy in comparison with Northern Virginia. During 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 175 

the past fortnight this has especially been the case, deaths 
being frequent and sick lists continually on the increase. 
If I have kept my health, it is simply by avoiding water 
as much as possible, exposure still more so, and by 
thoroughly saturating the system with quinine. The 
alternative is not pleasant, but I hope by the end of the 
campaign to regard the sulphate as a luxury. Perhaps, 
even, I may become enthusiastic about it! Quien sabe? 
The really warm weather is only just commencing, and I 
shudder to think what a pest-heap this peninsula will be 
after the collision of these two enormous armies. There 
is really not sufficient room to fight in here, and the 
slaughter will be frightful : the fronts of the rival armies 
are within half-a-mile of each other, and the pickets are 
so close that a general action may be brought about at any 
moment. Shells are bursting continually through the day 
and occasionally at night, and we are becoming so accus- 
tomed to the reports as to pay little attention to them. 

M^Clellan's lines extend from Newbridge on the Ohicka- 
hominy to Fair Oaks on the York Eiver Railroad, thence 
to the western edge of White Oak Swamp on the Charles 
City pike-road — a distance of about six miles. Ileintzel- 
man holds the left, Keyes and Sumner the centre, and 
Franklin and Porter's corps form the right wing. I hear 
that Heintzelman is in communication Avith the gunboats 
on the James River, but how he manages it I know not. 

An immense amount of work has been accomplished by 
this army since its arrival in the peninsula ; many miles 
of substantial corduroyed roads run in all directions, and 
the telegraph wire interlaces the different camps. I hope 
to visit the works in front to-morrow. 



176 GEN. M'CLELLAN and the peninsula CAMPAiaN.' 

June 21, 

Heavy dew fell last night, and the sun was oppres- 
sively hot by eight o'clock this morning — too hot, in fact; 
for anyone to remain under its rays with any regard to 
his safety. Canvas tents are but a slight protection, even 
with the sides looped up all round, and the insect world 
is more numerous in the midst of these swamps than 
imagination can depict. As I write, enormous ants 
attempt to run over my paper, beetles of all dimensions 
perform their gymnastics on my clothes, and flies plague 
me with their bites, which both tickle and irritate. We 
cannot help the matter by grumbling ; their attentions 
must be borne, for they are the courtiers and retinue of 
Queen Cloacina, who holds her court in these swamps. 

Our camp is situated on the north side of the Eichmond 
and West Point Railroad, close to the station called Fair 
Oaks. Between us and the railroad lies the scene of the 
battle of the 31st May, at only five minutes' Avalk from 
our encampment. Shakespeare's blasted heath was not 
so appalling, for it wanted the parching sun, the death- 
teeming dust, and the wreck of battle. Macbeth's witches 
would have chosen this spot as a summer resort, and I 
almost believed I saw them hovering over the scene this 
morning in the guise of turkey-buzzards attracted by the 
scent of offal. Can your fancy depict an immense expanse 
of yellow mud, dried and fetid, erst the locaKty of a forest, 
where giant oaks and towering pines wooed the traveller 
to quiet shades ? There, the former abode of peace and 
beauty, we now see but a horrible desert, parched and dry, 
stumps of trees bristling the expanse, trunks blackened with 
fire ! Strew amidst these ten thousand faggots embedded 
in earth, the remains of clothing — caps, boots, shoes, 
shirts, blankets, pools of stagnant water, broken arms. 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 177 

rations — food for maggots, horrid grinning heads of oxen, 
hides raosaic'd into earth by rains, mounds covering the 
plain, beneath which lie the remains of human-kind ; 
bodies of gallant men, friend and foe, with a few inches of 
dust over them, and feet and hands here and there crop- 
ping out from their last resting-place. Boom I boom ! 
The ear is startled with the report of cannon near by. 
The shells come shrieking towards you, and explosions are 
heard in the woods bounding this mighty tomb. A rush 
of air in front of you, and myriads of flies darken your 
sight as you tread upon their banquet of putrescent vile- 
ness ; the nostrils become filled with odours too foul as 
your foot slips upon the carrion grease, and you run, 
heart-sick, into the sheltering grove. Every sense is active 
m this realm of indescribable horrors ! 

Five minutes' walk brought me to the front of our lines, 
where a far-extending earthwork — breast-high in some 
places, mounted with guns in others — forbade farther ad- 
vance. Our pickets are thrown forward into the woods 
some three hundred yards, and it is easy to see that the 
whole of this army vrill have to devote itself to bush- 
fighting over several miles before reaching the open 
ground which is said to surround Richmond. Eedoubts 
are thick as bristles on a brush, but they are in every case 
mounted with field-guns. I have not seen, nor can I hear, 
of a single siege-piece, although some persons who ought 
to know assert that a heavy siege-train is on its way here. 
The troops are now building corduroy roads through the 
woods to enable the artillery to reach the open, and desul- 
tory firing contines along the entire line. 

M^Clellan has juBt passed to the front. I must conclude 
this letter in order to see what his visit portends, partiru- 

N • 



178 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

larly as we hear of a fight in prospect on the extreme ri^ht 
of our line. 

Camp Lincoi^n, Fair Oaks, iteae Richmond : June 23. 

Camp Lincoln is the official title of Greneral M^Clellan's 
head-quarters this side of the Chickahominy ; and although 
our camp is a mile removed from that point, the whole of 
Franklin's corps cVarrriee is assumed to be within the same 
lines. Probably Fitz-John Porter's command will likewise 
be included when it crosses the river. 

Smith's and Slocum's divisions, composing Franklin's 
corps, are encamped in an immense irregular open space 
— a Virginia wheat field, in fine, for that is the only term 
which can describe the vast plains under culture in this 
State, The west side of this plain is bounded by a broad 
strip of woods, a road following the sinuosities of the 
forest edge, and our troops have been engaged since their 
arrival in improving the route by corduroying it along 
its i-^ntire extent. Such labour is indeed required, for no 
amount of hot weather seems capable of drying this land or 
divesting it of its springiness. The surface may be cracked, 
and shoals of dust may cloud the view, but the foot of the 
pedestrian sinks nevertheless, and a few inches bring you 
to water. Infantry can get along without much difficulty, 
but cavalry must walk leisurely, whilst wagons, and above 
all, artillery, stick fast continually. Six hours' rain would 
render the roads here impassable, and it has therefore 
become a matter of necessity to corduroy them before any 
offensive movement can be made. The operation is 
effected in the following manner : pine trunks, a foot 
thick, are first laid across the route ; similar sticks are then 
placed across them longitudinally, and these latter carry 
the roadway composed of logs eight inches in diameter. 



GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 179 

Ditches two feet deep bound the road on either side, and 
the probabilities are that the route will remain haixi and 
firm under any continuance of wet weather; surely it 
ought to do so with nearly a yard thick of green timber. 
Branch roads strike off towards the great front through 
the woods, all similarly constructed, and although tens of 
thousands of trees have been felled and trimmed for the 
purpose, yet there seems to be small diminution in the 
forests. If Virginia gains nothing else from this war she 
will, at all events, possess at its close what she never pos- 
sessed before — admirable means of intercommunication. 

Four hours' walk yesterday morning along the front 
gave no evidence whatever of siege works ; there is plenty 
of artillery — 10-pounder rifled pieces, and 18, 24 and 
32-pounder howitzers mounted in position. The con- 
struction of the numerous roads above referred to is abso- 

xly necessary in order to use artillery. At the battle of 
West Point the rebels were unable to bring any guns to 
bear upon Franklin's division, and they were in like pre- 
dicament in the first day's battle of Fair Oaks on the 
31st of May. At the battle of Seven Pines they captured 
all Casey's batteries from him, and turned them upon the 
Federals ; this was affected at the very commencement of 
the action, before the infantry could arm themselves to 
defend their artillery. It was a surprise well conceived and 
admirably well executed, but such a one as will not occur 
again. Casey's division is now in the rear of Kearny's, 
and Kearny is a man who pickets a mile farther out than 
his orders absolutely require, whilst he himself passes most 
of his time among his pickets. 

Crossing the belt of woods dividing our encampment 
from the front, the scene is full of activity and life. Here 
and there small camps nestle in the shade of magnificent 

N 2 



180 GEN. M°CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

trees — they are the head-quarters of brigade generals ; 
thousand of horses belonging to mounted officers and the 
artillery find shelter from the sun's rays, and details of men 
are engaged in felling lofty pines and preparing them for 
roadways. Outside the wood we come upon another far- 
reaching plain, stockaded, as it were, with stumps, render- 
ing progress difficult. Scores of canvas camps vary the 
landscape, some of them shaded with branches of trees — 
gTeen no longer, for their luxuriance Ir s long since 
borne the deathliness of autumn. Dust and smoke ffom 
the cook-fires blind the eyes, and open spaces are blackened 
by the charred remains of former encampments. Yet is 
the scene not devoid of beauty, for we stand on the crest 
of a chain of hills, and the principal valley of the Chick- 
ahominy lies beneath us on the right, forests rising above 
each other in the distance, with the camp of Porter's corps 
perched seemingly in the very trees. Copses, richly green, 
dot the valley, pale wreaths of smoke marking the posts 
of pickets, and the occasional gleam of a bayonet warning 
the careless pedestrian. A quarter of a mile across the 
open in front of us stretches a narrow belt of trees with 
thick tangled bushes around their stems. Before reaching 
them, however, we must traverse a deep ravine, and it is a 
matter of astonishment to me that the enemy have not 
thought proper to hold such an admirable defensive po- 
sition. A muddy, fetid swamp lies in the bottom — we 
have spanned it with a substantial artillery bridge — and 
we mount the farther side by climbing rather than walking. 
A few more yards of open, and we enter the woods ; small 
but steep hills covered with bushes hide our pickets, and a 
strong line of skirmishers are ever on the qui vive in the 
wheat and oat fields beyond. 

About due west from our encampment, and within half 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 181 

a mile from -where I am writing, there is a high hill ; upon 
its near base watch these skirmishers, the enemy's pickets 
being only two hundred- yards in front of them. A slim 
belt of trees crowns the summit of this eminence, the inter- 
vening space being covered with oats breast-high, fast ripen- 
ing under the fierce Virginia sun. Far as the eye can reach 
to the left, bluecoated soldiers stand apart, some trailing 
their arms, others leaning on the muzzles of their rifles, 
all gazing watchfully, earnestly, into the woods beyond. A 
man steps out from behind a tree across the fields, and the 
bluecoats grasp their muskets, straitening ready to fire : 
half a dozen murky -grey suits join the man from the edge 
of the copse, and our side of the field becomes a wall of 
skirmishers, almost shoulder to shoulder. But none fire. 
It is the day of rest, and loyal and rebel have tacitly 
agreed to respect the holy Sabbath. 

This hill will probably, ere long, be the scene of fierce 
conflict. Greneral M'^Clellan is stated to have declared 
that his artillery once upon its summit, Eicbmond is his ; 
if so, why does he not endeavour to obtain possession of 
it ? Greneral Franklin, and others in whom he is known 
to place confidence, have crept forwards on their hands and 
feet through the oats, and reconnoitred the country beyond, 
and it is easy to discover, without going so far as they did, 
that an immense plain — perhaps half a mile wide — de- 
scends gradually on the other side towards the doomed 
city. The elite of the army of the Potomac front the po- 
sition — 40,000 of M*=Clellan's picked troops are within a 
dash of it ; and thirty batteries of field artillery (including 
the reserve, some of the batteries being twenty and thirty- 
pounder rifled guns) may approach to the very base of 
the hill without the knowledge of the enemy. Our cordu- 
royed roads converge towards this point, and the impression 



182 GEN. M*^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

18 general throughout the right wing that our first attack 
will be made here. The Confederates, I judge, are not 
ignorant of the value of this natural 'Malakoff;' par- 
tially hidden by the wall of trees on the crest, I discern 
with my field-glass a peaceful farm-house ; the lower win- 
dows and the door are not visible, nor indeed much of the 
upper story, for a yellow-looking wall tells plainly of an 
earthwork upon which guns will bristle when they are 
wanted. Farther to the right, and a little to the rear, I 
catch sight of several roofs, and here I am informed the 
enemy have a strong redoubt, but I am too far down the 
decline to discern the works. 

Having thus visited the point which we now speak of as 
'the hill,' I turn my steps backwards towards our lines, 
availing myself as much as possible of the forest shade. 
Everything is quiet ; but I mark that strong arms have 
lately been at work in these pine groves, trunks of equal 
length and thickness lying around in heaps, while in one 
spot I find two solid bridges ready to span some ravine or 
marsh. The click of the axe and the deep ' thud ' of the 
fallen tree will echo again through the forest to-morrow ; 
and woods and glades and gurgling rivulets calmly re- 
posing in the rest of the Sabbath, tenanted now by sweet- 
throated birds and brilliant butterflies, will awake again to 
the voice of the soldier woodsman, and the sharp report 
of the death-carrying rifle. 

One long continuous breastwork runs the entire length 
of our lines, at some thirty paces from the edge of the 
forest ; imderneath the trees are pitched the little shelter- 
tents (tentes d'ahri) of the troops, and the arms are 
stacked ready for immediate action in the roadway in 
front. I walked for three miles yesterday between this 
eheveux de frise of glistening bayonets and the inter 



GEN. M^'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 183 

minable breastwork built up on the inside witb pine logs, 
and affording an admirable protection to infantry. At 
different points, so as to command the woods beyond, there 
are detached works, lunettes, demilunes, &c., mounted 
with from two to six guns, all field-pieces. I saw no pre- 
parations whatever for siege artillery, notwithstanding the 
report that such is on its way here ; but it is of course 
easy to mount heavy guns on the works, should such be 
required. Indeed, some parties venture to assert that the 
same plan will be adopted here as at Corinth and York- 
town — namely, regular approaches ; if so, and Heaven 
forfend, we must linger out our patience during the sum- 
mer months in this vile swamp region of the Chicka- 
hominy, with the almost certainty thai so soon as our pre- 
parations are complete, the enemy wil change their front, 
and render our works useless. The partisans of General 
M'^Clellan assure us that his polic;y of persistent in- 
ertia is a mark of profound strategy ; that he has therebj 
saved Washington from attack and transferred the seat o1 
war from Noithern to Southern Virginia. In the opinior 
of dull-headed mortals, not blessed with genius or blind 
appreciation, the time is drawing nigh for the display of i 
little activity — unless the contest is to be decided by simple 
endurance. Since the evacuation of Yorktown, seven weeks 
ago, we have lost upwards of 40,000 men from this army b^ 
sickness and desertion alone. The fact is, of course, kept 
as secret as possible, but you will hear it so asserted daily, 
especially by those officers who are especially qualified to 
speak on the subject — the army surgeons. The major 
portion of this enormous loss is placed to the account of 
desertion — by some, be it understood, but not by the 
majority, for they know better, to their own cost. How, 
in the name of all that is reasonable, could men desert in 



184 GEN. M*CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

numbers equal to a large army, and we know nothing of 
it ? The Southern papers claim no such loss to our ranks, 
and it would be egregious to imagine 40,000 men skulking 
off to the North, a distance, in a direct line, of 150 miles, 
without let or hindrance. If desertion be the true cause 
of this tremendous depletion in our ranks, M*^Clellan 
ought to be court-martialed for incompetency or worse ; but 
it is sickness, and sickness alone, playing the game of the 
Southern generals, and yet our army is constantly being 
crowded into narrower limits, as though with a foregone 
conclusion to submit us to the teeming horrors of these 
malarious swamps. How men can continue to profess 
confidence in such leadership is a mystery ; yet we are 
assured by certain newspapers and officers of high rank, 
that M^Clellan's plans for this campaign were all matured 
in the spring, and that a blow was to be struck on the 
left flank of the rebel army at Manasses which would have 
cut off its railroad communications with the West. Greneral 
Joseph Johnston saw through this at the eleventh hour, 
say they, and avoided the danger by evacuating his works. 
The same thing occurred at Yorktown, rendering M'^Clellan's 
magnificent lines of fortifications totally useless; and 
after Halleck had expended weeks in investing Corinth, 
Beauregard slipped away quietly with all his army, artillery, 
and stores. We are thus led to judge what is the general 
plan of the enemy in dealing with the invaders — a Fabian 
policy, in fine, like M'^Clellan's ; but it is doubtful whether 
a P^bian policy will tend so much to the advantage of the 
attacking party as to the weaker one defending its soil. 
Will the results be the same here in front of Eichmond ? 
I do not pretend to express any opinion on that point, 
but officers of this army, from commanders of divisions to 
companies, are beginning to grumble at the delay, and 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 185 

secretly express the conviction that something is wrong. 
You will have seen in the Northern papers that Fremont 
is retreating northward, down the Valley of the Shenandoah, 
in consequence of Stonewall Jackson having been newly 
reinforced by 12,000 men. This looks to many as though 
the Confederates were preparing to transfer their force to 
the hilly regions of Western Virginia, where immense 
supplies of grain and provisions will enable them to con- 
tinue the contest throughout the summer, holding at the 
same time the line of the Kanawha Canal, between Eich- 
mond, Lynchburg, and the Valley. It would take many 
a long and weary month to beat them out of that region, 
vastly stronger as it is, strategetically, than any they have 
yet taken up. 

June 24. 

The extraordinary silence of the enemy on Sunday and 
during the morning and afternoon of yesterday induced 
the generals on the left and centre of our line to throw 
forward their pickets. Half a mile in advance they came 
upon the rebel's pickets, whom they drove back ; but these 
latter being supported by their reserves, our men had to 
retreat in turn, followed up sharply by the enemy. The 
Confederate troops marched boldly out of the woods to 
within some three hundred yards of our entrenchment, when 
a brisk shelling from our batteries compelled them to retire 
in haste. An hour before sunset is usually the time for the 
enemy to break silence, and scarcely a day passes without our 
being regaled with heavy musketry and cannonading to- 
wards evening. It was so on Saturday night, and the conflict 
was so well sustained from the commencement that all 
the troops along our line were ordered under arms with 



186 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

the expectation of repelling a general attack on our works. 
Before sunrise this morning the attack was renewed at 
the south point— that portion of the line between Fair- 
Oaks and Seven Pines — and the army was immediately 
ready to start in light marching order with three days' 
rations. The firing has ceased, however, and the troops 
have returned to their usual avocation — universal digging. 

It would now seem that we are to approach Richmond 
by a regular siege. Several facts prove this, and we may 
therefore make up our minds for occupying these swamps 
during the hottest portion of the summer. A walk this 
morning to the Fair Oaks station of the railroad through 
our camps enabled me to see a number of siege pieces 
waiting removal to the line, and I have since learned 
that several are already in position at the front. The 
eternal spade, too, is more active than ever in both 
armies ; redoubts are being thrown up daily, I might 
almost say; and within a short period every little emi- 
nence will be capped with a battery. 

I cannot see how M'^Clellan's hesitation is to be ac- 
counted for: he has all the troops now that he can ex- 
pect ; his roads are complete, and a large fleet of gunboats 
lies in the James River, awaiting his orders to attack the 
rebel batteries. The only movements made suggest an 
occupation of this position during a considerable period, 
certainly no offensive operations. Greneral Casey is or- 
dered with his division to Whitehouse, on the Pamunkey, 
evidently to protect our basis of supply from such attacks 
as that made by Stuart's cavalry a fortnight ago ; and I 
am also informed that the Prince de Joinville, the Comte 
de Paris, and Due de Chartres are about to quit the army 
in order to return to Europe. It was originally their in- 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 187 

tention to accompan}'^ Greneral M^Clellan as far as the city 
of Eichmond, and if they now change their determination 
it is probably because events are transpiring which will 
prevent our march on that capital. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE EETREAT. 

June 25 (10 p.k.). 
We have had a brisk artillery fight along the lines to-day,, 
but it was at first difficult to understand whether we or 
the enemy were the aggressors. As soon as it became 
evident that something more than usual was on the pro- 
gramme, I hastened to that portion of our lines resting on 
the south bank of the Chickahominy, whence the most 
extended view is to be obtained, and found our artillery 
in great force on the summit of the hills, but not as yet 
engaged. The ground held by us in this locality is 
admirably suited for holding. An elevated plateau 
covered with strong redoubts, the ridge lined with breast- 
works of solid construction and most difficult of approach, 
is fronted by a lengthy expanse of open till it descends 
finally into the valley. The only fault one could find with 
the position, is that of its being thoroughly commanded 
by the heights of Graines' Mills, north of the river; so 
that if FitzJohn Porter should be driven from his works, 
we should be compelled to evacuate ours, and — ' skedaddle' 
at double-quick. For the which reason, it appears to me 
that some of the regiments here encamped would be much 
better placed on the north side the Chickahominy. 

Hearing on the right that Hooker and Kearny were 
engaging the enemy on our left, I started along the front 



GEN. M"'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 189 

towaTds the railroad, and discovered that the entire army 
was under arms. Having proceeded as far as the old 
battle-field of Fair Oaks, the sound of musketry became 
distinct and rapid, and I could occasionally hear the 
staccato * hurrah ' of the Union troops, and the peculiar 
continuous cheer of the rebels. The puffs of white smoke 
hanging in the woods told indubitably of shells, and I was 
advised by a quiet old major to continue my walk rather 
more from the front than the previous portion of my pro- 
menade. Shell and round shot are very demoralising to 
those unaccustomed to them ; but after a few weeks' active 
campaigning, one begins to understand that artillery is not 
80 terrible as it pretends to be, coming somewhat under 
the category of moral suasion. But when you hear the 
angry, rapid crackling of musketry, look out ! I continued 
my walk through the woods backing our front, and found 
regiment after regiment Avaiting in the shade for orders to 
advance, and all anxious to get at the enemy. A mile from 
the railway, I reached the rear of Heintzelman's lines, and 
found the wounded being rapidly brought in from the front ; 
everybody seemed in high spirits at the progress of the day's 
work, and word was passed along the lines that Hooker was 
driving the enemy, and had already gained half a mile of 
ground. "While pushing my investigations in this quarter, 
the thunder of artillery broke out loudly in the direction of 
the river, seeming to come from the very point I had left 
an hour or two previously : believing that Franklin's corps 
was at length getting into action, and the ground held by 
him being much better suited for watching the ebb and 
flow of battle, I bent my steps homeward. The cannon- 
ading grew more distinct and rapid as I progressed ; but 
before I reached camp, I discovered that it arose from the 
lines at Mechanicsville, General M'Call and the enemy 



190 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAiaN. 

being actively engaged. At this hour, we are given to 
understand that Hooker has gained an important advan- 
tage on our left wing, holding all the ground covered by 
his advance in the morning ; while M'Call has been 
enjoying nothing further than artillery practice, although 
the enemy have shown themselves in great masses towards 
the Virginia Central Eoad. We are ordered to be under 
arms at daybreak, and confidently expect hot work to- 
morrow. I hope, however, that the thermometer will not 
stand at 97° in the shade, as it has done to-day. 

June 29. 

The events of the past four days have been too numer- 
ous and exciting for the most cold-blooded mortal to diarise 
them as they occurred. My narrative must continue by 
the help of the few jottings I have been able to make 
running, and with the aid of memory. The brain has 
been so much on the stretch since Wednesday last, that I 
feel confident none of the details of the past four days will 
ever escape my remembrance. 

I write sitting on a beautiful grassy hill south of White 
Oak Swamp, and close to White Oak Creek, where it is 
crossed by the bridge leading to the Long Bridge Eoad. 
It is a beautiful Sunday morning : regiments are hurrying 
across the deep creek with the greatest rapidity, and hast- 
ening with the utmost speed to M'^Clellan's new base — the 
James Eiver. All our labours on that dreary peninsula 
have gone for nothing, but nobody regrets leaving it for 
a healthier locality. I wish, however, that our change of 
base had a little less appearance of being compulsory. 

How I managed to get here safely, Heaven alone knows ! 
But I must not anticipate. 

About noon of Thursday (June 26th), M'Call was 



OEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 191 

attacked in force at Mechanicsville by enormous masses of 
the enemy. So it was reported on our own part of the lines, 
and the fact was plainly correct, as our corps rested upon 
its arms anxiously expecting the order to advance to his 
support. At night-time the noise in the direction of our 
right front enth-ely subsided, and we learned that M'Call 
had gallantly repulsed every attack and still held his 
works at Mechanicsville. Our troops were in glorious 
spirits at the news, and the enthusiasm was further in- 
creased when the order came i¥om head-quarters for the 
bands to play. Our musicians had led an absolutely idle 
life since leaving White House, and it was pleasant to hear 
them once again, and the stentorian cheers of the soldiers 
fading away in the far distance. We little imagined what 
was threatening us on the morrow. 

The enemy's attack upon M'Call was an admirably- 
planned movement to get the mass of their forces in that 
general's rear, between Mechanicsville and the Pamunkey. 
Lee evidently shifted his head-quarters to some purpose ; 
and it is a matter of astonishment to me, as to others, that 
M'Clellan also shifted his to south of the river about the 
very time deserters reported to us that his shrewd anta- 
gonist was massing his forces so as to threaten our right 
flank. While it was obvious to everybody who visited 
Mechanicsville that the rebels have for two or three weeks 
past been increasing their camps in that direction, we 
have been diminishing our forces north of the Chicka- 
hominy by transferring Franklin's corps tp the southern 
bank, leaving Porter's corps and M^Call's division to 
breast the flood alone. Since last Wednesday there have 
been camp rumours of changing our base, so that our 
present advance to the James may be in accordance with a 
long-settled plan on the part of M'^Clellan ; but it certainly 



192 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

does seem strange that the movement could not be efifected 
without such terrible fighting and bloodshed as we have 
experienced since Thursday. At an early hour on Friday 
morning, M'Call discovered that the enemy was in over- 
whelming force on his right flank and rear ; and he fell 
back as rapidly as possible to FitzJohn Porter's lines at 
Graines' Mills. The foe advanced towards the latter posi- 
tion with the utmost rapidity, and the action commenced 
soon after noon. I lay sick in camp that day, suffering from 
intermittent neuralgia, the regimental surgeon assuring me 
that if I exposed mj'^self to the sun, typhoid might be a 
very probable result. The order came about two o'clock 
for the 1st Jersey Brigade to cross the Chickahominy to 
reinforce Porter. Colonel Torbert, of the 1st Eegiment, was 
sick like myself, and we kept each other company in his 
tent listening to the combat raging furiously on our right. 
The colonel did not believe that the brigade, after all, 
would get into action, so many false alarms had we been 
the victims of during the campaign ; but he made his 
officers promise, that if this time should prove an excep- 
tion, they would immediately send for him. An hour and 
a half later, an orderly rode full tilt into the deserted 
camp, bringing word that the brigade was engaged, and 
the young colonel, so weak from fever that he could 
scarcely get to the tent-door, forthwith mounted his horse 
and rode off. Some ten minutes after his departure, 
Meagher's Irish Brigade marched past our camp in the 
direction of the fight : when the rear ranks disappeared 
in the woods, I again lay down on the blankets, and slept 
soundly for the first time in twenty-four hours. It was six 
o'clock when the colonel's old negro-servant, Ananias, 
came and shook me roughly, saying, ' Look here, sir, 
you've got to clear out of this, for the rebs are shelling 



GEN. M'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 193 

our camp.' I got up immediately, and found there was no 
mistake about it, for the shells were bursting in dangerous 
proximity all around. It took me but a few minutes to 
put on what was necessary, resolving, during the operation, 
to seek M'^Clellan's head-quarters. Leaving the tent, I 
asked Ananias where he was going, when he replied curtly, 
* Why, I'm gwine to stay here : I've got nothing to do with 
this fight.' (The President's proclamation of emancipa- 
tion was not then issued.) 

I made the best of my way through the woods to M'^Clel- 
lan's head- quarters, every step seeming to take me further 
from the scene of action, although I could occasionally hear 
shells bursting and crashing in the woods about me. The 
general's head-quarters were in an open plain, and I must own 
to some astonishment at hearing he was in his tent, instead 
of being with his troops at Graines' Mills. Eunning against 
an acquaintance belonging to the staff, I accepted his hospi- 
tality for the night, and soon learned that FitzJohn Porter 
was crossing the river to our side, the enemy being in such 
overwhelming numbers that he could not retain his posi- 
tion. I saw by the faces of all about me that we were 
getting the worst of it, but to what extent I could only 
surmise. Early yesterday morning, I learned that the 
general's head-quarters were to be transferred to Savage's 
Station, and I proceeded in that direction immediately 
after breakfast, reaching the spot fixed on for the encamp- 
ment with the head-quarters train. Towards three o'clock, 
hundreds of wounded were brought in and laid in the nu- 
merous hospital tents, and, when these were full, on the 
ground. The enemy was evidently following up our re- 
treating army with terrible rapidity ; they had crossed the 
river, and the wounded of our rear guard were already 
reaching us. While helping these poor suffering fellows 



194 GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

by what means were in my power, I saw a tall, sedate 
civilian, apparently of fifty years, strolling through the 
hospital grounds, aiding the surgeons, and occasionally 
helping a wounded soldier from an ambulance. Few there 
knew it was the Prince de Joinville. I watched him at his 
labours for upwards of an hour, filling this man's canteen 
with cool water, or bringing fresh lint to another, whose 
arm or leg he would tend with the carefulness of a woman. 

Heintzelman's head-quarters were close to this hospital. 
1 called upon the gruff old general on leaving the latter, 
and chatted with him at his tent-door for some ten minutes. 
Whilst we were comparing notes, his quartermaster came 
up and asked what were the orders in regard to baggage. 
'Everything to be destroyed,' said the general. *The offi- 
cers' bedding too ? ' was the reply. * Yes, sir,' answered 
Heintzelman ; ' the general's orders are that everything not 
absolutely necessary must be left behind ; so pitch every- 
body's private traps out of your waggons.' I knew better 
than to ask questions, but it began to look to me like a 
retreat in downright good earnest, not a mere 'change 
of base.' 

Back again to head-quarters, where I learned that 
M^Clellan's private waggon train would cross White Oak 
Swamp during the night. I was offered for my own per- 
sonal convenience a light buggy — one of those slight-look- 
ing American traps, in which, they say, ' a horse can trot 
2.40 without knowing he'd got anything behind him' — 
about as unreasonable an affair for campaigning as ever 
was looked upon. I accepted avec enipressement, being 
assured the coloured boy was very careful, and 'would take 
me through all safe.' We started with the waggons as it 
was getting dusk, and about nine o'clock entered the 
northern end of the swamp. The huge, dense trees made 



OEN. M'^CLELLAN and THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 195 

the night dark as Erebus, open spaces occasionally giving 
us a momentary glimpse of the road. Hundreds of wag- 
,gons wended their way through the seemingly interminable 
forest, whole regiments of infantry with now and then a 
troop of cavalry passed us, until the darkness and mono- 
tony of the journey sent me to sleep. How long I slept 
I know not, but at last — crash ! I found myself on the 
ground under the feet of horses, loud cries of demoralised 
teamsters sounding around me. I got out of danger with 
a leap, and then discovered that my frail vehicle had been 
run into down-hill by an army waggon, the buggy smashed 
literally in pieces, and the negro-boy non est inventus. 
He too, however, was unhurt. I was then offered a seat 
in Greneral Van Vliet's army carriage, the very one in 
which the wife of Greneral Lee had been conducted out- 
side our lines, and slept comfortably until five o'clock this 
morning, when we reached the edge of the swamp, and 
rejoiced at finding ourselves in the open country. 

On the hills, where I am now writing, the rebels, in 
months gone by, have thrown up long lines of earthworks 
and redoubts. Luckily for us, they were unoccupied ; for 
had there been a single division holding the works, we 
could never have crossed the broad and deep creek, and 
we should all have been captured or destroyed in that 
horrible White Oak Swamp.* 

TTaxatx's Faem, Ttjekey Bend, James Riveb : 
July 1 (10 P.M.). 

By dint of no small running and hard fighting, the Army 
of the Potomac has had the good luck to reach the James 

* Magructer, or Huger, had received orders from General Lee to advance 
rapidly and occupy these works, but failed to do so. Had the orders beea 
carried out ai> intended, there woxdd have been an end of the Army of the 
Potomac 

o2 



196 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Eiver ; and, if report be correct, we have also saved the 
major portion of our waggon trains, although many pieces 
of artillery have been lost or captured. We had a good 
two hours' start of the enemy, and have certainly proved 
the truth of the maxim, that ' a stern chase is a long one.' 
A retreating army has great advantages over a pursuer, 
notably in the choice of ground for turning upon its 
enemy ; and the country through which we have passed is 
admirably adapted for defensive operations. 

The army was not clear of White Oak Swamp until 
Monday, — Heintzelman's divisions, under Kearny and 
Hooker, bringing up the rear. These two generals have 
performed the major portion of the fighting on the Pen- 
insula since the evacuation of Yorktown, and their deter- 
mined attitude and the dauntless bravery of their troops 
kept the victorious rebels at respectful distance during 
our retreat, and enabled the entire army to reach its pre- 
sent position on the James. 

FitzJohn Porter's corps led our advance, striking for 
the Quaker Eoad. The latter runs from Charles City 
Cross Eoads, over Malvern Hills, to the Newmarket Eoad, 
and, once in our possession, we should be safe, and within 
easy distance of the river and the gunboats. After cross- 
ing White Oak Swamp, I resolved to attach myself to Fitz- 
John Porter's command, and was then made aware, for the 
first time during the campaign, what a number of cavalry 
regiments M Clellan has in his army. For the first time, 
too, they have been made some use of — scouting in force 
between our advance and the river, directing the infantry 
where to take up position, and pointing out the roads for 
the teamsters to follow. 

The march of the past two days was comparatively barren 
of incident to myself, although very exciting. Eetreating 



GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 197 

in an enemy's country, with a determined foe hanging on 
your rear and flank, is by no means conducive to a proper 
mental equilibrium, especially when your road lies through 
woods and hills and narrow lanes, where a well-posted regi- 
ment might keep an army at bay for hours. We were con- 
stantly the victims of scares ; the cavalry coming in full tilt 
with reports of the enemy appearing in this or that locality. 
Above the trees in our rear we could occasionally see the 
smoke of battle, and the dull reverberation of artillery. 
But we reached Malvern Hills this morning without 
difficulty, and the different regiments as they debouched 
from the forest were immediately drawn up in line of 
battle. The early morning was frightfully hot, and as we 
were now clear of the woods, and were marching on the 
enormous wheat-fields belonging to Haxall's plantation, 
we got the full benefit of the sun's rays. I saw many a 
poor fellow drop down from sunstroke ; and to prevent 
trouble to myself from what threatened, I saturated my 
broad-brimed slouch-hat with water, and kept it constantly 
wet during the day. The splendid wheat grown on this 
far-famed plantation — short in the straw, the grain small, 
round, and delicious in flavour — was still uncut, and the 
troops, as they marched through it to take up their 
appointed positions, stuffed their pockets and knapsacks 
with the ripe ears. The view from the summit of these 
far-stretching hills was beautiful in the extreme ; the coun- 
try fell away from us for miles, and we could see the goal 
of our hopes- the James Eiver — sparkingly refreshingly 
in the distant valley. While the troops were lying under 
arms in the blazing sun, the thousands of waggons de- 
scended the hills on the southern slope, making for the 
neighbourhood of the river by a road which soon became 
lost to our sight in the dense forests. But we could still 



198 GEN. M'^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

trace its course for- miles by the sinuous clouds of yellow 
dust which rose above the trees. 

After some enquiry, I learned that M'Clellan's head- 
quarters were on the banks of the river, at Haxall's resi- 
dence, where I am now writing. Since leaving Savage's 
Station last Saturday, I have not had my boots or clothes 
off me ; and I started immediately at a quick pace for the 
point in question, full of hope for a thorough wash and 
shaking the dust out of my clothes. After a three miles' 
walk through interminable lines of army waggons, I reached 
the house, and found a number of navy and army officers 
on the lawn around it — among them my old friend Captain 
John Eodgers, of the iron-clad ' Galena,' who was in com- 
mand of the gun-boat squadron in the river. He gave me 
an invitation to board his vessel, which, I need scarcely 
say, I gladly accepted ; for I have only had two meals 
since Saturday, keeping body and soul together with 
excitement and Indian corn whisky — when I had the 
luck to get it. About twenty minutes subsequent to 
the captain's invitation, there was a cloud of dust 
in the road, and Greneral M^'Clellan entered the garden, 
accompanied by the French Princes and other officers 
of his staff. The arrival, so far as I was concerned, 
was not fortuuate. Captain Rodgers came to me shortly 
after, and stated that inasmuch as the general was coming 
immediately on board the * Galena,' it would be better for 
me to postpone my visit. I saw him put off in the 
captain's boat with a heavy heart, and he remained on 
the vessel until evening. 

During the previous hour, there had been rapid artillery 
fire in the direction of Malvern Hills, and reports from the 
front soon made it apparent that a severe battle was in 
progress. I went down to the river washing the shores of 



GEN. M*'CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 199 

the garden, and enjoyed a bathe as never before. Half a 
mile up the stream, the ' Galena ' and her consorts were 
furiously shelling the heights on the northern bank ; army 
signal officers being stationed in line from the scene of 
action to the river, and giving directions where to fire the 
shell. Hundreds of men were swimming and washing in 
the stream, and the whole scene was about as strange and 
inspiriting as one could imagine. 

Feeling somewhat more comfortable and comparatively 
braced up, I started towards evening for the battle-field, 
which, however, I did not reach. At the foot of the hills, 
I learned that the battle was already won, and that the 
army would shortly take up its march in our direction. 
The action was represented to me as by far the most severe 
fought on the Peninsula; but nobody could tell who was 
in command of Our troops. When I stated that Greneral 
M'^Clellan was on board the * Gralena ' in the river, few 
would believe me, and one officer told me to my face it 
was ad — d lie : if he follow the advice I gave, his enquiries 
will satisfy him that my statement was correct. When 
I again reached head-quarters, I found the garden of the 
house encumbered with wounded officers, and Greneral 
M^Clellan still on board the ' Galena.' I met him coming 
ashore half an hour after my return, and he immediately 
left for the battle-field, where he still is, I presume. 

Everybody seems to think that we are to hold this 
position as our new base of operations against Eichmond, 
and it is satisfactory to learn that large reinforcements 
are already arriving from Fortress Monroe by way of the 
James Eiver. But if we failed to take the rebel capital 
after lying within five miles of it during a whole month, 
how long shall we require when our lines are four times 
that distance ? Matters certainly look very much ' mixed 
up' 



200 GEN. M^CLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 

Haeeison's Landing : July 2. 

We have changed our base to six miles farther from 
Richmond, and the whole army is making its way back 
from Malvern Hills in a shocking state of demoralisation. 
Except in a few commands, regimental and other organisa- 
tions are completely broken up, and men are endeavour- 
ing to find brigades and divisions which appear no longer 
to exist. 

The hot weather changed last night to rain, but rain in 
torrents. We are now encamped in one vast mud puddle, 
where it is all but impossible for men to walk, and horses 
and waggons stick powerless. If the enemy attack us 
here, it is difficult to tell what can save us. 

July 3 (11 A.M.). 

The army is to be re-organised before undertaking 
further operations. This will be a work of many weeks, 
and all those whose duties do not necessitate their remain- 
ing here are talking of going north. Several transports 
go down the river this afternoon, and I have obtained a 
pass to return in one of them to Fortress Monroe. 

CONCLUSION. 

The campaign on the Yorktown Peninsula was the first 
great effort of the North to deal seriously with the Re- 
bellion. The preparations extended over many months; 
and when General M'^Clellan led his divisons to the banks 
of the Chickahominy, he could pride himself upon being 
at the head of an army as numerous, and incomparably 
better armed and equipped than any of modern times. 

He failed lamentably in achieving aught but disaster, 
and by sheer chance alone was his army saved from anni- 



GEN. M*OLELLAN AND THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 201 

hilation. To what cause history will ascribe his failure — • 
whether to incompetency, want of energy and courage, 
disbelief in his country's destiny — I know not; but it 
never will be said that means were not placed at his dis- 
posal sufficient to command success, had he but possessed 
the ability and patriotism of other American commanders. 
The world never believed in the possibility of the 
Southern States achieving their independence until it 
heard the news of the disastrous retreat from the lines of 
theChickahominy; and Major-General Greorge B.M'Clellan 
will indubitably be held responsible by history for the 
result of that humiliating campaign, and the change in the 
sympathies of the world. 



THE END. 



LOYALPUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

863 BROADWAY. 

No. 82. 



THE PEACTICE OF JUSTICE OUR ONLY SECUEITY FOE TEE FUTUBE. 



re]nj:a^rk8 



HON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, 

OF PENNSYLVANIA, 

IN SUPPORT OF HIS PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE BILL 

"TO GUAEANTEE TO CEETAIN STATES WHOSE GOVEENMENTS HAVE 

BEEN USUEPED OE OYEETHEOWN, A EEPUELICAN 

FOEM OF GOYERMENT;" 

DELIVEEED IN THE HOUSE OP KEPEESENTATIVES, JANUAET 16, 1865. 



The House having under consideration the bill "to guar- 
antee to certain states whose governments have been usurped 
or overthrown a republican form of government," Mr. Kellej 
moved to amend the bill by inserting after the words " to 
enroll all the white male citizens of the United States" the 
words " and all other male citizens of the United States who 
maybe able to read the Constitution thereof/' and said : 

Mr. Speakek : These are indeed terrible times for timid 
people. Use and wont no longer serve us. The guns trait- 
orously fired upon Fort Sumter threw us all out of the well- 
beaten ruts of habit, and, as the war progresses, men find 
themselves less and less able to express their political views 
by naming a party or uttering its shibboleth. It is no longer 



safe for any of us to wait till the election comes and accept 
the platform and tickets presented by a party. We may 
have served in its ranks for a lifetime and find at last — cost- 
ly and painful experience being our guide — that to obtain 
the ends we had in view we should have acted independently 
of and in opposition to it and its leaders. In seasons like 
this, an age on ages telling, the feeblest man in whom there 
is faith or honesty is made to feel that he is not quite power- 
less, that duty is laid on him, too, and that the force that is 
in him ought to be expressed in accordance with his own con- 
victions and in a way to promote some end seen or hoped for. 

The questions with which we have to deal, the grave doubts 
that confound us, the difficulties that environ us, the results 
our action will produce, fraught with weal or woe to centuries 
and constantly-increasing millions of people, are such as have 
rarely been confined to a generation. But happily we are not 
without guidance. Our situation, though novel, does not 
necessarily cast us upon the field of mere experiment. True, 
we have not specific precedents which we may safely follow ; 
but the founders of our government gave us, in a few brief 
sentences, laws by which we may extricate our gjcneration and 
country from the horrors that involve them, and secure peace 
broad as our country, enduring as its history, and beneficent 
as right, and justice, and love. 

The organized war-power of the rebellion is on the eve of 
overthrow. It belongs to us to govern the territory we have 
conquered, and the question of reconstruction presses upon 
our attention ; and our legislation in this behalf will, though 
it comprise no specific provisions on the subject, determine 
whether guerrilla war shall harass communities for long 
years, or be suppressed in a brief time by punishments ad- 
ministered through law courts, to marauders for the crimes 
they may commit under the name of partisan warfare. 
At the close of an international war, the wronged but victor- 
ious party may justly make two claims : indemnity for the 
past, and security for the future ; indemnity for the past in 
money or in territory ; security for the future by new trea- 
ties, the establishment of new boundaries, or the cession of 



military power and the territory upon "whicli it dwells. In- 
demnity for the past we cannot hope to obtain. When we 
shall have punished the conspirators who involved the coun- 
try in this sanguinary war, and pardoned the dupes and vic- 
tims who have arrayed themselves or been forced to do battle 
under their flag, we shall but have repossessed our ancient 
territory, reestablished the boundaries of our country, restored 
to our flag, and Constitution their supremacy over territory 
which was ours, but which the insurgents meant to dismem- 
ber and possess. The other demand we may and must sue- • 
cessfully make. Security for the future is accessible to us, 
and we must demand it ; and to obtain it with amplest guar- 
antees requires the adoption of no new idea, the making of 
no experiment, the entering upon no sea of political specula- 
tion. Ours would have been an era of peace and prosperity, 
had we and our fathers accepted in full faith the great princi- 
ples that impelled their fathers to demand the independence 
of the United Colonies, gave them strength in counsel, 
patience, courage, and endurance in the field, and guided 
them in establishing a Constitution which all ages will recog- 
nize as the miracle of the era in which it was framed and 
adopted, and the influence of which shall modify and change, 
and bring into its own similitude, the governments of the 
world. Had we, and the generation that preceded us, accept- 
ed and been guided by the self-evident truths to which I al- 
lude, the world would never have known the martial power of 
the American people, or realized the fact that a government 
that sits so lightly as ours upon the people in peace is so in- 
finitely strong in the terrible season of war. 

The founders of our institutions labored consciously and 
reverently in the sight of God. They knew that they were 
the creatures of his power, and that their work could only be 
well done by being done in the recognition of his attributes, 
and in harmony with the enduring laws of his providence. 
They knew that his ways were ways of pleasantness, and his 
paths the paths of peace ; and they endeavored to embody 
his righteousness and justice in the government they were 
fashioning for unknown ages, and untold millions of men. 



Their children, in the enjoyraent of the prosperity thus 
secured to them, lost their faith in these great truths, treat- 
ed them with utter disregard, violated them, legislated in op- 
position to them, and finally strove to govern the couatry in 
active hostility to them. And for a little while they seemed 
to succeed. But at length we have been made to feel and 
know that God's justice does not sleep ; and amid the 
ruins of the country and the desolation of our homes let us 
Tesolve that we will return to the ancient ways, look to him 
for guidance, and follow humbly in the footsteps of our wise 
and pious forefathers ; and that, as grateful children, we will 
erect to their memory and to that of the brave men who 
have died in defence of their work in this the grandest of all 
wars, a monument broad as our country, pure as was their 
wisdom, and enduring as Christian civilization. So shall we 
by our firmness and equity exalt the humble, restrain the 
rapacious and arrogant, and bind the people to each other by 
the manifold cords of common sympathies and interest, and 
to the government by the gratitude due to a just and gener- 
ous guardian. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I hear gentlemen inquire how this is to 
be done. The process is simple, easy, and inviting : it is by 
accepting in child-like faith, and executing with firm and 
steady purpose, three or four of the simple dogmas which the 
founders of our government proclaimed to the world, and 
which, alas ! too often, with hypocritical lip-service, are pro- 
fessed by all Americans, even those who are now striving, 
through blood, and carnage, and devastation, to found a 
broad empire, the " cottier-stone" of which was to be human 
slavery. 

In announcing the reasons which impelled the colonies to a 
sepatation from the mother-countiy, the American people 
declared that " a decent respect to the opinions of mankind'* 
required " a declaration of the causes which impelled them 
to the separation ;" and in assigning those causes announced 
a few general propositions, embodying eternal and ever-oper- 
ating principles, among which were : 

First, that " all men are created equal, are endowed with 



5r 



certain inalienable riglits," and that " among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ;" 

Second, that " to insure these rights, governments are in- 
stituted among men ;" 

Third, that " governments derive their just powers from 
the consent of the governed ;" 

Fourth, that " whenever any form of government becomes 
destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter 
or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying 
its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers 
in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness." And in these four propositions we 
have an all-sufficient guide to enduring peace and prosperity. 
If in the legislation we propose we regard these self-evident 
truths, our posterity shall not only enjoy peace, but teach 
the world the way to universal freedom ; but if we fail to 
regard them, God alone in his infinite wisdom knows what 
years of agitation, war and misery we may entail on posterity, 
and whether the overthrow of our government, the division, 
of our country, and all the ills thus entailed on mankind, may 
not be justly chargeable to us. 

The tables of the census of 1860 exhibiting the popula- 
tion of the eleven insurgent states, show that it numbered, 
and was divided as follows : 



States. 


White 
population 


Colored pop- 
ulation, slave 
and free, inclu- 
ding Indians. 

t 


Alabama 


526,271 
324,143 
77,747 
591,550 
357,456 
353,901 
629,942 
291,300 
826,722 
420,891 
1,047,299 


436,930 


Arkansas 


111,307 


Florida 


62,677 


Georgia 


465,736 


Louisiana 


350,546 


Mississippi 


437,404 


North Carolina 


362,680 


South CaroUna 

Tennessee • . . 


412,408 
283,079 


Texas 


183,324 


Virginia 


549,019 








5,447,222 


3,066,110 



6 

This table, as will be observed, embraces the whole of Vir- 
ginia as she was in 1860 ; and as I have not the means of 
distinguishing the proportion of her population that is em- 
braced in the new state of West Virginia, I permit it to 
stand as it is. The new state is in the Union ; her citizens 
never assented to the ordinance of secession ; they have pro- 
vided for the extinguishment of slavery within her limits ; 
and my remarks, save in the general scope in which they may 
be applicable to any or all of the States of the Union, will 
not be understood as applying to her. It is of the teri'itory 
for which it is the duty of Congress to provide governments 
that I speak. I should also call attention to the fact that 
the Superintendent of the Census includes the few Indians 
that remained in some of these states in the column of white 
inhabitants. Their number is not important ; but it certain- 
ly should not be so stated as to create the impression that 
they enjoyed the rights or performed the duties of citizens. 
How unfair this classification is will appear from the fact 
that the following section from the Code of Tennessee of 
1858, section 3858, indicates very fairly the position they 
held under the legislation of each and all the above-named 
states : 

" A negro, mulatto, Indian, or person of mixed blood, descended from 
negro or Indian ancesters, to the third generation inclusive, though one 
ancester of each generation may have been a vrhite person, whether bond 
or free, is incapable of being a witness in any case, civil or criminal, ex- 
cept for or against each other." 

Correcting the error of the Superintendent of the Census, I 
have enumerated the Indians with the people to whose fate 
the legislation of those states assigned them. It will be per- 
ceived that when that census was taken the white population 
numbered 5,447,222, and the colored population 3,666,110. 

It thus appears that the colored people were considerably 
more than two iifths of the whole population of the insurgent 
states ; and that while we have professed to believe that their 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, was ina- 
lienable — could not be alienated or relinquished by them, nor 
taken away by others — we have ignored their humanity, and 
denied them the enjoyment of any single political right. 



Thatj while we have professed to believe that governments 
are instituted among men to secure their rights, the history 
of our country for the last fifty years proves that the whole 
power and constant labor of our government have been exert- 
ed to prevent the possibility of two fifths of the people of 
more than half our country ever attaining the enjoyment of 
political, civil, or social rights. 

That, while we have professed to believe that all govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned, we have punished with ignominy, and stripes, and im- 
prisonment, a ad death, the men who had the temerity to as- 
sert that it was wrong to deny to two fifths of the people of a 
country, and, as in the case of South Carolina and Missis- 
sippi, a large majority of the people of the state, the right 
even to petition for redress of grievance. 

And that, while we have been swift to assure, in terms of 
warmest sympathy, and sometimes with active aid, any op- 
pressed and revolting people beyond the seas, that we believed 
it to be the right and duty of such people, " whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of the ends," above 
indicated, " to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new gov- 
ernment, laying its foundations on such principles, and orga- 
nizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their safety and happiness," we have, even to 
the boundaries of the lakes and to the far Pacific shores, stood 
pledged and ready to lay down our lives in the suppression of 
any attempt these Americans might make to carry into effect 
this cardinal doctrine of our professed political faith. Is it 
any wonder that Grod, seeing millions of his people thus tram- 
pled on, oppressed, outraged, and made voiceless by those 
whose fathers had placed their feet in his ways, and whose 
lips never wearied in beseeching his guidance and care, should 
fill the oppressors with madness and open through their blood 
and agony a way for the deliverance of their long-suffering 
victims ? 

But, Mr. Speaker, it is asked, who are these people .? They 
are the laboring masses of the South — the field-hand, the 
house-servant, the mechanic, the artisan, the engineer of that 



region. Their sinewy arms have felled the forest, made the 
farm and the plantation, made the road, the canal, the rail- 
road. It was by the sweat of their brow that the sunny South 
was made to bloom ; it is they whose labor has quickened 
the wheels of commerce and swelled the accumulating wealth 
of the world. Upon their brawny shoulders rested the social 
fabric of the South, and an arrogant aristocracy that strove 
to dictate to the world, boasted that one product of their 
toil was a king to whom peoples and governments must 
bow. Most of them are ignorant and degraded ; but that 
cannot be mentioned to their disgrace or disparagement. Not 
they nor their ancestors enacted the laws which made it a fel- 
ony to enable them to read the Constitution and laws of their 
country, or the Book of Life through which their fairer breth- 
ren hope for salvation. Dumb and voiceless most of them 
are ; but let not want of intellectual power be ascribed to them 
as a race, in view of the wit, humor, sarcasm, and pathos, of 
the learning, logical power, and scientific attainments of a 
Douglass, a Grarnet, a Remond, a Brown, a Sella Martin, a 
William Craft, and scores of others, who, evading the blood- 
hound and his master, in the slave-hunt, have made their 
way to lands where the teachings of Christ are regarded, and 
thcj brotherhood of man is not wholly denied. Others of them 
are and have been free, at least so far as to be able to acquire ■ 
property and send their children to foreign lands for culture. 
Let some such speak for themselves. In the petition of the 
colored citizens of Louisiana to the President and Congress of 
the United States, they respectfully submit : 

" That they are natives of Louisiana and citizens of the United States ; 
that they are loyal citizens, sincerely attached to the country and the 
Constitution, and ardently desire the maintenance of the national unity, 
for which they are ready to sacrifice their fortunes and their lives. 

" That a large portion of them are owners of real estate, and all of them 
are owners of personal property ; that many of them are engaged in the 
pursuits of commerce and industry, while others are employed as artisans 
in various trades ; that they are all fitted to enjoy the privileges and im- 
munities belonging to the condition of citizens of the United States, and 
among them may be found many of the descendants of those men whom 
the illustrious Jackson styled his 'fellow-citizens' when he called upon 
them to take up arms to repel the enemies of the country. 



9) 

" Your petitioners further respectfully represent that over and above 
the right, which, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, they 
possess to libertji and the pursuit of happiness, they are supported by the 
opinion of just and loyal men, especially by that of Hon. Edward Bates, 
Attorney General, in the claim to the right of enjoying the privileges and 
immunities pertaining to the condition of citizens of the United States ; 
and to support the legitimacy of this claim, they believe it simply neces- 
sary to submit to your Excellency, and to the honorable Congress, the 
following considerations, which they beg of you to weigh in the balance 
of law and justice. Notwithstanding their forefathers served in the Ar- 
my of the United States in 1814-15, and aided in repelling from the soil 
of Louisiana a haughty enemy, over-confident of success, yet they and 
their descendants have ever since, and until the era of the present rebel- 
lion, been estranged and even repulsed, excluded from all franchises, even 
the smallest, when their brave forefathers offered their bosoms to the en- 
emy to preserve the territorial integrity of the republic ! During this 
period of forty-nine years they have never ceased to be peaceable citizens, 
paying their taxes on an assessment of more than fifteen million dollars ! 

" At the call of General Butler, they hastened to rally under the ban- 
ner of the Union and Liberty ; they have spilled their blood, and are still 
pouring it out for the maintenance of the Constitution of the United 
States ; in a word, they are soldiers of the Union, and they wiU defend it 
so long as their hands have strength to hold a musket. 

" While General Banks was at the siege of Port Hudson, and the city 
threatened by the enemy, his Excellency Governor Shepley called for 
troops for the defence of the city, and they were foremost in responding 
to the call, having raised the first regiment in the short space of forty- 
eight hours. 

" In consideration of this fact, as true and as clear as the sun which 
lights this great continent, in consideration of the services already per- 
formed and still to be rendered by them to their common country, they 
humbly beseech your Excellency and Congress to cast your eyes upon a 
loyal population, awaiting with confidence and dignity the proclamation 
of those inalienable rights which belong to the condition of citizens of the 
great American Republic. 

" Theirs is but a feeble voice claiming attention in the midst of the 
grave questions raised by this terrible conflict ; yet, confident of the jus- 
tice which guides the action of the government, they have no hesitation 
in speaking what is prompted by their hearts : ' We are men, treat us 
as such.' " 

This petition, which, it is within my knowledge was pre- 
pared by one of the proscribed race, asks only for what the 
fathers of our country intended they should enjoy. They dis- 
covered in the Africo-American the attributes and infirmities 



m 

of their own nature, and in organizing governments, local or 
general, made no invidious distinctions between him and his 
fellow-men. Under the Articles of Confederatidh, and at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, 
and long subsequent thereto, the free colored man was with 
their consent a citizen and a voter. Our fathers meant that 
he should be so. Their faith in the great cardinal maxims 
' they enunciated was undoubting ; and they embodied it with- 
out mental reservation, when they gave form and action to 
our government. No one who has studied the history of that 
period doubts that they regarded slavery as transitory and 
evanescent. Neither the word " slave," nor any synonym for 
it, was given place in the Constitution. We know by the 
oft-quoted remark of Mr. Madison that it was purposely ex- 
cluded that the future people of the country might never be 
reminded by that instrument that so odious a condition had 
ever existed among the people of the United States. The 
Constitution nowhere contemplates any discrimination in ref- 
erence to political or personal rights on the ground of color. 
In defining the rights guarantied by the Constitution, they 
are never limited to the white population, but the word "peo- 
ple" is used without qualification. When in that instrument 
its framers alluded to those who filled the anomalous, and, as 
they believed, temporary position of slaves, they spoke of 
" persons held to service," and in the three-fifths clause, of 
" all other persons." They confided all power to " the peo- 
ple" and provided amply, as they believed, for the protection 
of the whole people. Thus, in the second section of article 
one, they provided as follows for the organization of the House 
of Representatives : • 

" The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen 
every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in 
each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most 
numerous branch of the state legislature." 

And in the amendments of the Constitution we see how 
careful they were at a later day to guard the rights of the 
people : 

" Art. 1. Congi-ess shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the free- 



iV 



dom of speech or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to as- 
semble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

" Art. 2. A vrell-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a 
free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
fringed." 

" Art. 4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not 
be violated." 

" Art. 9. The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall 
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

" Art. 10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states re- 
spectively, or to the people.'''' 

It has, I know, been fashionable to deny that the framers of 
the Constitution intended to embrace colored persons when 
they used the word '•' people ;" and it is still asserted by 
some that it was used with a mental reservation broad and 
effective enough to exclude them ; but the Journals of the 
Convention and the general history of the times abound in 
contradictions of this false and mischievous theory, the source 
of all our present woes. A brief review of contemporaneous 
events ought to put this question at rest forever. 

The Congress of the Confederation was in session on the 
25th of June, 1778, the fourth of the Articles of Confedera- 
being under consideration. The terms of the articles as pro- 
posed, w^ere that " the free inhabitants of each of these states 
(paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice, excepted), 
shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free 
citizens in the several states." We learn by the Journal 
that "the delegates from South Carolina, being called on, 
moved the following amendment in behalf of their state : in 
article four, between the words 'free inhabitants,' insert 
'white.'" How was this proposition, identical with that 
now made to us, received by the sages there and then assem- 
bled ? Eleven states voted on the question. Two, South 
Carolina being one of them, sustained the proposition ; the 
vote of one state was divided, and eight, affirming the col- 
ored man's right to the privileges of citizenship, voted "no," 
and the proposition was thus negatived. South Carolina — 



1? 

then, as she has ever been, persistent in mischief — further 
moved, through her delegates, to amend by inserting after the 
words " the several states," the words " according to the law 
of such states respectively for the government of their own 
free white inhabitants." This proposition was also nega- 
tived by the same decisive vote, as appears by the Journal of 
the Congress of the Confederation, volume four, pages 379, 
380. What two states did not vote upon the question, the 
Journal does not indicate ; but when it is remembered that 
Pennsylvania led her sisters in the great work of emancipa- 
tion, and that it was not till nearly two years after that date 
that she abolished slavery, it will be seen that it was by a vote 
of slaveholders representing slave states, that the proposition 
to deny citizenship, its rights, privileges, and immunities, to 
the colored people, was so emphatically rejected. The dele- 
gates could not, with propriety, have voted otherwise. To 
have done so, they would have agreed, that, in violation of 
all comity, while they secured the rights of citizenship within 
the limits of their state to citizens of others, those other 
states might deny them to citizens of their own. They did 
not probably foresee that South Carolina would cast the ship- 
wrecked citizen of another state who had been thrown upon 
her shores into a jail, because of the decree of the Almighty, 
who had given him a complexion not agreeable to the eyes of 
her people, and in default of the ability to pay jail fees thus 
unwillingly incurred, doom him and his posterity to the woes 
of perpetual slavery ; but they did see that such a proposi- 
tion opened the door to inequality, and possibly to oppres- 
sion, and they resisted it with a firmness and forecast which 
theii* posterity have failed to honor and emulate. 

Again, they could not have consistently voted for such a 
proposition ; for, by the constitutions of their own states, free 
colored men were voters, and in the enjoyment of the rights 
of citizenship. Not only then, but in 1789, at the time of 
the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, there 
was but one state whose constitution distinguished in this re- 
spect against the colored man. Tins odious distinction, so 
fraught with unforeseen but terrible consequences, marred the 
constitution of South Carolina alone at the latter date. 



The constitution of Massachusetts provided that 
" Every male person (being twenty -one years of age, and resident in 
any particular town in this commonwealtli for the space of one year next 
preceding), having a freehold estate within the same town, of the annual 
income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds, shall 
have a right to vote in the choice of a representative or representatives 
for the said town." 

Rhode Island had adopted no- constitution, but continued 
under colonial charter, which provided for the election of 
members of the geneml assembly by " the major part of the 
freemen of the respective towns or places." 

Connecticut also continued under colonial charter, accord- 
ing to which the qualifications of an elector were " maturity 
in years, quiet and peaceable behavior, a civil conversation, 
and forty shillings freehold, or forty pounds personal estate." 

The constitution of New York provided that — 

" Every male inhabitant of full age, who shall have personally resided 
within one of the counties of this state for six months immediately pre- 
ceding the day of election, shall, at such election, be entitled to vote for 
representatives for said county in the assembly, if, during the time afore- 
said, he shall have been a freeholder possessing a freehold of the value of 
twenty pounds, within the said county, or have rented a tenement there- 
in of the yearlj^ value of forty shillings, and have rated and actually paid 
taxes to this state." 

The constitution of New Jersey contained this provision : 
" All inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, 
proclamation money, clear estate in the same, and have resided within the 
county in which they claim to vote, for twelve months immediately pre- 
ceding the election, shall be entitled to vote for representatives in coun- 
cil and assembly, and also for all other public ofl&cers that shall be elect- 
ed by the people of the county at large." 

The constitution of Pennsylvania provided that — 
" Every freeman, of the full age of twenty-one years^ having resided in 
this state for the space of one whole year next before the day of election 
for representatives, and paid public taxes during that time, shall enjoy 
the right of an elector ; provided always, that sons of freeholders, of the 
age of twenty-one years, shall be entitled to vote although they have not 
paid taxes." 

The constitution of Delaware declared that — 
" The right of suffrage in the election for members of both houses, shall 
remain as exercised by law at present." 



44 

The declaration of rights, prefixed to the constitution, con- 
tained the following : 

" Every freeman, having sufficient evidence of permanent common in- 
terest with and attachment to the community, hath the right of suffrage." 

The constitution of Maryland provided that — 

" All freemen, above twenty-one years of age, having a freehold of fifty 
acres of land in the county in which they offer to vote, and residing 
therein, and all freemen having property in this state above the value of 
thirty pounds, current money, and having resided in the county in which 
they offer to vote, one whole year next preceding the election, shall have 
a right of suffrage in the election of delegates for such county." 

The constitution of Virginia contained a provision that — 
"The right of suffrage in the election of members for both houses shall 
remain as exercised at present." 

The declaration of rights, prefixed to the constitution, con- 
tained the following : 

" All men having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with 
and attachment to the community, have the right of suffrage." 

The constitution of North Carolina provided that — 

" All freemen of the age of twenty-one years, who have been inhabi- 
tants of any one county within the state twelve months immediately pre- 
ceding the day of any election, and shall have paid public taxes, shall be 
entitled to vote for members of the house of commons for the county in 
which they reside." 

The constitution of Georgia declared that — 

" The electors of the members of both branches of the general assem- 
bly, shall be citizens and inhabitants of this state, and shall have attained 
to the age of twenty-one years, and have paid tax for the year preceding 
the election, and shall have resided six months within the county." 

The constitution of South Carolina provided that — 

" The qualifications of an elector shall be, every free while man, and no 
other person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and believes in a fu- 
ture state of rewards and punishments, and who has attained the age of 
one and twenty years, and hath been an inhabitant and resident in this 
state for the space of one whole year before the day appointed for the elec- 
tion he offers to give his vote at, and hath a freehold at least of fifty acres 
of land, or a town lot, and hath been legally seized and possessed of the 
same at least six months previous to such election, or hath paid a tax the 
preceding year, or was taxable the present year, at least six months pre- 



15 

vious to the said election, in a sum equal to the tax on fifty acres of land, 
to the support of this government, shall be a person qualified to vote for, 
and shall be capable of electing a representative or representatives." 

But, Mr. Speaker, to evade tlie force of this overwhelming 
array of facts, the pro-slavery Democracy and purblind con- 
servatism of the country have suggested that the thought of 
the black man was not present in the minds of those who 
fashioned these constitutions and bills of rights ; that they 
could not have imagined that the freed slave or his posterity 
would have the audacity to ask that they should be recognized 
as freemen and citizens of our country ; and with unblushing 
effrontery they have made the ignorant believe that the gov- 
ernment was organized, not for mankind, but for the white 
man alone. The falsity of these suggestions is fully exposed 
by the fact that South Carolina made the distinction, and in 
the Congress of the Confederation pressed it on the attention 
of the whole country, but will be still more amply demonstra- 
ted by the facts I shall hereafter cite. In every state but 
South Carolina, and possibly Yirginia and Delaware, in which 
the right of suffrage was regulated by statute, and not by 
constitutional provision, the free colored man at that time 
was a voter. In no state constitution except that of South 
Carolina, which was replete with aristocratic provisions, was 
the right of suffrage limited by express terms to the white 
man ; consequently but few, if any of the members of the 
Convention that framed the Constitution of the United States 
could have failed to meet him as a voter at the polls. I re- 
member well to have seen negroes at the polls exercising the 
right of suffrage in Pennsylvania, where they enjoyed it from 
the foundation of the government to the year 1838, when the 
growing influence of the increasing slave power of the country, 
operating on the political ambition of those whom the people 
had charged with no such duty, deprived colored men of this 
right by following the example of South Carolina and insert- 
ing the word "white" in the constitution of the state. Sim- 
ilar action restricted their right in New York, making it de- 
pendent on a property qualification, and deprived them of it 
in New Jersey and other states now free. To her praise be it 



116 

spoken, except in Connecticut, which state, in 1817, in com- 
plaisance to South Carolina, inserted the word "white" in 
her constitution, they still enjoy the right throughout New 
England, not as a concession from men of modern days, but 
hereditarily, from the times in which the foundations of the 
government were laid. Gentlemen around me from the state 
of Maryland, doubtless well remember the days when the free 
colored man voted in their state. It was only in 1833 that 
he was deprived of that inestimable right by constitutional 
amendment within her limits. That the negro enjoyed this 
right in North Carolina until he was deprived of it in the 
same way, is proven by the following extract from the opinion 
of Judge Gaston, in the State vs. Manuel, which was decided 
in 1838, and may be found in 4 Devereux and Battle's North 
Carolina Keports, page 25 : 

" It has been said that before our Revolution, free persons of color did 
not exercise the right of voting for members of the colonial legislature. 
How this may have been it would be difficult at this time to ascertain. 
It is certain, however, that very few, if any, could have claimed the right 
of suffrage for a reason of a very different character from the one supposed. 
The principle of freehold suffrage seems to have been brought over from 
England with the first colonists, and to have been preserved almost inva- 
riably in the colony ever afterward. * * * * fpi^g very 
Congress which framed our constitution [the state constitution of 1776] 
was chosen by freeholders. That constitution extended the elective fran- 
chise to every freeman who had arrived at the age of twenty-one and paid 
a public tax ; and it is a matter of universal notoriety, that under it, free per- 
sons, without regard to color, claimed and exercised the franchise until it was 
taken from free men of color, a few years since by our amended constitution^ 

Tennessee was admitted to the Union in 1796. Her con- 
stitution provided as follows : 

" Every freeman of the age of twenty-one years and upward, possessing 
a freehold in the county wherein he may vote, and being an inhabitant of 
this state, and every freeman, being an inhabitant of any one county in the 
state six months immediately preceding the day of election, shall be enti- 
tled to vote for members of the general assembly for the county in which 
he may reside. 

This constitution, as will be seen, endured for forty years, 
during which the free colored men of the state enjoyed their 
political rights, and exercised, as will appear, a powerful and 



155 

salutary influence upon public opinion and the course of 
legislation. 

In 1834, a convention to revise that constitution assembled 
at Nashville, and, accepting the suggestion of South Carolina, 
by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-three, limited the sufirage 
to free white men. During those forty years free negroes had 
enjoyed a right which made them a power ; and no chapter in 
our history better illustrates the value of this power to both 
races, or how certainly great wrongs of this kind react and 
punish the wrong doer. Cave Johnson is a name well known 
throughout the country and honored in Tennessee ; and it 
was his boast that the free men of color gave his services to the 
country by electing him to Congress. On page 1305 of the 
Congressional Globe for the session of 1853-54, will be found 
the following statement of Hon. John Petit, of Indiana, made 
in the United States Senate, May 25, 1854, while discussing 
the suffrage clause of the Kansas-Nebraska bill : 

" Many of tlie states liave conferred this right [of suffrage] upon In- 
dians, and many, both north and south, have conferred it upon free ne- 
groes without property. Old Cave Johnson, of Tennessee, an honored 
and respectable gentleman, formerly Postmaster-General, and for a long 
time a member of the other House, told me with his own lips that the 
first time he was elected to Congress from Tennessee (in 1828), it was by 
the votes of free negroes ; and he told me how. Free negroes in Tennes- 
see were then allowed by the constitution of the state to vote ; and he 
was an iron manufacturer, and had a large number of free negroes as well 
as slaves in his employ. I well recollect the number he stated. One 
hundred and forty-four free negroes in his employ went to the ballot-box 
and elected him to Congress the first time he was elected." 

Few will now deny that slavery is a curse alike to the mas- 
ter and' the servile race. None will deny that slavery has 
been a curse to that state in view of the Vast mineral re- 
sources of Tennessee ; her fine natural sites for great cities ; 
her capacity to feed, house, clothe, educate, and profitably 
employ free laborers ; her recent history, the abundant source 
of future song and story ; the pious and patriotic endurance 
of the brave and God-fearing people of the eastern section, 
and the perfect abandon with which their more aristocratic 
fellow- citizens of the western section of the state espoused the 

2 



14 

cause of the rebellion ; the cruelties inflicted on the loyal peo- 
ple by the traitors ; the horrors and the heroism of the bor^ 
der warfare that has desolated her fair fields, and the rancor- 
ous feuds and intense hatreds which the grave can only extin- 
guish, that have been engendered among her people by the 
war. And who, if the apparently well-founded tradition be 
true, that a proposition to incorporate in her constitution of 
1796 a clause prohibiting slavery was lost by a majority of 
one vote, will estimate the evil done by the man who thus de- 
cided that momentous question ? 

The history of slavery in Tennessee, and the determined 
resistance so long made, against its struggles for supremacy, 
will, I am sure, justify a brief digression. There were in 
1796, it is said, considerable less than five thousand slaves 
within her limits, who had been brought thither by the 
earlier settlers of what was then known as the territory south 
of the Ohio. The influence of the colored citizens is trace- 
able throughout her earlier history. So early as 1801, before 
she had existed five years as a state, the legislature conferred 
the power of emancipation upon the county courts by an 
act, the preamble to which significantly says : 

" Whereas the number of petitions presented to this legislature pray- 
ing the emancipation of slaves, not only tend to involve the state in 
great evils, but is also productive of great expense." 

In 1812, the introduction of slaves into the state for sale 
was prohibited by law. Yet in the twenty years between 
1790 and 1810, by the power of emigration from slave states 
and natural increase, the number swelled from less than 
four thousand to upwards of forty-four thousand. This 
rapid increase of slave population alarmed the people, and 
emancipation societies were organized in different parts of the 
state. Extracts from an address delivered on the 17th of 
August, 1816, by request of one of these societies, and 
repeated with its approval on the 1st of January, 1817, and 
which, having been printed, not anonymously, but by Heiskell 
& Brown, was largely distributed by the society, are before 
me. It proposes to show — 

First, the object of the society. 



1^ 

Second, that the principles of slavery are inconsistent with 
the laws of nature and revelation. 

Third, some of its evils, both moral and political. 

Fourth, that no solid objections lie against gradual eman- 
cipation. 

To show the freedom with which the subject was then dis- 
cussed, I offer a brief extract or two. In those days the 
people of America had not learned, nor did they yet pretend 
to believe, that the Constitution of the United States denied 
them the right to think of the condition of any class of suffer- 
ing peo23le, or made it a crime to utter their convictions and 
their philanthropic emotions. Thus this address to the 
people of Tennessee says : 

" Slavery, as it exists among us, gives a master a property in the slaves 
and their descendants as much as law can give a property in land, cattle, 
goods, and chattels of any kind, to be used at the discretion of the 
master, or to be sold to whom, when, and where he pleases, with the de- 
scendants for ever. It is true, if the master take away the life of the 
slave under certain circumstances, our laws pronounce it murder. But 
the laws leave it in the power of the master to destroy his life by a thou- 
sand acts of lingering cruelty. He may starve him to death by degrees, 
or he may whip him to death if he only take long enough time, or he 
may so unite the rigors of hard labor, stinted diet, and exposure, as to 
shorten life. The laws watch against sudden murder, as if to leave the 
forlorn wretches exposed to any slow death that the cruelty and malig- 
nant passions of a savage may dictate. Nor is there any restraint but a 
sense of pecuniary loss, feeble barrier against the effects of the malevo- 
lent passions that are known to reside in the human heart. The most 
inhuman wretch may own slaves, as well as the humane and gentle. 
Should laws leave one human being in the power of another to such an 
extent ? In many countries where slavery exists the laws prescribe the 
manner in which they shall be used, and that too, in lands which do not 
boast either of the light and science we enjoy or of the liberty and 
equality which raise us above and distinguish us from all the nations of 
the globe." 

Nor did the movement, as appears at least from this ad- 
dress, contemplate the abolition of slavery in Tennessee 
alone ; for, after alluding to the great doctrines promulgated 
in the Declaration of Independence, it says : 

" On the certainty of the unchangeableness of these truths, we justify 
our separation from the government of Great Britain. For the defence 



20 

and enjoyment of these principles our fathers willingly met death, and 
surrendered their lives martyrs. They bequeathed them to us as the 
greatest of human legacies. Yet slavery, as it existed in the United 
States, is in direct opposition to these self-evident maxims. Every line 
of our history, every battle in our struggle for independence, every an- 
niversary of our national birth condemns the principles of slavery, and 
fixes on us the charge of glaring inconsistency ; and every law passed by 
legislatures in favor of slavery is in direct opposition to the principles of 
our national existence. Let us willingly do that which we justly blame 
Great Britain for refusing to do until forced, namely, acknowledge the rights 
of men, and give, in a suitable way, mo^re than one million and a half of peo- 
ple to enjoy these sacred rights.'''' 

In 1834, wlien the convention to revise tlie constitution 
assembled, the slaves in the state numbered more than one 
hundred and fifty thousand. The power of the slave oligarchy- 
had increased, and opposition to the institution had perhaps 
become less powerful. But in the first week of the conven- 
tion, petitions on the subject of emancipation were presented 
from the citizens of Maury county, and were soon followed 
by others from Robertson, Lincoln, Bedford, Overton, Eoane, 
Ehea, Knox, Monroe, McMinn, Blount, Sevier, Cocke, Jef- 
ferson, Greene, and Washington, many of the signers being 
slaveholders, and all praying that all the slaves should be 
made free by the year 1866. By an unforeseen process, the 
prayer of those petitioners will be granted, though the con- 
vention to which they addressed their prayer gave an unfavor- 
able response, and, as if in derision of the petitioners, at- 
tempted to fasten his shackles more firmly on the slave. 
God, whose 

" ways seem dark, but soon or late. 
They touch the shining hills of day," 

in his infinite mercy and wisdom has in this respect reversed 
the decrees of man. Well for Tennessee and her bleeding 
people would it have been had the members of that conven- 
tion bowed reverently to his will, as did the |framers of the 
Constitution of the United States, and so worded the instru- 
ment they fashioned that it would not have informed posterity 
that so odious an institution as slavery had ever been tolerated 
by the state. 



21 

During the second week of the session, Matthew Stephen- 
son, a farmer of Washington county, a native of Kockingham 
county, Virginia, moved " that a committee of thirteen, one 
from each congressional district, be appointed to take into 
consideration the propriety of designating some period from 
which slavery shall not be tolerated in this state, and that 
all memorials on that subject that have or may be presented 
to the convention be referred to said committee to consider 
and report thereon ; which resolution, by a vote of 38 to 20, 
was laid on the table, on the 1st of January, 1835. 

This action of the convention was not readily acquiesced 
in by the people ; and to avert popular indignation it was 
" resolved that a committee of three, one from each division 
of the state, be appointed to draft the reasons that governed 
this convention in declining to act upon the memorials on the 
subject of slavery." The address prepared by the committee 
appointed under this resolution does not attempt to defend or 
apologize for slavery ; does not deny that it is a great wrong ; 
speaks of "^ the unenviable condition of the slaves ;" of 
slavery as the " unlovely in all its aspects," and deplores " the 
bitter draught the slave is doomed to drink." It rests the 
defence of the convention on other grounds than Divine sanc- 
tion of this monstrous wrong, this hideous outrage upon 
every precept of Christianity, this violation of every clause of 
the decalogue. It puts its defence on the ground of policy, 
and asserts that a constitutional provision looking to gradual 
emancipation would deplete the state of its laborers ; that 
men would hurry their slaves into Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Missouri, or Arkansas, where they would be less 
kindly treated than in Tennessee, and where the prospect of 
ultimate emancipation would be more remote. This address 
to the people of Tennessee admonishes us of the perennial 
fountain of evil they would inflict on the people of the in- 
surgent districts, who would doom the more than three million 
six hundred and sixty-six thousand people of color, dwelling 
within its limits, to that dubious measure of freedom enjoyed 
by men to whom political rights are denied, by the following 
pointed passage : 



22 

" The condition of a free man of color, surrounded by persons of a dif- 
ferent cast and complexion, is the most forlorn and wretched that can be 
imagined. He is a stranger in the land of his nativity ; he is an outcast 
in the place of his residence ; he has scarcely a motive to prompt him 
to virtuous action or to stimulate him to honorable exertions. At every 
turn and corner of the vralks of life he is beset with temptations, strong, 
nay, almost irresistible, to the force of which in most cases he may be ex- 
pected to yield, the consequence of which must be that he will be de- 
graded, despised, and trampled upon by the rest of the community. 
"When the free man of color is oppressed by the proud, or circumvented 
by the cunning, or betrayed by those in whom he has reposed con- 
fidence, do the laws of the land afford him more than a nominal protec- 
tion ? Denied his oath in a court of justice, unable to call any of his own 
color to be witnesses, if the injury he complains of has been committed 
by a white man, how many of his wrongs must remain unredressed ; how 
many of his rights be violated with impunity ; how poor a boon does he 
receive when he is receiving freedom, if what he receives can be called 
by that name. Unenviable as is the condition of the slave, unlovely as 
slavery is in all its aspects, bitter as the draught may be that the slave is 
doomed to drink, nevertheless his condition is better than the condition 
of the free man of color in the midst of a community of white men with 
whom he has no interest, no fellow-feeling, no equality." 

And it speaks to such with more pertinency than it did to 
those for whom it was written when it says : 

" "What, then, would be the condition of the community, with such a 
multitude of human beings turned loose in society, with all the habits, 
morals, manners of the slave, with only the name and nominal privileges, but 
without any of the real blessings of liberty or the real privileges of the freeman ? 
"Would not two distinct classes of people in the same community array 
themselves against each other in perpetual hostility and mutual dis- 
trust 1 "Would not the constant collision that would take place between 
them produce a feverish excitement, alike destructive to the happiness 
of both parties 1 "Would not the condition of free people of color, un- 
der the operation of the causes already enumerated, be more wretched 
than the condition of the slaves ? Would not the white portion of the com- 
munity be more insecure with such a midtitude among them, who had no com- 
mon interest with, no bond of union to, that part of the community with whom 
they were mixed, and yet from whom they were for ever separated by a mark of 
distinction that time itself could not wear away ? The people of color, nu- 
merous as they would be, with no kindred feeling to unite them to that part 
of the communitjr, ^vhom they would both envy and hate, would never- 
theless have at their command a portion of physical strength that might 
and probably would be wielded to the worst purposes. They would look 
across the southern boundary of the state, and there they would see in a 



23 



state of servitude a people of their own color and kindred, to whom they 
were bound by the strong bonds of consanguinity, and with whom they 
could make a common cause, and would they not be strongly tempted to 
concert plans with them to exterminate the white man and take posses- 
sion of the country ? They would then possess the means of consulting 
together, of cooperating with each other, and let it not he forgotten that 
they would ie animated by every feeling of the human heart that impels to 
actionP 

Our millions will not look across the boundary and behold 
a people of their color and kindred in bondage. In all the 
states of Central America, as in Mexico, the colored man is 
not only free, but a citizen in the full enjoyment of all the 
rights accorded to any man under his government. But on 
this point I shall have a few words to say hereafter. 

How blinded by the pride of caste were the authors of the 
address from which I make these extracts ! How fatally did 
they ignore the fact that God had made all nations of one 
blood ! It was not necessary that Tennessee should expa- 
triate her laborers, or maintain slavery, or create in her midst 
so dangerous a class. It was open to that convention to 
avoid the great iniquity which, it appears, a majority of its 
members had predetermined, namely, the deprivation of the 
free colored man of the political rights he had enjoyed for 
forty years, and to have maintained the existing right of those 
whose labor was giving consideration to the state and wealth 
to its people. But they had already forgotten the maxims of 
the fathers ; and it will be well if we do not adopt their folly 
as our wisdom. Let us profit by their sad experience, and be 
warned by the voice of Jefferson, who exclaimed : 

" With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permit- 
ting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, 
transforms those into despots and these into enemies — destroys the morale 
of the one part, and the amor patrice of the other !" 

And let us remember, too, that a wiser than he has said — 

'' "Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and write grievous- 
ness which they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from judg- 
ment, and take away the right fx-om the poor." 

But plausible as were the reasons set forth in this address, 
its authors did not intimate to the people that even they 



^ 



doubted that the great wrong of slavery would soon disap- 
pear ; and, as appears by pages 92 and 93 of the Journal, 
they further said : 

" But the friends of humanity need not despair ; the memorialists need 
not dread that slavery will be perpetual in our highly-favored country." 

* * * * It Under the approving smile of Heaven, and 
the fostering care of Providence, slavery will yet be extinguished in a 
way that will work no evil to the white man, while it produces the hap- 
piest effects upon the whole African race." * * * * 

* * * " Let it be remembered that there is an appro- 
priate time for every work beneath the sun^ and a premature attempt to do 
any work, particularly any great work, seldom fails to prevent success. 
A premature attempt on the part of a sick man to leave his bed and his 
chamber would inevitably prolong his disease, or perhaps place it bej-ond 

•the power of medicine. A similar attempt on the part of the poor man 
to place himself in a state of independence, by engaging in some plausible 
but imprudent speculation, would probably involve him in embarrassment 
from which he could not extricate himself throughout the whole remain- 
ing portion of his life. So a premature attempt on the part of the benevo- 
lent to get rid of the evils of slavery would certainly have the effect of 
postponing to a far distant day the accomplishment of an event devoutly 
and ardently desired by the wise and the good in every part of our be- 
loved country." 

The sophisms of this report were not permitted to pass 
without notice. Stout old Matthew Stephenson (for he was 
then in the fifty-eighth year of his age), sustained hy several 
of his associates, caused their protest to he entered on the 
journals. They said, among other things : 

" We believe the principles assumed in the report, and the arguments 
used in their support, are in their tendency subversive of the true princi- 
ples of republicanism, and before we can consistentlj^ give them our un- 
qualified assent we must renounce the doctrine that ' all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' 
Above all, we believe the report is at variance with the spirit of the gos- 
pel, which is the glory of our land, the precepts and maxims of which 
are found in the Bible. One of its excellent rules is, ' As ye would that 
men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.' Now, to apply this 
golden rule to the case of master and the slave, we have just to place 
each in the other's stead, then ask the question honestlj-, ' AVhat would I 
that my servant, thus placed in power, should do unto me T " 
******** * 

" But R-e are are told nature has placed on the man of color a mark of 
distinction which neither time nor circumstance can obliterate. 



" We admit the fact, btct are nevertheless vnable to perceive in that a good 
reason for denying to them the common rights of man. The words of eternal 
trutli ai-e, that God has made of one blood all nations that dwell upon 
the earth, and the undersigned, in the language of Cowper, are unwilling 
to ' find their fellow-creature guilty of a skin not colored like their own ;' 
nor can we admit as just the nde that world assign to men their rights accord- 
ing to the different shades of color. In the opinion of the undersigned, all 
the evils so strikingly and so eloquently portrayed in the report, respect- 
ing the free people of color while among us, apply with equal, nay, with 
greater force to the same people while in slavery, unless, indeed, slavery 
gives dignity to man. And although the memorialists do not hint at re- 
taining the people of color among us when free, but ask that some means 
be devised for their removal ; nor would the undersigned be understood 
as advocating any system of emancipation unconnected with or without 
a view to their colonization ; yet we believe they would be happier and 
safer subjects of our government as free men than as slaves. As we hold 
it wise policy in every government to make it the interest of all its subjects to 
support, defend, and ])erpetuate its civil institutions, is it reasonable to sxippose 
that any woidd desire the permanent existence of that government which denied 
to them all the rights of freemen? Solomon in his wisdom has said, ' Op- 
pression makes a wise man mad.' " 

Dr. Joseph Kincaid, of Bedford county, a native of Madi- 
son county, Kentucky, also prepared a protest against the 
doctrines of the address, and caused it to be entered on the 
journals. From that protest I make hut the following ex- 
tract : 

" Can the free man of color be torn from his wife and family and driven 
in chains to a foreign land and there sold in the market like a dumb 
brute to him who will give the greatest sum for him, though his heart 
bleeds and bosom yearns with bowels of compassion and paternal tender- 
ness for the wife and children of his bosom, who are bone of his bone and 
flesh of his flesh 1 He cannot. Or can the children of the fond mother 
be torn from her bosom while her heart is wrung with distress, and she 
agonizes in despair and mourns for them, and will not be comforted, be- 
cause they are not 7 This cannot be done. Then does this not sxceeten 
the ' draught' which the free man of color daily drinks ? Most indubit- 
ably it does. Are these blessings secured to the slave 1 We have seen 
they are not. What is it, then, which constitutes the situation of the 
slave better than that of the free man of color 7 Does the superior hap- 
piness and comfort of the slave over that of the free man of color consist 
in the amount of bread and meat which he receives at the hands of his 
master to subsist him, which he has not to trouble himself about the pro- 
curing of 1 The report seems to predicate a good portion of the solid 



comfort of the slave upon the daily rations which he draws from his mas- 
ter's stores. Bnt this conclusion the undersigned cannot subscribe to ; 
as an American citizen he would put a higher estimate upon the liberty 
which is enjoyed even by the free man of color. What ! will it be said 
that Ids rights, privileges, and happiness, shall be balanced in the scale 
against the allowance of coarse fare which is given for daily subsistence 
to the slave, and the tattered garments that are furnished him to defend 
his body against the inclemency of the season, and the chains with which 
he may be hound in order to send him to a foreign market ? Monstrous 
doctrine ! Cannot the free man of color, with the labor of his hands, 
one sixth part of his time, procure as ample a supply of food and raiment 
as is furnished the slave ? Yea, and can he not then sit down under his 
own vine, in the bosom of his family, and enjoy it, and there shall ' be 
none to disturb or make him afraid' ?" 

Nor did the controversy end here ; for the committee made 
a supplementary report, and true-hearted old Matthew 
Stephenson and his associates entered their second protest on 
the journal of the convention. 

In drawing the picture of the condition of the free man of 
color, the committee representing the majority of the conven- 
tion evidently had in view what they intended to make his 
future and not his past condition in that state ; for the con- 
vention, instead of providing for the abolition of slavery, 
threw around that institution an additional safe-guard by 
providing that " the general assembly shall have no power 
to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the con- 
sent of their owner or owners ;" and by a vote of 33 to 23 
changed the language of the clause regulating the elective 
franchise from " freemen," as it had stood from the organi- 
zation of the state, to " free white men," since which time 
the negro has had no voice or share in the management of the 
public affairs of that state. Thus South Carolina triumphed 
over freedom in Tennessee. 

But to return to my line of argument, having wandered too 
far in this interesting digression. 

Ample as this is, we do not depend on the action of the 
Congress of the Confederation, and of the Convention for 
framing the Constitution of the United States, and the pro- 
visions of the several state constitutions, for all the proof the 
men of that period left that they recognized the right of man, 



27 

by reason of Ms manlioocl. to the enjoyment of all the priv- 
ileges of citizenship. A long and uniform course of legisla- 
tion relative to and regulating territory stretching from the 
lakes southward, to the Gulf of Mexico, confirms the fact. 
Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, twice provided 
for the government of territories, and under our present 
Constitution, the Congress of the United States much more 
frequently. The distinguished men who occupied seats in 
those bodies prior to 1812 had not been enlightened by the 
sibylline mysteries given to the world in the celebrated letter 
of General Cass to Mr. Nicholson, nor by the doctrine of 
" popular sovereignty" so persistently reiterated by Douglas 
as his " great doctrine ;" nor by Calhoun's theory, which 
was finally accepted as the cardinal, if not the sole doctrine 
of Democratic faith, that the flag of the United States, 
wherever it may be borne, on land or sea, carries with it and 
protects human slavery, as announced by Toombs in his 
Boston address of January 24, 1856. They knew that it was 
the duty of Congress, alike under the Articles of Confedera- 
tion and the Constitution of the United States, to legislate 
for the territories and provide governments for their regula- 
tion. The resolutions of the Congress of the Confederation 
for the temporary government of territory ceded by the in- 
dividual states of the United States, adopted April 23, 1784, 
provided for the establishment of territorial governments by 
the "free males of full age ;" and the famous ordinance of 
July 13, 1787, for the government of the territory northwest 
of the river Ohio, which repeals the resolutions of 1784, and 
the salient point of which was known first as the " Jefferson 
proviso," and later, in connection with the Oregon struggle, 
as the " Wilmot proviso," vested the right of suffrage in the 
" free male inhabitants of full age," with a certain freehold 
qualification. This ordinance was reenacted immediately 
after the adoption of our present Constitution, by the act of 
Congress of August 7, 1789 ; and in this respect was the 
precedent for every subsequent territorial act passed until 
1812. The several acts passed from the foundation of the 
government to that date, were as follows : 



28 

Under the Congress of the Confederation, those to which 
I have referred, namely, that of April 23, 1784, ''for the 
temporary government of territory ceded cr to be ceded by 
the individual states to the United States ;" and that of 
July 13, 1787, "for the government of the territory of the 
United States northwest of the river Ohio." 

And by the Congress of the United States since the adop- 
tion of the Constitution : 

The act of August 7, 1789, already refieiTed to as reeuact- 
ing the ordinance of 1787 ; 

The act of May 26, 1790, for the government of the ter- 
ritory of the United States south of the river Ohio, under 
which, -as we have seen, the state of Tennessee was or- 
ganized ; 

The act of April 7, 1798, for the establishment of a govern- 
ment in the Mississippi territory ; 

The act of May 7, 1800, establishing Indian territory ; 

The act of March 26, 1804, for the government of 
Louisiana, which provided for a legislative council, to be ap- 
pointed by the President of the United States, and not for an 
elective legislature as did all the rest ; 

The act of January 11, 1805, for the government of Mich- 
igan territory ; 

The act of March 2, 1805, for the establishment of the 
territory of Orleans ; and 

The act of February 3, 1809, for the government of Illinois 
territory. 

And in no one of these ten acts was any restriction placed 
on the right of suffrage by reason of the color of the citizen. 
In none of them was the word " white" used to limit the 
right to suffrage. 

' The next territorial act was that of June 4, 1812, provid- 
ing for the government of Missouri territory. More than 
twenty-two years had then passed since the adoption of the 
Constitucion ; and the men who had achieved our independ- 
ence and fashioned our institutions in harmony with the 
fundamental truths they had declared, and who during this 
long period, more than the average active life of a generation 



29 

had resisted the aristocratic and strife-engendering demands 
of South Carolina^ were rapidly passing, indeed most of them 
had passed, from participation in public affairs. Meanwhile, 
slavery had heen strengthened by the unhappy compromise of 
the constitution conceded to South Carolina and Georgia, 
by which " the migration or importation of such persons as 
any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit" 
was permitted for the period of twenty years. Meanwhile, 
too, the people of the country, enjoying unmeasured and un- 
anticipated prosperity, forgot that "eternal vigilance is the 
price of liberty," and that " power is ever stealing from the 
many to the few ;" and proud of their own achievements 
began to look with contempt upon the ignorant laborers they 
owned or employed, and their kindred newly imported from 
the coast of Africa ; and began that long and rapid series of 
concessions to the fell spirit of slavery which made the pres- 
ent war inevitable, if free labor and the doctrine of a fair 
day's wages for a fair day's work were to be maintained in 
any part of the country. In the adoption of the territorial 
bill of 1812, South Carolina and slavery triumphed over 
freedom and the more powerful North', and the word "white," 
rejected in 1778 and thenceforth, was now inserted in the 
clause regulating suffrage in the fundamental law of a ter- 
ritory. 

Successful resistance to that innovation on well-established 
precedent would have secured freedom to Missouri, and in all 
probability averted the border wars of Kansas and the grander 
controversy in which we are engaged, and of which the Kansas 
feuds were but the sure precursor. 

Can any candid man, in the face of this mass of con- 
current evidence, assert that the fathers of our government 
found in the fact of color cause for the denial of citizen- 
ship and the exercise of suffrage to any freeman ? But more 
and if possible more pregnant proof on that point exists : 
not only did they assert the right of negroes to suffrage by 
rejecting the proposition of South Carolina in the Congress 
for framing Articles of Confederation, and protect it ^by the 
Constitution of the United States, and confirm it by twelve 



30 

territorial laws ; but, as I shall proceed to show, they, by ex- 
press treaty stipulation, first with France and again with 
Spain, guaranteed them " the enjoyment of all the rights, 
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States," 
and the " free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the 
religion which they professed." To show how unqualifiedly 
this was done under the administration of Mr. Jefferson, I 
beg leave to read a brief extract from that most interesting 
and instructive pamphlet, " The Emancipated Slave, Face to 
Face with his Old Master," by J. McKaye, special commis- 
sioner from the War Department to the valley of the lower 
Mississippi, and also a member of the freedmen's inquiry 
commission : 

" The valley of the lower Mississippi, from an early period of its settle- 
ment, contained a proportionately large free colored population. In 1803, 
when the territory of which the state of Louisiana forms a part, was ceded 
by the French Republic to the United States, these free colored men were 
already quite numerous, and many of them were possessed of considerable 
property. They were not only as free as any other portion of the popu- 
lation, but in general as well educated and intelligent; Many of them 
were the children of the early white settlers, and had always enjoyed a 
certain social as well as civil equality. As to the enjoyment of political 
rights under the old Spanish and French regimes, neither white nor black 
settlers ever had much experience ; consequently there had never arisen 
among them much question of these rights, or as to whom they belonged. 
The French republic, founded on 'liberty, equality, fraternity,' had not 
yet quite forgotten the import of these words, and hence caused to be in- 
serted in the treaty of cession a solemn stipulation in the words follow- 
ing, to wit : 

" ' Art. 3. The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated 
into the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, ac- 
cording to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of 
all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; 
and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free 
enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they pro- 
fess.' " 

The Floridas, though less populous than the Louisiana 
territory, had quite as large a proportionate part of negroes 
and mulattoes among their population. By the treaty of 
February 22, 1819, with Spain, she ceded to the United States 



31 

'^ all the territories whlcli belong to her, situated to the east- 
ward of the Mississippi, known by the name of East and West 
Floridas." The sixth article of the treaty is as follows : 

" The inhabitants of the territories which his Catholic Majesty cedes to 
the United States by treaty, shall be incorporated- in the Union of the 
United States as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Fed- 
eral Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privilegesj 
rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States." 

My proposition is that the government of the United States 
was instituted to secure the rights of all the citizens of the 
country, and not for the benefit of men of one race only, and 
I know not where to look for evidence that would strengthen 
the conclusiveness of the mass of proof I have thus adduced, 
embracing as it does, the action of the framers of all the state 
constitutions but one, of the Congress for framing Articles of 
Confederation, of the Convention for framing the Constitution 
of the United States, the acts of Congress in unbroken series 
throughout the active life of a generation, and the solemn ob- 
ligations assumed by the executive department of the nation- 
al government in the exercise of the treaty-making power. If 
other source of proof there be, it can only serve to make assu- 
rance doubly sure. 

Mr. Speaker, it is safe to assert that in every state, save 
South Carolina, and possibly Virginia and Delaware — in 
which two states the question of suffrage was, as has been sta- 
ted, regulated by statute and not by constitutional provision 
— negroes participated in constituting the Convention which 
framed the Constitution of the United States, and voted for 
members of the state conventions to which the question of its 
ratification was submitted ; and as that Constitution contains 
no clause which expressly or by implication deprives them of 
the protecting power and influence of the instrument they 
participated in creating, I may well say that to secure inter- 
nal peace by the establishment of political homogeneity, and 
perpetuate it by the abolition of political classes and castes, 
whose conflicting rights and interests will provoke incessant 
agitation, and ever and anon, as the oppressed may be in- 
spired by the fundamental principles of our government or 



32 

goaded by wrongs, excite armed insurrection, we need adopt 
no new theory, but accept the principles of our fathers, and 
administer in good faith to all men the institutions they 
founded on them. 

As a step to this, my amendment proposes, not that the 
entire mass of people of African descent, whom our laws and 
customs have degraded and brutalized, shall be immediately 
clothed with all the rights of citizenship. It proposes only 
to grant the right of suffrage, inestimable to all men, to those 
who may be so far fitted by education for its judicious exer- 
cise as to be able to read the Constitution and laws of the 
country, in addition to the brave men, who, in the name of 
law and liberty, and in the hope of leaving their children heirs 
to both, have welcomed the baptism of battle in the naval and 
military service of the United States, and who are embraced 
by the amendment reported by the committee. This, I ad- 
mit, will be an entering wedge, by the aid of which, in a brief 
time, the whole mass improved, enriched, and enlightened by 
the fast-coming and beneficent providences of Grod, wall be 
qualified for and permitted to enjoy those rights by which 
they may protect themselves and aid in giving to all others 
that near approach to exact justice which we hope to attain 
from the intelligent exercise of universal suffrage and the sub- 
mission of all trials of law in which a citizen may be interest- 
ed, to the decision of his peers as jurors. 

I am, Mr. Speaker, under but one specific pledge to my 
constituents other than that which promised to vote away the 
last dollar from each man's coffer, and the last able-bodied 
son from his hearthside, if they should be needed, for the ef- 
fectual suppression of the rebellion, and that is, that I will in 
their behalf consent to no proposed system of reconstruction 
which shall place the loyal men of the insurrectionary dis- 
trict under the unbridled control of the wicked and heartless 
traitors who have involved us in this war, and illustrated 
their barbarity by the fiendish cruelties they have practised 
on their loyal neighbors, negro soldiers, and unhappy prison- 
ers of war ; and to that pledge, God helping me, I mean to 
prove faithful. The future peace and prosperity of the conn- 



3sr 

tiy demand this much at our hands. The logic of our insti- 
tutions, the principles of the men who achieved our indepen- 
dence and who framed those institutions, alike impel us to 
this course, as necessary as it will be wise and just. 

Let us meet the question fairly. Do our institutions rest 
on complexional differences ? Can we cement and perpetu- 
ate them by surrendering the patriots of the insurgent dis- 
trict, shorn of all political power, into the hands of the trai- 
tors whom we propose to propitiate by such a sacrifice of faith 
and honor ? Did God ordain our country for a single race 
of men ? Is there reason why the intelligent, wealthy, loyal 
man of color shall stand apart, abased, on election day, while 
his ignorant, intemperate, vicious, and disloyal white neigh- 
bor participated in making laws for his government ? What 
is the logic that denies to a son the right to vote with or 
against his father, because it has pleased Heaven that he 
should partake more largely of his mother's than of that fa- 
ther's complexion.?' And is it not known to all of us that well- 
nigh forty per cent, of the colored people of the South are chil- 
dren of white fathers, who after we subjugate them, will, with 
professions of loyalty only lip deep, enjoy the right of suffrage 
in the reconstructed states.? Shall he, though black as ebony 
be his skin, who, by patient industry, obedience to the laws, 
and unvarying good habits, has accumulated property on 
which he cheerfully pays taxes, be denied the right of a voice 
in the government of a state to whose support and welfare he 
thus contributes, while the idle, reckless, thriftless man of 
fairer complexion shall vote away his earnings and trifle with 
his life or interests as a juror.? Shall the brave man who has 
perilled life, and mayhap lost limb, who has endured the dangers 
of the march, the camp, and the bivouac, in defence of our 
Constitution and laws, be denied their protection, while the 
traitors, in the conquest of whom he assisted, enjoy those 
rights, and use them as instruments for his oppression and 
degradation ? Shall he who, in the language of my amend- 
ment, may be able to read the Constitution of the United 
States, and who finds his pleasure in the study of history 
and political philosophy, whose integrity is undoubted, 

3 



34 

whose means are ample, be voiceless in the councils of the 
nation, and read only to learn that the people of free and 
enlightened America, among -whom his lot has been cast, 
sustain the only government which punishes a race because 
God, in his providence, gave it a complexion which its un- 
happy members would not have accepted had it been sub- 
mitted to their choice or volition ? And can he who will 
answer these questions affirmatively believe that governments 
are instituted among men to secure their rights, that they 
derive their powers from the consent of the governed, and 
that it is the duty of a people, when any government be- 
comes destructive of their rights, to alter or abolish it, and 
establish a new government ? Sir, our hope for peace, while 
we attempt to govern two fifths of the people of one half of 
our country in violation of these fundamental principles, will 
be idle as the breeze of summer or the dreams of the opium- 
eater. 

In this connection let me call the attention of the House 
to a fact to which I have already invited that of many mem- 
bers and other distinguished gentlemen. By the census of 
1860 it appears that South Carolina had but 291,300 white 
inhabitants, and 412,408 colored. Among the former we 
have no reason to know or believe that, since the death of 
Pettigrew, there is a single loyal man ; while the latter, we 
have no reason to doubt, are all as loyal as Robert Small, the 
patriot pilot of Charleston harbor. Are we to declare that 
one white citizen of South Carolina is entitled to more 
weight in the councils of the nation than two citizens of a 
Northern state ; and are the 291,300 to be vested with the 
absolute government of 703,708 ? Is the entire loyalty of 
that state to be confided to the tender mercies of the 
chagrined and humiliated, but unconverted and devilish 
traitors of the state that engendered and inaugurated this 
bloody rebellion ? And shall they who have fought for our 
flag, sheltered our soldiers when flying from loathsome 
prisons, guided them through hidden paths by night, saving 
them from starvation by sharing with them their poor and 
scanty food, and whose unceasing prayer to God has been for 



3S 

our triumph, be handed over to the lash, the iron collar, and 
the teeth of the blood-hound, to gratify our pride of race 
and propitiate our malignant foes ? 

Again, the census shows that Mississippi, in 1860, had but 
350,901 white inhabitants, and 437,404 colored. Disloyalty 
was almost as prevalent among the white men of Mississippi 
as among those of South Carolina. But who has heard from 
traveller, correspondent, returning soldier, or other person, 
that he has found a colored traitor within the limits of that 
state ? And shall we, ignoring our theory that " govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned," say to the majority in these states, " Stand back ! 
time and labor cannot qualify you to take care of your- 
selves ? We spurn you for the service you have rendered 
our cause, and hand you over to the degradation, the unre- 
quited toil, the slow but sure and cruel extermination which 
your oppressors, in their pride and madness, will provide for 
you ?•" 

And mark you again, Mr. Speaker, how nearly the races 
are balanced in Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama. In 
Louisiana there are 357,456 whites and 350,546 colored peo- 
ple. Of whites, in Georgia, there are 591,550, and of col- 
ored people 465,736. In Alabama the whites number 
526,271, while there are of colored 437,930. And in Flori- 
da there is the same near approach to equality of numbers, 
the white population being 77,747, and the colored 62,677. 
Are these people, by our decree, to remain dumb and voice- 
less in freedom ? They are no longer slaves. War and the 
high prerogative of the President, called into exercise by the 
war, have made them free. Will you inflict upon them all 
the miseries predicted for the free colored people of Tennessee 
in the extract I have read to you ? No, rather let us bind 
them to our government by enabling them to protect their 
interests, share its power, and appreciate its beneficence. 
This we can do, and the alternative is to so degrade them 
that they will prove an annoyance and an object of distrust 
to their white neighbors, an element of weakness to the gov- 
ernment, and a constant invitation to diplomatic intrigue 



and war by the ambitious man who dreams of a Latin empire 
in America, and who, following the examj)le of the states of 
Central and South America, will accept the descendant of 
Africa as a Basque and a citizen of his proposed empire. 

And here it may not be amiss to pause for a moment and 
contemplate some ulterior consequences of our action on this 
subject. Trained in the school of democracy, I am a be- 
liever in the " manifest destiny" of my country. Having 
regarded the acquisition by Mr. Jefferson of the Louisiana 
territory as wise and beneficent, though unwarranted by the 
Constitution, beholding great advantages in the acquisition 
of Florida, and having believed that, without war, could we 
have patiently waited, Texas would have come to us naturally 
as a state or states of the Union, I am used to dreaming of 
the just influence the United States are to exercise, from end 
to end of the American continent. Among the most ephem- 
eral products of our era will be the Franco-Austrian empire 
in Mexico, if we be but true to our own principles in this 
season of doubt and perplexity. Our infidelity to principles 
alone can give it perpetuity. "Within its limits the question 
of color is not a political or social question ; it is purely one 
of taste. There, as in Central and South America, the col- 
ored man is a freeman. And we are to determine whether the 
sympathies of these millions of people within our borders are 
to be with the government whose supremacy they have aided in 
reestablishing, or with the wily and ambitious man who will 
pledge them citizenship on condition that they aid him in 
carrying the limits of his Latin empire to the northern 
boundary of the Gulf States of America. To them the 
United States or Mexico will be the exemplar nation of the 
world. Before her ruder laws all men are equal. Let ours 
be not less broad and just. 

The tropical and malarious regions of Central America 
have, during the prevalence of slavery, seemed to be the 
natural geographical boundary of our influence in that direc- 
tion. Tropical regions are not the home of the white man. 
They were not made for him. God did not adapt him to 
them. They are prolific in wealth, invite to commercial in- 



S7 

tercourse, yield many things necessary to the success of our 
arts and industry, and will one day afford a market for im- 
mense masses of our productions. But we cannot occupy 
them ; we cannot develop their resources. Nor can the 
negro, in the ignorance and degradation to which we have 
hitherto doomed him. We have at length made him a sol- 
dier, and if need be he will carry our arms and flag triumph- 
antly over that to us pestilential region ; and, if we make 
him a citizen ; open to his children the school-house ; give 
him the privilege of the workshop, the studio, the hall of 
science ; admit him to the delights and inspirations of liter- 
ature, philosophy, poetry — in brief, if we recognize him as a 
man, and open to him the broad fields of American enterprise 
and culture, he will see that nature has given him the mo- 
nopoly of the wealth of that region, and will bless the world 
by making himself the master of it. By this means, and this 
alone, can we extend our influence over that region, and pre- 
pare for the ultimate Americanization of those drained by 
the Orinoko, the Amazon, and the Parana. As a citizen, 
nature will prompt the colored man to achieve these grand 
results. But if we leave the race a disfranchised and dis- 
affected class in our midst, numbering millions, and embra- 
cing hundreds of thousands of men who, in pursuit of freedom, 
have bared their breasts to the storm of battle, and who are 
no longer debarred by statute from access to the sources of 
thought and knowledge, they will, let me reiterate the fact, 
be a ready and powerful ally to any power that may be dis- 
posed to disturb our peace, and that will promise them the 
enjoyment of the rights of men, as accorded to every citizen 
by its government. 

But it may be said, " History vindicates your theory ; our 
fathers did mean that the black man should be a citizen and 
a voter ; to deny him his rights is illogical as you have sug- 
gested ; and it would be better to secure his loyalty to the 
government by its even-handed justice, but such an act 
would exasperate the Southern people, and we do not think it 
wise to do that ; his race is inferior ; and, in short, we will not 
do it." Who says his race is inferior ? Upon what theatre 



have you permitted him to exhibit or develop his power ? 
Grive him an opportunity to test his capacity, and let those 
who follow you, and have before them the results he pro- 
duces in freedom, judge as to his relative position in the scale 
of human power and worth. To whom and to what do you 
say the American negro and mulatto are inferior ? Will 
you, as Theodore Tilton well asked, exchange the negro for 
the Esquimaux, for the Pacific islander, for the South Ameri- 
can tribes ? Will you exchange our negroes for so many 
Mongolians, Ethiopians, American Indians, or Malays ? I 
apprehend that the universal answer to these questions will 
be in the negative ; because, oppress them as we may, we 
rate the A^nerican negroes as next to our own proud race in 
the scale of humanity. And shall we erect around our civil- 
ization, our privileges and immunities, a more than Chinese 
wall ? Shall America, proud of her democracy, become the 
most exclusive of all the nations of the world ? Or shall 
she carry her faith into her life and become the home of man- 
kind, the empire of freedom, and, by her example, the re- 
former of the world ? 

Let us frankly accept Jefferson's test as to the right of 
suffrage, and give it practical effect. In a letter dated July 
12, 1816, in discussing a proposed amendment to the consti- 
tution of Virginia, Mr. Jefferson said : 

" The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of 
every citizen in his person and property, and in their management. Try 
by this as a tally every provision of our constitution and see if it hangs 
directly on the will of the people. Reduce your legislature to a con- 
venient number for full but orderly discussion. Let every man who fights 
or pays exercise his just and equal right in their election.'''' — Jefferson'' s Works, 
vol. 7, page 11. 

And again, in a letter written April 19, 1824, he said : 
" However nature may, by mental or physical disqualifications, have 
marked infants and the weaker sex for the protection rather than the 
direction of government, yet among men who either pay or fight for their 
country no line of right can he drawn?'' — Works, vol. 7, page 345. 

And again, as if to show how well considered his opinion 
was, in the Notes on Virginia, speaking of the then constitu- 
tion of that statC; he said : 



39 

" This constitution was formed when we were new and inexperienced 
in the science of government. It was the first, too, that was formed in 
the whole United States. No wonder, then, that time and trial have dis- 
covered very capital defects in it : 

" 1. The majority of the men in the state who pay and fight for its siip 
port are unrepresented in the legislature, the roll of freeholders entitled 
to vote, not including generally the half of the militia or of the tax- 
gatherers." — Works, vol. 8, page B59. 

By adopting this sound test, whicli, be it remembered, was 
the only one recognized by the fathers, and adhering to it, 
our practice will harmonize with our theories, and the repug- 
nance between the race will gradually disappear. Wealth 
and power conceal many deformities, and will make the black 
man less odious to all than he now seems. Thus will con- 
sistent adherence -to principle give strength and peace to our 
country. 

But if, on the other hand, we ignore the rights of these 
four million people and their posterity, the demon of agita- 
tion will haunt us in the future fearfully as it has in the 
past. The appeals of these millions for justice will not go 
forth in vain ; and the liberal, the conscientious, the philan- 
thropic, the religious, now that our Christian church recog- 
nizes her long off-cast child philanthropy, will be found in 
hostile array against what the commercial and planting in- 
terests will regard as the conservatism of the day; and though 
we find that we have buried the slavery question, our peace 
will be disturbed by the negro question constantly, and fear- 
fully as it has been by the struggle between slavery and free 
labor. To which party ultimate victory would be vouchsafed 
in such a controversy I need not ask, as the nation acknowl- 
edges that God still lives and is omnipotent. 

Again, such action is necessary to prevent the reestablish- 
ment of our old tormentor, slavery. It is hoped thiat -the 
proposed amendment to the constitution, forever prohibiting 
slavery, may be adopted. But it has not yet passed this 
House ; and if it had, who can guarantee its adoption by 
three fourths of the state legislatures ? I hope and believe 
that that amendment will be adopted ; but it is within the 
range of possibility that it may be defeated. And how, in 



m 

that event, save by the suffrage of the colored man, by his 
right to protect himself, his power at the ballot-box, shall 
we prevent his subjugation, or the bloody war that such an 
attempt might provoke — the reenactment on the broader 
theatre of our Southern states of the terrible tragedies that 
ensued upon the attempt to again reduce to bondage the freed 
slaves of St. Domingo ? 

Let it be borne in mind that states within the Union de- 
termine through their organism who shall be citizens, and 
under what condition the people may enjoy their rights, and 
that, if the proposed amendment to the Constitution fail by 
want of the approval of a sufficient number of the state 
legislatures, and South Carolina, when readmitted should 
determine to reenslave her freedmen, and they should resist 
by force, although they constitute so largely the majority of 
her people, it would be the duty of the government to bring 
the naval and military power of the United States into ac- 
tion in support of the authority of the state, as it did to 
suppress the Dorr rebellion in Ehode Island, and repel the 
invasion of Virginia by John Brown and his twenty-two un- 
disciplined volunteers. 

But gentlemen may say that we need not fear such an 
effort as this ; that the humanity of the age will prevent it. 
The humanity of the age has not prevented similar outrages. 
Neither the humanity of the age, nor the prudence of the 
people of the South, nor their sense of justice, nor their love 
of country, prevented a bloody war for the purpose of over- 
throwing democratic institutions and founding an empire, 
the corner-stone of which should be human slavery. Let us 
not, therefore, while it is in our power to embody justice in 
laws and constitutions, be content to rely upon man's ab- 
stract sense of justice or his love for his fellow-man. Eveiy 
gentleman knows that it has been the usage of every slave state 
to reduce free men, women, and children, to bondage. Did 
not New Jersey, so late as 1797 — as appears from the State 
vs. Waggoner, 1 Halstead's Reports — hold that American 
Indians might be reduced to and held in slavery ? Has it 
not been lawful in Virginia, as appears by her Revised Code 



and the constitution of 1851; to apprehend and sell, by the 
overseers of the poor, "for the benefit of the Liteeary 
Fund," any emancipated slave that might remain within the 
state more than twelve months after his or her right to free- 
dom had accrued ? Has not South Carolina sold free colored 
citizens of Massachusetts into bondage, because she had torn 
them from the vessels on which they had entered her ports, 
imprisoned them and brought them, though accused of no 
criminal offence, under charges for jail fees which she had 
deprived them of the means of paying ? And has not North 
Carolina, under her act of 1741, been in the habit of doom- 
ing to slavery the unoffending offspring of any white woman- 
seiTant and a negro, mulatto or Indian. How horrible must 
have been the crime of the infant born of a white mother 
and an Indian father that it should thus, by special statutory 
provision, be punished by life-long, unrequited servitude, 
and be made the progenitor of a race of slaves. How dark, 
indeed, must have been the African blood of the child whose 
mother was a white woman and whose father was an American 
Indian ! 

I know not that the books, full as they are of such in- 
stances, furnish any more absolute illustration of the power 
of a state over its people than this. And yet other and 
grander illustrations of that power on this and cognate ques- 
tions rush upon my memory. But a few years since, it was 
gravely proposed by the legislature of Maryland to expel 
from the limits of that state some eighty thousand people, 
because they were of African descent. The act passed both 
branches of the legislature and was referred to the people 
for popular sanction. And the main argument by which the 
proposition was defeated at the polls was the selfish one that 
the land of the white citizens would remain unfilled if these 
laborers were driven from their homes. Had it been deter- 
mined otherwise, the people or the government of the United 
States could not have prevented the execution of the infa- 
mous decree, but could have been called to enforce it. A similar 
proposition, at a later date, found favor in Tennessee ; but 
the lingering spirit of her earlier settlers rejected it upon the 



42 



simple and higher ground of humanity. Yet had such a law 
been enacted, and had the free people of color resisted it with 
force, did not we and every man in the North stand pledged 
to sustain the government in the use of the naval and military 
power in carrying it into execution ? Dong's rebellion^ and 
the manner in which the United States government sup- 
pressed it, have a place in the history of our country, and 
illustrate the working of our system of government. 

But why speak of unsuccessful propositions, about which 
perverse ingenuity may raise questions ? Surely we have 
not forgotten the act by which the state of Arkansas sum- 
marily decreed the banishment of free negroes and mulattoes 
who had their homes in that state, and the enslavement of 
all such as might not be able to make their escape within the 
brief time allowed for the purpose. They numbered many 
thousands. Some of them had been given freedom by their 
fathers, whose lingering humanity would not permit them to 
sell the children of their loins. Others had earned their 
freedom by honest toil, by acts of patriotism, or by deeds of 
generous philanthropy, the requital of which had been the 
bestowal of the poor measure of liberty that the free negro 
might enjoy within the limits of that state. The act to 
which I refer is No, 151 of the acts of the general assem- 
bly of the state of Arkansas for the session of 1858-59, and 
may be found on page 175 of the pamphlet laws of that ses- 
sion. It was approved February 12, 1859, and contains 
twelve sections. Time will not permit me to cite the whole 
of this iniquitous statute ; but two sections I must give en- 
tire. Section first is as follows : 

" Se it enacted ly the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas, That no 
free negro or mulatto shall be permitted to reside within the limits of 
this state after the 1st day of January, A, D. 1860, 

And the tenth section reads thus : 

" Be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful for any person here- 
after to emancipate any slave in this state." 

Could language or rhetoric give force and amplitude to 
these provisions ? The intermediate sections provide for the 



arrest and sale of any free negro or mulatto over the age of 
twenty-one years who might be found within the limits of 
the state after the date indicated in the first section, and 
the disposition to he made of the funds arising from their 
sale. As a bribe to the people of the several counties of the 
state to see the law faithfully executed, the surplus of each 
sale, after deducting the costs, was to be paid into the 
connty treasury. They provided also for the hiring of those 
free colored persons who were not twenty-one years of age, 
and for the sale of such of these hirelings as might be found 
within the limits of the state thirty days after the expira- 
tion of their term of service. When it is remembered that, 
by a reversal of the immemorial and universal presumption 
that man is free, it had been provided in this and all other 
slave states that the presumption that he was a slave arose 
from the fact that any measure of African blood flowed in a 
man's veins, and that it was the duty, not only of police and 
other oificers, but of every citizen who found a person of 
African descent at large, to arrest him and demand the evi- 
dence of his freedom, and, in default of the production 
thereofj to cast him into jail, and that for the jail fees thus 
accruing he might be sold, it will be seen how impossible it 
was for these poor and illiterate people to make their exit 
from that state and through those coterminous to it whose 
laws contained the same barbarous provisions. 

The humanity of the act is embodied in the eleventh sec- 
tion, which provides for the support of " children under the 
age of seven years who have no mothers, and who cannot be 
put out for their food and clothing," and for " the aged and 
infirm negroes and mulattoes who may be ascertained to be 
incapable of leaving the state, or cannot he sold after being 
apprehended." Less merciful than Herod, the citizens of 
Arkansas did not slay all the innocent children, but with 
wise regard to the future welfare of the treasury of each 
county, having deprived them of the support their natural 
guardians could and would have provided them, and having 
torn from the aged and infirm who were incapable of leaving 
the state, and " could not be sold," the stout sons or gentle 



m 

daughters whose years would have been gladdened by toiling 
to sustain those weary ones in their declining years, they 
made it the duty of the county courts to make provision out 
of the proceeds of the sale of the able-bodied for the sup- 
port of those they thus robbed of their natural support and 
protection, leaving the aged and infirm to travel rapidly to- 
ward paupers' graves, and the children to be sold into slavery 
as cupidity might bring purchasers to the almshouse. Let 
men no longer speak of the laws of Draco, but say that an 
American state has, in the infernal inhumanity of her legis- 
lation, exceeded in cruelty the despots of all nations and all 
ages. Had the colored people of Arkansas had the right of 
suffrage their party influence would have saved us the shame 
we feel as we contemplate this page of American history. 

The possible repetition of such acts as these by the aris- 
tocracy of the old states, when they shall again be fairly in 
the Union, is not matter of speculation. The purpose is 
already avowed. I have myself heard it said by men, now 
professedly loyal, that the condition of the negro will be 
made more horrible as freemen than it has ever been in 
slavery ; and they have said to me, " You know that where 
the laborers are ignorant and powerless, as these will be, the 
will of the employer is their supreme law." 

Among the witnesses examined by the freedmen's inquiry 
commission was Colonel George H. Hanks, of the fifteenth 
regiment Corps d'Afrique, member of the Board of Enrol- 
ment, and superintendent of negro labor in the department 
of the Gulf. Colonel Hanks went to Louisiana as a lieu- 
tenant in the twelfth Connecticut volunteers, under General 
Butler, and was appointed superintendent of the contra- 
bands under General Sherman. His testimony illustrates 
the fitness of the colored people for freedom, and proves the 
determination of their old masters that they shall never, by 
their consent, enjoy it. Thus he says : 

" The negroes came in scarred, wounded, and some -with iron collars 
round their necks. I set them at work on abandoned plantations, and 
on the fortifications. At one time we had six thousand five hundred of 
them J there was not the slightest diflBculty with them. They are more 



willing to ■work and more patient than any set of human beings I ever 
saw. It is true there is a general dislike to return to their old masters ; 
and those who have remained at home are suspicious of foul play, and 
feel it to be necessary to run away to test their freedom. This year the 
dislike has very much lessened ; they begin to feel themselves more 
secure, and do not hesitate to return for wages. The negroes willingly 
accept the condition of labor for their oicn mairdenance, and the musket for 
their freedom. I know a family of five who were freed by the voluntary 
enlistment of one of the boys. He entered the ranks for the avowed 
purpose of freeing his family. His name was Moore ; he was owned by 
the Messrs. Leeds, iron founders ; they resided within one of the parishes 
excepted in the proclamation of emancipation. He was the first man to 
fall at Pascagoula. Upon starting he said to his family, ' I know I shall 
fall, but you will be free.' 

" A negro soldier demanded his children at my hands. I wanted to 
test his affection. I said ' they had a good home.' He said, ' Lieutenant, 
I want to send my children to school j my wife is not allowed to see 
them ; I am in your service ; I wear military clothes ; I have been in 
three battles ; I was in the assault at Port Hudson ; I want my chil- 
dren ; they are my flesh and blood.' " 

Again : 

" The colored people manifest the greatest anxiety to educate their 
children, and they thoroughly appreciate the benefits of education. I 
have known a family to go with two meals a day in order to save fifty 
cents a week to pay an indifferent teacher for their children." 

After having spent nearly two years in daily intercourse 
witli the planters in the department of the Gulf, Colonel 
Hanks, in his sworn testimony, says : 

" Although they begin to see that slavery is dead, yet the spirit of 
slavery still lives among them. Many of them are even more rampant 
to enslave the negro than ever before. They make great endeavors to 
recover what they call their own negroes. One planter oflFered me $5,000 to 
return his negroes. They have even hired men to steal them fi'om my 
own camp. (The old spirit still prompting to the old crime, which long 
ago was declared felony by the law of nations, if perpetrated in Africa.)" 

" They yield to the idea of freedom only under compulsion. They sub- 
mit to the terms dictated by the government because obliged so to do. 
Mr. V. B. Marmillon, one of the richest and most extensive sugar 
planters in the whole valley of the Mississippi, took the oath of allegi- 
ance, but refused to work his own plantation unless he could have his 
own negroes returned to him. He had fourteen hundred aiid fifty acres of 
cane under cultivation ; his whole family of plantation hands left him 



and came to New Orleans, reporting themselves to me. Among them 
could be found every species of mechanic and artisan. I called them up 
and informed them that the government had taken possession of their old 
master's crop, and that they were needed to take it oft', and would be 
paid for their labor. All consented to return ; but next morning when 
the time came for their departure, not one would go. One of them said, 
' I will go anywhere else to work, but you may shoot me before T will 
return to the old plantation.' I afterwards ascertained that Marmillon, 
whom they called ' Old Cotton Beard,' had boasted in the presence of 
two colored girls, house-servants, how he would serve them when he 
once more had them in his power. These girls had walked more than 
thirty miles in the night to bring this information to their friends." 

Colonel Hanks adds : 

" It is undoubtedly true that this year a change for the better seems 
to be taking place. In some parishes the letting of plantations to North- 
ern men has a powerful effect. The disposition of the planters, how- 
ever, toward their old slaves, when they consent to hire them, is by no 
means friendly. I told a planter recently that it was the express order 
of General Banks that the negroes should be educated. He replied that 
< no one should teach his negroes.' " 

And he further declares it as his deliberate judgment 

that — 

" If civil government be established here and military rule with- 
drawn, there is the greatest danger that the negro would become subject 
to some form of serfdom." 

Mr. Commissioner McKaye, in his invaluable pamphlet, 
to which I have already referred, confirms the general cor- 
rectness of the views of Colonel Hanks, and says they were 
concurred in by many other intelligent persons familiar with 
the subject, and that his own personal observation fully con- 
firms them. He says : 

" In a stretch of three hundred miles up and down the Mississippi, but 
one Creole planter was found (there may, of course, have been others with 
whom I did not come in contact) who heartily and unreservedly' adopted 
the idea of free labor, and honestly carried it out upon his plantation. 
And, although he declared that, in itself, it was successful much beyond 
his expectation, yet, he said, ' My life and that of my family are ren- 
dered very unhappy by the opposition and contumely of my neighbors.' 

" The simple truth is, that the virus of slaveiy, the lust of owner- 
ship, in the hearts of these old masters, is as virulent and active to-day 
as it ever was. Many of them admit that the old form of slavery is for 



47 

tte present broken up. They do not hesitate even to express the opinion 
that the experiment of secession is a failure ; but thej scoff at the idea 
of freedom for the negro, and repeat the old argument of his incapacity 
to take care of himself, or to entertain any higher motive for exertion 
than that of the whip. They await with impatience the withdrawal of 
the military authorities, and the re-establishment of the civil power of 
the state, to be controlled and used as hitherto for the maintenance of 
what to them doubtless appears the paramount object of all civil 
authority, of the state itself — some form of the slave system. 

" With slight modification, the language used recently by Judge Hum- 
phrey in a speech delivered at a Union meeting at Huntsville, Alabama, 
seems most aptly to express the hopes and purposes of a large proportion 
of the old masters in the valley of the Mississippi who have consented to 
qualify their loyalty to the Union by taking the oath prescribed by the 
President's proclamation of amnesty. After advising that Alabama 
sJiould at once return to the Union by simply rescinding the ordinance of se- 
cession, and after expressing the opinion that the old institution of 
slavery was gone, Judge Humphrey says, ' I believe, in case of a return 
to the Union, we would receive political co-operation, so as to secure the 
management of that labor by those who were slaves. There is really no 
difference, in my opinion, ichether we hold them as absolute slaves or obtain 
their labor by some other method. Of course we prefer the old method. 
But that question is not now before us. " 

To the same effect was the testimony of the late Brigadier- 
General James S. Wadsworth^ whose official tour through 
the valley of the Mississippi gave him ample means of arriv- 
ing at an intelligent judgment : 

" There is one thing that must be taken into account, and that is, that 
there will exist a very strong disposition among the masters to control 
these people and keep them as a subordinate and subjected class. Un- 
doubtedly they intend to do that. I think the tendency to establish a 
system of serfdom is the great danger to be guarded against. I talked 
with a planter in the La Fourche district, near Thibadouville ; he said he 
was not in favor of secession ; he avowed his hope and expectation that 
slavery would be restored there in some form. I said, ' If we went away 
and left these people now, do you suppose you could reduce them again 
to slavery V He laughed to scorn the idea that they could not. 'What,' 
said I, ' these men who have had arms in their hands?' ' Yes,' he said ; 
' we should take the arms away from them, of course.' " 

While we confront these facts, let me, Mr. Speaker, ask of 
you and the House whether we shall best consult our coun- 
try's welfare by giving to the laboring people of the South 



the ballot by which they may protect themselves, and inspir- 
ing them with the hopes, and disciplining them by the duties 
of citizenship, or by predetermining that ours shall be a mil- 
itary government, and that the first-born son of every North- 
ern household shall be liable to pass his life in the army, 
maintained to protect the aristocratic South against the 
maddened and degraded laborers whom she oppresses. It is 
we who are to decide this question ; we who are to determine 
who shall select delegates to the conventions that are to 
frame the future constitutions of the insurgent states ; we 
who are to say whether the constitutions which they will sub- 
mit to us when asking readmission are republican in form, 
as required by the terms of the Constitution of the United 
States ; and if we fail here, to our timidity, arrogance, prej- 
udice, or pride of color, will be justly attributable the con- 
version of our peaceful country into a military power, and 
our democracy into an aristocracy. " We cannot escape his- 
tory." 

This is not mere idle fancy. Let us for a moment suppose, 
not what is alone within the range of possibility, but what is 
within the scope of probability ; nay, what is almost certain 
to happen — that the two hundred and ninety-one thousand 
pardoned rebels of South Carolina should demand from their 
legislature an act reducing to apprenticeship, serfdom, or 
other form of slavery, the four hundred and twelve thousand 
colored people of the state, or that they deny them all polit- 
ical rights, tax them without their consent, and legislate 
generally, not for their welfare, but for their degradation and 
oppression. Composing this unrepresented mass would be 
those who have passed through General Saxton's schools and 
learned to read, those who by toil have earned the means to 
purchase at sales for taxes, or under the confiscation laws, a 
home and land ; and others scarred and war-worn in the 
military or naval service of the country, who would hurry to 
and fro, rallying their friends to resist the outrage, and main- 
tain their right to life, liberty, and property. Here would be 
the beginning of civil war ; war in which we who believe in 
the doctrine of man's rights, that governments are instituted 



49 

to protect those rights, that they rest on the consent of the 
governed, and should be overthrown when they infringe those 
rights, would bid the insurgents God- speed. Ah ! this we 
might do as men, as individuals ; but as citizens of the 
United States what would be our duty and how must em- 
power be exercised ? The minority, though vested with 
political power, fearing the superior force of the majority, 
would, in the name of the state, appeal to us ; and, repug- 
nant as the duty might be, we would owe it to the sacred 
compromises of the Constitution to yield our pride, our con- 
science, our fidelity to God and man, and become again the 
protectors of slavery or the pliant instruments for reducing 
the majority of the people of the state into subjection to the 
arrogant aristocracy of South Carolina. In God's name let 
us, while we can, avert such a possibility. Let us conquer 
our prejudices. Let us prove that we are worthy of the 
heritage bequeathed us by our revolutionary sires. Let us 
show the world that, inheriting the spirit of our forefathers, 
we regard liberty as a right so universal and a blessing so 
grand, that, while we are ready to surrender our all rather 
than yield it, we will guarantee it at whatever cost to the 
poorest child that breathes the air of our country. 

But we owe a provision of this kind to another class of 
citizens than that of which I have been speaking. There 
are other loyal men than these in the South. Andrew John- 
son, Horace Maynard, William H. Wisener, sr., John W. 
Bowen, W. G. Brownlow, though not alone in their loyalty, 
represent but a minority of the white people of Tennessee ; 
and, Thomas J. Durant, and Benjamin F. Flanders, and 
Eufus Waples, and Alfred Jervis, have had thousands of ad- 
herents and coworkers among the whites of Louisiana ; but 
they, too, are but a minority of the white people of that 
state. And as our armies go on conquering, we may learn 
that even on some hillside in South Carolina there have been 
men whose loyalty to the Union has never yielded. How 
shall these protect themselves in the reconstructed state ? 
What millennial influence will induce the envenomed spirit 
of the majority of the people by whom they will be sur- 

4 



so 

rounded to treat them with kindness or justice ? Who will 
go with them to the polls in their respective districts ? 
Where will they find an unprejudiced judge and an impartial 
jury to vindicate their innocence when falsely accused or 
maintain their right to character and property ? We must 
remember that it is the power and not the spirit of the rebel- 
lion we are conquering. Time alone shall conquer this. 
The grave, long years hence, will close over those who to the 
last day of their life would, were it in their power, overthrow 
the government or revenge their supposed wrongs upon those 
who aided in sustaining it. The truly loyal white men of the 
insurrectionary districts need the sympathy and political sup- 
port of all the loyal people among whom they dwell, and un- 
less we give it to them we place them as abjectly at the feet 
of those who are now in arms against us as we do the negro 
whom their oppressors so despise. I cannot conceive how the 
American Congress could write a page of history that would 
so disgrace it in the eyes of all posterity as by consenting to 
close this war by surrendering to the unbridled lust and 
power of the conquered traitors of the South, those who, 
through blood, terror, and anguish, have been our friends, 
true to our principles and our welfare. To purchase peace 
by such heartless meanness and so gigantic a barter of princi- 
ple would be unparalleled in baseness in the history of man- 
kind. 

This is felt in the South, The black man already rejoices 
in the fact that, if we are guilty of so great a crime as this, 
he will not be alone in his suffering ; it will not be his 
prayers or his curses only that will penetrate the ear of an 
aveuging God against those who had thus been false to all 
his teachings and every principle they professed. I find in 
the New Orleans Tribune of December 15, 1864, which 
paper, I may remark, is the organ of the proscribed race in 
Louisiana, and is owned and edited and printed daily in the 
French and English language by persons of that race, an ad- 
mirable article in response to the question, " Is .there any 
justice for the black ?" which was drawn forth by the acquit- 
tal of one Michael Gleason, who had been tried for murder. 



51 

The crime was establislied beyond all peradventure. It 
was abundantly proven that the victim, Mattie Stephens, a 
colored boy, had been quietly sitting on the guards of the 
boat, watching the rod with which he was fishing, that other 
boys sat near him, when the defendant came behind him, 
leaned over, and deliberately pushed him into the water, and 
folding his arms on his breast stood and saw the boy rise thrice 
to the surface and then sink for ever ; that a colored woman 
exclaimed, " That is not right," and the defendant answered, 
" I would do the same to you ;" and thus neither rescuing 
the child nor permitting others to do it, coolly and deliber- 
ately committed murder. There was no dispute as to any of 
the facts of the case. The New Orleans Era, noticing the 
case, that it establishes the theory that " a man may, when- 
ever he has no other way of amusing himself, throw a negro 
boy overboard from a steamboat, prevent any of his friends 
from rescuing the drowning struggler, stand quietly looking 
on while he goes to the bottom to rise no more, and be con- 
sidered ^ not guilty ' of murder or any other crime ;" and 
adds, having evidently hoped for better things under freedom 
than it had been used to in the days of slavery, " This is al- 
most as enlightened a verdict as we were accustomed to in 
the palmy days of thuggery." 

The colored editor of the Tribune avails himself of the 
case to point a moral, and well says : 

" The trial by jury is considered as the safeguard of innocence. It has 
been found that a man indicted for k criminal oflFence cannot be impar. 
tially tried and convicted, unless by his own peers. But an exparte jury 
is the worst of all judicial institutions. 

" The security afforded by the composition of a jury has to be of a two- 
fold character. The jurymen have to represent the community at large 
in all its classes and varieties of composition. The duty of a jury is as 
well to vindicate innocence and punish crime as to protect the man un- 
duly arraigned before the court. Justice has to strike the culprit and 
avenge the blood of the innocent, as well as to defend the accused party 
against undue prejudices. Why have we no representati'^es in the jury? 
Are our lives, honor, and liberties, to be left in the hands of men who are 
laboring under the most stubborn and narrow prejudice ? Is there any 
protection or justice for us at their hands ? It is in vain that, in the 
present instance, the press have so strongly supported the right. The 



58 



wrong has been committed, and we are notified that there is no redress 
for us. 

" But for every Union man in the city the last verdict is a warning. In the 
event — as impossible as it may appear — that rebel rv2e should temporarily be 
established here, we can foresee the fate of our friends of the Union. Then, 
there will be no mere justice, no more protection for them than for the hated 
negro. It will be lawful to pursue them in the streets, drown them, kill them ; 
and no jury will be found to convict the murderers. Let the Union men un- 
derstand the case, and look to a complete reform in our laws relating to 
the formation of the jury." 

The fate predicted to the real friends of the Union will be 
meted to them by the pardoned rebels, who will, if we permit 
it, rule them in the future as assuredly as it would if their 
military power should again possess the city. 

Still comes the question, are these more than two fifths of 
the people of the insurrectionary district fit for citizenship ? 
Let me reply by a question or two. Is the question of fit- 
ness put to the foreigner by the judge who administers the 
oath, the taking of which invests him with all the power of 
a native-born citizen and all its promises save one, that of the 
Presidency ? Is the white native of our soil who, at the 
close of a reckless youth, the victim, perhaps, of early pov- 
erty and the degradation of parents, is unable to read his 
native tongue, when first he comes to the polls to deposit his 
ballot interrogated as to his fitness ? Is it only to the wise, 
the learned, the powerful, that we accord the right of suf- 
frage ? Are there not within the knowledge of each one of 
us scores of the children of this proscribed race who, in the 
conduct of their daily afiairs, in the acquisition of property, 
in the tenderness and good judgment with which they rear 
their families, in the generosity with which they contribute 
to their church and the fidelity with which they obey her 
high behests, prove themselves infinitely better fitted for citi- 
zenship than the denizens of the Swamp, Mackerelville, and 
other such reeking localities, who swelled the majority in the 
city of New York at the last election to thirty-seven thou- 
sand ? And shall no culture, no patriotism, no wisdom, no 
tax-paying power, secure to the native-born American that 
which at the end of five years we, with so much advantage 



53 



to our country, fling as a boon to every foreigner who may 
escape from the poverty and oppression and wrong of the Old 
World, to find a happier home and a more promising future 
in this ? The question is not whether each man is fitted for 
the most judicious performance of the functions of citizen- 
ship, but whether the state is not safer when she binds all 
her children to her by protecting the rights of all and confid- 
ing her affairs to the arbitrament of their common judg- 
ment. 

But colored people have shown themselves abundantly 
capable of self-government. Under oppressions exceeding in 
infinite degree those suffered by the oppressed people of Ire- 
land — ay, by the subjects of the czar of Russia — they have 
shown themselves capable of caring for themselves and oth- 
ers. Buying the poor privilege of providing for themselves 
by paying to their owners hundreds of dollars per annum, 
thousands of them have maintained homes and kept their 
families together, and reared their children to such an age 
that the lordly master, wanting cash for current purposes, 
las plucked the graceful daughter from her home to sell her 
to a life of debauchery, or the son, whose developing muscles 
promised support in age to his parents, to sell him to a life 
of unrequired toil. Snatched from these horrors a few thou- 
sands, some ten or twelve, have been sent during the last 
forty years to the western coast of Africa. There, under the 
auspices of American benevolence, they founded a repubKc, 
and with almost American greed for land have extended the 
jurisdiction of the little colony till the republic of Liberia, as 
I learn from the National Almanac, now embraces twenty- 
three thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine square miles. 
And the people have assimilated from among the heathens 
amidst whom they were settled, men, women, and children, 
until their flag protects and their jurisdiction regulates four 
hundred and twenty-two thousand, most of whom, taught in 
the schools of the colony, find their enduring hopes in the 
old King James Bible, which they are able to read. But for 
our jealous contempt of the race, the flag of that African 
republic, so extensive has her commerce already become, 



54 

would be familiar in aE our leading ports. Our arrogance 
has hitherto excluded it ; and by reason of our arrogance we 
pay tribute to our haughty commercial rival and treacherous 
friend Great Britain, by purchasing at second-hand from her 
the tropical products which the republicans of Liberia would 
gladly exchange directly with us for those of our more tem- 
perate region. 

Fit by culture and experience they may not be : but let us 
regard the characteristics of our civilization and see whether 
the future sbould, by reason of this fact, be made liable to 
such momentous consequences as would be involved in error 
on this point. The abundant proof is before us of their 
eagerness and ability to acquire information. We are equally 
able to provide them with the means of culture ; and happily, 
the good people of the North, carrying the frame of the 
scbool-house and the church in the rear of each of our ad- 
vancing armies, have shown themselves prompt to provide 
them with the means of instruction — to give to each and 
every one of them the keys to all knowledge in the mastery 
of the English language, the art of writing, and the element- 
ary rules of arithmetic. 

Though the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] in- 
sists that history is but repeating itself, I tell him that ours 
is a new age, and ask him to be kind enough to let me know 
who invented Hoe's " last fast printing-press" in the age in 
which it first existed, and by whose steam-engine it was pro- 
pelled, and whether he edited the Express that fell in myriad 
thousands from its revolving forms ? The limits of what 
former America did the magnetic telegraph traverse, making 
man, even the humblest, well-nigh omnipotent within its 
limits ? In what antique age and country, broad as ours, 
was distance reduced as it is by the locomotive engine in this ? 
From among the hidden treasures of what buried city, or 
from the printed pages of what lost nation, did John Erics- 
son steal the subtle thoughts with which he has blessed the 
world and which we credit to him as inventions ? In what 
era, will the gentleman tell me, did a nation convert by the 
stroke of a pen and the act of occupancy its landless and 



55 



destitute people into independent farmers and pillars of tlie 
state by a homestead law such as that by which we offer 
estates to the emigrant and the freedman ? If history be 
but repeating itself, will the gentleman point me to the 
original of the American Missionary Society, and show me 
from experience what influence its labors are to have upon 
those whom we have hitherto doomed to the darkness of ig- 
norance ? Whence did the founders of the American and 
other Tract Societies ■ borrow the idea of their great enter- 
prise ? From what age or what clime comes our common 
school system ! And what chapter of human history did 
they re-enact who founded the American Sunday School 
Union ? Will the gentleman draw from his historic stores a 
sketch of the influence that institution alone is to have in 
developing and training the intellect and regulating the life 
of the freedmen and the " poor white trash/' now that re-, 
bellion has opened the way to the teacher, the daily journal, 
and the printed volume to their firesides ? In what ample 
depository did its ancient prototype conceal the stereotype 
plates for more than a thousand books that it so cheaply pub- 
lished, imparting many of them in the simplest sentences, 
and others in those of Bunyan, Milton, Heber, Cowper — the 
poets, preachers, philosophers, historians of all Christian 
countries — the thought and knowledge time has garnered ? 

No, Mr. Speaker, history is not repeating itself. We are 
unfolding a new page in national life. The past has gone 
for ever. There is no abiding present ; it flies while we name 
it ; and, as it flies, it is our duty to provide for the thick- 
coming future ; and with such agencies as I have thus rapidly 
alluded to, we need not fear that even the existing generation 
of freedmen will not prove themselves abundantly able to 
take care of themselves and maintain the power and dignity 
of the states of which we shall make them citizens. 

We are to shape the future. We cannot escape the duty. 
And " conciliation, compromise, and concession" are not the 
methods we are to use. These, alas ! have been abundantly 
tried, and their result has been agitation, strife, war, and 
desolation. No man has the right to compromise justice ; it 



56 

is immutable ; and He whose law it is never fails to avenge 
its compromise or violation. Ours is not the work of con- 
struction, it is that of reconstruction ; not that of creation, 
but of regeneration ; and, as I have shown, the principle of 
the life we are to shape glares on us, lighting our pathway, 
from every page of history written by our revolutionary 
fathers. Would we see the issue of " compromise, conces- 
sion, and conciliation" ? Sir, we hold it in the blazing home, 
the charred roof-tree, the desolate hearthside, the surging 
tide of fratricidal war, and the green mounds beneath which 
sleep half a million of the bravest and best loved of our 
men. 

South Carolina, representing slavery, demanded the inser- 
tion of the word " white" in the fundamental articles of our 
government. Our fathers resisted the demand ; and, as I 
have suggested, had their sons continued to do so, slavery had 
long since been hemmed in as by a wall of fire ; its true 
character would have been known among men, for then would 
the freedom of discussion not have been assailed, and men 
been legally punished by fine and imprisonment, and law- 
lessly by scourging and death, for speaking of its horrors. 
And by resisting this demand, as I have shown, man was ac- 
corded his right in the territories till 1812. Then our 
fathers yielded, and without tracing the rapid retrograde 
career which ensued, we find the results of conceding and 
compromising principle in the attempt to abandon justice as 
established by the fathers, and settle a territory under the 
conflicting theories of Cass and Douglas, and of Calhoun 
and Jefferson Davis — the two former striving to establish 
slavery under phrases full of professed devotion to freedom ; 
the latter proclaiming boldly, through the lips of Robert 
Toombs, that " Congress has no power to limit, restrain, or 
in any manner to impair slavery ; but, on the contrary, it is 
bound to protect and maintain it in the states where it ex- 
ists and wherever its flag floats and its jurisdiction is para- 
mount." (Boston Address, January, 1856.) 

We can trace the influence of compromise and concession 
again in its effects upon the constitutions of states. Behold 



57 

tlie colored and white voters mingling peaceably at the polls 
in North Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, and other slave 
states, and run the downward career until, at the dictation 
of South Carolina and slavery, you find states which have 
become free by constitutional amendment and others which 
never tolerated slavery yielding to their demand to insert the 
word " white" in their constitutions, and so creating a pro- 
scribed class in their midst ; others even denying a dwelling- 
place upon his footstool within their limits to the children of 
God whose skins were not colored like their own ; and finally 
Arkansas writing a chapter of history which redeems Draco's 
name from the bad pre-eminence it had so long borne. Tri- 
umphant wrong is ever aggressive, has ever been, will ever be. 
Look back also upon our churches, practically ignoring for 
half a century the existence of nearly four million people 
who were held in contempt of every one of the beatitudes, 
and compelled to live in violation of every clause of the dec- 
alogue, and whose existence made the utterance of the Lord's 
prayer seem, to foreigners who comprehended the wrongs of 
slavery, like a hideous mockery, as it dropped from American 
lips. 

And these results, be it remembered, did but express the 
influence which aristocratic and dictatorial South Carolina, 
whose spirit now possessed the entire South, had, through 
compromise, concession, and conciliation, produced upon the 
mind and heart and conscience of the American people. Let 
me illustrate this by one striking example. While yet Mis- 
souri was a territory — seven years, however, after the South 
had been made imperious by her triumph in inserting the 
word " white" in the territorial law of Missouri, and while 
she was busy fashioning that great state north of the Ohio 
line into the future home for slavery — the abolition of the 
institution was being agitated in Maryland as well as in Ten- 
nessee. Notwithstanding the recent triumphs of slavery it 
was still possible for a man to oppose the spread of the insti- 
tution, point out its atrocities, and favor its abolition, and 
yet look for preferment and honor at the hands of his fellow- 
citizens : and when Jacob Gruber, a Methodist clergyman, 



5& 

was indicted by the Frederick county court, of Maryland, on 
the charge of " attempting to excite insubordination and in- 
surrection among slaves," Koger B. Taney stepped forth to 
defend him, and in the course of his argument used the fol- 
lowing lauguage : 

" Mr. Gruber did quote the language of our great act of national inde- 
pendence, and insisted on the principles contained in that venerated 
instrument. He did rebuke those masters who, in the exercise of power, 
are deaf to the calls of humanity ; and he warned them of the evils they 
might bring upon themselves. He did speak with abhorrence of those rep- 
tiles who live by trading in human flesh, and enrich themselves by tearing 
the husband from the wife, the infant from the bosom of the mother ; and 
this I am instructed was the head and front of his offending. Shall I 
content myself with saying he had a right to say this ? that there is no 
law to punish him 1 So far is he from being the object of punishment in 
any form of proceedings, that we are prepared to maintain the same princi- 
ples^ and to use, if necessary, the same language here in the temple of justice, 
and in the presence of those who are the ministers of the law. A hard 
necessity, indeed, compels us to endure the evils of slavery /o?- a time. 
It was imposed upon us by another nation while we were yet in a state of 
colonial vassalage. It cannot be easily or suddenly removed. Yet while 
it continues, it is a blot on our national character, and every real lover of 
freedom confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it must be 
gradually, wiped away, and earnestly looks for the means by which this 
necessary object may be attained. And until it shall be accomplished, 
until the time shall come when we can point without a blush to the lan- 
guage held in the Declaration of Independence, every friend of humanity 
will seek to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and better to the utmost 
of his power the wretched condition of the slave. Such was Mr. Gru- 
ber's object in that part of his sermon of which I am now speaking. 
Those who have complained of him and reproached him will not find it 
easy to answer him, unless complaints, reproaches, and persecution, shall 
be considfered an answer." 

But under the influence of the doctrines of " conciliation, 
concession, and compromise," the author of this language 
soon learned that for an ambitious man these brave and good 
words were folly and madness. Pure in his personal life, 
beautiful in the relations that characterized his family and 
his social circle, his history will never be forgotten ; his name 
will ever head the list of " ermiued knaves." Thirty-eight 
years after the Gruber case, in the chief temple of justice of 



our country, in the presence of her ministers, of whom he 
was himself the chief, when speaking of the free colored men 
of New England and those of their race throughout the 
country, he declared, in violation of all truth, that — 

" The legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in 
the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of persons 
who had been imported as slaves nor their descendants, whether they 
had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, 
nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable 
instrument. 

" It is diflScult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in rela- 
tion to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and en- 
lightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed 
and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays 
it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. 

" They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of 
an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, 
either in social or political relations ; and so far inferior, that they had no 
rights lohich the white man was bound to respect.''^ 

Mr. Speaker, shall we in providing for the reconstruction 
of the Union, accept and proclaim as our faith the hideous 
dogma that four millions of our people have " no rights 
which the white man is bound to respect," or, in the very 
hour in which our arms are breaking the power of the rebel- 
lion, make any concession to the spirit that evoked it ! South 
Carolina may shake her gory locks and bloody hands at us in 
impotent rage ; but let us not quail before her now as we 
have done for the last half century. Through the lips of 
northern " Sons of Liberty" and members of the order of 
" American Knights," she demands that, as; a graceful con- 
cession, we shall comply to-day with the proposition our fore- 
fathers rejected on the 25th of June, 1778, and insert the 
word " white" in the fundamental law of the land ; on the 
other hand, the shades of our patriot fathers, humanity, the 
spirit of the age, the welfare of the nation, the hopes of the 
countless millions who will throng our country through the 
long ages, implore us to listen to the voice of justice and 
obey the injunctions of the Master, who has assured us that 



60 

^' inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Let not, I pray you, 
the South achieve her grandest triumph in the hour of her 
humiliation. Let not the spirit of a prostrate foe practise 
on our pride and prejudice, and exult through all time over 
a lasting victory. Peace is the offspring and handmaid of 
justice, and let us in reconstructing the Union erect a temple 
in which she may abide for ever, 

Mr. Stiles. Mr. Speaker, I did not desire to interrupt my 
colleague [Mr. Kelley] in the delivery of his carefully 
prepared speech It would have marred its beauty and 
power. But if I understand him correctly he stated that 
prior to the adoption of the constitution of 1838, negroes 
enjoyed the right of suffrage in the state of Pennsylvania. 
My question is, whether the constitution or laws of that 
state gave them such a right ; and further, whether they ever 
did exercise such a right ; whether he does not know that by 
the decision of the highest courts of that state they were not 
allowed to vote there ? 

Mr. Kelley. They were allowed by the constitution to 
vote, and they did vote ; and it required a constitutional 
amendment — the insertion of the word "white" in the clause 
regulating the suffrage — to deprive them of that right. 

Mr. Stiles. I desire to ask my colleague further, when and 
in what portion of the state of Pennsylvania they ever ex- 
ercised that right ? 

Mr. Kelley. Why, I have seen them exercise it frequently 
at the polls in Philadelphia, and that, too, whether the elec- 
tion officers belonged to one party or the other. 

Mr. Stiles. That must have been confined to my col- 
league's own precinct. It was never known in the history of 
that state. 

Mr. Kelley. I beg leave to say that it was done through- 
out the state, and was in some instances made the subject of 
litigation. 

Mr. Stiles, It was never done except in one county — the 
county of Bucks — so far as I know, and then only in one 
instance. 



61 

I desire further to ask my colleague in this connection, be- 
cause his speech has tended toward universal equality, whether 
he is in favor of giving negroes universally the right of suf- 
frage now, 

Mr, Kelley, I am in favor of giving that right, in the 
words of Jefferson, to " every man who fights or pays," I 
stand by the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, the father of the 
democratic party, in which I was trained, 

Mr, Stiles. In the event of the passage of the amendment 
to the constitution proposed, is my colleague in favor of 
equality between the races "? And will he regard negroes as 
equal to the white man ? 

Mr, Kelley, I could not possibly regulate the equality of 
men, I cannot make my colleague so moral or intelligent as 
a man of darker complexion who is more moral and more in- 
telligent ; nor could I degrade my colleague to the level, in 
morals and intelligence, of the colored man who is less moral 
or less intelligent than he. My colleague does not, according 
to his theory, vote by reason of his intelligence, but simply 
by reason of his color, I might be willing to exclude from 
the privilege of voting an immoral or a voluntarily ignorant 
man ; but I want no senseless rule that allows a fool or a 
scoundrel to vote if he be white, and excludes a wise and an 
honest man if he be black. 

Mr, Stiles, Mr, Speaker, the remarkable speech just de- 
livered appeals to passion and not to judgment, and is in 
favor of a principle that in years hence will be regarded as 
the height of the fanaticism of these days. The right of 
negroes to become voters, jurors, and in all respects equal 
with the white man, is the favorite theory of the times and 
of the party in power. The day will come when the men 
who avow such principles will be condemned by the popular 
voice everywhere. 



\ 



i LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

No. 863 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
No. 83. 



§Mtn)^mnxt^ of i^t ^onstitnlion. 



SUBMITTED TO THE CONSroEEATIOlJI OF 



THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 



The bantling— I had liked to have said monster— Sovereignty (meaning State Sovereignty). 

Washingtoh. 

A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle. — Alexander Hamilton. 

Secession Is the legitimate consequence of State Sovereignty. — Jefferson Davis. 

Ihe ultimate and absolute sovereignty of each State.— Albxakder H. Stepheni 



Francis Lieber, 

Fresident. 

J. A. Stkvens, Je., 

W. T. Blodgett, 

Ch. Extcuti'06 Com, 




MoERis Ketchum, 

7?reasur6r. 

Le Grand B. Cannon, 
Ch. Finance Com. 

James McKaye, 

Ch. Publication Com. 



NEW YOKE. 
1865. 



PREFACE 



When those cathedrals were building, which the Middle Ages have be- 
queathed to modern times, every inhabitant of the surrounding country used 
to be called upon to contribute his share, and many a poor man, who could 
give no money to pay the masons' wages, went himself and paid some weeks 
of his own labor, with hod or trowel, as his share toward the rearing of the 
great fabric intended for the service of all — high or humble. 

When those Fairs in behalf of the Sanitary Commission were planned on 
a scale, and crowned with a success, which form an ennobling characteristic 
of our period of bitter strife, all — the wealthy and the needy — freely gave 
their share to these large markets, by which millions upon millions have 
flowed to the Commission, to be changed by them into balmy relief for our 
wounded soldiers, and the bleeding foes who fall into our hands. All have 
helped to swell this steady stream of mercy — deep, wide, clear, as Dante 
calls the stream of Virgil's eloquence. 

We live in a time of necessary and searching reform. We cannot avoid 
its duty. Things have already changed. They must be readjusted. The 
harmony of the great polity has been rudely disturbed ; it mast be restored 
in some way. The Civil War, imperiling the existence of our country, has 
laid bare the roots of evils in our polity, and shown what some elementary 
errors must lead to when legitimately carried out. We have discovered that 
a part of our foundation has given way, and that repairs are needed Let 
every one contribute bis share to the reconstruction — be it much or be it 
little — so that he helps in the great work of repairing the mansion of freedom. 
I offer this contribution to my Country's cause. 

If what I give does not prove acceptable in the form in which it is 
proffered, these pages will, nevertheless, lead to reflections which wiU not 
fail to be useful, and may prove fruitful. 

FKANCIS LIEBER. 



NOTE. 



The following pages, but just now brought to the notice of the Publication 
Committee of the Loyal Publication Society, were written for the most part, 
at a period in our great struggle, when the question of abolishing Slavery, by 
amendment of the Constitution, first began to be mooted. Fortunately for 
the honor and well-being of the country, the great object of their eminent 
author in preparing them, has been so far accomplished that by an act of the 
late Congress the first step towards such an amendment was taken. That 
amendment, however, has not yet received the ratification of the requisite 
number of the State Legislatures to constitute it a portion of the fundamental 
law of the nation. 

Besides, there are several other amendments of the Constitution set forth 
in these pages, which seem to be required by our present national exigencies, 
that are well worthy of the serious attention of the country. But, in the view 
of the committee, their chief value consists not so much in the particular 
amendments suggested, however important these may be, as in the clear, 
philosophical exposition of the nature of our fundamental law, and the en- 
lightened and statesmanlike view of the Constitution as the frame of the 
National Government. For to speak the truth, some very erroneous im- 
pressions of these, have been hitherto entertained, by people not otherwise 
ignorant, amounting even to a kind of superstition. 

And not only with regard to the origin of the Constitution have these 
false and superstitious impressions been entertained, like those of the youth- 
ful pupil referred to by Dr. Lieber, but with regard also to a peculiar and 
mysterious virtue and force, which it was supposed to embody, and through 
which the people of the United States, without regard to any higher law or 
power, were believed to be exempt as well from all the penalties of Na- 
tional unrighteousness, as from all the changes and revolutions inevitable to 
the rest of mankind. 

Doubtless, passing events, so pregnant with instruction, will do much to 
clear away this pernicious popular self-conceit and error. The thoughtful 
suggestions and views contained in the brief treatise of Dr. Lieber, as the 
committee believe, will conduce to a like end — a more enlightened and just 
understanding and appreciation of the nature and objects of the National 
Constitution, even if the amendments suggested should not be at once 
accepted. 

It is for theso reasons that they deem it of importance to give it to tho 
public. 

JAS. MoKAYE, 

CT. Fub. Com. 



AMENDMENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 



"Wlien, sliortly before secession was openly proclaimed by our 
Southern States, the writer of these pages had concluded a lec- 
ture on the Constitution of the United States, one of his hearers, 
a young man, apparently of age, asked him, with modest ingenu- 
ousness, whether he did not believe that the Constitution owed 
its origin to inspiration. The ensuing conversation elicited the 
remark on the part of the inquirer that he had grown up in the 
belief that the fundamental law of our country had been inspired, 
or " very nearly so." The youth was well educated, and the 
son of a very respectable family; yet the confusion of ideas 
which he evinced was less startling to the lecturer than it would 
have been, had the latter not been somewhat accustomed both 
to the extravagant and unhistorical exaltation of the Constitu- 
tion, and to the illogical phrase, " all but inspired" — self-contra- 
dictory words of no unfrequent use either in England or here.* 

The framers of the Constitution were probably as wise and 
resolute a set of men as ever met in high national council. 
Some of them were stamped with that greatness of mind which 
enables a man to comprehend the past, to penetrate the connec- 
tion of things where for the common eye none but detached 
though crowded details present themselves, and to divine with 
that gift which sees things unseen and belongs alike to the great 
statesman, historian, inventor, philosopher, and poet. Their 
work is full of dignity, wisdom, and sincerity ; but their greatest 
act — and, so far, the greatest act of our history — is their manly 
acknowledgment of the utter failure of the Articles of Con- 
federation, which most of them had adopted only about ten 
years before, and the glorious engrafting of a complete national 
representative government on a league which they themselves 
had deemed sufficient to answer, in the new state of things, 
the wants of the people and the growing demands of our circum- 
stances and conditions, the requisites, in fine, of our assigned 



* The writer recollects no more surprising instance of this self-contradic- 
tion, than that which he met with in one of the leading British Reviews. Paley 
was there called, " that all but inspired Paley." If an English reviewer calls Paley 
all but inspired, an American youth may be pardoned for considering the framers 
of our Constitution wholly so. 



place in the family of nations. Thej themselves loudly de- 
nounced the Articles of Confederation ; and most of those who 
had taken a leading share in the building up of our Constitu- 
tion on the ruins of the Articles, expressed a limited satisfac- 
tion with it when they recommended it to their respective 
Legislatures. The record of their debates, while framing the 
Constitution, shows that they were men as we are; and the 
debates in the several State Conventions on the adoption of the 
Constitution prove very forcibly that our forefathers considered 
the framers far from infallible.* 

The Constitution itself expresses the probability of necessary 
amendments, and far wiser than those who would ascribe match- 
less perfection to it, prescribes the systematic and lawful means 
of eflPecting them in order to prevent violent eruptions which 
needs will always take place when the enclosing and unplastic 
form is no longer able to contain the swelling life within. In the 
course of some fifteen years after the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion twelve amendments of great importance were actually 
made according to the prescribed method. Some of these were 
of a novel kind ; others iiitcorporated with the Constitution great 
principles of the English Bill of E-ights, almost looking, in their 
place among the amendments, as if they had been forgotten in 
the original framing of the great instrument. In less tlian ten 
years from the same period the Virginia and Kentucky resolu- 
tions were promulgated, and proved, at the very least, that their 
framers, among whom there were statesmen who had been 
prominent in the general convention at Philadelphia in 17ST, 
thonglit that the great Constitution was not framed with suffi- 
cient clearness, and required solemn declaratory interpretation. 
If the autiiors of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions did not 
mean this, the only alternative left would be that they intended 
to impose extra-constitutional amendments on the instrument, 
which would have been unconstitutional, and indeed revolu- 
tionary. 

All laws must change in course of time — whether they form 
the frame-work of a people's polity, or are strictly municipal 
laws, or constitute the laws of nations — laws of peace or laws of 
war ; for laws are authoritative rules of action (or rules adopted 
by common consent and usage) for living men banded, more or 
less closely, in communities, and the condition of life is change 
— change for the better or change for the worse. So long as life 
lasts so long is there change. Cessation of organic change is death. 

* A letter of Josiah Quincy, Sr., to J. A. Stevens, Jr., published in Opinions 
of Prominent Men concerning the Great Questions of the Times, New York, 1863, 
[Loyal National League] contains a remarkahle passage on the opinion entertained 
by the framers of the Constitution on tiieir own work. 

f For instance, Articles 3 and 8 of the Amendments. 



The form of laws may indeed remain the same in the statute 
book, or in a fundamental constitution ; but if the conditions 
and relations of life materially change, the force of circumstances 
renders an application of the same formula in a sense diifering 
from the original intention unavoidable, and in the practical 
use and application of a law lies its essential character as law, 
not in the verbal formula in which it was expressed, or in the 
letters of certain terms. Life will change and must change ; 
and if man does not alter the law according to the altered cir- 
cumstances, the direct and positive demand of the latter forces 
him into an avowed or hypocritical change of its application. 
Reality is sovereign and will allow no master. Montesquieu 
says, indeed, that we ought to approach the change of laws with 
a trembling hand, which may perhaps be expressed less figura- 
tively thus, that all conscious and direct change mus.t show dis- 
tinct and proportionately urgent cause why it should be resorted 
to; while Existence, without this proof of cause, is sufficient 
warrant for Continuance. This alone is wise and truthful con- 
servatism. That conservatism which consists in an unalterable 
adhesion to that which is, merely because it is — a conservatism 
which would bring ruin to every individual in his health and 
house — is revolutionary in matters of state — rebellion against 
God's great laws of life, of enlargement and elevation of our 
kind. It is as unreasonable and destructive as the thirst for 
change, simply because it is change. Both, stolid conservatism 
and arrogant aggression lead to ruin. The history of our race 
confirms this on every page. How many communities have been 
irretrievably lost, how many empires have gone down never to 
rise again, because changes were attempted when it was too 
late ; and happy, indeed, must that country he called where 
necessary and fundamental changes can take place without con- 
vulsive violence or hazardous revolutions, and whose citizens 
are sufficiently wise and candid to make these changes while 
there is yet time for them. 

Laws are in this respect like languages. That tongue would 
not be a living language which could not expand and adapt itself 
to new relations, things, and wider or minuter thoughts. The 
lexicographer who thinks that, by his dictionary, he can shut 
the gate upon his language and imprison it, and the forward and 
licentious innovator are alike presumptuous, and equally to be 
discountenanced, A law, a constitution, however important, 
remains a means, as Government and the State themselves, 
although indispensable to Man, are means to obtain things still 
higher, and the object must not be sacrificed to tlie means. 

1\\ glancing at the history of England we find that hardly fifty 
years "have elapsed at any period of that old commonwealth 



5 

without some fundamental change, the pronouncing of some 
great constitutional principle by the bench, or the passing of 
some constitutional statute. "Within the last and present ceutu- 
ries such constitutional changes have followed each other in even 
quicker succession. The decision that the King cannot levy im- 
posts on imported commodities without an Act of Parliament to 
that end, the union of Scotland with England, and the union of the 
Legislature of Ireland with that of Great Britain, the Reform Bill, 
the Habeas Corpus Act, and all the acts and decisions from the 
time of Magna Charta, which English writers exhibit when they 
desire to present to us the British Constitution, are such consti- 
tutional changes. Yet England has had her revolution ; that is 
to say, a violent struggle which arose out of the altered state of 
circumstances, and for the peaceful adjustment of which no means 
seemed to be at hand. England's life, society, and mind had 
changed ; and this civil struggle took place in spite of the fact 
that England has a purely cumulative Constitution — possibly, 
some may say, hecause it has a cumulative Constitution ; by 
which we mean that that which is called the English Constitution 
consists of the aggregate of those usages, principles, and institu- 
tions of the common law, decisions of the highest courts, and 
statutes or bills of rights as well as pacts with ruling dynasties — 
which the English consider of fundamental importance in their 
great polity, every one of which, however, may, according to 
theory, be changed or abolished by Parliament ; for Parliament, 
including in this case the King, is omnipotent, as the English po- 
litical parlance has it. 

"We, with an Enacted Constitution, that is to say, with a Con 
stitution distinctly limited and enacted by a higher authority 
than Congress and President — themselves the creatures of the 
Constitution — are not thereby freed from changes going on 
around us and within us, for the law of life and change is even 
above that national sovereignty which enacts the Constitution, 
as the law of nature and nature's changes is above the rules, be 
they ever so wise, which Man has adopted to make her adminis- 
ter to his wants. "We, with an Enacted Constitution, must make 
amendments of the Constitution itself when necessary, while the 
English may effect the change by an A.ct of Parliament, which 
is far easier, but, on that account, also occasionally more dan- 
gerous. We must take together the advantages and disadvan- 
tages of Cumulative and Enacted (or written) Constitutions, 
and use that which history has given as wisely and as best 
we can. 

Tlie framers of our Constitution were finite and imperfect 
beings ; men like ourselves, to whom the future state of our 
country was not revealed. Ilad it been revealed, no laws could 
have been framed in human language fitted alike for their 



present and our future state. And if a parliament of heavenly 
beings had decreed our Constitution, none could have been de- 
vised that could have been equally applicable to all periods to 
come. Saying that changes in our Constitution are necessary, is 
not saying that we are wiser than those who framed it, as little 
as legislators who amend an act or a charter declare themselves 
thereby superior beings to those who first enacted the law or 
charter, while such oft-repeated phrases as " the Constitution is 
good enough for me," are merely the vulgar expressions of 
short-sighted indolence or undutiful shrinking from glaring dan- 
gers. 

The axiom of mechanics, that nothing is stronger than its 
weakest point, may not wholly apply to laws and constitutions ; 
bat the lapse of so long a period, with its wear and tear, has 
revealed feeble points and flaws in the cast of our fundamental 
law which demand close attention and timely repair, lest the 
injury become irreparable. Rights and duties are inseparable 
correlatives, in whatever sphere the one or the other may exist. 
Indeed, the idea of the one implies the idea of the other. "We 
cannot imagine rights without corresponding duties, nor can we 
conceive of duties without corresponding rights ; and if the living 
have the right to frame or alter their laws, they have likewise 
the bounden duty to do so when necessary. Shall a house not 
be repaired, though it have become ever no damp, simply because 
an ancestor built it ? 

It is a remarkable fact, which the historia" will find it difficult 
to explain, unless he succeed in making himself well acquainted 
with the psychology of the Southern politics — that the strictest 
" constructionists" have acknowledged, more, probably, than 
any other Americans, that great changes are actually going on, 
and have endeavored to infuse their opinions accordingly into 
our polity, or worse than all ha^e justified armed resistance on 
the ground of such changes. 

The Constitution says nothing whatsoever concerning free or 
slave States, yet Mr. Calhoun endeavored to have the principle 
acknowledged that there ought to be, in the Senate an equal 
representation of slave and free States, after which, once estab- 
lished. States should be admitted into the Union by couples — 
one free and one slave State at a time. Not to speak of the 
great oversight that slavery itself has never been a stable insti- 
tution in our country or elsewhere, but has always melted away 
before civilization, no more radical or novel change could have 
been introduced into our Constitution, or no more extraordi- 
nary, hyper-constitutional principle could have been adopted. 

We have been told by a Chief Justice on the high bench of 
the United States, that although colored people joined in our 
struggle for independence, and although the Constitution and. 



10 



tlie early laws do not declare that the Government of the United 
States is not made for the descendant of the African, yet such 
had been the development of ideas that it must now be declared 
to be the spirit of the Constitution ; from which nnhistorical, 
hard, illogical and illegal decision, so much political cynicism 
was .soon after evolved that, besides holding the nnhistorical fact 
that the Government of the United States was established }yy 
white people alone, the illogical conclusion was also drawn, 
that, therefore, it is for white people alone.* 

It would almost appear as if the idea of a government with 
limited powers turned, in the heads of these publicists, into the 
idea of a government for a limited number; and who has ever 
heard of such a thing as a government for a class, or a limited 
number, or for one of the races living in the same country, and 
being subject to the same government? What more radical 
change of the Constitution can be imagined than the one im- 
plied in this exclusion theory ? 

Mr. Stopliens, the Vice-President of the so-called Confede- 
racy, declared, at the beginning of the Rebellion, that it could 
not be denied that the universal opinion at the time of our revo- 
lution was hostile to slavery, and that a government was estab- 
lished, into which this opinion was infused ; but that since then 
negro shivery had come to be acknowledged as a social, moral, 
and political benefit. The Southern States, therefore, were 
right to separate from the North in order to pursue a civilization 
founded on slavery. 

A distinguished writer on the history of the American Con- 



* It does not seem to occur to the proclaimer of this political axiorn that the 
Government was not establi!»lie(l by whites alone, inasmuch as blacks had the 
rin'lit to voti' in some Southern States as well as in the North, when the Conven- 
tions were elected to adopt or to reject the Constitution. But let us dismiss this 
argument — were not all the people who established the Government males of 
age, and is the trovernment, therefore, not for females, or minors ? Could not the 
Sttme argument boused with reference to the State Constitutions, and most forci- 
bly so the Constitutions of Slave States? Is, then, the slave a being out of the 
pale of all law ? Is he neither protected nor responsible? 'Ihe laws of the slave 
States contrailict tiiis. Even in the feudal age, the very period of piivilege and 
exclusiveness, was justice ever refused to a creature — even to a ro;iming gypsy — 
on the ground thai his forefathers had no hand in establishing the Government? 
Do not liie adlierents of this political extravagance see to what enormities tiieir 
theory woidd lead in the hundreds of cases in which Governments have been 
established bv conquest, conspiracy, or coup d'etat, and if they nb;»ndon the over- 
ruling ]irincij)le tluit men are inherently de-^tined and ordained to live in society, 
that Ubi Societnn ibi jua est, and that a Goveinment, no matter what its origia 
inay be, is necessary for all, and finds its right to ru!e in this jirimary necessity, 
and that this inherent necessity carries along with it even the obligation of tem- 
porary obedieiire to Governments de fnvln? Have they never reflecteil that tlieir 
theori , literally followed, would dissolve all society, or cai'ry us back to a state 
of things even worse than Asiatic despotism, under which, at least according to its 
theory, every ov» uer of rciti property is at all events a tenant at will ? 



11 

stitntioTi, declared, in an elaborate address delivered when onr 
civil troubles began, that although the people as a whole had 
adopted the Constitution, it could not be denied that the idea of 
State sovereignty had developed itself since that time, and that 
according to this idea the seceding States had a right to claim — 
we forget exactly what. He has only been mentioned as an 
additional evidence that persons of an opposite opinion to ours, 
have manifested the belief that great changes take place in 
spite of all theories regarding constitutions and their origin, 
and that those who maintain most stoutly the matchless per- 
fection of the inrtrument, have generally been given most to 
unconstitutional theories. This is a noticeable fact, to be kept 
in mind in all candid and earnest discussions on the Constitu- 
tion ; nor ought the fact to be passed over in silence, that the 
very party, which most loudly vociferated for the Constitution, 
and its friends in the ISTorth, habitually rail at the Declaration of 
Independence, sometimes as a well-meaning manifesto of vision- 
ary philanthropists in the spirit of the Utopian philosophy of the 
century, sometimes, and very veliemently, as an irreligious and 
pestiferous exhalation from an infidel period. I speak of facts, 
and might incumber my pages with many citations even of 
quite a recent date. 

Yet, while the Declaration forms no part of the Constitution, 
it will not be denied, that in some and important respects it 
maybe considered as the American Bill of Rights; and remark- 
able, indeed, would be the commentator, who, drawing upon 
the Articles of Confederation for his comments, should decline 
going one step farther and including the Declaration as one of 
the means for right interpretation. 



Has, then, our Country greatly and essentially changed since 
the adoption of our Constitution ? We believe that no country 
or people of antiquity or modern times has changed in circum- 
stances and condition, in national consciousness, and in a great 
public opinion, which is " the mother of effects," as this 
country and this people, within the last sixty years, and alter 
a great rebellion has now lasted several years. The heat 
of a civil war of such magnitude would alone be sufHcient to 
ripen thoughts and characteristics which may have been in a 
state of incipiency before ; a contest so comprehensive and so 
probing makes people abandon many things, to which they had 
clung by mere tradition without feeling their sharp reality, and 
causes them suddenly to see rugged ground or deep abysses 
where from a distant view nothing but level plains had a]> 
peared. 



12 

The extension of onr territory fi'om sea to sea, the magnitude 
of our commerce, the unparalleled growth .i>f om* population, the 
internal union and mutual necessity of all its parts, our relation 
to foreign nations, our literature, our school systems, our wealth, 
and our knowledge of far greater though undeveloped wealth ; 
the consciousness of nationality on the one hand, and the devel- 
opment, on the other, of an extravagant idea of State rights ; 
the outspoken disgust at slavery, its dangerous character here, 
and its exaltation as a blessing there — who can tell all the 
changes which have taken place, for weal or woe, within the 
last half century in this country? l^earness magnifies, but we 
have endeavored calmly to review the history of other nations, 
and we can find no instance of so great a change within so sliort 
a time, and in so many respects as ours. No w^onder, then, that 
it is believed necessary to amend in some essential points that 
law which fundamentally regulates the policy of this altered 
society. And may not the question be put, whether ever a 
society has come out of a civil war without material changes in 
its fundamental law, or whether a civil war is of itself not suf- 
ficient proof that practical changes have taken place, and re- 
quire corresponding changes in the political framework of 
society ? 

We cannot allow the confusion of ideas which ascribes the 
superior experience or wisdom generally possessed by a living 
father compared to that of his son, to be carried over to ances- 
tors and past generations, which, indeed, are with reference to 
the living ones — the younger and less experienced. There are 
doubtless ages and periods which a rare combination of circum- 
stances makes peculiarly apt for the development of certain great 
ideas and the establishment of certain institutions in one or the 
other great spheres of human action ; classical periods of taste, of 
science, of discovery, of patriotism, of freedom, of literature, and 
of religion ; and the essential progress of civilization depends, in a 
great measure, upon the cherishing and treasuring of that, which 
has thus been gained for mankind, under peculiarly favorable 
circumstances, or by great sufl^ering, for further development 
and wader culture. The age at which our forefathers framed 
the Constitution, and the state of things in America, were, in 
some respects, peculiarly propitious ; but, as it has been stated 
before, they had not the power, nor had they the right, if they 
could have had the power, to forestal the changes Avhich miglit 
become necessary in the course of this country's history, as little 
as Magna Charta has or could have forestalled the constitutional 
development of England. The living have their rights and 
duties as great and as binding as the dead had, when they were 
the livinsr. 



The question then presents itself to ns, if we have the right to 
change the Constitution, is there any necessity of altering and 
of amending it in such a manner as to adapt it to the new state 
of things ? Three facts, it would seem, sufficiently answer this 
question. The country has changed. Civil war has broken out, 
amazing both as to its magnitute and the entire absence of any 
of those causes which have produced civil wars heretofore, — no 
galling tyranny, no oppression of certain classes, no religious 
persecution or disability, no scaffold for patriotism, no expelled 
government or exiled dynasty, no hunger or other physical suf- 
fering, no disproportion of conscious power and lack of share in 
the government, no superior yet unrepresented wealth, indus- 
try, knowledge, or numbers, — nothing of all this has existed 
with us or been advanced in justification of so fearful a rebel- 
lion. And the third reason : This vast strife has already pro- 
duced, within three short years, changes which are as compre- 
hensive as they are final. Many great and elementary things 
are out of joint in our polity ; they must be re-adjusted ; new 
relations must be defined and settled, and constitutionally en- 
compassed. We cannot shirk the duty, even were we unmanly 
enough to desire it. 

If this is acknowled^^ed, the farther question is, what are the 
necessary changes ? What must be defined that has been left 
undefined by our ancestors ? What must be added ? 

We cannot discover this in a more direct way than by ascer- 
taining two things : — first, what has brought about this contest, 
unique in history ; and, secondly, of what points may it be said 
without contradiction, that the overwhelming majority of our 
people are agreed upon with the fullest, deepest national con- 
viction, as an unalterable efiect of this fiery war ? 

The rebellion has been brought about by two things — by 
Slaveey and by State Rights Doctrine — understanding by 
the latter that disjunctive doctrine according to which each por- 
tion of our country, called a State, is sovereign in the highest 
sense, — allowing us no nationality, no country, and, conse- 
quently, no J>[ational Government ; but ascribing to that which 
we call the jN'ational Government, the character, not even of a 
league, not even of a common partnership, but of a mere tempo- 
rary agreement from which any one of the partners may with- 
draw at any moment, even with greater ease than a commercial 
partnership may be dissolved, — a character which has never 
been ascribed to any confederacy in antiquity or in modern 
times, not even to the present Germanic Confederacy, which, 
nevertheless, avowedly consists of many sovereign monarchs, 
and four politically unimportant cities. 

All, without exception, acknowledge that Slavery and State- 
Eights doctrine are the causes of this rebellion, — all people of 



14 

the United States, Soutli and Nortli, whether in favor of slav- 
ery or abhorring it ; whether hugging disjunctive provincialism 
to their breasts as the most inspiring political idea, or having 
faith in the grandeur of a national destiny and necessity ap- 
pointed by Providence for his own great ends in the progress of 
our kind and the ascending path of history. 

So distinctly is slavery felt to be tlie main cause of this rebel- 
lion, and so openly is it acknowledged, that not only has it been 
claimed as the one dividing mark from the first day of fierce 
rebellion ; so that, despite of this very Stats-rights doctrine, to 
this day Kentuckians and Missourians sit in the Congress of the 
su called Confederacy, although the States of Kentucky and 
Missouri have never declared themselves for the severing of our 
country; but the very beginning of the proclamation of the 
" Congress to the People of the Confederate States," officially 
issued at the adjournment of Congress (February, 1884) is in 
these words : " Compelled by a long series of oppressive and 
tyrannical acts, culminating at last in the election of a Presi- 
dent and Vice-President by a party confessedly sectional and 
hostile to the South and her institutions, these States withdrew 
from the former Union, and formed a new Confederate 
alliance." 

" Her institutions," in the plural, means, of course, the one 
institution of slavery, for the so called "South" was character- 
ized by no other institution. ISTay, more, this institution alone 
gives a political meaning to the otherwise purely ge:)graphical 
and relative term Sjuth ; and " being hostile " to this institution 
(which, by the way, was a gross exaggeration) is called the 
culmination of a long series of oppressive and tyrannical acts. 
We may judge, then, of the dire oppressiveness and tyranny of 
these acts, when the series of their iniquity reaches its highest 
point in hostility to slavery, which in this case tapers off in the 
attenuated declaration of the President, before he was elected, 
that he was in favor of no farther extension of slavery. The 
American Tarquin, the Northern Hippias, the godless Louis XI 
of this country, the truculent Gessler of these modern days, had 
committed the unheard of enormity of expressing his opinion 
that slavery had better not be extended ; whereupon a " down- 
trodden " people must rise, break their oaths, tear their own 
history into shreds, cause torrents of blood to flow, and spread 
misery and untruth over millions and millions. 

The profound student always welcomes the plain and bold 
enunciation, especially in a documentary form, of an idea or 
theory of wide effect, whether vile or noble, and in this view 
there will be many who will acknowledge their obligation to 



16 

those who issued the latest — ^may it be the last — manifesto of 
the Hebel Congress. 

If slavery is universally felt and acknowledged to be the 
main cause of the present war, the fact is also to be observed 
that never before in all history has a single institution been 
considered possessed of equally distinguishing power; and never 
before has any institution whatever been declared so intan- 
gible by reform, as slavery is held to be by its modern defend- 
ers. The monarchial government and the republican govern- 
ment have been allowed to be freely discussed without stigma- 
tizing the advocate of the one or the other as a vile and hateful 
being. The trial by jury is considered by most of us as essential 
to our liberty, but we do not denoimce a man who declares his 
preference for other judicial methods in civil cases, as an enemy 
of mankind. So soon as slavery is acknowledged in a State, no 
matter how few slaves there may be, it is by common consent 
acknowledged as a society characteristically differing from others 
which allow no property in living human creatures. Nothing 
can show more forcibly the damaging and isolating, estranging 
and embittering character of this deplorable anachronism. 

As a third cause of the rebellion, must be stated the deep and, 
as it turned out, fevering jealousy of the South, at perceiving 
that civilization, number of population, the arts, education, the 
ships and trade, schools and churches, literature and law, manu- 
factures, agriculture, inventions, wealth, comfort and power, 
were rapidly finding their home at the North, to the great dis- 
paragement of the South, weighed down by slavery, which, 
nevertheless, the South would not recognize as an evil. All pe- 
riods of such developments or changes of power and influence 
from one portion of a country to another, or from one class to 
another, have been periods of heartburning ; but in our case the 
vaunting pride of the receding or lagging portion forbade them 
to acknowledge the cause, as has been occasionally done in other 
countries. This third cause, however, is of a psychological cha- 
racter, and not a directly political cause. It cannot be treated 
of in connection with the subject of constitutional amendments, 
although it greatly aids us in seeing the true character of 
slavery. 

As to those points on which our nation is now fully agreed, 
and which must be taken as past discussion, plainly settled and 
firmly established, all the occasional, individual, and, therefore, 
boisterous reclaimants to the contrary notwithstanding, we feel 
sure that we write calmly, as a truthful man ought to write, and 
undisturbed by the magnifying effect of that which is near and 
present, when we say they are the following : 

That we form, and ought to form, a Nation ; and that we will 
on no account allow the integrity of our country and the nation- 



16 

ality of our united people to be broken in upon, cost what it 
may : 

That a portion — a State is not superior in attributes, or the 
source of power, to the whole — the country : 

That Secession is Treason, and that this civil war is rebellion 
on the part of the seceders — no matter how those who have re- 
belled may, for the sake of humanity, have been individually 
treated ; that the adoption of the rules and usages of war in the 
contest of a rebellion implies, no-ways and in no degree, an ac- 
knowledgment of the rebellious government : 

That slavery, in a variety of corrupting and estranging ways, 
is the main cause of tliis rebellion ; that it alone distinguishes 
the " South " from the " North," otherwise perfectly homoge- 
neous portions ; that slavery, therefore, ought to be eradicated, 
and that the effects of this war have already gone far to extir- 
pate this calamitous institution, received from paganism, abol- 
ished by Christianity, renewed by fierce cupidity, and, in latter 
days, deified by professed christians : 

That it is politically impious to withhold from a race or por- 
tion of the population the common benefits for which govern- 
ments are established— ^justice and protection ; and that it is a 
fearful rebellion against God's own ends, who made man a social 
being, to say that because a certain set or class of men estab- 
lished a government, therefore, the government is for the benefit 
of those who established it alone — a theory which would justify 
the most appalling tyranny in those successful generals who 
with their hosts have often "founded governments— a theory far 
more appalling than Louis the Fourteenth's L''etat c'est moi ; 
for he acknowledged, at least, that such was the case because 
God so willed it for the benefit and protection of all :* 

That military victory, and victory alone, can now decide a 
hona fide overthrow of the opposing forces, 

Eeviewing, then, these points we shall find that amendments 
of the Constitution — at least political amendments — are chiefly 
required concerning Slavery and the nationality of our Govern- 
ment. 

The mischief and ruin produced by the vague adoption of 
potent and comprehensive terms in spheres of high^ and vast 
action or thought, have never been illustrated outside of the eccle- 
siastical dominion and persecution, so sadly and on so large a 
scale as the gradual and unauthorized introduction of the term 
sovereignty has done in the history of our country. Never 



* Developed later in the " Politics of the Bible," by Bishop Bossuet, wlio had 
been appointed instructor of the Dulie of Burgundy, heir apparent to Louis XIV., 
for whom this work was written. 



17 

before Las an erroneous theory borne more bitter fruits. Tlie 
Constitution of the United States does not contain once the word 
sovereignty, studiously omitting it after it had been used in the 
Articles of Confederation ; and only a few days ago* a notable 
member of Congress spoke, in a solemn attack on the nationality 
of our Government, repeatedly of the " local sovereignty " in 
the United States, reminding the student of history of the oath 
of fidelity which the Stadtholder, in assuming his office, was 
obliged to take separately to each " sovereign city " of Holland 
and Friesland, and in other portions of that country, whose 
glorious career was early cut short by the morbid development of 
the disjunctive and centrifugal principle, not only of State Rights, 
but of City Rights, to the extinction of the national and centri- 
petal principle. The ^Netherlands have passed through all the 
phases of State Rights doctrine long before us, but it led them 
to a change of government not to a large and protracted Civil 
War, although it plunged them into manifold disorders and civil 
heart burnings. 

The estates of Holland and West Friesland were displeased 
with the public prayers for the Prince of Orange, which some 
High Calvinistic ministers were gradually introducing, in the 
latter half of the seventeenth century, and in 1C63, a decree was 
issued ordaining to pray first of all " for their noble high mighti- 
nesses, the estates of Holland and West Friesland, as the "true 
sovereign, and only sovereign power after God, in this province; 
next, for the estates of the other provinces, their allies, and for 
all the deputies in the Assembly of the States General, and of 
the Council of State." Here is our State Rights doctrine in full 
bloom long before our theorists were born, many of whom, in- 
deed, boast of our State Rights doctrine as of something peculiarly 
American, new and beautiful. 

No one is sovereign within the polity of the United States, 
taking the term in a practical and legal meaning, and no one 
ought be sovereign. The United States are sovereign in an in- 
ternational sense ; that is, they are equal to any foreign power 
or potentate, and have no superior on earth ; while in a domestic 
sense, the people, that is the totality of the nation, have the 
sovereign power if they please to exercise it, to establish that 
government which they deem most appropriate for their circum- 
stances and most corresponding to their own convictions of rights 
and freedom ; but within the established polity of the United 
States no one, we repeat, is sovereign ; has the right to claim 
sovereignty, or the power to exercise sovereignty. We should 
not be free men if any one had. Sir Edward Coke declared in 

* February, 1864. 



18 



the House of Commons, Tvlien the Bill of Ri'srhts was under dis- 
cussion, that the Eno-Hsh law does not know the word sovereign, 
and Avell M^onld it have been for our country if it never had 
slipped into our political terminology, or, at least, had been 
properly defined. 

The old Articles of the Confederation contain indeed this pas- 
sage: 

" Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, 
and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this 
confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Con- 
gress assembled." 

Sovereignty is either used in this casepleonastically to express 
the independence which had Ijeen proclaimed by the Declaration 
of Independence, or else the framers of the Articles fell into the 
error of attempting to establish a pure confederacy or league, or 
did not knovv' how to help themselves after having severed their 
allegiance from the Crown of England, at a time when all con- 
federacies of antiquity and modern times had shown that they 
are inherently weak governments, inadequate to any one of the 
large demands of civilization, freedom and independence, and at 
a time, too, when the national polity, with whatever variety, 
had become the normal political type of the existing historic 
period. When small communal polities impede and harass each 
other, the foundation of a confederacy is a progressive step in 
political civilization. Such were the Greek confederacies, inad- 
equate as they soon proved themselves notwithstanding. Tlie 
Confederacy of the Iroquois in our country showed a higher 
political state in its members than that in which the isolated 
tribes lived ; but it is the principle which unites the confederated 
members, not the principle wliicli keeps them apart as so called 
sovereign States, that shows the progress.* 

"When the Articles of Confederation were adopted, many con- 
federacies had found already their grave; the Netherlands were 
descending; Switzerland was allowed to exist by her neighbors, 
(she has now adopted in her General Constitutio7i many important 
points of union from the American Constitution) ; and Germany 
was presenting a deplorable spectacle of weakness by her con- 
federacy of sovereign princes into which the Empire had lapsed, 
and by her doctrine of " Separatism," the term used in Germany 
in the last century for se-junctive State Rights doctrine. 

*A very intcrcsiinj^ account of tlie ('onfederacy of tlie Iroquois (wiiich 
Mr. (Jallioun nieiition^d not without approbation, on account of the veto power of 
each single chief, resenibiing the individual vetoing jiower in the ancient Polish 
Diet,) was given by Mr Henry R. Schoolcraft, in Senate Documents No. 24, J 846, 
separately uublished as Kotes on the Iroquois, <fec. ^ew Yoik: JBartlelt <fe Wel- 
ford, l!i46. 



19 

Madison, therefore, wrote to Edmund Eandolpli, prior to the 
convention of 1787, under date of April 8, of that year,* these 
memorable words : 

" I liokr it for a fundamental point, that an individual in- 
dependence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with the idea 
of an asrgregate sovereignty. I think, at the same time, that 
a consolidation of the States into one simple republic is not 
less unattainable than it would be inexpedient. Let it be 
tried, then, whether any middle ground can be taken, which 
will at once support a due supremacy of the national author- 
ity, and leave in force the local authorities so far as they cau 
be subordinately useful." 

There is not a word of that mystic local sovereignty, or sove- 
reignty of States in this plain and wise passage. 

Hamilton, who had expressed himself in the Convention very 
strongly on national sovereignty,f uses on one occasion, in the 
.Federalist^ the term " residuary sovereignty" of the States, 
which has been used in favor of the State Rights doctrine by 
several of its advocates. But Hamilton was a national man, 
and of too penetrating a mind not to see that if the retaining of 
a certain amount of power in the States, were a proof of their 
real sovereignty, the vast amount of rights which each free 
citizen retains in the case of every constitution, and for the pro- 
tection of which constitutions of free communities are chiefly 
established, would prove an originally, full, and later residuary 
sovereignty in the individual. Sovereignty is inherently an attri- 
bute of a society, or of the representing agent of society (as in 
the case of government when it represents at home the nation ; 
abroad, the independent State) ; sovereignty is not a sum total 
of many or a few fractional sovereiguties, it is the attribute of 
an organized or organizing people. 

Hamilton, moreover, on June 18, 1787, when the question 
before the Convention was : " That the Articles of Confedera- 
tion ought to be revised and amended so as to render the Gov- 
ernment of the United States adequate to the exigencies, the 
preservation and the prosperity of the Union," said, in a speech 
in which he examines the various confederacies and elective 
governments in antiquity and modern times: "The Swiss Can- 
tons have scarce any union at all, and have been more than 
once at war with one another. How, then, are all these evils 
to be avoided-? Only by such a complete sovereignty in the 



* Elliot's Debates, Ac., Vol. V., page 10*7, Fliilnd. edition of 1S59. 
I I'agLS 2ul and 212 of the volume cited in the preceding note. 



20 

general government as will tnrn all the strong principles and 
passions above mentioned on its side." 

Ere seventy-five years had elapsed from the day when these 
words were spoken, Switzerland had passed through a far graver 
civil war than was known in her history at Hamilton's time — a 
war caused by an attempted Sonderbund or separate league — 
and the United States were passing through a far graver civil 
conflict for the integrity of the country than that from which 
the Swiss had recently emerged. 

More than all this — Washington wrote to John Jay, on March 
10, 1787, these words, which it were well if they never passed 
from the memory of the American people ; " My opinion is, that 
the Country has yet to feel and see (the italicizing is by Wash- 
ington) a little more before it can be accomplished (viz. , a con- 
stitution). A thirst for power, and the bantling — I had like to 
have said the monster — sovereignty, which have taken such fast 
hold of the States individually, will, when joined by the many 
whose personal consequence in the line of State politics will in 
a manner be annihilated, form a strong phalanx against it."* 

The colonial charters were, indeed, the only patent and legal 
fashionings of our early polities, and after the Declaration of 
Independence they constituted the only lines of demarcation 
visible to the lawyer's eye, so that a confederacy such as it was 
attempted to establish under the Articles of Confederation, 
naturally suggested itself, but there were from the earliest times 
deeper causes at work which steadily led the portion of the 
Saxon race and the descendants of other European nations to 
form one nation ; and throughout the history of this people the 
tendency toward the formation of a nation, until the nationality 
is legally pronounced in the formulation which we call the Con- 
stitution, is discernible. The Constitution did not make the 
people or nation, but the framers strove or felt impelled by 
necessity to enounce it, and to establish something far higher, 
more serviceable, and more consonant with modern civilization 
than " a mere treaty, a league between States," as Madison 
called depreciatino-ly the Articles of Confederation. 

The causes which were always at work toward the formation of 
a nation were ; first, the descent of the chief settlers, for they came 
from England, the country in which the people had been organ- 
ized into a nation far earlier than in any other European coun- 
try, and which had enjoyed the manifold benefits of a national 
government, when other countries were harassed by the frag- 
m 'tary state of things derived from feudal confusion — it was 
the inherent tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race — the natural 

♦ Jay's Life, Vol. I., page 268, 



21 

effect of the very period in which they came and spread in this 
country, characterized as our modern period is by the fact that 
the national polity is its normal type of government, as the 
feudal sj'stem had been the normal type of the middle ages, or 
tlie city -republic that of free antiquity — secondly, the geography 
of our country both with reference to its being separated from 
the mother country by a wide sea, and to the unitary and inter- 
supplementing character of the country. The symptoms of 
nationality, growing distincter as our history advances, may be 
indicated thus : At no period were the inhabitants of one colony 
considered as strangers in another, and always could the citizen 
of one portion settle in another, and the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence calls the inhabitants of all the revolted colonies, Fellow- 
Citizens ; the so-called Albany Plan of Union (in 1754) — an 
unsuccessful but very palpable attempt at establishing political 
unity in this country preceded the revolution by many years ; 
in this Plan the colonies were called, as they were always styled 
in the revolution. United Colouies, until the term United States 
(derived from the ISTetherlands, which called themselves United 
States and United Provinces indifferently,) was adopted ; the 
Continental Congress, ostensibly acting under distinct powers 
and instruction, appointed Colonel Washington, in June, 1775, 
" General and Commander-in-chief of such forces as are, or shall 
be, raised for the maintenance and preservation of American 
liberty ; this Congress doth now declare that they will maintain 
and assist him ; and adhere to him, the said George Washing- 
ton, with their lives and fortunes in the same cause." This 
sounds more like a national declaration than the commission 
of a General-in-chief, and was indeed a breath breathed forth 
by the coming nationality. 

Another symptom is the remarkable fact, that this Congress 
exercised all attributes of a national government, and was 
seconded by the people, without having any distinct authority — 
it issued paper money, it raised troops by requisitions, issued 
commissions, and actually declared Independence in 1776, while 
none of the Constitutions made in 1776 and 1777, before the 
Articles of Confederation were adopted — those of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, says aught about 
the treaty-making power, or that of declaring war, so well was 
it understood that this belonged to the nation, or to the Whole, 
as the Greeks called it, and not to the parts. 

Even the Articles of Confederation indicate in many passages 
the spirit of Unionism or Nationality, and the struggle of the 
devolution was carried through by the American consciousness 
of One People alone, and not indeed by haggling petty jealousy 
of small communities, or by provincial pomposity. As to the 



22 

Declaration, of Independence it is national, from its Alpha to its 
Oraeoja ; and as to the great men of our Ilevolntion — Washing- 
ton, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, Pinclcnej — the}^ were 
national men, Grote, the historian, correctly observes, that the 
distinguished men or States of ancient Greece, were always 
greatest, or truly great, when they were Pan-Hellenic. It was 
so in our Revolution, and has been ever since so in our history. 
Has there ever been a great American that was not Pan-Ameri- 
can, that is, National-American, or who was not great becanse 
he was National- American ? National- Government was the 
name given by all onr earlier statesmen, Tliomas Jefferson in- 
cluded, to the government of the Union, and the term Country 
was freely nsed at all periods, while it may be added here, that 
it was actually made a reproach to the writer, by some state- 
rights men, that in an address which he delivered in 1851,* he 
had maintained that the Constitution had established a repre- 
sentative government over the whole. 

The feeling of the Americans has been from early times, that 
they are One People, requiring a Country, and whether they 
consciously expressed it to themselves or not, they felt, that 
Modern Civilization stands in need of Countries, having far out- 
grown the City-States of old, and the Provincial Sejunctions 
of times nearer to their own. They were conscious that socially 
they formed a nation, and that politically, they ouglit likewise 
to constitute a nation. Wisely said Hamilton:"" A nation 
without a national government is an awful spectacle ;" for, it 
presents the enfeebling pain of protracted labor, and tlie failure 
of its high mission among the civilized nations of the earth. 

Each great period in political history has its pervading typo 
of govermnent, or political dispensations, as it might be called. 
Our Ciscaucasian race has passed through many such types. 
Neither the City-State, nor the Feudal System, nor Asiatic 
Monarchy, consisting of conquests agglomerated but incoherent ; 
nor the government based on castes, nor the League, nor even 
the pure Confederacy, is the form of government characteristic 
of modern times. Our race has happily passed beyond all these. 
Be it repeated, the normal type of govermnent in our period 
of political civilization is the National Polity. Whether mo- 
narchical or republican, whether imbued with the principle 
of self-government or centralized, M'hethcr of a unitary or fede- 
ral character, the efficient government of a great nation, must 
be of the national type, and few things have been more propi- 
tious for England's welfare and her manly freedom, than that 



* It has been reprinted since several times, among others as No. "J? of this 
Society. 



23 

she adopted a national government long before tlie otlier Euro- 
pean countries gave up the fragmentary feudal system. 

The writer of these pages has given, on a former occasion, 
his views on this subject in a manner as distinct as he is able 
to express them ; he begs permission, therefore, to repeat what 
he then said : 

It is a fact or movement of the greatest significance in the 
whole history of the human race, that this great continent was 
colonized by European people, at a period when, in their por- 
tion of the globe, great nations had been formed, and the na- 
tional polity had finally become the normal type of government ; 
and it is a fact equally pregnant with momentous resuhs, that 
the northern portion of this hemisphere came to be colonized 
chiefly by men who brought along with them the seeds of self- 
government, and a living common law, instinct with the princi- 
ples of manly self-dependence and civil freedom. 

The charters under which they settled, and which divided the 
American territory into colonies, w^ere of little more importance 
than the vessels and their names in which the settlers crossed 
the Atlantic ; nor had the origin of these charters a deep mean- 
ing, nor was their source always pure. The people in this 
country always felt themselves to be one people, and unitedly 
they proclaimed and achieved their independence. The country 
as a whole was called by Washington and his compeers Amer- 
ica, for want of a more individual name. Still, there was no 
outward and legal bond between the colonies, except the Crown 
of England ; and, when our people abjured their allegiance to 
that crown, each colony stood formally for itself. The Articles 
of Confederation were adopted, by which our forefathers at- 
tempted to establish a confederacy, uniting all that felt them- 
selves to be of one nation, but were not one by outward legal 
form. It was the best united government our forefathers could 
think of, or of which, perhaps, the combination of circumstances 
admitted. Each colony came gv^ lually to be called a State, and 
called itself sovereign, although none of them had ever exercised 
any of the highest attributes of sovereignty ; nor did the States 
ever after do so. 

Wherever political societies are leagued together, be it by the 
frail bonds of a pure confederacy, or by the consciousness of the 
people that they are intrinsically one people, and form one 
nation, without, however, a positive National Government, then 
the most powerful of these ill-united portions must needs rule ; 
and, as always more than one portion wishes to be the leader 
intestine struggles ensue in all such incoherent governments. It 
has been so in antiquity ; it has been so in the middle ages ; it 
has been so, and is so in modern times. Athens and Sparta, 



21 

Castile and Aragon, Austria and Prussia, are always jealous 
companions, readily turned into bitter enemies. Those of our 
forefathers who later became the framers of our Constitution, 
saw this approaching evil, and they observed many other ills 
which had already overtaken the confederacy. Even "Washing- 
ton, the strong and tenacious patriot, nearly desponded. It was 
a dark period in our history ; and it was then that our fathers 
most boldly, yet most considerately, performed the greatest act 
that our annals record — they engrafted a national, complete, and 
representative government on our insufficient confederacy ; a 
government with an exclusively national executive, in which 
the Senate, though still representing the States as States, be- 
came nationalized in a great measure, and in which the House 
of Representatives became purely National like the Executive. 
Virginia, which, under the Articles of Confederation, was ap- 
proaching the leadership over all (in the actual assumption of 
which she would have been resisted by other rapidly grow- 
ing States, which would inevitably have led to our Peloponne- 
sian war) — Virginia was now represented according to her pop- 
ulation, like every other portion of the country ; not as a unit, 
but by a number of representatives who were bound to vote in- 
dividually, according to their consciences, as national men. The 
danger of internal struggle and provincial bitterness seemed to 
have passed, and our country now fairly entered as an equal 
among the leading nations, in the course where nations, like 
Olympic chariot-horses, draw abreast the car of civilization. "We 
advanced rapidly ; the task assigned to us by Providence was 
performed with a rapidity which had not been knoAvn before ; 
for we had a National Goverument commensurate to our land 
and, it seemed, adequate to our destiny. — So far our former pas- 
sage, 

1 et, the peaceful history of our country, calling, compara- 
tively speaking, but rarely, for energetic action of the National 
Government ; the universally observed tendency of the swelling 
and even arrogating importance of the minor or local powers 
when the uniting authority is weak or rarely called into action ; 
the constant and, it is feared, occasionally willful confusion of 
a national authority with centralization,.^ and even with despot- 
ism, (as if there were no such thing as local absolutism and local 
oppression !) and, on the other hand, the confusion of self-gov- 
ernment (the very pride and honor of our race) with sovereignty ; 
the ultimate, open, and total denial that we form a nation, and 
have a country,'' accompanied by a tendency of some of our 

* It was sfoutly maintained by tlie Nullifiera that we have no countrj- and 
ou^lit to have niine; that the absence of a name for our country was not an 
accident, but that the fact of oi"" having a name, which simply indicates a political 



25 

most gifted men to consider the weakening and the lowering 
of the National Government almost an object of patriotism, — 
all these tendencies, almost always accompanied by a tendency to 
render the State governments as centralized and absolute within 
the boundary of each separate State as possible, ultimately led 
to that theory of State Rights which proclaimed the loosest 
League the choicest of politics, if polity, indeed, it can be called, 
and which has brought this country to the strait in which we 
now find it.* 



system, was evidence of our having no country, and that if the term Nation could 
be used at all in the United States, it must apply to the united people of each sin- 
gle State. The nation of South Carolina was frequently spoken of in the times of 
nullification, and again, in the year 1850, when an attempt at separate secession 
was made. The writer was denounced as abominably national, while Wm. C. 
Preston called out to him significantly, when he first saw the writer after it had 
been decided, in 1850, that S, C. would not secede — We have a country yet I 

* A candid opponent of the National Government cannot assert that there ever 
was a tendency toward centralization, so often denounced, observable in Cono-ress. 
What has been actually observable, at one period, was the tendency of a portion 
of Americans toward democratic absolutism at the time when General Jackson 
was called the Tribune of the people, and high-handed measures were asked at his 
hands by|that portion of the people -.but this portion consisted of so-called State Rights 
Men. The confusion of a National Government with Centralization is so wilfully and 
unfairly persisted in, and has formed so prominent a characteristic of Nullifiers, State 
Rights Men, and Secessionists, and is so illogical withal, that it may be well to say 
a few words on this subject, even though it be but in a confined note. The Cen- 
tralist desires a government which unites all Power, unchecked by any institutions 
of self-government, and undivided into co-ordinate independent branches of gov- 
ernment. Centralization may be, and frequently is democratic, as well as mon- 
archical. Indeed all democratic absolutism has a direct and swift tendency toward 
monarchical centralism. France and Napoleon I. furnish us with a modern illustra- 
tion. The Federalist (not taking the term as a party name) considers a confedera- 
tion of independent or nearly independent States the best government. When 
France exhibited absorbing centralism more and more, since the times of Richelieu 
and Louis XIV., many political philosophers thought they discovered safety in the 
opposite — in federalism. Lord Brougham, generally admitted to be the author of the 
" Political Philosophy," published in 3 vols., by the Society for the Diffusion of Use- 
ful Knowledge, goes so far as to praise even the organization of the former German 
Empire ! The Nationalist believes in the necessity of national or unitary govern- 
ment, as opposed to the mere States General or Diet of a League, such as the pres- 
ent Diet at Frankfort is, or as the Diet of the Swiss Confederacy used to be. But 
a national government may be a centralism, as the French is, or a government with 
many institutions of liberty and self government, as the English ; it may be mon- 
archical, or republican, as ours is and is intended to ho. A general government need 
not be on that account a national government, which requires a nation, and must 
extend with uniformity over the whole. The ancient Asiatic governments were 
general governments ever vast Empires, but there was no Persian or Assyrian 
nation. It shows either jgiiOrance or a perversion of mind to confound nationalism 
with centralism ; and I am NUstained by fact and history, when I say, in the text, 
that those American statesmen Oi partisans who most assailed the National Gov- 
ernment, and who pretended, and actualiy continue to pretend, that they are fight- 
ing for liberty when they attack the NatioiiXl Government and declare it to be a 
mere agent; that those American statesmen wiio were always bemoaning the 



26 

How, then, are the American people to declare and settle for- 
ever, b}^ their fundamental law, that they will not admit of this 
calamitous sort of State Sovereignty? That they know that 
modern civilization stands in need of countries^ and that neither 
City, nor Province, nor Petty Dominion, is sufficient for the 
modern ^ai^na. The Constitution cannot enter into a discus- 
sion, and if it did, it would be of no eifect. 

It is believed that the question can be approached in two dis- 
tinct practical ways, namely, through the subject of allegiance, 
and by the definition of treason. 

Allegiance is that feeling of pride and adhesion, and that 
faithful devotion to a person's nation which every generous man 
is conscious of owing to his country — cast into the highest obli- 
gation of obedience to the highest agent, politically representing 
tne country or the nation. This definition is given with a 
perfect recollection of Blackstone's definition to the contrary, 
and of the fact that acts of Parliament have declared that Alle- 
giance is due to the person of the King and not to the crown, 
which latter theory is " damnable."* English history suffi- 
ciently proves that, despite of the law books, allegiance is essen- 
tially due to the crown, that is, to the country, and not " due 
by nature to the person of the King." How else could it be 
apparently transferred by a convention or revolution from one 
monarch to another person wearing the same crown, which 
means, of course, the representation of the country ? The rela- 
tion of a son to a father is a natural one, but no act of Parlia- 
ment can unfather a father. 



"centralization," the "tyranny," the "despotism" of the "General Government," 
were all of them, so far as I can recollect, men who worked to concentiate within 
their reepective States, all power in the Legislature — the only body dfl'ering itself 
in this country, and at the time, for ceiitralism. The whole idea whicii tiify have 
of Liberty is tlie barren idea of opposition to the General Government, 'lliere were 
highly distinguished men among them, yet all of them fell into the vulgar error of 
considering liberty to consist in negativism. As to the National Government itself, 
it was treated by the school of States-llights Men as if it had been erected for the 
sole purpose of being degraded in every possible way — as if it were some un- 
sightly fence or wall run up at the outskirts of tiie town, seemingly erected for no 
purpose but to be defaced with caricatures and grotesque placards of the in- 
vading bill-sticker. 

*The Act called E.xilium Ilugonis do Spencer Patris et Filii, and the repeals 
and re-repeals of acts concerning allrgiance, with much that interests the pub- 
licist and jurist, can be found in the Tryal of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, Before 
the House of Peers, &e., &c. London, 1710. 

The fact that Allegiance is inlierently national, all Acts and definitions to the 
contrary notwithstanding, and that history ]iroves this to bo so, is treated of 
at some length in Political Ethics, Boston, I808. 



27 

That phase of State Rights doctrine, which acknowledged, at 
one and the same time, the sovereignty of the States and the sove- 
reignty of the United States, admitted likewise of two allegiances 
— a contradiction in terms. A double allegiance would be a 
fearful see-saw for a conscientious citizen, and worse than the 
allegiance of the feudal times, which was a graduated allegiance, 
but not a double or multiplied one. We cannot faithfully serve 
two masters. We owe, indeed, obedience to the State Govern- 
ment, but so we owe obedience to many persons, laws and insti- 
tutions without its amounting to allegiance. The so called 
double allegiance savors of the barbarous, and now extinct 
petty treason which the wife could commit in England against 
her husband, making him a sub-sovereign, to whom the wife 
owed sub-allegiance. Are such barbaric confusions of ideas to 
be repeated with us ? 

The inherent inconsistency of a double allegiance has always 
shown itself as soon as stern and testing cases have presented 
themselves — practical cases which call for actions and not only 
for apparent symmetry of verl)al positions ; while the other 
phase of the State Kights doctrine, which declared the States 
honafide and exclusive sovereigns, leaving to the National Gov- 
ernment the mere character of an attorney, with certain powers 
to be taken back at any momcmt by the party for whom the 
attorney acts, has led to the direst acts of dishonor and dis- 
honesty. 

Joseph T. Jackson, who died, as General of the so called 
Confederacy, with the soldierly name of honor and afi'ection, 
Stonewall Jackson, seems to have been a man of singular 
directness of mind and purpose. He had all along believed in 
a double allegiance, but when the testing hour arrived, calling 
for decision, and showing the impossibility of two allegiances, 
his night-long prayer to be enlightened in his grievous perplex- 
ity showed that we cannot have two sovereigns. For one of 
the two he must decide, and he decided in favor of State allegi- 
ance, doubtless convinced for the rest of his life, that an honest 
acknowledgment of two allegiances is a matter of impossibility 
for an earnest man. Jackson was a Yirginian, and there, on 
the same soil where he wrestled in prayer, another and a greater 
Virginian had uttered, long before him, those memorable words : 
" All America is thrown into one mass — where are your land- 
marks, your boundaries of colonies ? They are all thrown down. 
The distinctions between Yirginians, Pennsylvanians, New 
Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more ; I am not a Yir- 
ginian, but an American." Had these words of Patrick Henry 
never touched a chord in Jackson's heart, or at least showed him 
that two sovereigns being impossible, the question must be 



28 

whether the one of the parties, called the conntry, or the United 
State?, had not rights too, and greater ones than Virginia ? and 
had he never asked himself what orio-inal cause made Virginia 
so great and so exclusive a sovereign, and whether it had evei 
acted as real sovereign ? 

On the other hand, men who believed, or pretended to believe 
in State Sovereignty alone, when Secession broke out, went 
over with men and ships, abandoning the flag to which they 
had sworn fidelity ; thus showing that all along they had 
served the United States like Swiss hirelings, and not as citi- 
zens, in their military service. They did more ; not only did 
they desert the service of the United States, on the ground that 
their own individual States, to whom they owed allegiance, had 
declared themselves out of the Union, but in many cases they 
took with them, or attempted to take with them the men who 
owed no such allegiance, being either foreigners or natives of 
other American States. In other cases they actually called 
publicly on their former comrades to be equally faithless, and 
desert with their ships or troops. The Swiss mercenaries used 
to act more nobly. Once having sold their services, and having 
taken the oath of fidelity, they used to remain faithful unto 
death, as they did on many a battle-field, and through long 
periods of history down to the revolution which dethroned 
Charles the Tenth of France. 

The reader will find, at the end of this paper, in the amend- 
ments marked A and B, how it is proposed to provide consti- 
tutionally for a national expression on the necessity of the 
integrity of our country, on allegiance, the treasonable character 
of elevating so-called State sovereignty above the National Gov- 
ernment, and for the extinction of the Dred Scott principle. 

The easy life, which, in the course of history had been our lot, 
until the civil war burst upon us, engendered a general spirit of 
levity with reference to matters of government and laws, of 
which some persons predicted those calamitous consequences 
which have now befallen us. A trifling spirit is one of the 
greatest evils which can beset a nation. Levity has been the 
spirit of too many sad periods of sacred and profane, of early 
and recent history, from which peoples are rescued, if rescued at 
all, by searching punishments only, that we should oppose to 
these grave lessons the callous disregard of unimpressionable 
minds. " He that will not hear must feel," holds good in the 
school of life and nalions, as in the schools of children. It is 
suggested, therefore, to the reader, whether an amendment such 
as is marked C may oot be requisite. God admits of no favorites 
in history, and things will bear the same consequences with us 
that they have produced with others. Let us gravely treat 



29 

grave things, and not pass over serious evils with self-deceiving 
yet empty words. No honest physician does it ; no serious 
statesman can do it ; no citizen who sincerely believes in the 
greatness of his country's mission can do it. 

Regarding slavery, little is to be added here. It is past dis- 
cussion. The wide history of our whole race and the thousands 
of laws settle it, and the rapid course of events in our own 
three pregnant years has settled it. We, who know that negro 
slavery originated in unhallowed greed, braving at last the 
long resisting better opinion of the governments, at the very 
time when Europe had at length succeeded in eliminating 
slavery from her soil ; we who believe that slavery is hostile to 
true civilization and to the longevity of nations, itself a requisite 
of high modern civilization; we who know that slavery has 
always been at best a deciduous institution, and that it has 
always proved itself a cancer wherever communities have ne- 
glected to extinguish it so soon as the humanizing system of 
wages, which acknowledges that the laborer is worthy of his 
hire, offers itself — we cannot be expected to allow this malignant 
virus to poison our system for ever. 

We who have found, to our bitter cost, how perverting and 
estranging in statesmanship and morals the character of this 
institution is among people who call themselves Christians, so 
that slavery, and slavery alone, divided, for them, the country, 
the population, the parties, and their aims and views into two 
portions, pretended to be more distinct than ever language or 
religion have divided portions of mankind from one another; 
we who know from law and history, old and new, and from our 
Constitution, how futile is the attempt to combine the idea and 
characteristics of humanity or a person with those of a thing 
that can be sold and bought ; we who have learned how bewilder- 
ing a curse slavery becomes when rebelliously uj)held against 
experience, against the opinion of nearly all men, and the prin- 
ciples of Christianity, which throughout the existence of the 
Christian Church from its earliest days have steadily wrought 
the emancipation of the bond — we cannot perpetuate this thing 
when a rebellion raised for the very purpose of extending and 
perpetuating it gives us the opportunity of extinguishing it for- 
ever. 

We, who remember that we are bidden to " honor all men," 
and believe that an auction table on which families are sundered 
by the hammer of an auctioneer, albeit that he is white, and 
that the big tears of the victims roll down on dark cheeks, is 
not an acceptable sight to a God, merciful and holy ; we, who 
believe that comparing the relations subsisting between children 



and parents, or citizens and their governments, with the rela- 
tion of slavery is hypocrisy, insulting him to whom the argu- 
ment is addressed, because supposing him to be possessed of the 
lowest understanding ; we who think that justifying slavery on 
the ground that other classes in other countries are suffering 
from want or oppression, or that prostitution, too, is a wide 
spread evil, which will not be abolished for centuries to come, 
is imworthj of any upright man, because no one has ever pre- 
tended to raise pauperism or prostitution to the dignity of an 
unapproachable institution, nor called them of divine origin — 
we certainly must do away with this arch-mischief as soon as 
may be. 

We who believe that there is no logical link between " the in- 
feriority of the negro race" and the consequent necessity of enslav- 
ing it, any more than stupidity in a white man would " entitle 
him to slavery ;"* who believe that it is a heaven-crying iniquity 
belonging exclusively to our age and our country, to maintain 
that "• Capital is by nature entitled to own Labor," asserted at the 
very age which justly prides itself on the dignity of labor and its 
wedlock with science ; we wlio feel ashamed that the Sclavonic 
race should have outstripped ours in the broad emancipation of the 
serfs in the Eastern dominion, corresponding in vastness to our 
Western empire, where saddening willfulness declared, at the 
same period, that a new mansion of civilization should be reared 
on the corner-stone of Slavery, and that Slavery is a " moral, 
political, and economical benefit," while we know it to be a 
moral, political, and economical evil and bane, and while we 
know that, in our country, it has always been in reciprocal con- 
nection with the " State Kights doctrine," acting upon one 
another as cause and effect ; we who know that the framers of 
our Constitution considered Slav^ery an evil which would soon 
die out — which was inconsistent with their Declaration of Inde- 
pendence — and which they felt ashamed to mention in the Con- 
stitution when they were forced to touch upon it : Ave claim it 
as a right to mention now, for the first time, the word Slavery 
in the Constitution, in order to abolish it. 

We who know that Matrimony, the Family, and Property 
have been acknowledged from the earliest periods of our race as 
the very elements of civil society and starting points of civiliza- 
tion ; so much so that ancient and modern heathens deified those 
benefactors who " introduced Matrimony and Property ;" and 
that Slavery makes war upon these elements of humanity; we 
who know that it was the settled purpose of the slave-owiiers to 



* These are the sarcastic words of Henry Clay. 



31 

re-establish Slavery in the IJ^orth ; we who witness daily that 
solemn and symbolic act in onr country's history, of black resji- 
ments marching along onr streets to their embarcation for the 
Southern battle-fields, and legion after legion of armed negroes 
receiving onr own starry standard at the hands of onr own 
patriotic women ; we, of course, must be expected to do our 
utmost that Slavery be forever abolished in onr land, and that 
its fundamental law shall put its seal on the perpetuity of this 
retarded act of justice, reason, right, and wisdom. 

The amendment marhed E, in the Appendix, will show the 
reader how we think that the requisite amendment might best 
be worded. 

If Slavery is abolished in the United States, it will be neces- 
sary to amend that portion of the Constitution which establishes 
the basis of Representation. At present three-fifths of the slave 
population are added to the number of free persons, in order to 
makeup the number of persons entitled to a proportionate num- 
ber of Representatives in Congress. If, then. Slavery is abol- 
ished, the number of two-fifths of the present slave population 
would be added to the number to be represented in Congress, 
without giving them the right to vote for the Representative. 
The few white citizens who have been in rebellion would, there- 
fore, gain by the extinction of Slavery, so far as the number of 
Representatives is concerned. The latter portion of amend- 
ment E, therefore, is necessary.* It will be observed that the 
words used in this portion of the amendment have been taken, as 
far as it was feasible, from the Constitution itself, Article I, 
section 2, paragraphs 1 and 3. 

There are other amendments which either seem to be desired 
by most Americans, or have been pronounced desirable by some 
of our greatest statesmen, or else, which appear to us highly 
desirable on yjractical grounds, such as the extension of the 
presidential term to six years, and not allo\ving a second elec- 
tion, or of giving to the President the authority of vetoing single 
items of the appropriation bills, without thereby vetoing the 
whole — a change highly desirable, it seems, in the advanced 
state of our country, with its large, manifold, and tempting 
appropriations. So may the paragraph of section 9 of the Con- 
stitutiun, wliich begins : " No capitation or other direct tax," re- 
quire an amendment making it clearer, or else it may be found 



* The reasons, which have led the writer to the proposition of this amend- 
ment, have since been published in a letter to Seuator E. D. Moigan — No. 79 
of the tracts of this Society. 



32 

advisable to omit it altogether. It may be wise to consider the 
propriety of constitutionally declaring polygamy a crime (includ- 
ing polyandry, for what does not happen in our days !) Those 
who, like ourselves, believe the presence of Cabinet Ministers in 
either House of Congress of great importance, and who, never- 
theless, think that the spirit of the present Constitution forbids 
it — in which we do not agree with them — will deem it necessary 
to provide for the presence of the Ministers by some amend- 
ment. 

We restrict our proposed amendments, however, to those great 
points which present themselves with painful clearness in the 
present contest of the American people. 

As to the Amendment F, it will suffice to state that that 
which is proposed to be established by it exists, we believe, in 
every other country and its colonies, even in Spanish Colonies, 
where slavery continues. 

According to the law or usage as it now stands, colored people 
may freely testify in the Courts of the United States in some 
States, in others they cannot testify against or for a white man ; 
but they may in actions or trials of colored people ; yet if they 
do so, it cannot be done on oath, as though the color of a man 
invalidated the binding power of the oath, and as if evidence 
thus acknowledged to be weak and not to be relied upon, was, 
nevertheless, good enough to decide on property or life and death 
of a colored person! And all this exists in a system of adjudi- 
cation and trial in which Things and Circumstances are allowed 
as evidence, whose proving efficacy is to be weighed by judge 
and jury. It indicates a confusion of the ideas of truth and fact, 
and the means of establishing them — of the absolute character of 
facts and the importance of the person who establishes it, or with 
reference to whom it is established, according to which the 
questions concerning a mathematical problem were not whether 
it is proved, but whether a Frenchman or a German had proved 
it — a commoner or a nobleman. "We are involuntarily reminded 
of the barbarous age described by the great Bishop, Gregory of 
Tours, who tells* us that in his time persons of a vile condition 
were obliged to take successively more oaths, each on a different 
relic, to substantiate the same fact, than persons of a better 
condition ; and that, on the other hand, more witnesses were 
required to prove an offence against personages, as their rank 
was higher, so that it took between twenty and thirt,y witnesses 
to prove an offence against a Cardinal, and we forget how many 
to substantiate an accusation of misconduct against a Queen. In 
much later, yet still half barbarous times, Jews, whose treatment 

*In hia Historia Fraucorum. 



33 

in the middle ages resembles much the treatment which the ne- 
groes have received at our hands, were not allowed, in some 
countries, to testify against Christians, while in others, two or 
three, or still more, Jewish testimonies were requisite to be 
equivalent to one Christian testimony, and the same was 
repeated with reference to natives in portions of Asia which had 
been colonized by Europeans. The " History of Human Folly," 
if that work is complete in any degree, must have a large chapter 
on the laws and rules of evidence to which men have resorted ;* 
but shall we continue them? 

If it be objected that this abuse might be remedied by an Act 
of Congress, and does not require an amendment of the Consti- 
tution, we would reply that so startling a corruption of the rules 
of evidence ought not only to be remedied by law, but had better 
be placed beyond the possibility of relapse, and deserves to receive 
in a period of reform the stamp of the nation's moral conscious- 
ness, and the nation's constitutional frown. 

In this latter respect Amendment G resembles the proposed 
umendment marked F. The Foreign Slave Trade is declared 
piracy by Act of Congress, but a person who had been Judge 
declared in open Court in the city of New York, in 1860, 
when certain persons were tried for having been engaged in 
the African Slave Trade, that the law was, in fact, as the 
District Attorney had stated it, but that the universal opin- 
ion of the people regarding the criminality of the act had 
materially changed. On the other hand, the opinion had 
spread far and wide in the South, before secession broke out, 
that the Act was unconstitutional f ; while a District Judgo 
of the United States declared on the bench, in Charleston, in 
1860,:j: after the nefarious traffic in negroes had actually been 

*In most countries, whose law is fonnded on the Roman Law, the rule 
used to prevail tiiat two strong suspicions were equivalent to one positive testi- 
mony, or, that strong suspicion incurred one-half of tlie penalty incurred by the 
offence substantiated by proof positive. But these times are past ; jurists feel 
ashamed of them. 

f This opinion had become so prevalent, or was at least so generally ad 
vanced, that Wade Hampton, Esq. — now, unfortunately, as General of Cavalry, 
in arms against what he then considered his own honored flag — delivered a speech 
on " the Constitutionality of the Slave Trade Laws," in the Senate of South Caro- 
lina, December 10th, 1859, and his friends distributed it widely under this title. 
It was published in Columbia, S. C, 1860. 

J This opinion of Judge Magratb, one of the early seceders, and re- 
appointed Jnilge by seceded South Carolina, is given at length in a pampldet, now 
very rare. The opinion has probably never been regularly reported, and the full 
title of the tract may be acceptable to the readers of the law profession ; it is 
"The Slave Trade not declared Piracy by the Act of 1820. — The Unitid States vs. 
Wm. C. Corrie Pi'esentment for Piracy. Opinion of the Hon. A. G. Magrath, 
District Judge in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of SoutJi 
Carolina upon a motion for leave to enter a Nol, Pros, in the case. James Conner, 
District Attorney, A, H. Brown, F. D. Richardson, W. D. Porter, defendant's Coun- 



34 

resumed, that the slave trade had not been declared piracy by 
the Act of 1 820. Under such circumstances, honest and earnest 
citizens will think it advisable to engrave as indelibly on our 
Twelve Tables, as we are able to do, the peo]3le's conviction con- 
cerning so dark an international crime, and their will concern- 
ing its possible recurrence. It is, indeed, one of the essential 
rules of wise government, not to forestall development by fret- 
ful or conceited details in the fundamental laws ; but it is also 
one of the highest duties of civic uprightness to settle doubts and 
stabilitate rights which have been shaken, concerning the ele- 
ments of polities, and to prevent the consummation of dangers, 
drawino; nigh in threatenino- clouds. 

No person who remembers the open declaration of helpless- 
ness in the Report of the Attorney- General of the United States 
to President Buchanan, confessing that what then was perpetrated 
in the South was treason, indeed, but that the President had no 
power to protect the United States, will judge Amendment D 
unnecessary. The ancient Romans were said to have omitted 
providing for the punishment of parricide, because so monstrous 
ji deed had not occurred to their minds. Our forefathers omit- 
ted to provide for the place of the trial of treason and rebellion, 
when, apparently at least, a whole community commits it. The 
dark deed did not occur to their minds, and it is thus our duty 
to remedy the omission. 

In view, then, of all the foregoing remarks, and in solemn re- 



Bel. Charleston, 1S60." The case is The United States vs. "William C. CoriLe, 
April Term, 1860. 

The preface of this pamphlet will interest every lawyer. It is here given, there- 
fore, in full : 

" The principles discussed in the opinion of the Court, in the case of the UniteiJ 
States vs. William C. Corrie, have been considered by many persons of that im- 
portance which required that they should be preserved ia a form more perma- 
uent than tlie columns of our daily pnpers. 

"These principles are (1.) That the Act of Cons;ress of the 15th May, 1820, 
entitled "An Act to continue in force an Act to protect the commerce of the 
United States, and punish the crime for piracy, and also to make further provi- 
sion for punishing the crime of piracy," is not any part of the laws of the United 
States passed for the suppression of the slave trade ; but relates to the specific 
offences which it enumerates ; and these specific offences have not been, and are 
not to be, confounded with the slave trade. (2.) That in the trial of all crimes 
and oflences against the laws of the United States, the ]>lace or places for trial 
are, and nmst have been, ascertained by law; and no power can be admitted to 
interfere with the trial at such place or places. Tlie right of the accused to be 
tried at such ascertained ]ilaee or places is secured by the Constitution of the 
United States. (8.) That in the United States, the riglit of a Court to take cogni- 
zance ofacrimeor offence, must be found in the law; and to the law which creates 
an office, and prescribes the duties of an officer, is his responsibility to be referied 
in all ca-fes. 

"Tlie ability, research, and luminous discussion of piincijile by which this opinior 
is characterized, will recommend it to the careful perusal of all who take an • 
terest in questions wliich touclr the rights and liberties of the citizen." 



35 

flection on the needs of our nation, and on the degeneracy which 
slavery has wrought in the South, and on the pertinacity with 
which some persons continue to brave the deep conviction of our 
race, and on the patent effects of this trying and sanguinary 
struggle, we now respectfully submit the followiug amendments 
to the consideration of the American people. Doubtless, a far 
better instrument might be devised, if men of the stamj) of the 
Framers, with their boldness and their circumspection, and with 
the addition of all our experience, could meet in a constituent 
convention, and revise the whole fundamental law. This cannot 
be done ; the confidence of the whole nation cannot be obtained 
at a period like this. Neither times nor men would be propi- 
tious for so comprehensive a work of so exalted a character. Too 
many theories have seized on the minds of men, and the present 
period is plainly not favorable to the creation of a new constitu- 
tion. The many State constitutions of recent date do not show 
a general j)rogressive improvement in this respect. Let us build 
additions to the mansion we dwell in, though perfect symmetry 
may not be obtained. Indeed, very few periods in the course of 
history can be called propitious for so great a work, but the ne- 
cessity of certain amendments is there ; it is pressing upon us. 
We propose nothing of a speculative meaning. We propose 
measures of a direct and urgent practical character, and for these 
the times appear as fit as the call for them is direct and begins 
f;o be loud. The irons have been heated in the forge of civil 
war; let us have them on the anvil while it is time yet to 
Fashion them with eai-nest and with skillful blow in the smithy 
of the Constitution. 

John Ilampdcn's motto was : Yestigia nulla retrorsum. So 
let it be ours in this momentous time. J^o step backward, but 
on, on — in the field, and in the senate; in our aims, in our 
acts — in our national rights and duties, calling and justice — 
in all the work before us and around us.* 

* At the very moment -when the pen was laid down, after reading the proof of 
this last line, a hastily written letter was received from a prominent citizen of 
North Carolina and former planter of extensive possessions. The letter is dated 
on the memorable day when Richmond fell, and contains this following passage, 
which reads like a response to the concluding lines of this paper: 

" By all that is sacred, prevail upon the leading men of the country to urge the 
States to the adoption of the Amendment, and thereby place beyond cavil the 
abolition of slavery. If they have any love for their Southern brethren, ratify 
the Act of Congress, and destroy the lingering hope that many still have of the 
perpetuation of slaverj', and which is now preventing thousands from striving 
with manly hands and hearts for an honest and comfortable living. I am strongly 
— overwhelmingly — convinced by contact with 'the people' that they are ready 
and willing for it. In fact, the act completed will bring rejoicing, but so long as 
there is hope, uncertainty and inactivity will reign. The abolition of slavery by 
the constitutional ratification of the States, will strengthen the Union cause in 
North Carolina and Virginia, the present battle grounds of the rebels. The gambler, 
standing over the ganjing table, watches the turn of the cards so long as he has one 
dollar invested : destroy the game and he will cast about for a living by other means." 



PROPOSED AMENDMENTS. 

" Articles in Addition to, and Amendments of the Constitution 
of the United States of AmeHca." 

(Amendment A.) 

Article XIII. — Every native of this Country, except 
the sons of aliens whom the law may exempt, and In- 
dians not taxed; and every naturalized citizen, owes 
plenary Allegiance to the Government of the United 
States, and is entitled to and shall receive, its full pro- 
tection at home and abroad. 

(Amendment B.) 

Article XIV. — Article III, section 3, first paragraph 
of the Constitution, shall be amended, so that it shall read 
as follows : , 

Treason against the United States shall consist only in 
levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, 
giving them aid and comfort, or in assisting them in forc- 
ible attempts to separate from the United States any State, 
territories or unorganized districts, or any parts thereof; 
or in applying to foreign governments, or people, for 



37 

aid or support, whether such separation, or resistance 
to the United States for the purpose of separation, be 
intended or is already carried out for the time being. 

No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the 
testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or to 
the same positive act, (where the treason consists in 
applying to foreign states or people), or on confession in 
open Court. 

(Amendment O.) 

Article XV. — It shall be a high crime directly to 
incite to armed resistance to the authority of the United 
States, or to establish or to join Societies or Combin- 
ations, secret or public, the object of which is to offer 
armed resistance to the authority of the United States, 
or to prepare for the same by collecting arms, organizing 
men, or otherwise. No person shall be convicted of this 
crime unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the 
same act, or on confession in open Court, and Congress 
shall declare the punishment of this crime. 



(Amendment D.) 

Article XVI. — Trials for Treason shall take place in 
the State or district in which the crime shall have been 
committed, unless the administration of Justice shall be 
interrupted or impeded at the time by rebellion or war. 
Congress shall provide by law that trials for treason 



38 



shall be held in places where Justice may be adminis- 
tered without hindrance. 

(Amendment E.) 

Article XVII. — Slavery shall be forever abolished, 
after the day of the year , in this country, 

the States, Territories, unorganized districts, or any 
parts or places thereof — and shall never be re-estab- 
lished under whatever form or by whatever authority ; 
and all persons who are now or shall hereafter come and 
be within the limits and protection of the United States 
shall be 'ileemed free, all claims of foreign persons or 
powers, whether at war or in amity with the United 
States, to the contrary notwithstanding. 

Representatives shall be apportioned among the 
several States which may be included within this Union, 
according to the respective number of male citizens of age 
having the qualifications requisite for electing members 
of the most numerous branch of the respective State 
Legislatures, The enumeration of said citizens shall be 
made by each census of the United States. 

(Amendment F.) 

Article XVIII. — Knowingly taking part in any Slave- 
trade, directly or indirectly, shall remain piracy, and shall 
be punishable accordingly. 

Holding a person as a slave or in involuntary servitude, 
(except by authority for crimes duly proved), selling or 



39 

buyiug a human being, abducting a human being for the 
sake of selling him or holding him as a slave, and aiding 
in taking human beings from one place to another, 
whether within this Country or beyond its limits, for the 
purpose of selling them, shall be high crimes, and pun- 
ishable with death or otherwise, as may be directed by 
Acts of Congress. 

(Amendment G.) 

The free inhabitants of each of the States, Territories, 
Districts, or places within the limits of the United 
States, either born free within the same or born in slav- 
ery within the same and since made or declared free, 
and all other inhabitants who are duly naturalized 
according to the laws of the United States, shall be 
deemed citizens of the United States, and without any 
exception of color, race, or origin, shall be entitled to 
the privileges of citizens, as well in Courts of Jurisdiction 
as elsewhere. 



i 



LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
863 BROADWAY. 

JVo, 84. 

AN ENGLISHMAN'S THOUGHTS 

ON 

THE CRIMES OF THE SOUTH. 

AND THE 

EECOMPENCE OF THE NORTH. 



By W. W. BROOM, 

OF IVIAfsIC HESTER. 



"We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by wliicli light might 
enter their (the slaves) minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see 
the light, our work would be completed : they would then be on a level with 
the beasts of the field, and we should be safe ! I am not certain that we 
would not do it, if we could find out the process, and that on the plea of 
necessity." — Mk. Bebry's Speech, House of Delegates, Virginia, 1832. 

"Slaves were forbidden (in Virginia) the use of arms, or to leave their 
masters' plantations without a written pass, or to lift a hand against a Chris- 
tian, ei'e?i in self-defence. Runaways, who refused to give themselves up, 
MIGHT BE LAWFULLY KILLED."— Howitt's Hist, of the United States of 
America. 

' ' The present economy of the slave system is, to get aU you can from the 
slave, and give him as httle as will svipport him in a working condition. " 

Thomas Clay, Esq., of Georgia. 

' ' Nowhere, in America, probably, is the contrast between the Northern and 
the Southern man exhibited in so marked a manner as in Kansas. He who 
would see the diffiei'ence between comfort and discomfort, between farming 
the land and letting the land farm itself, between trade and stagnation, stir- 
ring activity and reigning sloth, between a wide-spread intelligence and an 
almost universal ignorance, between general progress and an incapacity for 
all improvement or advancement, has only to cross the border-line which 
separates a free from a slave State." — T. Gladstone's Kansas. 

" The emancipation of slaves will bring with it the emancipation of poUtics 
and churches." — America Before Europe. 

" It was considered cheaper in the plantations to use up a slave in five or 
six years, and buy another, than to take care of him. " 

C. Lempirere. Mexico in 1861-2. 



PUBLISHED BY THE LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 
18G5. 



,n Englishman's C|fl«g|ts. 



" We hold these truths to be self evident ; that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain (inherent k) 
inalienable rights ; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of 
Happiness." — Declaration of Indejjendeoice 

" In Georgia, by the Act of 1829, no person is permitted to teach a slave, 
or free person of colour, to read or write." 

" In Virginia, by the Act of 1830, it is unlawful for free negroes to meet 
to learn to read and write." 

" In some States (of America), //w negroes may not assemble in greater 
numbers than seven. In North Carolina, free negroes may not trade, 
buy, or sell out of the cities wherein they reside, under jienalty of 
forfeiting their goods, and receiving in lieu thereof, TIIIRTY-NINE 
LASHES." 

"Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever State and persuasion, 
religious or political — peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all 
nations — entangling alliances with none." T. Jefferson. 

Slavery grew out of Patriarchal barbarism, the Triumph 
of Conquest, and the assumption and exchisiveness of those 
who professed to be the vicegerents of Theocratical power. 
The foul " institution" was rocked in the infancy of society, 
it was fostered by the depravity of the human heart, and was 
maintained and protected by military power. It was a do- 
mestic blight and political pestilence insejiarable from Pagan 
culture. Eaces splashed in seas of blood — and the seas were 
l)ouncIed by the dreary mental wastes of mythologies, false 
and crude religions, and revolting pastimes. Ancient polities 
moulded human developments as tlie potter moulds his clay. 
The quality of the development was in strict accordance with 
the class to which the moulded belonged — ^just as the pot- 
ter fixes the price on the products of his skill in conformity 
with the quality of the clay ho has used. Civilization be- 



came the glory and inheritance of a section, a class — Civiliza- 
tion was made to dazzle, therefore to overawe — it was made 
to be magnificent, therefore it apjjeared to he unattainable 
to and unapproachable by the small means and emasculated 
energies of the enfeebled multitudes, A gulf divided the 
people into two distinct regions — a gulf broad as Patri- 
archism, Conquest, and Theocratism, and vast as the empires. 
One region was a Piiradise of smiles, of flattery, of power, of 
luxury, of dalliance, of physical beauty and poetic languor. 
The other region was a Walhallah of groans, disappoint- 
ments, unrequited labours, cruel mockings, intense longings, 
and suflerings, rivalling the agonies of damned spirits. Such 
was Paganism. Geographical lines might and did vary the 
modes of action, somewhat change the means — but the end 
was ever the same. The contrast is often strongly marked 
between Asiatic subtilty. Northern stolidness, and Western 
changeableness — but ever the same result is produced, the 
Triumph of Wrong. 

Portions of all races of men have been enslaved. Slavery 
has not been the doom of only one race. It has not always 
been the consequence of j)hysical infirmity. Large numbers 
of the strongest as well as the weakest races have been en- 
slaved. The God of Battles has often gained, by acci- 
dent, the power to Kule through a long train of years. The 
noblest as well as the puniest have been chained. Daughters 
whose " lips are like a thread of scarlet" and whose '" speech 
is comely " are made to share the lot of the heavy forms and 
thick-lipped African mothers and sweethearts. Conquest 
has been a universal wanderer, and it has left in every land 
the foot-print of the most desolating plague — a plague that 
desolates power, wealth, intellect, and sympathy. The light- 
haired and blue-eyed children of Albion were sold in the city 
of Kome, as well as God's " image cut in ebony," The East- 
ern slave-market of to-day is graced by the lily and rose of 
Circassia, as well as by the dark skins of Ethiopia, The 
Persian poet terms them Houris, and says — 

" Some are dark and others light, like two species of bright rubies," 



H. C. Anderson thus briefly and graphically describes the 
slave-market of Constantinople — 

" Not far from the great bazaar, we come to a place surrounded by wooden 
buildings, forming an open gallery ; the fretted roof is supported by rough 
beams ; inside, along the gallery, are small chambers where traders stow 
their goods ; and these goods are human beings — black and white female 
slaves. 

" We are now in the square ; the sun shines ; rush-mats are spread out 
under the green trees, and there sit and lie Asia's daughters. A young 
mother gives the breast to her child — and they will separate these, too. 
On the stairs, leading to the gallery, sits a young negress, not more than 
fourteen years of age ; she is almost naked ; an old Turk regards her ; 
he takes one of her legs in liis hand ; she laughs, and shows her shining 
white teeth. 

" Do not veil the beautiful white women, thou hideous old wretch ; it is 
these we wish to see ; drive them not into the cage ; we shall not, as thou 
thinkest, abash them with bold e3'es ! 

" See ! — a young Turk with fiery eyes ! four slaves follow him ; two old 
Jewesses are trading with him. Some charming young girls come — he 
will see them dance, hear them sing, and then choose, and buy ! — He 
could give us a description of the slave-market such as we are not able to 
offer. He follows the old woman to behold the earth's houris ; and how 
do they look ?" 

This is a description of slavery in holiday attire, decked to 
ensnare and satisfy the greed of men. Beneath the veil of 
the " houris" we see the grim outline of woman turned into 
a "chattel," of infants becoming the "property" of ruffians, 
'Tis an old tale just told by a new traveller — an old picture 
sketched by a young and indignant artist. The scene is more 
variegated than an old slave-market in the District of Co- 
lumbia or in New Orlearis, for lilies and roses intersect long 
lines of dark Dinahs. 

Since the first edition of this tract was published, W, H. 
Russell has issued his Diary North and South. He thus 
describes Eastern slavery and corroborates my views : 

" I have seen slave markets in the East, where the traditions of the 
race, the condition of family and social relations, divest slavery of the 
most odious characteristics which pertain to it in the States ; but the 
use of the English tongue in such a transaction, of the idea of its taking 



place among a Civilized Christian people, produced in me a feeling of in- 
expressible loathing and indignation." 

The dark form shades the brightest colours that are skilfully 
placed upon it, to conceal its revolting ugliness. 

There was a universal necessity, an imperative necessity, 
that the Cross should come — the Cross ! around it fluttered 
the Banners of " peace on earth," and over it shone the Proc- 
lamation of Spiritual Equali ly. A brighter day was dawning on 
the human family. The ignored, the oppressed, the hopeless, 
were inspired to look through " man's inhumanity" up to the 
throne of Heaven, and exclaim — " Therefore I will look unto 
the Lord : I will wait for the God of my salvation : my God 
will hear me." The multitudes slowly learned that " God is 
the light of heaven and earth" — and that 

" He who receives 
Light from above, the fountain of all light, 
No other doctrine needs." 

The proclamation of Spiritual Equality was the knell uf shi- 
very. Jews were excited, Komans were startled, Greeks 
listened and wondered. Truth and Justice winged their way 
slowly, very slowly, through the dark and heavy atmosphere 
of error and oppression. Though the truth was boldly pro- 
claimed, more than eighteen centuries of jiatient teaching in 
wildernesses of trouble has been required — and, in the child- 
hood of the second part of the nineteenth century, slavery has 
(in the words of Chambers) to be " dissolved in a sea of 
blood." The Spiritual Equality of Christianity produced a 
recognition of Civil Equality, and, in the ]3rogress and 
Triumph of Truth and Justice, the abolition of slavery by 
a Christian people, and, now, the fighting for the suppression 
of slavery by a Christian People — for the complete suppres- 
sion (for such MUST be the ultimate result) of a monster 
that cramps mind, destroys virtue, and prevents the extension 
of material and general prosperity. This was clearly seen by 
the profound Jefferson. Here are his words, they cannot 
be too often repeated : 



" The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals 
undepraved. * * * The whole commerce between master and slave 
is a pei'petual exercise of the most boisterous passions — -the most unre- 
mitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the 
other." 

Christian doctrines, Christian teachings, and Christian in- 
fluences, are culminating in the Emancipation of the human 
mind and of human bodies from the superstitions and chains 
of Paganism. The fetters have been oxydized by the tears 
of agonized mothers and the blood of martyrs. The negro 
has been fed on the poisons of moral corruption and intel- 
lectual death — ^hence, he has become an idiot, or a libidinous 
monkey, or an infuriated madman — and, then, he has been 
condemned for being that which he has been made to be ! But 
the Gospel (or Good News) has been poured into the hearts 
oi free white men, who will never rest until black men, also, 
are Emancipated. 

Each wrong reaps its own punishment — and punishment is 
in strict accord with the wrong committed. The drunkard 
reaps disease, the debauchee repentance, the tyrant a nation's 
curse and a nation's vengeance. Ignorance diseases society, 
and deprives generations of benefits and pleasures. Slavery 
is a huge wrong, and it produces a harvest of widespread des- 
olation. It rocks empii'es in the earthquake of dissolution, 
and hurls down the mighty and gorgeous Temple of Paganism. 
" Euin seize thee" — is the psalm of slavery. It causes na- 
tional decrepitude and national death. Egypt and Turkey 
will suffice as illustrations of decay, Greece and Kome can be 
cited as proofs of national destruction. Priestly splendor, 
military pomp and power, intellectual expertness, chicane, 
and craft ! — all failed to prevent a complete ruin — for was not 
slavery upheaving the monstrous though magnificently gilded 
iniquity ? Gaspahin thus enunciates tlie same thought in 
his America Before Europe — " Slavery, indeed, is not a yoke 
for the slave alone, it is a yoke for the government them- 
selves." Moral wrong is the canker-worm that eats away 
material power, it blunts the edge of the keenest Damascus 
blade, it lowers the pulse of cannons. 



From tlie Spirit of Conquest is derived tlie belief of the 
right of the Strong to become the master of the Weak. 
Hence, subjugation of the weak through destruction. Con- 
quest destroys the tendency of the weak to grow into strength 
— destroys the means through which power can be acquired 
by the weak for their own protection. Weak men have been 
conquered and sold into slavery by strong men. Weak wo- 
man has been held in political and social bondage by strong 
man. Woman has been forced to be a sexual toy and a do- 
mestic slave. In China she was a slave, in Persia a toy — in 
all countries, among all races, she has been the one or the 
other, in both cases being a slave — a slave-toy or a toy-slave. 
In American slave States wives are but mistresses of serag- 
lios — and in ancient Eome the wife was often treated with 
less regard than the courtezan. Throughout the world, the 
universal wrong of enslaving the weak has been sanctioned 
as a universal and a necessar}' right — regardless of sex, of 
age, and of colour. Frenchmen have been sold into slavery 
by Spaniards, Algerine pirates sold their captives into sla- 
very, Englishmen have been sold, for Wrong has ruled, care- 
less of names and places. 

The old belief of the rightfulness of the strong to enslave 
the weak, permeates (more or less intensely) modern nations. 
The quality and extent of the intensity depend on the ex- 
tent of Christianity in each nation. Hindoo " caste "-ism 
exists (dwarfed into " classes") in modern society. Under 
Paganism, men were not treated as man, but as castes. In 
modern nations, where Christianity has not yet changed the 
heart, men are not treated as Tnan, but as classes — and in 
America, as classes, and colour. In Civil arrangements, the 
poor are not thought worthy of political power — are not 
thought fit to be educated into the possession and exercise of 
political power. The might of riches rules over tlie weak- 
ness of poverty. Even the victims of the unholy principle, 
in the aggregate, accept the principle as a righteous one. 
They admire the Lord more than the Peasant — though the 
lord may be a Fool and the peasant a Philosopher. They ad- 
mire the Millionaire, who has become such through usury, 
bankruptcy, and " tricks of trade " — more than the Moral 



§ 



Mechanic who will have to die without making a will, who 
will have to expire without making a solitary legatee. 

The chief doctrine of Christianity is Spiritual Equality, and 
the huilding of the empire of Christian Civilization must com- 
mence from the corner-stone of Civil Equality. The fiat must 
be proclaimed, must be proclaimed through all the nations 
of the earth, that the enslaved must be Emancipated — that, 
in the future, no more races, no more men, shall be enslaved 
by races, nor by men — nor shall a part of a race be permitted 
to enslave a part of a race. The last battle-ground whereon 
this doctrine has to fight and to Triumph is — the United (or 
dis-United"'-") States of America. The battle will be fierce, but 



* Only for a time. Before lonp;, the strife will cease. The Union will be restored whf n right 
and freedom are Triumphant. We are not of those who believe in "the impossibility of the 
Union being reconstructed," The rabid utterings of Mr. Day (see Down South) are only worthy 
of a guffaw of derisive merriment. Kead these words of folly and malice, penned in the service 
of English Toryism — 

" The existing rupture was inevitable. It could brook no delay, and will admit of no reconcili- 
ation. The American Union, that Model Government of the World, has, notwith.-'tauding the 
numerous predictions of its stability, only survived S5 years. But for the stimulus of outride 
pressure, it would have died long before. Although not strictly a Government, it was, like all 
Governments, a natural growth. After the Revolutionary war, the Southern States, feeling too 
weak to stand alone, formed an alliance with the North, in order to preserve the independence 
they had fought for and won. 

" But wliatevnr be the upshot of the present struggle — whether the unhappy war th;it now 
rages be of short or of long duration — one thing is certain, that neither a reunion of States nor of 
people can ever be effected. The Jews and Samaritans of old did not keep aloof from each other 
with more rigid religious scrupulosity than will members of both sections of the Republic. The 
bitter feeling on either side is as strong as death, the enmity lasting as eternity. 'I wibh to 
soe,' observed a gentleman to mc, ' a wall built between us and the Yankees as high as Heaven 
and as low as Hell ; for, if it were less deep, they would be sure to get under it.' " 

LoKD Bkouqiiam, also, has laboured to feed the rampant passions of ignorant multitudes in 
England. He has given his nobly earned influence to the wrong side of the American question. 
His words h.ave been forcibly feeble, because false and extravagant. He has dimmed the light 
that plays around his aged brow — he is closing a career devoted to Freedom, Science, and Reform . 
in the arms of despotism in the ijalace of darknei^s. The following absurd words he spoke on 
the American Civil War — " Misery and crime — more horrid than any case kuowu in modern, 
let us say Christian times — merciless tlaughter — such wholesale bloodshed as never hefm-e dis- 
graced the name of man.'' Remember that the noble lord thus spoke aijaiiixt the North — the 
North that is defending itscdf against political violence and destruction. 'Tis lamentable that 
men like BKortuiAM and Rokhiiok, who have been noble pioneers of Progress in England, should 
now hurl insults against a People's government, and sneer at the efforts a jieoplc are making to 
preserve a home for Freedom and general proBju'rity in the tiew World. When J. A. Rokhi<"K 
said in the House of Commons that — "The cry of the North is a hypocritical cry" — I grieved for 
the old man's blindness. When I remember the salient things he said in the cause of the 
unstamped press of England, I sighed and shed a tear of pity as I tin-ned from the slave-holdeiv 
frieiul. How are the mighty fallen 1 The Wreck of Reputations is more saddening to cont<^mplate 
than " the Ruins of Empires." 'Tis the loss of sweet intercourse, generous emotions, and noble 
esteems. 

1 thauk God, that without fee or reward, without expecting either, I was the first to cry aloud 
in Manchester and Sheffield on behalf of the North. My devotion of time and sacrifice of means 
and prospects 1 do not regret, but rather r.'joico that I made my calling and election sure. 



the Triumph is certain, and will be lasting. A moral world 
is destined to emerge from beneath the stagnant waters of 
foul corrupting oppression. A hot and revivifying sun of 
freedom will rise, high up, from behind the cold black moun- 
tains of ignorance. From tlie heads of nations will be torn 
and annihilated the wreaths of serpent wrongs. The Pagan 
witch-maiden sh.all no longer work her atrocious and revolt- 
ing spells, for her garment shall touch the Cross, and then 
the nations will be freed and purified. The star shines, wise 
men follow in its trail of glory — the feeble one is honoured, 
and the lonely one is guarded tenderly. In the huge cavern 
of iniquity the air is stifling, and the light flickers — but, 
hark ! a step sounds, the maiden is coming with oil and per- 
fume, the cavern will be transformed into a Temple — the 
Slave shall become a Man. 

Feudalism is the transitionary state from absolute des- 
potism to absolute freedom — ^from dominant Paganism to 
dominant Christianity. Where feudalism has existed, slavery 
has been abolished without necessitating national violence, 
and Civilization has marched onward without wading through 
immense seas of blood. America has not been blessed with 
a transitional institution, hence, she must pass through a 
fiery ordeal. 

The condition and treatment of slaves has varied according 
to race, opinions, prejudices, and material interests. This 
assertion (based on historic facts) is opposed to the statement 
and citations of E. Watson [Institutes of Theology, Eng- 
lish edition). Watson's words imply that ancient slavery 
was as cruel and hopeless a condition as that of Amer- 
ica. There is a difference that can be easily explain- 
ed. Watson says — " The master (in Greece or Kome) 
had absolute power of life, or death, or torture ; and their 
lives (of slaves) were therefore sacrificed in the most wanton 
manner." Watson's mistake consists in using the word 
"absolute." K. Watson shall be corrected by a careful 
historian and ardent friend of the negro. Kev. W. Goodell 
thus writes — " Among ancient heathen nations were found 
laws providing that slaves abused by their masters might 



L 



10 



apply to tlie magistrates, who would order them to be sold 
to a new master," The American slave-holder is more 
" absolute" than was the old Koraan slave-holder, for Mr. 
Stroud says — " Slaves (in America) cannot redeem them- 
selves, nor obtain a change of masters, though cruel treat- 
ment may have rendered such a change necessary for their 
personal safety." Here we see that American bondage is 
more cruel than was the old Roman. Another important 
feature remains to be stated, that clearly shows the historical 
inaccuracy of Watson's sweeping sentence. The Greek or 
Roman slave could work-out his own emancipation — the 
negro cannot who is a slave on the shores of Columbia. 
The Roman slave, after he had done his master's day's work, 
could work in the night for another citizen, could receive 
payment for the work done, could save the money, and with 
his savings could purchase his freedom. Not only could the 
slave earn money and legally keep it, and when earned, 
legally spend it in legally buying his own freedom, but he 
was allowed to educate himself, if he had sufficient force of 
character for the purpose. Not thus can the negro act in 
America. The negro has no time that is not his master's, 
therefore he cannot work on his own account for another 
man, therefore cannot legally save money to purchase his 
freedom. Epictetus was a slave, who worked out his own 
emancipation, became a citizen, and a teacher of philosophy ! 
Roman and Grecian masters were not " absolute" over their 
slaves ; but American slave-holders are. R. Watson's state- 
ment must be taken with a slight reservation — in painting 
the dark scene, the learned Wesleyan theologian forgot to 
put in a tiny bit of sky ! Even slavery in the old Mexican 
Empire was far less revolting than that of the Southern Con- 
federacy. We re-produce the facts as related by the learned 
and profound Prescott : " The contract of sale was exe- 
cuted in the presence of at least fonr witnesses. The services 
to be executed were limited with great precision. The slave 
was allowed to have his own family, to hold projjcrty, and 
even other slaves. His children were free. No one could 
be born to slavery in Mexico, an honorable distinction, not 



11 

known, I believe, in any civilized community where slavery 
has been sanctioned. Slaves were not sold by the masters, 
unless when they were driven to it by poverty. They were 
often liberated by them at their death, and sometimes, as 
there was no natural repugnance founded on difference of 
blood and race, were married to them. Yet a refractory 
or vicious slave might be led into the market, with a collar 
round his neck, which intimated his bad cljaracter, and there 
be publicly sold, and, in a second sale, reserved for sacrifice." 
It may be well to quote here the author of Deiyiocracy in 
America, who says : 

" lu antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the slave from break- 
ing Ills chains; at the present day measures are adopted to deprive 
him even of the desire of freedom. The ancients k^pt the bodies of their 
slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the mind and no 
check upon education ; and they acted consistently with this established 
principle, since a natural termniation of slavery then existed, and one day 
or other the slave might be set free, and become the equal of his master. 
But the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the negi'oes can 
ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them to be taught 
to read and write under severe penalties ; and as they will not raise them 
to their own level, they sink them as near as possible to that of the 
brutes." 

Ancient slavery was sufficiently revolting without our ex- 
aggerating its brutal enormities — enormities against the man- 
hood of nations and the dignity of citizenship. If slaves 
were fed on honey, and covered at night with rose-leaves, 
slavery would still be an enormous crime against national 
morality and general Civilization — a crime against the 
Brotherhood of races and nations. 

Oppressors are most cruel immediately after their victory 
and just before their fall. When they feel themselves secure, 
when they believe their throne is placed on a rock of flint, 
when they have suppressed all opposition, when they have 
stifled every murmur, then they relax their grasp and smile 
serenely on their captives. The Greeks and Komans (to 
them it seemed) had Conquered the world of mind and the 
world of arms. Over fertile plains and snow-capped moun- 
tains, over rich regions and desolate shores, in the splendid 



12 



palaces of Persia, in the magnificeut Temples of India, amid 
the rich skill of Egypt, even where Vikings revelled — Con- 
querors assumed and Legislators asserted that the Wrong of 
slavery was the Eight of empires. What need of fear? 
Who dreaded the Angel of " Emancipation" ? The Liberator 
was not born, the Avenger was shrouded in an unpenetrated 
future. So safe, snug, at ease — the world believing, adopt- 
ing, worshipping the Wrong — no voice of opposition heard, 
no note of warning sounded, no philosopher protesting, no 
priest objecting — Rome could afford to honour the mind and 
reward the industry of an extraordinary slave. And so she 
did. 

But Greece and Rome are dead. A limb is here, one in 
France, one in Italy, another somewhere else — poor cold 
limbs ! Their lives are told in song to cheer an idle hour or 
to grace an Orator's periods. Their spirit is gone, their falla- 
cies are cut asunder by the Spiritual Sword of the Nazarene. 
Nor Spartans nor Legions inspire us to enthusiasm nor chill 
us into terrible forebodings — such work is now done by the 
Ironsides and Committee of Safety of yesterday. The flames 
of Smithfield, the pillories of Palace- Yard and Cheapside, 
the garret of John Milton, the prison-room in the Tower 
of London of Mr. Penn, the place of Runnymede, the grave 
of D. De Foe, and the martyr-heroes of Bunker Plill, are 
nobler and more ins])iring objects than the Coliseum and the 
Pantheon. Classic lands are almost forgotten when contem- 
plating the big heart of modern humanity. 

The slave-holder in America has long felt himself insecure. 
Only just beyond, and all around his world of darkness, there 
is a universe of light. No slavery in England nor in Eng- 
land's Colonies, no slavery in France, no slave-market in 
modern Rome, no slavery in Germany nor in Russia — slavery 
in a state of decrepitude in Egypt, in India, in Turkey — poor 
slave-holder ! What will become of him ? He swears, he 
chews more tobacco, he writhes. Outside his boundary the 
Angel of Emancipation stands, waiting to put to its warm 
bosom every black child that can break its chains and leap 
through the infernal atmosphere. The American slave-holder 



13 

honour the mind and reward the industry of his slave ? 
Not he ! He is not a Roman, and he does not live in a Ro- 
man's security. In terror and in doubt — he devises new 
schemes of cruelty, new forms of repression, for self-protec- 
tion — he feels that the rays from the hot sun of freedom are 
penetrating his little cold world of darkness. In the mad- 
ness of his fears he resolves that his slaves shall not read, 
shall not write, shall only he half-fed and half-clothed, shall 
he permitted to live only five or eight years in the swamps or 
in cane and rice fields. Madman ! Poor in the regions of 
wealth, whose conduct is heating funeral marches to his 
grave. He mournfully gazes on the old slave-map, and 
slowly repeats the words of Dixon, who says — 

" In all the maritime and commercial countries of Europe, slavery was 
an ancient institution. The cities of Portugal, Italy, and Spain, were 
dotted with the dusky forms of Negro and Moorish slaves. * * * 
Columbus introduced the Negro into America; Cromwell did not hesi- 
tate to sell his own countrymen into bondage ; Locke expressly provided 
a place for slaves in his Constitution, and forbid them ever to aspire to a 
free condition. * * By a special stipulation in the treaty of Utrecht, 
our Sovereign lady Queen Ann became for a time the largest slave-mer- 
chant in the world." 

And then he turns to the hlue-covered Diary of Russell, 
and reads — 

" Assaulted by reason, by logic, argument, philanthropy, progress 
directed against his peculiar institutions, the Southerner at last is driven 
to a fanaticism — a sacred faith which is above all reason and logical 
attack in the propriety, righteousness and divinity of slavery." 

Ceasing to quote, he carefully rolls-up his old map, and keeps 
repeating, as if unconscious of the act — " These are degene- 
rate, very degenerate times." 



" Do not, then, give the hand of friendship and of fellowship to the 
worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen ; and do not, I beseech 
you, bring down a curse upon your own cause which no after penitence 
can ever lift from it. 

•' Dynasties may fall — Aristocracies may perish — Feudalism and Privi- 
leges will vanish into the dim Past j but you and your children and your 



^4 



children's children Avill remain, and from you the English people will be 
continued to succeeding generations." — John Bright, M. P. 

"An evil uplifting itself before the eyes of all men." — Arthur Helps. 

" That deep moral conviction of the utter hatefulness of slavery, cm- 
bodied in the glorious principle of our law, that the very dust of our 
English soil gives freedom to the slave, is the only answer which England 
deigns to give to the blasphemous pleading of the South in favor of the 
divine right of slavery." — J. M. Ludlow. 

" On the whole, the impression left upon my mind by what I had seen 
iu the slave States is unfavorable to the institution of slavery, both as 
regards its effects on the slave and its influence on the master." — W. H. 
Russell. 

'"• Slavery — a curse not only for the black, but likewise for the white 
population, because it stamps work with degradation, keeps the white in 
idleness, and makes public education on a moral scale impossible." — 
Pulsky. 

" I freely admit, that it is hardly possible to justify, morally, those 
who began and carried on the slave-trade. No speculation of future good 
to be brought about could compensate the enormous amount of evil it 
occasioned." — Chancellor Harper. 

The rapid increase of slaves in the slave States is an im- 
portant fact. Tlie disparity in numbers soon makes the 
free men too few and the enslaved too many. This pecu- 
liarity existed in ancient times. Taylor in his work on Civil 
Laio says — 

"In the 110th Olympiad there was at Athens only 21,0(K) citizens and 
40,000 slaves. It was common for a private citizen of Rome to have 
10,000 or 20,000 slaves." 

The largest slave-holder in America is obliged to pur- 
chase a new estate every year to absorb the increase in his 
stock of slaves. Mr, Chambers has compiled some statistics 
on the rapid increase of slaves in America. He informs us 
that in 

" 1790 (about two years after the ConsUtutiou was framed) thei'c were 
in the United States 697,897 slaves— in the year 1810 there were 1,191,364 
— iu 1820 there were 1,538,064 — in the year 1850there were 3,204,313 — in 
the year 1857 there were 4,100,000, being an increase of 900,000 since 
1850, a ratio of increase of 150 000 per year." 



15 

Bucli a ratio of increase of mere animality in a State is truly 
alarming. A calculation from another and a Southern source 
will make this fearful subject still more clear. In 1836 
(affirms the Eev. W. Goodell) the editor of the Virginia 
Times 

"Made a calculation that 120,000 slaves went out of that State dur- 
ing the year, that 80,000 went with their owners, who removed, leaving 
40,000 who were sold at an average price of GOO dollars, amounting to 
twenty-four millions of dollars." 

According to the last census, the amount of population in 
the South was — 

WHITES. BLACKS. 

8,280,490. 3,949,557. 

A country thus populated must become a mass of ignor- 
ance, of hrutishness, of crime, and of terror. Kecent testi- 
monies prove that such are the facts in the American slave 
States. EussELL says — " The fact that there are more out- 
rages on the person in (Mississippi) State, nay, more murders 
perpetrated in the very capital, than were known in the 
worst days of mediaeval Venice and Florence ; — indeed, as 
a citizen said to me, ' Well, I think on an average in Jackson 
(capital of the State) thei e is a murder a month.' Now I could 
not refuse to believe that in New Orleans, Montgomery, 
Mobile, Jackson, and Memphis, there is a reckless and violent 
condition of society, unfavorable to civilization, and but little 
hopeful for the future." Mr. Gladstone (in his work on 
Kansas) says — "As a system, slavery ever brings with it a 
heavy entail of disorder, slovenly negligence, stereotyped ad- 
hesion to old methods, disregard of all improvements, costly 
and unnoticed expenditure, and general impoverishment in 
all that pertains to the cultivation of the soil." And (speak- 
ing of the evil produced through the influence of slavery) he 
affirms that— ^" No element of vice and crime seemed to be 
absent. Every species of shameless recklessness and un- 
checked outrage met one's gaze at every turn." Such a con- 
dition has long been the ignoble fate of Turkey and of Egypt. 
The colours of the proudest banner must fade in the grasp of 



16 



sticli a filthy monster as slavery. The noblest Civilization 
must speedily decline in the atmospheve of a servile popula- 
tion. To talk of morality and patriotism flourishing in 
slavery is to mock virtue and to deride nobility. The rapid 
increase of slaves makes necessary an increase of cruelty, 
immense territory, and rigid organization of society — but 
the organization must be of despotism for the extension of 
despotism. Such conditions will, in time, crush all gentle- 
ness and intelligence out of the slave-owners. Cover fertile 
plains with twenty millions of slaves, and you will see the 
Devil worshipped as a God, and Christ shunned as a Devil. 
Shall we permit the desolating plague, the sickening 
leprosy of slavery to extend its area and deepen its power ? 
Slavery ignores the doctrine that " progress is the rule of 
all." It turns the master into a despot, and myriads of 
God's children into dull machines. Under the ordinance of 
slavery, Civilization halts, and is petrified ; the master be- 
comes a man destroyer, and a soul ignorer : the master's man 
is converted into a soulless, brainless, hopeless machine- 
power. This gigantic moral curse, this intellectual swindle, 
this religious sin, must not be spread over the vast regions of 
America. Ponder over the extent of ground on which the 
enemies of God and man desire to build and perpetuate a 
disgusting slave-republic. Kobertson thus describes the 
vastness of the empire that Rebels now desire to darken and 
desolate — " When we contemplate the New World, the first 
circumstance that strikes us is its immense extent. It was 
not a small jjortion of the earth so inconsiderable that it 
might have escaped the observation or research of former 
ases, which Columbus discovered. He made known a new 
hemisphere, larger than either Europe, or Asia, or Africa, 
the three noted divisions of the ancient continent, and not 
much inferior in dimensions to a third part of the habitable 
globe." The position of this territory appears to be as re- 
markable as is its huge extent. Again, the Scotch historian 
shall be our guide, who says — " America is remarkable, not 
only for its magnitude, but for its position. It stretches 
from the northern jiolar circle to a high southern latitude, 



above fifteen hundred miles beyond the farthest extremity of 
the old continent on that side of the line. A country of 
such extent passes through all the climates capable of becom- 
ing the habitation of man, and fit for yielding the various 
productions jieculiar to the temperature or to the torrid 
regions of the earth." A slave-republic, working on such an 
'^immense extent" of fertile land, would be an everlasting 
cloud from the Devil's den of infamy, paralyzing into imbe- 
cility the human family. The laws of God, the sacrifice of 
Christ, the dictates of utility, alike war against such a 
calamitous consummation. The arms and the intellect of the 
old Pagan world failed to prevent the growth of freedom — 
the arms and the strategy of the New World of Paganism 
must not be permitted to destroy liberty. 

What folly ! To talk of erecting a slave-republic through 
" secession" from Constitutional federation, and independ- 
ence through discarding and denouncing the Brotherhood of 
States, while claiming the " recognition " of nations ! These 
mighty and inexorable logicians, who detect eveiybody's fal- 
lacies, except their own ! Such glorious intellectual gladi- 
ators, such superb monsters of chivalrous ruffianism, who 
mis-quote the Bible, mis-read the import of human histoiy, 
and who grow fat out of the tears of agonized mothers, the 
screams of kidnapped children, and the stifled murmurs of 
millions whipped into imbecility. These felons, this legion 
of Haynaus are to guide, teach, and rule the world, after the 
Bible has been received, and Christ has been adored by just 
men made perfect ! 

Ah ! no ! no ! Long enough the human heart has been 
draped in sorrow — long enough poor slaves have groaned and 
struggled through centuries of defeat — long enough mines 
of wealth have been exhausted in the, apparently, hopeless 
task of creating and maintaining universal freedom — long 
enough oceans of blood have been poured forth in a tempest 
of passion, in a storm of reason, of passion aroused against 
wrong, of reason excited against folly and cowardice — ^long 
enough have partial defeats saddened, and partial victories 
exhilarated — the hour has come, when Christ shall reign 

3 



on earth, not the Devil — when the captive shall fight the last 
battle, and rejoice over the dead carcase of defeated Pagan- 
ism. The " corner-stone" of the slave-republic will be rolled 
away to the graveyard of human crimes, and placed by freed- 
men as a covering over the grave of the completely defeated 
and destroyed slave-power. 

Lift up your heads, ye Peoj)le — rejoice, O ye Nations, 
for the Lord is your strength, and Christ died to save you. 
The day of Deliverance has come — the Weak have become 
Strong, the Foolish have become Wise. Prepare the fatted 
calf, for the day of strife and wrong will soon cease — the 
night is fast approaching, the night of calm, of peace, of 
beauty — the night of feasting, of joy, of merriment. After 
the night has passed away, the morning of a happier day will 
dawn — a morning adorned with the smiles of Heaven, per- 
fumed with the breath of Angels, the atmosphere filled with 
the melodies of grateful hearts, and warmed with sweet soft 
prayers from the Brotherhood of Christian nations. 



APPENDIX 



I here group a few important extracts that could not be con- 
veniently incorporated in the text. With one or two exceptions, 
they are from English works that may not be extensively known 
in this country. Even to those who are familiar with the 
authors quoted, the passages here given may be useful for easy 
reference. 

POWER OF COTTON. 

" I meet many asking about the blockade. I cannot, to-day, tell you how 
the blockade is to be raised. But there is one thing certain — in some way 
or other it will be obliged to be raised, or there will be revolution in 
Europe — there wiU be starvation tliere. Our cotton is the element that will 
do it. Steam is powerful, but steam is far short in its power to the 
tremendous iwwer of cotton^ — Stepuens' Speech at Augusta, Ga., July 11, 
1861. 

"My Saxon friend exclaimed: 'AH the Northern States and all the 
power of the world can't beat the Soiith ; and why ? Because the South 
has got cotton, and cotton is King.' " W. H. Russell. 

SLAVERY NO FRIEND OF COMMERCE. 

'' Slavery is forever contracting the purchasing power of the South, 
stinting its consiunption. What demand for foreign produce is there in 
a country where, not a certain number of ill-paid workers, but, so to 
speak, the whole labouring class, from year's end to year's eud, from birth 
to death, consume on an average but Indian corn, salt, and generally salt 
meat for food ; most of the corn, and a portion of the meat, when it is 
bacon or salt pork, being grown at home ; and, say two suits per annum 
of the coai'sest clothing, with a warm blanket. Now, from 315 to $30 a 
year, or say from £3 15s. to £7 10s., Mr. Olrastead shows from official 
documents, and the statements of slave-holders, is the cost of clothing and 
boarding a first-class slave-labourer. Take the larger estimate. Multiply 
thirty dollars by 4,000,000 for the total nimiber of slaves, and you wiU 
have 120,000,000 dollars for the amount of slave consumption. We are 
told that the South sends North yearly over 460,000,000 dollars, to say 
nothing of its direct trade with foreigh countries. Supposing the whole 
consumption of the slave came from the North, the dilierence between the 
two figures is enormous. Whence comes it ? Does it represent the 
superabimdant consumption of the white man in the cotton Eldorado ? Is 
the slave-owner to be found habitually rolling in wealth, his every want 
supplied, every luxury within his reach ? 

" QUITE THE CONTRARY." J. M. Ludlow. 



20 



THE SLAVE-OWNERS' DESTITUTION. 

" The slave-owner is nearly as homeless as the slave. By a strange 
Nemesis, his own condition grows closely to approximate, only upon a 
larger scale, to that of those petty African tribes whom travellers 
describe to ns clearing, tilling, wasting the soil around one settlement, and 
then shifting to another, their dwellings as fragile and comfortless as their 
cultivation is careless. But lot the slave-owner cling to the soil as much 
as he pleases, when he has wrung by the labour of his slaves all the avail- 
able profit out of his land, his only resource is, first to sell the slaves 
themselves ; and, when they are all sold off, then the land itself to a free- 
man. The present condition of the slave-breeding States is what all the 
slave States must come to. Human flesh is the last crop which the soil 
exhausted by slavery can bear. After that is worked off, slavery itself 
must become extinct upon it. So that, by simply forbidding slavery to 
move on, you actually doom it to destruction." — J. M. Ludlow's Hist of 
America. 

" The salvation of the South itself, as well as of the Union, hangs upon 
the extinction of slavery. Indeed, the South has far more interest than 
the North in the restoration of political health as the condition of political 
union ; and she would see it so, if slavery had not made her blind. The 
diminution of slavery would, in the end, be clear gain to her, while she 
would reap equally with the North, the advantages of union, and escape 
the disadvantages and calamities which, as we have seen, must inevitably 
follow in the wake of confirmed Disunion." — llie Problem of AmeiHcan 
Destiny Solved by Science and History. 

RESULTS. 

'■ The institution of slavery has for its result the accumulation of large 
landed property in a few hands. Small settlers do not like to go to a 
place where they cannot become socially the equals of the planters. The 
white population is, therefore, less dense than at the North ; free scliools 
cannot be established here, and newspapers have a very limited circula- 
tion ; instruction is not widely spread, nor tlie spirit of enterprise dif- 
fused. Locomotion is scarce, railways, therefore, are not a very profitable 
investment for capital ; they are slowly built, and canals ai'e not lieard of. 
Land is cheap, and yet it is not tiiken up. Compared with the Northern 
and Western States, we find the St)utli stixgnant. Instead of an ever- 
busy and enterprising population, we sec here on tlic plantation a kind of 
aristocracy — careless, large-landed proprietors ; whilst in the cities the 
middle classes are much below the level of the Nortli. They lack com- 
mercial enterprise and manufacturing skill, and arc morally and materially 
dependent on the planters." — 'Pulsky's Red, White, and Black. 



21 



INFLUENCE ON WHITE PEOPLE. 

During the past thirty years American politics have been " a 
question of the extension or non-extension of slavery." It was 
rapidly degrading the moral character of the people. In support 
of our opinion, we present the reader with the following extracts 
from Gladstone's Kansas. The extracts are most edifying. This 
shrewd observer says : 

" We have been so accustomed to dwell on the moral evils of slavery, 
the essential enormities of the system, and the wrongs which almost of 
necessity arise out of it, that we are apt to overlook that which otherwise 
we should not be slow to recognize ; yet, how baneful the system is in its 
influence upon the white race, and how seriously it impoverishes a coun- 
try, and retards the progress of its people." 

GENERAL ATCHISON'S ADDRESS. 
{Once a Vice-President of the United States.) 

" If a man or a woman dare to stand before you, blow them to hell with 
a chunk of lead." 

GENERAL STRONGFELLOW'S SPEECH. 

" I tell you to mark every scoimdrel among you that is the least tainted 
with free-soUism or abolitionism, and exterminate him." 

THUS BELCHES "THE SQUATTER SOVEREIGN:" 

" We can teU the impertinent scoundrels of the Tribune, that tliey may 
exhaust an ocean of ink, their emigrant aid societies spend their millions 
and billions, their representatives in Congress spout their heretical the- 
ories till doomsday, and his Excellency Franklin Pierce appoint abolition- 
ist after free-soiler as our governor, yet we wiU continue to lynch and 
hang, to tar and feather, and drown every white-livered abolitionist who 
dares to pollute our soil." 

Same paper says : 

" We are determined to repel this Northern invasion, and make Kansas 
a slave State ; though our rivers should be covered with the blood of then 
victims, and the carcasses of the abolitionists should be so numerous in 
the territory as to breed disease and sickness, we wiU not be deterred 
from our purpose." 

A MERCHANT'S SPEECH ON STEAMBOAT. 

" No Northern nigger-stealers here. I'll fix 'em up right smait, I will. 
I aint here for nothing, and that you'll see, just about as soon as anything 



22 



Yes, sir, I only want to see tJie first fre©-soiler here. I'll drop the first one 
of you that opens his mouth for abolition cusses ; I be dog-ganned if I 
don't. 

" Lead's the best argument for these infernal white-livered Yankees. 
Let me alone for tamin' them down ; yes, sir, let me alone for that, I say. 
f reckon they won't be a tryin' on this game agajn a little whiles. That's 
just about what I think." 

SPEECH ON STEAMBOAT, ON "ABOLITION." 

'' Reck'n we're in a section now, when you can't say that there woi'd, 
not even in jest ; so don't crowd on so mighty powerful. You'll have to 
allow to respect the wishes of the sovereign people ; it's them that's to 
rule ; — d' ye hear, Mister !" 

During the Kansas difficulty, Mr. Gladstone, whose work we 
now lay down, was correspondent of The Times, of London. His 
reprinted articles are valuable, for thought and reference. Who 
can read his book without having an intense hatred of slavery, 
slave-holders, and slave influences ? The system is odious, the 
results are terribly desolating. Even the most sensitive people, 
Avho shudder with a holy horror at the shedding of human blood, 
but whose hearts and brains are affectionate and thoughtful, 
must pray for the complete destruction of a system that destroys 
morals, freedom, and religion — for only a perpetual miracle could 
create and sustain religion, pure and undefiled, in the heart of a 
society cursed with slavery. There may have been administra- 
tive mistakes and littleness, nevertheless, every friend of lunnan 
advancement cannot refrain from supporting the Northern Gov- 
ernment. The rebellion and slavery will cease together, and the 
New World will be purified in a baptism of the blood of heroes. 
God's will be done on earth ! 



IOWA'S DECLARATION ON SLAVERY. 

riovHRNOR Guine's Inaugural Address, 1855. 

'■ The removal of that great landmark of freedom, the Missom"i Com- 
promise lino, when it had been sacredly observed imtil slavery had ac- 
cpiired every inch of soil South of it, has presented the aggressive char- 
acter of tliat system broadly before the coimtry. It has shown that all 
compromises with Slavery, that were designed to favour Freedom, are mere 
ropes of sand, to be broken by the first wave of passion or interest that 
may roll from the St)uth. 



" It has forced n^ion the country an issue between free laLoiU', political 
eq[uahty, and manhood on the one liand — and, on the otlier, slave labour, 
political degradation, and wrong. It becomes the people of the free 
States to meet that issue resolutely, calmly, and with a sense of the mo- 
mentous consequences that will flow from its decision. To every elector, 
in view of that issue, might appropriately be applied the injunction 
anciently addressed to the Jewish King — ' Be strong, and show tliyself a 
man !' 

" It becomes the State of Iowa (tlia only free child of the Missouri Com- 
promise) to let the world know that she values the blessings that Com- 
promise has secured to her, and that she will never consent to become a 
party to the Nationalization of Slavery." 

MUST BE SUPPRESSED. 

" Rebellion against a government like ours, which contains within itselt 
the means of self-adjustment, and a pacific remedy for evils, should never 
be confounded with a revolution against despotic power, which refuses 
redi-ess of wrongs. Such a rebellion cannot be justified upon ethical 
grounds, and the only alternatives for om* choice are its suppression or the 
destruction of our nationality. At such a time as this, and in such a strug- 
gle, political partisanship should be merged in a true and brave patriot- 
ism, which thinks only of the good of the wliole country."— Gen. G. B. 
McClellan's Oratiori al West Point. 

FREEDOM'S ADVANCE. 

" The Missouri Compromise, fixing the Southern boundary of that State 
as the line beyond which, southward, freedom should not go, and beyond 
which, northward, slavery should not be extended, seemed to make a final 
disposition of it ; for no one proposed to interfere with slavery in the 
States where it existed. But to the tide of emigration, rolling westward 
peopling with marvellous rapidity, oirr wild territory, soon revealed the 
startling fact, that in a short time, the free States would greatly outnmnber 
those in which slavery could be established." — Headley. The Ch-eat Be- 
bellion. 

MEXICO VERSUS THE SOUTH. 

" In many of the United States papers, speeches are to be read and lec- 
tures given on the desirability of getting a fresh supply of land for 
the great staple of the Southern States ; but, alas, it is always with the ad- 
dition of the domestic institution. Not only could the wholesale importa- 
tions of negro slaves enable the Southern States to get up a most enor- 
mous and lucrative trade in cotton from this country, but the inevitable 
result would be the enslaving of the four millions of wretched Indians 
who now drag on their existence at least in the enjoyment of a perfect 



24 

personal liberty — a blessing which, in the absence of nearly every other, 
they inordinately value, if it is possible to put a limit on such a necessity 
to life ; a consideration Avhich, even more than the immense importance 
of opening up a new channel for the supply of Manchester and Rouen, 
ought to rouse the peoples of France and England to the value of Mexico 
as an independent and flourishing country ; for if they do not in a very 
few months so ordain matters as to secure the independence of Mexico, 
the whole will as certainly be in the hands of the Southern States, and be- 
come a gigantic slave State, as any political proposition that Avas ever 
broached." — C. Lempirere, Notes on Mexico in 1861-2. 

THE CONFEDERATES' FLAG. 

Pirates, stop ! — Take down that flag, 
You're sailing with Hell's black rag. 

Pull it down— or else I'll fire ! 
'Tis the sign of a Confederate liar. 

Take it down — it taints the air 
With odours from the Slavers' lair. 

Poll it down — for well the people 
, Know it's round the Devil's steeple ; 

Where men do congregate for gain. 
Regardless of the Wronged Ones' pain. 

Stars! — Not they ; they are echpses. 
Bars !^ — Prison bars for dusky mistresses. 

Yes ! lower stiU — Ah ! that is right, 
It shall not wave in the broad daylight 
Of Christian Progi'ess ! 

MR. WIGFALL DESCRIBES THE SOUTH. 

" We have no cities — we don't want them. We have no literature — we 
don't need aiiy yet. AVe have no press — we are glad of it. We do not 
require a press, becaiise we go out and discuss all public questions from 
the stump with our people. We have no commercial marine — no navy — 
wc don't want them. * * * We want no manufactures : we desire no 
trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes. As long as we have our 
rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can conmiand wealth to 
purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amit)', and 
to lay up money besides." — W. H. Russell. Diary North and South. 



ABRAHAM LINCOO'S CHARACTER. 



SKETCHED BY ENGLISH TRAUELLERS. 



Political foes and friends alike give profound homage 
to the earnest, industrious, and consistent rail-splitter. 
Patient, prudent, honest — these virtues commanded the 
admiration of the world. He was a man — he is now 
deemed a saint, because he was a man. Slow of tliought 
but firm of action, not rash but bold, unpretending and 
innocent as a child, but earnest and wise as patriotism 
and judgment can make a man, he carefully and bravelj 
guarded and sustained the Nation's power and progress. 
Genial as a child, he cracked jokes and made them ap- 
propriate to every occasion ; affectionate as a woman, he 
was inspired to award " charity for all." His heart pure 
as ocean's spray, he faithfully represented the simple 
grandeur, the unfettered progress, the toleration of creeds 
unbounded by sects, and the ever-expanding freedom of 
American Republicanism. Tory and Liberal are forced 
to respect this moral hero, this freely-chosen Chief of a 
People's affections and of a People's Christian principles. 

The Rev. "W. Mallet says (''Errand to the South" 
p. 16, Eng. ed.) 

" The President (Lincoln), who was neatly dressed in a suit of 
black, is just six feet two inches in height, of spare and upright 
figure ; his hair is black ; his eyes have a remarkably calm expression ; 
his features are strongly marked ; his complexion dark ; his address 
and manner betokening perfect self-possession ; very ready to enter 
into conversation, and to set you at once at your ease." 

Pi— -I....— HU II .j i miyi lli miMjMUMiiiimMinJJMiiumM^u 



Mr. W. H. KussELL ("Diary ^ortli and South") 
declares. 

" There have been many more courtly Presidents, who, in a similar 
crisis, would have displayed less capacity, honesty, and plain deaUng, 
than Abraham Lincoln." 

Thus testify English travellers, who are Lincoln's 
political opponents. 

But the flesh is gone ! In Springfield flowers will grow 
profusely around his grave. Their lustrous beauty will 
ever smile upon, they will scatter fragrance perpetually 
around the resting-place of Freedom's purest Martyr. 

His spirit is with us ! O heavenly gift ! His spirit 
dwells in a Nation's heart, his principles inspire a Repub- 
lic's power. His spirit will thrill our youth to great 
thoughts and brave actions. Neither time nor circum- 
stance will shroud that spirit in oblivion. Throughout 
the eras that spirit will charm the noble-hearted, will 
bestow bountiful hope on the poor, oppressed, and un- 
taught ot unholy empires, cursed with Csesarism. 

One heart — one mind — one s©ul! Aftection, wisdom, 
pureness — these are the virtues of the United States of 
America, personified in Abraham Lincoln ! 

Gaze, ye Monarchs ! and become wise and pure. 
Gaze, ye Down-Trodden ! and become inspired, strength- 
ened, and Emancipated by God's faithful son and Christ's 
undeviating disciple. 

" Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee — are all with thee." 

W. W. B. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



Gone! But still his spirit is here; 

Tears are falling round his bier. 

Gone ! His holy spirit is here ; 

Inspiring truly a Nation's fear. 

Gone! Still his noble words indite 

Freedom, and a Nation's might. 

Gone! His faith and goodness throw 

Progress o'er a Nation's woe. 

From the People? Born to care; 

Noble, holy, beyond compare! 

Soft ! Lay his bones where flowers grow ; 

Joy shines around a Nation's woe. 

Sweetly sing the Psalm of Life; 

Peace shall flow through a Nation's strife. 

****** 

Spring forth the Good, depart the foul and wrong; 
We sorrow once, evermore we're Pure and Strong! 

W. W, B. 
Brooklyn, April 30, 1865. 



Baffin I ©ein ©eifl: bod) ti^aikt ferncv ^icx, 

2)en ©arg Benejjen unf re 3^^vanen» 

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Unb jlfirft bag SSoIf tm Bangen (55rdmen» 

^af)in I 2)oc^ ntc^t ux^aUm icirb fein SSort, 

(S0 leBt, ber ^vei^eit xinb bent SSoIf ein ^ort 

^a^n I ©ein @Iaul3e, feine ©ute fii^renb leuc^ten, 

3(Ig i5ortf(^rttt§fa(felbuvc^ beg Sanbeg (Bd6mevjenanad)t* 

3u 3}?u^' gefcov'ner (Bo^n beg SSoIfg, beg tiefgeBeugten, 

SBarfl ebel 2)u unb ^eilig burd) ber SteBe 3J?ad)t, 

DI fanft nnn leget nnter ®rumen nteber 

3) eg 3}Jdrti?r'g Seifc ! — £)ag gro^e ^erj 

5) eg SSoIfeg fd)Iag' in f^reub' unb (Bd)mtx^l 

2)em neuen !^eljen fmget ^e:^re Sieber, 

2)enn ^riebe fd)ttje5t Dom ,Kr{egggen)5lfe nieber* 

2)a^in beg Unrec^tg grnufe ^a^tl m tagt bag OJed)t, 

2)er Sirauer ©tunbe §eugt ein rein, ein ftarf ©efc^Iec^t 



|i l^W^LW-WMa .l . |,WI-!jmt.'IW!>.PI.IL>.lWlIll.JJWLM»JWMWiMIM,'l)WlUllilftll^lMJlMI'.T^ 



ABRAHAM LmCOLN; 



HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS. 



A. SEEMOISr, 



PREACHED ON SABBATH, APRIL 30, 1865, 



BY JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. D., 



PASTOR OF THE SMOADWAI TASJEMNACZE CSTIMCH. 






NEW YORK : 
Published by the Loyal Publication Society. 

1865. 



■■MM»JMPUJJttallMI»UailIILIl»L^JMWlimiBlll)>»)M!niW'gtl«^WMl.-W«,JglWWM 



LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

863 BROAD\^AY. 

No. 85. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN; 

HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS 



P ME ACHED ON SABBATH, APMIL SO, 1865, 

BY JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. J)., 

PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERIMACLE CHURCH. 



EL Samuel, xxm. 3, 4. 



" The God of Israel said, The Eock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over 
men must be just, ruling in the fear of God : and he shall be as the light of 
the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds ; as the 
tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." 

I COUNT it one of the noblest acts in the history of the 
race, an impressive proof of the progress of human society, 
that a nation has rendered its spontaneous homage — a 
tribute without precedent in its own annals, and hardly 
equalled in the annals of the world — to a man whom it had 
not yet learned to call great. It teaches us that there is 
something greater than greatness itself. No inspiration of 
genius had enrolled him among the few great names of litera- 
ture ; no feats of arms nor strategy upon the field had given 
him a place among military heroes ; no contribution to the 
science of government, no opportunity of framing a new 
civil polity for mankind, had raised him to the rank of pub- 



Heists, of philosopliers, or of founders of states. Great lie was 
in his own way, and of a true and rare type of greatness — 
the less recognized and acknowledged the more it is genuine 
and divine; — but the people had not hegun to accord to him 
the epithet and the homage of greatness, nor is the loss of a 
great man to the world the chief calamity in his death. Not 
greatness, but grandeur, is the fitting epithet for the life and 
character of Abraham Lincoln ; not greatness of endow- 
ment or of achievement, but grandeur of soul. Grand in his 
simplicity and kindliness ; grand in his wisdom of resolve, 
and his integrity of purpose ; grand in his trust in principle, 
and in the principles he made his trust ; grand in his devo- 
tion to truth, to duty, and to righ,t ; grand in his consecra- 
tion to his country and to God, he rises above the great in 
genius and in renown, into that foremost rank of moral 
heroes, of whom the world was not worthy. 

Had the pen of prophecy been commissioned to delineate 
his character and administration, it must have chosen the 
very words of my text; "just," so that his integrity had 
passed into a proverb ; " ruling in the fear of God," with a 
religious reverence, humility, and faith marking his private 
life and his public acts and utterances ; bright " as the light 
of the morning," with native cheerfulness and the serenity 
of hope ; and with a wisdom that revealed itself "as the clear 
shining after rain ; " and gentle, withal, " as the tender grass 
springing out of the earth ; " such was the ruler whose 
death the nation mourns. 

" He hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet^tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off : 
And Pity — ^like heaven's cherubim, horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind." 

The life of Abraham Lincoln, the life by which he has 
been known to the people, and will be known in history, 
covers less than five years from the day of his nomination at 



Chicago, to the day of his assassination at Washington. Be- 
fore this brief period, though he had been iu posts of public 
life at intervals during thirty years, and had gained a repu- 
tation as a clear and forcible political debater, — evincing also 
a comprehensive faculty for statesmanship — he had done 
nothing, said nothing, written nothing, that would have 
given him a place in history or have caused him to be long 
remembered beyond the borders of his adopted State. And 
yet for that brief historical life which is now incorporated 
imperishably with the annals of the American Kepublic, and 
shall be woven into the history of the world, while human 
language shall remain, he was unconsciously preparing, dur- 
ing fifty years of patient toil and discipline. 

Those seven years of poverty and obscurity in Kentucky, 
in which he never saw a church nor a school-house, when he 
learned to read at the log-cabin of a neighbor, and learned 
to pray at his mother's knee ; those thirteen years of labor 
and solitude in the primeval forest of Southern Indiana, 
when the axe, the plow, and the rifle, trained him to manly 
toil and independence, when the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, 
and Esop's Fables, his only library, read by the light of the 
evening fire, disciplined his intellectual and moral faculties, 
and a borrowed copy of " Weems' Life of Washington," 
acquainted him with the father of his country ; and 
when the angel of death sealed and sanctified the lessons 
of her who taught him to be true and pure and noble, 
and to walk uprightly in the fear of God ; that season of 
adventure in the rough and perilous navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi, when the vast extent of his country, and the 
varieties of its products and its population, were spread out 
before his opening manhood ; the removal to the fat bottom 
lands of the Sangamon, in the just rising state of Illinois, his 
farther discipline in farming, fencing, rafting, shop-keeping, 
while feeling his way toward his vocation in life ; his patient 
self-culture by studious habits under limited opportunities ; 
his observation of the two phases of emigration, northern and 
southern, that moved over the prairies side by side along dif- 
ferent parallels, without mingling ; his brief but arduous cam- 



paign in the Black Hawk war ; Ms studies in law and politics, 
and his practical acquaintance with political and professional 
life ; all this diverse and immethodical discipline and experi- 
ence was his unconscious preparation for leading the nation 
in the most dark, critical, and perilous period of its history. 

Abraham Lincoln was a " self-made man," but in just the 
sense in which any man of marked individuality is self-made. 
So far was he from affecting superiority to academic culture 
or independence of the schools, that it may be said of him as 
of his great counterpart in character, in aims, and in influence, 
the plebeian sovereign of England, Eichard Cobden, that 
while he was " a statesman by instinct," and was calmly self- 
reliant upon any question that he had studied or any principle 
that he had mastered, he always deferred greatly to those 
whose opportunities of information and means of culture had 
been better than his own. The true scholar is " self-made," 
for he is a scholar only so far as he has digested the works of 
others by his own processes of thought, and has assimilated 
the treasures of learning into the independent operations of 
his own mind. Whether his books or his teachers be few or 
many, whether his education be in professional schools or in 
the open school of nature and of practical life, he who would 
become a power, either in the world of opinion or in the world 
of action, must make himself a man by self-discipline and 
culture with such helps as are at his command. Mr. Lincoln 
made himself, not by despising advantages which he had not, 
but by using thoroughly such advantages as he had. He did 
not boast his humble origin, nor the deficiencies of his early 
education, as a title to popular favor, nor use these as a back- 
ground to render the more conspicuous his native genius, or 
the distinction which he had achieved ; but while he never 
forgot his birth, nor repudiated his flat-boat and his rails, nor 
divorced himself from the " plain people," he yet recognized 
the value of refinement in manner, and cultivated the highest 
refinement of feeling. When Mr. Douglas had recourse to 
personalities in political debate, Mr. Lincoln, in his rejoinder, 
said, " I set out in this campaign, with the intention of con- 
ducting it strictly as a gentleman, in substance, at least, if 



not in the outside polish. The latter I shall never be, hut 
that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman, I hope I un- 
derstand, and am not less inclined to practise than others. 
It was my purpose and expectation that this canvass would 
be conducted upon principle and with fairness on both sides, 
and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and expectation 
are given up."* This self-made man, recognizing his lack of 
courtly breeding, so far from affecting indifference to good 
manners, studied to practise the truest gentility of speech and 
of feeling. Born in the cabin, reared in the forest, a hardy 
son of toil, whose early associations were with the rougher and 
coarser phases of life, he made himself a gentleman without 
even the "petty vices" that sometimes discredit the name ; 
and when raised to the highest social position, proved that 
the heart is the best teacher of gentility. Never despising a 
good thing which he had not, he made always the best use of 
that which he had. 

He himself has told how resolutely and thoroughly he 
sought to discipline his mind in later life by studies and 
helps of which he was deprived in youth. " In the course 
of my law-reading," said Mr. Lincoln to a friend,f " I con- 
stantly came upon the word demonstrate, and I asked my- 
self, what do I do when I demonstrate more than when I 
reason or prove ?" what is the certainty called demonstration ? 
Having consulted dictionaries and books of reference to little 
purpose, " I said to myself, ' Lincoln, you can never make a 
lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means.' 
I had never had but six months' schooling in my life ; but 
now I left my place in Springfield, and went home to my 
father's and stayed there till I could give any proposition of 
the six books of Euclid at sight." 

Thus, at twenty-five years of age, Abraham Lincoln paid 
his honest tribute to that very means of mental discipline 
which experience has placed at the foundation of a college 
course. He " made himself" by using the same methods of 



* Speech at Springfield, HI., July 17, 1858. 
t Rev. J. P. Gulliver, Norwich, Conn. 



training tliat Daniel Webster used as a student at Dart- 
mouth, and Edward Everett, at Cambridge ; and having 
determined upon the profession of law, he fenced in his mind 
to book-study with the same energy and resolution with 
which he had once split three thousand rails to fence in the 
fields for tilling. There is no royal road to learning, and 
Mr. Lincoln's success demonstrates anew the law that perse- 
vering labor conquers every obstacle. He did his utmost to 
repair the deficiencies of his youth in the only way in which 
they could be remedied, and by that conquest over his own 
mind which was the key to all other victories, he showed 
himself a man. But for this, his mind would have remained 
a broad unfenced prairie, and he but a pioneer squatter, 
making no improvements, or at best a surveyor, staking out 
some general boundaries of knowledge, but holding no proper 
sense of ownership in the tract, or in the treasures that lay 
hidden beneath its surface. 

I have thus sought to redeem from perversion that much- 
abused term, " the self-made man." None can quote Abra- 
ham Lincoln in justification of boorishness, of illiterateness, 
of opinionativeness, of uppishness, as prerogatives of a self- 
made man ; nor can his name and life be used as in any 
sense an argument against that culture of society and of the 
schools of which he scarcely knew, until he had attained his 
majority. The unconscious plan of his life was none the less 
a plan of that Divine mind whose constant guidance he 
owned ; and his first fifty years were a training school of 
Providence for the five that constitute his historical life. 

An analysis of the mental and the moral traits of Mr. 
Lincoln, will show us how complete was his adaptation for 
that very period of our national history which he was called 
to fill, and which he has made so peculiarly his own. His 
mental processes were characterized by originality, clearness, 
comprehensiveness, sagacity, logical fitness, acumen, and 
strength. He was an original thinker ; not in the sense of 
always having new and striking ideas, for such originality 
may bo as daring and dangerous as it is peculiar and rare ; 
but he was original in that his ideas were in some character- 



istic way his own. However common to other minds, how- 
ever simple and axiomatic when stated, they bore the stamp 
of individuality. Not a message or proclamation did he write 
not a letter did he pen, which did not carry on the face of it 
'•'■Abraham Lincoln, his mark.'' He thought out every sub- 
ject for himself ; and he did not commit himself in public 
upon any subject which he had not made his own by reflec- 
tion. Hence even familiar thoughts coming before us in the 
simple rustic garb of his homely speech, seemed fresh and 
new. He took from the mint of political science the bullion 
which philosophers had there deposited, and coined it into 
proverbs for the people. Or, in the great placer of political 
speculations, he sometimes struck a lode of genuine metal 
and wrought it with his own hands. 

" The Union is older than the Constitution ; " " The Union made the 

Constitution, and not the Constitution the Union." 

" Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws ?" 

" Capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had 

not first existed." 

" In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the/ree." 

" Often a limb must be amputated to save a life ; but a life is never 

wisely given to save a limb." 

What volumes of philosophy, of history, of political 
economy, of legal and ethical science, are condensed into these 
pithy sentences, each bearing the mark of Mr. Lincoln's in- 
dividuality. Much of this individuality of thought was due 
to the seclusion of his early life from books and schools, and 
to the meditative habit induced by the solitude of the forest. 

To the same quality, and partly to the same cause, may be 
ascribed the clearness of his mental processes. Compelled in 
childhood to find out by observation, by experience, by medi- 
tative analysis, knowledge in which he had no teacher, and, 
for lack of external aids, thrown back habitually upon his own 
thoughts, he knew always the conclusions he had reached,, 
and the process by which he reached them. If he must 
plunge into the depth of the forest, he took care to trace his 
path by blazing the trees with his mark ; and if sometimes 
he seemed slow in emerging from the wilderness, it was be- 



10 

cause when a boy lie had learned not to halloo till he was out 
of the woods. Deliberation and caution were qualities in 
which he was trained, when compelled to hew out a clearing 
for a home, within sound of wild beasts and of savage men ; 
but because of these very qualities, he knew always where he 
stood and how he came there. That communion with nature 
which has taught Bryant such clear, terse, fitting words in 
rhythm with her harmonies, taught Abraham Lincoln clear, 
strong thoughts, whose worth he knew because he had earned 
them by his own toil. 

I am not here dealing in conjecture. His own narrative, 
already quoted, informs us that when a boy, he used to get 
irritated when anybody talked to him in a way that he could 
not understand. " I don't think I ever got angry at anything 
else in my life ; but that always disturbed my temper, and 
has ever since." Often, after hearing the neighbors talk in 
his father's house upon subjects he did not comprehend, he 
would walk up and down his room half the night, trying to 
make out the exact meaning of their "dark sayings." When 
once upon such a hunt after an idea, he could not sleep till 
he had caught it, and then he would "repeat it over and over, 
and put it in language plain enough for any boy to under- 
stand." This simplifying of thought was a passion with 
him ; and in his own pithy words, " I was never easy until I 
had a thought bounded on the north, and bounded on the 
south, and bounded on the east, and bounded on the west." 

How much the American people will hereafter owe to him 
for having staked out the boundaries of political ideas hith- 
erto but vaguely comprehended. How conclusive against the 
right of secession is this clearly-bounded statement of the first 
inaugural : 

" T hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitu- 
tion, the Union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not 
expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe 
to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its own or- 
ganic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express 
provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, 
it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for 
in the instrument itself." 



11 

The opening sentence of liis Springfield speech, June 17, 
1858, which was the foundation of his great debate with 
Douglas, bounded the question of nationalizing slavery so 
clearly and sharply, that Mr. Lincoln had only to repeat that 
statement from time to time, to clinch every argument of 
every speech : " A house divided against itself canaot stand. 
1 believe this government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dis- 
solved. I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect 
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or 
all the other." 

Mr. Douglas's policy was fast making it " all one thing ;" 
Mr. Lincoln lived to make it, and to see it " all the 
other !" 

Imagination and a poetic sensibility were not wanting in a 
soul that could conceive the last inaugural or could indite 
the closing sentence of the first : " The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our 
nature." 

He was an ardent admirer of Burns, and a discriminating 
student of Shakespeare. 

Enthusiasm was not lacking in a mind that, in the midst of 
a wasting civil war, could prophecy : " There are already 
those among us, who, if the Union be preserved, will live to 
see it contain two hundred and fifty millions. The struggle 
of to-day is not altogether /or to-day ; it is for a vast future 
also." 

But neither enthusiasm nor imagination ever mastered that 
calm, clear judgment, trained to a cautious self-reliance by 
the early discipline of the forest-school. 

Comprehensiveness was equally characteristic of Mr. Lin- 
coln's views, upon questions where breadth was as inrportant 
as clearness of vision. Those who have had occasion to con- 
sult with him upon public affairs have often remarked, that 



12 

even in tlie course of protracted and able deliberations, there 
would arise no aspect of the question which had not already 
occurred to the mind of the President, and been allowed its 
weight in forming his opinion. His judgment was round- 
about, encompassing the subject upon every side ; it was cir- 
cumspect — attending to all the circumstances of the case, 
and patiently investigating its minutiae. He would not ap- 
prove the finding of a court-martial without reading over 
carefully the details of the evidence, and hearing the pleas 
of the condemned and his friends ; and this conscientious 
legal and judicial habit, applied to questions of state-policy, 
gave to his views a breadth and solidity beyond the grasp of 
the mere speculative politician. Hence came that reputation 
for sagacity and insight, which grew with our observation of 
the man and with the unfolding of events ratifying his judg- 
ment. How often where his seeming hesitancy had tried our 
patience, have we come to see that he had surveyed the whole 
question, had anticipated what lay beyond, and was biding 
his time. His studied silence touching his own intentions, in 
his replies to speeches of welcome along the route from 
Springfield to Washington in 1861, was dictated by this com- 
prehensive wisdom. At every point he baffled curiosity and 
rebuked impatience by avowing his determination not to 
speak at all upon public questions, until he could speak ad- 
visedly. " I deem it just to you, to myself, and to all, that 
I should see everything, that I should hear everything, that 
I should have every light that can be brought within my 
reach, in order that when I do speak, I shall have enjoyed 
every opportunity to take correct and true grounds ; and for 
this reason I don't propose to speak, at this time, of the 
policy of the government."* This was not the evasiveness 
of the politician, but the wise reserve of the statesman. 

He maintained the same reticence upon the difficult prob- 
lem of re-organization, which was the burden of his latest 
public utterance, after the fall of Richmond. His adroit 
substitution of a story or a witticism for a formal speech, at 

* Speech to the Legislature of New York. 



13 

times when his words were watched and weighed, was but 
another illustration of this practical sagacity. And when 
the secret history of the dark periods of the war shall be dis- 
closed, Mr. Lincoln will stand justified before the world, 
alike for his reticence while waiting for light, and for a policy 
guided by an almost prophetic insight, when, by patient wait- 
ing, he had gained clearness and comprehensiveness of view. 

The mental processes of Mr. Lincoln were characterized, 
moreover, by a logical fitnesp, keenness, and strength. Not 
for naught did he master the science of demonstration. His 
speeches are a catena of propositions and proofs that bind 
the mind to his conclusions as soon as his premises are con- 
ceded. In his great debate with Mr. Douglas — a debate ac- 
companied with all the excitements of a political canvass, 
and in which he was called upon to reply to his opponent in 
the hearing of eager thousands — it is remarkable that he 
never had occasion to retract or even to qualify any of his 
positions, that he never contradicted himself, nor abandoned 
an argument that he had once assumed. His caution and 
circumspection led him to choose his words and to state only 
that which he could maintain. His clear and comprehensive 
survey of his subject made him the master of his own posi- 
tion ; and his calm, strong logic, and his keen power of dis- 
section, made him a formidable antagonist. He who had 
such force of resolution, that in full manhood, after he had 
been a member of the State legislature, he could go to school 
to Euclid to learn how to demonstrate, was likely to reason 
to some purpose when he had laid down his propositions. 

But it was mainly his adherence to ethical principles in 
political discussions that gave such point and force to his 
reasonings ; for no politician of this generation has applied 
Christian ethics to questions of public policy with more 
of honesty, of consistency, or of downright earnestness. 
Standing in the old Independence Hall at Philadelphia, he 
said, " All the political sentiments I entertain have been 
drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the 
sentiments which originated in and were given to the world 
from this hall. — I have never had a feeling, politically, that 



14 



did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declara- 
tion of Independence." * But the sentiments of the Declara- 
tion which Mr, Lincoln emphasized are not simply political 
ideas — they are ethical principles. That '^ all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness " — these are principles of natu- 
ral ethics, sustained by the august sanctions of that God 
who is " no respecter of persons." And it was as truths of 
moral obligation that Abraham Lincoln adopted them as the 
rule of his political faith. He entered into public life, thirty 
years ago, with the distinct avowal of the doctrine whose 
final ratification by the people he has sealed with his blood — 
that " the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice 
and bad policy.""}" His whole life was true to that convic- 
tion. His great campaign for the senatorship, in 1858, was 
conducted throughout upon moral grounds. " I confess my- 
self as belonging to that class in the country who contem- 
plate slavery as a moral, social, and political evO, having due 
regard for its actual existence among us and the difficulties 
of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the 
constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it ; 
but nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention 
of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a 
wrong it may come to an end, "J "If slavery is not wrong 
nothing is wrong."§ 

" One only thing," said he, in his speech at Cooper Insti- 
tute, " will satisfy our opponents. Cease to call slavery tvrong, 
and join them in calling it right. If our sense of duty for- 
bids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and 
effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical 
contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and be- 
labored — contrivances, such as groping for some middle 
ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search 

* Speech of 21st February. 1861. 

t Protest in Illinois House of Representatives, March 3, 1837. 

X Speech at Galesburgh, October 7, 1858, 

§ Letter to A, G. Hodges, Esq., of Kentucky. 



15 

for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man 
— such as a policy of ' don't care/ on a question about 
which all true men do care — such as Union appeals, beseech- 
ing true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing the 
Divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to 
repentance — such as invocations of Washington, imploring 
men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Wash- 
ington did. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by 
false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by 
menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons 
to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might ; and 
in that faith, let us to the end, dare to do our duty, as we 
understand it." 

Mr. Lincoln's logic was pointed with wit, and his ethical 
reasoning was often set home by a pithy story. The reputa- 
tion of a story-teller and a jester was turned by his oppo- 
nents to his disparagement ; but his stories were philosophy 
in parables, and his jests were morals. If sometimes they 
smacked of humble life, this was due not to his tastes but to 
his early associations. His wit was always used with point 
and purpose ; for the boy who committed all Esop's fables 
to memory, had learned too well the use of story and of para- 
ble to forego that keen weapon in political argument. The 
whole people took his witty eaution " not to swop horses in 
the middle of the stream." 

The base-born plea that social amalgamation would follow 
the emancipation of the negro, he met by a rare stroke of 
wit : " I do not understand that because I do not want a 
negro woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a 
wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone. 
I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had 
a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me 
quite possible for us to get along without making either 
slaves or wives of negroes. I recollect but one distinguished 
advocate of the perfect equality of the races, and that is 
Judge Douglas's old friend. Colonel Kichard M, Johnson."* 

* Speech at Columbus, February, 1859. 



16 

Yet Mr. Lincoln's wit was never malicious nor rudely- 
personal. Once when Mr. Douglas had attempted to parry 
an argument by imj^eaching the veracity of a senator whom 
Mr. Lincoln had quoted, he answered, that the question was 
not one of veracity, but simply one of argument. " By a 
course of reasoning, Euclid proves that all the angles in a 
triangle are equal to two right angles. Now, if you under- 
take to disprove that proposition, would you prove it to be 
false by calling Euclid a liar .?"* 

II. Passing from the intellectual traits of Mr. Lincoln to 
his moral qualities, we find in these the same Providential 
preparation for his work, through long years of hardy train- 
ing. He was of a meek and a patient spirit — both prime 
elements in a strong character. It might almost be said of 
him, as it was said of Moses, that " he was meek above all 
the men which were upon the face of the earth." The early 
discipline of poverty, toil, and sorrow, accompanied with ma- 
ternal lessons of submission to God, had taught him to labor 
and to wait in the patience of hope. It was a household 
sajdng of his mother, when times were hard and days were 
dark, " It isn't best to borrow too much trouble. We must 
have faith in God." And so Abraham learned that " it is 
good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth ; and it 
is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the 
salvation of the Lord." And when the yoke of a nation's 
burdens and sorrows was laid upon his shoulders, his gentle, 
patient spirit accepted it without faltering and without re- 
pining. He did not borrow too much trouble, but had faith 
in God. Neither the violence of enemies, nor the impatience 
and distrust of friends, could irritate him ; neither the threats 
of traitors, nor the zeal of partisans, could disturb his equa- 
nimity, or urge him faster than Providence, speaking through 
the logic of events, would seem to lead him. " Thy gentle- 
ness," said the Psalmist, "hath made me great;" and a 
certain divine gentleness had possessed and fortified the soul 
of Abraham Lincoln. 

* Speech at Charleston, September 18, 1858. 



17 

Cheerfulness was with him a moral quality as well as the 
native cast of his temperament. It sprang from the con- 
sciousness of sincerity, from good will toward men, and from 
hatitual trust in God. His playful humor sometimes belied 
him ; since no man was farther removed from levity and 
frivolity of mind. A thoughtful earnestness pervaded his 
being — an earnestness that sometimes verged upon sadness, 
yet never sank into moroseness. It was a cheerful earnest- 
ness : and while cheerfulness was the tone of his tempera- 
ment, he cultivated this quality for the relief of his own 
mind, and for the stimulation of others against despondency. 
I shall ever cherish among the brightest memories of life, 
an hour in his working-room last September, which was one 
broad sheet of sunshine. He had spent the morning poring 
over the returns of a court-martial upon capital cases, and 
studying to decide them according to truth ; and upon the 
entrance of a friend, he threw himself into an attitude of 
relaxation, and sparkled with good humor. I will not repeat, 
lest they should be misconstrued, his trenchant witticisms 
upon political topics now gone by ; yet one of these can 
wound no living patriot. I spoke of the rapid rise of Union 
feeling since the promulgation of the Chicago platform, and 
the victory at Atlanta ; and the question was started, which 
had contributed the most to the reviving of Union sentiment — 
the victory or the platform. " I guess," said the President, 
"it was the victory; at any rate I'd rather have that re- 
peated." 

Being informed of the death of John Morgan, he said, 
" Well, I wouldn't crow over anybody's death ; but I can 
take this as resignedly as any dispensation of Providence. 
Morgan was a coward, a nigger-driver ; a low creature, such 
as you Northern men know nothing about." 

The political horizon was still overcast, but he spoke with 
unaffected confidence and cheerfulness of the result ; saying 
with emphasis, " I rely upon the religious sentiment of the 
country, which I am told is very largely for me." 

Even in times of deepest solicitude, he maintained this 
cheerful serenity before others. It may be said of him, as of 

2 



18 

Ms great prototype, William of Orange, " His jocoseness was 
partly natural, partly intentional. In the darkest hours of 
his country's trial, he affected a serenity which he did not 
always feel, so that his apparent gayety at momentous epochs 
was cjven censured by dullards, who could not comprehend 
its philosophy. He went through life bearing the load of a 
people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face." 

It is pleasant to know that what was, perhaps, the last 
official act of the President, before the fatal night, was per- 
formed in this spirit of joyousness. The Governor of Mary- 
land called upon Lim with a friend late on Friday, and found 
him very cheerful over the state of the country ; at the close 
of the interview, one of the visitors asked a little favor for a 
friend ; the President wrote the necessary order, and said, 
"Anything now to make the people happy." 

His kindness and sensibility were proverbial almost to a 
fault. Yet no other single trait so well exhibits the majesty 
of his soul ; for it was not a sentimental tenderness — the 
mere weakness of a sympathetic nature — but a kindness that 
proceeded from an intelligent sympathy and good will for 
humanity, and a Christian hatred of all injustice and wrong. 
He once said in a political speech : " The Savior, I sujipose, 
did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as the 
Father in heaven ; but He said. As your Father in Heaven 
is perfect, be ye also perfect. He set that up as a standard, 
and he who did most towards reaching that standard at- 
tained the highest degree of moral perfection." With a 
noble contempt for political prejudices, and with a touching 
moral simplicity, Mr. Lincoln avowed this principle in his 
treatment of the negro : " In pointing out that more has 
been given you [by the Creator], you cannot be justified in 
taking away the little which has been given him. If God 
gave him but little, that little let him enjoy. In the right to 
eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his 
own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge 
Douglas, and the equal of every living man." 

In his highest prosperity he never forgot his kindred with 
men of low estate. Amid all the cares of office, his ear was 



19 

always open to a tale of sorrow or of wrong, and his hand 
was always ready to relieve suffering and to remedy injustice. 
I seem to see him now, leaning against the railing that di- 
vides the war-office from the White House, while the carriage 
is waiting at the door, and listening to the grievance of a 
plain man, then sitting down upon the coping and writing on 
a card an order to have the case investigated and remedied. 
An undignified position, do you say ? It was the native dig- 
nity of kindness. 

Sometimes a personal sorrow opens a little rift through 
which you can look down into the depths of a great soul. I 
once looked thus, for an instant, into the soul of Eichard 
CoBDEN. Having had some slight association with Mr, 
Cobden in England upon the question of common-school 
education, when he came here in 1859, I attended him to 
some of our public schools. On leaving the Thirteenth 
street school, I inquired if he would go over to the Free 
Academy. "No," said he, with a quick emphasis, "you 
must not take me to any more boys' schools — I can't bear 
it." The drop that trembled in his eye interpreted his mean- 
ing. Just before leaving home he had laid his only son, a 
bright lad of fourteen, in the church-yard where he himself 
now lies. Like Burke, " he had begun to live in an inverted 
order ; they who ought to have succeeded him had gone be- 
fore him." I had honored Mr. Cobden before, I have loved 
him since. 

In the spring of 1862, the President spent several days at 
Fortress Monroe, awaiting military operations upon the Pe- 
ninsula. As a portion of the cabinet were with him, that 
was temporarily the seat of government, and he bore with him 
constantly the burden of public affairs. His favorite diver- 
sion was reading Shakespeare, whom he rendered with fine 
discrimination of emphasis and feeling. One day (it chanced 
to be the day before the taking of Norfolk), as he sat reading 
alone, he called to his Aide in the adjoining room, " You have 
been writing long enough. Colonel, come in here : I want to 
read you a passage in Hamlet." He read the discussion on 



20' 

ambition between Hamlet and bis courtiers,* and tbe solilo- 
quy, in wbicb conscience debates of a future state.f This 
■was followed by passages from Macbeth. Then opening to 
King John, he read from the third act the passage in which 
Constance bewails her imprisoned, lost boy : 

(The king commands) Bind up your tresses. 

Con. Yes, that I will ; and wherefore wiU I do it ? 
I tore them from their bonds ; and cried aloud, 
that these hands could so redeem my son 
As they have given these haii's their liberty ! 
But now I envy at their liberty, 
And will again commit them to their bonds, 
Because my poor child is a prisoner : 

never, never 

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 

K. Philip. You are as fond of grief, as of your child. 

Con. Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. 
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief. 

***** 

Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son I 
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure. 

He closed the book, and recalling the words — 

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say 

That we shall see and know our friends in heaven : 

If that be true, I shall see my boy again 

Mr. Lincoln said, " Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost 
friend, and feel that you were holding sweet communion 
with that friend, and yet have a sad consciousness that it 
was not a reality ? — ^just so I dream of my boy Willie." 
Overcome with emotion, he dropped his head on the table, 
and sobbed aloud. Truly does Col. Cannon observe, that 
" this exhibition of parental affection and grief before a com- 

* Act ii. sc ene 2. f -^^t i"- scene 1. % ■A-ct iii. scene 4. 



i 



I 



m. 



parative stranger, showed not only his tender nature, but 
his great simplicity and naturalness — the transparency of 
his character. It was most suggestive."* 

It was meet that Willie should be borne with him in his 
last long journey, to rest hereafter in the same tomb ; for, 
believe me, hp would have prized the love of his little Willie 
above all the homage of the nation's tears. 

Akin to this kindliness and sensibility was his magnanimity 
of soul. " I would despise myself," said he in his debate with 
Douglas, " if I supposed myself ready to deal less liberally 
vdth an adversary than I was willing to be treated myself." 
And again he said : " If I have stated anything erroneous 
— if I have brought forward anything not a fact — it needed 
only that Judge Douglas should point it out, it will not 
even ruflfle me to take it back. I do not deal in that way," 

How magnanimously he disclaimed personal praise, and 
accorded honor to others. You will at once recall his letter 
to General Grant after the capture of Yicksburgh : 

" I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this 
now as a grateful acknowledgment of the almost inestimable service you 
have done the country. I write to say a word further. . . . When 
you took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go 
down the river and join Gen. Banks, and when you turned northward, east 
of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the per- 
sonal acknowledgment, that you were right and I was wrong." 

How gently he assuaged the tumult of party strifes by his 
tone of magnanimity toward his defeated opponent, in ac- 
knowledging a popular ovation rendered him upon his re- 
election to the Presidency. 

Such was the whole spirit of his public life, culminating 
at last in an utterance which shall be immortal — " with 

MALICE TOWARD NONE, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL." 

The inflexible integrity of Mr. Lincoln has imprinted it- 



* I am indebted for this incident to Col. Le Grand B. Cannon, then of 
Gen. Wool's Staff. 



22 

self upon the heart and the history of the American people, 
in that familiar but honorable epithet '' Honest Abe." His 
was not simply a commercial honesty, in dollars and cents, 
but honesty in opinion, honesty in speech, honesty of pur- 
pose, honesty in action. " Always speal^ the truth, my son," 
said his mother to him, when in her Sabbath readings she 
expounded the ninth commandment. " I do tell the truth," 
was his uniform reply. 

When Douglas attempted to impeach a statement of a 
brother senator, who was Mr. Lincoln's personal friend, Lin- 
coln replied, " I am ready to indorse him, because, neither in 
that thing nor in any other, in all the years that I have 
known Lyman Trumbull, have I known him to fail of his 
word, or tell a falsehood, large or small : " and that to Abra- 
ham Lincoln was a certificate of character. 

His integrity carried him through arduous political cam- 
paigns, without the shadow of deviation from principle. He 
adopted great principles and by these he was willing to live 
or to die. His debate with Douglas, as I before said, was 
throughout a struggle for principle — the principle that 
slavery was wrong, and therefore that the nation should not 
sanction it nor suffer its extension. '' I do not claim," he 
said, " to be unselfish ; I do not pretend that I would not 
like to go to the United States Senate ; I make no such 
hypocritical pretence, but I do say to you that in this mighty 
issue, it is nothing to you, nothing to the mass of the peo- 
ple of the nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself 
shall ever be heard of after this night ; it may be a trifle to 
either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, 
upon which hang the destinies of the nation perhaps, it is 
absolutely nothing." 

When about to assume the grave responsibilities of the 
Presidency, he said to his fellow citizens, "I promise you that 
I bring to the work a sincere heart. Whether I will bring a 
head equal to that heart will be for future times to deter- 
mine."* That his head was equal to his task all now agree ; 

* Speech at PMladelphia, February 20, 1861. 



23 

but it is far more to Ms honor tliat throngli all the tempta- 
tions of office, lie held fast his integrity. One who was 
much with him, testifies that " in everything he did he 
was governed by his conscience, and when ambition intruded, 
it was thrust aside by his conviction of right." What he 
said he did, " without shadow of turning." He was as firm 
for the right as he was forbearing toward the wrong-doer. 
How solemn his appeal to the seceders, at the close of his 
first inaugural : " You have no oath registered in heaven to 
destroy the government ; while I shall have the most solemn 
one to preserve, protect and defend it." That oath he kept 
with all honesty and fidelity. 

This honesty of principle inspired him with true moral 
heroism. Abraham Lincoln always met his duty as 
calmly as he met his death. He knew, at any time in the 
last four years, that to do his duty would be to court death ; 
but in his first message he laid down the moral consideration 
that overruled all personal fears : " As a private citizen the 
Executive could not have consented that these institutions 
shall perish ; much less could he, in betrayal of so vast and 
so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. 
He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to 
count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In 
full view of his great responsibility he has so far done what 
he has deemed his duty. Having thus chosen our course 
without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust 
in God, and go forward without fear and with manly 
hearts." 

Bishop Simpson has quoted from a speech of Mr. Lincoln, 
in 1839, a declaration of the most heroic patriotism : 

" Of the slave power he said, Broken by it ? I too may be asked to bow 
to it. I never will. The probability that we may fail in the struggle, 
ought not to deter us from the support of a cause which I deem to be just. 
It shall not deter me. If I ever feel the soul within me elevate and ex- 
pand to dimensions not whoUy unworthy of its Almighty architect, it is 
when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world be- 
side, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her vie- 



24 

torious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before 
high Heaven, and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to 
the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and 
my love." 

With what a lofty courage, too, did he stand hj the rights 
and liberties of those to whom he was pledged by his procla- 
mation of January 1, 1863. 

What nobler words could be inscribed uj)on his monument 
than these from his last message : "I repeat the declaration 
made a year ago, that while I remain in my present position 
I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation 
proclamation. Nor shall I return to slavery any person 
who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of 
the acts of Congress. If the people should, by whatever 
mode or means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave such 
persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to per- 
form it." 

It was that decree of emancipation that inspired the 
hatred that compassed his murder. Yet from the day of his 
nomination he had been marked for a violent death ; and 
knowing this, he had devoted his life to the cause of liberty. 
At Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, he said, in 1861, 
" Can this country be saved upon the basis of the sentiment 
embodied in the Declaration of Independence ? If it can, I 
will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world, if 
I can helj) to save it. If it cannot be saved on that prin- 
ciple, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say 
I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. 
I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if 
it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by." 

A calm trust in God was the loftiest, worthiest character- 
istic in the lile of Abraham Lincoln. He had learned this 
long ago. " I would rather Abe would be able to read the 
Bible than to own a farm, if he can't have but one," said his 
godly mother. That Bible was Abraham Lincoln's guide. 
Mr. Jay informs me, that being on the steamer which con- 



25 

veyed the governmental party from Fortress Monroe to Nor- 
folk, after the destruction of the Merrimac, while all on 
board were excited by the novelty of the excursion and by 
the incidents that it recalled, he missed the President from 
the company, and, on looking about, found him in a quiet 
nook, reading a well-worn Testament. Such an incidental 
revelation of his religious habits is worth more than pages of 
formal testimony. 

The constant recognition of God in his public docu- 
ments shows how completely his mind was under the domin- 
ion of religious faith. This is never a common-place formal- 
ism nor a misplaced cant. To satisfy ourselves of Mr. Lin- 
coln's Christian character, we have no need to resort to 
apocryphal stories that illustrate the assurance of his 
visitors quite as much as the simplicity of his faith ; we 
have but to follow internal evidences, as the workings of his 
soul reveal themselves through his own published utter- 
ances. On leaving Springfield for the Capital, he said : 

" A duty devolves upon me "wliicli is, perhaps, greater than that which 
has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He 
never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, 
upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without 
the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty 
Being I place my rehance for support ; and I hope you, my friends, wiU 
all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot 
succeed, but with which, success is certain." 

He knew himself to be surrounded by a religious commu- 
nity who were acquainted with his life ; and his words were 
spoken in all sincerity. 

At Gettysburg, with a grand simplicity worthy of Demos- 
thenes, he dedicated himself with religious earnestness to the 
great task yet before him, in humble dependence upon God. 
Owning the power of vicarious sacrifice, he said, " We can- 
not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this 
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled 
here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or de- 
tract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what 



26 

■we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It 
is for uSj the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfin- 
ished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on." 

We distinctly trace the growth of this feeling of religious 
consecration in his public declarations : " We can but press 
on, guided by the best light God gives us, trusting that in his 
own good time and wise way, all will be well. Let us not be 
oversanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite 
sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting 
that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the right- 
ful result."* " The nation's condition is not what either 
party or any man desired or expected. God alone can claim 
it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills 
the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the 
North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our 
complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein 
new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of 
God."f This devout feeling culminated at length in that 
sublime confession of faith, of humility, of dependence, 
of consecration, known as his last inaugural. It is said, upon 
good authority, that had he lived, he would have made a 
public profession of his faith in Christ. But Abraham Lin- 
coln needed no other confession than that which he made on 
the 4th of March last in the hearing of all nations. 

A Christian lady, who was profoundly impressed with 
the religious tone of the inaugural, requested, through a 
friend in Congress, that the President would give her his au- 
tograph by the very pen that wrote that now immortal docu- 
ment, adding that her sons should be taught to repeat its 
closing paragraph with their catechism. The President, with 
evident emotion, replied, " She shall have my signature, and 
with it she shall have that paragraph. It comforts me to 
know that my sentiments are supported by the Christian la- 
dies of our country." 

His pastor at Washington, after being near him steadily, 
and with him often for more than four years, bears this testi- 
mony : " I speak what I know and testify what I have often 

* Letter to Kentucky. j Letter to A. G. Hodges, April, 1864. 



27 

heard him say, when I affirm the guidance and the mercy of 
God were the props on which he humbly and habitually 
leaned ;" and that " his abiding confidence in God and in 
the final triumph of truth and righteousness through Him 
and for His sake, was his noblest virtue, his grandest princi- 
ple, the secret alike of his strength, his patience, and his 
success." 

Thus trained of God for his great work, and called of God 
in the fullness of tiine, how grandly did Abraham Lincoln 
meet his responsibilities and round up his life. How he grew 
under pressure. How often did his patient heroism in the 
earlier years of the war serve us in the stead of victories. 
He carried our mighty sorrows ; while he never knew rest, 
nor the enjoyment of office. How wisely did his cautious, 
sagacious, comprehensive judgment deliver us from the perils 
of haste. How clearly did he discern the guiding hand and 
the unfolding; will of God. How did he tower above the 
storm in his unselfish patriotism, resolved to save the unity 
of the nation. And when the day of duty and of opportunity 
came, how firmly did he deal the last great blow for liberty, 
striking the shackles from three million slaves ; while " upon 
this, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by 
the Constitution (upon military necessity), he invoked the 
considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of 
Almighty God." Kightly did he regard this Proclamation as 
the central act of his administration, and the central fact of 
the nineteenth century. Let it be engraved upon our walls, 
upon our hearts ; let the scene adorn the rotunda of the 
Capitol — henceforth a sacred shrine of liberty. It needed 
only that the seal of martyrdom upon such a life should 
cause his virtues to be transfigured before us in imperishable 
grandeur, and his name to be emblazoned with heaven's own 
light upon that topmost arch of fame, which shall stand when 
governments and nations fall. 



& 



Moderate, resolute, 
Whole in himself, a common good. 
Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 



28 

Our greatest yet with least pretence 
Rich in saving common-sense, 
And as the greatest only are, 
In his simpUcity sublime. 

Who never sold the truth, to serve the hour, 
Nor paltered with Eternal God for power 
Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
Thro' either babbhng world of high and low ; 
Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
Who never spoke against a foe. 

And to this, borrowed of England's laureate, we add the 
spontaneous offering of our own uncrowned bard, the laureate 
of the people : 

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, 

Gentle and merciful and just ! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 

The sword of power, a nation's trust ! 

In sorrow by thy bier we stand, 

Amid the awe that hushes aU, 
And speak the anguish of a land 

That shook with horror at thy fall. 

Thy task is done ; the bond are free ; 

We bear thee to an honored grave. 
Whose proudest monument shaU be 

The broken fetters of the slave. 

Pure was thy life ; its bloody close 

Hath placed thee with the sons of light, 

Among the noble host of those 

AVho perished in the cause of Right. 

But this grand life imposes upon us lessons of duty as well 
as claims of honor. And we best honor the life itself by 
worthily fulfilling its lessons, 

1. The life of Mr. Lincoln should incite us to unswerving 
fidelity to our institutions of civil government, as identified 
both with the existence of the nation and with the welfare of 
mankind. Standing by his grave we must renew for our- 
selves the vow which he made in our name by the graves of 



29 

our dead at Gettysburgh — resolving that " the dead shall not 
have died in vain — that the nation shall, under God, have a 
new birth of freedom, and that the government of the peo- 
ple, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth/' 

In his first message, he taught us that on the side of the 
Union, the struggle was for " maintaining in the world, that 
form and substance of government, whose leading object is to 
elevate the condition of men, to lift artificial weights from 
all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, 
to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race 
of life — this is the leading object of the government for 
which we contend." 

And again, in his second message, he showed that " the 
insurrection was largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the 
first principle of popular government — the rights of the peo- 
ple." We have saved that principle, not for ourselves alone, 
but for mankind. 

To be true to Abraham Lincoln, is to be true to the Ameri- 
can Union, as the inviolate and the inviolable heritage of 
freedom ; true to that great idea of a nationality undivided, 
and of a sovereignty in the Nation above the State. In his 
own piquant words, we must put down effectually, "the 
assumed right of a State to rule all which is less than itself, 
and ruin all which is larger than itself."* 

2. We must take measures for the utter extinction of 
slavery, by severing every tie of the slave-oligarchy to the 
polity and to the soil of the country. We must end this re- 
bellion so effectually, that not a solitary root or fibre of it 
shall remain to plague us in the future. We owe it to our- 
selves, in view of all that we have done and suffered in the 
cause ; we owe it to our dead, who gave themselves for our 
salvation ; we owe it to our posterity, who shall reap what 
we now sow ; we owe it to mankind, to whom we should now 
furnish an example of a free, just, and peaceful government ; 
and we owe it to the memory of the leader and martyr who 

* Speech to tlie Legislature of Indiana, 1861. 



30 



hath consecrated our cause by his great sacrifice ; that we 
guard effectually against the recurrence of a war of opposing 
sections or civilizations. And for this it is indispensable 
that we stamp this rebellion as a crime, that we measure out 
to its sponsors and abettors appropriate penalties, and that 
we root out the whole system of society by which it was in- 
spired, and for which it has been maintained — for this con- 
spiracy was a CEiME, without excuse on the part of its 
leaders, whether of ignorance, of provocation, or of motive ; 
without color or mitigation from beginning to end. It should 
be held up as a crime to the execration of our children and of 
coming ages ; and to this end we must condemn the conspira- 
tors by a national judgment that will ever after deter unprin- 
cipled and unscrupulous demagogues from a like attempt. It 
is not enough that they who have brought this terrible ruin 
upon the country be left simply to share its natural conse- 
quences to themselves. There must be a verdict against the 
crime, and a judgment upon the criminals that shall stand as a 
warning, darkj frowning, terrible, to all agitators and con- 
spirators within the bosom of the Kej)ublic. No timid or 
time-serving policy, no weak and sickly sentimentalism, no 
pity for the criminals themselves, no good-natured forbear- 
ance toward a section or class once courted with political 
favoritism, should be suffered to restrain the judgment due to 
this stupendous crime. Now since slavery inspired the re- 
bellion, and since this was in turn inspired by pride of social 
caste, and by lust of political domination, the axe should be 
laid at the roots of the system that gave to the conspiracy 
its pretext and its vitality. The penalty of a voluntary and 
determined participation in the rebellion should be the per- 
emptory alienation of the estates of the conspirators, and the 
perpetual disfranchisement of the conspirators themselves. 
This I urge as the most radical and effective form of justice, 
and as indispensable to the peace of the country and to the 
safety of liberty. 

Two popular cries, " Slavery is dead," and " Hang the 
traitors," are diverting the public mind from that broader 
and sterner justice which is needed for the destruction of the 



31 



conspiracy itself, and as a warning against another sucli at- 
tempt, in _^after- times. Slavery is not dead. In two States 
it remains untouched by the Proclamation of Emancipation. 
In nearly the whole region of the rebellion the local laws 
which gave it life are unrepealed ; and should the rebel States 
be restored to their status in the Union without the previous 
dispossession and disfranchisement of the rebels themselves, 
those laws would confront the Proclamation in the courts. 
The Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery is not 
yet sanctioned by the requisite number of States, nor even 
by all the Northern States. Southern planters professing 
loyalty to the Union have been known to boast that they 
would recover their slaves, and they would find politicians at 
the North ready to aid them, and to divide the country upon 
that issue. Slavery is not dead. 

Now, hanging a few traitors vdll not kill slavery ; and our 
danger is that slavery itself will slip through the noose, and 
that when it shall begin to revive from the shock, many who 
are now shouting " Hang the traitors," will take up the old 
familiar cry, " Hang the abolitionists," It is because of this 
n.ow imminent peril, a peril that makes peace more threaten- 
ing than war, that I would urge upon all who love Peace, 
Liberty, and Union, a measure dictated not by leniency to- 
ward criminals, but by the broadest considerations of justice 
and of public policy. As a help to the discussion of this 
measure, I submit the following propositions : 

(1.) Capital punishment is the appropriate penalty for the 
crime of murder, and civil government is clothed with the 
sword for the punishment of crimes against the life of 
society. 

(2.) The conspirators against the government of the United 
States should have justice meted out to them as criminals 
against society and the state. 

(3.) Since the Constitution, which carefully defines the 
crime of treason, leaves it to Congress to declare its penalty, 
we are not shut up to any single form of penalty against these 
traitors ; but should a capital indictment under the old law 
be waived, or should a jury fail of a capital conviction, the 



32 

several damnatory acts of Congress during tlie Kebellion are 
still valid as penal ordinances. 

(4.) There can be no doubt that the leading traitors deserve 
to forfeit their lives for their crime. 

(5.) There can hardly be a doubt, that the execution of 
the leaders within ninety days after the conspiracy broke 
out, would have crushed the conspiracy by inspiring terror ; 
but slavery would have remained intact, the mob by this 
time would have been at its old work of hanging negroes 
and abolitionists, and the seeds of rebellion would have 
ripened into another crop of traitors, nourished from the 
blood of laen reputed martyrs for the South and its insti- 
tutions. 

(6.) The rebellion — which, at the outset, was simply a trai- 
torous conspiracy — had grown to the gigantic proportions of 
a civil war, long evenly balanced in the scales of battle. The 
great powers of Europe recognised the rebels as belligerents, 
and we were compelled to an indirect recognition of them so 
far forth as the exchange of prisoners ; and, moreover, our 
late President, with the Secretary of State, held informal 
consultations with their commissioners upon terms of peace. 
Now, there is a growing tendency in the civilized world to 
place political crimes in a different category from common 
crimes against person and life ; and, in dealing with the rebel 
leaders, we must have due respect to the enlightened senti- 
ment of Christendom, and be able to justify ourselves in the 
verdict of impartial history. The question is not simply 
what the traitors deserve, but, what form of penalty is now 
best for the safety of the country and for our good name in 
the coming centuries ; and, therefore, not for their sakes but 
for our own, we can afford to let them live, seeing that we 
can inflict upon them a penalty more trenchant and more 
radical, dooming them to obscurity and ignominy, without 
exciting sympathy for them at home or abroad. 

Moreover, since those who have been in arms against the 
government — which is the overt act of treason — are virtually 
set free of the gallows by the military action of the govern- 
ment itself, would it satisfy the claims of justice to hang the 



33 



officials of the bubble Confederacy ? and — what is of more 
consequence — would this break down effectually the spirit of 
the rebellion, and root out its motive and cause ? 

No doubt these conspirators richly deserve such a fate, and 
should it befall them I would accept it with becoming resig- 
nation. But the question is one of an enlightened and com- 
prehensive policy for the nation. We must be careful to keep 
our hands clean of even the imputation of a passionate re- 
venge ; and we must be careful, also, to keep our soil clear 
of the seeds of rancor and of treason for the future. It is 
worthy of consideration, then, whether the mode of dealing 
with the traitors that I here propose, will not be more effec- 
tual than would be the capital execution of a few ; for I 
take it that the public mind would soon be glutted with such 
executions, and then there might come a reaction of pity and 
of sympathy, that would allow the real authors of the con- 
spiracy, as a class — the slaveocracy — to go unwhipt of jus- 
tice. Bat, shall the way be open for Lee, or any of the paroled 
conspirators, to resume their citizenship within the Union 
they have labored to destroy ? 

I do not ask, could we trust them again in the places of 
power they once desecrated by perjury and treason. I 
do not ask could there be good fellowship with them again 
in the Senate ? confidence in them in the Cabinet ? I ask, is 
there nothing due to justice ? Nothing due to the dignity 
of the nation ? Nothing due to history ? Nothing due to 
posterity ? We must brand this monster crime with a 
penalty that will be felt, with an infamy that will never be 
forgotten at home or abroad. 

Commonly, but not invariably, capital punishment is the 
most dreaded as well as the most ignominious form of penal- 
ty. But there are cases in which penalty comes in forms 
more dreadful and more ignominious than the scaffold. Our 
first feeling was one of regret that the murderer of the Presi- 
dent was not brought to the gallows. But he would have 
then had the histrionic effect of a state trial, and perhaps a 
degree of pity, such as even the greatest criminal draws to 
himself after the first hideousness of his crime has passed. 

3 



\ 
34 

Now, what a fate was his ! I shudder at the teiTors 
of Divine retribution. In bodily anguish and tortured 
by fear, skulking from the view of men, with none daring to 
screen him nor to give him succor, dying daily a thousand 
deaths, tracked at length to his hiding place, smoked out 
like some noisome beast from his lair, and shot down without 
mercy, yet knowing his miserable fate, — the nerves of motion 
paralyzed, the nerves of feeling intensified, so that he begged 
for death as a relief from misery — and at the very time that 
the honored body of his victim was being borne through the 
land amid the mournful tributes of the whole people, his 
unpitied carcase, unshrouded and uncoffined, was carried out 
into the darkness, the stars forbearing to look upon it, the 
earth and the sea refusing it burial, while for every tear that 
dropped upon the bier of the martyr President, an exe- 
cration fell upon the assassin, as he sank into the fathom- 
less unknown. There may be a justice more terrible than 
the scaffold — or there may be a living infamy worse than 
death. 

If now we strip all who have knowingly, freely, and per- 
sistently upheld this rebellion, of their property and their 
citizenship, they will become beggared and infamous outcasts ; 
fleeing the country, not as hunted exiles courting sympathy 
abroad and creating sympathy at home, but like Cain, with 
the brand upon their foreheads, and with a punishment great- 
er than they can bear. They will not dare to return to the 
South, for their wealth being gone, and their social and polit- 
ical power broken, they would find none so poor to do them 
reverence ; nor would they risk their lives among the common 
people whom they had deceived and ruined. The landed ar- 
istocracy which had fostered slavery being thus evicted of the 
soil, and the political power that had upheld it being evicted 
of the state, slavery would die beyond the possibility of resus- 
citation. The Union people of the South, and the mass of 
the common people, won back by kindness, uniting with our 
veterans and Northern emigrants, would plant farms and vil- 
lages upon the old slave plantations ; and with our help in 
schools and churches, a new social order would arise upon the 



35 

basis of freedom and loyalty, to be guaranteed by tbe insti- 
tutions of education and religion, and by placing the ballot 
in the hands of every man who is known to be loyal, and 
who can read it. 

All this must be a work of time ; but the work is nothing 
less than to build up society and the state from the founda- 
tion, and this in the midst of chaos. There is now nothing 
of the old order of things that we can safely build upon, or 
that will serve as material for building. For, since the 
States rebelled in their organic character, they forfeited exist- 
ence and lapsed into anarchy ; every rebel then forfeited all 
his privileges as a citizen of the United States ; so that, as I 
said at the opening of the war, there could be no question of 
in the Union or oict of it, but the only alternative was m the 
Union, with full allegiance to its supremacy, or under it, sub- 
ject to its authority, but debarred from all its privileges ; and 
now from that chaotic territory, new States must arise under 
the tutelage of Congressional law. Our immediate danger is 
from the recognition of old State forms in the South and the 
rapid restoration of crude State governments. When you 
consider that except in the naturalization of foreigners, not 
Congress but the State fixes the condition of citizenship, you 
will see how great the danger is in readmitting to their 
status in the Union States scarce half purged of treason. 

Loyal men in the South, having good means of informa- 
tion, estimate that seventy-five per cent, of the land in the 
Southern States is held by men who have been directly or in- 
directly in complicity with treason against the United States. 
If this tremendous political and social power be restored to 
these men by the mere fiction of an oath of allegiance, what 
shall hinder their imposing disabilities upon the colored race 
and the poor whites, that will virtually restore the old 
regime of the slave aristocracy ? With land and legislation 
in their hands, they will again become the dictators of 
Southern sentiment, and by concentrating upon a common 
policy will make terms with political parties at the North 
for their own aggrandizement. 

The time has fully come, when, as Mr. Lincoln signifi- 
cantly said in his first inaugural, we must " provide by law 



36 

for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which 
guarantees that the citizens of each State shall he entitled to 
all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." The time has fully come when we must make good 
his official declaration of July 30, 1863, that " it is the duty 
of every government to give protection to its citizens, of 
whatever class, color, or condition." The time is fully come 
when we must give vitality and practical effect to the fourth 
section of the fourth article of the Constitution, that " the 
United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a 
re]3uhlican form of government." 

Mr. Lincoln has laid down with his usual clearness the 
principle that governs the case : " An attempt to guarantee 
and protect a revived State government, constructed in whole, 
or in preponderating part, from the very element against 
whose hostility and violence it is to be protected, is simply 
absurd. There must be a test by which to separate the op- 
posing element, so as to build only from the sound." But 
just at the critical point of fixing the test, Mr. Lincoln's 
confiding kindness got the better of his good judgment. He 
did not make sufficient allowance for human depravity, nor 
for political chicanery ; and his amnesty oath opens a wide 
door for perjured rebels to plot new mischief within the 
State. 

But let us once clear the ground of the rebellious leaders, 
by unrelenting confiscation and disfranchisement, then let 
Congress fix the status of citizens, and these in due time 
frame a free State constitution, and all is clear and safe. Do 
you shrink from the time and cost of such measures ? I 
grant it were easier and cheaper to hang a few rebels ; but 
we should aim to destroy the rebellion, so that it shall have 
no issue and no successor. If true to Mr. Lincoln, we shall 
see that the work of emancipation is made sure, and we shall 
but follow his example by going beyond his own position, as 
the logic of events shall lead us forward. That the nation 
may live, slavery must utterly die. 

3. Our last lesson from the life of Al)raham Lincoln is that 
of unwavering confidence in God, for the guidance, the de- 



37 

fence and the deliverance of the nation. Mr. Cobden was 
wont to say of men in public life, " You have no hold of any 
one who has no religious faith." Our hold upon Mr. Lincoln 
was in his character as a man of positive and earnest reli- 
gious convictions ; and his hold upon us and upon posterity is 
mainly through that character. He never distrusted God, 
and he was willing to follow implicitly the teachings of the 
Bible and of Divine Providence. His death has tlirown us 
back once more upon God as our helper and our trust. 
In his own words, " I turn and look to the great American 
people, and to that God who has never forsaken them." 

The historian of France has written, that when Louis 
XIV. died, " it was not a man, it was a world that ended." 
But with Abraham Lincoln a new era was born that is glori- 
fied and made perpetual through his death. He has told 
how once he was startled and terrified at being awakened at 
midnight to see the stars falling and to hear the cry that the 
end of the world had come. But he looked up to the Great 
Bear and the Pointers, and seeing them unshaken, he re- 
turned to his rest. And now that he has gone so calmly to 
his last rest, we look up through the cloud and see the 
steady pointers of the sky, A star of the first magnitude 
has fallen from the meridian ; but the pole is unchanged, and 
the world holds on its course. Angel hands are only shift- 
ing the curtains of the sky for the dawn. The day is bright- 
ening ; let us turn from this night of sorrow and of blood to 
welcome it with our morning hymn of hope and praise. 

North, with all thy vales of green, 

South, with all thy palms, 
From peopled towns and fields between, 

Uplift the voice of psalms. 
Raise ancient East, the anthem high. 
And let the youthful West reply. 

Lo ! in the clouds of heaven appears 

God's well beloved Son ; 
He brings a train of brighter years — 

His kingdom is begun ; 
He comes a guilty world to bless 
With mercy, truth, and righteousness. 



S8 

Father, haste the promised hour 

When at his feet shall lie, 
All rule, authority, and power, 

Beneath the ample sky. 
When He shall reign from pole to pole, 
The Lord of every human soul. 

When all shall heed the words He said 

Amid their daily cares. 
And by the loving life He led, 

Shall strive to pattern theirs ; 
And He who conquered death shall win 
The mighty conquest over sin.* 



* Hymn by W. C. Bryant, read by Kev. S. Osgood, D. D., at the commem- 
orative service in Union Square, April 25, 1865. 



^LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY,^ 

i ] 

\ 863 BROADW^AY. ', 

') 'i 

\ > 

\ 
JTo, 86. / 

SOME REASONS j 

/ 

FOR THE ^ 

IMMEDIATE ESTABLISHMENT i 

OF A ;; 

FOR THE s 

s 



By CHARLES BROOKS, 
medfomh, mass. 



FRANCIS LIEBER, 

President. 

J. A. STEVENS, Jr. 

Secretary. 

W. T. BLODGETT, 

Ch. Executive Com. 




MORRIS KETCHUM, 

Treasurer, 

LE GRAND B. CANNON, 
Ch. Finance Com. 

JAMES MCKAYE, 

Ch. Publication Com, 



NEW YORK. 

1865. 



To Col. Le Grand B. Cannon, of New Torh : 

Knowing your strong and steady loyalty to the great cause of our 
country, and your deep interest in every effort to extend Education, 
I heartUy Dedicate these pages to you, who was the cause of their 
publication. 

With respect and esteem, 

I am, truly yours, 

Ghakles Bbooes. 



PREFACE. 



A BRIEF outline of the prospective national system of Free 
Schools, Free Colleges, and Free Universities, which is contem- 
plated in the following pages, may be illustrated thus : 

The town says to every child born within its limits, " Go to 
the Primary School as soon as you are four years old ; there 
you will find rooms, books, and teachers : use them all gratis ; 
your parents need only clothe and feed you." When these 
children have been four years in the Primary School, the town 
says to them, " Go up into the Grammar School : there you 
will find rooms, books, and teachers : use them all at our ex- 
pense ; your parents need only clothe and feed you." When 
these pupils have spent four years in the Grammar Schools, 
the town again says to them, " Go up into the High School ; 
there you will find rooms, book, apparatus, and teachers : use 
them all gratis ; your parents need only clothe and feed you." 
When these pupils have spent four years in the High School, 
and the town has done all it can for them, then the State says 
to them, "Go up into the College, and enter the department 
for which you are prepared ; there you will find rooms, books, 
apparatus, and teachers : use them all gratis ; your parents 
need only clothe and feed you." When these students have 
passed through four years of College instruction and discipline, 
the United States says to them, '" Go up into the National Uni- 
versity, and enter any department for which you can prove 
yourself prepared ; there you will find rooms, books, apparatus, 
and teachers ; use them all gratis ; your parents need only 
clothe and feed you." 



Thus following up the New England idea of pure, democratic 
republican education, we arrive at the necessity of free National 
Universities. 

The number of these Universities may be two or ten accord- 
ing to the needs of an increased population. 

The establishment of a national system of education would 
not change the system of free schools existing in New England. 
Colleges, uniting in the system, would not lose any of their 
rights or powers ; but would be strengthened and expanded 
as state banks are by becoming national ones. 

We invite the reader to look at this great subject, not from 
the angle of New York or Massachusetts only, but from that 
of Texas, Oregon, Missouri, Virginia, California, and the South- 
ern Republics. 



LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY 

863 BROADWAY. 

No. 86. 



S O M: E REASONS 

FOE THE 

IMMEDIATE ESTABLISHMENT 

OP A 

lATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

FOB, THE UNITED STATES. 



National systems of education have been established bv 
the most enlightened nations of Europe with entire success ; 
and the more we study those of Prussia, Holland, France 
Baden, Switzerland, Bavaria, and others, the more we find 
them to be the results of experience, wisdom, patriotism, hu- 
manity, and rel'gion. We do not, therefore, propose any ex- 
periment in the United States. We have no taste for dreams 
in education or legislation. We wish to go by facts ; solid, 
well-attested facts ; facts which have long existed, and which 
have produced positive, tangible, and all-important results. 
The march of events called the European systems into exist- 
ence ; the unparalleled march of events and concurrence of 
circumstances, in the United States, call with double empha- 
sis for a similar movement among us. There can be no risk 
in our adopting the European philosophies of national edu- 
cation ; and when those philosophies have been fully Ameri- 
canized by us, they will reveal a system of universal and free 
culture, whose vastness, power, and importance, have never 
been witnessed. 

Some of the profoundest minds and the best patriots in the 



United States think the time has come for the introduction of 
a national system among us, founded upon the eternal princi- 
ples of democratic republicanism and true religion. With 
our experience of free schools we can organize a national sys- 
tem as much superior to those in Europe as our iron-clads are 
superior to their wooden ships. 

Let us now look at some of the European systems. Take 
that of Prussia. 

Prussia has an area of one hundred and eight thousand 
square miles, divided into eight provinces, containing seven- 
teen millions of inhahitants. 

The different grades of schools are as follows : 

1. The Elementary Schools, which answer to our common 
public schools. 

2. High Schools for business education after the elementary- 
instruction is finished. 

3. Gymnasia, for those who are to enter college. 

4. Normal Schools, to teach teachers how to teach. 

5. Universities, for the highest branches of science and lit- 
erature, and for the learned professions. 

These educational institutions are designed for all the peo- 
ple, and are equally scattered over the whole country. 

There are other schools which have particular objects in 
view ; these are 

1. In/ant Schools for indigent and orphan children. 

2. Female Working Schools, where needlework is taught. 

3. Manufacturers' and Mechanics' Schools, where the sci- 
ences most used in their trades are taught. 

4. Military Schools, for the preparation of officers. 

The governmental supervision of the whole and its parts, is 
as follows : 

1. The King, who takes a constant interest, and to whom 
all subordinates are strictly responsible. 



2. Secretary of Public Instruction, who, with, his Council, 
regulates the whole school establishment. 

3. School Board and School Examiners in each province. 
These superintend the schools in each of the provinces, and 
each province has a university. 

4. President of Regencies. — There are twenty-eight regen- 
cies ; that is, each province is so subdivided. A president 
and his council superintend each one regency, and are respon- 
sible to the provincial Board, to which they must report. 

5. These regencies are again subdivided into circles ; and 
each circle is superintended by a governmental inspector. 
These circles have normal schools for the supply of teachers. 

6. The last division is into parishes. In each of these par- 
ishes there is a school committee, who have the immediate 
cognizance and superintendence of all school matters, and who 
are responsible to the circle of inspectors. 

Thus, from the king downward to the parish committee, 
there is a regular gradation of officers ; every class and pro- 
fession having its place in the general organization, and each 
responsible to the next above him, and all paid by govern- 
ment. 

The end of the entire organization seems to be, to leave de- 
tails to the local powers, and to reserve to the minister and 
his council the direction and general impulse given to the 
whole. 

The pecuniary support of the schools and universities is 
well provided for. The government supports the universities 
and all the large model schools ; but the parish schools are 
supported, as in New England, by a tax on the whole popula- 
tion. 

" Our principal aim," says one of their annual reports, ''in 
each kind of instruction is, to induce the pupils to think and 
judge for themselves. Teaching what is practical we consider 
of the first and highest importance." 

The results of this beautiful and Christian system of educa- 
tion in Prussia, are apparent to every critical eye. M. Victor 



Cousin, the first scholar in France, was sent by his king, 
Louis Philippe, to Prussia, to examine their educational es- 
tablishments and report in print. He performed his duty 
with singular ability and success. He says : 

"I left Prussia with a mind full of respect for a govern- 
ment and a people, who had carried the means of universal ed- 
ucation to such elevation. There does not exist a single hu- 
man being throughout Prussia who does not receive an edu- 
cation sufficient for the moral and intellectual wants of the 
laboring classes." 

Here then is a system of national education in which every 
child from five to fifteen years of age, is obliged to be in 
school, where each child is taught by purposely-prepared 
teachers ; then severally examined by a Board of Examiners, 
appointed by government, and then each one reported to the 
Minister of Public Instruction at Berlin, just as every letter in 
the United States mail is reported to the Postmaster General 
at Washington. 

The success and popularity of the Prussian national system 
of education is owing mainly to the endowments and fidelity 
of the teachers. Mr. Kay, an intelligent English gentlemen, 
has lately taken great pains by personal examinations, to un- 
derstand the Prussian system, and he says : 

" During my travels in diiferent provinces in Prussia, I 
was in daily communication with the teachers. I could not 
but feel how grand an institution this great body of more than 
twenty-eight thousand teachers was, and how much it was 
capable of effecting ; and wlien I regarded the happy condi- 
tion of the Prussian peasantry, I could not but believe I saw 
some of the fruits of the daily labors of this enlightened, re- 
spected, and united brotherhood. 

"The national system has the respect, confidence, and love 
of the people ; and there is no tax paid so cheerfully as the 
school tax." 

Now look deeply into these facts. Is there not a moral 
sublimity in this picture — a powerful kingdom in the centre 
of Europe, so interesting itself in a system of national culture 
as to secure extensive instruction to every child, thus securing 



personal and domestic improvement, political and religious 
rights, national and educational renown ? 

If twenty millions of Prussians can establish a regal system 
of national education, cannot thirty millions of Americans es- 
tablish a democratic republican system ? 

There is an old Latin maxim, that " it is lawful to learn of 
an enemy." Let us adopt this new maxim : It is lawful for 
a republic to learn of a king. 

HOLLAND, 

Let us look at a brief outline of the national system of ed- 
ucation in Holland. 

The kingdom has an area of thirteen thousand square miles, 
divided into twelve provinces, containing three millions of in- 
habitants. Its system of education was established when it 
was a republic. It commenced operations April 3, 1806, un- 
der the then Batavian republic, thirteen years before the 
Prussian code was matured. So deep laid in truth and pru- 
dence is the system, that the conversion of the Batavian re- 
public into a kingdom, then its incorporation with the French 
empire, then the dethroning of Louis, and the restoration of 
the house of Orange, then the union of Holland and Belgium, 
and lastly the separation of these and the restricting the king- 
dom of the Netherlands to its former limits — all these changes 
have made no alteration in the school law. 

The striking peculiarity of the HoUand system is its well- 
adjusted machinery of inspection, which is truly telescopic 
and microscopic. 

The present governmental organization is this : 

1. The Ki7ig, who holds the power of revising and remod- 
elling any of the "regulations." 

2. The Minister of the Interior. All communications are 
through him, and in his office ; therefore, he has a 

3. Secretary, called Referendary, who has charge of all this 
class of communications, and who may be considered the third 
in the governmental series. 



10 



4. Inspector of Primary and Latin ScJiools. This officer, 
answering to the Minister of Pahlic Instruction in Prussia, is 
the mainspring of the whole educational establishment. 

These several officers, above mentioned, constitute the Cen- 
tral Board of Education for Holland, and are therefore clothed 
with the higlitst powers. 

But it Avas found necessary to have a council specially 
charged with the strictest execution of the laws. 

5. This Coimcil gives uniform and powerful impulse to ev- 
ery part of the vast whole. 

The kingdom is divided into ten provinces. Each prov- 
ince has its provincial Board of Inspectors. Each provincial 
board sends a deputy once a year to the Hague ; and these 
deputies, united with the central board, form the genera] com- 
mittee. In this there is great responsibility. They must 
watch over tlie whole school system, sanction special regula- 
tions, prescribe the books, require the introduction of new 
modes of teaching, and see that the laws are rigidly enforced. 

6. The next Board is called the Board of Primary In- 
struction. There is one of these in every province, made up 
of school inspectors, of whom there are filty-six in the realm. 
They are elected as inspectors, amid great rivalship, and are 
very superior men. 

7. Each province is subdivided into districts, and to each 
district an inspector is appointed. This is the office of 
labor and responsibility, on which they place most of their 
hopes. He is a school missionary, an itinerant government, 
and is almost a member of every family in his district. He 
is paid by government, and has jurisdiction over every school, 
public and private. 

Thus we see how each inspector has charge of his own dis- 
trict, each provincial board the charge of its province, while 
the general meeting, which may be called the Assembly of 
the States General of Primary Instruction, has charge of the 
whole kingdom. All the public functionaries are paid by 
government. 



It 

To make this system of governmental inspection more sim- 
ple, let us apply it to Massachusetts, thus : 

In every school district of a town there would be a pru- 
dential committee ; then a town- school committee, having 
the county inspector as a member ; then in each county, a 
county-board of education made up of the several inspectors 
within the county ; then the deputies, chosen from the seve- 
ral county boards of inspectors, would join the general in- 
spector, the secretary of state and the governor constituting 
a central board of education, and each board responsible to 
the next above it, and the last responsible to the legisla- 
ture. 

Here would be a system Argus-eyed and Briarian -handed! 
The Dutch asked this question : — What is the foundation 
and life of a popular school system ? They decided that a 
due superintending power was the main-spring, the soul of 
primary schools, because any society must depend on the 
government controlling it ; therefore, they passed a law 
- .under which principles were afterwards to be carried out. 
This law strikingly exhibits a sort of hierarchy of authori- 
ties, and organizes a system of public instruction only so far 
as it organizes a government for it. Mr. Van den Ende, who 
was the Holland system personified, said, with great em- 
phasis, to M. Victor Cousin : " Take care who you choose for 
inspectors. They are a class of men who ought to be 
searched for with a lantern in one's hand." 

Article 194th of the new Constitution says : " Instruction 
shall be/ree, under the absolute control of government." 

There is an annual distribution of silver medals to those 
teachers who have been most zealous and successful," 

The national system of Holland is sustained by all the 
forces that government can give it, and the results are cheer- 
ing and helping every family in the kingdom. 

FKANCE. 

Let us look now at the system of France : France, with 
its area of two hundred and four thousand eight hundred 



12 



square miles, its eighty-six departments, and its thirty-six 
millions of inhabitants, has a national system of education 
of grand and imposing dimensions. It is called the " Royal 
University of France," and embraces the whole system of 
national education, and includes all the institutions for im- 
parting instruction, which are spread over the whole king- 
dom, from the lowest schools up to the highest colleges. The 
university is placed under a coimcil of six members, called 
the " Royal Council of Public Instruction," of which the 
minister of public instruction is the official president ; and 
he is a member of the cabinet. 

In 1838 the national system cost the government three 
millions eight hundred thousand three hundred and fifty-four 
dollars ; now probably twice that sum. The salaries of all 
teachers are regulated and paid by government. 

A striking peculiarity of the national system is, that all 
the professors in all the colleges andlyceums, and the faculties 
of law, medicine, theology, and letters, and all institutions of 
education, above the primary school, are appointed by com- 
petition (les concours). The judges are selected from the 
ablest scholars in France, and the trial or competition may 
continue a week ; but, the result is that the most learned 
and accomplished scholar secures the selection. This law of 
concours has filled all the scientific and literary offices with 
the richest talent of the realm, I have witnessed these 
diamond-cut-diamond conflicts, and they are thorough and 
decisive beyond description. 

As is the Teacher so is the School. — The eminent profes- 
sors and teachers in the various institutions of France, have 
drawn students to Paris from all quarters of the globe ; and 
the government is liberal to them all. 

So much for a national system, shaped by the maturest 
minds in the realm, and then carrying its humane and Chris- 
tian plans into effect by the resistless power of the imperial 
government, 

June 28 th, 1833, France established a national system of 
primary education. In fifteen years it increased the number 



13 

of primary schools from thirty-tliree thousand six hundred 
and ninety-five to forty-three thousand five hundred and 
fourteen ; and the school-houses from ten thousand three 
hundred and sixteen to twenty-three thousand seven hundred 
and sixty-one. 

The effects have been so healthy and auspicious, that M. 
Guizot, minister of public instruction, said : " The ministry 
of public instruction is the most popular of all governmental 
departments ; and that which the people look upon with the 
highest favor and expectation." 

May not the time come when the United States shall have 
a national system of education, in all its parts so complete 
and powerful, that thousands of ambitious young students 
shall come from our sister republics in South America, in- 
stead of going, as they now do, to Europe, to receive the best 
instruction in the world ? 

BADEN. 

The national system of education in the G-rand Duchy of 
Baden, in Germany, merits notice for some peculiar excel- 
lencies. Its one milHon five hundred thousand inhabitants 
are united, prosperous, and happy, owing to the paternal 
care of the government in educating all the children. In 
1806, when the present Duchy began to exist, there was no 
national system of education ; but, seeing the absolute ne- 
cessity of such a system, in order to put themselves on the 
same vantage-ground as other countries, they established, in 
1830, a system which organized upon a uniform plan the 
common and classical schools of the whole Duchy. Dismem- 
bered parts and opposing interests were all brought into unity 
by the magic power of the national system. It was hopeless 
for objectors and enemies to hold out against a national move- 
ment for a good object. The national system consists of two 
universities, seven lycea, five gymnasia, three p^edagogia, four 
normal schools, nineteen higher schools, seven latin schools, 
and about two thousand common schools. 

These institutions are all under the general supervision of 



14 

the state, from which they annually receive aid. Their su- 
pervision is committed to the Department of the Interior, 
subordinate to which there exists an Education Department 
or Council, consisting of one member for each of the four dis- 
tricts or circles into which the state is divided. 

The government being the heart, sends the lifeblood of 
learning and religion to every extremity of the body politic. 
It would take many pages to describe the paternal care and 
all-pervading power of this national system ; but I will give 
only one item — it relates to factory schools. The law is this : 
" No child may be employed in any manual labor until it is 
eleven years old ; and no child shall be employed in a fac- 
tory unless it then attends the factory schools." How wise, 
how paternal is this law, reaching every child in the country. 
A national system can do a thousand such wise things ; and, 
as it makes them all national, makes a nation of well-taught 
and happy citizens. 

Thus we see how powerfully and benignantly the govern- 
ment of Baden carries forward its national system, beginning 
with the district primary school, and ending with the national 
university. 

The great superiority of these European systems to our 
modes is this •— that they bring the whole force of the govern- 
ment to bear on every child in the nation ; securing the at- 
tendance of every one, and also securing the paternal or ma- 
ternal care and instruction of the best teachers. Look at the 
facts closely : do not such systems seem to realize God's idea 
of universal culture, while they beautifully illustrate his 
second great commandment : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself ? 

SWITZERLAND. 

We must not neglect the Republic of Switzerland ; be- 
cause it funishes to our repubhc the most impressive and use- 
ful lessons, together with the safest examples on the subject 
of a national system of education. 

With an area of fifteen thousand square miles, divided 
into twenty-two independent cantons, it has about two and a 



15 



half millions of inhabitanrs. Eacli canton, like each state in 
our Union, manages its own internal aflairs according to its 
own interests and taste. They value their schools as the 
very apple of their eye ; and though differently organized 
and managed in different cantons, are all brought into inti- 
mate and harmonious connection under the acknowledged 
supremacy of the general government. 

The institutions and modes, which are found to work with 
superior efficacy in one canton, are introduced by the general 
government into all the rest. Thus improvements are circu- 
lated as soon as they are discovered. 

In the Swiss republic they settle satisfactorily the vexed 
questions of different religious sects. For example, the pop- 
ulation of Vaud is Presbyterian ; that of Lucerne, Koraan 
Catholic ; that of Argovia and Berne partly Protestant and 
partly Catholic ; yet these differing religious creeds make no 
objection to a national system of education which harmo- 
nizes them all under a general toleration. Three of the 
superintendents under the general government have lately 
testified in these words : " We do not find the least incon- 
venience resulting from the instruction of different religious 
sects in the same school." 

Each canton is divided into communes, or parishes ; and 
each commune is required by law to furnish schoolroom for 
the education of all the children who are between the ages of 
six and sixteen, within its limits. Compulsion is rigorously 
enforced. They say, every child shall be educated, because 
every human being needs education, " The schoolmasters in 
the several communes are furnished with lists of all the chil- 
dren in their districts, which are called over every morning 
on the assembling of the school ; the absentees are noted, 
and these lists are regularly examined by the inspectors, who 
fine the parents of the . absentees for each case of absence," 
These laws are enforced under the most democratic forms 
of government. 

The people are in favor of the law ; so conscious are they 
of the necessity of education to individual happiness and pub- 
lic prosperity. 



16 

The Swiss system of governmental supervision and exami- 
nation is more simple than that of Holland, hut is wise and 
efficient. Their local inspection by local authorities is partic- 
ularly good. 

Switzerland says : " It is the duty of every government to 
provide against crime, pauperism, and wretchedness by pro- 
viding against ignorance, which is the cause of these evils.'' 
Mr. Kay says : "It may he truly said, that in nearly the 
whole of Switzerland, every boy and girl between the ages of 
six and sixteen can read and write." 

Here then is an intelligent and Christian republic, made up 
of twenty-two separate and independent states, which has es- 
tablished a national system of education that reaches every 
child born within its union, and finds it producing the happi- 
est results. 

Can Swiss republicans do these great and good things for 
their country, and cannot American republicans do the same ? 

There are other European governments that have estab- 
lished national systems of education. That of Bavaria is par- 
ticularly excellent. That and those which I have just de- 
scribed, help to illustrate the following truths, to which I in- 
vite the attention of every American scholar, patriot and 
Christian. 

1. The facts, above stated, prove that nations enlightened by 
science, literature, arts and religion, have found it for their 
highest interest, for their internal peace, and for their out- 
ward renown, to organize systems of national education, which 
could reach every child within their territories. These na- 
tions now stand out before the world, in this respect, as 
the brightest examples of human wisdom and Christian benev- 
olence. 

2. The facts stated prove, that all the different sects of 
Christian believers maybe brought to unite and co-operate in 
a national system, which gives equal aid and protection to 
each Christian denomination, thus allowing no one to boast 
and no one to complain. 



ft 



3. The facts stated prove tliat the United States can, if 
they will, organize and establish and vivify a national system 
of education veiy superior to any European one, because we 
have a system of free schools already established, and have not 
a national church, and therefore have none of those vexatious 
questions to settle, which occur in Europe among established 
hierarchies. 

\ 4. These facts prove that it is wise and patriotic to secure 
the education of every child born in the republic ; and there- 
fore every parent shall be induced to perform this duty by the 
following law : 

No person born in the United States, after the year 1880, 
shall be married in said states, who cannot read, write, and 
cipher. 

' The Secretary of Public Instruction at Washington, should 
be a member of the Cabinet. 

>■ Let me close with enumerating biiefly some of the reasons 
for establishing a national system of education in the United 

States. 

1. The first reason is, that we shall be following up and 
following out the legislation of our ancestors on this subject 
of free schools. The Congress of the United States voted on 
the 20th day of May, 1785, to devote to the uses of public 
schools the sixteenth section of every township owned by 
them. In their ordinance of 1787 they declared thus : 
" Eeligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good 
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
means of education shall be forever encouraged." From 
that day to the present hour that farsighted policy has been 
confirmed and extended, till its blessings now reach even the 
distant shores of the Pacific ; and fifty millions of acres of 
the public domain have been set apart and consecrated to the 
high and ennobling purposes of free public education, to- 
gether with five per cent, of the net proceeds of the sales of 
all public lands in each of the states and territories in which 
they are situated. 

2 



18 

Do not these ideas and acts of our fathers call upon us to 
follow up and follow out their exalted principles and practi- 
cal examples ; and thus take up the great work just where 
they left off ? Their wish undoubtedly was, that every child 
in every town should have an education which would enable 
him to make the most of himself, and thereby do the most 
good to his family and his country. They evidently looked 
to a common lot and to a universal culture : in other words, 
to a national system of democratic republican education- 
When we shall have organized such a national system we 
shall have trod in their steps, used their means and finished 
their work ; and shall not have done a greater or a stranger 
thing than they did. 

2. The seoond reason is this : We shall be following the 
advice of some of the soundest minds in our own country 
and Europe, who have examined the principles and seen 
them in operation. 

Let me mention the Hon. John Quincy Adams. He took 
an interest in the National Educational Convention, which I 
assembled at Philadelphia the 20th of November, 1839. It 
was a large convention of most distinguished men. At that 
convention I was to bring forward the plan for a national 
system of free schools, free colleges, and free universities ; 
but, being called to Europe before the time of meeting, the 
plan has slept till now. I invited Mr. Adams to be the presi- 
dent of the convention. In his reply, he pleaded old age as 
his apology for refusing. He approved of my labors, and in 
his letter called my plan, '^ your laudable, great national 
movement for the advancement of education ;" and ends his 
letter thus : 

" If I can make my arrangements so as to be at Phila- 
delphia on the 20th of November, I will cheerfully attend 
the meeting, and give its objects all my good wishes, and any 
assistance that may be in my power. 

" I am, dear sir, faithfully your friend, 

"J. Q. Adams." 



19 

The next far-sighted man who has sounded the depths and 
shoals of this subject of public education, is the late Hon. 
Daniel Webster Speaking on this subject, he says : " It is 
the undoubted right and the bounden duty of government to 
provide for the instruction of all youth." " For the purpose 
of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation 
in proportion to his property." Of this governmental pro- 
vision he says : " We regard it as a wise and liberal system of 
police by which property, and life, and the peace of society, are 
secured. By general instruction we seek, as far as possible, to 
purify the whole moral atmosphere, to keep good sentiments 
uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and 
opinion, as weU. as the censures of the law and the denunci- 
ations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope 
for a security above the law and beyond the law, in the prev- 
alence of enlightened and well-principled moral sentiment. 
We hojie to continue and prolong the time when, in tbe vil- 
lages and farmhouses of New England, there may be undis- 
turbed sleep within unbarred doors ; and knowing that our 
government rests directly on the public will, that we may 
preserve it, we endeavor to give proper direction to that pub- 
lic will." 

I will quote the opinion of only one more sound scholar 
and great statesman. It is M. Guizot, Minister of Public In- 
struction in France, and the best judge, in this question, of 
any man in Europe. Speaking of national systems of educa- 
tion, in his annual rej)ort, he uses these emphatic words : 
" The only countries and times in which public education has 
really prospered have been those where the church or state, 
or both in conjunction, have considered its advancement their 
business and duty. The accomplishment of such a work re- 
quires the ascendency of general and permanent power, such 
as that of the nation and its enactments." M. Guizot says 
Napoleon had the same idea, and acted upon it : " Napoleon 
felt that the educational department should be laical and 
social, connected with family interests and property, and in- 
timately united with civil order and the mass of fellow-citi- 
zens. He saw, also, that the educational department should 



20 

told closely to the state government, receive its powers from 
that source, and exercise them under its general control. Na- 
poleon created the University, adapting it to the new state 
of society." 

I consider these opinions of M. Guizot as the soundest and 
safest guides which we can find on this planet ; for they are 
conclusions at which he arrived while superintending and di- 
recting the national system of education in France. 

3. The third reason for establishing a national system of 
education in the United States is this : We have four mil- 
lions of liberated slaves, who should be educated. They ask 
it at our hands, and the world expects us to do it ; because, 
in the very act of emancipation there is the sacred promise to 
educate. Slavery has kept the word education out of our 
national Constitution ; now four millions of starved minds 
implore its introduction. These colored people are children 
in knowledge, and we must begin with ABC. They must 
be educated in the South, where they prefer to live, in warm 
climates. Their former owners will not take the trouble to 
educate them, and would generally refuse to pay a local tax 
for that purpose. Individual generosity, educational socie- 
ties, and partial taxation, will fail. No system but a na- 
tional one can meet the great case, or wield the requisite 
power. The wise benevolence, the omnipresent inspecffon, 
and the impartial force of the general government, can do 
the noble Christian work, and do it well. I have no con- 
viction stronger than this, that a national system alone 
can shower the manna of knowledge equally over the whole 
land, so that every one can go and gather what he needs. 

The importance of beginning wisely with four millions of 
new citizens cannot be overstated. Two millions of them 
are men with strong passions and weak self-control. They 
must all be treated alike ; and this can be done only by a 
national system, executed paternally but inflexibly by the 
national government. 

4. The fourth reason is this : it will be a promoter of frater- 
nal and political union. The improvements which spring up in 



21 

one state may be soon scattered, by the Bureau of Public 
Instruction at Washington, over the rest of the country, 
A common interest in a good cause, thus created, will natur- 
ally bind the most distant parts together in mutual efforts and 
generous rivalries. 

The national universities, filled with undergraduates from 
different parts of the Union, having a common aim, a common 
interest, and a common hope, will, in four such years, as 
naturally fraternize as contiguous drojDS of water melt into 
one. The national systems of education in Europe are found 
to be the greatest promoters of unity. Mr. Guizot says : 
" The ministry of public instruction is considered the truly 
paternal part of the government." 

5. The fifth reason is this : Emigration. Our country has 
become the home of some millions of foreigners, whose ideas, 
tastes, and habits, are different from ours. Some of these have 
come with opinions and principles adverse to our established 
institutions ; especially on the subject of ecclesiastical rights 
and sway. A foreign power may silently strengthen itself 
among us till it attempts to seize the helm of government. 
It is of measureless importance that the children of these 
emigrants should be educated in our public Christian schools. 
If their children enter our primary schools at five years of 
age, and graduate at sixteen, we shall have not much to fear. 
A national system can secure this result in the United States 
as it can nowhere else. 

6. The sixth reason is this : We are to be the leading re- 
public of the world ; and we are bound by that fact to be an 
example to the rest. We shall be traitors to our trust if we 
do not publish to all nations a type of national character 
higher than any yet known ; a character wtich avows love of 
God as its first motive to action, and usefulness to mankind 
as the required proof of sincerity. 

7. The seventh reason is this : our country can do now 
what it never could do before. Since the Christian era there 
has not been such an opportunity for such a country to do 



22 

such a work : the noblest work man can do. Slavery is 
dead, and we can now introduce into our Constitution the 
angelic agency of national education. We can now, for the 
first time, meet the demands of humanity, civilization, and 
freedom. We can not only teach the negroes, but we can 
emancipate the '^ poor whites," whom ignorance has kept so 
long in bondage. The old slave states are to be new mission- 
ary ground for the national schoolmaster, where, without re- 
gard to rank, age, or color, he will teach all his pupils that 
learning and development are the first natural rights of man, 
and that education is to the human soul what the main- 
spring is to the watch, what the water-wheel is to the fac- 
tory, what breath is to the lungs, what light is to the world. 
The Anglo-Saxon blood, on this side of the globe, must faith- 
fully educate and peacefully lead the other races. It is our 
destiny, and we mustfulfilit. We must, therefore, establish 
a national system of free and universal culture upon the broad- 
est basis of pure democratic republicanism ; and then carry it 
into effect by the united wisdom and the resistless energy of 
a rich, powerful, intelligent, and Christian people. 

Such a system, suited to our thousand years of future 
growth, and nameless millions of inhabitants, will place us 
at the head of the nations, while it becomes the progressive 
agency, the conservative power, and the eternal blessing of 
our national life. 

Let us neither delay nor falter. God has been with us ; 
and if we are loyal to his cause of human improvement he 
will be with us still. We have taught the nations how to 
fly across the ocean by our steamboats, we have magnetized 
the world by our telegraph, we have iron-clad the world by 
our monitors ; let us now educate the world by our free 
schools, free colleges, and free universities. 

Shakespeare says — 

'• Doubt not but success 
Will fashion the event in better shape 
Than I can lay it down in likelihood. " 

Medford, Mass, March 21, 1865. 



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