A longtime Washington resident and former clerk of the House of Representatives, Benjamin B. French was appointed commissioner of public buildings for the capital in September 1861.
Wednesday, July 8. “Vicksburg has fallen!” Since 2 o’clock yesterday I suppose I have heard that said a thousand times. “It is a glorious victory,” and I trust we shall soon have more of the same sort. Rumor already has it that Port Hudson is captured, and I believe if our army does all its duty Lee’s army will scarcely ever see old Virginia soil again as an army. It is already awfully used up and is fast being pushed to annihilation. Richmond must soon go, and then poor Jeff will be driven to his wits end. My guess is that the Rebs. will soon find themselves a set of poor, miserable wretches, and they will cry to come back into our glorious Union! I see National glory in the future such as the past has never seen. Slavery forever abolished! The South populated and thriving under Free labor & Free rule! No more Cotton lords, but plenty of Cotton Commons, and all the land pouring out its productions & becoming immensely rich! Industry, Wealth, Happiness, Virtue, all marching hand in hand, and millions of voices raising their thanks to God for His goodness in doing good to all. Oh how manifest it is to my mind that He is now working out the future goodness and greatness of this, his chosen people, by the sore affliction and sacrifice of War! My Faith in the glorious result has not wavered a single instant since the Rebel cannon opened on Fort Sumter, and I think now I have a perfectly realizing sense of what our future is to be; and to the goodness and honesty of Abraham Lincoln, who has acted, in my beliefs, as the servant of the Most High God in all that he has done, do we owe all that we are to be.
The weather was very dry nearly all June. The Potomac was very low and easily fordable. Lee’s army crossed as easily as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, but no sooner were they well away from its Northern bank than the rain began to fall, and it has been raining almost continually till the river has risen so much as not to be fordable at any point, & Lee & his whole army are caught, & must be captured! Is not the finger of Providence as clear in this as it was to the Israelites of old when they escaped so miraculously from Pharaoh & his Hosts? I think it is. Then—
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea,
JEHOVAH hath triumphed! His people are FREE!