Blockade Running As a Product of British Energy and Enterprise—Miss Sennec Is Too Pretty to Risk Collision with a Shell—Another Terrific Fight for a Train Seat—Through the Richmond Defenses—A Talk with Judah Benjamin—A Plea for British Recognition—Visiting Jefferson Davis—“Maine Will Probably Try to Join Canada”—Calling on the Secretary of War—More Executions and Reprisals—Many Richmond Papers Seem Scarcely More Respectable than the New York Ones.
16th June (Tuesday)—Arrived at Wilmington at 5 A.M., and crossed the river there in a steamer. This river was quite full of blockade runners. I counted eight large steamers, all handsome leaden-colored vessels, which ply their trade with the greatest regularity. Half these ships were engaged in carrying goods on government account; and I was told that the quantity of boots, clothing, saltpeter, lead, and tin, which they bring into the country, is very great. I cannot suppose that in ordinary times there would be anything like such a trade as this, at a little place like Wilmington, which shows the absurdity of calling the blockade an efficient one.
This blockade running is an extraordinary instance of British energy and enterprise. When I was at Charleston, I asked Mr. Robertson whether any French vessels had run the blockade. In reply he told me it was a very peculiar fact that “one of the partners of Fraser & Co., being a Frenchman, was extremely anxious to engage a French vessel in the trade. Expense was no object; the ship and the cargo were forthcoming. Nothing was wanted but a French captain and a French crew (to make the ship legally French); but although any amount of money was offered as an inducement, they were not to be found, and this obstacle was insurmountable.” Not the slightest difficulty is experienced at Liverpool in officering and manning any number of ships for this purpose.
Major Norris went to call upon Mr. Vallandigham, whom he had escorted to Wilmington as a sort of semi-prisoner some days ago. Mr. Vallandigham was in bed. He told Major Norris that he intended to run the blockade this evening for Bermuda, from whence he should find his way to the Clifton Hotel, Canada, where he intended to publish a newspaper, and agitate Ohio across the frontier. Major Norris found him much elated by the news of his having been nominated for the governorship of Ohio; and he declared if he was duly elected, his state could dictate peace.
In traveling through the country to Wilmington, these two used to converse much on politics; and Major Norris once said to him, “Now, from what you have seen and heard in your journey through the South, you must know that a reconstruction of the old Union, under any circumstances, is utterly impossible.” Vallandigham replied, “Well, all I can say is, I hope, and at all events I know, that my scheme of a suspension of hostilities is the only one which has any prospect of ultimate success.”*
At Wilmington I took leave with regret of Mr. Sennec and his family, who were also to run the blockade this evening. Miss Sennec is much too pretty to risk a collision with a fragment of a shell. But here no one seems to think anything of the risk of passing through the Yankee fleet, as the “runners,” though often fired at, are very seldom hit or captured, and their captains are becoming more and more knowing every day. I was obliged to go to the provost-marshal’s office to get Beauregard’s pass renewed there, as North Carolina is out of his district. In doing so I very nearly missed the train.
I left Wilmington at 7 A.M. The weather was very hot and oppressive, and the cars dreadfully crowded all day. The luxuries of Charleston had also spoiled me for the “road.” I could no longer appreciate at their proper value the “hog and hominy” meals which I had been so thankful for in Texas; but I found Major Norris a very agreeable and instructive companion. We changed cars again at Weldon, where I had a terrific fight for a seat, but I succeeded. Experience had made me very quick at this sort of business. I always carry my saddlebags and knapsack with me into the car.
17th June (Wednesday)—We reached Petersburg at 3 A.M., and had to get out and traverse this town in carts, after which we had to lie down in the road until some other cars were opened. We left Petersburg at 5 A.M. and arrived at Richmond at 7 A.M., having taken forty-one hours coming from Charleston.
The railroad between Petersburg and Richmond is protected by extensive fieldworks, and the woods have been cut down to give range. An irruption of the enemy in this direction has evidently been contemplated; and we met a brigade of infantry halfway between Petersburg and Richmond on its way to garrison the latter place, as the Yankees are reported to be menacing in that neighborhood.
The scenery near Richmond is very pretty, and rather English-looking. The view of the James River from the railway bridge is quite beautiful, though the water is rather low at present. The weather was extremely hot and oppressive, and, for the first time since I left Havana, I really suffered from the heat.
At 10 A.M. I called on General Cooper, Adjutant General to the Confederate forces, and senior general in the army. He is brother-in-law to Mr. Mason, the Southern Commissioner in London. I then called upon Mr. Benjamin, the Secretary of State, who made an appointment with me to meet him at his house at 7 P.M.
The public offices are handsome stone buildings, and seem to be well arranged for business. I found at least as much difficulty in gaining access to the great men as there would be in European countries; but when once admitted, I was treated with the greatest courtesy. The anterooms were crowded with people patiently waiting for an audience. The streets of Richmond are named and numbered in a most puzzling manner, and the greater part of the houses are not numbered at all. It is the most hilly city I have ever seen in America, and its population is unnaturally swollen since the commencement of the war.
The fact of there being abundance of ice appeared to me an immense luxury, as I had never seen any before in the South; but it seems that the winters are quite severe in Northern Virginia.
I was sorry to hear in the highest quarters the gloomiest forebodings with regard to the fate of Vicksburg. This fortress is in fact given up, and all now despair of General Johnston’s being able to effect anything towards its relief.
I kept my appointment with Mr. Benjamin at 7 o’clock. He is a stout dapper little man, evidently of Hebrew extraction, and of undoubted talent. He is a Louisianian, and was senator for that state in the old United States Congress, and I believe he is accounted a very clever lawyer and a brilliant orator. He told me that he had filled the onerous post of Secretary of War during the first seven months of the secession, and I can easily believe that he found it no sinecure.1
We conversed for a long time about the origin of secession, which he indignantly denied was brought about, as the Yankees assert, by the interested machinations of individuals. He declared that, for the last ten years, the Southern statesmen had openly stated in Congress what would take place; but the Northerners never would believe they were in earnest, and had often replied by the taunt, “The South was so bound to, and dependent on the North, that she couldn’t be kicked out of the Union.”
He said that the Southern armies had always been immensely outnumbered in all their battles, and that until recently General Lee could never muster more than 60,000 effective men. He confessed that the Southern forces consisted altogether of about 350,000 to 400,000 men. When I asked him where they all were, he replied that, on account of the enormous tract of country to be defended, and the immense advantages the enemy possessed by his facilities for sea and river transportation, the South was obliged to keep large bodies of men unemployed, and at great distances from each other, awaiting the sudden invasions or raids to which they were continually exposed. Besides which, the Northern troops, which numbered (he supposed) 600,000 men, having had as yet but little defensive warfare, could all be employed for aggressive purposes.
He asserted that England had still, and had always had it in her power to terminate the war by recognition, and by making a commercial treaty with the South. He denied that the Yankees really would dare to go to war with Great Britain for doing so, however much they might swagger about it. He said that recognition would not increase the Yankee hatred of England, for this, whether just or unjust, was already as intense as it could possibly be.
I then alluded to the supposed ease with which they could overrun Canada, and to the temptation which its unprotected towns must offer to the large numbers of Irish and German mercenaries in the Northern armies. He answered, “They probably could not do that as easily as some people suppose, and they know perfectly well that you could deprive them of California (a far more serious loss) with much greater ease.” This consideration, together with the certainty of an entire blockade of their ports, the total destruction of their trade, and an invasion on a large scale by the Southern troops, in reality prevents the possibility of their declaring war upon England at the present time, any more than they did at the period of their great national humiliation in the Mason-Slidell affair.2
Mr. Benjamin told me that his property had lately been confiscated in New Orleans, and that his two sisters had been turned, neck and crop, into the streets there with only one trunk, which they had been forced to carry themselves. Every one was afraid to give them shelter, except an Englishwoman, who protected them until they could get out of the city.
Talking of the just admiration which the English newspapers accorded to “Stonewall” Jackson, he expressed, however, his astonishment that they should have praised so highly his strategic skill in outmaneuvering Pope at Manassas, and Hooker at Chancellorsville, totally ignoring that in both cases the movements were planned and ordered by General Lee, for whom (Mr. Benjamin said) Jackson had the most “childlike reverence.”
Mr. Benjamin complained of Mr. Russell of The Times for holding him up to fame as a “gambler”—a story which he understood Mr. Russell had learnt from Mr. Charles Sumner at Washington. But even supposing that this was really the case, Mr. Benjamin was of opinion that such a revelation of his private life was in extremely bad taste, after Mr. Russell had partaken of his (Mr. Benjamin’s) hospitality at Montgomery.3
He said the Confederates were more amused than annoyed at the term “Rebel,” which was so constantly applied to them. But he wished mildly to remark that in order to be a “Rebel,” a person must rebel against some one who has a right to govern him; and he thought it would be very difficult to discover such a right as existing in the Northern over the Southern States.
In order to prepare a treaty of peace, he said, “It would only be necessary to write on a blank sheet of paper the words ‘self-government.’ Let the Yankees accord that, and they might fill up the paper in any manner they chose. We don’t want any state that doesn’t want us; but we only wish that each state should decide fairly upon its own destiny. All we are struggling for is to be let alone.”
At 8 P.M. Mr. Benjamin walked with me to the President’s dwelling, which is a private house at the other end of the town. I had tea there, and uncommonly good tea, too—the first I had tasted in the Confederacy. Mrs. Davis was unfortunately unwell and unable to see me.
Mr. Jefferson Davis struck me as looking older than I expected. He is only fifty-six, but his face is emaciated and much wrinkled. He is nearly six feet high, but is extremely thin and stoops a little. His features are good, especially his eye, which is very bright and full of life and humor. I was afterwards told he had lost the sight of his left eye from a recent illness. He wore a linen coat and gray trousers, and he looked what he evidently is, a well-bred gentleman. Nothing can exceed the charm of his manner, which is simple, easy, and most fascinating.4
He conversed with me for a long time, and agreed with Benjamin that the Yankees did not really intend to go to war with England if she recognized the South. He said that, when the inevitable smash came—and separation was an accomplished fact—the state of Maine would probably try to join Canada, as most of the intelligent people in that state have a horror of being “under the thumb of Massachusetts.” He added, that Maine was inhabited by a hardy, thrifty, seafaring population, with different ideas to the people in the other New England states.
When I spoke to him of the wretched scenes I had witnessed in his own state (Mississippi), and of the miserable, almost desperate, situation in which I had found so many unfortunate women, who had been left behind by their male relations; and when I alluded in admiration to the quiet, calm, uncomplaining manner in which they bore their sufferings and their grief, he said with much feeling that he always considered silent despair the most painful description of misery to witness, in the same way that he thought mute insanity was the most awful form of madness.
He spoke to me of Grenfell, who, he said, seemed to be serving the Confederacy in a disinterested and loyal manner. He had heard much of his gallantry and good services, and he was very sorry when I told him of Grenfell’s quarrel with the civil power.
He confirmed the truth of my remark, that a Confederate general is either considered an Admirable Crichton by the soldiers, or else abused as everything bad. He added, the misfortune was that it is absolutely necessary, in order to insure success, that a general must obtain and preserve this popularity and influence with his men, who were, however, generally very willing to accord their confidence to any officer deserving of it.
With regard to the black-flag-and-no-quarter agitation, he said people would talk a great deal, and even go into action determined to give no quarter. “But,” he added, “I have yet to hear of Confederate soldiers putting men to death who have thrown down their arms and held up their hands.”
He told me that Lord Russell confessed that the impartial carrying out of the neutrality laws had pressed hard upon the South; and Mr. Davis asserted that the pressure might have been equalized, and yet retained its impartiality, if Great Britain, instead of closing her ports, had opened them to the prizes of both parties. I answered that perhaps this might be overdoing it a little on the other side.
When I took my leave about 9 o’clock, the President asked me to call upon him again. I don’t think it is possible for any one to have an interview with him without going away most favorably impressed by his agreeable, unassuming manners, and by the charm of his conversation. While walking home, Mr. Benjamin told me that Mr. Davis’s military instincts still predominate, and that his eager wish was to have joined the army instead of being elected President.
During my travels, many people have remarked to me that Jefferson Davis seems in a peculiar manner adapted for his office. His military education at West Point rendered him intimately acquainted with the higher officers of the army; and his post of Secretary of War under the old government brought officers of all ranks under his immediate personal knowledge and supervision. No man could have formed a more accurate estimate of their respective merits. This is one of the reasons which gave the Confederates such an immense start in the way of generals; for having formed his opinion with regard to appointing an officer, Mr. Davis is always most determined to carry out his intention in spite of every obstacle. His services in the Mexican war gave him the prestige of a brave man and a good soldier. His services as a statesman pointed him out as the only man who, by his unflinching determination and administrative talent, was able to control the popular will. People speak of any misfortune happening to him as an irreparable evil too dreadful to contemplate.
Before we reached the Spottswood Hotel, we met ——, to whom Mr. Benjamin introduced me. They discussed the great topic of the day—the recapture of Winchester by General Ewell, the news of which had just arrived, and they both expressed their regret that General Milroy should have escaped. It appears that this Yankee commander, for his alleged crimes, had been put hors de la loi by the Confederates in the same manner as General Butler. —— said to me, “We hope he may not be taken alive; but if he is, we will not shrink from the responsibility of putting him to death.”5
18th June (Thursday)—At 10 A.M. I called by appointment on Mr. Sedden, the Secretary at War. His anteroom was crowded with applicants for an interview, and I had no slight difficulty in getting in.6 Mr. Sedden is a cadaverous but clever-looking man. He received me with great kindness, and immediately furnished me with letters of introduction for Generals Lee and Longstreet.
My friend Major Norris then took me to the President’s office and introduced me to the aids-de-camp of the President—Colonels Wood, Lee, and Johnston. The two latter are sons to General Lee and General Albert Sidney Johnston, who was killed at Shiloh.
Major Norris then took me to the capitol and introduced me to Mr. Thompson the librarian, and to Mr. Meyers, who is now supposed to look after British interests since the abrupt departure of Mr. Moore, the consul. I was told that Mr. Moore had always been considered a good friend to the Southern cause, and had got into the mess which caused his removal entirely by his want of tact and discretion.
There is a fine view from the top of the capitol; the librarian told me that last year the fighting before Richmond could easily be seen from thence, and that many ladies used to go up for that purpose. Every one said that notwithstanding the imminence of the danger, the population of Richmond continued their daily avocations, and that no alarm was felt as to the result.
The interior of the capitol is decorated with numerous flags captured from the enemy. They are very gorgeous, all silk and gold, and form a great contrast to the little bunting battle flags of the Confederates. Among them I saw two colors which had belonged to the same regiment, the 37th New York (I think). These were captured in different battles; and on the last that was taken there is actually inscribed as a victory the word Fair Oaks, which was the engagement in which the regiment had lost its first color.
Mr. Butler King, a member of Congress, whose acquaintance I had made in the Spottswood Hotel, took me to spend the evening at Mrs. S——’s, a charming widow, for whom I had brought a letter from her only son, aid-de-camp to General Magruder, in Texas.
Mrs. S—— is clever and agreeable. She is a highly patriotic Southerner; but she told me that she had stuck fast to the Union until Lincoln’s proclamation calling out 75,000 men to coerce the South, which converted her and such a number of others into strong Secessionists. I spent a very pleasant evening with Mrs. S——, who had been much in England, and had made a large acquaintance there.
Mr. Butler King is a Georgian gentleman, also very agreeable and well informed. It is surprising to hear the extraordinary equanimity with which he and hundreds of fellow sufferers talk of their entire ruin and the total destruction of their property. I know many persons in England suppose that Great Britain has now made enemies of both the North and South; but I do not believe this is the case with respect to the South, whatever certain Richmond papers may say. The South looks to England for everything when this war is over. She wants our merchants to buy her cotton, she wants our ships to carry it. She is willing that England should supply her with all the necessaries which she formerly received from the North. It is common to hear people declare they would rather pay twice the price for English goods than trade any more with Yankeedom.
19th June (Friday)—I embarked at 10 A.M. on board a small steamer to visit Drewry’s Bluff on the James River, the scene of the repulse of the ironclads Monitor and Galena. The stream exactly opposite Richmond is very shallow and rocky, but it becomes navigable about a mile below the city. Drewry’s Bluff is about eight miles distant, and before reaching it, we had to pass through two bridges—one of boats, and the other a wooden bridge. I was shown over the fortifications by Captain Chatard, Confederate States Navy, who was in command during the absence of Captain Lee. A flotilla of Confederate gunboats was lying just above the obstructions, and nearly opposite to the bluff. Amongst them was the Yorktown, alias Patrick Henry, which, under the command of my friend Captain Tucker, figured in the memorable Merrimac attack. There was also an ironclad called the Richmond, and two or three smaller craft. Beyond Drewry’s Bluff, on the opposite side of the river, is Chaffin’s Bluff, which mounts —— heavy guns, and forms the extreme right of the Richmond defenses on that side of the river.
At the time of the attack by the two Federal ironclads, assisted by several wooden gunboats, there were only three guns mounted on Drewry’s Bluff, which is from 80 to 90 feet high. These had been hastily removed from the Yorktown and dragged up there by Captain Tucker on the previous day. They were either smoothbore 32-pounders or 8-inch guns, I forget which.7
During the contest the Monitor, notwithstanding her recent exploits with the Merrimac, kept herself out of much danger, partly concealed behind the bend of the river; but her consort, the ironclad Galena, approached boldly to within 500 yards of the bluff. The wooden gunboats remained a considerable distance down the river. After the fight had lasted about four hours the Galena withdrew much crippled, and has never, I believe, been known to fame since.
The result of the contest goes to confirm the opinion expressed to me by General Beauregard—that ironclads cannot resist the plunging fire of forts, even though that latter can only boast of the old smooth-bore guns.
A Captain Maury took me on board the Richmond ironclad, in which vessel I saw a 7-inch treble-banded Brook gun weighing, they told me, 21,000 lbs., and capable of standing a charge of 25 lbs. of powder. Amongst my fellow passengers from Richmond I had observed a very Hibernian-looking prisoner in charge of one soldier. Captain Maury informed me that this individual was being taken to Chaffin’s Bluff, where he is to be shot at 12 noon tomorrow for desertion.
Major Norris and I bathed in James River at 7 P.M. from a rocky and very pretty island in the center of the stream.
I spent another very agreeable evening at Mrs. S——’s, and met General Randolph, Mr. Butler King, and Mr. Conrad there; also Colonel Johnston, aid-de-camp to the President. He told me that they had been forced, in order to stop Burnside’s executions in Kentucky, to select two Federal captains, and put them under orders for death.
General Randolph looks in weak health. He had for some time filled the post of Secretary of War; but it is supposed that he and the President did not quite hit it off together. Mr. Conrad as well as Mr. King is a member of Congress, and he explained to me that, at the beginning of the war, each state was most desirous of being put (without the slightest necessity) under military law, which they thought was quite the correct remedy for all evil; but so sick did they soon become of this regime that at the last session Congress had refused the President the power of putting any place under military law, which is just as absurd in the other direction.
I hear every one complaining dreadfully of General Johnston’s inactivity in Mississippi, and all now despair of saving Vicksburg. They deplore its loss, more on account of the effects its conquest may have in prolonging the war than for any other reason. No one seems to fear that its possession, together with Port Hudson, will really enable the Yankees to navigate the Mississippi. Nor do they fear that the latter will be able to prevent communication with the trans-Mississippi country.
Many of the Richmond papers seem to me scarcely more respectable than the New York ones. Party spirit runs high. Liberty of the press is carried to its fullest extent.
* I have often heard Southerners speak of this proposal of Vallandigham’s as most insidious and dangerous; but the opinion now is that things have gone too far to permit reunion under any circumstances.