Friday, 17th—We heard that our wagon train went through to Jackson without attack, and that the rebels evacuated the place this morning, with Sherman’s forces in hot pursuit. We hear that Johnston, after crossing the Pearl river, burned the bridges behind him and is now in rapid retreat on the other side. News came that Meade had taken Richmond, Virginia, together with thirty thousand prisoners. Things are very lively here today—there is singing and rejoicing.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
July 17, Friday. At the Cabinet council Seward expressed great apprehension of a break-up of the British Ministry. I see in the papers an intimation that should Roebuck’s motion for a recognition of the Confederacy prevail, Earl Russell would resign. I have no fears that the motion will prevail. The English, though mischievously inclined, are not demented. I wish the policy of our Secretary of State, who assumes to be wise, was as discreet as theirs. He handed me consular dispatches from Mr. Dudley at Liverpool and is exceedingly alarmed; fears England will let all the ironclads and rovers go out, and that the sea robbers will plunder and destroy our commerce. Mr. Dudley is an excellent consul, vigilant, but somewhat, and excusably, nervous, and he naturally presents the facts which he gets in a form that will not do injustice to the activity and zeal of the consul. Seward gives, and always has given, the fullest credit to the wildest rumors.
Some remarks on the great error of General Meade in permitting Lee and the Rebel army with all their plunder to escape led the President to say he would not yet give up that officer. “He has committed,” said the President, “a terrible mistake, but we will try him farther.” No one expressed his approval, but Seward said, ” Excepting the escape of Lee, Meade has shown ability.” It was evident that the retention of Meade had been decided.
In a conversation with General Wadsworth, who called on me, I learned that at the council of the general officers, Meade was disposed to make an attack, and was supported by Wadsworth, Howard, and Pleasonton, but Sedgwick, Sykes, and the older regular officers dissented. Meade, rightly disposed but timid and irresolute, hesitated and delayed until too late. Want of decision and self-reliance in an emergency has cost him and the country dear, for had he fallen upon Lee it could hardly have been otherwise than the capture of most of the Rebel army.
The surrender of Port Hudson is undoubtedly a fact. It could not hold out after the fall of Vicksburg. We have information also that Sherman has caught up with and beaten Johnston.
July 17.—J. J. Pettigrew, of the rebel army died at the residence of Mr. Boyd, at Bunker Hill, Va., from the effects of a wound received at the battle of Falling Waters, Va.—The attack on Fort Wagner, by the monitors and mortar-boats, was continued.—At New-York the riot was suppressed, quiet was restored and business resumed. — Provost-Marshal General J. B. Fry ordered the enforcement of the draft in New-England and the Middle States, by the aid of the military.—Edwin Hides and Henry Light, at York, England, were sentenced to imprisonment for counterfeiting the circulating notes of the United States.—The battle of Elk Creek, Kansas, was fought this day, by the National forces under General Blunt, and the rebels under General Cooper.—(Docs. 100 and 109.)
—The cavalry battle near Shepherdstown, Va., was fought this day. (Doc. 145½.)—Major-General Stanley, in command of the National forces, entered Huntsville, Alabama, without opposition, capturing six hundred horses, two hundred of them having contraband riders.— Many of the most prominent and influential lawyers of the cities of Brooklyn and New York, “sensible of the wrongs inflicted during the late riots upon the colored inhabitants of these cities and vicinity, offered their professional advice and assistance, free of charge, to aid such persons in recovering compensation for the damages inflicted upon them by riotors.”—Corinth, Miss., was occupied by the advance of the National forces under the command of General Hurlbut.
—General Richardson, the notorious guerrilla, returned to his former field of operations in the neighborhood of Hickory, Wythe, Galloway’s Station and Belmont, in the counties of Tipton, Shelby, and Fayette, Tenn. Richardson had a force of about two hundred men. These were, like himself, destitute of all principle save that of self-interest. Richardson was aided by the Rev. Captain Burrow and Captain Murray. One thing very remarkable was, that each of these men once laid claim to sanctimoniousness. Richardson was once a great exhorter among the Methodist friends in Memphis. Burrow was a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, while Murray was a very sanctimonious elder of the same denomination with Burrow.—Memphis Bulletin, July 17.
Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
[London] July 17, 1863
We are in receipt of all your sanguinary letters, as well as of news down to the 4th, telling of Cyclopean battles, like the struggles of Saturn and Terra and Hyperion for their empire, lasting through sunrise after sunrise, in an agony such as heralds the extinction of systems. It’s a pity that we ‘re civilized. What a grand thing Homer would have made of it; while in our day, men only conceive of a battle as of two lines of men shooting at each other till one or the other gives way. At this distance, though, even now it’s very grand and inspiring. There’s a magnificence about the pertinacity of the struggle, lasting so many days, and closing, so far as we know on the eve of our single national anniversary, with the whole nation bending over it, that makes even these English cubs silent. Dreadful I suppose it is, and God knows I feel anxious and miserable enough at times, but I doubt whether any of us will ever be able to live contented again in times of peace and laziness. Our generation has been stirred up from its lowest layers and there is that in its history which will stamp every member of it until we are all in our graves. We cannot be commonplace. The great burden that has fallen on us must inevitably stamp its character on us. I have hopes for us all, as we go on with the work. . . .
The peculiar attraction of our position is one that is too subtle to put one’s hand upon, and yet that we shall be sure to miss extremely when we leave it. The atmosphere is exciting. One does every day and without a second thought, what at another time would be the event of a year, perhaps of a life. For instance, the other day we were asked out to a little garden party by the old Duchess of Sutherland at Chiswick, one of the famous nobleman’s places in England. Dukes and Duchesses, Lords and Ladies, Howards and Russells, Grosvenors and Gowers, Cavendishes, Stuarts, Douglases, Campbells, Montagues, half the best blood in England was there, and were cutting through country dances and turning somersets and playing leap-frog in a way that knocked into a heap all my preconceived ideas of their manners. To be sure it was only a family party, with a few friends. You may be certain that I took no share in it. A stranger had better not assume to be one of the Gods.
Or again! I have just returned from breakfasting with Mr. Evarts, and we had Cyrus Field, Mr. Blatchford and his wife, and Mr. Cobden at table. The conversation was not remarkable to me; so little so that I should probably make only a bare note of it. But Cobden gave a vigorous and amusing account of Roebuck, whom he covered with epithets, and whose treatment of himself he described, going over some scenes in Parliament when Sir Robert Peel was alive. He sketched to us Gladstone’s “uneasy conscience” which is always doubting and hesitating and trying to construct new theories. Cyrus Field rattled ahead about his telegraph and told again the story of his experiences. Mr. Evarts talked about England and the policy of the country, for he goes home today, and indeed left us only to fire a parting shot into Gladstone. We discussed the war news and Bancroft Davis came in, arguing that Lee’s ammunition must be exhausted. Cobden was very anxious about the battles, and varied his talk, by discussing a movement he proposes to make in Parliament before it rises. He rather regrets that they did n’t force Roebuck’s motion to a division, and wants to get in a few words before the close.
So we go on, you see, and how much of this sort of thing could one do at Boston! And the camp could only make up for it in times of action. Even the strangely hostile tone of society here has its peculiar advantage. It wakes us up and keeps our minds on a continual strain to meet and check the tendency. To appear confident in times of doubt, steady in times of disaster, cool and quiet at all times, and unshaken under any pressure, requires a continual wakefulness and actually has an effect to make a man that which he represents himself to be. Mr. Evarts is grand in these trials, and from him and Mr. Seward and the Chief, one learns to value properly the power of momentum.
All this to you seems, I suppose, curious talk, to one who has just got through with the disgusts of one campaign and is recruiting for another, as I suppose you are doing now. We are very anxious about you as you may suppose, but trust that your regiment is too much used up to fight much more without rest. Besides, in the confusion and excitement of the great struggle, we are glad to counteract anxiety by hope. And though our good friends down town do persist in regarding the news as favorable to the South, we on the whole are inclined to hope, and to feel a certain confidence that friend Lee has got his swing. There is also the usual rumor of the fall of Vicksburg, as the very last telegram by the steamer, but we do not put much confidence in stories of that sort. Meade’s despatch at eight o’clock on the evening of the 3d is all the news that I put any faith in. And with that I am patient. . . .
Politically we are trying to get everything in trim in order to have all clear during the next three months when England is without a Government and drifts. There is only one serious danger, and against that we are doing our best to guard. If you could win a few victories, it would be the best guaranty for good behavior, and I am free to say that England has remained quiet as long as we could reasonably expect, knowing her opinions, without solid guaranties of ultimate success on our part. . . .
I shall send you your friend W. H. Russell’s Gazette if he has as blackguard a notice of us in it as he usually does.
July 17—Raining very hard to-day, and we are resting.
Charles Francis Adams to His Son
London, July 17, 1863
At the time I wrote you last week, our benevolent English friends had made up their minds that General Lee had insulated Washington and taken possession of the Capitol. Our friend Mason with portentous gravity had announced at a dinner table filled with sympathisers, that at the moment he was speaking he had no doubt that such was the fact. There was a general anxiety and looking out for the next news. On Monday evening, at Lady Derby’s reception, both his Lordship and Lord Granville, chieftains of opposite parties, hailed me with equal eagerness to know when I expected later advises. On that same evening, poor Mr. Roebuck, who had prepared his original motion with some reference to a grand “coup de theatre,” was obliged to abandon it, because nothing had turned out as he expected, and the audience would not consent to wait any longer. At last came the intelligence, but, lo! it did not answer the highly wrought expectation. It did not look as if Lee had made much progress to the desired point. The best that could be said was that the issue was not decisive. On the whole it was judged most prudent to wait for further news. . . .
Friday, 17th—All quiet in Camp. Brigade officers had a ball in town last night.
July 17th. Calm and pleasant. Carpenter’s gang employed during the day fishing mizzen-mast, and crew at work repairing rigging, fore and aft.
17th. Up at sunrise. Crossed after some trouble and breakfasted at Piketon. Morgan well in advance. A Miss Lou C. Bailey wanted my photograph. None along. Rather pretty girl. Newton, old Oberlin student, along. Reached Jackson a little after dark and found an abundance of good things for our craving appetites. Horse mired. Camped near the fair grounds, nice village.
Friday, 17th.—Marched to Brandon to-day by 2 P. M. Found Colonel McConnell there. Gave first direct news from Brother I. L. By the help of some of the boys he got back to a house where there was a surgeon with some other wounded. The Federals coming on, they were paroled. After some days, getting able to walk out, he and another soldier found an old horse that had been forsaken by the army, which they took charge of, and, by the help of the old horse, managed to get to Brandon, where they found Colonel McConnell, who had been wounded and captured, but again re-captured by General Loring’s men, and so brought out to Brandon. He gave brother a furlough and sent him home. This was joyful news to me. Johnston was falling back towards Enterprise, and we got on the last train that left Brandon.
