London, May 22, 1862
We are still in great anxiety to know the results of the Yorktown business, having as yet arrived only as far as Williamsburg and West Point. On McClellan’s success in dispersing the Southern army and capturing all the means for carrying on a war will depend more than I like to think of. If we can disperse them, too, we can immediately reduce our army one-half, and all our expenses on the same scale. I dread the continuance of this war and its demoralizing effects more than anything else, and happy would be the day when we could see the first sign of returning peace. It’s likely to be hard enough work to keep our people educated and honest anyway, and the accounts that reach us of the wholesale demoralization in the army of the west from camp-life, and of their dirt, and whiskey and general repulsiveness, are not encouraging to one who wants to see them taught to give up that blackguard habit of drinking liquor in bar-rooms, to brush their teeth and hands and wear clean clothes, and to believe that they have a duty in life besides that of getting ahead, and a responsibility for other people’s acts as well as their own. The little weaknesses I speak of are faults of youth; but what will they become if America in its youth takes a permanent course towards every kind of idleness, vice and ignorance?
As for our position here, it is all that could be wished. Everyone congratulates us on the success of our arms and there is no longer any hint at even a remonstrance, though there are questions between the Governments which in our bitter state of feeling may bring difficulty. I am very anxious to avoid anything of this sort. We must have peace for many years if we are to heal our wounds and put the country on the right track. We must bring back or create a respect for law and order and the Constitution and the civil and judicial authorities. The nation has been dragged by this infernal cotton that had better have been burning in Hell, far away from its true course, and its worst passions and tastes have been developed by a forced and bloated growth. It will depend on the generation to which you and I belong, whether the country is to be brought back to its true course and the New England element is to carry the victory, or whether we are to be carried on from war to war and debt to debt and one military leader to another, till we lose all our landmarks and go ahead like France with a mere blind necessity to get on, without a reason or a principle. No more wars. Let’s have peace, for the love of God.
England will truckle to us low enough when we regain our power, and we can easily revenge ourselves on the classes of English who have been most venemous, without fighting them all. It is but to shut out their trade and encourage our own development. I am now a protectionist of the most rabid description. I want to see us developing our mines, manufactures and communications, with the most success possible. There is England’s vulnerable point; but we shall have committed a blunder of the worst sort if we allow our personal prejudices to affect our national policy to the extent of a war….
The last week we have had that whited sepulchre General Cameron here, and as we were to have our first large dinner on Wednesday, he was invited to it. Then last night I took him to Monckton Milnes, where he was the object of considerable interest. I can’t say that I was proud of my charge, nor that I like his style. Thurlow Weed is quite as American, and un-English, but is very popular and altogether infinitely preferable. We all like Mr.Weed very much, and are sorry that he is going home this week. As for Cameron, I hope he will vanish into the steppes of Russia and wander there for eternity. He is of all my countrymen one of the class that I most conspicuously and sincerely despise and detest….
