My Diary North and South – William Howard Russell

August 27th.—Fever and ague, which Gen. M^cDowell attributes to water-melons, of which he, however, had eaten three times as much as I had. Swallowed many grains of quinine, and lay panting in the heat in-doors. Two English visitors, Mr. Lamy and a Captain of the 17th, called on me; and, afterwards, I had a conversation with M. Mercier and M. Stoeckl on the aspect of affairs. They are inclined to look forward to a more speedy solution than I think the North is weak enough to accept. I believe that peace is possible in two years or so, but only by the concession to the South of a qualified independence. The naval operations of the Federals will test the Southern mettle to the utmost. Having a sincere regard and liking for many of the Southerners whom I have met, I cannot say their cause, or its origin, or its aim, recommends itself to my sympathies; and yet I am accused of aiding it by every means in my power, because I do not re-echo the arrogant and empty boasting and insolent outbursts of the people in the North, who threaten, as the first-fruits of their success, to invade the territories subject to the British crown, and to outrage and humiliate our flag.

It is melancholy enough to see this great republic tumbling to pieces; one would regret it all the more but for the fact that it re-echoed the voices of the obscene and filthy creatures which have been driven before the lash of the lictor from all the cities of Europe. Assuredly it was a great work, but all its greatness and the idea of its life was of man, not of God. The principle of veneration, of obedience, of subordination, and self-control did not exist within. Washington-worship could not save it. The elements of destruction lay equally sized, smooth, and black at its foundations, and a spark suffices to blow the structure into the air.

August 26th.—General Van Vliet called from General M^cClellan to say that the Commander-in-Chief would be happy to go round the camps with me when he next made an inspection, and would send round an orderly and charger in time to get ready before he started. These little excursions are not the most agreeable affairs in the world; for M^cClellan delights in working down staff and escort, dashing from the Chain Bridge to Alexandria, and visiting all the posts, riding as hard as he can, and not returning till past midnight, so that if one has a regard for his cuticle, or his mail days, he will not rashly venture on such excursions. To-day he is to inspect M^cDowell’s division.

I set out accordingly with Captain Johnson over the Long Bridge, which is now very strictly guarded. On exhibiting my pass to the sentry at the entrance, he called across to the sergeant and spoke to him aside, showing him the pass at the same time. “Are you Russell, of the London Times?” said the sergeant. I replied, “If you look at the pass, you will see who I am.” He turned it over, examined it most narrowly, and at last, with an expression of infinite dissatisfaction and anger upon his face, handed it back, saying to the sentry, “I suppose you must let him go.”

Meantime Captain Johnson was witching the world with feats of noble horsemanship, for I had lent him my celebrated horse Walker, so called because no earthly equestrian can induce him to do anything but trot violently, gallop at full speed, or stand on his hind legs. Captain Johnson laid the whole fault of the animal’s conduct to my mismanagement, affirming that all it required was a light hand and gentleness, and so, as he could display both, I promised to let him have a trial to-day. Walker on starting, however, insisted on having a dance to himself, which my friend attributed to the excitement produced by the presence of the other horse, and I rode quietly along whilst the captain proceeded to establish an acquaintance with his steed in some quiet bye-street. As I was crossing the Long Bridge, the forbidden clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the planks caused me to look round, and on, in a cloud of dust, through the midst of shouting sentries, came my friend of the gentle hand and unruffled temper, with his hat thumped down on the back of his head, his eyes gleaming, his teeth clenched, his fine features slightly flushed, to say the least of it, sawing violently at Walker’s head, and exclaiming, “You brute, I’ll teach you to walk,” till he brought up by the barrier midway on the bridge. The guard, en masse, called the captain’s attention to the order, “all horses to walk over the bridge.” “Why, that’s what I want him to do. I’ll give any man among you one hundred dollars who can make him walk along this bridge or anywhere else.” The redoubtable steed, being permitted to proceed upon its way, dashed swiftly through the tête de pont, or stood on his hind legs when imperatively arrested by a barrier or abattis, and on these occasions my excellent friend, as he displayed his pass in one hand and restrained Bucephalus with the other, reminded me of nothing so much as the statue of Peter the Great, in the square on the banks of the Neva, or the noble equestrian monument of General Jackson, which decorates the city of Washington. The troops of M^cDowell’s division were already drawn up on a rugged plain, close to the river’s margin, in happier days the scene of the city races. A pestilential odour rose from the slaughter-houses close at hand, but regardless of odour or marsh, Walker continued his violent exercise, evidently under the idea that he was assisting at a retreat of the grand army as before.

Presently General M^cDowell and one of his aides cantered over, and whilst waiting for General M^cClellan, he talked of the fierce outburst directed against me in the press. “I must confess,” he said laughingly, “I am much rejoiced to find you are as much abused as I have been. I hope you mind it as little as I did. Bull’s Run was an unfortunate affair for both of us, for had I won it, you would have had to describe the pursuit of the flying enemy, and then you would have been the most popular writer in America, and I would have been lauded as the greatest of generals. See what measure has been meeted to us now. I’m accused of drunkenness and gambling, and you Mr. Russell— well!—I really do hope you are not so black as you are painted.” Presently a cloud of dust on the road announced the arrival of the President, who came upon the ground in an open carriage, with Mr. Seward by his side, accompanied by General M^cClellan and his staff in undress uniform, and an escort of the very dirtiest and most unsoldierly dragoons, with filthy accoutrements and ungroomed horses, I ever saw. The troops dressed into line and presented arms, whilst the band struck up the “Star-spangled Banner,” as the Americans have got no air which corresponds with our National Anthem, or is in any way complimentary to the quadrennial despot who fills the President’s chair.

General M^cDowell seems on most excellent terms with the present Commander-in-Chief, as he is with the President. Immediately after Bull’s Run, when the President first saw M^cDowell, he said to him, “I have not lost a particle of confidence in you,” to which the General replied, “I don’t see why you should, Mr. President.” But there was a curious commentary, either on the sincerity of Mr. Lincoln, or in his utter subserviency to mob opinion, in the fact that he who can overrule Congress and act pretty much as he pleases in time of war, had, without opportunity for explanation or demand for it, at once displaced the man in whom he still retained the fullest confidence, degraded him to command of a division of the army of which he had been General-in-Chief, and placed a junior officer over his head.

After some ordinary movements, the march past took place, which satisfied me that the new levies were very superior to the three months’ men, though far, indeed, from being soldiers. Finer material could not be found in physique. With the exception of an assemblage of miserable scarecrows in rags and tatters, swept up in New York and commanded by a Mr. Kerrigan, no division of the ordinary line, in any army, could show a greater number of tall, robust men in the prime of life. A soldier standing near me, pointing out Kerrigan’s corps, said, “The boy who commands that pretty lot recruited them first for the Seceshes in New York, but finding he could not get them away he handed them over to Uncle Sam.” The men were silent as they marched past, and did not cheer for President or Union.

I returned from the field to Arlington House, having been invited with my friend to share the general’s camp dinner. On our way along the road, I asked Major Brown why he rode over to us before the review commenced. “Well,” said he, “my attention was called to you by one of our staff saying ‘there are two Englishmen,’ and the general sent me over to invite them, and followed when he saw who it was.” “But how could you tell we were English?” “I don’t know,” said he, “there were other civilians about, but there was something about the look of you two which marked you immediately as John Bull.”

At the general’s tent we found General Sherman, General Keyes, Wadsworth, and some others. Dinner was spread on a table covered by the flap of the tent, and consisted of good plain fare, and a dessert of prodigious water-melons. I was exceedingly gratified to hear every officer present declare in the presence of the general who had commanded the army, and who himself said no words could exaggerate the disorder of the route, that my narrative of Bull’s Run was not only true but moderate.

General Sherman, whom I met for the first time, said, “Mr. Russell, I can indorse every word that you wrote; your statements about the battle, which you say you did not witness, are equally correct. All the stories about charging batteries and attacks with the bayonet are simply falsehoods, so far as my command is concerned, though some of the troops did fight well. As to cavalry charges, I wish we had had a few cavalry to have tried one; those Black Horse fellows seemed as if their horses ran away with them.” General Keyes said, “I don’t think you made it half bad enough. I could not get the men to stand after they had received the first severe check. The enemy swept the open with a tremendous musketry fire. Some of our men and portions of regiments behaved admirably—we drove them easily at first; the cavalry did very little indeed; but when they did come on I could not get the infantry to stand, and after a harmless volley they broke.” These officers were brigadiers of Tyler’s division.

The conversation turned upon the influence of the press in America, and I observed that every soldier at table spoke with the utmost dislike and antipathy of the New York journals, to which they gave a metropolitan position, although each man had some favourite paper of his own which he excepted from the charge made against the whole body. The principal accusations made against the press were that the conductors are not gentlemen, that they are calumnious and corrupt, regardless of truth, honour, anything but circulation and advertisements. “It is the first time we have had a chance of dealing with these fellows, and we shall not lose it.”

I returned to Washington at dusk over the aqueduct bridge. A gentleman, who introduced himself to me as correspondent of one of the cheap London papers, sent out specially on account of his great experience to write from the States, under the auspices of the leaders of the advanced liberal party, came to ask if I had seen an article in the Chicago Tribune, purporting to be written by a gentleman who says he was in my company during the retreat, contradicting what I report. I was advised by several officers—whose opinion I took — that it would be derogatory to me if I noticed the writer. I read it over carefully, and must say I am surprised—if anything could surprise me in American journalism—at the impudence and mendacity of the man. Having first stated that he rode along with me from point to point at a certain portion of the road, he states that he did not hear or see certain things which I say that I saw and heard, or deliberately falsifies what passed, for the sake of a little ephemeral applause, quotations in the papers, increased importance to himself, and some more abuse of the English correspondent.

This statement made me recall the circumstance alluded to more particularly. I remembered well the flurried, plethoric, elderly man, mounted on a broken-down horse, who rode up to me in great trepidation, with sweat streaming over his face, and asked me if I was going into Washington. “You may not recollect me, sir; I was introduced to you at Cay-roe, in the hall of the hotel. I’m Dr. Bray, of the Chicago Tribune.” I certainly did not remember him, but I did recollect that a dispatch from Cairo appeared in the paper, announcing my arrival from the South, and stating I complained on landing that my letters had been opened in the States, which was quite untrue and which I felt called on to deny, and supposing Dr. Bray to be the author I was not at all inclined to cement our acquaintance, and continued my course with a bow.

But the Doctor whipped his steed up alongside mine, and went on to tell me that he was in the most terrible bodily pain and mental anxiety. The first on account of desuetude of equestrian exercise; the other on account of the defeat of the Federals and the probable pursuit of the Confederates. “Oh! it’s dreadful to think of! They know me well, and would show me no mercy. Every step the horse takes I’m in agony. I’ll never get to Washington. Could you stay with me, sir? as you know the road.” I was moved to internal chuckling, at any rate, by the very prostrate condition —for he bent well over the saddle—of poor Dr. Bray, and so I said to him, “Don’t be uneasy, sir. There is no fear of your being taken. The army is not defeated, in spite of what you see; for there will be always runaways and skulkers when a retreat is ordered. I have not the least doubt M^cDowell will stand fast at Centreville, and rally his troops to-night on the reserve, so as to be in a good position to resist the enemy tomorrow. I’ll have to push on to Washington, as I must write my letters, and I fear they will stop me on the bridge without the countersign, particularly if these runaways should outstrip us. As to your skin, pour a little whiskey on some melted tallow and rub it well in, and you’ll be all right to-morrow or next day as far as that is concerned.”

I actually, out of compassion to his sufferings—for he uttered cries now and then as though Lucina were in request—reined up, and walked my horse, though most anxious to get out of the dust and confusion of the runaways, and comforted him about a friend whom he missed, and for whose fate he was as uneasy as the concern he felt for his own woes permitted him to be; suggested various modes to him of easing the jolt and of quickening the pace of his steed, and at last really bored excessively by an uninteresting and self-absorbed companion, who was besides detaining me needlessly on the road, I turned on some pretence into a wood by the side and continued my way as well as I could, till I got off the track, and being guided to the road by the dust and shouting, I came out on it somewhere near Fairfax Court, and there, to my surprise, dropped on the Doctor, who, animated by some agency more powerful than the pangs of an abraded cuticle and taking advantage of the road, had got thus far a-head. We entered the place together, halted at the same inn to water our horses, and then seeing that it was getting on towards dusk and that the wave of the retreat was rolling onward in increased volume, I pushed on and saw no more of him. Ungrateful Bray! Perfidious Bray! Some day, when I have time, I must tell the people of Chicago how Bray got into Washington, and how he left his horse and what he did with it, and how Bray behaved on the road. I dare say they who know him can guess.

The most significant article I have seen for some time as a test of the taste, tone, and temper of the New York public, judging by their most widely read journal, is contained in it to-night. It appears that a gentleman named Muir, who is described as a relative of Mr. Mure the consul at New Orleans, was seized on the point of starting for Europe, and that among his papers, many of which were of a “disloyal character,” which is not astonishing seeing that he came from Charlestown, was a letter written by a foreign resident in that city, in which he stated he had seen a letter from me to Mr. Bunch describing the flight at Bull’s Run, and adding that Lord Lyons remarked, when he heard of it, he would ask Mr. Seward whether he would not now admit the Confederates were a belligerent power, whereupon Maudit calls on Mr. Seward to demand explanations from Lord Lyons and to turn me out of the country, because in my letter to the “Times” I made the remark that the United States would probably now admit the South were a belligerent power.

Such an original observation could never have occurred to two people—genius concerting with genius could alone have hammered it out. But Maudit is not satisfied with the humiliation of Lord Lyons and the expulsion of myself—he absolutely insists upon a miracle, and his moral vision being as perverted as his physical, he declares that I must have sent to the British Consul at Charleston a duplicate copy of the letter which I furnished with so much labour and difficulty just in time to catch the mail by special messenger from Boston. ‘These be thy Gods, O Israel!’

My attention was also directed to a letter from certain officers of the disbanded 69th Regiment, who had permitted their Colonel to be dragged away a prisoner from the field of Bull’s Run. Without having read my letter, these gentlemen assumed that I had stigmatised Captain T. F. Meagher as one who had misconducted himself during the battle, whereas all I had said on the evidence of eye-witnesses was “that in the rout he appeared at Centreville running across country and uttering exclamations in the hearing of my informant, which indicated that he at least was perfectly satisfied that the Confederates had established their claims to be considered a belligerent power.” These officers state that Captain Meagher behaved extremely well up to a certain point in the engagement when they lost sight of him, and from which period they could say nothing about him. It was subsequent to that very time he appeared at Centreville, and long before my letter returned to America giving credit to Captain Meagher for natural gallantry in the field. I remarked that he would no doubt feel as much pained as any of his friends, at the ridicule cast upon him by the statement that he, the Captain of a company, “Went into action mounted on a magnificent charger and waving a green silk flag embroidered with a golden harp in the face of the enemy.”

A young man wearing the Indian war medal with two clasps, who said his name was Mac Ivor Hilstock, came in to inquire after some unknown friend of his. He told me he had been in Tomb’s troop of Artillery during the Indian mutiny, and had afterwards served with the French volunteers during the siege of Caprera. The news of the Civil War has produced such an immigration of military adventurers from Europe that the streets of Washington are quite filled with medals and ribands. The regular officers of the American Army regard them with considerable dislike, the greater inasmuch as Mr. Seward and the politicians encourage them. In alluding to the circumstance to General M^cDowell, who came in to see me at a late dinner, I said,” A great many Garibaldians are in Washington just now.” “Oh,” said he in his quiet way, “it will be quite enough for a man to prove that he once saw Garibaldi to satisfy us in Washington that he is quite fit for the command of a regiment. I have recommended a man because he sailed in the ship which Garibaldi came in over here, and I’m sure it will be attended to.”

August 25th.—I visited the Navy Department, which is a small red-brick building two storeys high, very plain and even humble. The subordinate departments are conducted in rooms below stairs. The executive are lodged in the rooms which line both sides of the corridor above. The walls of the passage are lined with paintings in oil and water colours, engravings and paintings in the worst style of art. To the latter considerable interest attaches, as they are authentic likenesses of naval officers who gained celebrity in the wars with Great Britain—men like Perry, M^cDonough, Decatur, and Hull, who, as the Americans boast, was “the first man who compelled a British frigate of greater force than his own to strike her colours in fair fight.” Paul Jones was not to be seen, but a drawing is proudly pointed to of the attack of the American fleet on Algiers as a proof of hatred to piracy, and of the prominent part taken by the young States in putting an end to it in Europe. In one room are several swords, surrendered by English officers in the single frigate engagements, and the duplicates of medals, in gold and silver, voted by Congress to the victors. In Lieutenant Wise’s room, there are models of the projectiles, and a series of shot and shell used in the navy, or deposited by inventors. Among other relics was the flag of Captain Ward’s boat just brought in which was completely riddled by the bullet marks received in the ambuscade in which that officer was killed, with nearly all of his boat’s crew, as they incautiously approached the shore of the Potomac, to take off a small craft placed there to decoy them by the Confederates. My business was to pave the way for a passage on board a steamer, in case of any naval expedition starting before the army was ready to move, but all difficulties were at once removed by the promptitude and courtesy of Mr. Fox, the Assistant-Secretary, who promised to give me an order for a passage whenever I required it. The extreme civility and readiness to oblige of all American officials, high and low, from the gate-keepers and door porters up to the heads of departments, cannot be too highly praised, and it is ungenerous to accept the explanation offered by an English officer to whom I remarked the circumstance that it is due to the fact that each man is liable to be turned out at the end of four years, and therefore makes all the friends he can.

In the afternoon I rode out with Captain Johnson, through some charming woodland scenery on the outskirts of Washington, by a brawling stream, in a shady little ravine, that put me in mind of the Dargle. Our ride led us into the camps, formed on the west of Georgetown, to cover the city from the attacks of an enemy advancing along the left bank of the Potomac, and in support of several strong forts and earthworks placed on the heights. One regiment consists altogether of Frenchmen—another is of Germans—in a third I saw an officer with a Crimean and Indian medal on his breast, and several privates with similar decorations. Some of the regiments were on parade, and crowds of civilians from Washington were enjoying the novel scene, and partaking of the hospitality of their friends. One old lady, whom I have always seen about the camps, and who is a sort of ancient heroine of Saragossa, had an opportunity of being useful. The 15th Massachusetts, a fine-looking body of men, had broken up camp, and were marching off to the sound of their own voices chanting “Old John Brown,” when one of the enormous trains of baggage waggons attached to them was carried off by the frightened mules, which probably had belonged to Virginian farmers, and one of the soldiers, in trying to stop it, was dashed to the ground and severely injured. The old lady was by his side in a moment, and out came her flask of strong waters, bandages, and medical comforts and apparatus. “It’s well I’m here’ for this poor Union soldier; I’m sure I always have something to do in these camps.” On my return late, there was a letter on my table requesting me to visit General M^cClellan, but it was then too far advanced to avail myself of the invitation, which was only delivered after I left my lodgings.

August 23rd.—The torrent is swollen to-day by anonymous letters threatening me with bowie knife and revolver, or simply abusive, frantic with hate, and full of obscure warnings. Some bear the Washington post-mark, others came from New York, the greater number—for I have had nine—are from Philadelphia. Perhaps they may come from the members of that “gallant” 4th Pennsylvania Regiment.