My Diary North and South – William Howard Russell

December 7th.—A visit to the Garibaldi Guard with some of the Englishry, and an excellent dinner at the mess, which presented a curious scene, and was graced by sketches from a wonderful polyglot chaplain. What a company!—the officers present were composed as follows:—Five Spaniards, six Poles and Hungarians, two Frenchmen—the most soldierly-looking men at table—one American, four Italians, and nine Teutons of various States in Germany.

December 6th.—Mr. Riggs says the paper currency scheme will produce money, and make every man richer. He is a banker, and ought to know; but to my ignorant eye it seems likely to prove most destructive, and I confess, that whatever be the result of this war, I have no desire for the ruin of so many happy communities as have sprung up in the United States. Had it been possible for human beings to employ popular institutions without intrigue and miserable self-seeking, and to be superior to faction and party passion, the condition of parts of the United States must cause regret that an exemption from the usual laws which regulate human nature was not made in America; but the strength of the United States—directed by violent passions, by party interest, and by selfish intrigues—was becoming dangerous to the peace of other nations, and therefore there is an utter want of sympathy with them in their time of trouble. Terrapin soup and canvas-backs, speeches, orations, music, and song, carried the company onwards among the small hours.

I dined with Mr. Gait, at Willard’s, where we had a very pleasant party, in spite of financial dangers.

December 4th.—To Arlington, where Senator Ira Harris presented flags—that is, standards—to a cavalry regiment called after his name; the President, Mrs. Lincoln, ministers, generals, and a large gathering present. Mr. Harris made a very long and a very fierce speech; it could not be said Ira furor brevis est; and Colonel Davies, in taking the standard, was earnest and lengthy in reply. Then a barrister presented colour No. 2 in a speech full of poetical quotations, to which Major Kilpatrick made an excellent answer. Though it was strange enough to hear a political disquisition on the causes of the rebellion from a soldier in full uniform, the proceedings were highly theatrical and very effective. “Take, then, this flag,” &c.—”Defendit with your,” &c.—” Yes, sir, we will guard this sacred emblem with —,” &c. The regiment then went through some evolutions, which were brought to an untimely end by a feu de joie from the infantry in the rear, which instantly broke up the squadrons, and sent them kicking, plunging, and falling over the field, to the great amusement of the crowd.

Dined with Lord Lyons, where was Mr. Gait, Financial Minister of Canada; Mr. Stewart, who has arrived to replace Mr. Irvine, and others. In our rooms, a grand financial discussion took place in honour of Mr. Gait, between Mr. Butler Duncan and others, the former maintaining that a general issue of national paper was inevitable. A very clever American maintained that the North will be split into two great parties by the result of the victory which they are certain to gain over the South—that the Democrats will offer the South concessions more liberal than they could ever dream of, and that both will unite against the Abolitionists and Black Republicans.

December 3rd.—Drove down to the Capitol, and was introduced to the floor of the Senate by Senator Wilson, and arrived just as Mr. Forney commenced reading the President’s message, which was listened to with considerable interest. At dinner, Colonel D’Utassy, of the Garibaldi legion, who gives a curious account of his career. A Hungarian by birth, he went over from the Austrian service, and served under Bern; was wounded and taken prisoner at Temesvar, and escaped from Spielberg, through the kindness of Count Bennigsen, making his way to Semlin, in the disguise of a servant, where Mr. Fonblanque, the British consul, protected him. Thence he went to Kossuth at Shumla, finally proceeded to Constantinople, where he was engaged to instruct the Turkish cavalry; turned up in the Ionian Islands, where he was engaged by the late Sir H. Ward, as a sort of secretary and interpreter, in which capacity he also served Sir G. Le Marchant. In the United States he was earning his livelihood as a fencing, dancing, and language master; and when the war broke out he exerted himself to raise a regiment, and succeeded in completing his number in seventeen days, being all the time obliged to support himself by his lessons. I tell his tale as he told it to me.

One of our friends, of a sporting turn, dropped in tonight, followed by a gentleman dressed in immaculate black, and of staid deportment, whose name I did not exactly catch, but fancied it was that of a senator of some reputation. As the stranger sat next me, and was rubbing his knees nervously, I thought I would commence conversation.

“It appears, sir, that affairs in the south-west are not so promising. May I ask you what is your opinion of the present prospects of the Federals in Missouri?”

I was somewhat disconcerted by his reply, for rubbing his knees harder than ever, and imprecating his organs of vision in a very sanguinary manner, he said—

“Well, d____ if I know what to think of them. They’re a b____ rum lot, and they’re going on in a d____ rum way. That’s what I think.”

The supposed legislator, in fact, was distinguished in another arena, and was no other than a celebrated pugilist, who served his apprenticeship in the English ring, and has since graduated in honours in America.

I dined with Mr. Cameron, Secretary-of-War, where I met Mr. Forney, Secretary of the Senate; Mr. House, Mr. Wilkeson, and others, and was exceedingly interested by the shrewd conversation and candid manner of our host. He told me he once worked as a printer in the city of Washington, at ten dollars a week, and twenty cents an hour for extra work at the case on Sundays. Since that time he has worked onwards and upwards, and amassed a large fortune by contracts for railways and similar great undertakings. He says the press rules America, and that no one can face it and live; which is about the worst account of the chances of an honest longevity I can well conceive. His memory is exact, and his anecdotes, albeit he has never seen any but Americans, or stirred out of the States, very agreeable. Once there lived at Washington a publican’s daughter, named Mary O’Neil, beautiful, bold, and witty. She captivated a member of Congress, who failed to make her less than his wife; and by degrees Mrs. Eaton—who may now be seen in the streets of Washington, an old woman, still bright-eyed and, alas! bright-cheeked, retaining traces of her great beauty—became a leading personage in the State, and ruled the imperious, rugged, old Andrew Jackson so completely, that he broke up his Cabinet and dismissed his ministers on her account. In the days of her power she had done some trifling service to Mr. Cameron, and he has just repaired it by conferring some military appointment on her grandchild.

The dinner, which was preceded by deputations, was finished by one which came from the Far West, and was introduced by Mr. Hannibal Hamlin, the Vice-President; Mr. Owen Lovejoy, Mr. Bingham, and other ultra-Abolitionist members of Congress; and then speeches were made, and healths were drunk, and toasts were pledged, till it was time for me to drive to a ball given by the officers of the 5th United States Cavalry, which was exceedingly pretty, and admirably arranged in wooden huts, specially erected and decorated for the occasion. A huge bonfire in the centre of the camp, surrounded by soldiers, by the carriage drivers, and by negro servants, afforded the most striking play of colour and variety of light and shade I ever beheld.

December 2nd.—Congress opened to-day. The Senate did nothing. In the House of Representatives some Buncombe resolutions were passed about Captain Wilkes, who has become a hero—”a great interpreter of international law,” and also recommending that Messrs. Mason and Slidell be confined in felons’ cells, in retaliation for Colonel Corcoran’s treatment by the Confederates. M. Blondel, the Belgian minister, who was at the court of Greece during the Russian war, told me that when the French and English fleets lay in the Piraeus, a United States vessel, commanded, he thinks, by Captain Stringham, publicly received M. Persani, the Russian ambassador, on board, hoisted and saluted the Russian flag in the harbour, whereupon the French Admiral, Barbier de Tinan, proposed to the English Admiral to go on board the United States vessel and seize the ambassador, which the British officer refused to do.

December 1st.—A mixed party of American officers and English went to-day to the post at Great Falls, about sixteen or seventeen miles up the Potomac, and were well repaid by the charming scenery, and by a visit to an American military station in a state of nature. The captain in command told us over a drink that he was under arrest, because he had refused to do duty as lieutenant of the guard, he being a captain. “But I have written to McClellan about it,” said he, “and I’m d—d if I stay under arrest more than three days longer.” He was not aware that the General’s brother, who is a captain on his staff, was sitting beside him at the time. This worthy centurion further informed us he had shot a man dead a short time before for disobeying his orders. “That he did,” said his sympathising and enthusiastic orderly, “and there’s the weapon that done it.” The captain was a boot and shoe maker by trade, and had travelled across the isthmus before the railway was made to get orders for his boots. A hard, determined, fierce “sutor,” as near a savage as might be.

“And what will you do, captain,” asked I, “if they keep you in arrest?”

“Fight for it, sir. I’ll go straight away into Pennsylvania with my company, and we’ll whip any two companies they can send to stop us.”

Mr. Sumner paid me a visit on my return from our excursion, and seems to think everything is in the best possible state.

Thanksgiving Day on the 28th was celebrated by enormous drunkenness in the army. The weather varied between days of delicious summer—soft, bright, balmy, and beautiful beyond expression—and days of wintry storm, with torrents of rain.

Some excitement was caused at the end of the month by the report I had received information from England that the law officers of the Crown had given it as their opinion that a United States man-of-war would be justified by Lord Stowell’s decisions in taking Mason and Slidell even in the British Channel, if the Nashville transferred them to a British mail steamer. This opinion was called for in consequence of the Tuscarora appearing in Southampton Water; and, having heard of it, I repeated it in strict confidence to some one else, till at last Baron de Stoeckl came to ask me if it was true. Receiving passengers from the Nashville, however, would have been an act of direct intercourse with an enemy’s ship. In the case of the Trent the persons seized had come on board as lawful passengers at a neutral port.

The tide of success runs strongly in favour of the North at present, although they generally get the worst of it in the small affairs in the front of Washington. The entrance to Savannah has been occupied, and by degrees the fleets are biting into the Confederate lines along the coast, and establishing positions which will afford bases of operations to the Federals hereafter. The President and Cabinet seem in better spirits, and the former indulges in quaint speculations, which he transfers even to State papers. He calculates, for instance, there are human beings now alive who may ere they die behold the United States peopled by 250 millions of souls. Talking of a high mound on the prairie, in Illinois, he remarked, “that if all the nations of the earth were assembled there, a man standing on its top would see them all, for that the whole human race would fit on a space twelve miles square, which was about the extent of the plain.”

November 25th.—I remarked the other evening that, with all the disorder in Washington, there are no thieves. Next night, as we were sitting in our little symposium, a thirsty soldier knocked at the door for a glass of water. He was brought in and civilly treated. Under the date of the 27th, accordingly, I find it duly entered that “the vagabond who came in for water must have had a confederate, who got into the hall whilst we were attending to his comrade, for yesterday there was a great lamentation over cloaks and great-coats missing from the hall, and as the day wore on the area of plunder was extended. Carl discovers he has been robbed of his best clothes, and Caroline has lost her watch and many petticoats.”

November 22nd.—All the American papers have agreed that the Trent business is quite according to law, custom, and international comity, and that England can do nothing. They cry out so loudly in this one key there is reason to suspect they have some inward doubts. General McClellan invited all the world, including myself, to see a performance given by Hermann, the conjuror, at his quarters, which will be aggravating news to the bloody-minded, serious people in New England.

Day after day passes on, and finds our Micawbers in Washington waiting for something to turn up. The Trent affair, having been proved to be legal and right beyond yea or nay, has dropped out of the minds of all save those who are waiting for news from England; and on looking over my diary I can see nothing but memoranda relating to quiet rides, visits to camps, conversations with this one or the other, a fresh outburst of anonymous threatening letters, as if I had anything to do with the Trent affair, and notes of small social reunions at our own rooms and the Washington houses which were open to us.