February 16th [1863]. To-night read aloud Cox’s speech to Ginnie and Mrs. Norton, Cox of Ohio—though I was inwardly grieved at the position of these people and consequent misery to so many innocent ones, I could not help laughing at this speech and the frequent interruptions and cries it met with, especially when Butler was introduced. I am glad that creature seems to meet with general hatred, though in Boston those fanatics got up a sort of pretended welcome to him. He, having heard that the fanatics were about to turn off all generals not of the same politics as themselves, made haste to change his; he once pretended to be a Democrat, but he has joined the Abolitionists, and gives as excuse that he was made one in New Orleans. He tells in his speech to the people a thousand stories of the social life here to justify his treatment of the people. The negroes plied him well with falsehoods when he was here, and he took off (stole) three or four negroes and his wife did the same, when they left here—though to the world his “order” forbidding this proceeding still stands. That order never was intended to be obeyed; it never restrained anyone—ship-loads of negroes belonging to citizens here have been carried off by Federals.
Cox’s speech dissects the Puritan and Yankee character to the core; I do believe that it represents it truly. They are cold, hard, unscrupulous, persevering meddlers, and should live by themselves and never have a voice in any government intended for other people; they have given trouble wherever they have lived; their vanity and egotism are supreme; they are the cause of this war of brothers; and others, inflamed by their bearing-down qualities and eloquence, have given them a helping hand. There seems to be now a general awakening at the North. The sovereign people will soon be in the political field and have already cried out that acts like those which disgrace the Lincoln government shall not be done in their name. Cox’s speech closes with a beautiful poem addressed to South Carolina upon her secession. It filled me with a passionate, almost a tearful regret for the Union; we can never forgive the Massachusetts Puritans for what they have done. The same old feeling which made us love the Union as it was will prevent our accepting it now.
We read also a most interesting letter in the New York World, written in the name of the citizens of New Orleans. ‘Tis in answer to Butler’s farewell address to the people of this city, and refutes ably its many falsehoods. Butler’s address was an inflated falsehood from beginning to end. This letter enumerates some, not all, of Butler’s offences against decency, law and order, in a calm, determined, unostentatious way. I read it with pleasure, for it was all true, and was indeed a dignified production. I don’t know who wrote it, but the people of New Orleans, with the exception of the Dutch, echo every sentiment it contains. We read in the same paper an exposition of the conduct of the speculators from Yankee-land, and the Federal officials who have cheated the planters and gone home with large fortunes. This war and this infamous people have developed and disclosed corruption on a tremendous scale. Now the Caucasian contained the account of Cameron’s attempt to buy one of the Pennsylvania legislators; I am glad to learn that even one of that infamous administration has failed in his ambitions. I have seen one of the Eras, a new paper established here in place of the Delta. It is a shameful thing; not even genteel. I am provoked to learn that the editor complains of the loss of his “Tennyson.” I don’t like to think of his reading so prized a volume. The English, it is said, find much fault with President Davis’ retaliatory proclamation. I do not usually like harsh measures, but these people—these Federals—are to be dealt with in no other manner. They mistake leniency for fear; they have not chivalry enough to comprehend.
When the infamous Pope in Virginia last summer desolated for five miles around where any guerrilla destroyed one of the people who had come to desolate and spoil his friends, a retaliatory proclamation from Davis established the only law which enforced better behavior. Every ruler must protect his people; if the enemy are not governed by decent laws, if the wholesome restraints of civilization are unknown to them, some one must meet them with force. How many Virginia homes were desolated by that wretched Pope! I have the utmost respect for General McClellan; no act of his disgraces him except his acceptance of a position in the Federal Army. He was suspected of Southern tendencies all through his career; they say the South could have got him if she had bid high enough. He, as an enemy, however, has acted the chivalrous part. I took a fancy to him in the early part of his career in Western Virginia. It was a knightly act, I think, to place our General Garnett’s dead body on ice that it might present no hideous changes to the loved ones who awaited it. He is out of the service now and the Federals have shown their distrust of him by endeavoring to disgrace him. Burnside, his successor, has also resigned, and Hooker, a fighting man, has taken his place. He, however, is mud-blockaded on the Rappahannock and can not carry out his belligerent views. A great many Federal officers have resigned recently and the privates are dispirited and mutinous. Two or three hundred have been put under arrest in the last few days for refusing to go to Baton Rouge. They did not come to fight, they say, and would not have been here at all if they had not been drafted. Orders have come from Lincoln that Port Hudson should be attacked immediately; great drilling, artillery and otherwise, going on daily in the streets and squares. The Harrison girls and the Ogdens have been down frequently; they beg us to go back to Greenville; they tell much that is amusing of the camp near them. The negroes are constantly singing “Hang Jeff. Davis on the sour-apple tree.” This is a beautiful, solemn air; an old Methodist hymn. Mr. Randolph called twice to see Mrs. Norton about taking up Leah, the old woman who made her grandchild steal our money.
We have company every day, and often all day; I can neither read nor write. What I commit to this book is so disconnected that I have half a mind to desist. Even if we are free from company for a moment or two, Mrs. Norton fills up the time by reading aloud to us these tiresome city papers. I have a disgust for them, because they do not dare to speak of anything that interests us. I write in such confusion and so rapidly when I have an opportunity, that I often cannot read myself what has been written. I fear my little niece, Edith [Mrs. Edith Pye Weeden, now of Austin, Texas], for whom I wish to keep a good and interesting journal, will think her Auntie has a sorry, sorry sort of mind and style. I never could concentrate my thoughts when in a confusion, and here we have it all the time. Our room fronts on the gallery and it seems to be a thoroughfare for all parties; not one moment can we command. Dear Mrs. Norton can’t comprehend how young people can wish to be alone; she is old and hates solitude. When she sits in her own room and we in ours she continually calls something out to us; she is devoted to newspapers and I cannot bear them except when they contain something of worth. These papers, The Bee, The Picayune, The True Delta, are all worthless now. The Era does not wish to, and our papers do not dare to, tell the truth. The New York papers are under much less restraint than ours. We have too large a Federal force in the city for the truth to be uttered except in whispers. Mrs. Waugh has spent several mornings with us; she has brought us Davis’ last work on Spiritualism; he approves of the War, not if it is conducted to restore the Union, but for slavery. Mrs. N—— is talking to me and I cannot take heed of my periods. I feel angry with Davis (Andrew Jackson Davis) for approving of this war; he should divine the spirit which guides the combatants. What good can grow out of such strife? Speculators and thieves can not introduce good by warring and the Federal Army is made up of them. They go to the battles with their pockets stuffed with counterfeit Confederate money which they intend to pass off if they succeed in getting into the country. Handcuffs were carried to the field of Manassas—we were then a parcel of “Rebels” to be easily conquered and terribly punished. Ah, how many a gallant neck the hangman would have touched if our braves had not boldly met them on the field. A great power must watch over the destiny of nations—now we are a nation to be ruined by other means—the “Rebellion” is a great revolution.
By sending $5.00 to New York you can get $20,000 Confederate dollars—counterfeit, of course. These advertisements appear in respectable journals, Harper’s Weekly, for instance, which considers itself a vast civilizer, though it recommends that servile insurrection should overrun the South. It is nothing that our homes should be burned and that Southern women and children should be startled at midnight by the wild beasts which Africans become after having scented blood. Northern women, too, are willing to see their Southern sisters subjected to every danger and infamy. To think of emptying prisons and penitentiaries of hardened wretches and saying, “Hurrah, and God speed you!” to them on their mission of destruction.
Two vessels of war, blockading at Sabine Pass, have been captured by the Confederates; one, the Rachel Seaman, was burned by the Yankees to prevent capture; we attacked with two cotton-protected steamers and took the Victory and the Morning Light—also money and supplies. Commodore Farragut pronounces the giving up of the Harriet Lane at Galveston and the escape of the rest of the fleet from two “cotton steamers” as a pusillanimous affair.
The breaking of the blockade at Charleston is declared by the enemy to be a much less important affair than we thought it—this means that several vessels have come back to begin the blockade over again, not being willing to own that it has been broken. I, as well as others, believe that the Quaker City was sunk in Charleston harbor.
