Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862

Adam G. De Gurowski

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• Publié par: raner
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 21
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, by Adam Gurowski This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 Author: Adam Gurowski Release Date: May 22, 2009 [eBook #28926] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY FROM MARCH 4, 1861, TO NOVEMBER 12, 1862*** E-text prepared by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital material generously made available by Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://www.archive.org/details/diarycivilwar01gurouoft Transcriber's Note Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been retained. DIARY, FROM MARCH 4, 1861, TO NOVEMBER 12, 1862. BY ADAM GUROWSKI. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, SUCCESSORS TO PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO. 1862. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by LEE AND SHEPARD, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. DEDICATED TO THE WIDOWED WIVES, THE BEREAVED MOTHERS, SISTERS, SWEETHEARTS, AND ORPHANS IN THE LOYAL STATES. On doit à son pays sa fortune, sa vie, mais avant tout la Vérité. In this Diary I recorded what I heard and saw myself, and what I heard from others, on whose veracity I can implicitly rely. I recorded impressions as immediately as I felt them. A life almost wholly spent in the tempests and among the breakers of our times has taught me that the first impressions are the purest and the best. If they ever peruse these pages, my friends and acquaintances will find therein what, during these horrible national trials, was a subject of our confidential conversations and discussions, what in letters and by mouth was a subject of repeated forebodings and warnings. Perhaps these pages may in some way explain a phenomenon almost unexampled in history,—that twenty millions of people, brave, highly intelligent, and mastering all the wealth of modern civilization, were, if not virtually overpowered, at least so long kept at bay by about five millions of rebels. GUROWSKI. WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER, 1862. CONTENTS. MARCH, 1861. Inauguration day — The message — Scott watching at the door of the Union — The Cabinet born — The Seward and Chase struggle — The New York radicals triumph — The treason spreads — The Cabinet pays old party debts — The diplomats confounded — Poor Senators! — Sumner is like a hare tracked by hounds — Chase in favor of recognizing the revolted States — Blunted axes — Blair demands action, brave fellow! — The slave-drivers — The month of March closes — No foresight! no foresight! APRIL, 1861. Seward parleying with the rebel commissioners — Corcoran's dinner — The crime in full blast! — 75,000 men called for — Massachusetts takes the lead — Baltimore — Defence of Washington — Blockade discussed — France our friend, not England — Warning to the President — Virginia secedes — Lincoln warned again — Seward says it will all blow over in sixty to ninety days — Charles F. Adams — The administration undecided; the people alone inspired — Slavery must perish! — The Fabian policy — The Blairs — Strange conduct of Scott — Lord Lyons — Secret agent to Canada, MAY, 1861. The administration tossed by expedients — Seward to Dayton — Spreadeagleism — One phasis of the American Union finished — The fuss about Russell — Pressure on the administration increases — Seward, Wickoff, and the Herald — Lord Lyons menaced with passports — The splendid Northern army — The administration not up to the occasion — The new men — Andrew, Wadsworth, Boutwell, Noyes, Wade, Trumbull, Walcott, King, Chandler, Wilson — Lyon jumps over formulas — Governor Banks needed — Butler takes Baltimore with two regiments — News from England — The "belligerent" question — Butler and Scott — Seward and the diplomats — "What a Merlin!" — 13 22 "France not bigger than New York!" — Virginia invaded — Murder of Ellsworth — Harpies at the White House, JUNE, 1861. Butler emancipates slaves — The army not organized — Promenades — The blockade — Louis Napoleon — Scott all in all — Strategy! — Gun contracts — The diplomats — Masked batteries — Seward writes for "bunkum" — Big Bethel — The Dayton letter — Instructions to Mr. Adams, JULY, 1861. The Evening Post — The message — The administration caught napping — McDowell — Congress slowly feels its way — Seward's great facility of labor — Not a Know-Nothing — Prophesies a speedy end — Carried away by his imagination — Says "secession is over" — Hopeful views — Politeness of the State department — Scott carries on the campaign from his sleeping room — Bull Run — Rout — Panic — "Malediction! Malediction!" — Not a manly word in Congress! — Abuse of the soldiers — McClellan sent for — Young-blood — Gen. Wadsworth — Poor McDowell! — Scott responsible — Plan of reorganization — Let McClellan beware of routine, AUGUST, 1861. The truth about Bull Run — The press staggers — The Blairs alone firm — Scott's military character — Seward — Mr. Lincoln reads the Herald — The ubiquitous lobbyist — Intervention — Congress adjourns — The administration waits for something to turn up — Wade — Lyon is killed — Russell and his shadow — The Yankees take the loan — Bravo, Yankees! — McClellan works hard — Prince Napoleon — Manassas fortifications a humbug — Mr. Seward improves — Old Whigism — McClellan's powers enlarged — Jeff. Davis makes history — Fremont emancipates in Missouri — The Cabinet, SEPTEMBER, 1861. What will McClellan do? — Fremont disavowed — The Blairs not in fault — Fremont ignorant and a bungler — Conspiracy to destroy him — Seward rather on his side — McClellan's staff — A Marcy will not do! — McClellan publishes a slave-catching order — The people move onward — Mr. Seward again — West Point — The Washington defences — What a Russian officer thought of them — Oh, for battles! — Fremont wishes to attack Memphis; a bold move! — Seward's influence over Lincoln — The people for Fremont — Col. Romanoff's opinion of the generals — McClellan refuses to move — Manœuvrings — The people uneasy — The staff — The Orleans — Brave boys! — The Potomac closed — Oh, poor nation! — Mexico — McClellan and 37 50 60 78 Scott, OCTOBER, 1861. Experiments on the people's life-blood — McClellan's uniform — The army fit to move — The rebels treat us like children — We lose time — Everything is defensive — The starvation theory — The anaconda — First interview with McClellan — Impressions of him — His distrust of the volunteers — Not a Napoleon nor a Garibaldi — Mason and Slidell — Seward admonishes Adams — Fremont goes overboard — The proslavery party triumph — The collateral missions to Europe — Peace impossible — Every Southern gentleman is a pirate — When will we deal blows? — Inertia! inertia! NOVEMBER, 1861. Ball's Bluff — Whitewashing — "Victoria! Old Scott gone overboard!" — His fatal influence — His conceit — Cameron — Intervention — More reviews — Weed, Everett, Hughes — Gov. Andrew — Boutwell — Mason and Slidell caught — Lincoln frightened by the South Carolina success — Waits unnoticed in McClellan's library — Gen. Thomas — Traitors and pedants — The Virginia campaign — West Point — McClellan's speciality — When will they begin to see through him? DECEMBER, 1861. The message — Emancipation — State papers published — Curtis Noyes — Greeley not fit for Senator — Generalship all on the rebel side — The South and the North — The sensationists — The new idol will cost the people their life-blood! — The Blairs — Poor Lincoln! — The Trent affair — Scott home again — The war investigation committee — Mr. Mercier, JANUARY, 1862. The year 1861 ends badly — European defenders of slavery — Secession lies — Jeremy Diddlers — Sensation-seekers — Despotic tendencies — Atomistic Torquemadas — Congress chained by formulas — Burnside's expedition a sign of life — Will this McClellan ever advance? — Mr. Adams unhorsed — He packs his trunks — Bad blankets — Austria, Prussia, and Russia — The West Point nursery — McClellan a greater mistake than Scott — Tracks to the White House — European stories about Mr. Lincoln — The English ignorami — The slaveholder a scarcely varnished savage — Jeff. Davis — "Beauregard frightens us — McClellan rocks his baby" — Fancy army equipment — McClellan and his chief of staff sick in bed — "No satirist could invent such things" — Stanton in the Cabinet — "This Stanton is the people" — Fremont — Weed — The English will not be humbugged — Dayton in a fret — Beaufort — The investigating committee condemn 92 104 115 129 McClellan — Lincoln in the clutches of Seward and Blair — Banks begs for guns and cavalry in vain — The people will awake! — The question of race — Agassiz, FEBRUARY, 1862. Drifting — The English blue book — Lord John could not act differently — Palmerston the great European fuss-maker — Mr. Seward's "two pickled rods" for England — Lord Lyons — His pathway strewn with broken glass — Gen. Stone arrested — Sumner's resolutions infuse a new spirit in the Constitution — Mr. Seward beyond salvation — He works to save slavery — Weed has ruined him — The New York press — "Poor Tribune" — The Evening Post — The Blairs — Illusions dispelled — "All quiet on the Potomac" — The London papers — Quillheroes can be bought for a dinner — French opinion — Superhuman efforts to save slavery — It is doomed! — "All you worshippers of darkness cannot save it!" — The Hutchinsons — Corporal Adams — Victories in the West — Stanton the man! — Strategy (hear!)