CHAPTER XXIII.
Proclamation of war—Jefferson Davis—Interview with the President
of the Confederacy—Passport and safe-conduct—Messrs.
Wigfall, Walker, and Benjamin—Privateering and letters of
marque—A reception at Jefferson Davis's—Dinner at Mr. Benjamin's.
May 9th.—To-day the papers contain a proclamation by
the President of the Confederate States of America, declaring
a state of war between the Confederacy and the United
States, and notifying the issue of letters of marque and reprisal.
I went out with Mr. Wigfall in the forenoon to pay my
respects to Mr. Jefferson Davis at the State Department.
Mr. Seward told me that but for Jefferson Davis the Secession
plot could never have been carried out. No other man
of the party had the brain, or the courage and dexterity, to
bring it to a successful issue. All the persons in the Southern
States spoke of him with admiration, though their forms of
speech and thought generally forbid them to be respectful to
any one.
There before me was "Jeff Davis's State Department"—a
large brick building, at the corner of a street, with a Confederate
flag floating above it. The door stood open, and "gave"
on a large hall whitewashed, with doors plainly painted belonging
to small rooms, in which was transacted most important
business, judging by the names written on sheets of paper
and applied outside, denoting bureaux of the highest functions.
A few clerks were passing in and out, and one or two gentlemen
were on the stairs, but there was no appearance of any bustle
in the building.
We walked straight up-stairs to the first floor, which was
surrounded by doors opening from a quadrangular platform.
On one of these was written simply, "The President." Mr.
Wigfall went in, and after a moment returned and said, "The
President will be glad to see you; walk in, sir." When I
entered, the President was engaged with four gentlemen, who
were making some offer of aid to him. He was thanking
them "in the name of the Government." Shaking hands
with each, he saw them to the door, bowed them and Mr.
Wigfall out, and turning to me, said, "Mr. Russell, I am glad
to welcome you here, though I fear your appearance is a
symptom that our affairs are not quite prosperous," or words
to that effect. He then requested me to sit down close to his
own chair at his office-table, and proceeded to speak on general
matters, adverting to the Crimean War and the Indian
Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebastopol, the Redan,
and the Siege of Lucknow.
I had an opportunity of observing the President very
closely: he did not impress me as favorably as I had expected,
though he is certainly a very different looking man
from Mr. Lincoln. He is like a gentleman—has a slight,
light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself
erect and straight. He was dressed in a rustic suit of slate-colored
stuff, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck;
his manner is plain, and rather reserved and drastic; his
head is well formed, with a fine full forehead, square and
high, covered with innumerable fine lines and wrinkles, features
regular, though the cheek-bones are too high, and the
jaws too hollow to be handsome; the lips are thin, flexible, and
curved, the chin square, well defined; the nose very regular,
with wide nostrils; and the eyes deep-set, large and full—
one seems nearly blind, and is partly covered with a film,
owing to excruciating attacks of neuralgia and tic. Wonderful
to relate, he does not chew, and is neat and clean-looking,
with hair trimmed, and boots brushed. The expression of his
face is anxious, he has a very haggard, care-worn, and pain-drawn
look, though no trace of anything but the utmost confidence
and the greatest decision could be detected in his conversation.
He asked me some general questions respecting
the route I had taken in the States.
I mentioned that I had seen great military preparations
through the South, and was astonished at the alacrity with
which the people sprang to arms. "Yes, sir," he remarked,
and his tone of voice and manner of speech are rather remarkable
for what are considered Yankee peculiarities, "In
Eu-rope" (Mr. Seward also indulges in that pronunciation)
"they laugh at us because of our fondness for military titles
and displays. All your travellers in this country have commented
on the number of generals and colonels and majors
all over the States. But the fact is, we are a military people,
and these signs of the fact were ignored. We are not
less military because we have had no great standing armies.
But perhaps we are the only people in the world where gentlemen
go to a military academy who do not intend to follow
the profession of arms."
In the course of our conversation, I asked him to have the
goodness to direct that a sort of passport or protection should
be given to me, as I might possibly fall in with some guerrilla
leader on my way northwards, in whose eyes I might not be
entitled to safe conduct. Mr. Davis said, "I shall give such
instructions to the Secretary of War as shall be necessary.
But, sir, you are among civilized, intelligent people who understand
your position, and appreciate your character. We do
not seek the sympathy of England by unworthy means, for
we respect ourselves, and we are glad to invite the scrutiny
of men into our acts; as for our motives, we meet the eye of
Heaven." I thought I could judge from his words that he
had the highest idea of the French as soldiers, but that his
feelings and associations were more identified with England,
although he was quite aware of the difficulty of conquering
the repugnance which exists to slavery.
Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities at Washington,
but he asked me if I thought it was supposed in England
there would be war between the two States? I answered,
that I was under the impression the public thought there
would be no actual hostilities. "And yet you see we are
driven to take up arms for the defence of our rights and liberties."
As I saw an immense mass of papers on his table, I rose
and made my bow, and Mr. Davis, seeing me to the door,
gave me his hand and said, "As long as you may stay among
us you shall receive every facility it is in our power to afford
to you, and I shall always be glad to see you." Colonel Wigfall
was outside, and took me to the room of the Secretary of
War, Mr. Walker, whom we found closeted with General
Beauregard and two other officers in a room full of maps and
plans. He is the kind of man generally represented in our
types of a "Yankee"—tall, lean, straight-haired, angular,
with fiery, impulsive eyes and manner—a ruminator of tobacco
and a profuse spitter—a lawyer, I believe, certainly
not a soldier; ardent, devoted to the cause, and confident to
the last degree of its speedy success.
The news that two more States had joined the Confederacy,
making ten in all, was enough to put them in good humor.
"Is it not too bad these Yankees will not let us go our own
way, and keep their cursed Union to themselves? If they
force us to it, we may be obliged to drive them beyond the
Susquehanna." Beauregard was in excellent spirits, busy
measuring off miles of country with his compasses, as if he
were dividing empires.
From this room I proceeded to the office of Mr. Benjamin,
the Attorney-General of the Confederate States, the most
brilliant perhaps of the whole of the famous Southern orators.
He is a short, stout man, with a full face, olive-colored, and
most decidedly Jewish features, with the brightest large black
eyes, one of which is somewhat diverse from the other, and a
brisk, lively, agreeable manner, combined with much vivacity
of speech and quickness of utterance. He is one of the first
lawyers or advocates in the United States, and had a large
practice at Washington, where his annual receipts from his
profession were not less than £8,000 to £10,000 a year. But
his love of the card-table rendered him a prey to older and
cooler hands, who waited till the sponge was full at the end
of the session, and then squeezed it to the last drop.
Mr. Benjamin is the most open, frank, and cordial of the
Confederates whom I have yet met. In a few seconds he was
telling me all about the course of Government with respect to
privateers and letters of marque and reprisal, in order probably
to ascertain what were our views in England on the subject.
I observed it was likely the North would not respect
their flag, and would treat their privateers as pirates. "We
have an easy remedy for that. For any man under our flag
whom the authorities of the United States dare to execute, we
shall hang two of their people." "Suppose, Mr. Attorney-General,
England, or any of the great powers which decreed
the abolition of privateering, refuses to recognize your flag?"
"We intend to claim, and do claim, the exercise of all the
rights and privileges of an independent sovereign State, and
any attempt to refuse us the full measure of those rights would
be an act of hostility to our country." "But if England, for
example, declared your privateers were pirates?" "As the
United States never admitted the principle laid down at the
Congress of Paris, neither have the Confederate States. If
England thinks fit to declare privateers under our flag pirates,
it would be nothing more or less than a declaration of war
against us, and we must meet it as best we can." In fact,
Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of anything; but his confidence
respecting Great Britain was based a good deal, no
doubt, on his firm faith in cotton, and in England's utter subjection
to her cotton interest and manufactures. "All this
coyness about acknowledging a slave power will come right at
last. We hear our commissioners have gone on to Paris,
which looks as if they had met with no encouragement at
London; but we are quite easy in our minds on this point at
present."
So Great Britain is in a pleasant condition. Mr. Seward
is threatening us with war if we recognize the South, and the
South declares that if we don't recognize their flag, they will
take it as an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to give
an assurance to the Government at Washington, that under
no circumstances will Great Britain recognize the Southern
rebels; but, at the same time, Mr. Seward refuses to give any
assurance whatever, that the right of neutrals will be respected
in the impending struggle.
As I was going down stairs, Mr. Browne called me into his
room. He said that the Attorney-General and himself were
in a state of perplexity as to the form in which letters of
marque and reprisal should be made out. They had consulted
all the books they could get, but found no examples to
suit their case, and he wished to know, as I was a barrister,
whether I could aid him. I told him it was not so much my
regard to my own position as a neutral, as the vafri inscitia
juris which prevented ine throwing any light on the subject.
There are not only Yankee ship-owners but English firms
ready with sailors and steamers for the Confederate Government,
and the owner of the Camilla might be tempted to part
with his yacht by the offers made to him.
Being invited to attend a levée or reception held by Mrs.
Davis, the President's wife, I returned to the hotel to prepare
for the occasion. On my way I passed a company of volunteers,
one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three field-pieces,
on their way to the station for Virginia, followed by a
crowd of "citizens" and negroes of both sexes, cheering vociferously.
The band was playing that excellent quick-step
"Dixie." The men were stout, fine fellows, dressed in coarse
gray tunics with yellow facings, and French caps. They
were armed with smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks
were unfit for marching, being water-proof bags slung from
the shoulders. The guns had no caissons, and the shoeing
of the troops was certainly deficient in soling. The Zouave
mania is quite as rampant here as it is in New York, and the
smallest children are thrust into baggy red breeches, which
the learned Lipsius might have appreciated, and are sent out
with flags and tin swords to impede the highways.
The modest villa in which the President lives is painted
white,—another "White House,"—and stands in a small
garden. The door was open. A colored servant took in our
names, and Mr. Browne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom I
could just make out in the demi-jour of a moderately-sized
parlor, surrounded by a few ladies and gentlemen, the former
in bonnets, the latter in morning dress à la midi. There
was no affectation of state or ceremony in the reception.
Mrs. Davis, whom some of her friends call "Queen Varina,"
is a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good
figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike, and clever, and she
seemed a great favorite with those around her, though I
did hear one of them say, "It must be very nice to be the
President's wife, and be the first lady in the Confederate
States." Mrs. Davis, whom the President C. S. married en
secondes noces, exercised considerable social influence in Washington,
where I met many of her friends. She was just now
inclined to be angry, because the papers contained a report
that a reward was offered in the North for the head of the
arch rebel Jeff Davis. "They are quite capable, I believe,"
she said, "of such acts." There were not more than eighteen
or twenty persons present, as each party came in and staid
only for a few moments, and, after a time, I made my bow
and retired, receiving from Mrs. Davis an invitation to come
in the evening, when I would find the President at home.
At sundown, amid great cheering, the guns in front of the
State Department, fired ten rounds to announce that Tennessee
and Arkansas had joined the Confederacy.
In the evening I dined with Mr. Benjamin and his brother-in-law,
a gentleman of New Orleans, Colonel Wigfall coming
in at the end of dinner. The New Orleans people of French
descent, or "Creoles," as they call themselves, speak French
in preference to English, and Mr. Benjamin's brother-in-law
labored considerably in trying to make himself understood in
our vernacular. The conversation, Franco-English, very
pleasant, for Mr. Benjamin is agreeable and lively. He is
certain that the English law authorities must advise the Government
that the blockade of the Southern ports is illegal so
long as the President claims them to be ports of the United
States. "At present," he said, "their paper blockade does no
harm; the season for shipping cotton is over; but in October
next, when the Mississippi is floating cotton by the thousands
of bales, and all our wharves are full, it is inevitable that the
Yankees must come to trouble with this attempt to coerce us."
Mr. Benjamin walked back to the hotel with me, and we found
our room full of tobacco-smoke, filibusters, and conversation, in
which, as sleep was impossible, we were obliged to join. I
resisted a vigorous attempt of Mr. G. N. Sanders and a friend
of his to take me to visit a planter who had a beaver-dam
some miles outside Montgomery. They succeeded in capturing
Mr. Deasy.
