University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XLV.

When the Senate had adjourned, I drove to the State
Department and saw Mr. Seward, who looked much more worn
and haggard than when I saw him last, three months ago. He
congratulated me on my safe return from the South in time to
witness some stirring events. "Well, Mr. Secretary, I am
quite sure that, if all the South are of the same mind as those
I met in my travels, there will be many battles before they
submit to the Federal Government."

"It is not submission to the Government we want; it is to
assent to the principles of the Constitution. When you left
Washington we had a few hundred regulars and some hastily levied
militia to defend the national capital, and a battery and
a half of artillery under the command of a traitor. The
Navy Yard was in the hands of a disloyal officer. We were
surrounded by treason. Now we are supported by the loyal
States which have come forward in defence of the best Government
on the face of the earth, and the unfortunate and
desperate men who have commenced this struggle will have to
yield or experience the punishment due to their crimes."

"But, Mr. Seward, has not this great exhibition of strength
been attended by some circumstances calculated to inspire apprehension
that liberty in the Free States may be impaired;
for instance, I hear that I must procure a passport in order to
travel through the States and go into the camps in front of
Washington."

"Yes, sir; you must send your passport here from Lord
Lyons, with his signature. It will be no good till I have
signed it, and then it must be sent to General Scott, as Commander-in-Chief

of the United States army, who will subscribe
it, after which it will be available for all legitimate purposes.
You are not in any way impaired in your liberty by the
process."

"Neither is, one may say, the man who is under surveillance
of the police in despotic countries of Europe; he has
only to submit to a certain formality, and he is all right; in
fact, it is said by some people, that the protection afforded by
a passport is worth all the trouble connected with having it in
order."

Mr. Seward seemed to think it was quite likely. There
were corresponding measures taken in the Southern States by
the rebels, and it was necessary to have some control over
traitors and disloyal persons. "In this contest," said he, "the
Government wil not shrink from using all the means which
they consider necessary to restore the Union." It was not my
place to remark that such doctrines were exactly identical
with all that despotic governments in Europe have advanced
as the ground of action in cases of revolt, or with a view to
the maintenance of their strong Governments. "The Executive,"
said he, "has declared in the inaugural that the rights
of the Federal Government shall be fully vindicated. We
are dealing with an insurrection within our own country, of our
own people, and the Government of Great Britain have
thought fit to recognize that insurrection before we were able
to bring the strength of the Union to bear against it, by conceding
to it the status of belligerent. Although we might
justly complain of such an unfriendly act in a manner that
might injure the friendly relations between the two countries,
we do not desire to give any excuse for foreign interference;
although we do not hesitate, in case of necessity, to resist it to
the uttermost, we have less to fear from a foreign war than
any country in the world. If any European Power provokes
a war, we shall not shrink from it. A contest between Great
Britain and the United States would wrap the world in fire,
and at the end it would not be the United States which would
have to lament the results of the conflict."

I could not but admire the confidence—may I say the coolness?
—of the statesman who sat in his modest little room
within the sound of the evening's guns, in a capital menaced
by their forces who spoke so fearlessly of war with a Power
which could have blotted out the paper blockade of the Southern
forts and coast in a few hours, and, in conjunction with the

Southern armies, have repeated the occupation and destruction
of the capital.

The President sent for Mr. Seward whilst I was in the
State Department, and I walked up Pennsylvania Avenue to
my lodgings, through a crowd of men in uniform who were
celebrating Independence Day in their own fashion—some
by the large internal use of fire-water, others by an external
display of fire-works.

Directly opposite my lodgings are the head-quarters of General
Mansfield, commanding the district, which are marked by
a guard at the door and a couple of six-pounder guns pointing
down the street. I called upon the General, but he was busy
examining certain inhabitants of Alexandria and of Washington
itself, who had been brought before him on the charge of being
Secessionists, and I left my card, and proceeded to General
Scott's head-quarters, which I found packed with officers.
The General received me in a small room, and expressed his
gratification at my return, but I saw he was so busy with reports,
despatches, and maps, that I did not trespass on his
time. I dined with Lord Lyons, and afterwards went with
some members of the Legation to visit the camps, situated in
the public square.

All the population of Washington had turned out in their
best to listen to the military bands, the music of which was
rendered nearly inaudible by the constant discharge of fireworks.
The camp of the 12th New York presented a very
pretty and animated scene. The men liberated from duty
were enjoying themselves out and inside their tents, and the
sutlers' booths were driving a roaring trade. I was introduced
to Colonel Butterfield, commanding the regiment, who
was a merchant of New York; but notwithstanding the training
of the counting-house, he looked very much like a soldier,
and had got his regiment very fairly in hand. In compliance
with a desire of Professor Henry, the Colonel had prepared a
number of statistical tables in which the nationality, height,
weight, breadth of chest, age, and other particulars respecting
the men under his command were entered. I looked over the
book, and as far as I could judge, but two out of twelve of
the soldiers were native-born Americans, the rest being Irish,
German, English, and European-born generally. According
to the commanding officer they were in the highest state of
discipline and obedience. He had given them leave to go out
as they pleased for the day, but at tattoo only fourteen men

out of one thousand were absent, and some of those had been
accounted for by reports that they were incapable of locomotion
owing to the hospitality of the citizens.

When I returned to my lodgings, the colored boy whom I
had hired at Niagara was absent, and I was told he had not
come in since the night before. "These free colored boys,"
said my landlord, "are a bad set; now they are worse than
ever; the officers of the army are taking them all away from
us; it's just the life they like; they get little work, have good
pay; but what they like most is robbing and plundering the
farmers' houses over in Virginia; what with Germans, Irish,
and free niggers, Lord help the poor Virginians, I say; but
they'll give them a turn yet."

The sounds in Washington to-night might have led one to
believe the city was carried by storm. Constant explosion of
fire-arms, fireworks, shouting, and cries in the streets, which
combined, with the heat and the abominable odors of the undrained
houses and mosquitoes, to drive sleep far away.

July 5th.—As the young gentleman of color, to whom I
had given egregious ransom as well as an advance of wages,
did not appear this morning, I was, after an abortive attempt
to boil water for coffee and to get a piece of toast, compelled
to go in next door, and avail myself of the hospitality of Captain
Cecil Johnson, who was installed in the drawing-room of
Madame Jost. In the forenoon, Mr. John Bigelow, whose
acquaintance I made, much to my gratification in time gone
by, on the margin of the Lake of Thun, found me out, and
proffered his services; which, as the whilom editor of the
"Evening Post" and as a leading Republican, he was in a position
to render valuable and most effective; but he could not
make a Bucephalus to order, and I have been running through
the stables of Washington in vain, hoping to find something
up to my weight—such flankless, screwy, shoulderless, catlike
creatures were never seen—four of them would scarcely
furnish ribs and legs enough to carry a man, but the owners
thought that each of them was fit for Baron Rothschild; and
then there was saddlery and equipments of all sorts to be got,
which the influx of officers and the badness and dearness of
the material put quite beyond one's reach. Mr. Bigelow was
of opinion that the army would move at once; "But," said I,
"where is the transport—where the cavalry and guns?"
"Oh," replied he, "I suppose we have got everything that is
required. I know nothing of these things, but I am told cav

alry are no use in the wooded country towards Richmond."
I have not yet been able to go through the camps, but I doubt
very much whether the material or commissariat of the grand
army of the North is at all adequate to a campaign.

The presumption and ignorance of the New York journals
would be ridiculous were they not so mischievous. They
describe "this horde of battalion companies—unofficered,
clad in all kinds of different uniform, diversely equipped, perfectly
ignorant of the principles of military obedience and
concerted action,"—for so I hear it described by United States
officers themselves—as being "the greatest army the world
ever saw; perfect in officers and discipline; unsurpassed in
devotion and courage; furnished with every requisite; and
destined on its first march to sweep into Richmond, and to
obliterate from the Potomac to New Orleans every trace of
rebellion."

The Congress met to-day to hear the President's Message
read. Somehow or other there is not such anxiety and eagerness
to hear what Mr. Lincoln has to say as one could expect
on such a momentous occasion. It would seem as if the
forthcoming appeal to arms had overshadowed every other
sentiment in the minds of the people. They are waiting for
deeds, and care not for words. The confidence of the New
York papers, and of the citizens, soldiers, and public speakers,
contrast with the dubious and gloomy views of the military
men; but of this Message itself there are some incidents
independent of the occasion to render it curious, if not interesting.
The President has, it is said, written much of it in his
own fashion, which has been revised and altered by his Ministers;
but he has written it again and repeated himself, and
after many struggles a good deal of pure Lincolnism goes
down to Congress.

At a little after half-past eleven I went down to the Capitol.
Pennsylvania Avenue was thronged as before, but on approaching
Capitol Hill, the crowd rather thinned away, as
though they shunned, or had no curiosity to hear, the President's
Message. One would have thought that, where every
one who could get in was at liberty to attend the galleries in both
Houses, there would have been an immense pressure from the
inhabitants and strangers in the city, as well as from the
citizen soldiers, of which such multitudes were in the street;
but when I looked up from the floor of the Senate, I was
astonished to see that the galleries were not more than three

parts filled. There is always a ruinous look about an unfinished
building when it is occupied and devoted to business. The
Capitol is situated on a hill, one face of which is scarped by
the road, and has the appearance of being formed of heaps
of rubbish. Towards Pennsylvania Avenue the long frontage
abuts on a lawn shaded by trees, through which walks and
avenues lead to the many entrances under the porticoes and
colonnades; the face which corresponds on the other side
looks out on heaps of brick and mortar, cut stone, and a waste
of marble blocks lying half buried in the earth and cumbering
the ground, which, in the magnificent ideas of the founders and
planners of the city, was to be occupied by stately streets.
The cleverness of certain speculators in land prevented the
execution of the original idea, which was to radiate all the
main avenues of the city from the Capitol as a centre, the
intermediate streets being formed by circles drawn at regularly-increasing
intervals from the Capitol, and intersected by the
radii. The speculators purchased up the land on the side
between the Navy Yard and the site of the Capitol; the
result—the land is unoccupied, except by paltry houses, and
the capitalists are ruined.

The Capitol would be best described by a series of photographs.
Like the Great Republic itself, it is unfinished. It
resembles it in another respect: it looks best at a distance;
and, again, it is incongruous in its parts. The passages are so
dark that artificial light is often required to enable one to find
his way. The offices and bureaux of the committees are
better than the chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
All the encaustics and the white marble and
stone staircases suffer from tobacco juice, though there is a
liberal display of spittoons at every corner. The official
messengers, doorkeepers, and porters wear no distinctive
badge or dress. No policemen are on duty, as in our Houses
of Parliament; no soldiery, gendarmerie, or sergens-de-ville
in the precincts; the crowd wanders about the passages as it
pleases, and shows the utmost propriety, never going where it
ought not to intrude. There is a special gallery set apart for
women; the reporters are commodiously placed in an ample
gallery, above the Speakers chair; the diplomatic circle have
their gallery facing the reporters, and they are placed so low
down in the somewhat depressed chamber, that every word
can be heard from speakers in the remotest parts of the house
very distinctly.

The seats of the members are disposed in a manner somewhat
like those in the French Chambers. Instead of being
in parallel rows to the walls, and at right angles to the Chairman's
seat, the separate chairs and desks of the senators are
arranged in semicircular rows. The space between the walls
and the outer semicircle is called the floor of the house, and it
is a high compliment to a stranger to introduce him within
this privileged place. There are leather-cushioned seats and
lounges put for the accommodation of those who may be introduced
by senators, or to whom, as distinguished members
of congress in former days, the permission is given to take
their seats. Senators Sumner and Wilson introduced me to a
chair, and made me acquainted with a number of senators
before the business of the day began.

Mr. Sumner, as the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, is supposed to be viewed with some jealousy by
Mr. Seward, on account of the disposition attributed to him to
interfere in diplomatic questions; but if he does so, we shall
have no reason to complain, as the Senator is most desirous
of keeping the peace between the two countries, and of mollifying
any little acerbities and irritations which may at
present exist between them. Senator Wilson is a man who
has risen from what would be considered in any country but
a republic the lowest ranks of the people. He apprenticed
himself to a poor shoemaker when he was twenty-two years
of age, and when he was twenty-four years old he began to
go to school, and devoted all his earnings to the improvement
of education. He got on by degrees, till he set up as a master
shoemaker and manufacturer, became a "major-general" of
State militia; finally was made Senator of the United States,
and is now "Chairman of the Committee of the Senate on
Military Affairs." He is a bluff man, of about fifty years of
age, with a peculiar eye and complexion, and seems honest and
vigorous. But is he not going ultra crepidam in such a post?
At present he is much perplexed by the drunkenness which
prevails among the troops, or rather by the desire of the men
for spirits, as he has a New England mania on that point. One
of the most remarkable-looking men in the House is Mr. Sumner.
Mr. Breckinridge and he would probably be the first
persons to excite the curiosity of a stranger, so far as to induce
him to ask for their names. Save in height—and both
are a good deal over six feet—there is no resemblance between
the champion of States' Rights and the orator of the

Black Republicans. The massive head, the great chin and
jaw, and the penetrating eyes of Mr. Breckinridge convey
the idea of a man of immense determination, courage, and
sagacity. Mr. Sumner's features are indicative of a philosophical
and poetical turn of thought, and one might easily conceive
that he would be a great advocate, but an indifferent leader
of a party.

It was a hot day; but there was no excuse for the slop-coats
and light-colored clothing and felt wide-awakes worn by
so many senators in such a place. They gave the meeting
the aspect of a gathering of bakers or millers; nor did the
constant use of the spittoons beside their desks, their reading
of newspapers and writing letters during the dispatch of business,
or the hurrying to and fro of the pages of the House
between the seats, do anything but derogate from the dignity
of the assemblage, and, according to European notions, violate
the respect due to a Senate Chamber. The pages alluded to
are smart boys, from twelve to fifteen years of age, who stand
below the President's table, and are employed to go on errands
and carry official messages by the members. They
wear no particular uniform, and are dressed as the taste or
means of their parents dictate.

The House of Representatives exaggerates all the peculiarities
I have observed in the Senate, but the debates are not
regarded with so much interest as those of the Upper House;
indeed, they are of far less importance. Strong-minded statesmen
and officers—Presidents or Ministers—do not care
much for the House of Representatives, so long as they are
sure of the Senate; and, for the matter of that, a President
like Jackson does not care much for Senate and House together.
There are privileges attached to a seat in either
branch of the Legislature, independent of the great fact that
they receive mileage and are paid for their services, which
may add some incentive to ambition. Thus the members can
order whole tons of stationery for their use, not only when
they are in session, but during the recess. Their frank covers
parcels by mail, and it is said that Senators without a conscience
have sent sewing-machines to their wives and pianos
to their daughters as little parcels by post. I had almost forgotten
that much the same abuses were in vogue in England
some century ago.

The galleries were by no means full, and in that reserved
for the diplomatic body the most notable person was M. Mercier,

the Minister of France, who, fixing his intelligent and
eager face between both hands, watched with keen scrutiny
the attitude and conduct of the Senate. None of the members
of the English Legation were present. After the lapse of an
hour, Mr. Hay, the President's Secretary, made his appearance
on the floor, and sent in the Message to the Clerk of the
Senate, Mr. Forney, who proceeded to read it to the House.
It was listened to in silence, scarcely broken except when
some senator murmured "Good, that is so;" but in fact the
general purport of it was already known to the supporters of
the Ministry, and not a sound came from the galleries. Soon
after Mr. Forney had finished, the galleries were cleared, and
I returned up Pennsylvania Avenue, in which the crowds of
soldiers around bar-rooms, oyster-shops, and restaurants, the
groups of men in officers' uniform, and the clattering of disorderly
mounted cavaliers in the dust, increased my apprehension
that discipline was very little regarded, and that the army
over the Potomac had not a very strong hand to keep it within
bounds.

As I was walking over with Capt. Johnson to dine with
Lord Lyons, I met General Scott leaving his office and walking
with great difficulty between two aides-de-camp. He was
dressed in a blue frock with gold lace shoulder straps, fastened
round the waist by a yellow sash, and with large yellow lapels
turned back over the chest in the old style, and moved with
great difficulty along the pavement. "You see I am trying
to hobble along, but it is hard for me to overcome my many
infirmities. I regret I could not have the pleasure of granting
you an interview to-day, but I shall cause it to be intimated to
you when I may have the pleasure of seeing you; meantime
I shall provide you with a pass and the necessary introductions
to afford you all facilities with the army."

After dinner I made a round of visits, and heard the diplomatists
speaking of the Message; few, if any of them, in its
favor. With the exception perhaps of Baron Gerolt, the
Prussian Minister, there is not one member of the Legations
who justifies the attempt of the Northern States to assert the
supremacy of the Federal Government by the force of arms.
Lord Lyons, indeed, in maintaining a judicious reticence, whenever
he does speak gives utterance to sentiments becoming
the representative of Great Britain at the court of a friendly
Power, and the Minister of a people who have been protagonists
to slavery for many a long year.

July 6th.—I breakfasted with Mr. Bigelow this morning,
to meet General McDowell, who commands the army of the
Potomac, now so soon to move. He came in without an aide-de-camp,
and on foot, from his quarters in the city. He is a
man about forty years of age, square and powerfully built, but
with rather a stout and clumsy figure and limbs, a good head
covered with close-cut thick dark hair, small light-blue eyes,
short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft
somewhat of the French type, and affecting in dress the style
of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and agreeable,
and he did not hesitate to speak with great openness of
the difficulties he had to contend with, and the imperfection of
all the arrangements of the army.

As an officer of the regular army he has a thorough contempt
for what he calls "political generals"—the men who
use their influence with President and Congress to obtain
military rank, which in time of war places them before the
public in the front of events, and gives them an appearance
of leading in the greatest of all political movements. Nor is
General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in
Mexico, and has from what he saw there formed rather an unfavorable
opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is inclined,
however, to hold the Southern troops in too little respect;
and he told me that the volunteers from the Slave States,
who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did not
make good their words, and that they suffered especially from
sickness and disease, in consequence of their disorderly habits
and dissipation. His regard for old associations was evinced
in many questions he asked me about Beauregard, with whom
he had been a student at West Point, where the Confederate
commander was noted for his studious and reserved habits, and
his excellence in feats of strength and athletic exercises.

As proof of the low standard established in his army, he
mentioned that some officers of considerable rank were more
than suspected of selling rations, and of illicit connections
with sutlers for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The Gen
eral walked back with me as far as my lodgings, and I observed
that not one of the many soldiers he passed in the streets
saluted him, though his rank was indicated by his velvet collar
and cuffs, and a gold star on the shoulder strap.

Having written some letters, I walked out with Captain
Johnson and one of the attachés of the British Legation, to
the lawn at the back of the White House, and listened to the

excellent band of the United States Marines, playing on a
kind of dais under the large flag recently hoisted by the President
himself, in the garden. The occasion was marked by
rather an ominous event. As the President pulled the halyards
and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the
bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes
were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag,
half detached from the staff.

I dined at Captain Johnson's lodgings next door to mine.
Beneath us was a wine and spirit store, and crowds of officers
and men flocked indiscriminately to make their purchases, with
a good deal of tumult, which increased as the night came on.
Later still, there was a great disturbance in the city. A body
of New York Zouaves wrecked some houses of bad repute,
in one of which a private of the regiment was murdered early
this morning. The cavalry patrols were called out and
charged the rioters, who were dispersed with difficulty after
resistance in which men on both sides were wounded. There
is no police, no provost guard. Soldiers wander about the
streets, and beg in the fashion of the mendicant in "Gil Blas"
for money to get whiskey. My colored gentleman has been
led away by the Saturnalia and has taken to gambling in the
camps, which are surrounded by hordes of rascally followers
and sutlers' servants, and I find myself on the eve of a campaign,
without servant, horse, equipment, or means of transport.

July 7th.—Mr. Bigelow invited me to breakfast, to meet
Mr. Senator King, Mr. Olmsted, Mr. Thurlow Weed, a Senator
from Missouri, a West Point professor, and others. It was
indicative of the serious difficulties which embarrass the action
of the Government to hear Mr. Wilson, the Chairman
of the Military Committee of the Senate, inveigh against the
officers of the regular army, and attack West Point itself.
Whilst the New York papers were lauding General Scott
and his plans to the skies, the Washington politicians were
speaking of him as obstructive, obstinate, and prejudiced—
unfit for the times and the occasion.

General Scott refused to accept cavalry and artillery at
the beginning of the levy, and said that they were not required;
now he was calling for both arms most urgently. The
officers of the regular army had followed suit. Although
they were urgently pressed by the politicians to occupy Harper's
Ferry and Manassas, they refused to do either, and the

result is that the enemy have obtained invaluable supplies from
the first place, and are now assembled in force in a most formidable
position at the second. Everything as yet accomplished
has been done by political generals—not by the
officers of the regular army. Butler and Banks saved Baltimore
in spite of General Scott. There was an attempt made
to cry up Lyon in Missouri; but in fact it was Frank Blair,
the brother of the Postmaster-General, who had been the
soul and body of all the actions in that State. The first step
taken by McClellan in Western Virginia was atrocious—he
talked of slaves in a public document as property. Butler,
at Monroe, had dealt with them in a very different spirit, and
had used them for State purposes under the name of contraband.
One man alone displayed powers of administrative
ability, and that was Quartermaster Meigs; and unquestionably
from all I heard, the praise was well bestowed. It is
plain enough that the political leaders fear the consequences
of delay, and that they are urging the military authorities to
action, which the latter have too much professional knowledge
to take with their present means. These Northern men know
nothing of the South, and with them it is omne ignotum pro
minimo. The West Point professor listened to them with a
quiet smile, and exchanged glances with me now and then,
as much as to say, "Did you ever hear such fools in your
life?"

But the conviction of ultimate success is not less strong
here than it is in the South. The difference between these
gentlemen and the Southerners is, that in the South the leaders
of the people, soldiers and civilians, are all actually under
arms, and are ready to make good their words by exposing
their bodies in battle.

I walked home with Mr. N. P. Willis, who is at Washington
for the purpose of writing sketches to the little family
journal of which he is editor, and giving war "anecdotes;"
and with Mr. Olmsted, who is acting as a member of the New
York Sanitary Commission, here authorized by the Government
to take measures against the reign of dirt and disease in
the Federal camp. The Republicans are very much afraid
that there is, even at the present moment, a conspiracy against
the Union in Washington—nay, in Congress itself; and regard
Mr. Breckinridge, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Vallandigham, and
others as most dangerous enemies, who should not be permitted
to remain in the capital. I attended the Episcopal

church and heard a very excellent discourse, free from any
political allusion. The service differs little from our own,
except that certain euphemisms are introduced in the Litany
and elsewhere, and the prayers for Queen and Parliament
are offered up nomine mutato for President and Congress.