armies; but we are forbidden to do so by urgent considerations. First, we do not need to solicit foreign aid, and we naturally desire to avoid the appearance of doing so. Secondly, we wish to abstain . from intrusion into the domestic concerns of foreign states, and, of course, from seeming to do so. Thirdly, our own countrymen are coming forward with just claims upon all positions requiring skill in the art of war, and, we must avoid jealousies between native and foreign defenders of the Union. Already the forces in the field exceed half a million, and the officers charged with organizing them report to us that those recently recruited will swell the number to seven hundred thousand. If the insurrection should continue, it would be more difficult to keep them down to a million than to lift them up to that figure.

November 23, 1861.-I have regretted quite as much as you have my inability at this moment to give advices to you and each other of our representatives abroad of the course of events occurring at home, and of the general drift of our correspondence with other nations; but this domestic commotion has ripened into a transaction so vast as to increase more than fourfold the labors of administration in every department. You can readily imagine how vast a machinery has been created in the War Department, in the Navy Department, and in the Treasury Department, respectively. The head of each is a man of busy occupations, high responsibilities, and perplexing cares. You would hardly suppose that a similar change has come over the modest little State Department of other and peaceful days; but the exactions upon it are infinite, and out of all that offers itself to be done, I can only select and do that which cannot be wisely or safely left undone.

November 30, 1861.- Captain Wilkes, in the Steamer San Jacinto, has boarded a British colonial steamer, and taken from her deck two insurgents who were proceeding to Europe on an errand of treason against their own country.1 Lord Lyons has prudently refrained from opening the subject to me, as, I presume, waiting instructions from home. We have done nothing on the subject to anticipate the discussion, and we have not furnished you with any explanations. We adhere to that course now, because we think it more prudent that the ground taken by the British government should be first made to us here, and that the discussion, if there

1 November 8.

must be one, shall be had here. In the capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board a British vessel, Captain Wilkes having acted without any instructions from the government, the subject is therefore free from the embarrassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us.1

January 14, 1862. — You will have learned already of the action of this government in the case of the Trent, and you will be able to calculate as wisely as we upon the signs of peace between us and Great Britain.

It hardly can be necessary to say that the counsels of prudence will be pursued here until the point of national safety and honor compel a change of disposition. The condition of affairs is that the insurrection does not advance, while the cause of the Union steadily gains important advantages.

Our arms continue to be steadily successful, and when we shall have completed our financial arrangements I trust that the cause of the Union will become as hopeful as it is just.

January 20, 1862. We have reason to be satisfied with our course in the Trent affair. The American people could not have been united in a war which, being waged to maintain Captain Wilkes's act of force, would have practically been a voluntary war against Great Britain. At the same time it would have been a war in 1861 against Great Britain for a cause directly the opposite of the cause for which we waged war against the same power in 1812.

January 20, 1862. The tone of the public virtue is becoming sounder and stronger every day. Military and naval operations go on with success, hindered only by the weather, which, for almost a month, has rendered the coasts unsafe and the roads impassable.

I have observed that the British people were satisfied with the vigor and the energy of the preparations which their government made for the war which they expected to occur between them and ourselves.

It may be profitable for us all to reflect that the military and naval preparations which have been made by this government to put down the insurrection have, every day since the first day of May last, equalled, if not surpassed, the daily proportion of those war preparations which were regarded as so demonstrative in Great Britain.

1 See post, pages 295–310.

January 23, 1862. Practically, the whole coast of the insurrec tionary States is falling into the possession of the Federal forces. The expedition under Burnside is in Albemarle Sound, and we trust that it will produce some decisive results.

The government is coöperating with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company in restoring this important communication between Baltimore and the Ohio, which will soon be effected.

But the great events of the day are, first, the determined vote of Congress to sustain the government by a tax of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, which will be adequate to preserve the national finances during the vigorous prosecution of the war.

And secondly, the removal of the obstructions raised by the insurgents on the banks of the Cumberland River, to prevent the entrance of Federal columns into Eastern Tennessee. The victory of General Thomas at Mill Spring was a very gratifying affair; but its brilliancy is surpassed by its strategic importance. You will see at once that it opens the way to Eastern Tennessee, and so to the cutting off of supplies and reinforcements for the insurgent army of the Potomac. You will not err in assuming that this great movement is one having no isolated purpose, but that it is a part in a general system which contemplates the bringing of all the Federal forces promptly into activity, with a view to the complete restoration of the Federal authority throughout the country.

It is not in our power to control the policies of European cabinets. They acted precipitately in May last, and thus aggravated and prolonged our troubles. It is to be hoped that they will allow themselves now to understand the resources and the energies which have enabled us to recover from those injuries and to hem in the insurrection on all sides, so that it must be soon exhausted and defeated. The spirit of the nation, however, is sufficiently roused so as to enable us to meet and overcome all adverse designs, of whatever kind, from whatever quarter.

February 10, 1862. - Cloudless skies, with drying winter winds, have at last succeeded the storms which so long held our fleets in embargo and our land forces in their camps.

The Burnside expedition has escaped its perils, and is now in activity on the coast of North Carolina. The great victory at Mill Spring, in Kentucky, has been quickly followed by the capture of Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, and the interruption of the

railroad by which the insurgents have kept up their communications between Bowling Green and Columbus; and the divisions in the West are all in activity with prospects of decisive achievements.

It is now nearly one year since the insurgents began their des perate undertaking to establish a confederacy of the fifteen slave States. At some time within the previous six months they had virtually displaced the flag of the Union in thirteen of those States by stratagem or by force, and it stood in apparent jeopardy in the fourteenth State.

But the process of preparation has steadily gone on in the loyal States, while that of exhaustion has been going on in the disloyal. Only eleven of the slave States are practically subject to the insurgents, and already the flag of the Union stands, as we think, irremovably fixed upon some points in every one of the thirty-four States, except Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. Congress has come fully up to the discharge of its great responsibility of establishing the finances of the country on a safe and satisfactory foundation.

What is the operation of the war? We have entered Virginia, and already five thousand slaves, emancipated simply by the appearance of our forces, are upon the hands of the Federal government there. We have landed on the coast of South Carolina, and already nine thousand similarly emancipated slaves hang upon our

camps.

Although the war has not been waged against slavery, yet the army acts immediately as an emancipating crusade.

February 17, 1862.—I am not prepared to recognize the right of other nations to object to the measure of placing artificial obstructions in the channels of rivers leading to ports which have been seized by the insurgents in their attempt to overthrow this govern

ment.

The active campaign of our land and naval forces has begun. The great preparations which have been made so diligently and so carefully, in defiance of popular impatience at home and political impatience abroad, are now followed by results indicative of a complete and even early decision of the contest in favor of the govern

ment.

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February 28, 1862. The successes of the Union army in the West having brought the whole of Missouri and a large portion of Tennessee under the authority of the United States, and having

already opened a passage for us into Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, it has been determined to-day to permit the restoration of trade upon our inland ways and waters under certain limitations and restrictions, which may continue until the pacification of the country shall take place.

March 8, 1862. You will have noticed our successful advance down the Mississippi and along its banks. Next week we shall ascertain the strength of the obstructions at Memphis. After passing that port the river will be entirely open to us to New Orleans. I suppose I hazard nothing of publicity here by informing you that General Butler with an adequate land force, and Captain Porter with a fleet, are already in motion to seize and hold New Orleans. The armies on the Potomac are also expected to try conclusions soon. You will, I am sure, need no instructions to use this information in the way best calculated to free our unhappy domestic strife from its European elements of mischief. When that shall be done, all will be well.

I learn that the insurgents have withdrawn from their front on the Potomac, above and below this city, and are breaking up their camps and retreating before our army toward Richmond. Thus ends the siege of Washington, and thus advances the cause of the .Union.

March 10, 1862. Attention has been directed to the extraordinary proceedings which are taking place in Mexico. We shall be just to ourselves, and at the same time shall practise the prudence that will avert any new complication in our affairs.

To-day the insurgent army is retreating from the position it has so long and so uselessly held in front of the capital. The war is retiring within the limits of the States which began it with reckless haste, and which have hitherto carried it on with intemperate zeal, under the expectation that they would escape from the scourge it was inflicting upon States less disloyal than themselves.

March 15, 1862. Since the date of my last despatch the Union forces have gained decided advantages. The financial and moral as well as the physical elements of the insurrection seem to be rapidly approaching exhaustion. Now, when we so clearly see how much of its strength was derived from the hope of foreign aid, we are brought to lament anew the precipitancy with which foreign powers so unnecessarily conceded to it belligerent rights.