A letter from Susan Rutledge: “Captain Humphrey folded the United States Army flag just before dinnertime. Ours was run up in its place. You know the Arsenal is in sight. What is the next move? I pray God to guide us. We stand in need of wise counsel; something more than courage. The talk is: ‘Fort Sumter must be taken; and it is one of the strongest forts.’ How in the name of sense are they to manage? I shudder to think of rash moves.”
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II. MONTGOMERY, ALA.
February 19, 1861 – March 11, 1861
MONTGOMERY, Ala., February 19, 1861. – The brand-new Confederacy is making or remodeling its Constitution. Everybody wants Mr. Davis to be General-in-Chief or President. Keitt and Boyce and a party preferred Howell Cobb 1 for President. And the fire-eaters per se wanted Barnwell Rhett.
My brother Stephen brought the officers of the “Montgomery Blues” to dinner. “Very soiled Blues,” they said, apologizing for their rough condition. Poor fellows! they had been a month before Fort Pickens and not allowed to attack it. They said Colonel Chase built it, and so were sure it was impregnable. Colonel Lomax telegraphed to Governor Moore 2 if he might try to take it, “Chase or no Chase,” and got for his answer, “No.” “And now,” say the Blues, “we have worked like niggers, and when the fun and fighting begin, they send us home and put regulars
1. A native of Georgia, Howell Cobb had long served in Congress, and in 1849 was elected Speaker. In 1851 he was elected Governor of Georgia, and in 1857 became Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan’s Administration. In 1861 he was a delegate from Georgia to the Provisional Congress which adopted the Constitution of the Confederacy, and presided over each of its four sessions.
2. Andrew Bary Moore, elected Governor of Alabama in 1859. In 1861, before Alabama seceded, he directed the seizure of United States forts and arsenals and was active afterward in the equipment of State troops.
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there.” They have an immense amount of powder. The wheel of the car in which it was carried took fire. There was an escape for you! We are packing a hamper of eatables for them.
I am despondent once more. If I thought them in earnest because at first they put their best in front, what now? We have to meet tremendous odds by pluck, activity, zeal, dash, endurance of the toughest, military instinct. We have had to choose born leaders of men who could attract love and secure trust. Everywhere political intrigue is as rife as in Washington.
Cecil’s saying of Sir Walter Raleigh that he could “toil terribly” was an electric touch. Above all, let the men who are to save South Carolina be young and vigorous. While I was reflecting on what kind of men we ought to choose, I fell on Clarendon, and it was easy to construct my man out of his portraits. What has been may be again, so the men need not be purely ideal types.
Mr. Toombs 1 told us a story of General Scott and himself. He said he was dining in Washington with Scott, who seasoned every dish and every glass of wine with the eternal refrain, “Save the Union; the Union must be preserved.” Toombs remarked that he knew why the Union was so dear to the General, and illustrated his point by a steamboat anecdote, an explosion, of course. While the passengers were struggling in the water a woman ran up and down the bank crying, “Oh, save the red-headed
1. Robert Toombs, a native of Georgia, who early acquired fame as a lawyer, served in the Creek War under General Scott, became known in 1842 as a “State Rights Whig,” being elected to Congress, where he was active in the Compromise measures of 1850. He served in the United States Senate from 1853 to 1861, where he was a pronounced advocate of the sovereignty of States, the extension of slavery, and secession. He was a member of the Confederate Congress at its first session and, by a single vote, failed of election as President of the Confederacy. After the war, he was conspicuous for his hostility to the Union.
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man!” The red-headed man was saved, and his preserver, after landing him noticed with surprise how little interest in him the woman who had made such moving appeals seemed to feel. He asked her “Why did you make that pathetic outcry?” She answered, “Oh, he owes me ten thousand dollars.” “Now General,” said Toombs, “the Union owes you seventeen thousand dollars a year!” I can imagine the scorn on old Scott’s face.
February 25th – Find every one working very hard here. As I dozed on the sofa last night, could hear the scratch, scratch of my husband’s pen as he wrote at the table until midnight.
After church to-day, Captain Ingraham called. He left me so uncomfortable. He dared to express regrets that he had to leave the United States Navy. Ha had been stationed in the Mediterranean, where he liked to be , and expected to be these two years, and to take those lovely daughters of his to Florence. Then came Abraham Lincoln, and rampant black Republicanism, and he must lay down his life for South Carolina. He, however, does not make any moan. He says we lack everything necessary in naval gear to retake Fort Sumter. Of course, he only expects the navy to take it. He is a fish out of water here. He is one of the finest sea-captains; so I suppose they will soon give him a ship and send him back to his own element.
At dinner Judge – was loudly abusive of Congress. He said: “They have trampled the Constitution underfoot. They have provided President Davis with a house.” He was disgusted with the folly of parading the President at the inauguration in a coach drawn by four white horses. Then some one said Mrs. Fitzpatrick was the only lady who sat with the Congress. After the inaugural she poked Jeff Davis in the back with her parasol that he might turn and speak to her. “I am sure that was democratic enough,” said some one.
Governor Moore came in with the latest news – a telegram
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from Governor Pickens to the President, ” that a war steamer is lying off the Charleston bar laden with reenforcements for Fort Sumter, and what must we do?” Answer: “Use your own discretion!” There is faith for you, after all is said and done. It is believed there is still some discretion left in South Carolina fit for use.
Everybody who comes here wants an office, and the many who, of course, are disappointed raise a cry of corruption against the few who are successful. I thought we had left all that in Washington. Nobody is willing to be out of sight, and all will take office.
“Constitution” Browne says he is going to Washington for twenty-four hours. I mean to send by him to Mary Garnett for a bonnet ribbon. If they take him up as a traitor, he may cause a civil war. War is now our dread. Mr. Chesnut told him not to make himself a bone of contention.
Everybody means to go into the army. If Sumter is attacked, then Jeff Davis’s troubles will begin. The Judge says a military despotism would be best for us – anything to prevent a triumph of the Yankees. All right, but every man objects to any despot but himself.
Mr. Chesnut, in high spirits, dines to-day with the Louisiana delegation. Breakfasted with “Constitution” Browne, who is appointed Assistant Secretary of State, and so does not go to Washington. There was at table the man who advertised for a wife, with the wife so obtained. She was not pretty. We dine at Mr. Pollard’s and go to a ball afterward at Judge Bibb’s. The New York Herald says Lincoln stood before Washington’s picture at his inauguration, which was taken by the country as a good sign. We are always frantic for a good sign. Let us pray that a Cæsar or a Napoleon may be sent us. That would be our best sign of success. But they still say, “No war.” Peace let it be, kind Heaven!
Dr. De Leon called, fresh from Washington, and says
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General Scott is using all his power and influence to prevent officers from the South resigning their commissions, among other things promising that they shall never be sent against us in case of war. Captain Ingraham, in his short, curt way, said: “That will never do. If they take their government’s pay they must do its fighting.”
A brilliant dinner at the Pollards’s. Mr. Barnwell 1 took me down. Came home and found the Judge and Governor Moore waiting to go with me to the Bibbs’s. And they say it is dull in Montgomery! Clayton, fresh from Washington, was at the party and told us “there was to be peace.”