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! [13]
APRIL, 1861.