Sept. 8th.—Rode over to Arlington House. Went round by Aqueduct Bridge, Georgetown, and out across Chain Bridge to Brigadier Smith’s head-quarters, which are established in a comfortable house belonging to a Secessionist farmer. The General belongs to the regular army, and, if one can judge from externals, is a good officer. A libation of Bourbon and water was poured out to friendship, and we rode out with Captain Poe, of the Topographical Engineers, a hard-working, eager fellow, to examine the trench which the men were engaged in throwing up to defend the position they have just occupied on some high knolls, now cleared of wood, and overlooking ravines which stretch towards Falls Church and Vienna. Everything about the camp looked like fighting: Napoleon guns planted on the road; Griffin’s battery in a field near at hand; mountain howitzers unlimbered; strong pickets and main-guards; the five thousand men all kept close to their camps, and two regiments, in spite of M‘Clellan’s order, engaged on the trenches, which were already mounted with field-guns. General Smith, like most officers, is a Democrat and strong anti-Abolitionist, and it is not too much to suppose he would fight any rather than Virginians. As we were riding about, it got out among the men that I was present, and I was regarded with no small curiosity, staring, and some angry looks. The men do not know what to make of it when they see their officers in the company of one whom they are reading about in the papers as the most &c., &c., the world ever saw. And, indeed, I know well enough, so great is their passion and so easily are they misled, that without such safeguard the men would in all probability carry out the suggestions of one of their particular guides, who has undergone so many cuffings that he rather likes them. Am I not the cause of the disaster at Bull’s Run?
Going home, I met Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in their new open carriage. The President was not so good-humoured, nor Mrs. Lincoln so affable, in their return to my salutation as usual. My unpopularity is certainly spreading upwards and downwards at the same time, and all because I could not turn the battle of Bull’s Run into a Federal victory, because I would not pander to the vanity of the people, and, least of all, because I will not bow my knee to the degraded creatures who have made the very name of a free press odious to honourable men. Many of the most foul-mouthed and rabid of the men who revile me because I have said the Union as it was never can be restored, are as fully satisfied of the truth of that statement as I am. They have written far severer things of their army than I have ever done. They have slandered their soldiers and their officers as I have never done. They have fed the worst passions of a morbid democracy, till it can neither see nor hear; but they shall never have the satisfaction of either driving me from my post or inducing me to deviate a hair’s-breadth from the course I have resolved to pursue, as I have done before in other cases—greater and graver, as far as I was concerned, than this.
Sept. 9th.—This morning, as I was making the most of my toilet after a ride, a gentleman in the uniform of a United States officer came up-stairs, and marched into my sitting-room, saying he wished to see me on business. I thought it was one of my numerous friends coming with a message from some one who was going to avenge Bull’s Run on me. So, going out as speedily as I could, I bowed to the officer, and asked his business. “I’ve come here because I’d like to trade with you about that chestnut horse of yours.” I replied that I could only state what price I had given for him, and say that I would take the same, and no less. “What may you have given for him?” I discovered that my friend had been already to the stable and ascertained the price from the groom, who considered himself bound in duty to name a few dollars beyond the actual sum I had given, for when I mentioned the price, the countenance of the man of war relaxed into a grim smile. “Well, I reckon that help of yours is a pretty smart chap, though he does come from your side of the world.” When the preliminaries had been arranged, the officer announced that he had come on behalf of another officer to offer me an order on his paymaster, payable at some future date, for the animal, which he desired, however, to take away upon the spot. The transaction was rather amusing, but I consented to let the horse go, much to the indignation and uneasiness of the Scotch servant, who regarded it as contrary to all the principles of morality in horseflesh.
Lord A. V. Tempest and another British subject, who applied to Mr. Seward to-day for leave to go South, were curtly refused. The Foreign Secretary is not very well pleased with us all just now, and there has been some little uneasiness between him and Lord Lyons, in consequence of representations respecting an improper excess in the United States marine on the lakes, contrary to treaty. The real cause, perhaps, of Mr. Seward’s annoyance is to be found in the exaggerated statements of the American papers respecting British reinforcements for Canada, which, in truth, are the ordinary reliefs. These small questions in the present condition of affairs cause irritation; but if the United States were not distracted by civil war, they would be seized eagerly as pretexts to excite the popular mind against Great Britain.
The great difficulty of all, which must be settled some day, relates to San Juan; and every American I have met is persuaded Great Britain is in the wrong, and must consent to a compromise or incur the risk of war. The few English in Washington, I think, were all present at dinner at the Legation to-day.
September 10th.—A party of American officers passed the evening where I dined—all, of course, Federals, but holding very different views. A Massachusetts Colonel, named Gordon, asserted that slavery was at the root of every evil which afflicted the Republic; that it was not necessary in the South or anywhere else, and that the South maintained the institution for political as well as private ends. A Virginian Captain, on the contrary, declared that slavery was in itself good; that it could not be dangerous, as it was essentially conservative, and desired nothing better than to be left alone; but that the Northern fanatics, jealous of the superior political influence and ability of Southern statesmen, and sordid Protectionists who wished to bind the South to take their goods exclusively, perpetrated all the mischief. An officer of the district of Columbia assigned all the misfortunes of the country to universal suffrage, to foreign immigration, and to these alone. Mob-law revolts well-educated men, and people who pride themselves because their fathers lived in the country before them, will not be content to see a foreigner who has been but a short time on the soil exercising as great influence over the fate of the country as himself. A contest will, therefore, always be going on between those representing the oligarchical principle and the pollarchy; and the result must be disruption, sooner or later, because there is no power in a republic to restrain the struggling factions which the weight of the crown compresses in monarchical countries.
I dined with a namesake—a major in the United States Marines—with whom I had become accidentally acquainted, in consequence of our letters frequently changing hands, and spent an agreeable evening in company with naval and military officers; not the less so because our host had some marvellous Madeira, dating back from the Conquest—I mean of Washington. Several of the officers spoke in the highest terms of General Banks, whom they call a most remarkable man; but so jealous are the politicians that he will never be permitted, they think, to get a fair chance of distinguishing himself.