There is an absolute nullity of events, out of which the New York papers endeavour, in vain, to extract a caput mortuum of sensation headings. The Prince of Joinville and his two nephews, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres, have been here for some days, and have been received with marked attention by the President, Cabinet, politicians and military. The Prince has come with the intention of placing his son at the United States Naval Academy, and his nephews with the head-quarters of the Federal army. The empressement exhibited at the White House towards the French princes is attributed by ill-natured rumours and persons to a little pique on the part of Mrs. Lincoln, because the Princess Clothilde did not receive her at New York, but considerable doubts are entertained of the Emperor’s “loyalty” towards the Union. Under the wild extravagance of professions of attachment to France are hidden suspicions that Louis Napoleon may be capable of treasonable practices and misrepresentations, which, in time, may lead the Philadelphians to get up a petition against M. Mercier.
The news that twenty-two members of the Maryland Legislature have been seized by the Federal authorities has not produced the smallest effect here: so easily do men in the midst of political troubles bend to arbitrary power, and so rapidly do all guarantees disappear in a revolution. I was speaking to one of General M‘Clellan’s aides-de-camp this evening respecting these things, when he said—“If I thought he would use his power a day longer than was necessary, I would resign this moment. I believe him incapable of any selfish or unconstitutional views, or unlawful ambition, and you will see that he will not disappoint our expectations.”
It is now quite plain M‘Clellan has no intention of making a general defensive movement against Richmond. He is aware his army is not equal to the task—commissariat deficient, artillery wanting, no cavalry; above all, ill-officered, incoherent battalions. He hopes, no doubt, by constant reviewing and inspection, and by weeding out the preposterous fellows who render epaulettes ridiculous, to create an infantry which shall be able for a short campaign in the fine autumn weather; but I am quite satisfied he does not intend to move now, and possibly will not do so till next year. I have arranged therefore to pay a short visit to the West, penetrating as far as I can, without leaving telegraphs and railways behind, so that if an advance takes place, I shall be back in time at Washington to assist at the earliest battle. These Federal armies do not move like the corps of the French republic, or Crawford’s Light Division.
In truth, Washington life is becoming exceedingly monotonous and uninteresting. The pleasant little evening parties or tertulias which once relieved the dulness of this dullest of capitals, take place no longer. Very wrong indeed would it be that rejoicings and festivities should occur in the capital of a country menaced with destruction, where many anxious hearts are grieving over the lost, or tortured with fears for the living.
But for the hospitality of Lord Lyons to the English residents, the place would be nearly insufferable, for at his house one met other friendly ministers who extended the circle of invitations, and two or three American families completed the list which one could reckon on his fingers. Then at night, there were assemblages of the same men, who uttered the same opinions, told the same stories, sang the same songs, varied seldom by strange faces or novel accomplishments, but always friendly and social enough—not conducive perhaps to very early rising, but innocent of gambling, or other excess. A flask of Bordeaux, a wicker-covered demi-john of Bourbon, a jug of iced water and a bundle of cigars, with the latest arrival of newspapers, furnished the matériel of these small symposiums, in which Americans and Englishmen and a few of the members of foreign Legations, mingled in a friendly cosmopolitan manner. Now and then a star of greater magnitude came down upon us: a senator or an “earnest man,” or a “live man,” or a constitutional lawyer, or a remarkable statesman, coruscated, and rushing off into the outer world left us befogged, with our glimmering lights half extinguished with tobacco-smoke.
Out of doors excessive heat alternating with thunder-storms and tropical showers—dust beaten into mud, or mud sublimated into dust—eternal reviews, each like the other—visits to camp, where we saw the same men and heard the same stories of perpetual abortive skirmishes—rides confined to the same roads and paths by lines of sentries, offered no greater attraction than the city, where one’s bones were racked with fever and ague, and where every evening the pestilential vapours of the Potomac rose higher and spread further. No wonder that I was glad to get away to the Far West, particularly as I entertained hopes of witnessing some of the operations down the Mississippi, before I was summoned back to Washington, by the news that the grand army had actually broken up camp, and was about once more to march against Richmond.
September 12th.—The day passed quietly, in spite of rumours of another battle; the band played in the President’s garden, and citizens and citizenesses strolled about the grounds as if Secession had been annihilated. The President made a fitful appearance, in a grey shooting suit, with a number of despatches in his hand, and walked off towards the State Department quite unnoticed by the crowd. I am sure not half a dozen persons saluted him—not one of the men I saw even touched his hat. General Bell went round the works with M‘Clellan, and expressed his opinion that it would be impossible to fight a great battle in the country which lay between the two armies—in fact, as he said, “a general could no more handle his troops among the woods, than he could regulate the movements of rabbits in a cover. You ought just to make a proposition to Beauregard to come out on some plain and fight the battle fairly out where you can see each other.”
September 16th.—It is most agreeable to be removed from all the circumstance without any of the pomp and glory of war. Although there is a tendency in the North, and, for aught I know, in the South, to consider the contest in the same light as one with a foreign enemy, the very battle-cries on both sides indicate a civil war. “The Union for ever”—“States rights”—and “Down with the Abolitionists,” cannot be considered national. M‘Clellan takes no note of time even by its loss, which is all the more strange because he sets great store upon it in his report on the conduct of the war in the Crimea. However, he knows an army cannot be made in two months, and that the larger it is, the more time there is required to harmonize its components. The news from the Far West indicated a probability of some important operations taking place, although my first love—the army of the Potomac—must be returned to. Any way there was the great Western Prairie to be seen, and the people who have been pouring from their plains so many thousands upon the Southern States to assert the liberties of those coloured races whom they will not permit to cross their borders as freemen. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Blair, and other Abolitionists, are actuated by similar sentiments, and seek to emancipate the slave, and remove from him the protection of his master, in order that they may drive him from the continent altogether, or force him to seek refuge in emigration.
On the 18th of September, I left Baltimore in company with Major-General Bell, C.B., and Mr. Lamy, who was well acquainted with the Western States: stopping one night at Altoona, in order that we might cross by daylight the fine passes of the Alleganies, which are traversed by bold gradients, and remarkable cuttings, second only in difficulty and extent to those of the railroad across the Sömmering.
So far as my observation extends, no route in the United States can give a stranger a better notion of the variety of scenery and of resources, the vast extent of territory, the difference in races, the prosperity of the present, and the probable greatness of the future, than the line from Baltimore by Harrisburg and Pittsburg to Chicago, traversing the great States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Plain and mountain, hill and valley, river and meadow, forest and rock, wild tracts through which the Indian roamed but a few years ago, lands covered with the richest crops; rugged passes, which Salvator would have peopled with shadowy groups of bandits; gentle sylvan glades, such as Gainsborough would have covered with waving corn; the hum of mills, the silence of the desert and waste, sea-like lakes whitened by innumerable sails, mighty rivers carving their way through continents, sparkling rivulets that lose their lives amongst giant wheels: seams and lodes of coal, iron, and mineral wealth, cropping out of desolate mountain sides; busy, restless manufacturers and traders alternating with stolid rustics, hedges clustering with grapes, mountains whitening with snow; and beyond, the great Prairie stretching away to the backbone of inhospitable rock, which, rising from the foundations of the world, bar the access of the white man and civilisation to the bleak inhospitable regions beyond, which both are fain as yet to leave to the savage and wild beast.