The roads were in a frightful state outside Washington—literally nothing but canals, in which earth and water were mixed together for depths varying from six inches to three feet above the surface; but late as it was I pushed on, and had got as far as the turn of the road to Rockville, near the great falls, some twelve miles beyond Washington, when I met an officer with a couple of orderlies, hurrying back from General Banks’s head-quarters, who told me the whole affair was over, and that I could not possibly get to the scene of action on one horse till next morning, even supposing that I pressed on all through the night, the roads being utterly villainous, and the country at night as black as ink; and so I returned to Washington, and was stopped by citizens, who, seeing the streaming horse and splashed rider, imagined he was reeking from the fray. “As you were not there,” says one, “I’ll tell you what I know to be the case. Stone and Baker are killed; Banks and all the other generals are prisoners; the Rhode Island and two other batteries are taken, and 5000 Yankees have been sent to H—— to help old John Brown to roast niggers.”
October 24th.—The heaviest blow which has yet been inflicted on the administration of justice in the United States, and that is saying a good deal at present, has been given to it in Washington. The judge of whom I wrote a few days ago in the habeas corpus case, has been placed under military arrest and surveillance by the Provost-Marshal of the city, a very fit man for such work, one Colonel Andrew Porter. The Provost-Marshal imprisoned the attorney who served the writ, and then sent a guard to Mr. Merrick’s house, who thereupon sent a minute to his brother judges the day before yesterday stating the circumstances, in order to show why he did not appear in his place on the bench. The Chief Judge Dunlop and Judge Morsell thereupon issued their writ to Andrew Porter greeting, to show cause why an attachment for contempt should not be issued against him for his treatment of Judge Merrick. As the sharp tongues of women are very troublesome, the United States officers have quite little harems of captives, and Mrs. Merrick has just been added to the number. She is a Wickliffe of Kentucky, and has a right to martyrdom. The inconsistencies of the Northern people multiply ad infinitum as they go on. Thus at Hatteras they enter into terms of capitulation with officers signing themselves of the Confederate States Army and Confederate States Navy; elsewhere they exchange prisoners; at New York they are going through the farce of trying the crew of a C.S. privateer, as pirates engaged in robbing on the high seas, on “the authority of a pretended letter of marque from one Jefferson Davis.” One Jeff Davis is certainly quite enough for them at present.
Colonel and Senator Baker was honoured by a ceremonial which was intended to be a public funeral, rather out of compliment to Mr. Lincoln’s feelings, perhaps, than to any great attachment for the man himself, who fell gallantly fighting near Leesburg. There is need for a republic to contain some elements of an aristocracy if it would make that display of pomp and ceremony which a public funeral should have to produce effect. At all events there should be some principle of reverence in the heads and hearts of the people, to make up for other deficiencies in it as a show, or a ceremony. The procession down Pennsylvania Avenue was a tawdry, shabby string of hack carriages, men in light coats and white hats following the hearse, and three regiments of foot soldiers, of which one was simply an uncleanly, unwholesome-looking rabble. The President, in his carriage, and many of the ministers and senators, attended also, and passed through unsympathetic lines of people on the kerbstones, not one of whom raised his hat to the bier as it passed, or to the President, except a couple of Englishmen and myself who stood in the crowd, and that proceeding on our part gave rise to a variety of remarks among the bystanders. But as the band turned into Pennsylvania Avenue, playing something like the minuet de la cour in Don Giovanni, two officers in uniform came riding up in the contrary direction; they were smoking cigars; one of them let his fall on the ground, the other smoked lustily as the hearse passed, and reining up his horse, continued to puff his weed under the nose of President, ministers, and senators, with the air of a man who was doing a very soldierly correct sort of thing.
Whether the President is angry as well as grieved at the loss of his favourite or not, I cannot affirm, but he is assuredly doing that terrible thing which is called putting his foot down on the judges; and he has instructed Andrew Porter not to mind the writ issued yesterday, and has further instructed the United States Marshal, who has the writ in his hands to serve on the said Andrew, to return it to the court with the information that Abraham Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus in cases relating to the military.
October 26th.—More reviews. To-day rather a pretty sight—12 regiments, 16 guns, and a few squads of men with swords and pistols on horseback, called cavalry, comprising Fitz-John Porter’s division. M‘Clellan seemed to my eyes crestfallen and moody to-day. Bright eyes looked on him; he is getting up something like a staff, among which are the young French princes, under the tutelage of their uncle, the Prince of Joinville. Whilst M‘Clellan is reviewing, our Romans in Washington are shivering; for the blockade of the Potomac by the Confederate batteries stops the fuel boats. Little care these enthusiastic young American patriots in crinoline, who have come to see M‘Clellan and the soldiers, what a cord of wood costs. The lower orders are very angry about it however. The nuisance and disorder arising from soldiers, drunk and sober, riding full gallop down the streets, and as fast as they can round the corners, has been stopped, by placing mounted sentries at the principal points in all the thoroughfares. The “officers” were worse than the men; the papers this week contain the account of two accidents, in one of which a colonel, in another a major, was killed by falls from horseback, in furious riding in the city.
Forgetting all about this fact, and spurring home pretty fast along an unfrequented road, leading from the ferry at Georgetown into the city, I was nearly spitted by a “dragoon,” who rode at me from under cover of a house, and shouted “stop” just as his sabre was within a foot of my head. Fortunately his horse, being aware that if it ran against mine it might be injured, shied, and over went dragoon, sabre and all, and off went his horse, but as the trooper was able to run after it, I presume he was not the worse; and I went on my way rejoicing.
M‘Clellan has fallen very much in my opinion since the Leesburg disaster. He went to the spot, and with a little—nay, the least—promptitude and ability could have turned the check into a successful advance, in the blaze of which the earlier repulse would have been forgotten. It is whispered that General Stone, who ordered the movement, is guilty of treason—a common crime of unlucky generals—at all events he is to be displaced, and will be put under surveillance. The orders he gave are certainly very strange.
The official right to fib, I presume, is very much the same all over the world, but still there is more dash about it in the States, I think, than elsewhere. “Blockade of the Potomac!” exclaims an official of the Navy Department. “What are you talking of? The Department has just heard that a few Confederates have been practising with a few light field-pieces from the banks, and has issued orders to prevent it in future.” “Defeat at Leesburg!” cries little K——, of M‘Clellan’s staff, “nothing of the kind. We drove the Confederates at all points, retained our position on the right bank, and only left it when we pleased, having whipped the enemy so severely they never showed since.” “Any news, Mr. Cash, in the Treasury to-day?” “Nothing, sir, except that Mr. Chase is highly pleased with everything; he’s only afraid of having too much money, and being troubled with his balances.” “The State Department all right, Mr. Protocol?” “My dear sir! delightful! with everybody, best terms. Mr. Seward and the Count are managing delightfully; most friendly assurances; Guatemala particularly; yes, and France too. Yes, I may say France too; not the smallest difficulty at Honduras; altogether, with the assurances of support we are getting, the Minister thinks the whole affair will be settled in thirty days; no joking, I assure you; thirty days this time positively. Say for exactness on or about December 5th.” The canvas-backs are coming in, and I am off for a day or two to escape reviews and abuse, and to see something of the famous wild-fowl shooting on the Chesapeake.
October 27th.—After church, I took a long walk round by the commissariat waggons, where there is, I think, as much dirt, bad language, cruelty to animals, and waste of public money, as can be conceived. Let me at once declare my opinion that the Americans, generally, are exceedingly kind to their cattle; but there is a hybrid race of ruffianly waggoners here, subject to no law or discipline, and the barbarous treatment inflicted on the transport animals is too bad even for the most unruly of mules. I mentioned the circumstance to General M‘Dowell, who told me that by the laws of the United States there was no power to enlist a man for commissariat or transport duty.
October 28th.—Telegraphed to my friend at Baltimore that I was ready for the ducks. The Legation going to Mr. Kortwright’s marriage at Philadelphia. Started with Lamy at 6 o’clock for Baltimore; to Gilmore House; thence to club. Every person present said that in my letter on Maryland I had understated the question, as far as Southern sentiments were concerned. In the club, for example, there are not six Union men at the outside. General Dix has fortified Federal Hill very efficiently, and the heights over Fort McHenry are bristling with cannons, and display formidable earthworks; it seems to be admitted that, but for the action of the Washington Government the Legislature would pass an ordinance of Secession. Gilmore House—old-fashioned, good bed-rooms. Scarcely had I arrived in the passage, than a man ran off with a paragraph to the papers that Dr. Russell had come for the purpose of duck-shooting; and, hearing that I was going with Taylor, put in that I was going to Taylor’s Ducking Shore. It appears that there are considerable numbers of these duck clubs in the neighbourhood of Baltimore. The canvas-back ducks have come in, but they will not be in perfection until the 10th of November; their peculiar flavour is derived from a water-plant called wild celery. This lies at the depth of several feet, sometimes nine or ten, and the birds dive for it.