December 7th.—A visit to the Garibaldi Guard with some of the Englishry, and an excellent dinner at the mess, which presented a curious scene, and was graced by sketches from a wonderful polyglot chaplain. What a company!—the officers present were composed as follows:—Five Spaniards, six Poles and Hungarians, two Frenchmen—the most soldierly-looking men at table—one American, four Italians, and nine Teutons of various States in Germany.
December 8th.—A certain excellent Colonel who commands a French regiment visited us to-day. When he came to Washington, one of the Foreign Ministers who had been well acquainted with him said, “My dear Colonel, what a pity we can be no longer friends.” “Why so, Baron?” “Ah, we can never dine together again.” “Why not? Do you forbid me your table?” “No, Colonel, but how can I invite a man who can command the services of at least 200 cooks in his own regiment?” “Well then, Baron, you can come and dine with me.” “What! how do you think I could show myself in your camp—how could I get my hair dressed to sit at the table of a man who commands 300 coiffeurs?” I rode out to overtake a party who had started in carriages for Mount Vernon to visit Washington’s tomb, but missed them in the wonderfully wooded country which borders the Potomac, and returned alone.
December 9th.—Spent the day over Mr. Chase’s report, a copy of which he was good enough to send me with a kind note, and went out in the evening with my head in a state of wild financial confusion, and a general impression that the financial system of England is very unsound.
December 10th.—Paid a visit to Colonel Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, a man deservedly respected and esteemed for his private character, which has given its impress to the journal he has so long conducted. The New York papers ridicule the Washington organ, because it does not spread false reports daily in the form of telegraphic “sensation” news, and indeed one may be pretty sure that a fact is a fact when it is found in the Intelligencer; but the man, nevertheless, who is content with the information he gets from it, will have no reason to regret, in the accuracy of his knowledge or the soundness of his views, that he has not gone to its noisy and mendacious rivals. In the minds of all the very old men in the States, there is a feeling of great sadness and despondency respecting the present troubles, and though they cling to the idea of a restoration of the glorious Union of their youth, it is hoping against hope. “Our game is played out. It was the most wonderful and magnificent career of success the world ever saw, but rogues and gamblers took up the cards at last; they quarrelled, and are found out.”
In the evening, supped at Mr. Forney’s, where there was a very large gathering of gentlemen connected with the press; Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War; Colonel Mulligan, a tall young man, with dark hair falling on his shoulders, round a Celtic impulsive face, and a hazy enthusiastic-looking eye; and other celebrities. Terrapin soup and canvas-backs, speeches, orations, music, and song, carried the company onwards among the small hours.
December 11th.—The unanimity of the people in the South is forced on the conviction of the statesmen and people of the North, by the very success of their expeditions in Secession. They find the planters at Beaufort and elsewhere burning their cotton and crops, villages and towns deserted at their approach, hatred in every eye, and curses on women’s tongues. They meet this by a corresponding change in their own programme. The war which was made to develop and maintain Union sentiment in the South, and to enable the people to rise against a desperate faction which had enthralled them, is now to be made a crusade against slaveholders, and a war of subjugation—if need be, of extermination—against the whole of the Southern States. The Democrats will, of course, resist this barbarous and hopeless policy. There is a deputation of Irish Democrats here now, to effect a general exchange of prisoners, which is an operation calculated to give a legitimate character to the war, and is pro tanto a recognition of the Confederacy as a belligerent power.
December 12th.—The navy are writhing under the disgrace of the Potomac blockade, and deny it exists. The price of articles in Washington which used to come by the river affords disagreeable proof to the contrary. And yet there is not a true Yankee in Pennsylvania Avenue who does not believe, what he reads every day, that his glorious navy could sweep the fleets of France and England off the seas to-morrow, though the Potomac be closed, and the Confederate batteries throw their shot and shell into the Federal camps on the other side. I dined with General Butterfield, whose camp is pitched in Virginia, on a knoll and ridge from which a splendid view can be had over the wooded vales and hills extending from Alexandria towards Manassas, whitened with Federal tents and huts. General Fitz-John Porter and General M‘Dowell were among the officers present.
December 12th.—A big-bearded, spectacled, moustachioed, spurred, and booted officer threw himself on my bed this morning ere I was awake. “Russell, my dear friend, here you are at last; what ages have passed since we met!” I sat up and gazed at my friend. “Bohlen! don’t you remember Bohlen, and our rides in Turkey, our visit to Shumla and Pravady, and all the rest of it?” Of course I did. I remembered an enthusiastic soldier, with a fine guttural voice, and a splendid war saddle and saddle-cloth, and brass stirrups and holsters, worked with eagles all over, and a uniform coat and cap with more eagles flying amidst laurel leaves and U.S.’s in gold, who came out to see the fighting in the East, and made up his mind that there would be none, when he arrived at Varna, and so started off incontinent up the Danube, and returned to the Crimea when it was too late; and a very good, kindly, warm-hearted fellow was the Dutch-American, who—once more in his war paint, this time acting Brigadier-General[9]—renewed the memories of some pleasant days far away; and our talk was of cavasses and khans, and tchibouques, and pashas, till his time was up to return to his fighting Germans of Blenker’s division.
He was not the good-natured officer who said the other day, “The next day you come down, sir, if my regiment happens to be on picket duty, we’ll have a little skirmish with the enemy, just to show you how our fellows are improved.” “Perhaps you might bring on a general action, Colonel.” “Well, sir, we’re not afraid of that, either! Let ’em come on.” It did so happen that some young friends of mine, of H.M.’s 30th, who had come down from Canada to see the army here, went out a day or two ago with an officer on General Smith’s staff, formerly in our army, who yet suffers from a wound received at the Alma, to have a look at the enemy with a detachment of men. The enemy came to have a look at them, whereby it happened that shots were exchanged, and the bold Britons had to ride back as hard as they could, for their men skedaddled, and the Secession cavalry slipping after them, had a very pretty chase for some miles; so the 30th men saw more than they bargained for.