Adam Gurowski
The Diary of Adam Gurowski
Civil War Memoirs
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2019 OK Publishing
EAN 4057664559166
Table of Contents
PREFACE
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.
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!
For the first time in my life I assisted at the simplest and grandest spectacle — the inauguration of a President. Lincoln's message good, according to circumstances, but not conclusive; it is not positive; it discusses questions, but avoids to assert. May his mind not be altogether of the same kind. Events will want and demand more positiveness and action than the message contains assertions. The immense majority around me seems to be satisfied. Well, well; I wait, and prefer to judge and to admire when actions will speak.
I am sure that a great drama will be played, equal to any one known in history, and that the insurrection of the slave-drivers will not end in smoke. So I now decide to keep a diary in my own way. I scarcely know any of those men who are considered as leaders; the more interesting to observe them, to analyze their mettle, their actions. This insurrection may turn very complicated; if so, it must generate more than one revolutionary manifestation. What will be its march — what stages? Curious; perhaps it may turn out more interesting than anything since that great renovation of humanity by the great French Revolution.