Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.
Sir: Your despatches of August 2, (No. 118,) August 4, (No. 180,) and August 8, (No. 181,) have been received.
* * * * * *
It is difficult for our people and much more difficult for foreigners to detect the real tendencies of political events during the excitements of this attempted revolution. It found us unprepared, and even unsuspecting and incredulous. When the war had broken out the people, accustomed to peace, very soon became impatient, and a signal defeat, without any compensating success, produced alarm, which was followed by apparent despondency. Europe, in view of these facts, naturally concluded that the contest on our part would be short and hopeless. The country, however, reconsidered, and put forth energies which brought a series of successes which seemed to render a conclusion of the war in favor of the Union speedy and certain. Europe had scarcely time to accept this assurance before a failure, not a defeat, at Richmond, disappointed and disconcerted the sanguine and impatient portion of our countrymen.
The government did not hesitate a day to provide for reinforcing and augmenting the national forces on a scale adequate to the prosecution of the war with greater vigor and certainty of success than before. But a transient gloom had fallen once more upon the national mind, and presses that necessarily sympathize with a morbid public temper, and minister to it day after day, and week after week, continued to deepen that gloom, and to harass the country with fears of disasters everywhere at home, and dangers everywhere abroad. Advocates of extreme and conflicting policies and sentiments came upon the stage, and claimed the public attention with expectations of successful agitation which could have no other effect than to divide the country and deliver it up to the distractions of party spirit. Alarms of intervention were, of course, sounded by the conspirators abroad [Page 379] with much effect. It was very natural, and, therefore, by no means unexpected, that, under such circumstances, our representatives abroad, reading the American heart through the newspapers, as they necessarily must, and not feeling its stronger vibrations as the government here did, should despair of its prompt response to the President’s call for three hundred thousand volunteers. All this has now changed. The call is already answered; forty-five thousand of the new recruits are already in the field; a hundred thousand more are marching towards it, and two hundred and thirty-three thousand are in camps of rendezvous and organization. This is an excess of seventy-eight thousand over the three hundred thousand volunteers which were demanded. You have, however, already been informed that the President has called for three hundred thousand militia, to be raised by draft. The time for this draft is fixed for the 2d of September. There is only one question left undetermined, which is, namely, whether the government will accept volunteers for this force also, or insist upon the draft, now found unnecessary.
I do not discourse to-day on the military position. It is a day of uncertainty and suspense, but not altogether unmingled with apprehension. General McClellan has safely retired his great army from the James river, and is rapidly moving it around to reinforce the small force with which General Pope is holding the Rappahannock, midway between this capital and Richmond. The insurgents have brought their main force from Richmond up to confront General Pope, with a purpose of attacking him before he can be joined by General McClellan and by the new levies now coming into the field. The telegraph reports skirmishes, but as yet no battle. The question is, or seems to be, which side can practice superior energy and despatch. The solution of it will probably be known before this paper can leave this department.
You will read of guerrilla demonstrations and partial successes in the west. But the disturbers will find themselves obliged to encounter the volunteers now pouring into that region from the loyal western States, and it may be expected that the Union arms will again be everywhere assuming the offensive within the coming month. Our naval force has destroyed all the insurgents’ iron-clad vessels which have thus far appeared, and have just now been augmented by the addition of the Ironsides, which has gone to the fleet at—––— ——. These facts are relied upon as sufficient to satisfy Europe that the resistance of this government to the insurrection is not one of mere impulse, or in any way spasmodic, but it is one of fixed policy and persistent resolution. I am happy to say that it is now found to be in entire harmony and sympathy with the convictions and sentiments of the American people.
It is believed that when the vast character of the contest thus developed shall come to be fully understood in Europe, the uneasy and intrusive spirit that has prevailed there, and excited so much apprehension, will disappear, and that the maritime powers will henceforth regard the American civil war as a conflict which belongs to our own country, and in which they have neither any just motive nor real interest for interfering. If further reasons for this confidence were wanting, they could be found, as I think, in the evidence of an unquiet spirit arising in several of the European states. The President observes these manifestations with an earnest desire that the old world may escape the evils of war, such as we are suffering. He will improve the occasion, so far as it is possible for him to do so, to show that the United States are not agitators, but are really conservative, and devoted to the interests of peace and order throughout the world.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
William L. Dayton, Esq., &c., &c. &c.