Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of the 27th of March, (No. 135,) has been considered by the President.
The continued advances of the national forces, pressing the insurgents equally on the coast and in the interior, have awakened earnest desires and confident expectations of a speedy restoration of peace, with the soothing benefits of internal and foreign commerce. The French government urges us strongly, though not impatiently, to extend facilities for the exportation of cotton. While the President feels well assured that in any case the opening of our ports following the anticipated successes of our arms is not distant, he is impressed with the opinion that it might be safely conceded at once, if the expectations of recognition of sovereignty by the principal [Page 68] maritime powers which the insurgents have built upon their first recognition as belligerents were removed. We are aware that the action of the maritime powers in the direction proposed must probably depend on their coming to the conviction that the insurgent cause has so far failed as to render their ultimate success in casting off the federal authority hopeless. It is the object of this paper to enable you to show the British government that such is the actual situation of affairs in this country. Your despatch now before me intimates the opinion on your part that it would be indiscreet at the date of that paper to raise the question. A month full of military successes resulting in great changes in the situation of the parties has, however, elapsed since you received the information upon which that opinion was founded, and I am instructed to present the subject again, leaving you, however, absolutely free to determine for yourself the time and the manner when and in which you will bring it to the attention of Earl Russell. The President well understands that partisan and even national interests existing in Great Britain and at the same time imperfectly understood here must have much influence upon the exercise of the discretion thus confided to you. His object will be attained if you are only armed with the facts and the arguments proper for the occasion when it shall seem to yourself to have arrived.
This despatch is accompanied by a map of the middle, southern, and southwestern States, which will elucidate the views I have occasion to submit.
It is known that all the free States are loyal to the Union; that the insurrection had its spring in the slave States, and that it aims to separate them all from the Union, and embrace them in a new sovereign confederacy. There is not one regiment, or battalion, or even company of men, which was organized in or derived from the free States and Territories, in arms anywhere against the Union. Some regiments derived from the border slave States are found in the slave States in hostilities against the federal authorities, while others equally or more numerous are supporting them there. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, all border slave States, respectively, have contributed large bodies of men to the armies of the Union. Missouri, a border slave State west of the Mississippi, has been cleared of all organized military bodies of insurgents, and for some time past has ceased to be troubled by guerillas. The battle of Pea Ridge, in which General Curtis beat Van Dorn, Price, McIntosh, and McCullough, has firmly established General Curtis and the national colors in the northwestern part of Arkansas, an interior slave State. No insurrectionary forces remain in Kentucky, also a border slave State. All the fortified positions of the insurgents have been abandoned, and the southern border of Tennessee, an interior slave State, has been crossed by the advancing armies of the nation, which, after the victories of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, the occupation of Bowling Green, Nashville, Murfreesborough, and Columbus, a few days since captured the fortified position of Island No. 10, in the Mississippi, with one hundred heavy guns, thirty pieces of field artillery, six thousand prisoners, and on the same day, after a two days’ contest, repulsed and beat the insurgent army, said to be eighty thousand strong, at Pittsburg Landing, with the loss of their chief, General A. S. Johnston. Four days afterwards General Mitchell, with a column of the same federal army, by a forced march, occupied, without loss, Huntsville, in the State of Alabama, one of the Gulf slave States, and captured some two hundred prisoners, fifteen locomotive engines, and many railroad carriages, which will be very useful in future operations. Immediately afterwards he captured Decatur and the Chattanooga Junction, and thus got possession of one hundred and ten miles of the railroad. This stroke is important, as it cuts off the great artery of [Page 69] connexion by railroad between Memphis and Richmond and the southeastern slave States. Jacksonville, in Eastern Tennessee, has been visited by our forces, and thus it is seen that they are approaching Knoxville, the principal city in that always intensely loyal part of the State of Tennessee.
The western part of Virginia has been cleared of insurgents and General Frémont has put his army in motion. From Monterey and Moorfield two columns are advancing. General Banks is ascending the valley of the Shenandoah, while General Blenker’s division is on the march from Warrenton towards Strasburg, to unite with General Banks in the moment which promises to cut the Virginia and Covington railroad first, then the Southwestern Valley railroad of Virginia, and thus sever communication which connects Richmond, the seat of the insurrection, and Knoxville, before named. General McDowell, with the army covering Washington, occupies the region between Washington and the Rappahannock, and the news comes to-day that the insurgents are abandoning their entire line on that river and retiring to the vicinity of Richmond. The Eastern Shore of Virginia has been relieved by General Lockwood’s brigade from the small insurgent force which early organized itself there. General McClellan on the York river, and General Wool at Fortress Monroe, with the main body of the army of the Potomac, lay siege upon Yorktown, which is defended by the insurgent leaders Lee, J. E. Johnston, and Magruder.
General Burnside occupies the cities and sounds and coasts of eastern North Carolina, and besieges Fort Macon, which is cut off from all succor. These forces have cleared all the insurgent bodies out of a slave territory once occupied by them, containing one hundred and fifty thousand square miles and a population of three millions.
One-half of the coast of South Carolina, the whole coast of Georgia, and the harbors, cities, and coasts of East Florida, are occupied by the army which lately was under the command of General Sherman, who has been replaced by General Hunter; and the fortresses of the Florida reef, situate at Key West, the Tortugas islands, and at the harbors of Tamba Bay and Cedar Keys; Fort Pickens, commanding the entrance to Pensacola; Ship Island, Biloxi, and Pass Christian, on the coast of Mississippi, as well as the head of the delta of the Mississippi river, all are occupied and securely held by national forces. Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah river, after a bombardment of several days, surrendered yesterday. There is scarce a harbor on the whole coast, from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi, which is not hermetically sealed by a force occupying some island or headland, as well as by the blockading squadron. Charleston, St. Mark’s, Apalachicola, and Mobile, although not yet occupied by troops, are closely blockaded by our fleet. New Orleans is threatened by the bomb fleet of Captain Porter, who is ascending the Mississippi river, and by the iron-clad flotilla of Captain Foote, which has just sailed from the late investing stronghold of No. 10, and is now with General Pope’s army under convoy, descending the same river. A few days, we think, will complete the opening of the Mississippi, and restore to the northwestern States that natural passage for their immense commerce with the other States and with foreign countries which the insurgents have so insanely attempted to close, in violation of all the laws of trade and even of nature itself.
The national forces, among whom there is not one conscript or involuntary soldier, according to the official returns, consist of seven hundred and eleven thousand men. They are amply provided with arms of precision, with artillery, with wagons, and other transports; horses, tents, clothing, and all the provisions and apparel of war. Provisions are cheap and abundant. The magazines contain clothing and tents for several months’ supply, [Page 70] and the people still press upon the quartermaster general their offers of additional supplies.
An order from the Secretary of War to receive no more volunteers is bringing back upon him remonstrances and entreaties, not only from individuals but from States, under which he is constrained to accept regiments newly filled. Twenty-five thousand prisoners, carefully guarded in the loyal States, are astonished at finding themselves better fed, better clothed, and more humanely treated than when bearing arms against their country at the call of factious and treasonable chiefs. These chiefs have for months past been resorting to levies en masse, or to drafts, forcing the young and the aged, loyal, and the disloyal—all alike, and however unwilling—into their unlawful service.
Perhaps a million of men, thus variously brought into the field, are now in arms in a country which, one year ago, had a military force of only twelve thousand men. All the troops of the Union are well equipped, well drilled, and disciplined; they are good marksmen, and have patriotism and courage. They make much and skilful use of the bayonet and always with success. They are everywhere advancing. They have taken every position they have approached, and have won, with an important exception, not only every battle but even every skirmish in which, within the last three months, they have engaged.
Missouri, Kentucky, a great part of Tennessee, Western Virginia, and Eastern Florida, have been abandoned by the insurgent leaders. The national flag has been planted securely at one or more points in every State except Texas. The richest part of the territory claimed by the revolutionists for the seat of their pretended confederacy has been reclaimed from their rule and their attempts at taxation; and there is left to support the enormous expenses of the insurrection only the States which produce little else than cotton; and what cotton they now have on hand the insurgents threaten to burn, because they have no outlet for its exportation, and no hope of rescuing it from the returning allegiance of the people to the national Union.
It is believed that this survey of the military position of the government may serve to satisfy Great Britain that those statesmen here and abroad who, a year ago, mistook a political syncope for national death and dissolution, altogether misunderstood the resources, the character, and the energies of the American Union. The blood that at first retreated to the heart is now coursing healthily through all the veins and arteries of the whole system; and what seemed at first to be a hopeless paralysis, was in fact but the beginning of an organic change to more robust and vigorous health than the nation has ever before enjoyed.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.