Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams
Sir: Westerly winds detained the Canada, so that her mails reached the department only on the 16th instant. You, as well as Mr. Dayton, direct my attention to the articles in which the presses of London and Paris consoled the European enemies of the United States for their reverse in the presidential election, by spasmodic predictions of the failure of our armies in the valley of Virginia, at Richmond, in Georgia, in Tennessee, and in and beyond the Mississippi. By a singular coincidence my reading of these portentous warnings was interrupted by the electric news that in a large degree the belligerent forces have withdrawn from the Shenandoah valley; that Major General Thomas, on the 16th instant, left his works and assaulted the besieging army under Hood, and in battles continuing through days, defeated and routed it, killing and wounding a yet uneatimated number, and capturing fifty guns, as many flags, and certainly more than five thousand prisoners. In the same moment came the agreeable intelligence that the enemy were routed and driven from the batteries they had planted on the Cumberland, on the northern line of General Thomases communication; that General Burbridge had got into the rear of Breckinridge and captured Abbingdon, in Virginia, and defeated the enemy at Glades Springs and at Kingsport, on the Holston river, in Tennessee. General Canby reported at the same moment the success of two expeditions—the one from Memphis, which destroyed Hood’s communication with Jackson, Mississippi, and the other from Baton Rouge towards Mobile, which, prevented all attempts to supply or re-enforce Hood from that place.
Simultaneously Major General Sherman reports that he has arrived at the [Page 49] mouth of the Ogeechee, and taken Fort McAllister, with its garrison and armament of twenty-one guns, by storm. Thus he has firmly planted at the Ossa-baw sound, below Savannah, in full co-operation with the land and naval forces; thus he has invested that city and demanded its surrender. A well-appointed fleet of sixty-five vessels, carrying six hundred guns, attended by a co-operating army under Major General Butler, departed from Hampton roads on the 13th instant, with a destination (concealed by seal upon its orders) which will probably be revealed by the telegraph before the departure of the steamer with our outgoing mail from Boston.
The pretended rebel house of representatives have passed a bill designed to force the slaves in the insurgent States to fight for the establishment of an empire having African slavery for its corner-stone. We shall see whether this desperate effort improves the condition of the insurgents. The Richmond En quirer argues for the abolition of slavery with the zeal if not with the charity of Wilberforce. It seems now to be a question, whether the United States armies shall effect emancipation under the President’s war proclamation, or Virginia shall abolish slavery to baffle the United States armies. So that it is manifest that slavery in Virginia must perish in any case.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
(The same, mutatis mutandis, to all our principal ministers in Europe.)