Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: Colonel de Chanal, a French officer, who had been sent by his government on a tour of observation to the United States, returned about a month ago, after a sojourn in our country of some eight months. A few evenings since he gave me, at great length, the impressions he had formed, and was communicating to his government. Some of these impressions, as they will have their influences in shaping public opinion here, seem worthy of being reported to you.
The colonel is confident that all military operations, on a large scale, will be at an end before the close of the coming summer. He entertains no doubt of the triumph of the north, and appears to have formed a less exalted opinion of the strategy and military skill of the insurgent officers than prevails generally in Europe, or perhaps in America.
I mentioned the report that the south were agitating the expediency of arming their slaves, and asked if he thought negroes would make good soldiers; if so, whether their freedmen would fight against the north; and, if So, how much strength the insurgents could realize from that source.
The colonel said he was quite satisfied that negroes made good soldiers; he spoke of a couple of regiments paraded before him by General Butler, after a three months’ drill, and who went through their manuoevres, he thought, as well as French soldiers usually did after a year’s drilling. He inclined to think they might sometimes cow a little in the presence of those whom they were bred to consider the master race, but to that susceptibility he did not seem to attach much importance. In the cases in which they had failed conspicuously—and he instanced the assault which followed the explosion of the mine before Petersburg-—he said white soldiers would have failed also; no soldiers, he was persuaded, would have stood firm under these circumstances. He had no doubt [Page 208] that the slaves would fight for the insurgents about as well as against them. He spoke of the Fellahs annually recruited by violence for the army of the Viceroy of Egypt, and who are always ready to repeat upon their own people, the succeeding year, the outrages of which they had recently been the victims. He thought, however, the amount of strength the insurgents would gain from this source would not be enough to seriously prolong the war. He estimated the number of slaves in the insurgent States now at about 1,000,000. These, he said, would not yield more than ten per cent, of available men at the outside. In Algeria his government had found that for a razzia of only eight or ten days, and taking every available man, they never got more than one-seventh of the population. But in these cases none were left to cultivate the soil, or to look after property. It would not be possible for the American insurgents to strip their country of its laborers in this way, for their armies depend mainly upon the culture of the soil for their sustenance, and these levies would be required to absent themselves for months instead of a few days to be of any service. He thought, therefore, that one-tenth would be a very high proportion to allow for the possible acquisitions to the insurgent armies from this source, and that would yield but about 100,000 men—altogether too small a number to resist the gathering armies of the north. Colonel Chanal satisfied himself that white labor was quite as available as black in the culture of cotton, and expressed to me his conviction that the French peasant found the culture of maize in the south of France more painful and trying to his constitution than the culture of cotton would be to them in Alabama. The colonel’s observations made among the French creoles of Louisiana in regard to the past and the present relations of the negro with them were very curious and instructive, and one day, I hope, will throw their light upon the history of this great transformation, though I do not feel warranted in swelling this communication of them.
I have the honor to remain yours, very respectfully,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State’, &c., &c., &c.