July 17, 1861 - "No system, no order, no knowledge, no dash!" among Northern officers

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if you will, First Manassas. While Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed), his friend William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia.

In fact, the North is not prepared for this fight.

July 17th. I went up to General Scott s quarters, and saw some of his staff young men, some of whom knew nothing of soldiers, not even the enforcing of drill and found them reflecting, doubtless, the shades which cross the mind of the old chief, who was now seeking repose. McDowell is to advance to-morrow from Fairfax Court House, and will march some eight or ten miles to Centreville, directly in front of which, at a place called Manassas, stands the army of the Southern enemy. I look around me for a staff, and look in vain. There are a few plodding old pedants, with map and rules and compasses, who sit in small rooms and write memoranda ; and there are some ignorant and not very active young men, who loiter about the head-quarters halls, and strut up the street with brass spurs on their heels and kepis raked over their eyes as though they were soldiers, but I see no system, no order, no knowledge, no dash !

July 16, 1861 - It's not looking good for the North

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if you will, First Manassas. While Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed), his friend William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia.

It’s not looking good for the North.

July 16. … On arriving at the Washington platform, the first person I saw was General McDowell alone, looking anxiously into the carriages. He asked where I came from, and when he heard from Annapolis, inquired eagerly if I had seen two batteries of artillery Barry s and another which he had ordered up, and was waiting for, but which had”gone astray.” I was surprised to find the General engaged on such duty, and took leave to say so. “Well, it is quite true, Mr. Russell ; but I am obliged to look after them myself, as I have so small a staff, and they are all engaged out with my head-quarters. You are aware I have advanced ? No ! Well, you have just come in time, and I shall be happy, indeed, to take you with me. I have made arrangements for the correspondents of our papers to take the field under certain regulations, and I have suggested to them they should wear a white uniform, to indicate the purity of their character.” The General could hear nothing of his guns ; his carriage was waiting, and I accepted his offer of a seat to my lodgings. Although he spoke confidently, he did not seem in good spirits. There was the greatest difficulty in finding out anything about the enemy. Beauregard was said to have advanced to Fairfax Court House, but he could not get any certain knowledge of the fact.

“Can you not order a reconnaissance?”

“Wait till you see the country. But even if it were as flat as Flanders, I have not an officer on whom I could depend for the work. They would fall into some trap, or bring on a general engagement when I did not seek it or desire it. I have no cavalry such as you work with in Europe.”

I think he was not so much disposed to undervalue the Confederates as before, for he said they had selected a very strong position, and had made a regular levee en masse of the people of Virginia, as a proof of the energy and determination with which they were entering on the campaign.

June 21, 1860 - W.H. Russell on the South Sucking Up to Great Britain

The great British war correspondent William Howard Russell, a key contact for Our Man in Charleston, has finally made it up the Mississippi and out of the South to Cairo, Illinois. Meanwhile, Harper's Weekly has put him on its front page.


June 21—The people of the seceding States, aware in their consciences that they have been most active in their hostility to Great Britain, and whilst they were in power were mainly responsible for the defiant, irritating, and insulting tone commonly used to us by American statement, are anxious at the present moment when so much depends on the action of foreign countries, to remove all unfavorable impressions from our minds by declarations of good will, respect and admiration, not quite compatible with the language of their leaders in times not long gone by.

The North, as yet unconscious of the loss of power, and reared in a school of menace and violent assertion of their rights, regarding themselves as the whole of the United States, and animated by their own feeling of commercial and political opposition to Great Britain, maintain the high tone of a people who have never known let or hindrance in their passions, and consider it an outrage that the whole world does not join an active sympathy for a government which in its brief career has contrived to affront every nation in Europe with which it had any dealings.

Excerpt is from W. H. Russell's My Diary North and South.

"Harper's Weekly" courtesy of The American Library in Paris

June 16, 1861 - American gun violence... 154 years ago

In 1861 the great British war correspondent William Howard Russell, who figures prominently in Our Man in Charleston, was stunned by the level of gun violence in everyday American life (and death).

June 16 — When my work was over I walked out and sat in the shade with a gentleman whose talk turned upon the practices of the Mississippi duello. Without the smallest animus, and in the most natural way in the world, he told us

tale after tale of blood, and recounted terrible tragedies enacted outside bars of hotels and in the public streets close beside us. The very air seemed to become purple as he spoke, the land around a veritable "Aceldama." There may, indeed, be security for property, but there is none for the life of its owner in difficulties,who may be shot by a stray bullet from a pistol as he walks up the street.

I learned many valuable facts. I was warned, for example, against the impolicy of trusting to small-bored pistols or to pocket six-shooters in case of a close fight, because suppose you hit your man mortally he may still run in upon you and rip you up with a bowie-knife before he falls dead; whereas if you drive a good heavy bullet into him, or make a hole in him with a "Derringer" ball, he gets faintish and drops at once.

Many illustrations, too, were given of the value of practical lessons of this sort. One particularly struck me. If a gentleman with whom you are engaged in altercation moves his hand towards his breeches pocket, or behind his back, you must smash him or shoot him at once, for he is either going to draw his six-shooter, to pull out a bowie-knife, or to shoot you through the lining of his pocket. The latter practice is considered rather ungentlemanly, but it has somewhat been more honored lately in the observance than in the breach. In fact, the savage practice of walking about with pistols, knives, and poniards, in bar-rooms and gambling-saloons, with passions ungoverned, because there is no law to punish the deeds to which they lead, affords facilities for crime which an uncivilized condition of society leaves too often without punishment, but which must be put down or the country in which it is tolerated will become as barbarous as a jungle inhabited by wild beasts.