Sir William Howard Russell

“ The long drive to Rigg's House—a magnificent creation of the last few years—was a succession of surprises; new streets, splendid mansions, smooth pavements, electric lights, private carriages, an animated crowd of well-dressed, pleasant-looking people in Pennsylvania Avenue, reminiscences of Paris and New Vienna all around us, instead of mud and closed shutters, gloom, and "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave" sounding out of patriotic cellars, horses tethered to every tree, orderlies galloping, patrols marching, and the noise of never-ending convoys of warlike stores. ”

“ It is not within my power to determine whether the North is as unfair to Great Britain as the South; but I fear the history of the people, and the tendency of their institutions, are adverse to any hope of fair-play and justice to the old country. And yet it is the only power in Europe for the good opinion of which they really seem to care. Let any French, Austrian, or Russian journal write what it pleases of the United States, it is received with indifferent criticism or callous head-shaking. But let a London paper speak, and the whole American press is delighted or furious. ”

“ On all the heights around glisten the white tents of French or English, and here and there the eye rests upon their serrated lines on the slope of some pleasant valley, or lights on the encampment of some detached party posted in a recess of the hills. Faint clouds of dust, through which may be seen the glistening of steel and dark masses of uniform, blur the landscape here and there, and betray the march of troops along the sandy roads, which are exactly like those worn by the tramp of men and horses through Chobham-common, and had neither fence, boundary-metal, nor drainage. ”

“ In my poor judgment the abandonment of Canada would be the most signal triumph of the principle of democracy, and the most pregnant sign of the decadence of the British empire which could be desired by our enemies. No matter by what sophistry or by what expediency justified, the truth would crop out through the fact itself that we were retiring as the Romans did from Britain, Gaul, and Dacia, but that the retreat would be made in the face of united and civilised enemies, and that the sound of our recall would animate every nation in the world to come forth and despoil us. ”

“ There is an air of quaint simplicity and old-fashioned quiet about Georgetown, refreshingly antagonistic to the bustle and tumult of most American cities, and one can, without much stretch of imagination, fancy the old loyal burghers in cocked hats, small-swords, and long, square-cut sober suits, stalking solemnly down its streets, rejoicing in the progress of the city which recalled the name of the King and the old country, or hastening down to the river’s side to hear the tidings brought from home by the Bristol bark that has just anchored in the stream. ”

“ It was a sight to behold the deck at night—bare-armed Vulcans wielding the sledge—Brontes, Steropes, and Pyracmon at bellows, forge, and anvil—fires blazing—hailing sparks flashing along the decks—incandescent masses of iron growing into shape under the fierce blows—amateurs and artists admiring—the sea keeping watch and ward outside, and the hum of voices from its myriad of sentry waves rising above the clank of hammers which were closing the rivets up of the mail in which we were to do battle with old ocean for the captive he holds in his dismal dungeons below. Will he yield up his prisoner? ”

“ The shore is as flat as a pancake—a belt of white sand, covered with drift logs and timber, and with a pine forest; not a house or human habitation of any sort to be seen for forty miles, from Fort Morgan to the entrance of the harbor of Pensacola; cheerless, miserable, full of swamps, the haunts of alligators, cranes, snakes, and pelicans; with lagoons, such as the Perdida, swelling into inland seas; deep buried in pine woods, and known only to wild creatures and to the old fillibusters,—swarming with mosquitoes. ”

“ Inside the sight was too terrible to dwell upon. The French were carrying away their own and the Russian wounded, and four distinct piles of dead were formed to clear the way. The ground was marked by pools of blood, and the smell was noisome; swarms of flies settled on dead and dying; broken muskets, torn clothes, caps, shakos, swords, bayonets, bags of bread, canteens, and haversacks, were lying in indescribable confusion all over the place, mingled with heaps of shot, of grape, bits of shell, cartridges, case and canister, loose powder, official papers, and cooking tins. ”

“ As a "sight" for a foreigner, nothing could be more striking than the vast saloon, brilliantly illuminated, with hundreds of people on sofas, chairs, and benches, reading or conversing in the intervals of the music, and presenting infinite varieties of type and class, yet all so orderly and well-behaved; and if you moved quietly through the crowd, your ear caught many strange languages interpolating the American speech—German, French, Polish, Russian, Italian, and, perhaps the natives would say, British. ”

“ A public man in the United States is very much like a great firework—he commences with some small scintillations which attract the eye of the public, and then he blazes up and flares out in blue, purple, and orange fires, to the intense admiration of the multitude, and dying out suddenly is thought of no more, his place being taken by a fresh roman candle or catherine wheel which is thought to be far finer than those which have just dazzled the eyes of the fickle spectators. ”

“ It was delightful to see anything so old on this continent as the tortuous streets of the city, which bear marks of their French origin, after such a long contact as I had endured with the raw youth of American cities in general, but it was impossible to deny that the antiquity before us had a certain air of dreary staleness about it also. The double-windowed flat-faced houses had a lanky, compressed air, as if they had been starved in early life, and the citizens had the appearance of people who had no particular object in being there, and set no remarkable value on time. ”