Littleton Washington's Journal: Life in Antebellum Washington, Vigilante San Francisco & Confederate Richmond

Littleton Washington’s Journal

Life in Antebellum Washington, Vigilante San Francisco & Confederate Richmond

Edited by

Douglas Lee Gibboney

Copyright © 2001 by Douglas Lee Gibboney.

Library of Congress Number: 2001116371

ISBN #: Hardcover 0-7388-6207-X

Softcover 0-7388-6206-1

eBook 9781462802807

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover Photo:

Confederate soldiers gathered in Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia, April 1865. (Massachusetts Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S. Army History Institue)

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Contents

Introduction

Antebellum Washington

Vigilante San Francisco

Across Mexico & Up the Mississippi

Washington Just Before the War

Confederate Richmond: Part One

Confederate Richmond: Part Two

Appendix A

End Notes

Littleton Washington and his father, Lund, from a photograph taken circa 1850. (Joyce B. Yost)

Introduction

It is amazing that more that 135 years after the conflict ended, significant eyewitness accounts of the American Civil War are still being brought to light. Such is the case of Littleton Washington’s journal. This diary of the chief clerk to Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin has been in the possession of the family and has never before been published or made available to the public.

Born on November 3, 1825, in Washington, D.C., Littleton Quinton Washington could rightly claim membership in one of the first and most illustrious families of Virginia. Littleton’s ancestor, Lawrence Washington, arrived in the Old Dominion from England about 1660. Lawrence’s brother, John, had emigrated to the New World a few years earlier; John’s descendants would include the first President of the United States, George Washington.

Littleton Washington grew up in comfortable if somewhat uncertain financial circumstances. The family might best be described as unmonied upper class. At one point, Littleton was unable to return to his studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, due to a reduction in his father’s income.

In 1845, Littleton secured a government clerkship at the U.S. Treasury Department, where he watched and waited for a chance to move on to greater things. An attempt to gain a political appointment in the Kansas Territory failed, much to Washington’s chagrin. He turned his ambitions to a sideline of freelance newspaper writing, in particular targeting his pen against the then popular Know Nothing movement.

In 1855, opportunity came when Washington was offered the position of Assistant Collector at the U.S. Customs House in San Francisco, California. The chance to travel to distant lands was exactly the type of excitement that Littleton wanted and he left for his new post immediately, proceeding by way of Panama.

He arrived in San Francisco just in time to become caught in the Vigilante unrest of 1856. Though the Vigilantes included many of San Francisco’s leading citizens, Washington firmly aligned himself with the established government authorities and actively opposed the mobs who were taking the law into their own hands. Some of the journal entries during this time are ironic in view of the author’s ardent secessionist stance of a few years later.

Deposed from office during the administration of President James Buchanan, Littleton chose to take the scenic overland route across Mexico on his return home. The decision could easily have cost him his life. Mexico, which had endured on-going turmoil and frequently changing governments since its independence from Spain in 1821, was then on the advent of a reform war. Littleton and his companions experienced repeated bandit attacks, civil unrest and even one pitched battle as they made their way across the country by boat, horseback, stagecoach and mule-drawn railroad. The journey, one of the book’s most interesting narratives, is so unusual that at one point even Littleton and his companions question the reality of what they have experienced.

Returning to the District of Columbia, Littleton set up shop as a forerunner of today’s K Street lobbyists. His efforts, though, failed to produce the hoped-for financial rewards. As he made the rounds of Washington society and summers at White Sulphur Springs and other spas, he was forced to carefully calculate the coins he had to pay for these pleasures.

Always interested in politics, Littleton Washington stood squarely as an avid States Rights Democrat. With the nation drifting toward civil war, Washington, not surprisingly, took the side of the South. In the 1860 presidential contest, he campaigned for John C. Breckinridge even though he did not have a particularly high opinion of the Kentuckian. Breckinridge’s running mate, Senator Joseph Lane, had given Littleton shelter when the diarist was involved in one of the frequent episodes of dueling which dot this narrative.

After Abraham Lincoln’s election, Littleton did what he could to aid the secessionist cause—even telegraphing sensitive information to the Governor of South Carolina as the crisis at Fort Sumter unfolded. He also helped mobilize a pro-Southern para-military organization in Washington known at the National Volunteers.

Littleton’s actions led him to fear arrest and, in April 1861, he left Washington. Traveling first to Richmond, Virginia, and then Montgomery, Alabama, he met with Confederate President Jefferson Davis and received a lieutenant’s commission. He served as a quartermaster through the battle of First Bull Run, before resigning to accept a promised post in the adjutant general’s office. However, that offer fell through and Littleton found himself at loose ends. He was befriended by the controversial Richmond Examiner newspaperman, John Daniel, who persuaded Littleton to fill in as editor while Daniel accompanied a military expedition into western Virginia.

Confederate Secretary of State R.M.T. Hunter offered his friend, Littleton, a government post as his personal secretary in the autumn of 1861. Littleton remained there even after Hunter went on to the Confederate Senate and was succeeded at the State Department by Judah P. Benjamin.

Benjamin, known as the brains of the Confederacy, is one of the most enigmatic figures of that entire unfortunate epoch. Born in the West Indies of English-Jewish parents, Benjamin grew up in Charleston, S.C., where his family experienced strained financial circumstances. He attended Yale University but abruptly left his studies there under mysterious circumstances. Traveling to New Orleans, Benjamin entered the legal profession and politics. The outbreak of the war found him in the U.S. Senate from which he resigned in February 1861 to become, successively, the Confederacy’s Attorney General, Secretary of War and, finally, Secretary of State.

Benjamin and Littleton Washington were not initially close but established a rapport as their association continued. Indeed, Littleton was often believed to be the Assistant Secretary of State, even though he was never officially named to that position. One of the attributes of this journal is that it adds to the primary source material available concerning Benjamin. The Confederate Secretary of State was so secretive that he destroyed as many of his papers as possible and refused to cooperate with biographers.

Unfortunately, though Littleton Washington’s writing shows him to be talkative and social by nature, he does not go into great detail on many of the events he witnessed. For example, he will mention in a single sentence that he attended a reception at the President’s residence but does not offer any of the tantalizing particulars.

Equally frustrating is Littleton’s later editing of his own journal. While it is unlikely that he wrote with a view to future publication, he obviously anticipated that the diary someday would be read by others. Names have been scraped away by penknife and pages have been cut out. Some entire sections have disappeared.

This loss is particularly keen at the end of the journal where most of the last year of the war has been purposely removed. Thus we don’t read Littleton’s comments as the Confederate government disintegrates and Richmond falls to the Northern Army.

One has to wonder what was in those final pages and why they were destroyed. It is likely that the journal’s missing section from 1864 contained reaction to the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid on Richmond and the purported plan to burn the city and kill Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Littleton was part of the department clerks battalion sent out to fend off the invaders, getting close enough to fire his gun at them and hear their commands. Some historians believe that the raid influenced Confederate leaders in their decision to wage a clandestine campaign against the Northern home front later that year.

In a post-war profile of Benjamin found in the appendix of this book, Washington strongly denies that Benjamin ordered the firebombing of New York City by Confederate agents in November 1864; Washington writes that he was in the room when the Confederacy’s lead commissioner to Canada was given his orders. Yet it is undeniable that Richmond provided the funds which set these efforts in motion.

We know for certain that Littleton at least had a passing acquaintance with Confederate secret service operatives. In his journal, Littleton writes of going swimming in the James River with Major William Norris of the Signal Corps, who as part of his duties oversaw some clandestine operations. Littleton also writes of sending mail by covert routes across the Potomac, through Norfolk and via Wilmington, North Carolina.

In his book, April 1865: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War, William A. Tidwell goes so far as to state that Washington—whom he misidentifies as Lucius Quintius—acted as a State Department case officer for undercover agents from time to time.

This may be an overstatement; Confederate secret service operations were far less formally organized than those of the modern day. However, given his connections in the District of Columbia and his position as de facto number two man on the tiny Rebel State Department staff, such dealings probably fell with the range of Littleton’s responsibilities.

Obviously Littleton Washington wrote much in his journal that, on reflection, he did not want revealed concerning those last months of the war. Exactly what it was, we will never be certain.

L.Q. Washington receives a mention in many of the published Richmond war journals. In A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, J.B. Jones noted disapprovingly of one of Littleton’s California friends receiving a passport to leave Richmond without the knowledge of the President or Secretary of War. Robert Garlick Hill Kean, whose diary was published as Inside the Confederate Government, mentions Littleton as a Virginia newspaper reporter in Washington during the October 1865 trial of Andersonville prison commander Henry Wirz.

The most famous Richmond diarist, Mary Chesnut, was a good friend of Littleton’s even before the war began. She mentions him frequently in her Diary from Dixie. She also gives hints of Littleton’s utter despair as the Confederacy collapses.

Washington never married. After the war, he returned to the District of Columbia, lived with his sister and continued his newspaper career, working as a correspondent for the National Intelligencer and the London Telegraph.

In 1875, he journeyed to England where he met with his former boss, Judah Benjamin, who had become a part of the British legal elite as a Queen’s Counsel. Littleton’s address book, which he purchased on London’s Strand, contains the addresses for both Benjamin’s law office—Lamb Building, Temple, London—and his club, Junior Atheneum Club, Piccadilly corner of Dover Street.

To the end of his long life, Littleton maintained a strong interest in Confederate affairs and, in 1888, joined the Association of the Army of Northern Virginia, a Southern veterans organization. He became one of those old soldiers who was promoted after the war, using the honorary Southern title of Colonel.

Littleton died in November 1902, one day after his seventy-seventh birthday, and his passing was reported in the New York Times. Following the example set by Judah Benjamin, he destroyed large quantities of his private papers just before his death. He is buried in the family plot at Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

The actual journal covers roughly four hundred pages. Littleton was erratic in making entries, sometimes writing once or twice a week and occasionally going months without recording his thoughts. Many of the more mundane and repetitive passages have been deleted or compressed in order to bring the manuscript down to a reasonable length and make it a more interesting read. Other editing has been kept to a minimum. Where missing words have been added, italics in parenthesis have been used. In place of a double s, Littleton often employs the old English fs. This can be a bit disconcerting until a reader gets used to it.

Littleton’s writing covers such a wide area and mentions so many people that the footnotes could easily be longer than the actual journal. Thus I have tried to add commentary only where especially necessary or particularly interesting. Mark Boatner’s Civil War Dictionary , the Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War and the Oxford Companion to American Military History were three of the standard reference sources used. The excellent Political Graveyard website was particularly helpful in tracking down some of the more obscure 19th century solons.

Two of Littleton’s present day family members, Christine Yost and her mother, Joyce B. Yost, deserve credit for bringing this document to light and allowing its publication. My dear wife, Carolyn, was particularly patient in listening to the tales of Littleton’s adventures. Thanks also go to Everett K. Cooper and David Turk.

It is ironic that throughout the journal Littleton Washington frequently mentions his desire to accomplish something great. Had he only used his writing skills to more fully document the events and personages that he so closely observed, he could have produced one of the greatest eyewitness accounts of Confederate Richmond. Nevertheless, despite its drawbacks, it is gratifying that Littleton’s previously unpublished journal is now available to add to our store of understanding of that most interesting era.

Douglas Lee Gibboney

January 2001

Fourteenth Street in Washington, D.C. In the distance can be seen the U.S. Treasury Building where Littleton worked. This Civil War era photo also shows army livestock grazing on the mall. (Massachusetts Commandery Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S. Army Military History Institute.)

Antebellum Washington

In 1852, when this journal opens, Littleton Quinton Washington was twenty-six years old and had been a United States government clerk for seven years. His desk was in the Treasury Building, which stood just east of the White House at 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue. These two buildings, along with the unfinished capitol, the post office, the patent office, the Naval Observatory and the Smithsonian Institute were the major public structures in the federal city. Construction of the Washington Monument was underway but would be halted due to a lack of funds in 1855 when the obelisk was only one-third complete.

Though the national government had been seated there since 1800, progress had been slow in making the swampy site a respectable capital. In 1842, English author Charles Dickens described a visit to Washington while on a tour of America: Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, miles long, that want only houses and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public, to be complete; ornaments of great thoroughfares, which lack only great thoroughfares to be ornament—are its leading features. One might fancy the season over, and most of the houses gone out of town forever with their masters.

Just ten years later, Littleton Washington would lament that his childhood haunts and playgrounds were being forever changed by new construction in the growing city. In 1850, the population of the District of Columbia was roughly 52,000; by 1870 it had increased to 132,00, transformed by the exigencies of the Civil War.

Being a native of the District of Columbia, Littleton Washington developed a natural interest in politics. Family connections gave him entrée into the best circles of society; at times, his journal reads like a who’s who of mid-nineteenth century America.

Not surprisingly, Littleton aspired to greater heights than a Treasury Department clerkship. He studied law books and his journal repeatedly refers to his hopes of becoming a lawyer, a goal that was never to be realized.

Hoping to gain a plum political appointment in the Kansas Territory, he mounted an impressive lobbying campaign and collected influential endorsements from around the country. However, President Franklin Pierce, a fellow Democrat, selected another candidate, citing Littleton’s place of birth as the reason. Littleton was neither the first nor the last Washingtonian to feel disenfranchised.

As an outlet for his strong political opinions, Littleton turned to writing occasional newspaper articles. Journalism in that era could be the equivalent of a literary brawl. Many newspapers were house organs for political parties and writers could hide their true identities under various pen names. Editors often found that their vigorous prose resulted in a challenge to meet an offended reader on the field of honor. Throughout the journal, Littleton is involved one way or another in a series of duels—though interestingly none of them actually results in bloodshed.

Of course, hot tempers were common in that last decade before the Southern states began to secede from the Union. The political parties strained to find compromises and candidates to paper over the country’s sectional differences but with little real success. By 1852, the slavery question had begun to destroy the Whig Party, allowing the Democrats to win the White House twice in a row. The American or Know Nothing Party was gaining support for its stand against Catholics and foreigners. The expansion of the country westward raised fundamental questions about how these territories would affect the balance of regional power as they sought statehood.

The nation was drifting closer and closer to a civil war that its leaders seemed unable to avoid.

Commencing 6th January 1852

Washington, D.C. April 4th 1852.

I have allowed three months to pass without writing in my Journal. In this time I have done but little which deserves to be recorded. I have gone out a great deal—to balls, parties, levees, receptions and to the Theatre. I have also done a good deal of private visiting. I have scarcely an evening at home except very recently. I attended all the Assembly balls, two at Brown’s Hotel, the receptions at Mr. Stuart’s & Mr. Graham’s, and most of the President’s levees. In all this I enjoyed myself but passably—better however than I anticipated.

My health has been tolerably good, though not so vigorous as it was last fall owing to the season, habits of being up late, and my not getting as much exercise as then. Now that the spring has come and the parties over, I expect it will improve. I have great cause to be thankful that I have been free from head-ache, sick stomach, depression which I suffered from so dreadfully last winter and spring. I have read but little, except newspapers and studied absolutely none. I am reading now an excellent work on the use of the Body in relation to the Mind by Geo. Moore.

As to office work, I did comparatively little in January and February. For three or four weeks I have worked tolerably well, and during the remainder of the month I expect to do a great deal of work. I have been to the Theatre eleven times this winter and spring.

Sunday, April 11, 1852

During the last week I have worked very vigorously at the office and despatched a good deal of business. At the present rate I shall soon get my desk into a good condition. I have had my health except on one day. I have read a good deal but chiefly newspapers.

I have become interested not a little in the Presidential contest. At present, Genl. Scott1 seems to have the greatest strength of any of the Whig candidates, and to have a much better chance for the nomination than either Mr. Fillmore2 or Mr.Webster.3

Among the Democrats, Buchanan,4 Cass5 and Douglas6 are the strongest; but so strong is the opposition to each other, that it is probable that they will all be thrown overboard, and a new man taken up. I think that Dickinson of New York is more likely to meet the conditions of such a nomination than any other man, but it may light upon Hunter7 of Va., Rusk of Texas, or Genl. Wool of N.Y. The objections to the latter would be his being in and of the Army and perhaps an affinity with the Van Buren clique of politicians. How the last may be I do not know, but from his letter on intervention and the opinion of good judges who know him personally, I believe him to be a man of thorough education, enlarged views, good judgment, and as well fitted for the office as it is possible a military man can be. Another compromise candidate, and an excellent one too, is Wm. R. King.8

May 9, 1852. Sunday

During the last week I have paid a few visits which were really due & have been to the Capitol & President’s grounds to hear the music, and also to the Navy Yard. Last evening I went down to the Smithsonian & read awhile in the Edinburgh Review for Jany. 1852.

At Church this morning I was struck with a passage from Mr. Payne’s sermon, which I quote from memory—Never look upon any man as wholly bad, but believe that there’s something good in every one. Do not feel towards any man as if there was a great gulf between you and him, but on the contrary a bond that unites. Act upon this sentiment & it will influence your whole conduct towards others, and often theirs toward you.

Tuesday, June 8, 1852

Well the Democratic Convention has at last taken up an outsider, or new man, but not the one I expected. Franklin Pierce9 of New Hampshire, a man who has been in public life a long time, but without giving evidence of any great talents or great statesmanship. He has respectable talents, but if the talented men of the country were called over perhaps a hundred would have been named first. This partly owing to his admitted modesty and retiring disposition. He is however an honest man, of great purity of private life, & integrity of character, and on the questions which divide the two parties a most thorough and consistent democrat. On the Slavery question I believe him to have been always opposed to abolition agitation. Between him & Scott, Fillmore or Webster I could not hesitate an instant.

But I regret much the nomination did not fall on Mr. Hunter of Va., who in my opinion, is better fitted for the office in every point of view than any other man in the party or the country. For sound principles, deep reasoning and thorough statesmanship, personal integrity, good sense, self control, and moderation of character he is not equalled by any one. His nomination would have taken place almost unanimously and spontaneously but for the jealousy & hate towards Virginia and the proscriptive spirit of the Union men who are determined that no one who opposed the so-called Compromise honors shall have anything from the country if they can prevent it.

I think Pierce will thoroughly unite the Democratic party and receive all their votes. They have a large majority, and hence he will probably be elected, even if the Whigs unite which just now is anything but certain. I think they will generally unite, but not thoroughly and entirely. With the Democratic column in front unbroken, the Whigs must of course be beaten. They are everywhere wretched and rotten, clinging to effete notions of a National Bank, distribution, protective duties, lavish expenditures, loose construction of the Constitution and an arbitrary high-handed government enforcing its edicts by the sword, if necessary and riding ruthlessly over states rights & sovereignty. The Democrats, at least, are sound on the currency, tariff & distribution questions. Any opposition to lavish expenditures and debt, and corrupting internal improvements, and the damnable doctrine of State coercion is to be found in their ranks.

But on the Slavery question both are rotten. The Northern portion of the Whig party is essentially Abolition and the Southern portion will submit to almost any degradation for the sake of the Union. To them the surrender of 185010 is a glorious and honorable measure, and the Southern men who resisted are traitors. The Democratic party at the North chiefly, and partly at the South is composed of men who echo the cant of our glorious Union and chant paeans to the Compromise as its panacea.

I feel little enthusiasm about the nomination. I rather want to see the Whigs beaten than to see the Democrats triumph. Consequently, I ought to abstract myself as much as possible from the canvass, attend few meetings, read few newspapers and avoid anything like a deep interest in the contest. If I get a good offer from the Templeton I will go to the South West, and enhance any other opportunity that offers. If not then, I ought to devote myself to the Study of law so that I can when qualified emigrate to Texas or some other southwestern state. If the Whigs come in and turn me out, I can do better of course with even a partial knowledge of law. If Pierce is elected (as I doubt not he will) I can get a promotion in the Treasury Department or perhaps some post in the South West. So, in every view of the case, it behooves me to go to work at once and vigorously.

Tuesday June 15 ‘52

Yesterday morning I was attacked very early with cholera morbus from eating a dozen cherries at dinner the day before. I suffered very much until 2 o’clock when I got relief from a culomel & opium pill prescribed by Dr. Garnett. I am now much better though somewhat weak from the pain I have been in, together with the want of food & the effect of the medicine.

Things now look as if Scott would get the Whig nomination & a serious bolt ensue. No matter whom the Whigs may nominate, I think Pierce will get an easy victory. Such now is the appearance of the subject, and I don’t see how things are to be changed during the canvass. The Democratic party are not only united upon Pierce, but enthusiastic in his support everywhere. He has no ugly holes in his character to be picked & pecked at—no old sins to be brought up. Every section of a party having a majority of more than 100,000 is united in his support and they enter upon the contest with perfect self respect, which is a good deal more than can be said for the Scott party.

June 23, 1852 Wednesday

I have derived great benefit from a moderate use of the Port wine I bought on Saturday. I have had a good deal of vigor and cheerfulness this week so far, and have done a great deal of work at the office. I suppose I shall be able to finish up my a/cs by the 9t or 10t of next month—so as to leave then for Old Point11 (if I can get Mr. Rockwell’s permission for he may arbitrarily and capriciously refuse it.)

Both parties have entered the field with their candidates now, and substantially occupy the same position upon the slavery question so far as the platforms are concerned. Both propose to maintain the so-called Compromise measures. But here the resemblance fails. The Whig candidate was nominated by a Sectional vote nearly, was brought forward from the first by Seward12 & Co., backed by the Free Soil presses, and has walked so far by their counsels. No doubt exists that if President they would use him as they did Taylor to their purposes. Certain it is that Seward, Johnson, Greeley13 & Co. have gone for Scott as the best political move open to them, and probably they know what they are about.

On the other hand the Southern Whigs distrusted him from the first, and asked a pledge of his intentions to support the compromise, which he refused to give prior to the action of the Whig Convention, although he found time & occasion to write a letter to catch the foreign vote. Pierce, on the other hand, has been everywhere the resolute champion of the rights of the South under the Constitution, and has with undeviating consistency made war upon the abolitionists & free soilers. He has never tampered with the demon of fanaticism, and his nomination was the impromptu & spontaneous tribute of a party to his republican principals, personal merit, and tried integrity. Virginia set the ball in motion on the one hand, sustained by the South & North alike.

The Scott movement began with Seward & Johnson, and was finally carried by a Sectional vote aided by 14 Southern traitors—ready to barter the rights of their Section for Office. Scott is an emancipationist at heart, as appears from his published letters, and is a Federalist in all his principles & feeling, with the addition of a vain, arbitrary, suspicious, tyrannical nature, and narrow intellect & other ignorance of political questions, to make him completely fitted for any act of folly or wickedness within the compass of a President’s power. Yet he is a great general, perhaps the greatest living, or equal to Wellington. Certainly he is inferior to none other, and his battles and campaigns will stand out from the pages of history.

The people of this & every country are greatly swayed by an enthusiasm for military renown. Five times has a military candidate been before the people. Four times successful, & once in the case of Jackson (in his first candidacy) receiving the highest electoral vote, but defeated by a bargain in the House. So the fact is without doubt that a military candidate has great power with the people, and it is this consideration alone that renders the contest uncertain, although I think the probabilities are strongly in favor of Pierce.

(Here Washington lists his breakdown of the probable state electoral vote with 38 for Scott, 139 for Pierce and 119 doubtful out of 149 votes needed to win.)

I have a large doubtful list to comment on. Ohio I think very probable for Pierce. Cass beat Taylor 16000 votes; and the last election showed a majority