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April 16. A fine storm of wind and rain all day. The conversion of the New York Herald is complete. It rejoices that rebellion is to be put d own and is delighted with Civil War, because it will so stimulate the business of New York, and all this is what “we” (the Herald, to wit) have been vainly preaching for months. The impudence of old J. G. Bennett’s is too vast to be appreciated at once. You must look at it and meditate over it for some time (as at Niagara and St. Peter’s) before you can take in its immensity. His capitulation is set-off against the loss of Sumter. He’s a discreditable ally for the North, but when you see a rat leaving the enemy’s ship for your own, you overlook the offensiveness of the vermin for the sake of what is movement indicates. This brazen old scoundrel was hooted up Fulton Street yesterday afternoon by a mob, and the police interfered to prevent it from sacking his printing office. Though converted, one can hardly call him penitent. St. Paul did not call himself the Chief of the Apostles and brag of having been a Christian from the first.
This and other papers say the new war policy will strangle secession in the Border States. But it seems to me that every indication from Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere points the other way. No news from Slave-ownia today, but most gladdening reports from North, West, and East of unanimity and resolution and earnestness. We are aroused at last, and I trust we shall not relapse into apathy. Ellie indisposed again. I begin to be seriously uneasy about the constantly recurring attacks of slight illness – headaches and the like – that have visited her of late…
Thence to New York Club. Our talk was of war. Subscribed to a fund for equipment of the Twelfth Regiment and put down my name for a projected Rifle Corps, but I fear my near-sightedness is a grave objection to my adopting that arm. I hear that Major Burnside has surrendered his treasurership of the Illinois Central Railroad and posted down to Rhode Island to assume command of volunteers from that state. Telegram that 2,500 Massachusetts volunteers are quartered in Faneuil Hall, awaiting orders.
GOD SAVE THE UNION, AND CONFOUND ITS ENEMIES. AMEN.
