Rus­sell, of the Times, arrived in New York City on March 17, eager to observe the con­trasts that the city pre­sent­ed. As he walked through the bustling streets, he was struck by the sight of forty or fifty Irish­men in green sash­es march­ing towards mass, a sharp con­trast to the more fash­ion­able attire of domes­tics and free Blacks that he saw around him. The streets were crowd­ed with peo­ple, and though there was much activ­i­ty, the rem­nants of win­ter were still clear to see—dirty snow and slush cov­ered Broad­way, a stark reminder of the harsh weath­er that had recent­ly passed. How­ev­er, it was the pres­ence of chew­ing tobac­co residue that par­tic­u­lar­ly caught his atten­tion. This unsight­ly habit, which he found deeply dis­taste­ful, seemed to per­me­ate the pub­lic spaces he vis­it­ed, includ­ing ele­gant hotels. Rus­sell was remind­ed of Charles Dick­ens’ obser­va­tions from two decades ear­li­er, and was sur­prised to find that the habit had not only per­sist­ed but remained a defin­ing part of the pub­lic scene in New York, even in areas that prid­ed them­selves on their refine­ment.

In his role as a cor­re­spon­dent, Rus­sell quick­ly made con­nec­tions with influ­en­tial fig­ures in New York, where he was soon engaged in con­ver­sa­tions about the seces­sion cri­sis. Despite being in the North, Rus­sell dis­cov­ered a sig­nif­i­cant under­cur­rent of pro-South sen­ti­ment with­in the city. The city’s econ­o­my, heav­i­ly inter­twined with the South­ern plan­ta­tions, cre­at­ed a strong busi­ness rela­tion­ship between the two regions, and this had fos­tered a degree of sym­pa­thy for the South. Dur­ing a din­ner with local elites, a for­mer gov­er­nor declared that seces­sion was a right that could not be denied, while oth­ers open­ly sup­port­ed the South in its oppo­si­tion to Lincoln’s gov­ern­ment. This was a star­tling real­iza­tion for Rus­sell, as he had assumed that the North would be firm­ly against any notion of seces­sion. He observed that the admin­is­tra­tion in Wash­ing­ton seemed to be drift­ing with­out a clear plan of action, strug­gling to match the South’s deci­sive­ness. This left Rus­sell with the impres­sion that Lin­col­n’s gov­ern­ment was unpre­pared for the actions already tak­ing place in the South, prompt­ing him to plan a trip south to bet­ter under­stand the sit­u­a­tion.

Rus­sel­l’s jour­ney from New York to Wash­ing­ton on March 25 was far from com­fort­able. As he nav­i­gat­ed the poor­ly main­tained city streets to reach his crowd­ed train, he could not shake the dis­com­fort of the trip. When he final­ly arrived in Wash­ing­ton, he was imme­di­ate­ly struck by the bustling nature of the Willard Hotel, a polit­i­cal hub where the ener­gy was tense and pal­pa­ble. The polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing that seemed to dom­i­nate the city made him acute­ly aware of the pre­car­i­ous­ness of the nation­al sit­u­a­tion. Dur­ing his stay, he dined with Hen­ry S. San­ford and had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with William Seward, the Sec­re­tary of State, whose views on the seces­sion cri­sis only deep­ened Russell’s con­cerns. Seward’s dis­mis­sive atti­tude towards the seri­ous­ness of the South’s actions stood in stark con­trast to the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion Rus­sell had just wit­nessed in New York. His con­de­scend­ing remarks about the South’s cul­ture and social stand­ing indi­cat­ed a sig­nif­i­cant dis­con­nect between the lead­er­ship in Wash­ing­ton and the grow­ing unrest in the South­ern states.

Seward’s opti­mism, while per­haps intend­ed to reas­sure, seemed com­plete­ly out of touch with the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Rus­sell quick­ly real­ized that the pri­ma­ry issue at the heart of the seces­sion cri­sis was slav­ery, a “curse” that tied the South to an out­dat­ed and moral­ly ques­tion­able sys­tem. Seward, it seemed, was blind to the deep­en­ing con­flict, instead focus­ing on the hope that the sit­u­a­tion would resolve itself with­out blood­shed. This con­ver­sa­tion revealed how inef­fec­tive the Lin­coln admin­is­tra­tion had become in address­ing the cri­sis, and Rus­sell began to under­stand just how frag­ile the Union was. The North was far removed from the real­i­ties of South­ern griev­ances and the stark polit­i­cal real­i­ties dri­ving seces­sion. This dis­cus­sion under­scored the dif­fi­cul­ty in bridg­ing the widen­ing gap between the two regions and empha­sized the grow­ing ten­sions that could not be ignored. Russell’s vis­it to Wash­ing­ton, with its inter­ac­tions and rev­e­la­tions, would help him pre­pare for the chal­lenges ahead, espe­cial­ly his antic­i­pat­ed meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Lin­coln. It became increas­ing­ly clear that the Lin­coln admin­is­tra­tion, though well-mean­ing, was strug­gling to take the deci­sive action nec­es­sary to pre­serve the Union, and that the coun­try was edg­ing clos­er to the brink of war.