The Cor­re­spon­dent, William Rus­sell, found him­self increas­ing­ly skep­ti­cal about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of restor­ing the Union dur­ing his April 3 meet­ing with South­ern com­mis­sion­ers Mar­tin Craw­ford and John Forsyth. As he not­ed in his diary, the com­mis­sion­ers con­veyed an air of enti­tle­ment, believ­ing they were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a for­eign nation engaged in nego­ti­a­tions with “Yan­kee­dom.” Their indig­na­tion was pal­pa­ble, as they expressed frus­tra­tion over the government’s refusal to engage with them on mat­ters relat­ing to their desire for sep­a­ra­tion. This encounter prompt­ed Rus­sell to ques­tion the via­bil­i­ty of reuni­fi­ca­tion, as the com­mis­sion­ers seemed ful­ly con­vinced of the legit­i­ma­cy of their cause and the sep­a­ra­tion of the South­ern states from the Union. Their belief in their own moral high ground seemed firm­ly entrenched, leav­ing Rus­sell with doubts about whether any peace­ful rec­on­cil­i­a­tion was pos­si­ble.

Just two days lat­er, Rus­sell met with the three com­mis­sion­ers, includ­ing André Roman from Louisiana, and oth­er seces­sion­ist fig­ures like Colonel George E. Pick­ett. They dined togeth­er at Gautier’s, a renowned French restau­rant famous for its extrav­a­gant dis­plays, such as a large cake at Christ­mas. Dur­ing the meal, Rus­sell observed the deep ani­mos­i­ty the South­ern fig­ures har­bored toward Pres­i­dent Lin­coln and North­ern politi­cians. The con­ver­sa­tion revealed intense hatred toward New Eng­land, with the South­ern com­mis­sion­ers speak­ing harsh­ly about the region and its peo­ple. Rus­sell not­ed that their anger seemed dis­pro­por­tion­ate, pos­si­bly fueled by the region’s deeply entrenched soci­etal struc­tures, includ­ing the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery. As they dis­cussed mat­ters of hon­or, their staunch defense of duel­ing was par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing, with them also claim­ing that North­ern men were cow­ard­ly. They point­ed to the 1856 can­ing of Sen­a­tor Charles Sum­n­er as evi­dence, over­sim­pli­fy­ing the inci­dent and blam­ing Sum­n­er for not engag­ing in a duel, ignor­ing the com­plex­i­ties sur­round­ing the event.

The con­ver­sa­tion took a trou­bling turn when slav­ery was dis­cussed, with the South­ern com­mis­sion­ers assert­ing ideas that Rus­sell found dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend. They claimed that white men in slave states were phys­i­cal­ly supe­ri­or to their coun­ter­parts in free states, weav­ing togeth­er pecu­liar moral and phys­i­cal the­o­ries that left Rus­sell per­plexed. He observed that while South­ern­ers fre­quent­ly trav­eled North, many North­ern­ers avoid­ed the South due to safe­ty con­cerns. This con­trast in atti­tudes revealed a dis­con­nect between the two regions and fur­ther solid­i­fied Rus­sel­l’s belief that the deep divi­sions between the North and South could not be eas­i­ly bridged. His inter­ac­tions with the South­ern fig­ures paint­ed a stark pic­ture of the ide­o­log­i­cal chasm sep­a­rat­ing the two sides. Their views on race, hon­or, and the moral jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for slav­ery cre­at­ed an envi­ron­ment in which dia­logue seemed futile, and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion appeared increas­ing­ly unlike­ly.

Rus­sel­l’s grow­ing con­cerns were com­pound­ed by his obser­va­tions of William Seward, who seemed to have a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion. Seward, the Sec­re­tary of State, con­sid­ered the South­ern­ers to be out­dat­ed and back­ward, yet he had nev­er even vis­it­ed the South to under­stand its peo­ple and cul­ture first­hand. Seward’s belief that seces­sion could be peace­ful­ly resolved was in stark con­trast to Russell’s first­hand expe­ri­ences with the South­ern com­mis­sion­ers. Seward’s view that the South­ern states would even­tu­al­ly return to the Union once they real­ized the North’s inten­tions were benign was naïve in Russell’s eyes. This naive opti­mism, espe­cial­ly com­ing from such a high-rank­ing offi­cial, left Rus­sell with lit­tle con­fi­dence in the North’s abil­i­ty to han­dle the seces­sion cri­sis effec­tive­ly. It was clear to Rus­sell that the South’s com­mit­ment to its cause was far stronger than Seward had antic­i­pat­ed, and the North’s strate­gies would need to shift dra­mat­i­cal­ly if rec­on­cil­i­a­tion were to be achieved.

Rus­sell, now ful­ly aware of the grow­ing ten­sions between the North and South, felt com­pelled to wit­ness the sit­u­a­tion first­hand in Charleston. He planned a trip to the South to assess the sit­u­a­tion more close­ly, believ­ing that first­hand expe­ri­ence would give him a clear­er under­stand­ing of the esca­lat­ing con­flict. Despite feel­ing a sense of urgency, Rus­sell delayed his depar­ture from Wash­ing­ton for six days, per­haps unsure of what he would find or feel­ing hes­i­tant to immerse him­self fur­ther in a sit­u­a­tion that seemed increas­ing­ly volatile. How­ev­er, the delays only height­ened his sense of fore­bod­ing, as the polit­i­cal and social dynam­ics he observed from his inter­ac­tions in Wash­ing­ton and with the South­ern com­mis­sion­ers sug­gest­ed that the nation was on the brink of a larg­er, unavoid­able con­flict. With grow­ing appre­hen­sion, Rus­sell knew that the time for action was approach­ing, and the fate of the Union hung in the bal­ance.