July 17, 1862

July 17, 1862: The Richmond Daily Dispatch, on this date, quotes part of an editorial from the London Times, which calls for British intervention in the American war, since the lack of cotton in this season is causing great damage to British industries:

How long, then, are England and France to tolerate a war waged, utterly in vain, for an object whose attainment would confer no benefit on those who seek it, and would be an unmarred misfortune to the rest of the world? How long are we to suffer, while the North strains its powers to the uttermost to restore a Union, which, while it existed, was the common enemy of Europe, and, to an especial sense, the enemy of England? . . . If the cause of the North were a good or a holy one, England might be content to suffer long and severely for conscience sake; but we are not willing to see our countrymen starve that Northern lust of empire may be gratified by the sacrifice of Southern freedom, or that Massachusetts may grow rich on subsidies wrung by a protective tariff from Georgia and Alabama. It is time that some decided action should be taken by France and England on behalf of justice and humanity, as well as foe [sic] the protection of their half ruined manufacturers and hungry operatives. Such action must be taken at last; . . . and if we are to act after all, it is a saving of needless misery to act at once, with gentleness and courtesy, but with immovable firmness of purpose. The war in America, the cotton famine in Europe, must be terminated; when this resolution is once announced by the two great Powers, neither the patient sufferers here nor the exhausted combatants beyond the Atlantic will have long to wait for relief.

—Pres. Lincoln accepts a meeting with a Committee of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, whose members present a resolution on Slavery, proposing immediate abolition. In his answer, the President offers his response:

Had Slavery no existence among us, and were the question asked shall we adopt such an institution? we should agree as to the reply which should be made. If there be any diversity in our views it is not as to whether we should receive Slavery when free from it, but as to how we may best get rid of it already amongst us. Were an individual asked whether he would wish to have a wen on his neck, he could not hesitate as to the reply; but were it asked whether a man who has such a wen should at once be relieved of it by the application of the surgeon's knife, there might be diversity of opinion, perhaps the man might bleed to death, as the result of such an operation.
Feeling deeply my responsibility to my country and to that God to whom we all owe allegiance, I assure you I will try to do my best, and so may God help me.'

—On this date, significantly, Lincoln signs into law the Second Confiscation Act, which provides freedom for slaves confiscated from owners who are in rebellion against the United States.

—Gen. Ambrose Burnside and 7,000 of his troops from coastal North Carolina arrive at Newport News, Virginia, intended as reinforcements to McClellan.

—George Templeton Strong of New York City writes in his journal of an Army friend who has been serving on McClellan’s staff:

Lawrence Williams denounces the Administration, Stanton especially, with plainness of speech that does not altogether become a major in the United States Army. He shudders at abolitionists as hydrophobic patients at the sound of falling water. But it is remarkable that his estimate of Lincoln has changed. He doesn’t call Lincoln a "gorilla ape" as he did last winter, but relies on him as the only honest and patriotic man in the Administration. Perhaps he is not so far wrong.

—Near Georgetown, Kentucky, Maj. R. M. Gano and an advance detachment of Morgan’s raiders arrive at Breadalbane, the plantation of the Reverend Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, the uncle of John Cabell Breckinridge, former Vice President of the United States and U.S. Senator, and currently a general in the Confederate States Army. In fact, the Reverend is a Unionist and abolitionist, unlike his nephew or his son William, who rides off the enlist with Morgan and serve the Confederacy. Morgan’s troopers cause some panic at the farm, but leave it unharmed.