Mr. Washburn to Mr. Seward
Sir: Your despatch of October 23d, 1866, No. 56d, was received by me yesterday. In this despatch you inform me that the President does not clearly understand the difficulties which I have presented in regard to my reaching Paraguay, and from your subsequent remarks and instructions I infer that my previous despatches had left the impression that I had not made due diligence in getting through to this country, and had allowed myself to be detained on points of ceremony or etiquette, after all opposition to my passing through had ceased on the part of the allies. In my own vindication I am compelled again to recapitulate the facts, and show that the opposition never did cease till my arrival on the United States steamer Shamokin at the Tres Bocas, and Admiral Tamandare came on board, when he was told by Captain Crosby he should pass the blockade unless stopped by force.
My despatches written at the time have fully recounted all the annoyances and difficulties 1 experienced in my five months’ detention at Corrientes. How that I several times visited the camp of the commander-in-chief and offered to go through in any way that I could get through. I would go alone, leaving my family in Corrientes, crowded as it was with sick and wounded. I would go on horseback or in a small boat or in any way that I could reach my post of duty. But I was kept there without receiving a definite answer for five months, and at last when I wrote a protest to President Mitre, I received for answer that they bad a perfect right to detain me, a right explicitly conceded by Admiral Godon. The same day that I received this letter from President Mitre your despatch directing me to apply to the admiral for a war vessel to take me to Asuncion if the allies should still persist in refusing me the facilities for a passage, came to hand. I immediately returned to Buenos Ayres, and on my arrival there I found that some days previously the substance of your despatch and of the orders of the Secretary of the Navy to the admiral had been published in the English newspaper there. How this information was obtained I know not. It certainly was not and could not have been from me. From there I wrote to the admiral and requested a vessel from the squadron. After a long delay I got an answer, in which, under the circumstances, he declined to order it. In the meanwhile I received a letter from General Webb telling me that the Brazilian government had agreed that no further opposition to my passage should be made. This, however, gave me no means of reaching Paraguay. Had I attempted it without waiting for the gunboat, I must have again returned to the headquarters of the allies armed with a similar letter to President Mitre as I had had before, and which he did not respect. I believed then, and believe now, that if I had started off on anything but a national war vessel I should not have got through.
Shortly after sending his letter refusing to order the gunboat, the admiral [Page 716] seems to have changed his mind, for he sent the necessary orders for the Shamokin to take me up the river, and as soon as it was ready I started. But it was only when she was lying in the harbor, her coals and provisions for the trip on hoard, that the Argentine government informed me that I could go on a vessel of the allies. Under the circumstances I did not then think it consistent with the national dignity to accept it, and so I started off in the Shamokin on the 24th of October last.
I had been advised by General Webb that all opposition to my passage had been withdrawn by the Brazilian government, but when we arrived at the squadron, Admiral Tamandaré said that he had never heard of it. His orders were imperative to stop any and everybody, and he had received no orders from his government to make an exception in my favor. And yet, as appears in the correspondence between General Webb and Mr. do Amaral, Admiral Godon purposely deferred sending his orders for the gunboat to go up, so that instructions might be sent in advance to the officials in the river Plata. But the Brazilian admiral told us on our arrival that no instructions whatever had been received, and that the Shamokin could not pass the blockade, but offered to Bend me on a Brazilian steamer through to the Paraguay lines. I told him it was too late for that—that six months before I would have gladly gone in a whale-boat, but that since our government had been obliged to send a national vessel, with orders to take me to Paraguay, those orders would be obeyed unless force were employed to prevent it. After that no further objection was made, and we passed the squadron and went up under the guns of Ourupaiti, where we disembarked, the torpedoes in the river rendering it unsafe to venture any higher with the vessel.
If this statement shall be found satisfactory I shall be glad to be so advised; and if not, I trust I may be informed in what particular I should have done differently. The position has been one of great difficulty, great embarrassment, and, as far as I know, without precedent. It has subjected me to very great expense, and which individually I cannot well bear. If it has been through any fault of mine, I nevertheless will quietly submit; but if it has been through the illegal and discourteous conduct of others, then I think I may justly expect that the wrong-doers and not the wrong-sufferers may be held to the responsibility.
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.