Replies

Rutherford B. Hayes to Sardis Birchard, May 23, 1861 (“if the dispatches of this morning are correct, that the Government already has two hundred and twenty thousand men, and will accept no more, the question is settled.”)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/05/rutherford-b-hayes-to-sardis-birchard_31.html

Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood to the House of Representatives of the State of Iowa, May 23, 1861 (On clothing for the Iowa troops.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/governor-samuel-j-kirkwood-to-house-of.html

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 23, 1861 (At a formal dinner at the home of a New Orleans railroad president, one of the attending slaves is pointed out to Howard as a son of Andrew Jackson.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/07/diary-of-william-howard-russell-may-23.html

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 23, 1861 (On a possible attack on Ft. Pickens, the inevitability of death in war, and the expected secession of MO and KY.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/01/diary-of-john-beauchamp-jones-may-23.html

Charlotte Cross Wigfall to Louise Wigfall, May 23, 1861 (“. . . Congress has adjourned to meet in Richmond on the 20th July. The President has begged your father to act on his staff. . . .”)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/07/charlotte-cross-wigfall-to-louise_60.html

One of the slave servants who waited at table, an intelligent yellow “boy,” was pointed out to me as a son of General Andrew Jackson.

Unlikely, but who knows?

None of the Southern gentlemen have the smallest apprehension of a servile insurrection. They use the univeral formula “our negroes are the happiest, most contented, and most comfortable people on the face of the earth.” I admit I have been struck by well-clad and good-humored negroes in the streets, but they are in the minority; many look morose, ill-clad, and discontented. The patrols I know have been strengthened, and I heard a young lady the other night, say, “I shall not be a bit afraid to go back to the plantation, though mamma says the negroes are after mischief.”

People have so many things in their heads that it's hard to conclude that slaveowners weren't worried about uprisings, or that they were obsessed by the fear of their slaves. Probably they were aware of the possibility, but didn't consider it anything like a certainty.