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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29264-8.txt b/29264-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a925013 --- /dev/null +++ b/29264-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9089 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Diary from November 12, 1862, to October +18, 1863, by Adam Gurowski + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 + +Author: Adam Gurowski + +Release Date: June 28, 2009 [EBook #29264] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. +Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all +other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling +has been maintained. + +Page 94: The word "of" has been added in "If the Army of the Potomac".] + + + + +DIARY, + +FROM + +NOVEMBER 18, 1862, TO OCTOBER 18, 1863. + + +BY + +ADAM GUROWSKI. + + + + +VOLUME SECOND. + + + + +NEW-YORK: + +_Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway._ + +MDCCCLXIV. + + + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, + +By GEO. W. CARLETON, + +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern +District of New York. + + + + +Of all the peoples known in history, the American people most +readily forgets YESTERDAY; + +I publish this DIARY in order to recall YESTERDAY to the memory of +my countrymen. + + GUROWSKI. + +WASHINGTON, October, 1863. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + NOVEMBER, 1862. 11 + +Secretary Chase -- French Mediation -- The Decembriseur -- +Diplomatic Bendings. + + + DECEMBER, 1862. 22 + +President's Message -- Political Position -- Fredericksburgh -- Fog +-- Accident -- Crisis in the Cabinet -- Secretary Chase -- Burnside +-- Halleck -- The Butchers -- The Lickspittle Republican Press -- +War Committee Patriots -- Youth -- People -- Ring out. + + + JANUARY, 1863. 61 + +Proclamation -- Parade -- Halleck -- Diplomats -- Herodians -- +Inspired Men -- War Powers -- Rosecrans -- Butler -- Seward -- +Doctores Constitutionis -- Hogarth -- Rhetors -- European Enemies -- +Second Sight -- Senator Wright, the Patriot -- Populus Romanus -- +Future Historian -- English People -- Gen. Mitchel -- Hooker in +Command -- Staffs -- Arming Africo-Americans -- Thurlow Weed, &c. + + + FEBRUARY, 1863. 119 + +The Problems before the People -- The Circassian -- Department of +State and International Laws -- Foresight -- Patriot Stanton and the +Rats -- Honest Conventions -- Sanitary Commission -- Harper's Ferry +-- John Brown -- The Yellow Book -- The Republican Party -- Epitaph +-- Prize Courts -- Suum cuique -- Academy of Sciences -- Democratic +Rank and File, etc. + + + MARCH, 1863. 159 + +Press -- Ethics -- President's Powers -- Seward's Manifestoes -- +Cavalry -- Letters of Marque -- Halleck -- Sigel -- Fighting -- +McDowell -- Schalk -- Hooker -- Etat Major-General -- Gold -- Cloaca +Maxima -- Alliance -- Burnside -- Halleckiana -- Had we but +Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. + + + APRIL, 1863. 182 + +Lord Lyons -- Blue Book -- Diplomats -- Butler -- Franklin -- +Bancroft -- Homunculi -- Fetishism -- Committee on the Conduct of +the War -- Non-intercourse -- Peterhoff -- Sultan's Firman -- Seward +-- Halleck -- Race -- Capua -- Feint -- Letter-writing -- England -- +Russia -- American Revolution -- Renovation -- Women -- Monroe +Doctrine, etc. + + + MAY, 1863. 215 + +Advance -- Crossing -- Chancellorsville -- Hooker -- Staff -- Lee -- +Jackson -- Stunned -- Suggestions -- Meade -- Swinton -- La Fayette +-- Happy Grant -- Rosecrans -- Halleck -- Foote -- Elections -- +Re-elections -- Tracks -- Seward -- 413, etc. + + + JUNE, 1863. 238 + +Banks -- "The Enemy Crippled" -- Count Zeppelin -- Hooker -- Stanton +-- "Give Him a Chance" -- Mr. Lincoln's Looks -- Rappahannock -- +Slaughter -- North Invaded -- "To be Stirred up" -- Blasphemous +Curtin -- Banquetting -- Groping -- Retaliation -- Foote -- Hooker +-- Seward -- Panama -- Chase -- Relieved -- Meade -- Nobody's Fault +-- Staffs, etc. + + + JULY, 1863. 257 + +Eneas -- Anchises -- General Warren -- Aldie -- General Pleasanton +-- Superior Mettle -- Gettysburgh -- Cholera Morbus -- Vicksburgh -- +Army of Heroes -- Apotheosis -- "Not Name the Generals" -- Indian +Warfare -- Politicians -- Spittoons -- Riots -- Council of War -- +Lords and Lordlings -- Williamsport -- Shame -- Wadsworth -- "To +meet the Empress Eugénie," etc. + + + AUGUST, 1863. 286 + +Stanton -- Twenty Thousand -- Canadians -- Peterhoff -- Coffey -- +Initiation -- Electioneering -- Reports -- Grant -- McClellan -- +Belligerent Rights -- Menagerie -- Watson -- Jury -- Democrats -- +Bristles -- "Where is Stanton?" -- "Fight the Monster" -- Chasiana +-- Luminaries -- Ballistic -- Political Economy, etc. + + + SEPTEMBER, 1863. 310 + +Jeff Davis -- Incubuerunt -- O, Youth! -- Lucubrations -- Genuine +Europe -- It is Forgotten -- Fremont -- Prof. Draper -- New Yorkers +-- Senator Sumner's Gauntlet -- Prince Gortschakoff -- Governor +Andrew -- New Englanders -- Re-elections -- Loyalty -- Cruizers -- +Matamoras -- Hurrah for Lincoln -- Rosecrans -- Strategy -- Sabine +Pass, etc. + + + OCTOBER, 1863. 338 + +Aghast -- Firing -- Supported -- Russian Fleet -- Opposition -- Amor +scelerated -- Cautious -- Mastiffs -- _Grande Guerre_ -- Manoeuvring +-- Tambour battant -- Warning, etc. + + + + +DIARY. + + + + +NOVEMBER, 1862. + + Secretary Chase -- French Mediation -- the Decembriseur -- + Diplomatic Bendings. + + +_November 18._--In the street a soldier offered to sell me the pay +already several months overdue to him. As I could not help him, as +gladly I would have done, being poor, he sold it to a curb-stone +broker, a street note-shaver. I need not say that the poor soldier +sustained a loss of twenty-five per cent. by the operation! He +wanted to send the money home to his poor wife and children; yet one +fourth of it was thus given into the hands of a stay-at-home +speculator. Alas, for me! I could not save the poor fellow from the +remorseless shaver, but I could and did join him in a very energetic +cursing of Chase, that at once pompous and passive patriot. + +This induced me to enter upon a further and more particular +investigation, and I found that hundreds of similar cases were of +almost daily occurrence; and that this cheating of the soldiers out +of their nobly and patriotically earned pay, may quite fairly be +denounced as rather the rule than as the exception. The army is +unpaid! Unspeakable infamy! Before,--long before the intellectually +poor occupant of the White House, long before _any_ civil employé, +big or little, the ARMY ought to be paid. Common humanity, common +sense, and sound policy affirm this; and common decency, to say +nothing about chivalric feelings, adds that when paymasters are sent +to the army at all, their first payments should be made to the rank +and file; the generals and their subordinate officers to be paid, +not before, but afterwards. Oh! for the Congress, for the Congress +to meet once again! My hope is in the Congress, to resist, and +sternly put an end to, such heaven-defying and man-torturing +injustice as now braves the curses of outraged men, and the anger of +God. How this pompous Chase disappoints every one, even those who at +first were inclined to be even weakly credulous and hopeful of his +official career. And why is Stanton silent? He ought to roar. As for +Lincoln--he, ah! * * * * The curses of all the books of all the +prophets be upon the culprits who have thus compelled our gallant +and patriotic soldiery to mingle their tears with their own blood +and the blood of the enemy! + +_Nov. 18._--Again Seward assures Lord Lyons that the national +troubles will soon be over, and that the general affairs of the +country "stand where he wanted them." Seward's crew circulate in the +most positive terms, that the country will be pacified by the State +Department! England, moved by the State papers and official +notes--England, officially and non-officially, will stop the +iron-clads, built and launched in English ports and harbors for the +use of the rebels, and for the annoyance and injury of the United +States. England, these Americans say, England, no doubt, has said +some hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherous +actions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influence of +Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly +irresistible. How the wily Palmerston must chuckle in Downing +Street. + +The difference between Seward and a real statesman, is this: that a +statesman is always, and very wisely, chary about committing himself +in writing, and only does it when compelled by absolutely +irresistible circumstances, or by temptations brilliant enough to +overrule all other considerations; for, such a statesman never for +one moment forgets or disregards the old adage which saith that +"_Verba volant, scripta manent_." But Seward, on the contrary, +literally revels in a flood of ink, and fancies that the more he +writes, the greater statesman he becomes. + +At the beginning of this month, I wrote to the French minister, M. +Mercier, a friendly and respectful note, warning him against +meddling with politicians and busybodies. I told him that, before he +could even suspect it, such men would bring his name before the +public in a way neither pleasant nor profitable to him. M. Mercier +took it in good part, and cordially thanked me for my advice. + +_Nov. 19._--Burnside means well, and has a good heart; but something +more is required to make a capable captain, more especially in such +times as those in which we are living. It is said that his staff is +well organized; God be praised for that, if it really is so. In that +case, Burnside will be the first among the loudly-lauded and +self-conceited West-Point men, forcibly to impress both the military +and the civilian mind in America, with a wholesome consciousness of +the paramount importance to an army of a thoroughly competent and +trustworthy staff. + +The division of the army into three grand corps is good; it is at +once wise and well-timed, following the example set by Napoleon, +when he invaded Russia in 1812. If his subordinate generals will but +do well, I have entire confidence in Hooker. He is the man for the +time and for the place. As a fighting man, Sumner is fully and +unquestionably reliable; but I have my doubts about Franklin. He is +cold, calculating, and ambitious, and he has the especially bad +quality of being addicted to the alternate blowing of hot and cold. +Burnside did a good thing in confiding to General Siegel a separate +command. + +The _New York Times_ begins to mend its bad ways; but how long will +it continue in the better path? + +_Nov. 20._--England stirs up and backs up rebellion and disunion +here; but, in Europe, for the sake of the unity of barbarism, +Islamism, and Turkey, England throttles, and manacles, and lays +prostrate beneath the feet of the Osmanli, the Greeks, the Sclavi, +the heroic Montenegrins. England is the very incarnation of a +treachery and a perfidy previously unexampled in the history of the +world. The _Punica fides_, so fiercely denounced and so bitterly +satirized by the historians and poets of old Rome, was truthful if +compared to the _Fides Anglica_ of our own day. + +_Nov. 22._--Our army seems to be massed so as to be able to wedge +itself in between Jackson in the valley and Lee at Gordonsville. By +a bold manoeuvre, each of them could be separately attacked, and, I +firmly believe, destroyed. But, unfortunately, boldness and +manoeuvre, that highest gift, that supreme inspiration of the +consummate captain, have no abiding place in the bemuddled brains of +the West-Pointers, who are a dead weight and drag-chain upon the +victimised and humiliated Army of the Potomac. + +_Nov. 25._--The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towards +Fredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seems +to be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask our +movements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, if +preferable, what is to hinder the interposition of _un rideau +vivant_, a _living curtain_, in the form of a false attack, a feint +in considerable force, behind which the whole army might be securely +thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least two days' march +would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on the direct line +for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to be the base for +future operations. In this way, the army would have marched against +Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or, supposing those plans +to be rejected, why not throw a whole army corps at once, say 40,000 +to 50,000 strong, across the Rappahannock. On either plan, I repeat +it, at least two days' march would have been stolen upon Lee; three +or four days of forced marches would have been healthy for our army, +and a bloodless victory would have been obtained by the taking of +the seemingly undefended Fredericksburg. A dense cloud enveloped +this whole enterprise, and it is not even improbable, that the +campaign may become a dead failure even before it has accomplished +the half of its projected and loudly vaunted course. But bold +conceptions, and energetic movements to match them, are just about +as possible to Halleck or Burnside as railroad speed to the tedious +tortoise. + +_Nov. 25._--Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. He offers +his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moral support to +the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That +_Decembriseur_.[1] Our military slowness, if nothing else is the +matter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, and +Seward's lying and all-confusing foreign policy have encouraged +foreign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all along +anticipated them as an at least very possible result of the above +mentioned causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I +scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same +impertinent French action may prove a second French _faux pas_, to +follow in the wake of the first and very egregious _faux pas_ in +Mexico. The best that we can say for the _Decembriseur_ is, that he +is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and +atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the +Tuileries. My, Russia--ah! I am very confident of that--will refuse +to join in the dirty and treacherous conspiracy for the +preservation of slavery. Well for mediation. But Mr. _Decembriseur_, +what think you and your diplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what +determination do you and they form as to the terms and the +termination, too, of your diabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your +shilly-shally generalities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a +commercial union, this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let +us in all plainness of speech know what it is that you really and +positively intend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of +your imperial proposition. + + [Footnote 1: The men who, in the great French revolution, + and under the leadership of Danton and of the municipality + of Paris, massacred the political prisoners in September, + 1792, are recorded in history under the name of + _Septembriseurs_. Louis Napoleon may no less justly be + called the _Decembriseur_, from that frightful massacre on + the 2nd of December, from which he dates his despotism.] + +_Nov. 27._--Lee, with his army, marches or marched on the south side +of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on the north +side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly follows. They +are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, but stern; +still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that Burnside may +be successful, and that I may prove to have been a false prophet. +But the great _Fatum_, FATE, seems to declare against Burnside, and +Fate generally takes sides with bold conceptions and their energetic +execution. + +_Nov. 28._--The French despatch-scheme reads very like a Washington +concoction, and does not at all bear the marks of Parisian origin. I +find in it whole phrases which, for months past, I have repeatedly +heard from the French minister here. Perhaps Mr. Mercier, in his +turn, may have caught many of Mr. Seward's much-cherished +generalities, unintelligible, very probably, even to himself, and +quite certainly so to every one but himself. Perhaps, I say, Mr. +Mercier may have caught up some of them, and making them up at +hap-hazard into a _macedoine_, a hash, a hotch-potch, has served up +the second-hand and heterogeneous mess to his master in Paris. The +despatch expresses the fear of a servile war; this may very well +have been copied from Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, (May, +1862,) wherein Seward attempted to frighten England by a prophecy of +a servile war in this country. + +_Nov. 30._--Mr. Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the +French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme +corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the +raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, +(see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and +repeatedly warned Stanton. + +_Nov. 30._--Mercier, the French diplomat, rapidly gravitates towards +the Copperheads--Democrats. Is he acting thus _in obedience to +orders_? After all, some of the diplomats here, and especially those +of what call themselves the "three great powers," almost openly +sympathize and side with secessionists, and patronize Copperheads, +traitors, and spies. The exceptions to this rule are but few; +strictly speaking, indeed, I should except only one young man. Some +diplomats justify this conduct on the plea that the Republican +Congressmen are "great bores," who will not play at cards, or dine +and drink copiously; accomplishments in which the Secesh was so +pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic +heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its +representatives for thus incurring the contempt of dissipated +diplomats. + +Some persons maintain that Stanton breaks down, perhaps that he +suffers, physically as well as mentally, from his necessitated +contact with his official colleagues and his and their persistent, +inevitable and inexorable hangers-on and supplicants. I do not +perceive the alleged failure of his health or powers, and I do not +believe it; but assuredly, it were no marvel if such really were the +case. It must be an adamantine constitution and temper that could +long bear with impunity the daily contact with a Lincoln, a Seward, +a Halleck, and others less noted, indeed, but not the less +contagious. + + + + +DECEMBER, 1862 + + President's Message -- Political position -- Fredericksburgh -- + Fog -- Accident -- Crisis in the Cabinet -- Secretary Chase -- + Burnside -- Halleck -- the Butchers -- The Lickspittle Republican + Press -- War Committee patriots -- Youth -- People -- Ring out. + + +Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and +the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that +it is _impossible_ to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course +it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan +and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and +the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of +THE PEOPLE left to itself, it would be very _possible_ and even +quite easily _possible_. + +The message is written with an eye turned towards the Democrats; +they are to be satisfied with the prospect of a convention. Seward +puts lies into Lincoln's pen, in relation to foreign nations. But +all is well, in the judgment of our _Great Statesmen_. Even the poor +logic is, according to them, quite admirable. + +Contrariwise, Stanton's report corresponds to the height and the +gravity of events, and is worthy alike of the writer, and of the +people to whom it is addressed. + +_Dec. 6._--Nearly four weeks the campaign has been opened; the enemy +adds fortifications to fortifications before the very eyes of our +army, yet nothing has been done towards preventing the rebels from +working upon the formidable strongholds. + +Does Halleck-Burnside intend to wait until the rebels shall be +thoroughly prepared to repel any attack that may be made upon them? +Either there is foul play going on, or there is stupendous +stupidity pervading the entire management. But no one sees it, or +rather few, if any, wish to see it. Stanton, I am quite sure, has +nothing to do with the special plans of this enterprise. All is +planned and ruled by Lincoln, Halleck and Burnside. + +_Dec. 7._--The political situation to-day, may be summarily stated +as follows: the Republicans are confused by recent electoral +defeats, and by the administrative and governmental helplessness, as +exhibited every day by their leaders; the Democrats, flushed with +success, display an unusual activity in evil doing, and are risking +everything to preserve Slavery and the South from destruction. I +speak of the Simon-pure Democrats, _alias_ Copperheads, such as the +Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the Coxes, the Biddles, &c. +The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a compromise. The masses of +the people, staggered by all this bewildering turmoil and impure +factiousness, are nevertheless, stubbornly determined to persevere +and to succeed in saving their country. + +_Dec. 7._--The European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether +in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of +our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have +decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards +preventing this noble American people from working out its mighty +and beneficent destinies, and from elaborating and making more +glorious than ever its own already very glorious history. As well +might the brainless and heartless conspirators against human +progress and human liberty endeavor to arrest the rotation of a +planet by the stroke of a pickaxe. + +Ah! Mr. _Decembriseur_, with your base crew of lickspittles, your +pigmy, though treacherous efforts, even contending with those of the +English enemies of light, and of right, your common hatred of +Freedom and Freemen will end in being the destruction of yourself. + +_Dec. 7._--Burnside complains of the manner in which he is +victimised, and explains his inactivity by the fact that the War +Department neglected to furnish him with the necessary pontoons. +How, in fact, was Burnside to move a great army without pontoons? +But it was the duty of Halleck, and his lazy or incompetent, or +traitorous staff, to have seen to the sending on of the pontoons. +However, supposing Burnside and _his_ staff to have as much wit as +an average twelve-year-old school boy, they could have found in the +army not merely hundreds, but even thousands of proficient workmen +in a variety of mechanical trades, who would have constructed on the +spot, and at the shortest notice, any number of bridges, pontoons, +&c. Oh, how little are those wiseacre generals, the conceited and +swaggering West Pointers; oh, how very little, if at all are they +aware of the inexhaustible ingenuity and resources, the marvelous +skill and power of such intelligent masses as those of which they +are the unintelligent, the unsympathising and the thoroughly +unblessed leaders! + +On a Sunday, exactly four weeks back from the day which I wrote +these lines, McClellan was dismissed, and was succeeded by Burnside. +But, after the established McClellan fashion, the great, great army +was marched 30 to 50 miles, and then halts for weeks up to its knees +in mud, and occupies itself in throwing up earthworks. And this is +called making War! and the Hallecks are great men in the sight of +Abraham Lincoln, and of all who profess and call themselves +Lincolnites, and the rest stand around wondering and agape: + + _Conticuere omnes intentique ora (asinina) tenebant._ + +Stanton's magnificent report states that there are about 700,000 men +under arms; yet this tremendous force is paralysed by the inactivity +of most of the generals; those in the West, however, forming a +bright and truly honorable exception. But, to be candid, how can +activity and dash be expected from generals who have at their head, +a shallow brained pedant like Halleck? Napoleon had about 500,000 +men, when, in between four and five months, he marched from the +Rhine to Moscow. Yet he had the aid of no railroad, on land, no +steam, that practical annihilator of distance, no electric +telegraph, with which to be in all but instantaneous communication +with his distant generals, and had not similar material resources. + +_Dec. 10._--Mr. Seward's long correspondence with Mr. Adams shows to +Europe that Mr. Seward imitated the rebels, and tried to frighten +England with the bugbear of King Cotton; and also that he has no +solid and abiding convictions whatever. Now, he preaches +emancipation, yet, at the beginning of his _great_ diplomatic +activity, he openly sided with slavery; aye, he is still willing to +save it for the sake of the Union, and, above all, and before all, +for his own chances for the next Presidency. + +_Dec. 10._--Burnside has finally crossed the Rappahannock. Of course +I do not know the respective positions. But I am sure that if the +rebels have not a perfectly enormous advantage of position, and if +the leading of the generals be worthy of the courage of their men, +the victory must be ours. Oh! were all our generals Hookers, and not +Burnsides! + +General McDowell's Court of Inquiry produces some strange revelations. +The inquiry will not end in making a thorough general of McDowell. He +may have been somewhat unfortunate, no doubt; but his want of good +fortune was at least equalled by his want of good generalship. I, and +many others besides, were quite mistaken in our early estimate of +McDowell. He should not so easily have swallowed the second Bull Run. +He should at least have been wounded, if only ever so slightly; his +best friends must wish that. But to be defeated, and come out without +even a scratch! What a digestion the man must have for the hardest +kinds of humiliation! But neither the President nor that curse of the +country, McClellan, has great reason to plume himself much upon his +share in the revelations that are made in the course of this Inquiry. +McDowell himself seems to have been intended, by nature for a scheming +and adroit politician. * * * * + +_Dec. 10._--The Congress feels the ground, hesitates, and apparently +lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even +such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well! +The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional +cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional +digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of political +faithlessness. + +I have only now discovered certain of the reasons why the Battle of +Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no _ensemble_ and such +marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line +many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on +the wing opposed to Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and centre of +the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is generalship! +The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so mischievous, +attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The victory, such as +it was, was due to the subordinate generals, and to the heroic +bravery of the rank and file of the army. + +When Burnside was invested with the command of the Army of the +Potomac, he for nearly twenty-four hours retained McClellan in camp, +with the intention of returning the command of the army to him if +the rebels had attacked, as it was expected they would, during +Sunday and Monday. + +_Dec. 13._--Night. Fight at Fredericksburgh. No news. O God! + +_Dec. 14._--As the consequence of Halleck-Burnside's slowness, our +troops storm positions which are said to be impregnable by nature, +and still farther strengthened by artificial works. + +The President is even worse than I had imagined him to be. He has no +earnestness, but is altogether in the hands of Seward and Halleck. +He cannot, even in this supreme crisis, be earnest and serious for +half an hour. Such was the severe but terribly true verdict passed +upon him by Fessenden of Maine. + +_Dec. 15._--Slaughter and infamy! Slaughter of our troops who fought +like Titans, though handled in a style to reflect nothing but infamy +upon their commanders. When the rebel works had become impregnable, +then, but not until then, our troops were hurled against them! The +flower of the army has thus been butchered by the surpassing stupidity +of its commanders. The details of that slaughter, and of the +imbecility displayed by our officers in high command,--those details, +when published, will be horrible. The Lincoln-Seward-Halleck-influence +gave Burnside the command because he was to take care of the army. And +how Burnside has fulfilled their expectations! It seems that the best +way to take care of an army is to make it victorious. + +My brave and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two +sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery +was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and +most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast +of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence to say--"Wadsworth +may go wherever he pleases, even if he pleases to go to Hell!" + +Hell itself, would be too good a place for Halleck; imbeciles are +not admitted there! + +_Dec. 17._--The details are coming in. The disaster of our army is +terrible--indescribable; the heroic people bleeds, bleeds! And all +this calamity and all this suffering and humiliation, are brought on +by the stupidity of Burnside and Halleck, or both of them. The curse +of the people ought to rest for centuries upon the very names of the +authors of such frightful disaster. They are fiends, yea, worse, +even, than the very fiends themselves. + +Why, even the very rabble in Constantinople would storm the seraglio +after such a massacre. But here--oh, here, it just reminds Mr. +Lincoln of a little anecdote. + +_Dec. 17._--I meet with but few such as Wade, Grimes, Chandler and +other radicals in both Houses of Congress, who seem to feel all the +heart burning and bitterness of soul at this awful Fredericksburgh +disaster. The real criminals, those who ought, in the agonies of a +great shame, call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them +not, blush not, sorrow not. + +In many of the general public, I have no doubt that the feeling of +shame and sympathy, are blunted by these repeated military +calamities, and by Mr. Lincoln's undaunted i.......... + + * * * * * and men, + Have wept enough, for what? To weep, + To weep again. + +_Dec. 17._--About ten days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to +Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means +Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and +immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is +always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward +the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some +of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward +from playing either the prophet or the fool. + +Burnside took care of the army, no doubt, but it was of the rebel +army. Our soldiers have been brought by him to the block, to an easy +slaughter, he himself being some few miles in the rear, and having +between him the river, and the intervening miles of land. All this, +however, was according to the regulations, and on the most approved +Halleck-McClellan fashion of fighting great battles. + +_Dec. 18._--The disaster was inaugurated by the shelling of +Fredericksburgh. One hundred and forty-seven (147!) guns playing +upon a few houses. It was the play of a maddened child, exhibiting +in equal proportions, reckless ferocity and egregious stupidity; and +it is difficult to find one dyslogistic term which will adequately +describe and condemn it. + +From what I can already gather of the details of the attack, it may +be peremptorily concluded that Burnside, Sumner, and above all, +Franklin, are utterly incompetent of a skillful and effective +handling of great masses of troops. They attacked by brigades, +positions so formidable, that if they could possibly be carried by +any exertion of human skill and strength, they could only be carried +by large masses impetuously hurled against them. Franklin seems +especially to have acted ill in not at once throwing in 10,000 men +to be followed rapidly and again and again by 10,000 more. In that +wise and only in that wise, he might possibly have broken and turned +the enemy, and thrown him on his own centre. It is said that +Franklin had 60,000. If so, he could easily have risked some 20,000 +in the first onslaught. Sixty thousand! Great God! Why, it is an +army in itself, in the hands of a general at all deserving of that +name. If those great West Pointers had only even the slightest idea +of military history! More battles have been fought and won with +60,000 men, and with fewer still, than with larger numbers, and at +Fredericksburgh Franklin's force formed only a wing against an enemy +whose whole army could number but little more than 60,000. I want +the reports with the full and positive details. + +The clear-sighted and warlike TRIBUNE discovered in Burnside high, +brilliant, and soldier-like qualities--admirably borne out and +illustrated no doubt, by the Fredericksburgh butchery! To the +hospital of imbeciles with all such imbeciles! + +The _Times_ was manly in its appreciation, and flunkeyed to no one +under hand, that is, confidentially and for newspaper publication. + +Mr. Seward reveals to the world at large, that, besides his volume +of 700 pages, containing the last diplomatic correspondence, he has +still an equal number of masterpieces as yet not published. What a +dreadful dysentery of despatch-writing the poor man and his still +more afflicted readers must labor under. + +The Lincoln-Seward policy, has rebuilt the awful Democratic party, +which was broken up, prostrated in the dust. Lincoln--Seward--Weed, +partially emasculated the Republican party, and may even emasculate +the thus far thoroughly virile and devoted patriotism of the people. + +A helpless imbecile in the hands of a cunning and selfish and +ruthless charlatan, is the sight that daily meets our eyes in +Washington. + +General Bayard, one of the slaughtered at Fredericksburgh, was a +true Bayard of the army, and one of the very few West Pointers free +from conceit, that corrosive and terribly prevalent malady of the +West Point clique. + +_Dec. 18._--Senators waking up to their duties, and to the +consciousness of their power. These patriots have said to Seward, +_Averte Sathanas_, and overboard he goes, after having done as much +evil as only _he_ could do. + +The most contradictory rumors are in circulation about Stanton. I +cannot find out the truth. I do not believe all that is said, but it +is necessary to put the rumors on record. It is said then, that +Stanton stands up for the butchers and asses in the army and in his +department. I believe that in all this, there is not a single word +of truth; but if it were true, then I should say, Stanton is ruined +by bad company, and down with him and with them! + +_Quoniam sic Fata tulerunt._ But worthy Senators and +Representatives, believe still in Stanton, and so do I; only the +Seward-Blair-McClellan clique tears Stanton's reputation to pieces. +Stanton seems to be, in some measure, infatuated with Halleck, who, +perhaps, humbugs Stanton with military technicalities, which Halleck +so well knows how to pass current for military science. + +_Dec. 20._--The American generals, at least those in the Army of the +Potomac, for the sake of shirking responsibility, maintain that +when once in line of battle, they must rigidly abide by the orders +given to them. No doubt, such is the military law and rule, but it +is susceptible of exceptions. The generals of the Potomac shun the +exceptions, and thus deprive their action of all spontaneity. +Perhaps, indeed, spontaneity of action is not among their military +gifts. Thus we have from them, none of those _coups d'éclat_, those +sudden, brilliant, and impetuously improvised dashes, which so often +decide the fate of the day, and turn imminent defeat and partial +panic into glorious and crowning victory. We find none such, if we +except some actions of Hooker and Kearney, on a small scale, and at +the beginning of the campaign in the Chickahominy, or the Peninsula. +The most celebrated _coups d'éclat_ in general military history, +have mostly been, so to speak, the children of inspiration, seizing +Time by the forelock,--thus using opportunity which sometimes exists +but for a few minutes, and thus a doubtful struggle terminates in a +brilliant success. At such critical moments, the commander of a +wing, or a corps, nay, even a division, ought to have the courage, +the lofty self-abnegation, and firm confidence in his star or good +luck, and still more in the enduring pluck of his men, and boldly +strike for the accomplishment of that which the "Orders" have not +mentioned or foreseen. Such a general acts on his own inspiration, +and at the same time reports to the Commander-in-Chief, what he has +determined upon. If instead of acting thus promptly, he sends and +waits for further orders, the auspicious opportunity may pass away; +the decisive moments in a battle are very rapid, and a single hour +lost, loses the day, or reduces the results of a victory. + +I respectfully submit these undeniable but much disregarded truths +to the Hallecks, McClellans, McDowells, and other great West +Pointers. + +_Dec. 20._--The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and +more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have +very much elongated countenances. + +_Dec. 21._--Senator Wilson has learned from Halleck, Burnside, and +from some other and similarly _great_ captains, that the affair of +Fredericksburgh, and the recrossing of the river, brilliantly +compares with the countermarchings of Wagram, and with that +celebrated crossing of the Danube. As there is not, in reality, a +single point of similitude, the comparison is well selected, and +does great honor to the judgment of the military wiseacres. At all +events, never was the memory of a Napoleon, a Massena, or a Davoust, +more ignominiously desecrated than by this comparison. + +_Dec. 22._--So, then, Sathanas Seward remains, and Mr. Lincoln +scorns the advice of the wisest and most patriotic Senators. To be +snubbed by Lincoln and Seward, is the greatest of all possible +humiliations. Border-state politicians, Harrises, Brownings and +other etceteras of grain, are the confidential advisers. Political +manhood is utterly, and to all seeming, irretrievably lost. + +Stanton still holds with Seward. _Embrassons nous, et que cela +finisse._ + +How brilliantly do even the very basest times of any government +whatever, Parliamentary, royal or despotic, compare with what I now +daily see here in the capital of the great republic! + +Since the earliest existence of political parties, rarely, if ever, +has a party been in such a difficult, and, at times, even disgraceful +position, as that of the patriots of both houses of Congress. Against +the combined attacks of all stripes of traitors, such as ultra +Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Copperheads and pure and impure +Democrats, the patriots must defend an administration which they +themselves condemn, and with the personnel of which, (Stanton and +Wells excepted,) they have no sympathy and no identity of ideas. They +must defend an administration which opposes even measures which they, +the patriots, demand,--an administration which, in the recent +elections, either betrayed or disgraced the whole party, and which +brought into suspicion, if not into actual contempt, the name, nay, +even the principles of the Republicans. And thus the patriots have the +dead weight to support, and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded +and shallow Republican press, has no comprehension of the difficulty +of the position in which the patriots are placed; and that press, +being in various ways connected with the administration, rarely, if +ever, supports the patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best +and noblest efforts. Thus, in the move against Seward, and for a +reform in the Cabinet, the enlightened and patriotic Republican press +of New York, was either persistently mute or hostile to the movement. +Every day I am the more firmly convinced that Seward is the great +stumbling block alike to Mr. Lincoln and the country at large. + +_Dec, 22._--Utterly incapable as is McClellan, and absolutely +unfitted by nature to be a great captain as is Burnside, yet I think +it quite clear that neither of them would have blundered quite so +terribly if he had been provided with a really competent, zealous +and faithful staff, as the generals of continental Europe invariably +are. But it seems that here, neither the generals nor the government +even desire to understand the true nature, duty, and value of the +staff of an army, or what the chief of such a staff ought to know +and ought to do. What, in fact, can we at all reasonably expect from +a Halleck! After all, however, and shallow as are his brains, this +mock Carnot must have read books on military science; and yet he has +not learned either the use or the composition of a staff for an +army! Had he done so, he would have organized a staff for himself, +and one for each of the commanders in the field. It is true that in +this country there is no school of staffs, and West Pointers are +generally ignorant on that point. Nevertheless, with a little good +will and care, it would be easy enough to find intelligent officers +of all grades fit for staff duties as arranged for staff officers in +Europe. But then, the necessary good will and good judgment are +wanting in the head of this military organization. And this Halleck, +this Halleck is a mere mockery, a mere sciolist, a shallow pretender +to military science. He may have the capacity to translate a book, +but nothing of all that he translates effects any hold upon his +brain, or he would, long before now, have done something towards +organising the army. A general inspector is the first necessity. +Then establish the necessary proportions of each arm of the service, +_i. e._, of infantry, cavalry and artillery for each division. Then +organise the cavalry as a body. When you do this, or even a +considerable part of all this, oh, sham-Carnot, Halleck! then your +chance to be considered a military authority will be established. +Oh, science, oh, insulted science! How desecrated is thy name in the +high places here, and especially on the right and left of the White +House. And oh! you really great and intelligent American PEOPLE, how +ignominiously you are cheated of your blood, your time, your money, +and most of all, of your so recently magnificent national +reputation! + +What your military wiseacres show you as an organized army, would +actually thrill, as with the death-shudder, any European military +organizer. + +_Dec. 23._--I learn that the day following the butchery at +Fredericksburgh, Burnside wished to renew the attack. What madness! +The generals protested, and Burnside, greatly exasperated, declared +that at the head of his former corps, the 9th, he would himself +storm the miniature Torres Vedras. If all this is true, then +Burnside is weaker headed than I had judged him to be; but I will +not do him the injustice to say that he really intended to play a +mere farce. What, in the name of common sense, could he do with a +single corps, when the whole army was repulsed? + +I am warned by a friend, that the Army of the Potomac is so infected +with McClellanism, that is to say, by presumption, intriguing, envy +and misconception of what is true generalship,--that the army must +undergo the process of strong purification, fumigation, pruning and +weeding, (and especially among the higher branches,) before it can +ever again be made truly useful and reliable. + +_Dec. 22._--Burnside's report. I am sure that the great luminaries +of the press, and the declaimers, the intriguants and the imbeciles, +will be thrown into fits of ecstatic admiration of what they will +call the manly and straight-forward conduct of Burnside in assuming +the responsibility and confessing his own fault. But what else could +he do? And if he acted thus in obedience to the orders of Halleck, +then instead of manliness, his conduct is almost treasonable towards +the people, for in withholding the truth as to the orders given by +Halleck, he gives that incarnation of calamity the power to repeat +the butchery and ensure the ill success of our armies. + +The report is altogether unsoldierly; it is fussy and inflated; a +full blown specimen of the pompously inane. How can Burnside venture +to say that after the repulse, during three days he expected the +enemy to leave his stronghold and attack him--Burnside? The rebels +never did anything to justify such a supposition. They are neither +idiots nor madmen, and only from a McClellan, or some bright pupils +of the McClellan school, could such imbecility, such gratuitously +ruinous playing into the hands of an enemy be expected. A commander +ought to be on the watch for any mistake that his antagonist may +commit, but he is not justified in setting that antagonist down as +an ass. For two days the army was unnecessarily kept under the guns +of the enemy, that is the truth, and I will make the truth known, no +matter who may try to conceal it. Here, for the present, I stop in +sheer and uncontrollable disgust. By and by, however, I will return +to the consideration of this report. + +Oh! American people! In so very many respects, truly great people! +Far, very far beyond my poor powers of expression are the great love +and veneration with which ever and always I look upon you. But allow +me, pray allow me to use the frank familiarity of a true friend, so +far as just plainly to tell you, that even I, your sincere friend, +should love you none the less, and certainly should hold you in all +the greater reverence, were you not quite so ultra-favorable in +judgment of your civil and military rulers and pastors and masters +and nincompoops generally! + +Further back in this diary, I termed Mr. Secretary Chase a _passive +patriot_. _Peccavi._ And here let me write down my recantation! +Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet, +and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel +Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official +assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the +present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than +any other living man in daily, hourly, _all the time_, denunciation +of Seward,--of course, behind Seward's back! Several insoluble +problems, no doubt, there are; but there is not one thing, physical +or not physical, which so completely defies any comprehension and +baffles my most persistent inquiry, as just this. + +How, unless Chase has drank of the waters of Lethe, how can he +possibly look, now, in the face of, for instance, Fessenden of +Maine, to whom he has said so many bitter things against the now +belauded "Secretary Seward!" Bah! Chase most certainly must have a +forty-or-fifty-diplomatist power of commanding--literally and not +slangishly be it spoken!--his _cheek_, if, without burning blushes +he can look in the face of Fessenden, Sumner or any honest man and +say,--"I admire and I support Secretary Seward!" God! If all who, +during the last two years, have come into contact with Chase, would +but come forward and speak out! In that case, thousands would stand +forth, a "cloud of witnesses," to confirm this statement. Chase! +Faugh! I hereby brand him, and leave him to the bitter judgment of +all men who can conscientiously claim to be even _half honest_. + +In merest and barest justice to Seward, greatly as I disapprove of +his general course, I must here note the fact that he is by no means +addicted to evil speaking about any one. Not that this reticence +proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward, +however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one +who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or +to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but, +in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially +civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste +ammunition upon worthless game. + +_Dec. 23._--Why could not Mr. Lincoln choose for his Secretary of +State some man who has a holy and wholesome horror of pen, ink, and +paper? Some man gifted with a sound brain, who never is quick at +writing a dispatch, and would demand double salary as the price of +writing one? Oh! Mr. Lincoln, had you but done this, not only would +all America, but all Europe also be truly thankful for great +immunity from the curse of morbid attempts at diplomacy and +statesmanship. + +_Dec. 23._--Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For +heaven's sake let us know, pray, _pray_ let us know who was +Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is +defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has +prevented victory." _What_ accident? Let the country know the +precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and +place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a +deep, dense terribly foul fog--in the _cerebellum_! Is that the +_accident_ of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks? +Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the +recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled +military achievements. + +Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at +Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers gave far other and nobler +proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere +crossing and recrossing of a river. + +The _Tribune_ is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's +unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors +of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of +immortal Waterloo! The _Tribune_ lauds the crossing and the +recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and +Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles +extensively about _comparative_ losses. Comparative to what? Oh! +spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, +veil your blushing brows! And the _Tribune_ dares to make this +impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same +time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent." + +But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what? +To those of the enemy? What knows he about them? + +_Dec. 24._--Crisis in the Seward cabinet. The "little Villain" of +the _Times_, repeated what he did after the first "Bull Run." But he +did not now confess to his dining with Seward, as formerly he did +with the great "anaconda Scott!" The New York Republican press is +attracted to Seward by natural affinity of election. Seward, +however, holds the honey pot, and the flies are all eager to dip +into it. + +I wish, yet dread to hear the exact particulars of Stanton's +behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, _very_ +painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have +too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become +accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What +man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the +surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain will be +followed by permanent relief? + +At the public dinner of "The New England Society," John Van Buren +nominated McClellan for next President, and proposed the health of +Secretary Seward. _Oh! quam pulchra societas!_ + +I am charged with being "dissatisfied with every thing, and abusing +every body." The charge is unjust. I speak most lovingly and in most +sincere admiration of the millions, of the great, toiling, brave, +honest People, and of the hundreds of thousands of the gallant +people-militant--the army! But I _do_ censure some thirty or forty +individuals who dispense favors and appoint to fat offices, and, +quite naturally, every dirty-souled lickspittle is indignant against +me therefor! The blame of such people is far preferable to their +praise! + +I am rejoiced, I am almost proud that Hooker insisted upon crossing +the Rappahannock, and marching to Fredericksburgh, and that he +opposed the subsequent attack. + +But of what benefit to me is this fatal, this Cassandra gift of +foreseeing? Alas! Better, happier would it be for me could I not +have foreseen and vainly, all vainly foretold, the terrible butchery +of a brave people during two long and fatal years! + +_Dec. 24._--It is impossible to keep cool while reading Burnside's +report. Once more this report justifies and corroborates Prince +Napoleon's judgment on American generals, _i. e._, that their plan +of campaigns will always be deficient in practice, like the +theoretical war-exercises of schoolboys. From this sweeping and +terribly true charge, however, we must except the Grants and +the--alas! how few!--Rosecranses. + +The report says, "but for the fog," etc. All lost battles in the +world had for cause some _buts_--except the genuine _but_--in the +brains of the commander. + +"How near we came to accomplishing," etc.--is only a repetition of +what, _ad nauseam_, is recorded by history as lamentations of +defeated generals. + +"The battle would have been far more decisive." Of course it would +have been so, if--won. + +"As it was, we were very near success," etc. So the man who takes +the chance in the lottery. He has No. 4, and No. 3 wins the prize. + +The apostrophe to the heroism of the soldiers is sickly and pale. +The heroism of the soldiers! It is as brilliant, as pure, and as +certain as the sun. + +The attack was planned, (see paragraph 2 of the report,) on the +circumstance or supposition that the enemy extended too much his +line, and thus scattered his forces. But in paragraph 4, Burnside +stated that the fog, (O, fog!) etc., gave the enemy twenty-four +hours' time to concentrate his forces in his strong positions--when +the calculation based on the enemy's _division of forces_ failed, +and the attack lost all the chances considered propitious. + +The whole plan had for its basis probabilities and +impossibilities--schoolroom speculations--instead of being, as it +ought to have been, as every plan of a battle should be, based on +the chances of the _terrain_, by the position of the enemy, and +other conditions, almost wholly depending upon which the armies +operate. It is natural that martial Hooker objected to it. + +Oh! could I have blood, blood, blood, instead of ink! + +Constructing the bridge over the Rappahannock, our engineers were +killed in scores by the sharp-shooters of the enemy. Malediction on +those imbecile staffs! The _A B C_ of warfare, and of sound common +sense teach, that such works are to be made either under cover of a +powerful artillery fire, or, what is still better, if possible, a +general sends over the river in some way, with infantry to clear its +banks, and to dislodge the enemy. In such cases one engineer saved, +and time won, justify the loss of almost twenty soldiers to one +workman. Some one finally suggested an expedition and they did at +the end what ought to have been done at the start. O West Point! thy +science is marvellous! The staff treated the construction of a +bridge over the Rappahannock as if it were building some railroad +bridge, in times of peace! + +I am told that Stanton took sides with Seward. I deny it; Stanton +remained rather passive. But were it true that Stanton, too, is +_Sewardized_,--then, Oh Mud, how powerful thou art! + +In Boston, the B.s and Curtises, and all of that kidney, make a +great fuss and invoke the name of Webster. If so, they are only +_excrementa Websteriana_. + +_Dec. 24._--Patriots in both Houses of Congress! your efforts to put +the conduct of the national affairs in honorable hands, and on +honorable tracks, to prevent the very life blood of the people from +being sacrilegiously wasted, to prevent the people's wealth from +being recklessly squandered; your efforts to introduce order and +spirit in certain parts of a spiritless Administration, to fill the +higher and inferior offices with men whose hearts and minds are in +the cause, and to expel therefrom, if not absolute disloyalty, at +least, the most criminal indifference to the people's cause and +welfare; your efforts to make us speak to Europe like men of sense, +and not in the senseless oracles which justly evoke the scorn and +the sneers of all European statesmen; all these your efforts as +patriots rebounded against a nameless stubbornness. + +Nevertheless you fulfilled a noble, sacred and patriotic duty. +Whatever be to-day the outcry of the Flatfoots, lickspittles, +intriguers, imbeciles; whatever be the subserviency or want of civic +courage in the public press--when all these stinking, suffocating, +deleterious vapors shall be destroyed by the ever-living light of +truth, then the grateful people will bless your names, which, pure +and luminous, will shine high above the stupidity, conceit, +heartlessness, turpitude, selfish ambition, indirect and direct +treason darkening now the national horizon. + +_Dec. 25._--_Christmas._ The Angel of Death hovers over thousands +and thousands of hearths. Thousands and thousands of families in +tears and shrouds. Communities, villages, huts and log-houses, +nursing their crippled, invalid, patriotic heroes! A year ago, all +was quiet on the _Potomac_--now all is quiet on the _Rappahannock_. + +What a progress we have made in a year! and at the small, +insignificant cost of about sixty to eighty thousand killed or +crippled, and of one thousand millions of dollars! But it matters +not! The quietude of the official butchers and money squanderers is, +and must remain undisturbed in their mansions, whatever be the moral +leprosy dwelling therein! + +A young man from New England, (whom I saw for the first time,) told +me that my Diary stirred up the youth. Oh, if so, then I feel happy. +Youth! youth! you are all the promise and the realization! But why +do you suffer yourselves to be crushed down by the upper-crust of +senile nincompoops? Oh youth, arise, and sun-like penetrate through +and through the magnitude of the work to be accomplished, and save +the cause of humanity! + +_Dec. 25._--As it was and is in all Revolutions and upheavals, so +here. A part of the people constitute the winners, in various ways, +(through shoddy names, jobs, positions, etc.) while the immense +majority bleeds and sacrifices. Here many people left poorly +salaried desks, railroads, shops, &c. to become great men but poor +statesmen, cursed Generals, and mischief-makers in every possible +way and manner. The people's true children abandoned homes, +families, honest pursuits of an industrious and laborious life--in +one word, their ALL, to bleed, to be butcherer, to die in the +country's cause. The former are the winners, the sacrificers, and +the butchers; the second are the victims. + +The evidence before the War Committee shows, to a most disgusting +satiety, that General Halleck is exclusively a red-tapist, and a +small pettifogger, who is unworthy to be even a non-commissioned +officer; General Burnside an honest, well intentioned soldier, +thoroughly brave, but as thoroughly destitute of generalship; +General Sumner an unquestionably brave but headlong trooper; and +Hooker alone in possession of all the capacity and resources of a +captain. General Woodbury's evidence is that of a man under +difficulties, on whom his superiors in rank have thrown the +responsibility of their own crime. + +Halleck alone is responsible for the non-arrival of the pontoons. +Burnside could not look for them; it was the duty of Halleck to +order some of the semi-geniuses of his staff to the special duty of +seeing to their delivery at Fredericksburgh, to give them necessary +power to use roads, steamers, water, animals and men for +transportation, and make it a capital responsibility if Sumner finds +not the pontoons on the spot, and at the precise day and hour when +he wanted them. Then, Gen. Meigs, who coolly asserts that he "gave +orders." O yes! but he never dreamed it was his duty to look for +their execution. The fate of the campaign depended upon the +pontoons, and Halleck-Meigs "gave orders," and there was an end of +it. In any other country, such culprits would have been at the least +dismissed--cashiered, if not shot; here, their influence is on the +increase. Halleck and Meigs are still great before Mr. Lincoln, and +before the mass of nincompoops. + +Rhetors and sham-erudites are ecstatic about Burnside's conduct. +Well! Burnside is good-natured--that is all. They forget the example +of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having +commanded the army, gave up the command, and served under Pellisier. +Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world--let Rome alone, +and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.--Disturb not history, which, +for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You understand not +events under your long noses, and before your opaque eyes. + +When in animal bodies the brains are diseased, the whole body's +functions are more or less paralyzed. The official brains of the +nation are in a morbid condition. _That_ explains all. + +_Dec. 27._--I wish I could succeed in bringing about the +organization of a good Staff for the army. _Etat Major General de +l'Armée_ Stanton seems to understand it, but the Hallecks and other +West Pointers have neither the first idea of it, nor the will to see +it done. + +_Dec. 28._--The so-called great papers of the Republican party in +New York, as well as some would-be statesmen here, discuss the +probability of some new manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by +other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The +probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only +have one of the following causes:--Our terrible disaster at +Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the +absolute incapacity of our leaders to cope with such great and +terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of our +soldiers will be applauded, admired, and pitied in Europe, but the +utter intellectual marasmus, as shown by our administration, will +and must embolden the European marplots to attempt to stop what they +consider a further unnecessary massacre. General Burnside's report, +and the evidence before the War Committee are before the country and +before Europe. Therefore Europe and our country are to judge. + +During his last visit in summer to New York, etc. the French +Minister came in contact with low French adventurers, (Courriers des +États Unis) with copperheads and with democrats, and now he is taken +with sickly diplomatic sentimentalism to conciliate, to mediate, to +unite, to meddle, and to get a feather in his diplomatic cap. I am +sorry for him, for in other respects he has considerable sound +judgment. _Mais il est toqué sur cette question çi._ He is ignorant +of the temper of the masses, and considers the assertions of +adventurers, of traitors, and of meddlers, as being the expression +of the sentiments of the people. But sensible diplomats are _rari +aves_. + +Hooker, because he alone is a _captain_, cannot be in command. +Infamous intriguers, traitors, and imbeciles, prevent Hooker from +being intrusted with the destinies of our army. Whole regiments +claim to serve under him, and above all such regiments as fought +under others in the peninsula, and always have been worsted, and who +wish once to be led to success and victory, as were always Hooker's +soldiers. The Franklins, and other marplotters in the Potomac Army, +menace to resign if Hooker is put in command. The sooner the better +for the army to get rid of such trash. But the imbeciles and the +intriguers in power think not so; and all may remain as it was, and +a new slaughter of our heroes may loom in the future. + +_Dec. 29._--General Butler's proclamation to his soldiers in New +Orleans is the best and noblest document written since this war. It +is good, because it records noble and patriotic deeds. During those +eighteen months General Butler has shown capacity, activity, energy, +fertility of resources and readiness to meet any emergency, +unequalled by any one in the administration or in command. And for +this, Butler is superseded, because Seward promised it to the +_Decembriseur_ in the Tuilleries, and because he is a _man_, and +_conservative patriots_, _alias_ traitors, could not get at him. + +_Dec. 30._--Angel of wrath, smite, smite! Oh, genius of humanity, +take into thy mercy this noble people! Oh, eternal reason, send the +feeblest breath of divine emanation and arrest this all-devouring +torrent of imbecility, selfishness and conceit that is reigning +paramount here. Only the PEOPLE'S devotion and patriotism, only the +_unnamed_ save the country! + +_Dec. 30._--Those foreign caterwaulings against Butler. England, in +1848-9, whipped women in Ireland, and how many thousands have been +murdered by the _Decembriseur_? And the Russian minister joining in +this music. A shame for him and for his government! + +_Dec. 30._--Poor Greeley looks for intervention, mediation, +arbitration; and selects Switzerland for the fitting arbitrator! How +little--nay--nothing at all, he knows about Switzerland and the +Swiss! Stop! stop! respectable old man! + +_Dec. 31._--Stanton is not at all responsible for the slaughter at +Fredericksburgh, or for the infamy of the belated pontoons. Halleck +has the exclusive control of all military movements, etc., in the +field. But Stanton ought not be benumbed by a Halleck or a Meigs. + +The people at large cannot realize the really awful position of +patriotic members of Congress, and above all, of such senators as +Wade, Grimes, Fessenden, Wilson, Morrill, Chandler and others, or +the almost similar position of Stanton, in his contact with the +double-dealings or the obstinacy of Lincoln. + +_Dec. 31._--To-morrow few, if any, shall miss the occasion to shake +hands with the official butchers, with men dripping with the gore of +their brethren. Oh, Cains! oh, fratricides! + +_Dec. 31._--_Midnight._--Disappear! oh year of disgraces, year of +slaughters and of sacrifices. + + _Tschto den griadoustchi nam gotowit?_ (Puschkine.) + + + Ring out the false, ring in the true, + Ring out the grief that saps the mind, + * * * + * * * + Ring in REDRESS _for all mankind_! + + + + +JANUARY, 1863. + + Proclamation -- Parade -- Halleck -- Diplomats -- Herodians -- + Inspired Men -- War Powers -- Rosecrans -- Butler -- Seward -- + Doctores Constitutionis -- Hogarth -- Rhetors -- European Enemies + -- Second Sight -- Senator Wright the Patriot -- Populus Romanus + -- Future Historian -- English People -- Gen. Mitchell -- Hooker + in Command -- Staffs -- Arming Africo-Americans -- Thurlow Weed, + &c. + + +_Jan. 1._--The morning papers. No proclamation! Has Lincoln played +false to humanity? + +The proclamation will appear. All right so far! Hallelujah! How the +friends of darkness, how the demons must wince and tremble. + +There! Red-tape commander-in-chief, field marshal (who never saw a +field of battle!) parades at the head of victorious generals, of +intelligent staffs, of active pontoon providers, and of really and +highly qualified quartermasters general. To the White House! They +will congratulate Mr. Lincoln. Upon what? Upon Fredericksburgh and +other massacres; but especially they will congratulate Mr. Lincoln +upon the fact of his being surrounded by such a bright galaxy of +know-nothings and do-nothings! + +Death-knell to slavery and to the slaveocracy. The foulest relic of +the past will at length be destroyed. The new era has a glorious +dawn; it rises in the glories of sacrifices made by a generous and +inspired people. Yes! The new era rises above darkness, selfishness, +and imbecility. The shades of the slaughtered are now at length +propitiated; their slaughter is at least in part atoned for; and +outraged humanity is, at least in part, avenged! Let rebels and +conservatives remain hardened in crime; a just and condign vengeance +shall overtake them. + + _Nunc pede libero + Pulsanda tellus._ + +_Jan. 2._--Shallow and brainless diplomats sneer at the +proclamation. So did the Herodians sneer at the star of Bethlehem; +and where now are the Herodians? Oh! shallow and heartless +diplomats, your days are numbered, too! + +_Jan. 2._--A man inspired by conviction and glowing with a fervent +faith, thoroughly knows what he is about. Strong in his faith, and +by his faith, he clearly sees his way, and steadily walks in it, +while others grope hither and thither amidst shadows and darkness +and bewildering doubts! Such a man boldly takes the initiative, +marches onward, and is as a beacon-light to a nation, to a people; +often, sometimes, even for all humanity. A man who has a profound +faith in his convictions has coruscations, fierce flashes of that +second-sight for the signs of the times. The mere trimming and +selfish politician is ever ready to swim with the stream which he +had neither strength nor skill to breast; he never ventures to take +the initiative. In issuing the proclamation, Mr. Lincoln gives legal +sanction, form, and record to what the storm of events and the loud +cry of the best of the people have long demanded and now inexorably +dictate. + +History will pitilessly tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth; and small credit will history give to Lincoln beyond +that of being the legal recorder of a righteous deed, and not even +that credit will be given to the countersigner, Seward. + +Mr. Seward countersigned both proclamations of freedom. Europe is +filled with his despatches, written at first plainly for, then +lukewarmly tolerating, and, at length, flatly against, slavery. +European statesmen have thus the exact measure of Mr. Seward's +political character. They know that to the very last he defended +slavery, and then countersigned the decree of its destruction! In +Europe, self-respecting statesmen resign rather than countersign a +measure which they disapprove or have strongly opposed. + +_Jan. 3._--Emancipation under war powers. A mistake by a +contradiction. Spoke of it before. And nevertheless: under war +powers alone, emancipation is palatable to a great many, nay, almost +to millions of small, narrow intellects, dried up by the formulas, +and who in the Constitution see only the latter, and not the +expanding, all-embracing principle and spirit. O, Rabbis! O, +Talmudists! + +Lincoln is very unhappy in his phraseology. He invites the +sympathies of humanity on a measure decided by him to favor the war. +It is a contradiction; humanity and war are antipodic. + +The papers in the confidence of Seward, such as the _Intelligencer_ +(without intelligence,) the border-state friends of Lincoln, and all +that is muddy and rotten, even the supposed to be well-informed +diplomats unanimously assert that Mr. Lincoln has no confidence in +his proclamation. As for Seward--this Lincoln's evil genius--no +doubt exists concerning his contempt for the proclamation. Ask the +diplomats. But these highest pilots in this administration are +bound--as by a terrible oath--to violate all the laws of psychology, +of human nature, of sense, of logic and of honor, to make the people +bleed and suffer in its honor. + +Well, pompous Chase; how do you feel for having sided with Seward? + +Gen. Butler's farewell proclamation to New Orleans rings the purest +and most patriotic harmony. Compare Butler's with Lincoln's +writings. All the hearts in the country resounded with Butler; and +because he acted as he did, Lincoln-Seward-Blair-Halleck's policy +shelved Butler. + +_Jan. 3._--By the united efforts of Lincoln-Seward-Blair, of the +_Herald_, and of that cesspool of infamies, the _World_, of +McClellan, and of his tail, by the stupifying influence of Halleck, +the Potomac army, notwithstanding its matchless heroism, and +equipped as well as any army in Europe; up to this day the Potomac +army serves to--establish--the military superiority of the rebels, +to morally strengthen, nay, even to nurse the rebellion. +Lincoln-Halleck dare not entrust the army into the hands of a true +soldier,--Stanton is outvoted. The next commander inherits all the +faults generated by Lincoln, McClellan, Halleck, Burnside, and it +would otherwise tax a Napoleon's brains to reorganize the army but +for the patriotic spirit of the rank and file and most of the +officers. + +_Jan. 3._--What a pity that petty, quibbling constitutionalism +alone is understood by Lincoln and by his followers. To +emancipate in virtue of a war power is scarcely to perform half the +work, and is a full logical incongruity. Like all kind of war power, +that of the president has for its geographical limits the pickets of +his army--has no executive authority beyond, besides being +obligatory only as long as bayonets back it. Such a power cannot +change social and municipal conditions, laws or relations (see Vol. +I.) + +The civil power of the president penetrates beyond the pickets, and +in virtue of that civil power, and of the sacred duty to save the +fatherland, the President of the United States, and not the +Commander-in-Chief, can say to the slaves: "Arise, you are free, you +have no servitude, no duties towards a rebel and traitor to the +Union. I, the president, dissolve your bonds in the name of the +American people." + +_Jan. 4._--How the tempest of events changes or modifies principles. +The South rebelled in the name of State rights, and now Jeff Davis +absorbs all States and all parliamentary rights for the sake of +_salus populi_ or rather of _salus_ of slavocracy. Jeff Davis +nominates officers in the regiments whatever be the opposition of +the respective Governors. In the North, the Governors, all of them, +(Seymour?) true patriots, insist upon power and the right to +organize new regiments, and resist the centralization by the United +States Government. Perhaps--as the satraps and martinets +assert--thereby the organisation of the army is thrown on a false +track. Whether so or not, one thing is certain, but for the States +and Governors, Lincoln, Scott, Seward, McClellan, Halleck, or the +Union, would be nowhere. + +_Jan. 4._--They fight battles in the West. Generals, to be +victorious, must be in spiritual and in electric communion with the +heroic soldiers. So it was at Murfreesborough. Rosecrans, at the +head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns +the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on +McClellan nor on his tail. Rosecrans sticks not to regulations, and +keeps not a few miles in the rear. Franklin, at Fredericksburgh +mounted not even his horse but stood in front of his tent. Similar +to Rosecrans here was Kearney, the bravest of the brave, more of a +captain than any of the West-Point high-nosed nurslings; so is +Heintzelman, Hooker, Reno, Sigel and many, many others, whom +McClellanism, Halleckism, Lincolnism kept or keeps down. + +I positively learned that in the last days of the summer of 1862, a +list without heading circulated in the Potomac army, and all who +signed it bound themselves to obey only McClellan. The McClellan +clique originated this conspiracy, which extended throughout all the +grades. + +What confusion prevails about the rights of existence of slavery. +How they discuss it. How they pettifog. Why not establish the +rights of existence of syphilis, of _plica_ in the human body. O, +casuists. O, _Intelligencers_. O, _Worlds_! + +Well, to me, slavery seems to legally (cursed legality) exist in +virtue of the special State rights, and not in virtue of the +Constitution. But for the State rights, the Africo-American is a man +and citizen of the United States--and this under the Constitution +which is paramount to State rights. The rebellion annihilates the +State rights, and all special constitutions guaranteed by the Union, +and at the same time annihilates the relation of the Africo-American +to the specific States or constitutions. It restores to him the +rights of man guaranteed to him as man by the Union and the +Constitution of the United States. The Africo-American recovers his +rights, lost and annihilated by specific State rights and municipal, +local laws. The president had to issue his proclamation as guardian +and executor of the Constitution, and then Africo-Americans +recovered their citizenship on firmer and broader grounds than +under, or by the war power. Calhoun, the father of the rebellion--as +Milton's Satan--and all the rebels now curse or cursed the preamble +of the Constitution as Satan cursed the light. I suppose Calhoun's +and the rebels' reasons are similar to me. _Inde iræ._ + +The commanders in the West bear evidence of the devotion, the +heroism and the endurance of the Africo-Americans, sacrificing their +lives without hope; martyrs by the rebels as well as by Hallecks and +the like. + +I met a farmer from Maine. He was rather old and poor. Had two +sons--lost them both--they were all his hope. He spoke simply of it, +but to break one's heart. _He grudged not_, (his own words,) his +hopes and blood for the cause, and considered it good luck to have +recovered the body of one of his boys, and brought it back home to +the "old woman," (wife, mother.) I shook hands with him. I ought to +have kissed him. Unknown, unnamed hero-patriot! and similar are +hundreds of thousands, and such is the true people. And so +sacrilegiously dealt with by insane helplessness. + +_Jan. 5._--The _Doctors Constitutionis_ break their formula brains +concerning the constitutionality of the proclamation, and foretell +endless complications. If so, if complications arise, the reasons +thereof are moral, logical and practical. 1st.--The emancipation was +neither conceived nor executed in love; but it was for Lincoln as +Vulcan for Jupiter. The proclamation is generated neither by +Lincoln's brains, heart or soul, and what is born in such a way is +always monstrous. 2d.--Legally and logically, the proclamation has +the smallest and the most narrow basis that could have been +selected. When one has the free choice between two bases, it is more +logical to select the broader one. The written Constitution had +neither slavery nor emancipation in view, but it is in the preamble, +and the emancipation ought to be deduced from the preamble. Many +other reasons can be enumerated pregnant with complications and +above all when Lincoln-Seward are the _accoucheurs_. My hope and +confidence is in the logic of events always stronger than man's +helplessness and imbecility. + +_Jan. 5._--European rulers, wiseacres, meddlers, humbugs, traitors, +demons, diplomats, assert that they must interfere here because +European interests suffer by the war. Indeed! You have the whole old +continent and Australia to boot, and about nine hundreds millions of +population; can you not organise yourself so as not to depend from +us? And if by your misrules, etc., our interests were to suffer, you +would find very strange any complaint made on our part. Keep aloof +with your good wishes, and with your advices, and with your +interference. You may burn your noses, and even lose your little +scalps. You robbers, murderers, hypocrites, surrounded by your +liveried lackeys, you presumptuous, arrogant curses of the human +race, stand off, and let these people whose worst criminal is a +saint when compared to a Decembriseur--let this people work out its +destinies, be it for good or for evil. + +_Jan. 5._--Early in December, 1860, therefore soon after Mr. +Lincoln's election, a shrewd and clear-sighted politician, Gen. +Walsh, from New York, visited Springfield, and made his bow to the +rising sun. On his return from the Illinois Medira, I asked the +general what was his opinion concerning the new President. "Well, +sir," was the general's answer, "in parting, I advised Mr. Lincoln +to get a very eminent man for his private secretary."--_Sapienti +sat._ + +_Jan. 6._--Oh for a voice of thousand storms to render justice to +the patriots in Congress, to make the masses of the people know and +appreciate them, and to show up the littleness and the ignorance of +the pillars of the Republican press. Never and in no country has the +so-called good press shown itself so below the great emergencies of +the day as are the old hacks semperliving in the press. + +_Jan. 7._--The great military qualities shown by Gen. Rosecrans, +thrilled with joy all the best men in the Potomac Army. The war +horse Hooker is the loudest to admire Rosecrans. Happy the Western +heroes to be beyond the immediate influence of Washington--of the +White House--and above all, of such as Halleck! + +Rosecrans has revealed all the higher qualities of a captain; +coolness, resolution, stubbornness and inspiration. His army began +to break,--he ordered the attack on the whole line, and thus +transformed defeat into victory. Not of McClellan's school, is +Rosecrans. + +_Jan. 7._--Senator Sumner who, during the ministerial crisis, ought +to have exposed to the country the mischievous direction given by +Mr. Seward to our foreign relations, and who ought to have done it +nobly, boldly, authoritatively, patriotically, and from his +Senatorial chair, Senator Sumner's preferred to keep stoically +quiet, notwithstanding that his personal friends and the country +expected it from him. Yet next to Chase, Senator Sumner, more than +any body, attacks Seward in private conversation! I read in the +papers that Senator Sumner's influence on Mr. Lincoln is +considerable (nevertheless Seward remained as the greatest curse to +the country,) and that he, Sumner, is a _power behind the throne_. +Has Sumner insinuated this himself to some newspaper reporter in +_extremis_ for news? _Power behind the throne_, what a tableau: +Sumner and Lincoln! O, Hogarth, O, Callot! Oh, for your crayon! and +now--of course--the country is safe, having such _Power behind the +throne_. + +_Mr. Lincoln's good intentions_ I hear talked about right and left. +Oh, for one sensible, good, energetic action, and all his intentions +may go where the French proverb puts them. + +_Jan. 7._--The city crowded with Major Generals and +Brigadier-Generals not in activity. When Mr. Lincoln is cornered, +then he makes a Brigadier or a Major General, according to +circumstances and in obedience to political or to backstairs +influence. From the beginning of the war, no sound notions directed +the nominations, either under Cameron, Scott, or McClellan, or now; +at the beginning of the war they had Generals without troops, then +troops without Generals, and now they have Generals who have not +commanded, or cannot command, troops. If, during the war in Poland +in 1831, Warsaw, the Capital, had been overrun in such a way by +do-nothing Generals, the chambermaids in the city would have taken +the affair into their fair hands, and armed with certain night +effluvia made short work with the military drones. + +_Jan. 8._--A poor negro woman with her child was refused entrance +into the cars. It snowed and stormed, and she was allowed to shiver +on the platform. A so-called abolitionist Congress and President +gave the charter to the constructors of the city railroad and the +members of Congress have free tickets, and the Africo-American is +treated as a dog. Human honesty and justice! + +_Jan. 8._--Horse contracts the word. Never in my life saw I the +horse so maltreated and the cavalry so poorly, badly, brainlessly +organised, drilled and used. Some few exceptions change not the +truth of my assertions, and McClellan is considered a great +organiser. They ruin more horses here in this war than did Napoleon +I. in Russia, (I speak not of the cold which killed thousands at +once.) + +How ignorant and conceited! Halleck solicits Rarey, the horse-tamer, +for instructions. O, Halleck, you are unique! Officers who have +served in armies with large, good, well-organised and well-drilled +cavalry--such officers will teach you more than Rarey. But such +officers are from Europe, and it would be a shame for a West-Point +incarnation of ignorance and conceit to learn anything from an +officer of European experience. Bayard, however, thought not so. +Justice to his name. + +The rebels are not so conceited as the simon pure West-Pointers. +Above all the rebels wish success, and have no objections to learn; +they imported good European cavalry officers, and have now under +Stuart (his chief of staff is a Prussian officer) a cavalry which +has made a mark in this war. + +_Jan. 8._--O rhetors! O, rhetors! malediction upon you and upon the +politicians! You have no heart, no sensibilities. Not one, not one +has yet uttered a single word for the fallen, for the suffering, the +dying and nameless heroes of our armies. It seems, O rhetors and +politicians! that the people ought to bleed that you may prosper. +Corpses are needed for your stepping stones! The fallen are not +mentioned now in Congress, as you never mentioned them in your poor +stump speeches. O, you whitened sepulchres! + +O rhetors and politicians! O, powers on, before, and "behind the +throne!" In your selfish, heartless conceit, you imagine that the +Emancipation is and will be your work, and will be credited to you. +Oh yes, but by old women. + +The people's blood, the fallen heroes, tore the divine work of +emancipation, from the hands of jealously watching demons. To the +shadows of the fallen the glory, and not to your round, polished or +unpolished phrases. Not the pen with which the proclamation was +written is a trophy and a relic, but the blood steaming to heaven, +the corpses of the fallen, corpses mouldering scattered on all the +fields of the Union. + +_Jan. 8._--As a rapid spring tide, so higher and higher, and with +all parties--even, with the decided Copperheads--rises the haughty +contempt toward the crowned, the official, the aristocratic, and the +flatfooted (livery stable) part of Europe. Good and just! Marshy, +rotten rulers and aristocrats who scarcely can keep your various +shaky and undermined seats, you and your lackeys, you take on airs +of advisors, of guardians, of initiators of civilization! Forsooth! +I except Russia. In Russia the sovereign, his ministers and +nine-tenths of the aristocracy are in _uni sono_ with the whole +nation; and all are against slavery, against the rebels, against +traitors. The Russian government and the Russian nation often are +misrepresented by their official or diplomatic agents. + +Any well organized American village in the free States contains more +genuine, moral and intellectual civilization than prevails among +European higher circles, those gilded pasteboards. This is all that +you, you conceited advisors, represent in that splendid, +all-embracing edifice of civilization! At the best you are +ornaments, or--with Wilhelm von Humboldt--you are culture, but not +the higher, man-inspiring civilization. A John S. Mill, a Godwin +Smith, and those many outside of the _would-be-something_ strata in +England, in France, almost the whole Germany, those are the +representatives of the genuine civilized Europe. + +The freemen of the North, on whom you European exquisites look +superciliously down with your albino eyes, the freemen of the North, +bleeding in this deadly struggle, are the confessors for the general +civilization, and stand on the level with any martyrs, with any +progressive people on record on history. + +_Jan. 9._--Quo, quo scelesti ruitis......... + +It is maddening to witness for so many months the reckless waste of +men, of time, of money, and of material means, and all this +squandered by governmental and administrative helplessness and +conceit. In the military part, notwithstanding Stanton's devotion +and efforts, that Halleck, _excrementum Scotti_, as by appointment, +carries out everything contrary to common sense, to well established +and experienced (Halleck and experience, ah!... military practice, +and Mr. Lincoln is as perfectly) charmed by it, as is the innocent +bird by the snake. + +And thus the sacrifices and the blood of the people run out as does +the mighty Rhine--they run out in sand. O, Lincoln-Seward's domestic +policy. O, Lincoln-Halleck's war power! You make one shudder as with +a death pang. + +_January 9._--The worshippers of slavery, that is, the Democrats, of +the Seymour's, Wood's, and the _World's_ church, call the war waged +for the defence of human rights, for civilization and for +maintaining the genuine rational self-government, they call it an +unholy war. In some respects the Copperheads are right. The holy war +loses its holiness in the hands of Lincoln, Seward, Halleck, and +their disciples and followers, because those leaders violate all the +laws of logic and of reason, this holy of holies. At times I would +prefer peace than see devoted men so recklessly murdered by such.... + +A critique of the first volume of the "Diary" asserts that all my +statements are made after the events occurred, _ex post_. To a very +respectable General I showed a part of the original manuscript which +squared with the printed book. Often I am ashamed to find that the +bit of study and experience acquired by me goes so far when compared +with many around me, and in action. I foresee, because I have no +earthly personal views, no cares, nothing in the world to think of +or to aim at, no charms, no ties--only my heart, my ideas, my +convictions, and civilization is my worship. Nothing prevents me, +day and night, from concentrating whatever powers and reading I can +have in one single focus. This cause, this people, this war, its +conduct, are the events amidst which I breathe. Uninterruptedly I +turn and return all that is in my mind--that is all. And I am proud +to have my heart in harmony with my head. + +Almost every event has its undercurrent, and of ten the little +undercurrents pre-eminently shape the events themselves. The truth +of this axiom is illustrated principally in the recall of the +resolute, indefatigable, far and clear-sighted patriot and +statesman, General Butler. To jump to a conclusion without much ado, +the recall of Butler from New Orleans is due principally, if not +even exclusively, to the united efforts--or conspiracy--of Mr. +Seward and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. Thirteen months ago Mr. Seward +expected, as he still expects for the future, an uprising of a Union +Party in the hottest hot-bed of Secessia. That such are the +Secretary of State's expectations, I emphatically assert, and as +proof, it may be stated that only yesterday, January 9th, Mr. Seward +most authoritatively tried to impress upon foreign diplomats the +speedy reunion and _restoration_ of the Union as it was, +notwithstanding the Proclamation, _still considered by the Secretary +of State_ as being _a waste of paper_. How far the foreign diplomats +believe the like oracular decisions, is another question; certain it +is that they shrug their shoulders. + +But to return to Butler and New Orleans. The patriotic activity by +which General Butler won, conquered and maintained the rebel city +for the Union, was emphatically considered by Mr. Seward, as +crushing out every spark of any latent Union feeling among the +rebels. Thurlow Weed, then abroad, urged Mr. Seward to find out the +said Union feeling, to blow it into almighty fire and to rely +exclusively upon it. Here Reverdy Johnson was and is, the principal +Union crony of the Secretary of State, and Seaton of the +_Intelligencer_; but above all, since the murder of Massachusetts +men at Baltimore in 1861, Reverdy Johnson was the devoted advocate +of all rich traitors, as the Winans and others, who were called by +him "misled Union men." When Gen. Butler dealt deserved justice to +rich traitors in New Orleans, the Washington Unionists surrounding +Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward--some of them from New Orleans--urged an +investigation. The Secretary of State eagerly seized the occasion to +dispatch to the Crescent City Mr. Reverdy Johnson with the principal +secret mission to gather together the elements of the scattered +Union feeling in Louisiana and in the South, and to make them +blaze--in honor of the Secretary of State. It was a rich harvest in +every way for Reverdy Johnson; he harvested it, and on his return +fully convinced the Secretary of State, that the Union could not be +saved if Gen. Butler remained in his command in the Department of +the Gulf. + +This surreptitious undermining of General Butler by the Secretary of +State, is one more evidence of how truly patriotic was the effort of +the Republican Senators and Congressmen to liberate the President +and the country from the all-choking and all-poisoning influence of +Mr. Seward, and how cursed must remain forever the conduct of Mr. +Chase, who, after having during two years cried against Seward, +accusing him almost of treason, when the hour struck, preferred to +embarrass the patriots and the President rather that to let Mr. +Seward retire and deprive the people of his _patriotic_ services. It +was moreover expected that, thus warned by the patriots, the +President would seize the first occasion to infuse energy into his +Cabinet. But there is a Mr. Usher, a docile nonentity, made +Secretary of the Interior; of course the Secretary of State will be +strengthened thereby. + +_January 10._--Senator Wright of Indiana, in an ardent and lofty--of +course, not rhetorical, speech, hit the nail on the head, when, +rendering due homage to Rosecrans, he called him "the first general +who fights for the people and not for the White House." The greatest +praise for the man, and the most saddening picture of our internal +sores. + +_January 10._--As the pure _populus Romanus_ had an inborn aversion +to Kings and diadems, and could not patiently bear their +neighborhood, so the genuine American Democrat, one by principles +and not by a party name or by a party organization, such a Democrat +feels it to be death for his institutions to have slavocracy in his +country or in its neighborhood. + +_Jan. 10._--O how is to be pitied the future historian of this +bloody tragedy! Through what a loathsome cesspool of documentary +evidence, preserved in the various State Archives, the unhappy +historian will have to wade, and wade deep to his chin. Original +works of Lincoln, Seward, etc. + +It is easy to play a game at chess with a far superior player, then +at least one learns something; but impossible to sit at a chess +board with a child who throws all into confusion. The national +chessboard is very confused in the White House. Cunning is good for, +and only succeeds in dealing with, mean and petty facts. + +_Jan. 10._--Halleck's congratulatory order to Rosecrans and to the +Western heroes. How cold and pedantic. How differently, how +enthusiastically and fiery rang Stanton's words on the capture of +forts Henry and Donelson and to Lander's (now dead) troops. Why is +Stanton silent? Is it the Constitution, the Statute, is it the +incarnate four years formula which seals Stanton's heart and brains? +or is Stanton eaten up by the rats in the Cabinet? + +_January 10._--The messages of the loyal Governors, not copperheads, +(as is Seymour of N. Y.) above all, the message of Andrew of +Massachusetts, throw a ray of hope and promise over this dark, cold, +unpatriotic confusion so eminent here in Washington. This confusion, +this groping, double-dealing and helplessness can be only cured by a +wonder, or else all will be lost. The wonder is daily perpetrated by +the all enduring, all-sacrificing people. + +Those criminals who ought to have been shot, or, at the mildest, +cashiered for the slaughter at Fredericksburgh, the engineers, +mock-Jominis, the sham soldiers: all these Washington engineers of +that recent butchery, assert now, that, after all, the possession of +Fredericksburgh was immaterial; that Lee would have then selected a +better position. All this is thrown to the public to palliate the +crime of the Washington military conclave, and to weaken and +invalidate Hooker's evidence before the War Committee. It must be +admitted that if Hooker--having fifty thousand in hand, and one +hundred thousand in his rear, had seized the Fredericksburgh +heights, he would not have allowed Lee to so easily select a +position and to fortify it. Nay, I suppose, that not only Hooker, +but even a Halleck, a Cullum or a Meigs would have prevented Lee +from settling in any comfortable position. However, I might be +mistaken. Corinth, Corinth, for Halleck. Those great nightcaps here +have so original and so new military conceptions, their general +comprehension of warfare so widely differs from science, experience, +and from common sense, that, holding Fredericksburgh they might have +invited Lee to select whatever he wanted as a strong position. + +I learn that Halleck is at work to translate some French military +book. What an inimitable narrow-minded pedant. If Halleck had +brains, he could not have an hour leisure for translation. But in +such way he humbugs Mr. Lincoln, who looks on Halleck as the +quintessence of military knowledge and genius. A man who can +translate a French book must be a genius. Is it not so, Lincoln? And +thus Halleck translates a book instead of taking care that the +pontoons be sent in time; and Halleck prepared sheets for the press, +and our soldiers to be massacred. + +Burnside prepares a movement; Franklin, to undermine Burnside, to +appear great, or to get hold of the army, denounces Burnside +secretly to the President: the President forbids the movement. What +a confusion! Mr. Lincoln, either accept Burnside's resignation, +which he has repeatedly offered, or kick down the denouncers. +Accident made me discover almost next day, the names of the two +generals sent by Franklin on this denunciatory errand--John Cochran +and Newton. I instantly told all to Stanton, who was almost ignorant +of Franklin's surreptitiousness. I also told it to several Senators. + +The Army of the Potomac is altogether demoralized--above all, in the +higher grades. It could not be otherwise if they were angels. +McClellanism was and is propitious to general disorder, and how Mr. +Lincoln improves is exemplified above. Independent men, independent +Senators and Representatives who approach Mr. Lincoln, find him +peevish, irritable, intractable to all patriots. _All these are +criteria of a lofty mind and character._ Weed, Seward, Harris, +Blair, and such ones alone, are agreeable in the White House. + +So much is spoken of the war powers of the President; I study, and +study, and cannot find them as absolute as the Lincolnites construe +them. All that I read in the Constitution are the real _war powers_ +in the Congress, and the President is only the executor of those +powers. The President must have permission for every thing, almost +at every step--and has no right to issue decrees. He has no war +powers over those of Congress, and can act very little on his own +hook. It seems to me that Congress, misled, confused by casuists, +expounders, and by small intellects worshipping routine, that +Congress rather abdicated their powers, and that the bunglers around +Lincoln, in his name greedily seized the above powers. + +Poor Lincoln! As the devil dreads holy water, so Mr. Lincoln dreads +to be surrounded with stern, earnest, ardent, patriotic advisers. +Such men would not listen to stories! + +_January 11._--The thus-called metropolitan press is in the hands of +old politicians, old hacks--and no new forces or intellects pierce +through. It is a phenomenon. In any whatever country in Europe, at +every convulsion the press bristles with new, fresh intellects. +Here, the old nightcaps have the monopoly. Farther: those +respectable fossils reside at a distance from the focus of affairs, +are not directly in contact with events and men, and are in no +communion with them. The Grand Lamas of the press depend for +information upon the correspondents, who catch news and ideas at +random, and nourish with them their employers and the public. + +_January 11._--Senator Sumner has made a motion to give homesteads +to the liberated Africo-Americans. That is a better and a nobler +action than all his declamations put together. + +_January 12._--Sentinels in double line surrounding the White House. +Odious, ridiculous, unnecessary, and an aspect unwonted in this +country--giving the aspect to the White House of an abode of a +tyrant, when it is only that of a shifting politician. It is +Halleck, who, with the like futilities and absurdities, amuses +Lincoln and gets the better of him. + +Mr. Lincoln is very depressed at the condition of the Army of the +Potomac, and decides--nothing for its reorganization. But for +Halleck, Stanton would reorganize and give a new and healthy life to +the army. I mean the upper grades, and not the rank and file, who +are patriotic and healthy. + +After Corinth, Halleck-Buell disorganized the Western, now Halleck +is at work to do the same with the Potomac Army. I know that in the +presence of a diplomat, Halleck complained that he is paid only five +thousand dollars, and earned by far more in California. He had +better return to California and to his pettifogging. + +Since the beginning of this Administration, Mr. Seward wrote, I am +sure, more dispatches than France, England, Prussia, Russia, +Austria, Spain, and Italy put together during the Crimean war, and +up to this day. Great is ink, and paper is patient! + +_January 13._--It is more than probable that Mr. Mercier stirred up, +or at least heartily supported the mediation scheme. The Frenchmen +in New York maintain that Mr. Mercier derives his knowledge of +America and his political inspirations from that foul sheet, the +_Courrier des États Unis_. There is some truth in this assertion, as +the reasons enumerated to justify mediation can be found in various +numbers of that sheet. I am sorry that Mr. Mercier has fallen so +low; as for his master, he is a fit associate for the _Courrier_. + +_January 13._--Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired and not silenced by the +storm. He alone stands up from among the Athenian school. He alone +is undaunted. So would be Longfellow, but for the terrible domestic +calamity whose crushing blow no man's heart could resist. I never +was a great admirer of Emerson, but now I bow, and burn to him my +humble incense. + +_January 15._--The patriotic, and at times inspired orator--not +rhetor--Kelly, from Pennsylvania, told me that all is at sixes and +sevens in the Administration, and in the army. I believe it. How +could it be otherwise, with Lincoln, Seward and Halleck at the head? + +Mr. Seward did his utmost to defeat the re-election of Judge Potter +from Wisconsin, one among the best and noblest patriots in the +country. For this object Mr. Seward used the influence of the +pro-Catholic Bonzes. Then Mr. Seward wrote a letter denying all +this--a letter which not in the least convinced the brave Judge, as +I have it from himself. + +If all the lies could only be ferreted out with which Seward +bamboozles Lincoln, even the God of Lies himself would shudder. + +_January 15._--The noble and lofty voice of the genuine English +people, the voice of the working classes, begins to be heard. The +people re-echo the key-note struck by a J. S. Mills, by a Bright, a +Cobden, and others of like pure mind and noble heart. The voice of +the genuine English people resounds altogether differently from the +shrill _falsetto_ with which turf hunters, rent-roll devourers, +lords, lordlings, and all the like shams and whelps try to +intimidate the patriotic North, and comfort the traitors, the +rebels. + +_January 16._--But for the truly enlightened and patriotic efforts +of the Senators Wade, Lane, (of Kansas) and Trumbull, the debate of +yesterday, Thursday, on the appropriation for the West Point +Military Academy would have gone to the country, absolutely +misleading and stultifying the noble and enlightened people. It was +most sorrowful, nay, wholly disgusting to witness how Senators who, +until then, had stood firmly against small influences and narrow +prejudices, blended together in an unholy alliance to sustain the +accursed clique of West Point engineers. Much allowance is to be +made for the allied Senators' ignorance of the matter, and for the +natural wish to appear wise. The country, the people, ought to +treasure the names of the ten patriotic Senators whose voices +protested against further sustaining that cursed nursery of +arrogance, of pro-slavery, or of something worse. + +Whatever might have been the efforts of the Senatorial patrons and +the allies of the engineers, the following facts remained for ever +unalterable: 1st. That the spirit of close educational corporation +which have exclusive monopoly and patronage, is perfectly similar to +the spirit which prevailed and still prevails in monasteries, and +permeates the pupils during their whole after life; 2d. That the +prevailing spirit in West Point was and is rather monarchical and +altogether Pro-Slavery; 3d, that of course some noble exceptions +are to be found and made,--but they are exceptions; 4th, that such +educational monasteries nurse conceit and arrogance; and this the +mass of West Pointers have prominently shown during this war in +their relations with the noble and devoted volunteers, and that this +arrogant spirit of clique and of caste works mischievously in the +army; 5th, that exceptions, noble and patriotic, as a Reno, a Lyons, +a Bayard, a Stevens, and other such heroes and patriots, do not +disprove the general rule; 6th, that Lyons, Grant, Rosecrans, +Hooker, Heintzelman, etc., have shown glorious qualities not on +account of what they learnt in West Point, but by what they did not +learn there; 7th, that these heroes rose above the dry and narrow +school wisdom, and are what they are, not because educated in West +Point, but notwithstanding their education there. And here I +interrupt the further enumeration to give an extract from a private +letter directed to me by one of the most eminent pupils from West +Point, and the ablest _true_, not _mock_, engineer in our army: + + "In regard to your views of West Point's influence I am at a loss + to make any answer," (the writer is a great defender of West + Point,) "but would suggest that it may be after all not West + Point, but the want of _a supreme hand_ to our military affairs + to _combine_ and _use_ the materials West Point furnishes, that + is in fault. * * * _West Point cannot make a general_--no + military school can--but it can and does furnish good soldiers. + All the distinguished Confederate generals are West Pointers, and + yet we know the men, and know that neither Lee, nor Johnson nor + Jackson, nor Beauregard, nor the Hills are men of any very + extraordinary ability," etc., etc., etc. + +To this I answer: the rebels are with their heart and soul in their +cause, and thus their capacities are expanded, they are inspired on +the field of battle. (Similar answer I gave to General McDowell +about six months ago.) So was our Lyon, so are Rosecrans, Hooker, +Grant, and a few others; and for such generals, Senators Trumbull, +Wade and Lane ardently called in the above debate. + +I continue the enumeration: 8th. The military direction of the war is +exclusively in the hands of a West Point clique, and of West Point +engineers,--not _very much_ with their hearts in the people's cause; +9th, that that clique of West Point engineers from McClellan down to +Halleck prevents any truly higher military capacity getting a free +untrammelled scope, (General Halleck with all his might opposes giving +the command of the army to Hooker,) and this Halleck, an engineer from +West Point, who never saw a cartridge burnt or a file of soldiers +fighting, to-day decides the military fate of our country on the +authority of a book said to be on military science, but if such a book +had been written by any officer in the armies of France, Prussia or +Russia, the ignorant author would have had the friendly advice from +his superiors to resign and select some pursuit in life more congenial +to his intellectual capacities; further, this Halleck complains in +following words: "that they (the Administration) made him leave a +profitable business in San Francisco, and pay him only 5,000 dollars +to fight THEIR (not his) battles." So much for a Halleck. 10th. That +the West Point clique of engineers, the McClellans, the Hallecks, the +Franklins, etc., have brought the country to the verge of the grave, +as stated by Senator Lane. + +Such were the facts established by the patriotic and not +would-be-wise Senators; and there is an illustration recorded in +history as proof that the above not engineering Senators were right +in their assertions. Frederick II. was in no military school; the +captains second to Napoleon in the French wars were Hoche, Moreau, +and Massena, all of them from private life. + +--The clique of engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its +grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble +children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from +the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation +of the country. + +The clique accuses the volunteers; but the clique, the engineers in +power have disorganized, morally and materially, and disgraced the +Army of the Potomac. They did this from the day of the encampments +around Washington, in the fall of 1861, down to the day of +Fredericksburgh. Fredericksburgh was altogether prepared by +engineers; at Fredericksburgh the engineer Franklin did not even +mount his horse when his soldiers were misled and miscommanded--by +himself. + +--Stragglers are generated by generals. Besides, to explain +straggling, I quote from a _genuine_ book on genuine military +science, published in Berlin in 1862, by Captain Boehn, the most +eminent professor at the military school in Potsdam: "The greatest +losses, during a war, inflicted on an army are by maladies and by +straggling. Such losses are five times greater than those of killed +and wounded; and an _intelligent administration_ takes preparatory +measures to meet the losses and to compensate them. Such measures of +foresight consist in organizing depots for battalions, which depots +ought to equal one sixth of the number of the active army." O, +Halleck, where are the depots? + +--"In any ordinary campaign, excepting a winter campaign, the losses +amount (as established by experience) to one half in infantry, one +fourth in cavalry, and to one third in artillery." (Do you know any +thing about it, O, Halleck?) + +Let the people be warned, and they may understand the location of +the cause generating further disasters. If the Army of the Potomac +shall win glory, it will win it notwithstanding the West Point +clique of engineers. The disasters have root in the White House, +where the advice of such a Halleck prevails. + +--I know very well that the formation of the volunteers in +respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great +difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and +genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to +be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius and talent. + +Taking into account the patriotism, the devotion of the governors of +the respective states, [not _à la_ Copperhead Seymour], it would +have been possible, nay, even easy to organize some kind of +reserves. O, Halleck, O, fogies! + +_January 17._--Mr. Lincoln loads on his shoulders all kinds of +responsibilities, more so than even Jackson would have dared to +take. Admirable if generated by the boldness of self-consciousness, +of faith, and of convictions. True men measure the danger--and the +means in their grasp to meet the emergency; others play +unconsciously with events, as do children with explosive and +death-dealing matters. + +_January 17._--General and astronomer Mitchel's death may be credited +to Halleck. Halleck and Buell's envy--if not worse--paralysed Mitchel +and Turtschin's activity in the West. Mitchel and Turtschin were too +quick, that is, too patriotic. In early summer, 1862, they were sure +to take Chattanooga, a genuine strategic point, one of those principal +knots and nurseries in the life of the secesh. How imprudent! +Chattanooga is still in the hands of the rebels, and if we ever take +it, it will cost streams of blood and millions of money. Down with +Mitchel and Turtschin. Mitchel's _excrementa_ were more valuable than +are Halleck's heavy, but not expanding, brains. Mitchel revealed at +once all the qualities of an eminent, if not of a great general. +Quickness of mind, fertility of resources. An astronomer, a +mathematician, Mitchel's mind was familiar with broad combinations. +Such a mind penetrated space, calculated means and chances, balanced +forces and probabilities. Not to compare, however, is it to be borne +in mind that Napoleon was a mathematician in the fullest sense, and +not an engineer, not a translator. + +_January 18._--Mr. Lincoln's letter to McClellan when the hero of +the Copperheads was in search of mud in the Peninsula. The letter +rings as sound common sense; it shows, however, that common sense +debarred of strong will remains unproductive of good. Mr. Lincoln +commonly shows strong will, in the wrong place. + + ----ein Theil von jener Krafft, + Die stehts das Guthe will, und stehts das Boese schaff. + +_January 18._--The emancipation proclamation is out. Very well. But +until yet not the slightest signs of any measures to execute the +proclamation, at once, and in its broadest sense. Now days, even +hours, are equal to years in common times. Had Lincoln his heart in +the proclamation, on January 2d he would begin to work out its +expansion, realization, execution. I wish Lincoln may lift himself, +or be lifted by angels to the grandeur of the work. But it is +impossible. Surrounded as he is, and led in the strings by Seward, +Blair, Halleck, and by border-state politicians, the best that can +be expected are belated half measures. + +Stanton comprehends broadly and thoroughly the question of +emancipation and of arming the Africo-Americans. As I intend to +realize my plans of last year and organise Africo-American +regiments, I had conversations with Stanton, and find him more +thorough about the matter than is any body whom I met. He agreed +with me, that the cursed land of Secessia ought to be surrounded by +camps to enlist and organise the enslaved, as a scorpion surrounded +with burning coals. Such organizations introduced rapidly and +simultaneously on all points, would shake Secessia to its +foundations, and put an end to guerillas, _alias_ murderers and +robbers. We will again think and talk it over. But as is wont with +Lincoln, he will hesitate, hesitate, until much of precious time +will be lost. + +_January 18._--A surgeon in one of the hospitals in Alexandria +writes in a private note: + + "Our wounded bear their sufferings nobly; I have hardly heard a + word of complaint from one of them. A soldier from the 'stern and + rock bound coast' of Maine--a victim of the slaughter at + Fredericksburgh--lay in this hospital, his life ebbing away from + a fatal wound. He had a father, brothers and sisters, a wife, and + one little boy of two or three years old, on whom his heart + seemed set. Half an hour before he ceased to breathe, I stood by + his side, holding his hand. He was in the full exercise of his + intellectual faculties, and knew he had but a brief time to live. + He was asked if he had any message to leave for his dear ones + whom he loved so well. "_Tell them_," said he, "_how I died--they + know how I lived!_" + +_January 19._--Senator Wright, of Indiana, stirred the hearts of the +Senate and of the people. It was not the oration of a rhetor--it was +the confession of an ardent, pure patriot. I never heard or +witnessed anything so inspiring and so kindling to soul and heart. + +_January 20._--General Butler palsied and shelved, Halleck all +powerful and with full steam running the country and the army to +destruction--such is the truest photograph of the situation. But as +an adamantine rock among storms, so Mr. Lincoln remains unmoved. +Unmoved by the yawning, bleeding wounds of the devoted, noble +people--unmoved by the prayers and supplication of patriots--of +his--once--best friends. Mr. Lincoln answers, with dignity not +Roman, and with obstinacy unparallelled even by Jackson, that he +will stand or fall with his present advisers, and that he takes the +responsibility for all the cursed misdeeds of Seward, Halleck, +Chase, and others. So children are ready to set a match to a powder +magazine unconscious of the terrible results--unconscious of the +awful responsibility for its destructive action. + +A death pang runs through one's body to see how rapidly the dial +marks the disappearing hours, and how unrelentingly approaches March +4th, and the death-knell of this present patriotic, devoted +Congress. For this terrible storm and clash of events, the people, +perhaps, feel not the immensity of the loss. Paralyzed as Congress +has been and now is, by the infernal machinations of Seward, Chase, +and others, and by Mr. Lincoln's stubborn helplessness, the patriots +in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which +the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The +patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest +aspirations of the American people, whipped in--and this literally, +not figuratively--whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having +issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this +dying Congress initiated the Emancipation--generated the +Proclamation of the 22d September, and of January 1st. History will +not allow one to wear borrowed plumage. + +--Congress ought not to have so easily abdicated its well established +rights of more absolute and direct control of the deeds of the +Administration and of its clerks, _alias_ Secretaries of Departments. +It is to be eternally regretted that Congress has shown such +unnecessary leniency; but in justice it must be said that the +patriotic and high-minded members of Congress wished to avoid the +degrading necessity of showing the nation the prurient administrative +sores. Advised, directed, tutored and pushed by Seward, Blair and +Chase, Mr. Lincoln is--innocently--as grasping for power, as are any +of those despots not over respectfully recorded by history. + +With all this, the presence of Congress keeps in awe the reckless +and unscrupulous Administration, as, according to the pious belief +of medieval times, holy water awed the devil. But Congress once out +of the way, without having succeeded in rescuing Mr. Lincoln from +the hands of those mean, ignorant, egotistic bunglers, all the time +squinting towards the succession to the White House, and unable to +surround the President with men and patriots, then all the plagues +of Egypt may easily overrun this fated country. Such conjurors of +evil as the Sewards, Hallecks, and others, will have no dread of any +holy water before them, and they will be sure that the great party +of the "Copperheads" in the future Congress will applaud them for +all the mischief done, and lift them sky high, if they succeed in +treading down in the gutter, or in any way palsying emancipation, +tarnishing the people's noble creed, and endangering the country's +holiest cause. + +General Fitz-John Porter's trial before court-martial ended in his +dismissal, but ought punishment to fall on him alone, when the +butchers of Fredericksburgh and when the pontoon men are in high +command? when a Franklin is still sustained, when a Seward and a +Halleck remain firm in their high places as the gates of hell? + +_January 20._--Wrote a respectful letter to the President on +Halleck's military science, his book, and capacity. Told +respectfully to Mr. Lincoln that not even the Sultan would dare to +palm such a Halleck on his army and on his people. + +Mr. Lincoln in his greatness says that "he will stand and fall with +his Cabinet." O, Mr. Lincoln! O, Mr. Lincoln! purple-born sovereigns +can no more speak so! + +Mr. Lincoln! with the gang of politicians, your advisers and +friends, _you all desire immensely, and will feebly_. You desire the +reconstruction of the Union, and you almost shun the ways and means +to do it. And thus this noble people is dragged to a slaughter +house. + + Parumne campis atque Neptuno super + Fusum est--[Yankee] sanguinis? + +_January 21._--Deep, irreconcilable as is my hatred of slavocrats +and rebels, nevertheless I am forced to admire the high intellectual +qualities of their chiefs, when compared with that of ours. Of +Lincoln _versus_ Jeff Davis I spoke in the first volume. But now +Lee, Jackson, Hill, Ewall, _versus_ Halleck, McClellan, McDowell, +Franklin, etc. + +_January 22._--Wendell Phillips's _Amen_ oration to the Proclamation +is noble and torrent-like oratory. Greeley is the better Greeley of +former times. I heartily wish to admire and speak well of Greeley, +as of every body else. Is it my fault that they give me no occasion? + +_January 23._--General Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's pet, told me +to-day, that after the battle at Hanover Court House, he supplicated +McClellan to attack Richmond at once--which in Porter's opinion +could have been taken without much ado,--and not to change his base +to James River; and even Fitz-John could not prevail on this demigod +of imbeciles, traitors and intriguers. + +_January 24._--Here is one of the thousand flagrant lies with which +Seward entangles Lincoln, as with a net of steel. Lincoln assured +General Ashley that the public is unjust toward Seward in accusing +him of having worked for the defeat of Wadsworth. That they have +been the best friends for long years; that, when Military Governor +of Washington, Wadsworth was a daily visitor in Seward's house; and +that, during the canvass, Wadsworth consulted with Seward concerning +his (Wadsworth's) actions. + +Mr. Seward knows that every one of those assertions which he or +Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant +lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned +Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a +lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never +was his political or private friend. + +I am sorry to bring such details before the public, but how +otherwise convict a liar? As for Thurlow Weed's secret and open +machinations against the election of Wadsworth, only an idiot or a +s.... doubts them. Ask the New York politicians, provided they have +manhood to tell the truth. + +_January 24th._--_Caveant Senators and Representatives!_ cannot be +too often hurled into the ears of the people and of the Congressmen. +The time runs lightning like--the 4th of March approaches with +comet-like velocity. If the tempest is not roaring, its signs are +visible, and most of the helmsmen are blind or unsteady. Oh! could +every move of the pendulums of the clocks of the Senate Chamber and +the Representatives' Hall, thunder-like repeat that _caveant_, +transmitted by the purest and best days of Rome! The Republicans and +many of the war Democrats are faithful and true to the people and to +its sacred cause; but the names of the "filibustering" traitors in +both houses ought to be nailed to the gallows! + +European winds bring Louis Napoleon's opening speech, and the +confession, that although once rebuked, he, the dissolute, the +profligate, with his corrosive breath still intends to pollute the +virginity of our country; for such is the indelible stain to any +nation, to any people which accepts or submits to any, even the most +friendly, foreign mediation or arbitration. Never, never any great +nation or any self-respecting government, accepted or submitted to +any similar foreign interference. Of the peoples, nations and +governments, which allowed such interference, some collapsed into +degradation for a long time, only slowly recovering, like Spain; +others, like Poland, disappeared. Those who advocate such mediation +unveil their weakness, their thorough ignorance of the world's +history and of the historic and political bearings of the words, +_mediation_, and _arbitration_; and to crown all, these advocates +bring to market their imbecility. + +The Africo-Americans ought to receive military organization and be +armed. But it ought to be done instantly and without loss of time; +it ought to be done earnestly, boldly, broadly; it ought to be done +at once on all points and on the largest scale; it ought to be done +here in Washington, under the eyes of the chief of the people; here +in the heart of the country; here, so to speak, in the face of +slave-breeding Virginia, this most intense focus of treason; it +ought to be done here, that the loyal freemen of Virginia's soil be +enabled to fight and crush the F. F. V's, the progeny of hell; it +ought to be done here on every inch of soil covered with shattered +shackles; and not partially on the outskirts, in the Carolinas and +Louisiana. Stanton, alone, and Welles among the helmsmen, are so +inspired; but alas, for the rest of the crew. + +On the flags of the Africo-Americans under my command, I shall +inscribe: _Hic niger est! hunc tu (rebel) caveto!_ I shall inculcate +upon my men that they had better not make prisoners in the battle, +and not allow themselves to be taken alive. + +_January 25th._--So Gen. McClellan's services to the rebellion are +acknowledged by the gift of a splendid mansion situated in New York, +in the social sewer of American society. The donors, are the shavers +from Wall Street, individuals who coin money from the blood and from +the misfortunes of the people, and who by high rents mercilessly +crush the poor; who sacrifice nothing for the sacred cause; who, if +they put their names as voluntary contributors of a trifle for the +war, thousand and thousand times recover that trifle which they +ostentatiously throw to gull the good-natured public opinion; not to +speak of those so numerous among the McClellanites, who openly or +secretly are in mental communion with treason and rebellion. +Naturally, all this gang honors its hero. + +McClellan's pedestal is already built of the corpses of hundreds of +thousands butchered by his generalship, poisoned in the +Chickahominy, and decimated by diseases. His trophies are the wooden +guns from Centreville and Manassas. + +_January 25th._--What from the beginning of this war, I witness as +administrative acts and dispositions, and further the debates in +Congress on the various bills for military organizations and for the +organization of the various branches of the military medical, +surgical, and quartermaster's service; all this fully convinces me +that the military and administrative routine, as transmitted by Gen. +Scott, or by his school, and as continued by his pets and remnants, +is almost the paramount cause of all mischief and evils. In the +medical, surgical, and in the quartermasters' offices, ought have +been appointed young civilians and business men as chiefs, having +under them some old routinists for the sake of technicalities of the +service. Such men would have done by far better than those old +intellectual drones. A merchant accustomed to carry on an extensive +and complicated business would have been by far a better +quartermaster-general--_Intendant des armées_--than the wholly +inexperienced Gen. Meigs. This last would serve as an aid to the +merchant. At the beginning of the war, I suggested to Senator Wilson +to import such quartermasters from France or Russia, men experienced +and accustomed to provide for armies of 100,000 men each. By paying +well, such men could have been easily found, and the military +medical and surgical bureau, as organized by Scott, was about sixty +years behind real science. These senile representatives of +non-science snubbed off Professor Van Buren of the New York +academy, to whom they compare as the light of a common match to that +of calcium. If men like Dr. Van Buren, Dr. Barker, and others of +real science from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., had been +listened to, thousands and thousands of limbs and lives would have +been saved and preserved. + +_January 25th._--Mr. Lincoln relishes the idea that if the cause of +the North is victorious, no one can claim much credit for it. I put +this on record for some future assumptions. Mr. Lincoln is the best +judge of the merits of his clerks and lieutenants. But Mr. Lincoln +forgets that the success will be due exclusively to the people--and, +_per contra_, he alone will be arrayed for the failure. His friends +and advisers, as the Sewards, the Weeds, the Blairs, the Hallecks, +will very cleverly wash their gored hands from any complicity with +him--Lincoln. + +The army to be formed from Africo-Americans is to be entrusted to +converted conservatives. It is feared that sincere abolitionists if +entrusted with the command, may use the forces for some awful, +untold aims. It is feared that abolitionists once possessed of arms +and troops, may use them indiscriminately, and emancipate right and +left, by friend and foe, paying no attention to the shrieks of +border-States, of old women, of politicians, of cowards, of +Sewardites; nay, it is feared that genuine abolitionists may carry +too far their notions of absolute equality of races, and without +hesitation treat the white rebels with even more severity than they +threaten to treat loyal armed Africo-Americans. And why not?... + +The history of England, the history of any free country has not on +record a position thus anomalous, even humiliating, as is that of +the patriots in Congress, thanks to Mr. Lincoln's helpless +stubbornness. The patriots forcibly must consider Mr. Lincoln, even +Sewardised, Blairised, Halleckised as he is, as being the only legal +power for the salvation of the country. The patriots must support +him, and instead of exposing the wretched faults, mistakes, often +ill-will of his administration, must defend the administration +against the attacks of the Copperheads, who try to destroy or +disorganize the administration on account of that atom of good that +it accidentally carries out on its own hook. And thus the patriots +must suffer and bear patiently abuses heaped on them by the +treasonable or by the stupid press, by intriguers and traitors; and +patriots cannot make even the slightest attempt to vindicate their +names. + +_January 26th._--The visits to the White House and the "_I had a +talk with the President_," are among the prominent causes of the +distracted condition of affairs. With comparatively few exceptions, +almost everybody expands a few inches in his own estimation, when he +says to his listeners, nay, to his friends: "I had a talk with the +President." Of course it is no harm in private individuals to have +such _a talk_, but I have frequently observed and experienced that +public men had better refrain from having any talk with him. Very +often he is not a jot improved by their talk, and they come out from +the interview worsted in some sort or other. + +Sumner, the Roman, the Cicero, was to-day urged by several +abolitionists from Boston to expose the mischief of both the foreign +and the domestic policy of Seward. The Senator replied that he is +more certain to succeed against that public nuisance and public +enemy by not attacking him openly. I vainly ransack my recollection +of my classic reading for the name of any Roman who ever made such a +reply. + +_January 26th: Two o'clock P. M._--Hooker is in command! And +patriotic hearts thrill with joy! Mud, bad season, mortality, loss +of time, demoralization, such is the inheritance left by McClellan, +Halleck and Burnside--such are the results prepared by the infamous +West Point and other muddy intriguers in Washington, and in the +army,--such is the inheritance transmitted to Hooker, by the cursed +Administration procrastinations. In all military history there is +seldom, if ever, a record of a commander receiving an army under +such ominous circumstances. If Hooker succeeds, then his genius will +astonish even his warmest friends. + +When Hooker was wounded, and in the hospital, he repeatedly +complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of +it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a +flaw. + +I immediately wrote to Stanton, sending him several pages translated +from the German works of Boehn (before spoken of) to give to the +Secretary a general idea of what are the qualities, the science, the +knowledge and the duties of a good chief of staff. I explained that +the staff and the chief of the staff of an army are to it what the +brains and the nervous system are to the human body. + +_9 o'clock, P. M._--I am told that Hooker wished to have for his +chief of staff General Stone, (white-washed) who is considered to be +one of the most brilliant capacities of the army. If so, it was a +good choice, and the opposition made by Stanton is for me--at the +best--unintelligible. + +Hooker selected Butterfield. What a fall from Stone to Butterfield. +Between the two extend hundreds, nay, thousands, of various +gradations. Gen. Butterfield is brave, can well organize a regiment +or a brigade, but he has not and can not have the first atom of +knowledge required in a chief of staff of such a large army. Staff +duties require special studies, they are the highest military +science; and where, in the name of all, could Butterfield have +acquired it? I am certain Butterfield is not even aware that staff +duties are a special science. All this is a very bad omen, very bad, +very bad. Literally they laugh at me; now they hurrah for Hooker. +May they not cry very soon on account of Hooker's staff. When I +warn, Senators and Representatives tell me that I am very difficult +to be satisfied. We will see. + +_January 27._--It is said that Franklin, Sumner, and even +Heintzelman declared they would not serve under Hooker. Let them go. +Bow them out, the hole in the army will be invisible. I am sorry +that Heintzelman plays such pranks, as he is a very good general and +a very good man. Well, a new galaxy of generals and commanders is +the inevitable gestation of every war. Seldom if ever the same men +end a war who began it. New men will prove better than the present +sickly reputations consecrated by Scott, West Point and Washington. + +_January 27._--Governor Andrew--the man always to the point, or as the +French would say _toujours à la hauteur de la question_--insists on +forming African or black regiments in Boston from free blacks. Such +formations interfere not with my project, as I principally, nay +exclusively, look to contrabands, to actual slaves. Governor Andrew +wishes to give the start, to stir up the Government and other +Governors and to drag them in his footsteps. He is the representative +man of the new and better generation which ought to have the affairs +of the country in hand, and not these old worn-out hacks who are at it +now. If such new men were at the helm in both civil and military +affairs, Secesh would have been already crushed and Emancipation +accomplished. To such a new generation belongs Coffey, one of the +Assistant Attorney Generals, Austin Stevens, Jr., Charles Dana, +Woodman, etc., etc. The country bristles with such men, and only +prejudices, stupidity, and routine prevents them from becoming really +active and from saving the country. + +_January 27._--The patriotic majorities of both Houses of Congress +pass laws after laws concerning the finances, arming the +Africo-Americans, increasing the powers of the President, etc., each +of which taken alone, would not only save the cause but raise it +triumphant over the ruins of crime and of slavery, if used by +patriotic, firm, devoted, unegotistic hands and brains. But alas! +alas! very little of such, except in one or two individuals, is +located in the various edifices in and around the presidential +quarters. + +The military organization of Africo-Americans is a powerful social +and military engine by which slavery, secession, rebellion, and all +other dark and criminal Northern and Southern excrescences can be +crushed and pulverized to atoms, and this in a trice. But as is the +case with all other powerful and explosive gases, elements, forces, +etc. this mighty element put in the hands of the Administration must +be handled resolutely, and with unquivering hands and intellect; +otherwise the explosion may turn out useless for the country and for +humanity. + +At present the indications are very small that the administration +has a decided, clear comprehension how to use this accession of +loyal forces on a large scale; how to bring them boldly into action +in Virginia, as the heart of the rebellion. Nothing yet indicates +that the administration intends to arm and equip Africo-Americans +here under the eyes of the government. Nothing indicates that it +intends to do this avowedly and openly, and thereby terrify and +strike the proud slave-breeders, the F. F. V's. of Virginia, in the +heart of treason, and do it by their own once chattels, now their +betters. + +_January 28._--The Congress almost expires; and will or can the +incarnated constitutional formula save the country? It is a chilling +thought to doubt, yet how can we have confidence! All in the +people! the people alone and its true men will not and cannot +fail, and they alone are up to the mission. + +The dying Congress can no more reconquer its abdicated power. This +noble and patriotic majority--many of them, are not re-elected, +thanks to Lincoln-Seward--provide the incarnate formula with all +imaginable legal, constitutional powers, more than twice sufficient +to save the country. Could only the brains and hands entrusted with +laws, be able to execute them! Oh for a legal, constitutional, +statute Cromwell, ready to behead treason, rebellion, slavocracy and +slavo-sympathy, as the great Oliver beheaded and crushed the +poisonous weeds of his time. If the democratic-copperhead vermin +had the possibility, they would make a McClellan-Seymour +dictatorship, and extinguish for a century at least, light, right, +justice, and freedom. Not yet! Oh, Copperheads! not yet. + +_January 29._--They dance to madness in New York, they dance here +and give dancing parties! O what a heartlessness, recklessness, +flippancy, and crime, of those mothers, wives and young crinolines, +when one half of the population is already in mourning, when they +have fathers, brothers, husbands in the army. I hope that Boston and +New England as well as the towns and villages of the country all +over, spit on this example given by New York and Washington. My +friend N----, progressive, enlightened and therefore a true Russian, +is amazed and displeased with such an intolerable flippancy. During +the Crimean war, no one danced in Russia from the Imperial palace +down to the remotest village; the people's indignation would have +prevented any body--even the Czar, from such a sacrilegious display +of recklessness when the country's integrity and honor were at +stake, when the nation's blood was pouring in torrents. + +Unspeakably worse, is the cold indifference with which many +generals, many men in power, the rhetors and the politicians, speak +of what is more than a sacrifice in a sacred cause, is an unholy and +demoniac waste of human life. But some one--some avenging angel, +will call them all to a terrible account. + +_January 30._--I would have ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, +Secretary of State. The conduct of European affairs requires pure +patriotism--that is, conscientiousness of being an American by +principle, in the noblest philosophical sense, sound common sense, +discretion, simplicity, sobriety of mind, firmness, clear-sightedness. +Boutwell would be a Secretary of State similar to Marcy. + +_January 30._--Wrote a letter to Stanton with the following +suggestions for the organization of a large and efficacious force, +nay, army, from the Africo-Americans. + +Some of the points submitted to this genuine patriot have been +already variously mentioned above; here are some others. + +1. It may be possible--even probable--on account of inveterate +prejudices and stupidity, that an Africo-American regiment may be +left unsupported during a battle. + +2. It would be therefore more available to organize such a force at +once on a large scale, so as to be able to have strong brigades, and +even divisions. At the head of six to eight thousand men, resistance +is possible for several hours if the enemy outnumbers not in too +great proportions--four or five to one, and if the terrain is not +altogether against the smaller force. + +3. The Africo-Americans ought to be formed, drilled and armed +principally with the view to constitute light infantry--and, if +possible, light cavalry--but above all, for a _set fight_. + +4. Their dress must be adapted to such a light service--as ought to +be the dress of our whole infantry, facilitating to the utmost the +quick and easy movements of the body and of the feet; both +impossible or at least difficult in the present equipment of the +American infantry. On account of the modern improvements in fire +arms, the fights begin at longer distances, and it is important that +the soldier be trained to march as quickly as possible, so as to +force the enemy from their positions at the point of the bayonet. In +this country of clay, bad roads, forests and underbrush, even more +than care must be bestowed upon the feet and legs of the infantry. I +suggested an imitation of the equipment of the French infantry. + +5. In the case of the arsenals not having the requisite number of +fire-arms, I would have the third line armed with scythes. As a +Pole, I am familiar with that really terrible weapon. + +6. To adapt the drill to the object in view--to free it as far as +possible from needless technicalities, and to reduce it to the most +urgently needed and the most readily comprehended particulars. + +7. In view of the above-mentioned reasons, I would have the Tactics +now in use very carefully revised, or have an entirely new book of +Tactics and Regulations. + +8. Suggested that General Casey should be entrusted with the matters +treated of in suggestions 6 and 7. + +_January 31._--The Copperheads in Congress are shedding crocodile +tears over the doom that awaits those Africo-Americans who may +unfortunately be taken prisoners by the rebels. Now, in the first +place enlisted Africo-Americans are under the protection of the +United States Government, and that Government will not be guilty of +the infamy of seeing its captured soldiers murdered in cold +blood--and in the next place the Africo-American will prove anything +rather than an easily-made captive to Southern murderers. The +Africo-Americans will sell their lives so dearly as to disgust the +rebels with the task of attempting to capture them. + +_January 31._--Few people can understand the intensity of the +disgust with which I find myself often obliged to mention Thurlow +Weed--that darkest incarnation of all that is evil in black mail, +lobbyism, and all hideous corruptions. It is not my fault that such +a man is allowed to exert a malign influence on the country's fate, +and I am obliged to give the dark as well as the bright parts of the +great social picture. How deeply I regret my inability to collect +and record, in part at least, if not as a whole, all the deeds of +heroism and devotion, of generous and brave self-abnegation, which +have been done by thousands, even by millions of those who are both +falsely and foolishly called the lower classes. + + + + +FEBRUARY, 1863. + + The Problems before the People -- the Circassian -- Department of + State and International Laws -- Foresight -- Patriot Stanton and + the Rats -- Honest Conventions -- Sanitary Commission -- Harper's + Ferry -- John Brown -- the Yellow Book -- the Republican Party -- + Epitaph -- Prize Courts -- Suum cuique -- Academy of Sciences -- + Democratic Rank and File, etc. etc. etc. + + +_February 1._--The task which this great American people has on its +hands is one utterly unexampled in the history of the world. While +in the midst of a great civil war, and struggling as it were in very +death-throes, to emancipate and organize four millions of men, most +of whom, up to this very day, have by deliberate legislation been +kept in ignorance and savagery. Thoroughly to comprehend the +immensity of such a task, we must also reflect that the men to whom +that task is intrusted are anything rather than intellectual +giants. Yet the true solution of the problem will be given by the +principle of self-government and by the self-governing People. And +it is therein that consists the genuine American originality which +Europe finds it so impossible to understand. And it is just as +little understood by most of the diplomatists here, and what +is still worse, it is not even studied by them. It is wretched +work to be obliged to witness the low, the actually ignoble parts +which many men play in the great farce of political life. I could +easily mention a full score of would-be-eminent men, who are +unsurpassed by the meanest of the vulgar herd in flippancy and an +utter want of self-respect. + +The diary published in London by Bull Run Russell deserves to be read +by every American. Russell deals blows to slavery which will tell in +England. However annoying may be to many the disclosures made by this +indiscreet confidant of their vanity, Russell's revelations establish +firmly the broad historical--not gossipping--fact, that before and +after Sumter, the most absolute want of earnestness, of statesmanlike +foresight, and the most childish but fathomless vanity inspired all +the actions of the American Secretary of State. I am one of the few +who, having often met Russell here, never fawned to him, nay who not +even took any notice of him; but I am grateful to him for his +falsely-called indiscreetness--for his having done the utmost to bring +out truth--in his own way. It is the best that I have seen, or heard, +or read of him. Flatterers, Secretaries, Senators, and Generals +crowded to Russell and to his table, and he exposes them. Among +others, General McDowell was Russell's guest, very likely to show his +gratitude to the slanderer of the volunteers, whom McDowell did not +understand how to lead to victory. + +Seward showed to Russell his dispatches to Lord John Russell. Mr. +Sumner, at Bull Run Russell's table, asked Russell's aid to keep +peace with England. Good! Unspeakably good! + +Not only the Emancipation problem must be solved, so to speak, +amidst the storm of battle--but other and very mighty problems, +social, constitutional, jurisprudential, and financial, must be +similarly and promptly dealt with. And these great questions must be +debated to the accompaniment of the music of musketry and cannon. In +some respects the situation of America at present may be said to +resemble that of France in the days of her great Revolution. But +affairs here and now are still more complicated than they were in +France from 1789 to 1793. + +Formerly I took a more active part than I now take in revolutionary +and reformatory struggles, and was seldom daunted by their difficult +problems, or by their most violent tempests. But now I have a +chilling sense of weariness and disgust as I note the strange things +that are done under my very eyes. + +The burden of taxes laid upon a people who have an inborn hatred of +taxation, a debt created in a few months surpassing that which +England and France contracted in half a century; and that debt +contracted as if by magic, and in the very crisis of a civil +war such as any foreign war would be mere baby's play to. + +The people at large see the precipice, and hear the roaring of the +breakers ahead, but despair not! Sublime phenomena for the future +historian to dwell upon! All this is genuine American originality. +In its sublime presence, down, down upon your knees in the dust, all +you European wiseacres! + +The capture of the _Circassian_, an English blockade runner, gave +birth to some very delicate international complications. The +decision of the Prize Court shows up the absolute destitution of +statesmanship in the Department of State, generally coruscated with +ignorance of international principles, rules of judicial +international decisions, and of belligerent rights and observances. +Every day shows what a masterly stroke it was of the Secretary of +State to have proclaimed the blockade in April, 1861, and to have +been the first to recognize the rebels in the character of +independent belligerents. The more blockade runners will be captured +by our cruisers, the more the complications will grow. A false first +step generates false conditions _ad infinitum_. The question of the +_Circassian_ is only the beginning, and not even the worst. The +worst will come by and by. But Seward is great before Allah! The +truth is, that Mr. Seward and the Department are as innocent of +any familiarity with international laws, as can be. The people, +the intelligent people would be horror-stricken could they suddenly +be made acquainted with all the shameful ignorance which is +corrosively fermenting in the State Department. + +To every intelligent and well regulated Government in Europe, the +Department of Foreign Affairs--which in America is called the State +Department--has attached to it a board of advisers for the solution +of all international questions. + +In England, for instance, all such questions are referred to the +Crown Lawyers, i.e. the Attorney and Solicitor General, and, in +specially important cases, to the Lord High Chancellor, and one or +two of the Judges. And in order to obtain the advice he obviously +stands so much in need of, Mr. Seward ought to have consulted two or +three American juriconsults of eminence. Mr. Seward ought to have +foreseen that the war would necessarily give rise to international, +commercial, and maritime complications. Such men as Charles Eames, +Upton, etc. would have been excellent advisers on all international +and statutory questions. Presumptuous that I am--to venture upon +the mere supposition that Seward the Great can possibly need advice! +Not he, of course--not he. Mr. Seward is the Alpha and Omega--knows +everything, and can do every thing himself. Happily, the people at +large is the genuine statesman, and can correct the mistakes--and +worse--of its blundering, bungling servants. + +American pilots and statesmen! Forget not that foresight is the germ +of action. Foresight reveals to the mind the opportuneness of the +needed measure by which a solution is to be given, a question +decided, and the hoped-for results obtained. + +American people! How much foresight have your--dearly-paid--servants +shown? You, the people alone, you have been far-seeing and +prophetic; but not they. + +_February 2._--All the efforts of the worshippers of treason, of +darkness, of barbarism, of cruelty, and of infamy--all their +manoeuvres and menaces could not prevail. The majority of the +Congress has decided that the powerful element of Africo-Americans +is to be used on behalf of justice, of freedom, and of human rights. +The bill passed both the Houses. It is to be observed that the "big" +diplomats swallowed _col gusto_ all the pro-slavery speeches, and +snubbed off the patriotic ones. The noblest eulogy of the patriots! + +The patriots may throb with joy! The President intends great changes +in his policy, and has telegraphed for----Thurlow Weed, that prince +of dregs, to get from him light about the condition of the country. + +The conservative "Copperheads" of Boston and of other places in New +England press as a baby to their bosom, and lift to worship +McClellan, the conservative, and all this out of deepest hatred +towards all that is noble, humane, and lofty in the genuine American +people. Well they may! If by his generalship McClellan butchered +hundreds of thousands in the field, he was always very conservative +of his precious little self. + +Biting snow storm all over Virginia! Our soldiers! our soldiers in +the camp! It is heart-rending to think of them. Conservative +McClellan so conservatively campaigned until last November as to +preserve--the rebel armies, and make a terrible winter campaign an +inevitable necessity. O, Copperheads and Boston conservatives! When +you bend your knees before McClellan, you dip them in the best and +purest blood of the people! + +_February 3._--The Secretary of War appointed General Casey to +shorten the general tactics for the use of Africo-American regiments +to use them as light infantry. + +The devotion of American women to the sick and wounded soldiers, +makes them be envied by the angels in Heaven (provided there are +any). This devotion of these genuine gentlewomen atones for the +ignoble flippancy of dancing crinolines. + +Down, down goes slavery notwithstanding the _gates of hell_, and +their guard, the McClellans, the Sewards, amorously embracing the +Copperheads and all that is dark and criminal. Humanity is avenged +and Eternal Justice is satisfied. + +_February 4._--Sumner is re-elected to the Senate. His re-election +vindicates a sound principle, because his opponents were all the +Copperheads and slavery-saviours in Massachusetts. Sumner's +influence in the Senate is rather limited. Politically he is on all +points most honest; but his conduct towards Seward is not calculated +to impress one with any very high esteem for his manhood. + +It is not force, or decision, or power, that is cruel in +revolutionary times--but, weakness. All societies have had their +epochs of progress and of retrogression. Sylla was a conservative, +and so too was Phocion. The Pharisees were reactionists and +conservatives. Europe has millions of them, of various hues, shapes, +tendencies and convictions. But the reactionists and conservatives +in the past of Europe all have been and are of a purer metal than +the conservatives here, and their impure organs, as the National +Intelligencer, the World, the Boston Courier, and the rest of that +fetish creed. + +_February 4._--The French Yellow Book, or State Correspondence, +justifies my forebodings of November last. Mr. Mercier's diplomatic +sentimentalism, and his associations, germinated the _Decembriseur's_ +scheme for mediation and humiliation. + +Further is to be found in the Yellow Book the evidence how, from the +start of this dark rebellion, Mr. Seward, the master spirit of the +Administration, dealt death blows to all energetic, unyielding +prosecution of the war for crushing the rebellion, and that he was +double-dealing in all his public actions. The published state papers +of the French government disclose the fact that nine months ago Mr. +Seward sent the French minister to Richmond with a mission to invite +the Jeff. Davises, Hunters, Wigfalls, Benjamins and others to come +back to their seats in the Senate, and in the name of the cruelly +outraged North, Mr. Seward proffered to the traitors a hearty +welcome. So says the French diplomat in his official dispatch to the +French Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Such underhanded dealings +should not be allowed, and most assuredly would be stringently +punished, if perpetrated under similar circumstances by the minister +of any European government dealing with treason in arms. But here, +Mr. Seward's impudence--if not worse--displays its flying colors. +The Republican press will swallow all this, and Senator Sumner as +Chairman of the Committee will--keep quiet. + +That confidential mission entrusted to the French diplomat by Mr. +Seward, was more than sufficient to evoke the subsequent attempt at +mediation, because it revealed to the piercing eye of European +statesmanship, how the Administration, and above all how its master +spirit had little confidence in the cause; it revealed the want of +earnestness in official quarters. I hate and denounce all attempts, +even by the most friendly foreign power, to meddle with the internal +affairs of our country. But I have some little knowledge of European +statecraft, of European diplomacy, of European rulers, and of +European diplomats; and I assert, emphatically, that they are +emboldened to offer their meddlesome services because they have very +little if any respect for our official leaders; and because the want +of energy and of good faith to the principles of the North as +displayed by Seward, he nevertheless remaining at the helm, has +firmly settled the conviction in European minds, that the rebels +cannot be crushed by such traffickers and used up politicians as +have in their hands the destinies of the Union. + +_February 5._--The new Copperhead Senators--in their appearance +resembling bushwhackers; the pillars of Copperheadism in the House, +take umbrage at the sight and the name of New England, and abuse the +New England spirit with all their coppery might. Well they may. So +did Satan hate and abuse light. + +Patriot Stanton is earnestly at work concerning the organization of +Africo-Americans on a mighty scale; busy against him, likewise, are +the intriguers, the traitors, the cavillers, the Sewardites and the +McClellanites, all being of the same kidney. Seward sighs for +McClellan. But Stanton will override the muddy storm. He has at his +side men as pure, energetic and devoted as Watson, a patriot without +a flaw. + +Stanton surrounds himself and selects young men--as far as he can, +he crowds out the remains of Scott, so tenderly protected by +Lincoln. Could he only have swept out the rest of the old fogies! +Undoubtedly these young men in the War Department would give new +life to it. + +_February 6._--The people at large are at a loss to find the cause +of the recent disasters. The general axiom is, "we are not a +military nation." Neither is the South. But here they forget that +every great or small effect has its--not only--cause, but several +causes. Many such causes have been repeatedly pointed out. Old +routine in military organization stands foremost. Few, if any, +understand wherein consists the proper organization of an army, and +most have notions reaching back sixty years. The medical and +surgical bureaus are obsolete. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, who +is always on the right side, and with him many young men, insisted +upon organizing the above services as they are organized in the +Continental armies of Europe. But even in the Senate prevailed the +respect for dusty, rusty, domestic tradition. The few changes forced +by the outcry of the people cure not the evil. Skeletons and not +men are at work, and if they are not skeletons they are leeches of +the government and of the people's blood. + +Thus likewise, when the organizations of the staffs was discussed, +no one had the first notion of the nature and duties of a staff; and +the military authorities were as ignorant as the civilians. Of +course a McClellan, then a Halleck, Meigs, Hitchcock, etc., could +not disperse the fog. Many Congressmen were thunderstruck by the +display of words which, as they were purely technical terms, the +Congressmen in question could not understand. Others sought for +guidance in the Staff of Wellington, and thus oddly but unmistakably +proved themselves completely in the dark as to the difference +between the personal staff of the commander of an army, and the +Staff of that Army itself. And all this in a country of the most +rapid movement and progress, and amongst a people which +unhesitatingly adopts and adapts to its own needs and welfare almost +every novelty from almost every part of the world. The great fault +committed by the People is its too great respect for false +authorities and false prophets. + +The so-called honest Conservatives have exercised and still continue +to exercise a most fatal influence on public affairs, and especially +on what is called the domestic policy. These same "honest +Conservatives" are more dangerous than the out-spoken Copperheads; +more dangerous, perhaps, than all the friends of slavery and foes +of the Union combined. These "honest Conservatives" have contrived +to surround themselves with a halo of honesty and respectability. +But they as cordially hate and dread every vivid light and vigorous +progress as the traitors themselves do. Those Conservatives opposed +every vigorous measure. They spoke tenderly of the "misguided +brethren" in the South, and took their own servile and blundering, +though quite possibly sincere fancies, for actual and tangible +facts. The honest Conservatives will support whatever is slow, +double-dealing, and, therefore, conservative. The honest +Conservatives took McClellan to their honest hearts, and not one of +them has any clear notion of military affairs, and still less can +any of them fathom the awful depth of McClellan's military +criminality. I repeat what I said in the first volume of my Diary: +McClellan and his tail fell, not on account of their Democratism, or +their pro-slavery creed, but because McClellan repeatedly displayed +all the worst qualities of a thoroughly unsoldierly commander. No +one would have uttered a word of censure if McClellan with his +hundred and eighty thousand men had surrounded the thirty to forty +thousand rebels in Centreville and Manassas in the winter of 1861-2, +and taken some nobler trophies than camp manure and maple guns! The +honest Conservatives attack and hate Stanton, yet not one of them +has any notion whatever of Stanton's action towards McClellan. +Stanton would have been the first to raise McClellan sky-high if +McClellan had preferred to fight instead of reposing in his bed in +Washington, and then in various muds. Such is your knowledge of this +and of all other public affairs, O respectable soul and spiritless +body of honest Conservatives! Historians of this country! collect +the names of the _honest_ Conservatives, but expose them not to the +abomination of coming generations. + +_February 7._--The Sanitary Commission, with all its branches and +subdivisions, is among the noblest manifestations of what can be +done by a free people, and how private enterprise of intelligent, +patriotic and unselfish men can confer benefit. Nor must the praise +of that great work be limited to men. Warm-hearted gentlewomen also +have done their share in it. The Sanitary Commission is one of the +best out-croppings of self-government, and does honor to the people, +and softens and ameliorates the warlike roughness of the times. + +The Sanitary Commission marks a new era in the history of genuine +and not bogus and merely verbal philanthropy, and its spontaneity +and expansion were only possible in free, and therefore humane and +enlightened America. + +_February 8._--Mr. Seward is busily at work endeavoring to crush the +radicals, and to make the Emancipation Proclamation a mere sheet of +waste paper. All that is mean and nasty, all that is reeking and +foul with all kinds of corruptions, takes Seward for its +standard-bearer. The so-called radical press aids Seward with all +its might. + +_February 9._--Gen. Casey adopts some of my ideas and suggestions, +which I discussed with him. Gen. Casey is honestly at work, and the +new tactics will be in print. + +Stanton would wish to establish a thorough military camp on a large +scale, for organizing Africo-Americans. But the higher powers are +against it. Virginia, the most populous slave state, the nursery of +slaves, must, scorpion-like, be surrounded with glowing contraband +camps. What a splendid position for such a camp is Harper's Ferry +under the shadow of immortal John Brown! + +A few days ago, Mr. Lincoln was full of joy because the defences of +Washington are in excellent condition. Thus the country will learn +with joy that the----spade is still at work, that the military curse +hurled by Scott and McClellan is still influencing the operation of +the war, that Halleck is the worthy continuator of his predecessors, +that Mr. Lincoln's fears and uneasiness about the fate of the city +of Washington are slowly, slowly assuaged, that the President's +fancy is nursed, that the construction of the extensive +fortifications around the capital is still continued, that new forts +are continually erected, that the fear of an attack on Washington is +still paramount, and that to-day--sixty to seventy thousand troops +are kept idle in these old and new forts--when Rosecrans has no +succor, when Texas is lost, and when the whole rebel region +trembles under the tread of savage hordes. + +Through one of its clerks, the State Department intends to sue me +for libel, contained, as they say, in the first volume of my +_Diary_. Well, great masters, if you swallow me, you may not digest +me. Let us try.[2] + + [Footnote 2: I must here record that Mr. Carlisle, the + eminent lawyer in Washington, although in every respect + opposed to my political and social views, behaved, in this + affair, as a thorough man of honor. I am sorry that on a + similar former occasion, not in Washington, my political + friends showed themselves not Carlisles.] + +_February 10._--... mens agitat molem ... oh, could I only believe +that such is the case with Mr. Lincoln, how devoted I could become, +and loyal to him, according to the new theory of the lickspittles +and politicians! + +_February 10._--Resolute Senator Grimes did what was the duty of +Sumner to have done long ago. Grimes presented resolutions relative +to the mission of Mercier to Richmond, a mission allowed, almost +authorized by Mr. Seward. Mercier cannot be blamed, and his veracity +is supported by the fact that Lord Lyons was at once informed of the +whole transaction, and Lord Lyons is to be believed. Seward will +play the innocent, and take his refuge in the god of--lies. + +_February 12._--In his answer to the Senate, Mr. Seward gives to +Mercier the lie direct. It will be rich if Mercier stands square. + +_February 12._--Congress draws to its close. Lincoln accumulates +powers, responsibilities, and hereafter perhaps curses, sufficient +to break the turtle on which stands the elephant that sustains the +Sanscrit world. + +_February 13._--The almost imperceptible ripple on the diplomatic pool +of Washington has disappeared. Simple people might have believed that +there was an issue of veracity between Mr. Seward and the French +Minister. But since a long, a very long time, Seward and veracity have +run in different orbits, and diplomats, Talleyrand-like, ought to be +the incarnation of equanimity even if any one--diplomatically--treads +on their toes. Besides, the answer given to the Senate before it +reached its destination _might have been arranged_ at any such +confidential chat as was that one where the little innocent, +nobody-hurting (no, not even the people's honour) trip to Richmond was +concocted. The French Minister's name _appears not_ in the document +sent to the Senate; so the lie direct is after all only a constructive +lie; nobody is hurt. A general shaking of hands and all is well. But +strange things may come out yet, and others may not be so blazened +out. + +The soap bubble of mediation exploded under the nose of the French +schemers. The soap used by them was of the finest and most aromatic +quality, but the democratic nerves of the American people resisted +the Franco-diplomatic cunningly mixed aroma. The applause gained by +Mr. Seward's very indifferent document, wherein the great initiator +of the Latin race on this free continent was rebuked, the +satisfaction shown by the public, ought to open the eyes of the +sentimental French trio. They ought to understand, by this time, +that Seward's argumentative dispatch, incomplete and below mark as +it is, won applause, although it expresses only the hundredth of the +patriotic ire bursting from the people's bosom. Otherwise the people +would have at once found out all skillfully, cunningly, +chameleon-like Seward dodges, which ignore before Europe the sublime +character of the struggle forced by treason upon the loyal free +States; and in which how he avoids to hurt the slavocracy. + +The Imperial mediator and bottle-holder to slavocracy belies not his +bloody origin and his bloody appetites. The events in Egypt, the +negro kidnapping in Alexandria, have torn the mask from his astute +policy. If, for his filibustering raid into Mexico, Louis Napoleon +wanted colored soldiers accustomed to the climate, he could raise +them among the free colored population of the French possessions in +Martinique, Guadaloupe, etc. But to use the freemen from the +Antilles would have set a bad example to the Africo-Americans in the +revolted States; Louis Napoleon wished not to hurt or offend his +slaveocratic pets and traitors; by kidnapping slaves in Egypt the +French ruler showed how highly he values the stealing qualities of +the Southern chivalry--and he paid a tribute to the principle of +slavery. + +But while treating with all possible horror and disrespect the +French officiousness, the American people ought not to forget the +innermost interconnection of events. If the French diplomacy, if the +French Cabinet became sentimental at the sight of our deadly +struggle with the demon of treason, it was because they witnessed +our helplessness, and witnessed the uninterrupted chain of faults +and of bad policy; it was because they and the whole world saw the +want of earnestness in our official leaders; and from all this these +_Messieurs_ concluded that the patriots of the North never will be +able to crush the traitors in the South. So speak the French +diplomatic documents, so speaks Mercier, Drouyn de l'Huys and Louis +Napoleon; and has not the Seward-Weed influence, paramount in the +policy of the Government, brought about all these bad results, +palsied the war, and thus almost justified the officiousness of the +_Messieurs_? + +_February 13._--Many forebode the downfall, the dissolution, and the +disappearance of the Republican party. That may be, and if so then +one of the cardinal laws of human progress, development and +ascension, will be fullfilled. _The initiator either perishes by the +initiated, or the initiator perishes, disappears because his +special mission, his task is done._ + +The progress of humanity is marked by the sacrifice and death of its +initiators. Such was the end of the founders of religions, of +societies; such of political bodies. Osiris, Lycurgus, Romulus, +Christ, the martyrs, the apostles, are a few from numberless +illustrations that might be cited. The Long Parliament, the French +Convention, disappeared after having fullfilled the work of +destruction pointed out to them by the genius of progress and of our +race. As an organized political party the Republican may disappear +with the war, for slavery is finally destroyed. This is the noble +initiation and solution fulfilled by the Republican party. To +destroy slavery and the political defenders and props of slavery, +was the mission that was fatally thrown or entrusted by inexorable +destiny to the Republican party. With the destruction of slavery, +disappears from the political life of America the _Northern man with +Southern principles_; those very dregs of dregs of all times and of +all political bodies and societies. Slavery is destroyed both +virtually and _de facto_, new issues are looming, new solutions will +be given, and new men will bear the new word. + +All in creation, and in every party, has its light and its shadow, +its pure principle, its pure men and its dregs. Every party has its +faults and its shortcomings. The dregs fall, and the work of the +party is done. Some of the chiefs and leaders of the Republican +party became faithless, (Seward,) went over to darkness, but thereby +the onward march to the sacred aim was not arrested. The +irresistible current of events and of human affairs carried onwards +the Republican party. Perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless +emphatically, the Republican party in its _ensemble_ was a +providential agency; it became the incarnation of the loftiest +aspirations of the best among the American people. Against its wish +and will, contrary to expectations, the Republican party was +challenged to action; the sword of law, of justice and of right, was +forcibly thrust into the party's hand, and slavocracy, the +challenger, is already bleeding its life-blood, and its death-knell +resounds from pole to pole. To speak the language of politicians; +abolition, emancipation by the sword, was forced upon the Republican +party. + +And the Republican party carried out the principle of the preamble +of the bill of rights; a principle eternal as right, but +nevertheless hitherto only partially realized. The Republican party +has borne the brunt, and accomplished the appointed evolutions of +progress; and the Republican party has deserved well of the American +people, of history and of humanity. And the children and +grandchildren of those who to-day cavil, defile and stone the party, +they hereafter will bless the Republican party, who, with noble +consciousness can say to the spirit of light and of duty: _Nunc +dimitte in pacem servum tuum Domine._ + +One of the best evidences of purity and of the elevation of the +Republican party in its noblest representative men is that the +obtusest among the great diplomats shunned the Republicans as little +monsters shun the daylight. I mention this as a collateral +illustration without intending to raise a diplomat or the poor +diplomacy of the world to an undeserved significance, for I bear in +mind the behest, _ne misceantur sacra prophanis_. + +The nobleness of the accomplished mission, the glorious Sunset +wherein will disappear the Republican party, frees, not from +reproaches nor from maledictions, those Republicans who, by their +selfishness and faithlessness, obstructed its progress, and polluted +the party. Their names remain nailed to the pillory. + +I may here observe that I never belonged and never claimed to belong +to the Republican party. For nearly half a century my creed has +been--Onward! onward! struggle, fight, sacrifice for light, for +progress, for human rights; for that cause fight and struggle under +every banner, under every name, and in rank and file with every +body. + +_February 13._--Seward seizes by the hair the occasion proffered to +him by the _Decembriseur's_ offer of mediation, and tries to +reconquer the confidence of the public. This shows to Drouyn de +l'Huys and to his master, that they are misinformed concerning the +condition of America, (also M. Mercier misinformed them; how could +he do otherwise?) The despatch to Dayton, February 7, will lead +astray public opinion. The majority will forget and lose sight of +the intercatenation of events and actions perpetrated by Mr. +Seward. O Chase! O Sumner! Seward rises with his patient pen and +paper in the inky glory of a patriot, and you----cave in. + +Speaking of Mr. Seward's answer to France, a diplomat observed to +me: "The European Cabinets are so accustomed to Mr. Seward's +duplicity and want of veracity, that now that Seward refuses to +accept mediation, in Europe they will conclude that Seward's +acceptation of mediation is at hand." + +_February 14._--The struggle is for the rights of man, for the +Christian idea, purified of all dogma and worship. Those who see it +not, are similar to a fish from the Kentucky Cave. + +_February 14._--Could Mr. Lincoln only be inspired, be warmed by the +sacred fire of enthusiasm, then his natural and selected affinities +would be other minds than those of a Seward, a Weed, a Halleck, +etc.; then what is night could become light; and where he painfully +gropes along his path, Mr. Lincoln would march with a firm, almost +with a godlike step, at the head of such a peerless people as those +of whom he is the Chief Magistrate. + +But as it is now, I may turn the mind in any direction whatever, all +the causes of mishaps and disasters converge on Mr. Lincoln. +According to his partisans, Mr. Lincoln's intentions are the best, +and he is always trying to conciliate--and to shift. It is useless +to discuss Mr. Lincoln's peculiar ways. In most cases, Mr. Lincoln +uses old, rotten tools for a new and heavy work. I have it from the +most truthful and positive authority, that Mr. Lincoln is fully +acquainted with the opinions of the so called _dissatisfied_, of +those with Southern propensities, proclivities and affinities, of +whom many are in the superior civil and military service. Contrary +to the advice of patriots in the Cabinet and out of it, Mr. Lincoln +insists upon keeping such at their post--doubtless always expecting +that they will _turn round_. Such a heavy difficulty and task as is +the present, must be worked out, with absolute devotion and +sincerity; and can this logically be expected from men whose hearts +and minds are not in their actions? Mr. Lincoln forgets that +thousands of lives and millions of money are sacrificed to the +experiment as to whether the insincere officials will _turn round_. + +The cause will not fail, light will not be extinguish, even if the +leaders break down or betray, even if the Copperheads frighten some +of the pilots, or if some of the faithless pilots shake hands with +the Copperheads, as was the case in the elections of November last +in New York and elsewhere. The people will save light, dissipate +darkness, save the cause, save the leaders, the pilots and the +politicians. + +_February 15._--Some days ago in compliance with summons, that +pedler of all corruptions, Thurlow Weed, came to Washington, and +with Mr. Seward, his _fidus Achates_, was for days or nights +closeted with Mr. Lincoln, pouring into the president's soul as much +poison and darkness as was possible. That such was the case can, +besides, easily be concluded from what that incarnation of all +perversions predicated to all who came within his nauseous +preachings here. According to Mr. T. Weed's revelations, "_The +proclamation is an absurdity, and the Union will soon--as it +ought--be ruled by the rebels._" So it was told me. Perhaps it is +already done through Thurlow Weed's mediation and instrumentality. + +Continually inspired by Weed, Mr. Seward is therefore untiring in +his over-patriotic efforts to preserve the former Union and +Slavery--to save the matricide slave-holders. + +In what clutches is Mr. Lincoln! Even I pity him. Even I am forced +to give him credit for being what he is--considering his intimacies +and his surroundings. Few men entrusted with power over nations have +resisted such fatal influences,--not even Cromwell and Napoleon. +History has not yet settled how it was with Cæsar, and so far as I +know, Frederick the Great of Prussia is of the very few who have +been unimpressionable. Pericles coruscates over ruins and the night +of the ancient world; Pericles's intimacy was with the best and the +manliest Athenians. + +But has Mr. Lincoln an unlimited confidence in the few men with +large brains and with big hearts, brains and hearts burning with the +sacred and purest patriotic fire? Or are not rather all his +favorites--not even whitened--sepulchres of manhood, of mind and of +sacred intellect? + +_February 16._--It is asserted, and some day or other it will be +verified, that the Committee on the Conduct of the War have +investigated how far certain generals from the army on the +Rappahannock used their influence with the President to paralyze a +movement against the enemy ordered by Burnside. That facts +discovered may be published or not, for the Administration shuns +publicity. _The Committee discovered that Mr. Seward was implicated +in that conspiracy of generals against Burnside._ Any qualification +of such conduct is impossible, and the vocabulary of crimes has no +name for it; let it, therefore, be _Sewardism_. The editors of the +New York _Tribune_ did their utmost to prevent _Sewardism_ being +exposed. + +_February 16._--Often, so to speak, the hand refuses to record what the +head hears and sees, what the reason must judge. To witness how one of +the greatest events in the development of mankind, how the deadly +struggle between right and crime, between good and evil, how the blood +and sweat of _such a people_ are dealt with by--counterfeits! + +_February 17._--Poor Banks! He is ruined by having been last year +pressed to Seward's bosom, and having been thus initiated into the +Seward-Weed Union and slavery-restoring policy. Banks and Louis +Napoleon in Mexico and in his mediation scheme; both Banks and +Napoleon were ruined by yielding to bad advice--Banks to that of +Seward, and Louis Napoleon to that of his diplomats. I hope that +Banks will shake off the nightmare that is throttling him now; that +he will no more write senseless proclamations, will give up the +attempt to save slave-holders, and will march straight to the great +task of crushing the rebellion and rebels. He will blot slavery, +that Cain's mark on the brow of the Union; blot it and throw it into +the marshes of the parishes of Louisiana. I rely upon Banks's sound +common sense. He will come out from among the evil ones. + +_February 18._--Under no other transcendent leadership than that of +its patriotism and convictions, the majority of this expiring Congress +boldly and squarely faced the emergencies and all the necessities +daily, hourly evoked by the Rebellion, and unhesitatingly met them. If +the majority was at times confused, the confusion was generated by +many acts of the administration, and not by any shrinking before the +mighty and crushing task, or by the attempt to evade the +responsibility. The impartial historian will find in the Statutes an +undisputable confirmation of my assertions. The majority met all the +prejudices against taxation, indebtedness, paper currency, draft, and +other similar cases. + +And all the time the majority of Congress was stormed by traitors, +by intriguers, by falsifiers and prisoners of public opinion; the +minority in Congress taking the lead therein. Many who ought to +have supported the majority either fainted or played false. The +so-called good press, neither resolute nor clear-sighted, nor +far-seeing, more than once confused, and as a whole seldom +thoroughly supported the majority. + +If the good press had the indomitable courage in behalf of good and +truth, that the _Herald_ has in behalf of untruth and of mischief, +how differently would the affairs look and stand! + +_February 19._--Jackson first formed, attracted and led on the +people's opinion. Has not Mr. Lincoln thrown confusion around? + +_February 19._--The Supreme Court of the United States has before it +the prize cases resulting from captures made by our navy. The +counsel for the English and rebel blockade-runners and pilferers +find the best point of legal defence in the unstatesmanlike and +unlegal wording of the proclamation of the blockade, as concocted +and issued by Mr. Seward, and in the repeated declarations contained +in the voluminous diplomatic correspondence of our Secretary of +State,--declarations asserting that _no war whatever is going on in +the Federal Republic_. No war, therefore no lawful prizes on the +ocean. So ignorance, and humbug mark every step of this foremost +among the pilots of a noble, high-minded, but too confiding people. + +The facts, the rules, and the principles in these prize cases are +almost unprecedented and new; new in the international laws, and +new in the history of governments of nations. Seldom, if ever, were +so complicated the powers of government, its rights, and the duties +of neutrals, the rights and the duties of the captors, and the +condition of the captured. This rebellion is, so to speak, _sui +generis_, almost unprecedented on land and sea. The difficulties and +complications thus arising, became more complicated by the either +reckless or unscientific (or both) turn given by the State +Department in conceding to the rebels the condition of belligerents. +Thus the great statutory power of the sovereign, (that is, of the +Union through its president) for the suppression of the rebellion +was palsied at the start. The insurrection of the Netherlands alone +has some very small similarity with our civil war; however, that +insurrection took place at a time when very few, if any, principles +of international laws were generally laid down and generally +recognized. Here the municipal laws, the right of the sovereign and +his duty to save itself and the people, the rights and the laws of +war, wrongly applied to such virtual outlaws as the rebels, the +maritime code of prize laws and rules, play into and intertwine each +other. When Mr. Seward penned his doleful proclamation of the +blockade, etc., he never had before his mind what a mess he +generated; what complications might arise therefrom. I am sure he +never knew that such proclamation was _a priori_ pregnant with +complications, and that at least its wording ought to have been very +careful. Mr. Seward was not at all cognizant of the fact that the +wording of a proclamation of a blockade, for the time being, lays +down a rule for the judges in the prize courts. For him it was +rather a declamation than a proclamation; he who believed the +rebellion would end in July, 1861, and that no occasion would arise +to apply the rules of the blockade. + +Thus Mr. Seward, with his thorough knowledge of international law +rendered difficult the position of the captors; he equally increased +the difficulty for the judge to administer justice. By this +proclamation and the commentaries put on it, Mr. Seward curtailed +the rights of the government of which he is a part, conceded undue +conditions to the rebels, and facilitated to the neutrals the means +of violating his blockade. So much is clear and palpable to-day, and +I am sure more complications and imbecilities are in store. If Mr. +Seward had had good advisors for these nice and difficult questions, +he would not have blundered in this way. Thus Charles Eames, who in +the pleadings before the Superior United States Court has shown a +consummate mastery in prize questions--Eames could teach Mr. Seward +a great deal about the constitutional powers of the president to +suppress the rebellion, and about the meaning and the bearing of +international maritime laws, rights, duties and rules. + +_February 20._--A Mr. Funk, a member of the Illinois Senate, a +farmer, and a man of sixty-five years, on February 13, made a speech +in that body which sounds better than all the rhetories and +oratories. It was the sound and genuine utterance of a man from the +people, and I hope some future historian will record the speech and +the name of the old, indomitable patriot. + +_February 20._--Stimulated by a pure Athenian breeze, the Congress +passed a law organizing an Academy of Sciences. What a gigantic +folly; the only one committed by this Congress. The pressure was +very great, and exercised by the bottomless vanity of certain +scientific, self-styled magnates, and by the Athenians. Up to this +day, the American scientific development and progress consisted in +its freedom and independence. No legal corporation impeded and +trammeled the limitless scope of the intellectual and scientific +development. That was the soul and secret of our rapid and luminous +onward march. Now fifty patented, incorporated respectabilities will +put the curb on, will hamper the expansion. Academies turn to +fossils. My hope is that the true American spirit will soar above +the vanity and pettiness of corporated wisdom, and that this +scientific Academy bubble will end in inanity and in ridicule. I am +sorry that Congress was taken in, and committed such a blunder. It +was caught napping. + +Mr. Chase's bank bill, prospective of money, and as many say, +prospective of presidency, passed the house. What fools are they +already begin to direct their steps and their ardent wishes toward +the White House. + +_February 22._--The, at any price, supporters of the Administration, +point with satisfaction to the various successes, and to the space +of land already redeemed from rebellion. I protest against such +explanation given to events, and call to it the attention of every +future historian. Never had the _suum cuique_ required a more +stringent, philosophical application. With the various inexhaustible +means at its disposal, with the unextinguishable enthusiasm of the +people, far different and more conclusive results, _could_ and ought +to have been obtained. The ship makes headway if even, by the +negligence of the officers and of the crew, she drags a cable or an +anchor. The ship is the people dragging its administrators. + +A western Democrat, but patriot, said to me that Lincoln compares to +Jeff Davis, as a wheel-barrow does to a steam engine! + +The Democrats claim to be the genuine fighting element, and to be +possessed of the civic courage, and of governmental capacity. How, +then, can the Democrats rave for McClellan, the most unfighting +soldier ever known? + +The future historian must be warned not to look to the newspapers +for information concerning facts and concerning the spirit of the +people. The _Tribune's_ senile clamor for peace, for arbitration, +for meditation, its Jewitt, Mercier, Napoleon, and Switzerland +combinations, fell dead and in ridicule before the sound judgment of +ninety-nine hundredths of the people. + +_February 24._--In Europe I had experience of political prisons and +of their horror. But I would prefer to rot, to be eaten up by rats, +rather than be defended by such arch-copperheads as are the Coxes, +the Biddles, the Powells, etc., etc. + +In the discussion concerning the issue of the letters of marque, +Sumner was dwelling in sentimentalities and generalities, altogether +losing sight of the means of defense of the country, and the genuine +national resources. With all respect for high and sentimental +principles and patriotism, with due reverence of the opinion, the +applause or the condemnatory verdict to be issued by philanthropists, +by doctors, and other Tommities, my heart and my brains prefer the +resolute, patriotic, manly Grimes, Wades, etc., the various _skippers_ +and masters, all of whom look not over the ocean for applause, but +above all have in view to save or to defend the country, whatever be +the rules or expectations of the self-constituted Doctors of +International laws. + +_February 25._--The Union-Slavery saviours, led on by the _Herald_, +by Seward, by Weed, etc., all are busily at work. + +_Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from +us._ + +I hear that great disorder prevails in the Quartermaster's Department. +It is no wonder. In all armies, countries, government and wars, the +Quartermaster's Department is always disorderly. Why shall it not be +so here, when want of energy is the word? At times Napoleon hung or +shot such infamous thieves, as by their thefts skinned and destroyed +the soldiers and the army; at times in Russia, such curses are sent to +Siberia. But as yet, I have not heard that any body was hurt here, +with the exception of the treasury of the country, and of the +soldiers. The chain-gang of those quartermaster's thieves, +contractors, jobbers and lobbyists must be strong, very long, and +composed of all kind of influential and not-influential vampyres. +Somebody told me, perhaps in joke, that all of them constitute a kind +of free-masonry, and have signs of recognition. After all, that may be +true. Impudence, brazen brow, and blank conscience may be among such +signs of recognition. + +_February 26._--O, could I only win confidence in Mr. Lincoln, it +would be one of the most cheerful days and events in my life. +Perhaps, elephant-like, Mr. Lincoln slowly, cautiously but surely +feels his way across a bridge leading over a precipice. Perhaps so; +only his slowness is marked with blood and disasters. But the most +discouraging and distressing is his _cortège_, his official and +unofficial friends. Mars Stanton, Neptune Welles, are good and +reliable, but have no decided preponderance. Astrea-Themis-Bates is +mostly right when disinfected from border-State's policy, and from +fear of direct, unconditional emancipation. But neither in Olympus +nor in Tartarus, neither in heaven nor in hell, can I find names of +prototypes for the official and unofficial body-guard which, +commanded by Seward, surrounds and watches Mr. Lincoln, so that no +ray of light, no breath of spirit and energy may reach him. + +_February 26._--This civil war with its _cortège_ of losses and +disasters, which after all fall most bloodily and crushingly on the +laborious, and rather comparatively, poorer part of the whole +people; perhaps all this will form the education of the rank and +file of the political Democratic party. The like Democratic masses +are intellectually by far inferior to the Republican masses. +Experience will perhaps teach those unwashed Democrats how degrading +was their submission to slavocracy, which reduced them to the +condition of political helots. This rank and file may find out how +they were blindfolded by slave breeders and their northern abettors. +A part of the Democratic masses were, and still are kept in as +brutal political ignorance and depravity as are the poor whites in +the South, under whatever name one may record them. Now, or never, +is the time for the _unwashed_ to find out that during their +alliance with the Southern traitors, all genuine manhood, all that +ennobles, elevates the man and warms his heart, was poisoned or +violently torn from them--that brutality is not liberty, and +finally, that the Northern leaders have been or are more abject than +abjectness itself. If the rank and file finds out all this, the +blood and disasters are, in part at least, atoned for. + +_February 27._--O! could I from every word, from every page of this +Diary, for eternities, make coruscate the nobleness, the simple +faith with which the people sacrifices all to the cause. To be +biblical, the sacrifice of the people is as pure as was that made +by Abel; that made by the people's captains, leaders, pilots is +Cain-like. + +_February 27._--All the Copperheads fused together have done less +mischief, have less distorted and less thrown out of the track the +holy cause, they have exercised a less fatal and sacrilegious +influence, they are responsible for less blood and lives, than is +Mr. Seward, with all his arguments and spread-eagleism. Even +McClellan and McClellanism recede before Seward and Sewardism, the +latter having generated the former. In times of political +convulsions, perverse minds and intellects at the helm, more fatally +influence the fate of a nation than do lost battles. Lost battles +often harden the temper of a people; a perverse mind vitiates it. + +_February 27._--Gold rises, and no panic, a phenomenon upsetting the +old theories of political economy. This rise will not affect the +public credit, will not even ruin the poor. I am sure it will be so, +and political economy, as every thing else in this country, will +receive new and more true solutions for its old, absolute problems. +The genuine credit, the prosperity of this country, is wholly +independent of this or that financial or governmental would-be +capacity; is independent of European exchanges, and of the +appreciation by the Rothschilds, the Barings, and whatever be the +names of the European appraisers. The American credit is based on +the consciousness of the people, and on the faith in its own +vitality, in its inexhaustible intellectual and material resources. +The people credits to itself, it asks not the foreigners to open +for it any credit. The foreign capitalists will come and beg. The +nation is not composed here as it is composed all over Europe, of a +large body of oppressed, who are cheated, taxed by the upper-strata +and by a Government. Thus credit and discredit in America have other +causes and foundations, their fluctuations differ from all that +decides such eventualities in Europe. + +I am sure that subsequent events will justify these my assertions. + +_February 28._--Inveterate West Pointers got hold of the dizzy +brains of some Senators and of other Congressmen, and Congress +wasted its precious time in regulating the military position of +engineers. This action of Congress is a _pendant_ to the Academy of +Sciences. The leaders in this discussion proved to _nausea_; 1st. +Their utter ignorance of the whole military science, of its +subdivisions, branches and classifications; 2d. Their ignorance of +the nature of intellectual hierarchy in sciences; 3d. Those +Congressional wiseacres proved how easily the West Point Engineers +humbugged them. Congress consecrates the engineer as number one. +Congress had better send a trustful man to Europe, to the continent, +and find out what is considered as number one in the science of +warfare. But every luminous body throws a shadow; the Academy of +Sciences, and this number one, are the shadows thrown by that +political body. + +_February 28._--Seldom, if ever, in history was the vital principle +of a society, of a nation, of a Government, so bitterly assailed, +and its destruction attempted by combined elements and forces of the +most hellish origin and nature, as the vital principle of American +institutions is now assailed. The enemies, the sappers, the miners, +are the Union-Slavery-Saviours of all kinds and hues. But darkness +cannot destroy light, nor cold overpower heat:--so the united +conspiracy will not prevail against light and right and justice. + +_February 28._--The last batch of various generals sent for +confirmation to the Senate, reflects and illustrates the manner in +which promotion is managed, and military powers and capacity +estimated at the White House. + +Hooker and Heintzelman are made major generals because they +brilliantly fought at Williamsburgh, and Sumner is likewise promoted +for Williamsburgh, where, in pursuance of McClellan's orders, Sumner +looked on when Heintzelman and Hooker were almost cut to pieces. The +dignitaries of Halleck's pacific staff are promoted, and colonels +who fight, and who, by their bravery and blood correct or neutralize +the awful deadly blunders of Halleck and of his staff, such colonels +are _not_ promoted! + +_February 28._--Congress outlawed all foreign intervention, +mediation! Catch it, foreign meddlers. Catch it, _Decembriseur_ and +your lackeys. + +_February 28._--Congress by its boldness, saved the immaculate +Republican idea, saved the principle of self-government, and +deserves the gratitude of all those from pole to pole, who have at +heart the triumph of freedom, the triumph of light! To its last +hours, this Congress had to overcome all the mean, petty appetites +and cravings, which so often palsy, defile, or at the best, +neutralize the noblest activity; Congress had to overcome +prejudices, narrow-mindedness and bad faith. Many of the so called +political friends--_vide_, the great Republican press--are as +troublesome, as much nuisances, as are the Sewardites and the +Copperheads. Others accuse the Congress for not having done enough. +Copperheads and Sewardites accuse Congress of having done too much. +And thus, the majority of Congress marches on across impediments and +abuses thrown in its way both by friends and by enemies. + +The _Tribune_ bitterly and boldly attacks Dahlgren, and trembling +caves in before Seward. Of course! Dahlgren can only send 11 and 15 +inch shells to crush the enemy; brother politician Seward can be +useful for some scheme. + + + + +MARCH, 1863. + + Press -- Ethics -- President's Powers -- Seward's Manifestoes -- + Cavalry -- Letters of Marque -- Halleck -- Siegel -- Fighting -- + McDowell -- Schalk -- Hooker -- Etat Major-General -- Gold -- + Cloaca Maxima -- Alliance -- Burnside -- Halleckiana -- Had we + but Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. + + +_March 1._--Unprecedented is the fact in the history of +constitutionally-governed nations, that the patriots of a political +party in power, that its most devoted and ardent men, as a question +of life or death, are forced to support and defend an Administration +which they placed at the helm, and whose many, many acts they +disapprove. + +The soldiers in the hospitals die the death of confessors to the +great cause. And the hair turns not white on the heads of those +whose policy, helplessness, and ignorance, crowd the hospitals with +the people's best children. + +_March 2._--The New-York _Times_--one among the great beacons and +authorities in the country--the New York _Times_ belies its title as +the "little villain." Gigantically, Atlas-like, that sheet upholds +Seward and Weed. The _Times_ makes one admire the senile, +compromising, mediating, arbitrating, and, at times, stumbling +_Tribune_, and the cautious but often ardent _Evening Post_. + +The _Times_ joins in the outcry against the radicals. It is +Seward-Weed's watchword. It is the watchword of the _Herald_. It is +the watchword of the most thickly coppered Copperheads. Genuine, pure +convictions and principles are always radical. Christianity could not +have been established were not the first Christians most absolute +radicals. They compromised not with heathenism, compromised not with +Judaism, which in every way was their father. Radicals--true +ones--look to the great aim, forget their persons, and are not moved +by mean interests and vanities. + +The press in Europe, above all, on the Continent, is different. Its +editors and contributors risk their liberty, their persons, their +pockets, and sacrifice all to their convictions. They are not afraid +to speak out their convictions, even if under the penalty to +lose--subscribers; and that is all the risk run by an American +newspaper. The _Herald_, the _World_, the _Express_, all organs of +the evil spirit, through thick and thin, stand to their fetish, that +McClellan; the Republican papers neither pitilessly attack the +enemies, nor boldly and manfully support the friends, of the cause. + +I nurse no personal likings or dislikings; the times are too mighty, +too earnest for such pettiness. For me, men are agencies of +principles: bad agencies of an intrinsically good principle are +often more mischievous than are bad principles and their confessors. +The eternal tendency of human elevation and purification is to +eliminate, to dissolve, to uproot social evils, to neutralize or +push aside bad men, in whatever skin they may go about. It is a slow +and difficult, but nevertheless incessant work of our race. It is +consecrated by all founders of religions, by legislators, by +philosophers, by moralists; it is an article of human, social and +political ethics. As far as I experienced, the European radical +press more strictly observes that rule of political ethics than the +American press is wont to do. And the press, bad or good, is the +high pontifex of our times; more than any other social agency +whatever, the press ought, at least, to be manly, elevated, +indomitable, vigilant and straight-forward. I mean the respectable +press. + +_March 3._--Senator Wilson's kind of farewell speech to the +Copperheads was ringing with fiery and elevated patriotism. It +re-echoed the sentiments, the notions, the aspirations of the +people. The cobbler of Natick rose above the rhetors, above the +deliverers of prosy, classical, polished, elaborated orations, above +young and above gray-haired Athenians, high as our fiery and stormy +epoch towers over the epochs of quiet, self-satisfied, smooth, cold, +elaborate and soulless civilities. + +_March 4._--Mr. Lincoln hesitates--and, as many assert, is +altogether opposed to use all the severity of the laws against the +rebels. And shall not our butchered soldiers be avenged? It is +sacrilegious to put in the same scales the Union soldier and the +rebels; it is the same as to put on equal terms before justice the +incendiary and the man who stops or kills the criminal in _flagrante +delicto_. + +_March 3._--After a tedious labor I waded through the State papers. +O, what an accumulation of ignorance! Almost every historical and +chronological fact misplaced, misunderstood, perverted, distorted, +wrongly applied. And how many, many contradictions! Only when Mr. +Seward can simply--(very, very seldom) point out to England that by +_this_ and _that fact_ and _act_ England violates the international +laws and rules of neutrality and of good comity between two +_friendly_ governments and nations: then, _only_, Mr. Seward's +papers acquire historical and political signification. But not his +spread eagleism, not his argumentation; and, still less his broad +and inexhaustible and variegated information. Diplomatic and +statesmanlike character can not be conceded to his State papers. +Few, very few, will read them, although foreign Courts, ministers, +statesmen, princes, and the so-called celebrated women are +complimented and deluged with them. The most pitiless critics of +these productions would be the smaller clerks in the Departments of +Foreign Affairs in London and Paris. Only they are not fools to +waste their time on such specimens of literature. + +_March 4._--Congress adjourned. This Thirty-Seventh Congress marks a +new era in the American and in the world's history. It inaugurated +and directed a new evolution in the onward progress of mankind. The +task of this Congress was by far more difficult and heavier than was +the task of the revolutionary and of the constitutional Congresses. +The revolutionary Congress had to fight an external enemy. The +tories of that epoch were comparatively less dangerous than are now +all kinds of Copperheads; it had to overcome material wants and +impediments, and not moral, nor social ones. That Congress was +omnipotent, governed the country, and was backed by its virgin +enthusiasm, by unity of purpose, and was not hampered by any +formulas and precedents. The Thirty-Seventh Congress had to fight a +powerful enemy, spread almost over two-thirds of the territory of +the Union; it had to fight and stand, so to speak, at home against +inveterate prejudices, against such bitter and dangerous domestic +enemies as are the Northern men with Southern principles. This +Congress was manacled by constitutional formulas, and had to carry +various other deadweights already pointed out. In the first part of +the session, Pike, Member of Congress from Maine, laid down as the +task for the Congress, _Fight, Tax, Emancipate_--and the Congress +fulfilled the task. In a certain aspect the Thirty-Seventh Congress +showed itself almost superior to the great immortal French +Convention, which ruled, governed, administered, and legislated, +while this Congress dragged a Lincoln, a Seward, etc. This Congress +accomplished noble and great things without containing the so-called +"great" or "representative" men, and thus Congress thoroughly +vindicated the great social truth of genuine, democratic +self-government. + +_March 5._--The _good_ press reduces the activity of the Thirty +Seventh Congress to its own rather pigmy-like proportions. + +Congress was powerless to purify the corrosive air prevailing in +Washington, above all in the various official strata. Congress +ardently wished to purify, but the third side of the Congressional +triangle, the executive and administrative power, preferred to nurse +the foul elements. Such doubtful, and some worse than doubtful +officials, undoubtedly will become more bold, expecting the +near-at-hand advent of the Copperhead Democratic Millennium. + +_March 6._--The Copperhead members of both the Houses have been very +prolific and _scientific_ about the inferiority of race. Pretty +specimens of superiority are they, with their sham, superficial, at +hap-hazard gathered, unvaluable small information, with their +inveterate prejudices, with their opaque, heavy, unlofty minds! Give +to any Africo-American equal chances with these props of darkness, +and he very speedily will assert over them an unquestionable +superiority. Are not the humble, suffering, orderly contrabands +infinitely superior to the rowdy, unruly, ignorant, savage and +bloody whites? + +Southern papers are filled with accounts of the savage persecutions +to which the Union men are exposed in the rebel region. It is the +result of what Mr. Seward likes to call his forbearing policy and of +the McClellan and Halleck warfare of 1861-62. + +_March 7._--For the first time in the world's history, for the first +time in the history of nations governed and administered by +positive, well established, well organised, well defined +laws--powers, such as those conferred by Congress on Mr. Lincoln, +have been so conferred. Never have such powers been in advance, +coolly, legally deliberated, and in advance granted, to any +sovereign, as are forced upon Mr. Lincoln by Congress, and forced +upon him with the assent of a considerable majority of the people. + +Never has a nation or an honest political body whatever, shown to +any mortal a confidence similar to that shown to Mr. Lincoln. Never +in antiquity, in the days of Athens' and Rome's purest patriotism +and civic virtue, has the people invested its best men with a trust +so boundless as did the last Congress give to Mr. Lincoln. + +The powers granted to a Roman dictator were granted for a short +time, and they were extra legal in their nature and character; in +their action and execution the dictatorial powers were rather taken +than granted in detail. The powers forced on Mr. Lincoln are most +minutely specified; they have been most carefully framed and +surrounded by all the sacred rites of law, according to justice and +the written Constitution. These powers are sanctioned by all +formulas constituting the legal cement of a social structure +erected by the freest people that ever existed. These powers deliver +into Mr. Lincoln's hand all that is dear and sacred to man--his +liberty, his domestic hearth, his family, life and fortune. A well +and deliberately discussed and matured statute puts all such earthly +goods at Mr. Lincoln's disposal and free use. + +The sublime axiom, _salus populi suprema lex esto_ again becomes +blood and life, and becomes so by the free, deliberate will and +decision of the foremost standard-bearer of light and civilization, +the first born in the spirit of Christian ethics and of the rights +of man.-- + +The Cromwells, the Napoleons, the absolute kings, the autocrats, and +all those whose rule was unlimited and not defined--all such grasped +at such powers. They seized them under the pressure of the direst +necessity, or to satisfy their personal ambition and exaltation. The +French Convention itself exercised unlimited dictatorial powers. But +the Convention allowed not these powers to be carried out of the +legislative sanctuary. The Committee of Robespierre was a board +belonging to and emanating from the Convention; the Commissaries +sent to the provinces and to the armies were members of the +Convention and represented its unlimited powers. When the Committee +of Public Safety wanted a new power to meet a new emergency, the +Convention, so to speak, daily adjusted the law and its might to +such emergencies. + +Will Mr. Lincoln realize the grandeur of this unparallelled trust? +Has he a clear comprehension of the sacrifice thus perpetrated by +the people? I shudder to think about it and to doubt. + +The men of the people's heart--a Fremont, a Butler, are still +shelved, and the Sewards, the Hallecks, are in positions wherein no +true patriot wishes them to be. The Republican press had better +learn tenacity from the Copperhead press, which never has given up +that fetish, McClellan, and never misses the slightest occasion to +bring his name in a wreath of lies before the public. + +_March 8._--A great Union meeting in New York. War Democrats, +Republicans, etc., etc., etc. War to the knife with the rebels is +the watchword. Of course, Mr. Seward writes a letter to the meeting. +The letter bristles with stereotyped generalities and Unionism. The +substance of the Seward manifesto is: "Look at me; I, Seward, I am +the man to lead the Union party. I am not a Republican nor a +Democrat, but Union, Union, Union." + +The _I_, the No. 1, looks out from every word of that manifesto. +With a certain skill, Mr. Seward packs together high-sounding words, +but these his phrases, are cold and hollow. Mr. Seward begins by +saying that the people are to confer upon him the highest honors. +Mr. Seward enlightens, and, so to speak, _pedagogues_ the people +concerning what everybody ought to sacrifice. The twenty-two +millions of people have already sacrificed every thing, and +sacrificed it without being doctrined by you, O, great patriot! and +you, great patriot, you have hitherto sacrificed NOTHING! + +Let Mr. Seward show his patriotic record! To his ambition, +selfishness, ignorance and innate insincerity he has sacrificed as +much of the people's honor, of the people's interests, and of the +people's blood as was feasible. History cannot be cheated. History +will compare Mr. Seward's manifestoes and phrases with his actions! + +_March 8._--The cavalry horses look as if they came from Egypt +during the seven years' famine. I inquired the reason from different +soldiers and officers of various regiments. Nine-tenths of them +agreed that the horses scarcely receive half the ration of oats and +hay allotted to them by the government. Somebody steals the other +half, but every body is satisfied. All this could very easily be +ferreted out, but it seems that no will exists any where to bring +the thieves to punishment. + +_March 8._--During weeks and weeks I watched McDowell's inquiry. +What an honest and straight-forward man is Sigel. McDowell would +make an excellent criminal lawyer. McDowell is the most cunning to +cross-examine; he would shine among all criminal catchers. The +Know-Nothing West Point hatred is stirred up against Sigel. I was +most positively assured that at Pea Ridge a West Point drunkard and +general expressly fired his batteries in Sigel's rear, to throw +Sigel's troops into disorder and disgrace. But in the fire Sigel +cannot be disgraced nor confused; so say his soldiers and +companions. Sigel would do a great deal of good, but the +Know-Nothing-West Point-Halleck envy, ignorance and selfishness are +combined and bitter against Sigel. + +In this inquiry Sigel proved that he always fought his whole corps +himself. So do all good commanders; so did Reno, Kearney, so do +Hooker, Heintzelman, Rosecrans, and very likely all generals in the +West. + +The McClellan-Franklin school, and very probably the Simon-pure West +Pointers, fight differently. In their opinion, the commander of a +corps relies on his generals of divisions; these on the generals of +brigades, who, in their turn rely on colonels, and thus any kind of +_ensemble_ disappears. Of course exceptions exist, but in general +our battles seem to be fought by regiments and by colonels. O West +Point! At the last Bull Run two days' battles, McDowell fought his +corps in the West Point-McClellan fashion. His own statements show +that his corps was scattered, that he had it not in hand, that he +even knew not where the divisions of his corps were located; and +during the night of 29-30, he, McDowell, after wandering about +the field in search of his corps, spent that night bivouacking +amidst Sigel's corps! + +_March 9._--New York politicians behaved as meanly towards +Wadsworth as if they were all from Seward's school. + +_March 9._--Hooker is at the Herculean work of reorganizing the +army. Those who visited it assert that Hooker is very active, very +just; and that he has already accomplished the magician's work in +introducing order and changing the spirit of the army. Only some few +inveterate McClellanites and envious, genuine West Pointers are +slandering Hooker. + +_March 12._--Since the adjournment of Congress, everything looks +sluggish and in suspense. The Administration, that is, Mr. Lincoln, +is at work preparing measures, etc., to carry out the laws of +Congress; Mr. Seward is at work to baffle them; Blair is going over +to border-State policy; Stanton, firm, as of old; so is Welles; +Bates recognises good principles, but is afraid to see such +principles at once brought to light; Chase makes bonds and notes. We +shall see what will come from all these preparations. But for +Congress, Lincoln or the executive, would have been disabled from +executing the laws. Congress, by its laws or statutes, aided the +Executive branch in its _sworn duty_. + +_March 13._--The various Chambers of Commerce petition and ask that +the president may issue letters of marque. It is to be supposed, or +rather to be admitted, that the Chambers of Commerce know what is +the best for them, how our commerce is to be protected, how the +rebel pirates swept from the oceans, and how England, treacherous +England, perfidious Albion, be punished. But Sumner--of +course--knows better than our Chambers of Commerce, and our +commercial marine; with all his little might, Sumner opposes what +the country's interests demand, and demand urgently. I am sure that +already this general demonstration of the national wish and will, +the demonstrations made by our Chambers of Commerce, etc., will +impress England, or at least the English supporters of piracy. + +Sumner will believe that his letters to English old women will +change the minds of the English semi-pirates. Sumner is a little +afraid of losing ground with the English guardians of civilization. +Sumner is full of good wishes, of generous conceptions, and is the +man for the millennium. Sumner lacks the keen, sharp, piercing +appreciation of common events. And thus Sumner cannot detect that +England makes war on our commerce, under the piratic flag of the +rebels. + +_March 14._--The primitive Christians scarcely had more terrible +enemies, scarcely had to overcome greater impediments, than are +opposed to the principle of human rights, and of emancipation. All +that is the meanest, the most degraded, the most dastardly and the +most treacherous, is combined against us. Many of the former +confessors, many of our friends, many, unconscious of it--_Sewardise_ +and _Blairise_. + +Mud is stirred up, flows, rises and penetrates in all directions. +The _Cloaca Maxima_ in Rome, during thirty centuries scarcely +carried more filth than is here besieging, storming the +departments, all the administrative issues, and all the so-called +political issues. + +I am sure that the enemies of emancipation, that Seward, Weed, etc., +wait for some great victory, for the fall of Vicksburgh or of +Charleston, to renew their efforts to pacify, to unite, to kiss the +hands of traitors, and to save slavery. I see positive indications +of it. Seward expects in 1864 to ride into the White House on such +reconciliation. What a good time then for the Weeds, and for all the +Sewardites! + +_March 15._--Persons who seemed well informed, assured me that Weed +got hold of Stanton, and secretly presides over the contracts in the +War Department. If so, it is very secretly done; as I investigated, +traced it, and found out nothing. At any rate, Weed would never get +at a Watson, a man altogether independent of any political +influences. Watson is the incarnation of honest and intelligent +duty. + +Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_ is unrelenting in its haughty +independence. It is the only public organ in this country of like +character; at least I know not another. + +_March 15._--It is so saddening to witness how all kinds of +incapacities, stupidities, how meanness, hollowness, heartlessness, +all incarnated in politicians, in trimmers, in narrow brained; how +all of them ride on the shoulders of the masses, and use them for +their sordid, mean, selfish and ambitious ends. And the masses are +superior to those riders in everything constituting manhood, honesty +and intellect! + +_March 16._--Halleck wrote a letter to Rosecrans, explaining how to +deal with all kinds of treason, and with all kinds of traitors. It +looks as if Halleck improved, and tried to become energetic. What is +in the wind? Is Mr. Lincoln becoming seriously serious? + +_March 16._--Genuine, social and practical freedom, is generated by +individual rational freedom. If a man cannot, or even worse, if a +man understands not to act as a free rational being in every daily +circumstance of life during the week, then he cannot understand to +behave on Sunday as a free man; and act as a free man in all his +political and social relations and duties. The North upholds that +law of freedom against the slavocracy, and fights to carry and +establish a genuine social organism where at present barbarity, +oppression, lawlessness and recklessness, prevail and preside. + +_March 18._--I sent Hooker Schalk's _Summary of the Science of War_. +It is the best, the clearest handbook ever published. About six +months ago, when Banks commanded the defenses of Washington, I +suggested to him to try and get Schalk into head-quarters, or into +the staff. The ruling powers proffered to Schalk to make him captain +at large, and this was proffered at a time when altogether +unmilitary men became colonels, etc., at the head-quarters. I never +myself saw Schalk, but he refused the offer, as years ago he was a +captain in the Austrian army, is independent, and knows his own +value. Any European government, above all when having on hand a +great war, with both hands with military grades, would seize upon a +capacity such as Schalk's. Here they know better. My hobby is that +the president be surrounded by a genuine staff composed either of +General Butler or any other capable American general, of Sigel, of +Schalk, and of a few more American officers, who easily could +organise a staff, _un état Major général_, such as all European +governments have. But West Point wisdom, engineers and routine, +kill, murder, throttle, everything beyond their reach, and thus +murder the people. + +_March 20._--Every week Mr. Seward pours over the fated country his +cold, shallow Union rhetoric. But whoever reads it feels that all +this combined phraseology gushes not from a patriotic heart; every +one detects therein bids for the next Presidency. + +Gold is at fifty-five per cent here; in Richmond, gold is four to +six hundred per cent. The money bags, and all those who adjust the +affairs of the world to the rise and to the fall of all kind of +exchanges, they may base their calculations on the above figures, +and find out who has more chances of success, the rebels or we! + +Mud, stench on the increase, and because I see, smell and feel it, +"_My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth =tears= into_" [Psalm] the +noble American people. + +_March 21._--The _honest_ Conservatives and the small church of +abolitionists are equally narrow-minded, and abuse the last +Congress. The one and the other comprehend not, and cannot +comprehend the immense social and historical signification of the +last Congress. It made me almost sick to find Edward Everett joining +in the chorus. But he, too, is growing very old. + +_March 22._--What are generally called excellent authorities assert +that an offensive and defensive alliance is concluded between Seward +and Stanton. Further, I am told, that Senator Morgan, Thurlow Weed, +and a certain Whiting, a new star on the politician's horizon, have +been the attorneys of the two contracting powers. I cannot yet +detect any signs of such an alliance, and disbelieve the story. A +short time will be necessary to see its fruits. Until I see I +wait!... But were it true? Who will be taken in? I am sure it will +not be Seward. Is Stanton dragged down by the infuriated fates? + +_March 23._--Burnside is to save Kentucky, almost lost by Halleck +and Buell. Congress adjourned, and no investigation was made into +Halleck's conduct after Corinth in 1862. The Western army +disappeared; Buell commanded in Kentucky, and rebels, guerillas, +cut-throats, murderers and thieves overflow the west, menaced +Cincinnati. And all this when the Secretary of War in his report +speaks about eight hundred thousand men in the field. But the +Secretary of War provides men and means; great Lincoln, the still +greater Halleck distribute and use them. This explains all. Burnside +is honest and loyal, only give him no army to command. I deeply +regret that Burnside's honesty squares not at all with his military +capacity. + +The Government is at a loss what to do with honest, ignorant, +useless military big men, who in some way or other rose above their +congenial but very low level. Already last year I suggested (in +writing) to Stanton to gather together such intellectual military +invalids and to establish an honorary military council, to counsel +nothing. Occasionally such a council could direct various +investigations, give its advice about shoes, pants, horses and +horse-shoes. Something like such council really exists in Russia, +and I pointed it out to Stanton for imitation. + +_March 25._--Stanton scorns the slander concerning his alliance with +Seward and Weed. It is an invention of Blair, and based on the fact +that Stanton sides with Seward in the question _of letters of +marque_, opposed by Blair under the influence of Sumner the +civiliser. I believe Stanton, and not my former informer. + +_Halleckiana._ This great, unequalled great man declared that "it +were better even to send McClellan to Kentucky, or to the West, than +to send there Fremont, as Fremont would at once free the niggers." + +The admirers of poor argument, of spread-eagleism, and of ignorant +quotations stolen from history, make a fuss about Mr. Seward's State +papers. The good in these papers is where Mr. Seward, in his +confused phraseology, re-echoes the will, the decision of the +people, no longer to be humbugged by England's perversion of +international laws and of the rights and duties of neutrals; the +will of the people sooner or later to take England to account. (I +hope it will be done, and no English goods will ever pollute the +American soil. It will be the best vengeance.) The repudiation of +any mediation is in the marrow of the people, and Seward's muddy +arguments only perverted and weakened it. In Europe, the substance +of Seward's dispatch, is considered the passage where Seward's +highfalutin logomachy offers to the rebels their vacant seats in the +Congress. + +_March 26._--Had we generals, the rebel army in Virginia ought to +have been dispersed and destroyed after the first Bull Run: + +A. McCLELLAN.--Any day in November and December, 1861. + +B. McCLELLAN.--Any day in January and February, 1862, at +Centerville, Manassas. + +C. McCLELLAN.--At Yorktown, and when the rebels retreated to +Richmond. + +D. McCLELLAN.--After the battle of Fair Oaks, Richmond easily could +and ought to have been taken. (See Hurlbut, Hooker, Kearney and +Heintzelman.) + +E. McCLELLAN.--Richmond could have been taken before the fatal +change of base. (See January, Fitz John Porter.) + +F. But for the wailings of McClellan and his stick-in-the-mud +do-nothing strategy, McDowell, Banks and Fremont would have marched +to Richmond from north, north-west, and west, when we already +reached Stanton, and could take Gordonsville. + +G. General Pope and General McDowell, the McClellan pretorians, at +the August 1862, fights between the Rappahannock and the Potomac. + +H. McCLELLAN.--Invasion of Maryland, 1862. Go in the rear of Lee, +cut him from his basis, and then Lee would be lost, even having a +McClellan for an antagonist. + +I. McCLELLAN.--After Antietam battle, won by Hooker, and above all +by the indomitable bravery of the soldiers and officers, and not by +McClellan's generalship, Lee ought to have been followed and thrown +into the Potomac. + +K. McCLELLAN.--Lay for weeks idle at Harper's Ferry, gave Lee time +to reorganize his army and to take positions. Elections. +Copperheads, French mediation. + +L. McCLELLAN.--By not cutting Lee in two when he was near +Gordonsville, Jackson at Winchester, and our army around Warrenton. + +M. BURNSIDE.--By continuing the above mentioned fault of McClellan. + +N. BURNSIDE.--By his sluggish march to Fredericksburgh, (see Diary, +December.) + +O. HALLECK, MEIGS, etc. The affair of the pontoons. + +P. BURNSIDE, _Franklin_.--The attack of the Fredericksburg Heights. + +_March 28._--From the day of Sumter, and when the Massachusetts men +hurrying to the defence of the Union, were murdered by the Southern +_gentlemen_ in Baltimore, this struggle in reality is carried on +between the Southern gentlemen, backed by abettors in the North, +(abettors existing even in our army,) all of them united against the +YANKEE, who incarnates civilization, right, liberty, intellectual +superior development, and therefore is hated by the _gentleman_--this +genuine Southern growth embodying darkness, violence, and all the +virtues highly prized in hell. The Yankee, that is, the intelligent, +laborious inhabitant of New England and of the Northern villages and +towns, represents the highest civilization: the best _Southern +gentleman_, that lord of plantations, that cotton, tobacco and +slavemonger, at the best is somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish +covers all kinds of barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted +that our army contains officers modelled on the Southern +pattern, to whom human rights and civilization are as distasteful as +they are to any high-toned slave-whipper in the South. + +_March 29._--The destruction of slavery, the triumph of self +government ought not to be the only fruit of this war. The +politician ought to be buried in the offal of the war. The crushing +of politicians is a question as vital as the crushing of the +rebellion and of treason. All the politicians are a nuisance, a +curse, a plague worse than was any in Egypt. All of them are equal, +be they Thurlow Weeds or Forneys, or etc. etc. etc. A better and +purer race of leaders of the people will, I hope, be born from this +terrible struggle. Were I a stump speaker I should day and night +campaign against the politician, that luxuriant and poisonous weed +in the American Eden. + +_March 30._--Glorious news from Hooker's army. Even the most +inveterate McClellanites admire his activity and indeed are +astonished to what degree Hooker has recast, reinvigorated, purified +the spirit of the army. To reorganise a demoralised army requires +more nerve than to win a battle. Hooker takes care of the soldiers. +And now I hope that Hooker, having reorganised the army, will not +keep it idly in camp, but move, and strike and crush the traitors. +Hooker! _En avant! marchons!_ + +_March 31._--Some newspapers in New York and the National +Intelligencer here in Washington, the paid organ of Seward and +likewise organ of treason gilded by Unionism--all of them begin to +discuss the necessity of a staff. All of them reveal a West Point +knowledge of the subject; and the staff which they demand or which +they would organise, would be not a bit better than the existing +ones. + + + + +APRIL, 1863. + + Lord Lyons -- Blue book -- Diplomats -- Butler -- Franklin -- + Bancroft -- Homunculi -- Fetishism -- Committee on the Conduct of + the War -- Non-intercourse -- Peterhoff -- Sultan's Firman -- + Seward -- Halleck -- Race -- Capua -- Feint -- Letter writing -- + England -- Russia -- American Revolution -- Renovation -- Women + -- Monroe doctrine, etc., etc., etc. + + +_April 1._--The English Blue Book reveals the fact that Lord Lyons +held meetings and semi-official, or if one will, unofficial _talks_ +with what he calls "the leaders of the Conservatives in New York;" +that is, with the leaders of the Copperheads, and of the slavery and +rebellion saviours. The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult +it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country, +even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman. But +perhaps we should say, _because_ an Englishman, Lord Lyons became +confused. Lord Lyons took for reality a bubble emanating from a +putrescent fermentation. I am at a loss to understand why Earl +Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting +Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in +power. + +As for the fact itself, it is neither new nor unwonted. Diplomacy +and diplomats meddle with all parties; they do it openly or +secretly, according to circumstances. English diplomacy was always +foremost in meddling, and above all it has been so during this whole +century. The English diplomat is not yet born, who will not meddle +or intrigue with all kinds of parties, either in a nation, in a body +politic, in a cabinet or at court. + +When a nation, a dynasty, a government becomes entangled in domestic +troubles, the first thing they have to do is to politely bow out of +the country all the foreign diplomacy and diplomats, be these +diplomats hostile, indifferent, or even friendly. And the longer a +diplomat has resided in a country, the more absolutely he ought to +be bowed out with his other colleagues; to bow them all in or back, +when the domestic struggle is finished. + +History bristles with evidences of the meddling of diplomats with +political parties, and bears evidence of the mischief done, and of +the fatal misfortunes accruing to a country that is victimised by +foreign diplomacy and by diplomats. Without ransacking history so +far back as to the treaty of Vienna, (1815) look to Spain, above +all, during Isabella I.'s minority, to Greece, to Turkey, etc. And +under my eyes, Mexico is killed by diplomacy and by diplomats. + +Diplomatic meddlings become the more dangerous when no court exists +that might more or less control them, to impress on them a certain +curb in their semi-official and non-official conduct. But at times +it is difficult, even to a sovereign, to a court, to keep in order +the intriguing diplomats, above all to keep them at bay in their +semi-official social relations. + +In principle, and _de facto_, a diplomat, and principally a diplomat +representing a powerful sovereign or nation, has no, or very few, +private, inoffensive, social, worldly, parlor relations in the +country, or in the place to which he is appointed, and where he +resides. Every action, step, relation, intimacy of a diplomat has a +signification, and is watched by very argus-like eyes; alike by the +government to which he is accredited, and by his colleagues, most of +whom are also his rivals. Not even the Jesuits watch each other more +vigilantly, and denounce each other more pitilessly, than do the +diplomats--officially, semi-officially and privately. + +It requires great tact in a diplomat to bring into harmony his +official and his social, and non-official conduct. Lord Lyons +generally showed this tact and adroitly avoided the breakers. At +times such want of harmony is apparent and is the result of the +will, or of the principles of the court and of the sovereign +represented by a diplomat. Thus, after the revolution of July, 1830, +the sovereign and the diplomats in the Holy Alliance, of Russia, +Austria, and Prussia recognised Louis Phillipe's royalty as a fact +but not as a principle. Therefore, in their social relations the +Ambassadors of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, most emphatically sided +with the Carlists, the most bitter and unrelenting enemies of the +Orleans and of the order of things inaugurated by the revolution of +July, and Carlists always crowded the saloons of the Holy Alliance's +diplomats. The Duke d'Orleans, Louis Phillipe's son, scarcely dared +to enter the brilliant, highly aristocratic, and purely legitimist +saloon of the Countess Appony, wife of the Austrian Ambassador. Of +course the conduct of the Count and Countess was approved, and +applauded, in Vienna. But at times, for some reason or other, a +diplomat puts in contradiction his official and non-official +conduct, and does it not only without instructions or approval of +his sovereign and government, but in contradiction to the intentions +of his master and in contradiction to the prevailing opinion of his +country. And thus it happens, that a diplomat presents to a +government in trouble the most sincere and the most cheering +official expressions of sympathy from his master; and with the same +hand the diplomat gives the heartiest shakes to the most unrelenting +enemies of the same government. + +The Russian, skillful, shrewd and proud diplomacy, generally holds +an independent, almost an isolated position from England and from +France. The Russian diplomacy goes its own way, at times joined or +joining according to circumstances, but never, never following in +the wake of the two rival powers. During this our war, and doubtless +for the first time since Russian diplomacy has existed, a Russian +diplomat semi and non-officially, seemingly, limped after the +diplomats of England and of France. But such a diplomatic _mistake_ +can not last long. + +_April 2._--Official, lordish, Toryish England, plays treason and +infamy right and left. The English money lenders to rebels, the +genuine owners of rebel piratical ships, are anxious to destroy the +American commerce and to establish over the South an English +monopoly. All this because _odiunt dum metuant_ the Yankee. You +tories, you enemies of freedom, your time of reckoning will come, +and it will come at the hands of your own people. You fear the +example of America for your oppressions, for your rent-rolls. + +_April 3._--The country ought to have had already about one hundred +thousand Africo-Americans, either under arms, in the field, or +drilling in camps. But to-day Lincoln has not yet brought together +more than ten to fifteen thousand in the field; and what is done, is +done rather, so to speak, by private enterprise than by the +Government. Mr. Lincoln hesitates, meditates, and shifts, instead of +going to work manfully, boldly, and decidedly. Every time an +Africo-American regiment is armed or created, Mr. Lincoln seems as +though making an effort, or making a gracious concession in +permitting the increase of our forces. It seems as if Mr. Lincoln +were ready to exhaust all the resources of the country before he +boldly strikes the Africo American vein. How differently the whole +affair should have been conducted! + +_April 4._--Almost every day I hear very intelligent and patriotic +men wonder why every thing is going on so undecidedly, so +sluggishly; and all of them, in their despondency, dare not or will +not ascend to the cause. And when they finally see where the fault +lies, they are still more desponding. + +Europe, that is, European statesmen, judge the country, the people, +by its leaders and governors. European statesmen judge the events by +the turn given to them by a Lincoln, a Seward; this furnishes an +explanation of many of the misdeeds committed by English and French +statesmen. + +_April 4._--The people at large, with indomitable activity, mends, +repairs the disasters resulting from the inability and the +selfishness of its official chiefs. One day, however, the people +will turn its eyes and exclaim: + +"_But thou, O God! shalt bring them down into the pit of +destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their +days._" + +_April 4._--General Butler's speech in New York, at the Academy of +Music, is the best, nay, is the paramount exposition of the whole +rebellion in its social, governmental and military aspects. No +President's Message, no letter, no one of the emanations of Seward's +letter and dispatch-writing, corrosive disease, not an article in any +press compares with Butler's speech for lucidity, logic, conciseness +and strong reasoning. Butler laid down a law, a doctrine--and what he +lays down as such, contains more cardinal truth and reason than all +that was ever uttered by the Administration. And Butler is shelved and +bartered to France by Seward as long since as 1862; and the people +bear it, and the great clear-sighted press subsides, instead of day +and night battering the Administration for pushing aside the _only +man_, emphatically the ONLY MAN who was always and everywhere equal to +every emergency--who never was found amiss, and who never forgot that +an abyss separates the condition of a rebel, be he armed or unarmed, +(the second even more dangerous,) from a loyal citizen and from the +loyal Government. + +_April 4._--The annals of the Navy during this war will constitute a +cheering and consoling page for any future historian. If the Navy at +times is unsuccessful, the want of success can be traced to +altogether different reasons than many of the disasters on land. +Nothing similar to McClellanism pollutes the Navy--and want of +vigilance and other mistakes become virtues when compared with want +of convictions, with selfishness, and with intrigue. I have not yet +heard any justified complaint against the honesty of the Navy +Department; I feel so happy not to be disappointed in the tars of +all grades, and that Neptune Welles, with his Fox, (but not a +red-haired, thieving fox,) keep steady, clean, and as active as +possible. + +_April 5._--Senator Sumner pines and laments, Jeremiah-like, on the +ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses Seward of it--behind his +back. Why has not _pater conscriptus_ uttered a single word of +condemnation from his Senatorial _fauteuil_, and kept mute during +three sessions? _Sunt nobis homunculi sed non homines._ + +_April 5._--A letter in the papers, in all probability written under +the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all +the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the +writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders +General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men, +(he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave +and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse +for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from +head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones, +suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless--at the +best--helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand +men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack. +Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in +Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order +from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of +a large part of the army--or rather such a crime not to support a +part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special +orders from head-quarters prescribed his doing so--such a case or +excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And when such +cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in command. Three +bloody groans for Franklin! + +_April 6._--George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian. +Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth, +and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and +embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless, +and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of +the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the +pilots. + +_April 6._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War +will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No +one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been +thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there +could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and +constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most disgusting +psychological anomaly. It is an evidence how a mental poison rapidly +spreads and permeates all. As was repeatedly pointed out in this +DIARY, individuals who started the McClellan fetishism, were +admirers of the _Southern gentlemen_, were worshippers of slavery, +were secret or open partisans of rebellion. Many such subsequently +appear as Copperheads, peace men, as Union men, as Conservatives. +The other stratum of McClellanism is composed of intriguers. These +combined forces, supported by would-be wise ignorance, spread the +worship, and poisoned thousands and tens of thousands of honest but +not clear-sighted minds. The Report, or rather the investigation was +conducted with the utmost fairness; of course Ben Wade could not act +otherwise than fairly and nobly. Some critics say that McClellan's +case could have been yet more strongly brought out, and the fetish +could have been shown to the people in his most disgustingly true +nakedness. + +_April 6._--The people feel how the treason of the English +evilwishers slowly extends through its organs. By Butler, Wade, +Grimes and others, the people ask for non-intercourse with the +English assassin, who surreptitiously, stealthily under cover of +darkness, of legal formality, deals, or attempts to deal, a deadly +blow. The American sentimentalists strain to the utmost their soft +brains, to find excuses for English treason. + +English lordlings, scholars, moralists of the Carlyleian mental +perversion comment Homer, instead of being clear sighted +commentators of what passes under their noses. The English +phrase-mongering philanthropists all with joy smacked their bloody +lips at the, by them ardently wished and expected downfall of a +noble, free and self-governing people. Tigers, hyenas and jackals! +clatter your teeth, smack your lips! but you shall not get at the +prey. + +_April 7._--The President visits the Potomac army at Falmouth. +Seward wished to be of the party, offering to make a stirring speech +to the soldiers--that is, to impress the heroes with the notion that +in Seward they beheld a still greater hero, a patriot reeking with +Unionism and sacrifices, and eventually prepare their votes for the +next presidential election. Certain influences took the wind out of +Seward's sails, and as a naughty, arrogant boy, he was left behind +to bite his nails, and to pour out a logomachy. + +_April 7._--I am very uneasy about Charleston. It seems that +something works foul. Either they have not men enough, or brains +enough. A good artillerist, having confidence in the guns, and +having the needed insight how and where to use them, ought to +command our forces. Will the iron-clads resist the concentric fire +from so numerous batteries? + +The diplomats of the _prospective mediation_ and their tails are +scared by the elections in Connecticut. Others, however, of that +illustrious European body are out-spoken friends of Union and of +freedom. The representatives of the American republics are to be +relied upon. St. Domingo, Mexico sufficiently teaches all races, +_latin_ (_?_) as well as non-latin, that honey-mouthed governmental +Europe is an all-devouring wolf under a sheep's skin. + +Non-intercourse! no intercourse with England and with France as +long as France chooses to be ridden by the _Decembriseur_! Such +ought to be the watchword for a long, long time to come. + +_April 8._--The New York _Times_ is now boiling with patriotic wrath +against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns +at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our +soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the _Times_ was +extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured +plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan--and at that epoch the +_Times_ powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion. + +_April 8._--A Mr. Ockford, (or of similar name,) who for many years, +was a ship broker in England, advised our government and above all, +Mr. Seward, to institute proceedings before the English courts +against the building and arming of the iron-clads for the rebels. +Seward, of course, snubbed him off with the Sewardian verdict that +the jury in England will give or pronounce no verdict of guilty, in +our favor, as our jury would not find any one guilty of treason. +Good for a Seward. + +Patriots from various States, among them Boutwell, now member of +Congress from Massachusetts, urged the Cabinet; 1st, to declare +peremptorily to the English Government that if the rebel iron-clads +are allowed to go out from English ports, our government will +consider it as being a deliberate and willful act of hostility; 2d, +to publish at once the above declaration, that the English people +at large may judge of the affair. Seward opposed such a bold +step--Sumner ditto. + +_April 9._--I am at a loss to find in history, any government +whatever that so little took or takes into account the intrinsic and +intellectual fitness of an individual for the office entrusted to +him, as does the government of Mr. Lincoln. I cannot imagine that it +could have been always so, under previous administrations. It seems +that in the opinion of the Executive, not only geniuses, but men of +studies, and of special and specific preparation and knowledge run +in the streets, crowd the villages and states, and the Executive has +only to stretch his hand from the window, to take hold of an +unmistakable capacity, etc. The Executive ought to have some +experience by this time; but alas, _experientia non docet_ in the +White House. + +_April 10._--Agitated as my existence has been, I never fell among +so much littleness, meanness, servility as here. To avoid it, and +not to despair, or rage, or despond, several times a day, it is +necessary to avoid contact with politicians, and reduce to few, very +few, all intercourse with them. I cannot complain, as I find +compensation--but nevertheless, I am afraid that the study and the +analysis of so much mud and offal may tell upon me. Physical +monstrosities are attractive to physiologists or rather to +pathologists. But an anthropologist prefers normal nobleness of +mind, and shudders at sight and contact with intellectual and moral +crookedness. + +_April 11._--Sumter day. Two years elapsed, and treason not yet +crushed; Charleston not yet ploughed over and sown with salt; +Beauregard still in command, and the snake still keeping at bay the +eagle. And all this because in December, 1861, and in January, 1862, +McClellan wished not, Seward wished not, and Mr. Lincoln could not +decide whether to wish that Charleston and Savannah--defenceless at +that time--be taken after the fall of Port Royal. Two years! and the +people still bleed, and the exterminating angel strikes not the +malefactors, and the earth bursts not, and they are not yet in +Gehenna's embrace. + +Old patriot Everett made an uncompromising speech. That is by far +better than to make a hero out of a McClellan. But the misdeeds of +the Administration easily confused such impressionable receptive +minds as is Edward Everett's. + +_April 11._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, +discloses how McClellan deliberately ruined General Stone, and I +have little doubt that McClellan ruined Fitz-John Porter. + +_April 12._--Our navy makes brilliant prizes of Anglo-rebel flags +and ships. But Mr. Seward does his utmost to render the labor of our +cruisers as difficult and as dangerous as possible. Of course he +does it not intentionally, only because he so _masterly masters_ the +international laws, the laws and rules of search, the rights and +duties of neutrals, etc., and as a genuine incarnation of _fiat +justitia_, he is indifferent to national interests and to the +national flag. + +I am curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known +concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then +the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what _turpe_ +Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what +an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England +of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade +runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by +Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible the +condemnation of the Anglo-rebel property. The people would know how +_turpe_ Seward tried to urge and to persuade Neptune Welles to +violate the statutes of the country; how the great Secretary of +State declared that he cared very little for law, and how he and +Lincoln, by a Sultan's firman, directed the decision of the Judge on +his bench. + +_April 14._--My gloomy forebodings about the attack on Charleston +are already partly realized. Beaten off! that is the short solution +of a long story. But of course nobody will be at fault. This attack +on Charleston to some extent justifies: _parturiunt montes_, etc. + +_De profundis clamavi_ for light and some inklings of sense and +energy. But to search for sense and energy among counterfeits!... +The condition here vividly brings to mind Ovid's + + ...... ...... quem dixere chaos! + +_April 14._--In a letter to the Loyal League of New York, Mr. Seward +is out with his--at least--one hundred and fiftieth prophecy. As +fate finds a particular pleasure in quickly giving the lie to the +inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, and some +other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to pass a law +forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself ridiculous? +Among others, hear the following query: _Whether this unconquerable +and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through imbecility?_ +etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and mercilessly +criticise your own deeds and policy? Seward squints toward the +presidency that he may complete that masterly production. + +Oh! how the old hacks turn their dizzy heads towards the White +House. It would be ludicrous, and the lowest comedy of life, were +not the track running through blood and among corpses. I am told +that even Halleck squints that way. And why not? All is possible; +and Halleck's nag has as long ears as have the nags and hacks of the +other race-runners. + +_April 14._--Halleck consolidates the regiments and incidentally +deprives the army of the best and most experienced officers. The +numerically smaller regiment is dissolved in the larger one. But +most generally the smaller regiment was the bravest and has seen +more fire which melted it. Thus good officers are mustered out and +thrown on the pavement, and the enthusiasm for the flag of the +regiment destroyed, for its victorious memories, for the +recollections of common hardships and all the like noble cements of +a military life. Certainly, great difficulty exists to remount or to +restore a regiment. But O, Hallecks! O, Thomases! O, McDowells! all +of you, genii, or genuises, surmount difficulties. + +_April 14._--In a public speech in New York, General Fremont has +explained the duty and the obligations of a soldier in a republic. +Few, very few, of our striped and starred citizens, and still less +those educated at West Point have a comprehension of what a +Republican citizen soldier is. + +_April 14._--Halleck directly and indirectly exercises a fatal +influence on our army. I learn that his book on military not-science +largely circulates; above all, in the Potomac Army. + +_April 14._--It is the mission of the American people to make all +the trials and experiences by which all other nations will hereafter +profit. So the social experiment of self-government; the same with +various mechanical and commercial inventions. The Americans +experiment in political and domestic economy, in the art provided +for man's well-being and in the art of killing him. New fire-arms, +guns, etc., are now first used. + +The until now undecided question between batteries on land and +floating ones will be decided in Charleston harbor. Who will have +the best, the Monitors or the batteries? + +_April 15._--I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake of the +country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to the +carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be they +wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of crinolines. + +_April 15._--Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same +capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to +puff McClellan when in power. + +_April 16._--Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why +not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on +sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere +Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and +lickspittles are numberless. + + Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude, + Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebaüde! + +My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ... +it would be all over. + + ... tibi desinet. + +_April 17._--I met one of the best and of the most radical +ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at +the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and +notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr. +Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities +finally will save the country. _Et tu, Brute_, exclaimed I, without +the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in his pocket +a nomination for an influential office. + +_April 17._--Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts, +equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless +abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for +more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood. + + _Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis._ + +A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as +patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous +condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least +the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their +indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of +resources." What was to be answered? + +_April 18._--As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy, +whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of +every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of +JOHN S. MILL, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and +then the two peoples may be friends. + +_April 18._--Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army +victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put +by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire +Hooker's genius. Such a manoeuvre will be a revelation. + +_April 18._--I learn that General Hunter has about seven thousand +disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of +Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has +not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order, +or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston. + +_April 18._--Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to +violate the national statutes and the international rules, by +insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that +Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner +enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail +agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously, +neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the +mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the +State Department knows better. + +In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr. +Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide, +ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the +English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for +costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is +the incarnation of wisdom and of justice! + +_April 20._--The not quite heavenly trio--Lincoln, Seward and +Halleck--maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to +believe them, that they, the trio, could not as yet, act decidedly +in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in other +questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! Those +_lumina mundi_ believe that the people will forget their records. To +be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily forget the +misdeeds of _yesterday_, but this _yesterday_ shall be somehow +recalled to their memory. + +If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard +and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would +be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad +clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating +influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in +disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers +are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar +their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, _esprit +du corps_. + +_April 20._--The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in +court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the +egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the +assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in Administration, +in politics, in war. + + _Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!_ + +_April 20._--Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide, +Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit Hooker, to have a peep into +his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope Hooker will +most politely keep his own secrets. + +_April 21._--The American people never will and never can know and +realize the whole immensity of McClellan's treasonable incapacity, +and to what extent all subsequent disasters have their roots in the +inactivity of McClellan during 1861-62. Whatever may be the official +reports, or private investigations, chronicles, confessions, +memoirs, all the facts will never be known. Never will it be known +how almost from the day when he was intrusted with the command, +McClellan was without any settled plans, always hesitating, +irresolute; how almost hourly he (deliberately or not, I will not +decide) stuffed Mr. Lincoln with lies, and did the same to others +members of the Cabinet. The evidences thereof are scattered in all +directions, and it is impossible to gather them all. Mr Lincoln +could testify--if he would. Almost every day I learn some such fact, +but I could not gather and record them all. Seward mostly sided with +McClellan, and so did Blair, _par nobile fratrum_. + +Few, if any, detailed reports of the campaigns and battles fought +by McClellan have been sent by him to the President or to the War +Department. Such reports ought to be made immediately; so it is done +in every well regulated government. It is the duty of the staff of +the army to prepare the like reports. But McClellan did in his own +way, and his reports, if ever he sends them, would only be +disquisitions elaborated _ex post_, and even apart from their +truthfulness--null. + +All kinds of lies against Stanton have been elaborated by McClellan +and his partisans, and circulated in the public. The truth is, that +when Stanton became McClellan's superior, Stanton tried in every +friendly and devoted way to awake McClellan to the sense of honor +and duty, to make him fight the enemy, and not dodge the fight under +false pretenses. Stanton implored McClellan to get ready, and not to +evade from day to day; and only when utterly disappointed by +McClellan's hesitation and untruthfulness, Stanton, so to say, in +despair, forced McClellan to action. Stanton was a friend of +McClellan, but sacrificed friendship to the sacred duty of a +patriot. + +_April 21._--England plays as false in Europe as she does here. +England makes a noise about Poland, and after a few speeches will +give up Poland. More than forty years of experience satisfied me +about England's political honesty. In 1831, Englishmen made +speeches, the Russian fought and finally overpowered us. England +hates Russia as it hates this country, and fears them both. I hope a +time will come when America and Russia joining hands will throttle +that perfidious England. Were only Russia represented here in her +tendencies, convictions and aspirations! What a brilliant, elevated, +dominating position could have been that of a Russian diplomat here, +during this civil war. England and France would have been always in +his _ante-chambre_. + +_April 21._--Letter-writing is the fashion of the day. Halleck +treads into Seward's footsteps or shoes. Halleck thunders to Union +leagues; to meetings; it reads splendidly, had only Halleck not +contributed to increase the "perils" of the country. Letter-writing +is to atone for deadly blunders. The same with Seward as with +Halleck. If Halleck would not have been fooled by Beauregard, if +Halleck had taken Corinth instead of approaching the city by +parallels distant _five miles_; the "peril" would no longer exist. + +_April 21._--Foreign and domestic papers herald that the honorable +Sanford, United States Minister to Belgium, and residing in +Brussels, has given a great and highly admired diplomatic dinner, +etc., etc. I hope the Sewing machine was in honor and exposed as a +_surtout_ on the banquet's table, and that only the guano-claim +successfully recovered from Venezuela, and other equally innocent +pickings paid the piper. _Vive la bagatelle_, and Seward's _alter +ego_ at the European courts. + +_April 22._--I so often meet men pushed into the background of +affairs; men young, intelligent, active, clear-sighted, in one word, +fitted out with all mental and intellectual requisites for +commanders, leaders, pilots and helmsmen of every kind; and +nevertheless twenty times a day I hear repeated the question: "Whom +shall we put? we have no men."--It is wonderful that such men cannot +cut their way through the apathy of public opinion, which seems to +prefer old hacks for dragging a steam engine instead of putting to +it good, energetic engineers, and let the steam work. Young men! +young men, it is likewise your fault; you ought to assert +yourselves; you ought to act, and push the fogies aside, instead of +subsiding into useless criticism, and useless consideration for +_experienced_ narrow-mindedness, for ignorance or for helplessness. +In times as trying as ours are, men and not counterfeits are needed. + +_April 22._--In Europe, they wonder at our manner of carrying on the +war, at our General-in-Chief, who, in the eyes and the judgment of +European generals, acts without a plan and without _an ensemble_; +they wonder at the groping and shy general policy, and nevertheless +a policy full of contradictions. The Europeans thus astonished are +true friends of the North, of the emancipation, and are competent +judges. + +_April 22._--I hear that Hooker intends to make a kind of feint +against Lee. Feints are old, silly tricks, almost impossible with +large armies, and therefore very seldom feints are successful. Lee +is not to be caught in this way, and the less so as he has as many +spies as inhabitants, in, and around Hooker's camp. To cross the +river on a well selected point, and, Hooker-like, attack the +surprised enemy is the thing. + +_April 22._--"Loyalty, loyalty," resounds in speeches, is re-echoed +in letters, in newspapers. Well, Loyalty, but to whom? I hope not to +the person of any president, but to the ever-living principle of +human liberty. Next eureka is, "the administration must be +sustained." Of course, but not because it intrinsically deserves it, +but because no better one can be had, and no radical change can be +effected. + +_April 22._--The English Cabinet takes in sails, and begins to show +less impudence in the violation of neutral duties. Lord John +Russell's letter to the constructors of the piratical ships. +Certainly Mr. Seward will claim the credit of having brought England +to terms by his eloquent dispatches. Sumner may dispute with Seward +the influence on English fogies. In reality, the bitter and +exasperated feeling of the people frightened England. + +_April 24._--It is repulsive to read how the press exults that the +famine in the South is our best ally. Well! I hate the rebels, but I +would rather that the superiority of brains may crush them, and not +famine. The rebels manfully supporting famine, give evidence of +heroism; and why is it in such disgusting cause! + +_April 23._--Senator Sumner emphatically receives and admits into +church and communion, the freshly to emancipation converted General +Thomas, Adjutant General, now organizing Africo-American regiments +in the Mississippi valley. Better _late than never_, for such +Thomases, Hallecks, etc., only I doubt if a Thomas will ever become +a Paul. + +_April 24._--Our State Department does not enjoy a high +consideration abroad. I see this from public diplomatic acts, and +from private letters. I am sure that Mr. Dayton has found this out +long ago, and I suppose so did Mr. Adams. Of course not a Sanford. +If the State Department had not at its back twenty-two millions of +Americans, foreign Cabinets would treat us--God, alone, knows how. + +_April 24._--I hope to live long enough to see the end of this war, +and then to disentangle my brains from the pursuits which now fill +them. Then goodbye, O, international laws, with your customs and +rules. England handled them for centuries, as the wolf with the lamb +at the spring. When I witness the confusion and worse, here, I seem +to see--_en miniature_--reproduced some parts of the Byzantine +times. All cracks but not the people, and to ---- I am indebted that +my brains hold out. + +_April 24._--What a confusion Burnside's order No. 8 reveals; the +president willing, unwilling, shifting, and time rapidly running on. + +_April 24._--Senator Sumner, without being called as he ought to +have been--to give advice, discovered the Peterhoff case. The +Senator laid before the President, all the authorities bearing on +the case, showed by them to the President, that the mail was not to +be returned to the English Consul, but lawfully ought to be opened +by the Prize Court. The Senator so far convinced the President, that +Mr. Lincoln, next morning at once violated the statutes, and through +Mr. Seward, instructed the District Attorney to instruct the Court +to give up the mail unopened to England. + +Brave and good Sumner exercises influence on Mr. Lincoln. + +_April 24._--Every one has his word to say about civilized warfare, +about international warfare, laws of war, etc. In principle, no laws +of public war are applicable to rebels, and if they are, it is only +on the grounds of expediency or of humanity. Laws of international +warfare are applicable to independent nations, and not to rebels. +Has England ever treated the Irish according to the laws of +international warfare? Has England considered Napper Tandy and his +aids as belligerents? The word _war_ in its legal or international +sense ought to have been suppressed at the start from the official, +national vocabulary; to suppress a rebellion is not to _wage a war_. + +_April 25._--When the bloody tornado shall pass over, and the normal +condition be restored, then only will begin to germinate the seeds +of good and of evil, seeds so broadcast sown by this rebellion. All +will become either recast or renovated, the plough of war having +penetrated to the core of the people. Customs, habits, notions, +modes of thinking and of appreciating events and men, political, +social, domestic morals will be changed or modified. The men +baptized in blood and fire will shake all. Many of them endowed with +all the rays of manhood, others lawless and reckless. Many domestic +hearths will be upturned, extinct, destroyed; the women likewise +passing through the terrible probation. Many women remained true to +the loftiest womanhood, others became carried away by the impure +turmoil. All this will tell and shape out the next generations. + +I ardently hope that this war will breed and educate a population +strong, clear-sighted, manly, decided in ideas and in action; and +such a population will be scattered all over this extensive country. +Men who stood the test of battles, will not submit to the village, +township, or to politicians at large, but will judge for themselves, +and will take the lead. These men went into the field a common iron +ore, they will return steel. The shock will tear the scales from the +people's eyes, and the people easily will discern between pure grain +and chaff. I am sure that a man who fought for the great cause, who +brought home honorable wounds and scars, whose limbs are rotting on +fields of battle; such a man will become an authority; and +death-knell to the abject race of politicians; the days of shallow, +cold, rhetors are numbered, and vanity and selfishness will be +doomed. _Non vobis, non vobis--sed populo...._ + +_April 25._--Mr. Seward is elated, triumphant, grand. Emigration +from Europe, evoked, beckoned by him is to replace the population +lost in the war. + +What is to be more scorned? Seward's heartless cruelty or his +reckless ignorance, to believe that such a numerous emigration will +pour in, as to at once make up for those of whom at least one third +were butchered by flippancy of Mr. Seward's policy to which Lincoln +became committed. + +_April 26._--The people are bound onwards _per aspera ad astra_: the +giddy brained helmsmen, military and civil chiefs and commanders may +hurl the people in an opposite direction. + +_April 26._--Whoever will dispassionately read the various statutes +published by the 37th Congress; will speak of its labors as I do, +and the future historian will find in those statutes the best light +by which to comprehend and to appreciate the prevailing temper of +the people. + +_April 27._--Rhetors and some abolitionists of the small church--not +Wendell Phillips--still are satisfied with mistakes and disasters, +because _otherwise slavery would not have been destroyed_. If they +have a heart, it is a clump of ice, and their brains are common +jelly. With men at the head who would have had faith and a lofty +consciousness of their task, the rebellion and slavery could have +been both crushed in the year 1861, or any time in 1862. Any one but +an idiot ought to have seen at the start, that as the rebels fight +to maintain slavery, in striking slavery you strike at the rebels. +The blood spilt because of the narrow-mindedness of the leaders, +that blood will cry to heaven, whatever be the absolution granted by +the rhetors and by the small church. + +_April 27._--Mr. Seward went on a visit to the army, dragging with +him some diplomats. The army was not to forget the existence of the +Secretary of State, this foremost Union-saviour, and the candidate +for the next Presidency. Others say that Seward ran away to dodge +the Peterhoff case. + +_April 27._--How the politicians of the _Times_ and of the +_Chronicle_ lustily attack--NOW--McClellan. If I am well informed, +it was the editor of the _Chronicle_, himself a leading politician, +and influential in both Houses, who instigated Lovejoy, Member of +Congress, to move resolutions in favor of McClellan for the battle +at Williamsburgh, where McClellan did what he could to have his own +army destroyed. + +_April 28._--Mr. Seward elaborated for the President a paper in the +Peterhoff case--and, _horribile dictu_, as I am told--even the +President found the argument, or whatever else it was, very, very +light. The President sent for the chief clerk to explain to him the +unintelligible document--and more darkness prevailed. Bravo, Mr. +Seward! your name and your place in the history of the times are +firmly nailed! + +_April 28._--The time will come, and even I may yet witness it, when +these deep wounds struck by the rebellion will be healed; when even +the scars of blows dealt to the people by such Lincolns, Sewards, +McClellans, Hallecks, the other _minor gens_, will be invisible--and +this great people, steeled by events, will be more powerful than it +ever was. Then the Monroe doctrine will be applied in all its +sternness and rigor, and from pole to pole no European power will +defile this continent. The so-called Americo-Hispano-Latin races +humbugged by Europe, will have found how cursed is _any whatever_ +European influence. The main land and the Isles must be purified +therefrom. Will any European government, power, or statesman permit +the United States to acquire even the most barren rock on the +European continent? The American continent is equal, if not more to +Europe, and the degrading stigma of European colonies and +possessions must be blotted from this American soil. + +_April 29._--The President appoints a day of fasting and prayer. +Well! it is not for the people to fast and to pray, but for the +evil-doers. Lead on, Mr. Lincoln, attended by Seward and +Halleck--all in sackcloth and ashes. + +_April 29._--The President's and General Martindale's proclamations +officially recognize the existence of God. It is consoling, and +knocks down the far-famed _Deo erexit Voltaire_. + +_April 29._--To the right and to the left I hear praise of Mr. Chase +as the great financier. Well he may be praised, having in his hand +thousands and thousands of cows to be milked. The _financier_ is the +people, and prevents Chase from ruining the country. + +_April 29._--A Richmond paper calls McClellan a compound of lies and +of cowardice. McClellan, the fetish of Copperheads and of +peace-makers. The Richmond paper must have some special reasons +which justify this stern appreciation. + +_April 30._--The _World_, a paper born in barter, in mud and in +shamelessness, condemns General Wadsworth's name to eternal infamy. +What a court of honor the _World's_ scribblers! The one a hireling +of the brothers Woods, and sold by them in the lump to some other +Copperhead financier; the other a pants and overcoats stealing beau. +The rest must be similar. + +_April 30._--The abomination of slavery makes such a splendid field +to any rhetor attacking that curse. Were it not so, how many rhetors +would be abolitionists? + + + + +MAY, 1863. + + Advance -- Crossing -- Chancellorsville -- Hooker -- Staff -- Lee + -- Jackson -- Stunned -- Suggestions -- Meade -- Swinton -- La + Fayette -- Intrigues -- Happy Grant -- Rosecrans -- Halleck -- + Foote -- Elections -- Re-elections -- Tracks -- Seward -- 413 -- + etc., etc., etc. + + +_May 1._--General anxiety about Hooker. If he successfully crosses +the river, this alone will count among the most brilliant actions in +military history. To cross a river with a large army under the eyes, +almost under the guns of an enemy, concentrated, strong, vigilant, +and supported by the population, would honor the name of any +world-renowned captain. + +_May 2._--Mr. Seward forces upon the Department of the Navy, +instructions for our cruizers that are so obviously favorable to +blockade-runners, that our officers may rather give up capturing. +Mr. Seward's instructions concede more to England, than was ever +asked by England, or by any neutral from a belligerent of a third +class power. + +_May 2._--How could Mr. Adams to that extent violate all the +international proprieties, and deliver a kind of pass to a vessel +loaded in England with arms and ammunition for Matamoras. It is an +offence against England, and a flagrant violation of neutrality to +France. Not yet time to show our teeth to them. And all this in +favor of that adventurer and almost pickpocket Zermann, this +mock-admiral, mock-general, whom twice here they put up for a +general in our army. But for me they would have made him one, and +disgraced the American uniform. This police malefactor was +patronised by some New Yorkers, by Senator Harris and from Mr. +Seward may have got strong letters for Mr. Adams. It is probable +that Zermann sold Mr. Adams to secessionists who may have wished to +stir up trouble by this passport business. I am sure the affair will +be hushed up and entirely forgotten. + +_May 2._--Glorious! glorious. Hooker crossed--and successfully. The +rebels, caught napping, disturbed him not. Now at them, at them, +without loss of an hour! The soldiers will perform wonders when in +the hands of true soldiers for commanders, when led on by a true +soldier. + +O heaven! Why does Hooker publish such a proclamation? It is the +merest nonsense. To thank the soldiers, few words were needed. But +to say that the enemy must come and fight us on our own ground. O +heaven! Hooker ought not to have had time to write a proclamation, +but ought to pitch into the rebels, surprise and confuse them, and +not wait for them. What is the matter? I tremble. + +_May 3._--Rumors, anxiety. The patriots feverish. One might easily +become delirious.... Copperheads, Washington secessionists, spread +all kinds of disastrous rumors. The secessionists here in +Washington, are always invisible when any success attends our arms; +but when we are worsted, they are forth coming on all corners, as +toads are after a shower of rain. + +_May 4._--Confused news, but it seems that Hooker is successful. +Still not so complete as was expected. Hooker's manoeuvring seems +heavy, slow. + +The Copperheads more dangerous and more envenomed than the +secessionists. And very natural. The secesh risks all for a bad +cause and a bad creed. But the _World_ has no conviction, only envy +and mischief, and risks nothing. + +_May 5._--Nothing decided; nothing certain. From what I can gather, +the new generation or stratum of generals fights differently from +the style of the Simon-pure McClellan tribe. They are in front, and +not in the rear according to regulations. + +Halleck digs, digs entrenchments around Washington. I meet +battalions with spades. Engineers show their poor skill! and Mr. +Lincoln is comforted to be strongly defended! + +_May 5._--Night, storm, rain. News rather doubtful. Stanton said to +me that he believes in Hooker, even if Hooker be unsuccessful. +Bravo! Not want of success condemns a general, but the way and +manner in which he acted; and how he dealt with events. + +_May 6._--Seward is bitterly attacked by the _World_, and by other +Copperheads. I could not unite with a _World_ and with Copperheads +to attack even a Seward. They are too filthy.--_Arcades ambo._ + +_May 6._--Hooker retreats and recrosses the river. Say now what you +will to make it swallow, at the best it is an unsuccessful affair, +if not an actual disaster. I believe not in the swelling of the +river. Bosh! in three days these rivers fell. Have any generals +Franklinized? I dare not ask; I most wish not to know anything. + +_May 7._--_Nocte pluit tota (not) redeunt spectacula mane_; grim, +dark, cold, rainy night. Are the Gods against us? Or has imbecility +exasperated even the merciful but rational Christian God to that +extent, that God turns his back upon us? + +_May 7._--Hiob's news come in, confused to sure, but still one finds +something like a foothold. I am thunderstruck, annihilated. I +listened to Hooker's best friends but can hardly help crying. Hooker +is a failure as a commander of a large army. Hooker is good for a +corps or two, but not for the whole command and responsibility. From +all that I can learn, Hooker fights well, courageously, but he, like +the others, _has not the greatest and truest gift_ in a commander: +_Hooker cannot manoeuvre his army._ All that I hear up to this +moment strengthened my conclusion, and I am sure that the more the +details come in, the stronger the truth will come out. Hooker can +not manoeuvre an army. Hooker may attack vigorously, stand as a +rock, but cannot manoeuvre. + +Hooker seems to have committed the same faults and mistake as his +predecessors did. He kept more men out of the fire than in the fire. +And this from Hooker who accused his former chiefs of that very +fault. But poor Hooker was unsupported by a good staff. This check +may turn out to be a great disaster. At any rate, a whole campaign +is lost, and one more commander may go overboard. Hooker will raise +against him a terrible storm. God grant that Hooker could be +honestly defended. + +--_La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile_ is perhaps again +illustrated by Hooker. If Hooker is in fault, then he ought not to +survive this disaster. After all that he said, after all that we +said and repeated in his favor, to turn out an awful mistake! + +_May 8._--Worse and worse. I do not learn one single fact +exculpating Hooker. I scarcely dare to look in the people's faces. +The rain is no justification. Hooker showed no vigor before the +rain. After he crossed, and had his army in hand, instead of +attacking, he subsided, seemingly trying to find out the plans of +the rebels instead of acting so as not to give them time to make +plans or to execute them. + +_Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier_, is almost all +to be said in Hooker's defense. I tremble to know all the minute +details. A paroled prisoner returned from Richmond said to me that +terror was terrible in Richmond--that Lee and his army had no +supplies. No troops in Richmond--Stoneman cut the bridges. The +rebels were on the brink of a precipice, and extricated themselves. + +_May 8._--Boutwell, Member of Congress, told me that the district of +St. Louis paid more new taxes to January than any other district in +the United States. Bravo, Missourians. That is loyalty. + +_May 8: Evening_--More details about this unhappy Chancellorsville. +Lee and the rebel generals have been decidedly surprised--in the +military sense--by the crossing of the river, and by Hooker coming +thus in part in their rear. But we lost time, they retrieved and +_manoeuvred_ splendidly; better than they ever have done before. Lee +showed that he has learned something. Lee showed that, by a year's +practice, he has at length acquired skill in handling a large army. +The apprenticeship on our side is not so successful; our generals +have no experience therein, and McClellan was worse at Harper's +Ferry in November than at Williamsburg in the spring. McClellan +learned nothing. Will it be possible to find among our Potomac +generals one in whom revelation will supply experience? + +The more I learn about that affair the more thoroughly I am +convinced that Hooker's misfortune had the same cause and source as +the misfortunes of those before him. No military scientific staff +and chief-of-staff. Butterfield was not even with Hooker, but at +Falmouth at the telegraph. If it is so, then no words can +sufficiently condemn them all. + +If Kepler, or Herschel, or Fulton, or Ericcson had violated axioms +and laws of mathematics and dynamics, their labors would have been +as so much chaff and dust. War is mechanism and science, inspiration +and rule; a genuine staff for an army is a scientific law, and if +this law is not recognized and is violated, then the disasters +become a mathematically certain result. + +_May 8._--The defenders of Hooker call the result a drawn battle. +Mr. Lincoln calls it a lost battle. I call it a miscarried, if not +altogether lost, campaign. + +_May 9._--The poorest defence of Hooker is that the terrain was +such that he could not manoeuvre. If the terrain was so bad, Hooker +ought to have known it beforehand, and not brought his army there. +The rebels have not been prevented from marching and manoeuvring on +the same ground, and not prevented from attacking Hooker, all of +which ought to have been done by our army. + +_May 9._--All is again in unspeakable confusion. All seems to crack. +This time, more than ever, a powerful mind is necessary to +disentangle the country. If all is confirmed concerning Hooker's +incapacity, then it is a crime to keep him in command; but who after +him? It becomes now only a guess, a lottery. + +The acting Chief-of Staff on the battle-field was General Van Alen. +Brave and devoted; but Van Alen saw the fire for the first time, and +makes no claims to be a scientific soldier. + +_May 10._--I wrote to Stanton to call his attention to, and explain +the reasons of Hooker's so-called miscarriage. The insufficiency, +the inadequacy of his staff and of chief-of-staff. Hooker attempted +what not even Napoleon would have dared to attempt, to fight an army +of more than one hundred thousand men, literally without a staff, or +without a thorough, scientific and experienced chief-of-staff. I +directed Stanton's attention to evidences from military history. +Persons interested in such questions read Battle of Ligny and +Waterloo, by Thiers. + +Cobden, Cobden the friend of the Union, can no more stand Mr. +Seward's confused logomachy, and in a speech sneers at Mr. Seward's +dispatches. The New York _Times_ _dutifully_ perverts Cobden's +speech; other papers _dutifully_ keep silent. + +_May 10._--To extenuate Hooker's misconduct, his supporters assert +that he was struck, stunned, and his brains affected. Hooker was +stunned on Friday, and his campaign was already lost on Tuesday +before, when he wrote his silly proclamation, when he subsided with +the army in a _semi-lunar_ (the worst form of all) camp, and +challenged Lee to come and fight him. Lee did it. Hooker was +intellectually stunned on Tuesday. Further: the results of the +material stunning on Friday could never have been so fatal if the +army had been organized on the basis of common sense, as are all the +armies of intelligent governments in Europe. The chief-of-staff +elaborates with the commander the plan of the action; he is +therefore familiar with the intentions of the commander. When the +commander is disabled, the chief-of-staff continues the action. At +the storming of Warsaw, in 1831, Prince Paschkewitsch, the +commander, was disabled or stunned, and his chief-of-staff, Count +Toll, directed the storm for two days, and Warsaw fell into Russian +hands. + +No more effective is the defence of the defeat, by throwing the +fault on the Eleventh Army Corps. The Eleventh Corps was put so much +in advance of a very foggishly--if not worse--laid out camp, that +it was temptingly exposed to any attack of the enemy. The Eleventh +Corps was separated from the rest of the army, as was Casey's +division in the Chickahominy. The laying of a camp, the distribution +of the corps, in a well organized army, is the work of the staff and +of its chief; but Butterfield was not even then in Chancellorsville. +Lee, who if caught napping, quickly awoke, wheeled his army as if it +were a child's toy, cut his way through woods which amazed Hooker, +and arrived before Hooker's semi-lunar camp. We, all the time, as it +seems, were ignorant of Lee's movements. A good staff, and what Lee +did, we would have accomplished. Lee quietly found out our +vulnerable point; and struck the blow. That, if you please, _was_ a +stunner. Finally: the Eleventh Corps was eleven or twelve thousand +strong. The weakest in the army, equal to a strong division in a +European army of one hundred thousand men. The breaking of a +division or of twelve thousand men posted at the extreme flank, +ought not and could not have been so fatal to the whole campaign. A +true captain would have been prepared for such eventuality. Battles +are recorded in history when a whole wing broke down and retreated, +and nevertheless the true captain restored order and fortunes, and +won the battle. + +I am told that the rebels attacked in columns, and not in lines. The +rebels learn and learned, and are not conceited. The terrain here in +Virginia is specially fit for attacks in columns, according to +continental European tactics. We will not learn, we know all, we +have graduated--at West Point. + +_May 11._--I have it from a very reliable source, that Mr. Lincoln +considers Sumner to be not very entertaining. + +_May 11._--The confusion is on the increase. Statesmen, politicians, +honest, dishonest, stupid and intelligent, all huddled together. +Their name is legion--and what a stench. It is abominable! And many +think, and many may think, that I find pleasure in dwelling on such +events, on such men as are here. When I was a child, my tutor +ingrained into my memory the _Cum stercore dum certo_, etc. But at +any cost, I shall try to preserve the true reflection of events, of +times, and of the actors. + +_May 12._--Jackson dead. Dead invincible! and therefore fell in time +for his heroic name. Jackson took a sham, a falsehood, for faith and +for truth--but he stood up faithfully, earnestly, devotedly to his +convictions. Whatever have been his political errors, Jackson will +pass to posterity, the hero of history, of poetry, and of the +legend. His name was a terror, it was an army for friend and for +enemy. For Jackson + + _O selig der, dem er in Siegesglantze, + Die blutigen Lorbeer'n um die Schlaefe windet._ + +_May 12._--_Sewardiana._ Lord Lyons, or rather the English +government, objects and protests against the instructions given to +our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr. +Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to +our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this +time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was +quashed, or, at least, recast. + +The Morning _Chronicle_, of Washington--_magnum_ Administration's +_excrementum_--attacks SCHALK and his military reasonings. Oh! great +politician. + + _Sus Minervam docet._ + +_May 13._--The defenders of Hooker affirm that Sedgwick was in +fault, and disobeyed orders. + +1st. I have good reasons firmly to believe that Sedgwick heroically +obeyed and executed orders sent to him. No doubt can exist about it. + +2d. The orders written by _such_ a staff as Hooker's might have been +written in _such_ a way as to confuse the God Mars himself. Marshal +Soult could fight, but as a chief of Napoleon's staff at Waterloo, +could not write intelligible orders. + +3d. Setting aside Sedgwick's disobedience of orders, it does not in +the least justify Hooker in hearing the roar of cannon, and knowing +what was going on, and at the head of eighty thousand men allowing +Sedgwick to be crushed; and all this within a few miles. Fitz-John +Porter was cashiered for a similar offense. Hooker's action is by +far worse, and thus Hooker deserves to be shot. + +_May 13._--Rumors that Halleck is to take the command of the army, +together with Hooker. I almost believe it, because it is nameless, +and here all that is illogical is, eventually, probable. + +Poor Hooker. Undoubtedly, he had a soldier's spark in him. But +adulation, flunkeyism, concert, covered the spark with dirt and mud. +I pity him, but for all that, down with Hooker! + +If Hooker or Halleck commands the army, Lee will have the _knack_ to +always whip them. + +_May 14._--Wrote a paper for Senators Wade and Chandler, to point +out the reasons of Hooker's failure. Did my utmost to explain to +them that warfare to-day is not empiricism, but science, and that +empiricism is only better when sham-science has the upper hand. +Hooker's staff was worse than sham-science, and was not even +empiricism. + +I explained that such evils, although very deeply rooted, can, +nevertheless, be remedied. An energetic government can, and ought to +look for and find, the remedy. The army, as it is, contains good +materials for every branch of organization; it is the duty of the +government to discover them and give them adequate functions. + +Further: I suggested to these patriotic Senators that as in the +present emergency, it is difficult to put the hand on any general +inspiring confidence, the President, the Secretary of War and the +Senators, ought immediately to go to the army, and call together +all the commanders of corps and of divisions. The President ought +to explain to the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of making a new +choice. But as the generals are well aware that there must be a +commander, and that they know each other in the fire, the President +appeals to their patriotism, and asks them to elect, by secret +ballot on the spot, one from among themselves. + +_May 14: One o'clock, P. M._--The President, Halleck and Hooker in +secret conclave. Stanton, it seems, is excluded. If so, I am glad on +his account. God have mercy on this wronged and slaughtered people. +No holy spirit will inspire the Conclave. + +_May 15._--The English Government shelters behind the Enlistment +Act. The Act is a municipal law, and a foreign nation has nothing to +do with it. We are with England on friendly terms, and England has +towards us duties of friendly comity, whatever be the municipal law. +To invoke the Enlistment Act against us, is a mean pettifogger's +trick. + +A good-natured imbecile, C----, everybody's friend, and friend of +Lincoln, Seward and the Administration in the lump, C---- asked me +what I want by thus bitterly attacking everybody. + +"I want the rebellion crushed, the slaves emancipated; but above all +I want human life not to be sacrilegiously wasted; I want men, not +counterfeits." + +"Well, my dear, point out where to find them?" answered everybody's +friend. + +_May 15._--On their return from Falmouth, the patriotic Senators +told me that they felt the ground for my proposed election of a +commander by his colleagues, and that General Meade would have the +greatest chance of being elected. _Va pour Meade._ Some say that +Meade is a Copperhead at heart. Nonsense. Let him be a Copperhead at +heart, and fight as he fought under Franklin, or fight as he would +have fought at Chancellorsville if Hooker had not been trebly +_stunned_. + +_May 15._--Much that I see here reminds me of the debauched times in +France; on a microscopic scale, however; as well as of the times of +the _Directoire_. The jobbers, contractors, lobbyists, etc., here +could perhaps carry the prize even over the supereminently infamous +jobbers, etc., during the _Directoire_. + +_May 15._--"Peel of Halleck, Seward and Sumner," exclaims Wendell +Philips, the apostle. Wendell Samson shakes the pillars, and the +roof may crush the Philistines, and those who lack the needed pluck. + +_May 16._--The President visited Falmouth, consoled Hooker and +Butterfield, shook hands with the generals, told them a story, and +returned as wise as he went concerning the miscarriage at +Chancellorsville. The repulse of our army does not frighten Mr. +Lincoln, and this I must applaud from my whole heart. It is however +another thing to admire the cool philosophy with which are swallowed +the causes of a Fredericksburgh and a Chancellorsville--causes +which devoured about twenty thousand men, if not more. + +_May 16._--Strange stories, and incredible, if any thing now-a-days +is incredible. Mr. Lincoln, inspired by Hitchcock and Owen, turns +spiritualist and rapper. Poor spirits, to be obliged to answer such +calls! + +_May 17._--A high-minded, devoted, ardent patriot, a general of the +army, had a long conversation with the President, who was sad, and +very earnest. The patriot observed that Mr. Lincoln wanted only +encouragement to take himself the command of the Army of the +Potomac. As it stands now, this would be even better than any other +choice. I am sure that once with the army, separated from Seward & +Co., Mr. Lincoln will show great courage. If only Mr. Lincoln could +then give the _walking papers_ to General Halleck! + +On the authority of the above conversation, I respectfully wrote to +the President, and urged him to take the army's command, but to +create a genuine staff for the army around his person. + +I submitted to the President that the question relating to a staff +for the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy [the President] and +for the commander-in-chief of the Army, Major-General Halleck, has +been often discussed by some New York, Boston and Washington +dailies, and the wonted amount of confusion is thereby thrown +broadcast among the public. The names of several generals have been +mentioned by the press as a staff of the President. I doubt if any +of them are properly qualified for such an important position. They +are rather fitted for a military council _ad latus_ to the +President. Such a council exists in Russia near the person of the +emperor; but it has nothing in common with a staff, with staff +duties, or with the intellectual qualification for such duties. The +project of such a council here was many months ago submitted to the +Secretary of War. A Commander-in-chief, as mentioned above--one +fighting and manoeuvring on paper--making plans in his office, +unfamiliar with every thing constituting a genuine military, +scientific or practical soldier--to whom field and battle are +uncongenial or improper--to whom grand and even small tactics are a +_terra incognita_--such a chief is at best but an imitation of the +English military organization, and certainly it is only in this +country that obsolete English routine is almost uniformly imitated. +Such a Commander-in-chief might have been of some small usefulness +when our Army was but thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand strong, +was scattered over the country, or warred only with Indians on the +frontier. But all the great and highly perfected military powers on +the continent of Europe consider such a commander a wholly +unnecessary luxury, and not even Austria indulges in it now. + +During the campaign against Napoleon in 1813-14 the allies were +commanded by a generalissimo, the Prince Schwartzenberg; but he +moved with the army, actively directed that great campaign. + +The Continental sovereigns of Europe are born Commanders-in-chief of +their respective land and naval forces. As such, each of them has a +personal staff; but such a personal staff must not be confused with +a general, central staff, the paramount necessity of which for any +military organization is similar to the nervous system and the brain +for the human body. Special extensive studies as well as practical +familiarity with the use of the drill and the tactics of infantry, +cavalry and artillery, constitute absolutely essential requirements +for an officer of such a staff. The necessary military special +information also, as well as the duties, are very varied and +complicated (see "_Logistics_" by Jomini and others.) This country +has no such school of staff. West Point neither instructs nor +provides the Army with officers for staff duties; and of course the +difficulty now to obtain efficient officers for a staff, if not +insurmountable, is appalling, and is only to be mastered by a great +deal of good will, by insight and by discernment. + +Many months ago, I pointed out, in the press, this paramount +deficiency in the organization of the Federal Army. The Prince de +Joinville ascribes General McClellan's military failures to the +paramount inefficiency of that General's staff. Any one in the least +familiar with military organization and military science is +thunderstruck to find how the Federal military organization deal +with staffs, and what is their comprehension of the qualification +for staff duties. + +It deserves a mention that engineers and engineering constitute what +is rather a secondary element in the organization of a special or of +a general central staff. + +Plans of wide comprehensive campaigns are generally elaborated by +such general staffs. In the campaigns of 1813-14, the sovereigns of +Russia and Prussia were surrounded by their respective general, and +not only personal staffs. With the Colonels Dybitsch and Toll, of +the Russian general staff, originated that bold, direct march on +Paris, whose results changed the destinies of Europe. Other similar, +although not so mighty facts are easily found in general military +history. + +Finally, I pointed out to the President, the names of Generals +Sedgewick, Meade, Warren, Humphries, and Colonel J. Fry as fit for, +and understanding, the duties of the staff. + +_May 17._--I record a rumor, which I supposed, and found out to be, +without much foundation; it is nevertheless worth recording. + +The rumor in question says that the President wished to dismiss +Stanton and to take General Butler; that Mr. Seward was to decide +between the two, and that he declined the responsibility. Seward and +Butler in the same sack! Butler would have swallowed Seward, hat, +international laws and all--and of course Seward declined the +responsibility. + +But now a story comes, which is a sad truth. William Swinton, +military reporter for the _Times_, a young man of uncommon ability +and truthfulness, prepared for his paper a detailed article about +the whole of Hooker's Chancellorsville expedition. Before being +published, the article was shown to Mr. Lincoln; and it was +telegraphed to New York that if the article comes out, the author +may accidentally find himself a boarder in Fort Lafayette. Almost +the same day the President telegraphed to a patriot to whom Mr. +Lincoln unbuttoned himself, not to reveal to anybody the +conversation. Both these occurrences had in view only one object--it +was to keep truth out of the people's knowledge. Truth is a +dangerous weapon in the hands of a people. + +_May 19._--The President repeatedly refuses to make General Butler +useful to the country's cause, notwithstanding the best men in the +country ask Butler's appointment. I am only astonished that the best +men can hope and expect anything of the sort; for, when a Butler will +come up, then Sewards and Hallecks easily may go down--but--_pia +desideria_. + +_May 20._--From many, many and various quarters, continually unholy +efforts are made to excuse Hooker and Butterfield; the President +seemingly listens and excuses. Well, I know what a Napoleon, or any +other even unmilitary sovereign, would do with both. + +_May 21._--O, for light! for light! O, to find a man! one to prize, +to trust, to have faith in him! It is so sickening to almost hourly +dip the pen in--mud! I regret now to have started this _Diary_. I go +on because it is started, and because I wish to contribute, even in +the smallest manner, towards rendering justice to a great people, +besides being always on the watch, always expecting to have to +record a chain of brilliant actions, accomplished by noble and +eminent men. But day after day passes by, page heaps on page, and I +must criticise, when I would be so happy to prize. + +As a watchdog faithful to the people's cause, I try to stir up the +shepherds--but alas! alas.... + +_May 22._--Wrote a letter to Senator Wade explaining to him how +incapable is Hooker of commanding a large army, how his habits and +associations are contaminating and ruinous to the spirit of the +army, and that Hooker is to return to the command of a corps or two. + +_May 23._--Vainly! vainly in all directions, among the helmsmen, +leaders and commanders I search for a man inspired, or, at least, an +enthusiast wholly forgetting himself for the holiness of the aim. +Enthusiasm is eliminated from higher regions; is outlawed, is almost +spit upon. Enthusiasm! that most powerful stimulus for heart and +reason, and which alone expands, purifies, elevates man's +intellectual faculties. Here the people, the unnamed, have +enthusiasm, and to the people belong those noble patriots so often +mentioned. But the men in power are cold, and extinguished as ashes. +Jackson the President, Jackson the general, was an enthusiast. +Enthusiasts have been the founders of this Republic. + +Whatever was done great and noble in this world, was done by +enthusiasts. The whole scientific progress of the human mind is the +work of enthusiasm! + +_May 24._--Grant and the Western army before Vicksburgh unfold +endurance, and fertility of resources, which, if shown by a +McClellan and his successors, having in their hands such a powerful +engine as was and is the Potomac Army, would have made an end to the +rebellion. Happy Grant, Rosecrans and their armies! to be far off +from the deleterious Washington influences and adulations. +Influences and adulations ruined the commanders and many among the +generals of the Potomac army. Adulations, intrigue, and helplessness +fill, nay constitute the generals atmosphere. In various ways every +body contributes to that atmosphere--participates in it. Every body +influences or intrigues in the army. The President, the various +Secretaries, Senators, Congressmen, newspapers, contractors, +sutlers, jobbers, politicians, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts +and loose crinolines. Jews, publicans, etc., and the rest of social +leprosy. All this cannot thus immediately and directly reach the +Western armies, the Western commanders, when it reaches, it is +already--to some extent--weakened, oxygenated, purified. Add to it +here the direct influence and meddling of the head-quarters. I pity +this fated army here, and at times I even pity the commanders and +the generals. + +_May 25._--Grant is an eminent man as to character and as to +capacity. To Admiral Foote and to him are due the victories at Fort +Henry, of Donelson, and the bold stroke to enter into the interior +of Secessia. Had Halleck not intervened, had Halleck and Buell not +taken the affairs in their hands, _Foote_ and _Grant_ would have +taken Nashville early in the spring of 1862, and cleared perhaps +half of the Mississippi. After the capture of Fort Donelson, Foote +demanded to be allowed at once to go with his gunboats to Nashville, +to clear the Tennessee; but Halleck caved in, or rather comprehended +not. Grant and Rosecrans restored what Halleck and Buell brought to +the brink of ruin. + +_May 28._--Mr. Seward, omnipotent in the White House, tries to +conciliate the public, and in letters, etc., whitewashes himself +from arrests of persons, etc. Mr. Seward is therefore innocent, +thereof, as a lamb. But who inaugurated and directed them in 1861? I +know the necessities of certain times, and am far from accusing; but +how can Seward attempt to throw upon others the first steps made in +the direction of arrests? + +_May 28._--Hooker still in command, and not even his staff changed. +I am certain that Stanton is for the change in the staff. + +_May 28._--I am assured that the Blairs (I am not sure if General +Blair is counted in) are the pedlars for Mr. Lincoln's re-election, +as stated by the New York _Herald_. If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected, +then the self-government is not yet founded on reason, intellect, +and on sound judgment. + +_May 31._--I am assured by a diplomat that four hundred and thirteen +is the last number of the correspondence between the Department of +State and Lord Lyons. Oh, how much ink and paper wasted, and what a +writing dysentery on both sides. The diplomat in question added that +it was only from January first--of course it was a joke. + + + + +JUNE, 1863. + + Banks -- "The Enemy Crippled" -- Count Zeppelin -- + Hooker-Stanton -- "Give Him a Chance" -- Mr. Lincoln's Looks -- + Rappahannock -- Slaughter -- North Invaded -- "To be Stirred up" + -- Blasphemous Curtin -- Banquetting -- Desperate -- Groping -- + Retaliation -- Foote -- Hooker -- Seward -- Panama -- Chase -- + Relieved -- Meade -- Nobody's fault -- Staffs, etc., etc., etc. + + +_June 1._--For some time Banks seems to move in the right direction. +Banks no more intends to destroy slavery, and not thereby to hurt +the slave-holders. So Banks has become himself again, and the +Sewardean creed is evaporated. Banks has under him very good +officers, and intelligent, fighting generals; some of them left by +Butler, others, as for instance, Generals Augur, Stone, etc., who +embarked with Banks. + +_June 2._--I hear it reported that Hooker maintains that he has +worsted and crippled the enemy more than if he had taken Richmond. + +If the enemy in reality was worsted to that extent, it was not in +the least done by Hooker, Butterfield & Co.'s generalship, but this +time, as always, it was done by the bravery of the troops, +notwithstanding the bad generalship, not by, but _in spite of_, that +bad generalship. + +_June 3._--Count Zeppelin, an officer of the staff and aide to the +King of Wurtemberg, came here to observe and to learn how _not_ to +do it! The Count visited the army at Falmouth. He was horror-struck +at the prevailing disorder, and at the general and special +miscomprehension of the needed knowledge and of the duties +prevailing in the staff of the army. The Count says that if this +confusion continues, the rebels may dare almost every thing. Count +Zeppelin is what would be called here, a thorough Union man. He +revolted greatly at witnessing the _nonchalance_ with which human +life is dealt with in the army, and the carelessness of commanders +about the condition of soldiers; the latter he most heartily +admires, and therefore the more pities their fate. He assured me +that rebel agents scattered in Germany tried their utmost to secure +for the rebel army officers of the various arms. This explains the +organization and the brilliant manoeuvrings of the celebrated +Stuart's cavalry, the novel rebel tactics in the use of artillery, +and the attack by columns at Chancellorsville. + +_June 3._--Hooker, they say, waits to see what Lee will do. In other +words, we are on the defensive, after such efforts and so much blood +wasted. O, Ezekiel! O, Deuteronomy! help me to bless the leaders and +the chiefs of this people. + +I am told by a very good authority, that Mr. Lincoln takes a special +care of his fellow-townsmen in Springfield. What a good, honest, +neighborly sentiment, provided always that the public good is not +suffering by it! + +_June 3._--A senator, who urged Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Halleck, was +answered, that "as Halleck has not a single friend in the country, +Mr. Lincoln feels himself in duty bound to stand by him." Admirable, +but costly stubbornness. + +_June 3._--Poor Hooker! He is now the laughingstock of Europe. I +wish he may recover what he has lost or squandered. But alas! even +now Hooker makes no attempt to surround himself with a genuine +staff. + +I wrote to Stanton, imploring him for the country's and for his own +sake, to compel Hooker to reform his staff, and not to allow science +to be any longer trodden under foot. I implored Stanton that either +the President or he would select and nominate a chief-of-staff for +Hooker, or rather for the Potomac army, as it is done in Europe. +Stanton understands well the disastrous deficiency, and if he could, +he would immediately go at it and change. But, first, the statutes +or regulations, obligatory here, leave it with the commander to +appoint his own staff and its chief. Stupid, rusty, foggyish and +fogyish regulations, so perfectly in harmony with the general +ignorance of what ought to be the staff of an army! Second, Stanton +must yield to another will, and to what is believed here to be the +higher knowledge of military affairs. + +_June 3._--"Give to Hooker one chance more," says Mr. Lincoln, and +so say several members of the Cabinet; "McClellan had so +many."--Because they allowed McClellan to waste human life and time, +it surely is no reason to repeat the sacrilegious condescension. A +general may be unfortunate, lose a battle, or even lose a campaign; +all this without being damnable when he has shown capacity, when he +did his utmost, but could not conciliate _fatum_ on his side. But +such is not the case with Hooker, and such _emphatically_ was _not_ +the case with McClellan and with Burnside. + +_June 3._--During these last fourteen days, the _big men_ have been +expecting a raid on Washington. More fortifications are constructed, +and rifle pits dug. This time the Administration is perfectly right. +All is probable and possible when capacity, decision, and +lightning-like execution are on the one side, and on the other +sham-science, want of earnestness, slowness and indecision. + +_June 5._--A very reliable and honorable patriot tells me that +_grandissimo_ Chase _looks down_ upon any advice, suggestion, or +warning. O, the great man! A time must come when all these great men +will be held to a terrible account, will shed tears of blood, and +their names will be scorned by coming generations, and the track to +the White House may become also the track to the Tarpeian rock. + +_June 5._--I often meet Mr. Lincoln in the streets. Poor man! He +looks exhausted, care-worn, spiritless, extinct. I pity him! Mr. +Lincoln's looks are those of a man whose nights are sleepless, and +whose days are comfortless. That is the price for a greatness to +which he is not equal. Yet Mr. Lincoln, they say, wishes to be +re-elected! + +_June 5._--Mr. Seward makes a speech to the volunteers of Auburn. +All the same logomachy, all the same cold patriotism, all the same +_I_, and all the same squint towards the next presidential election. + +_June 6._--Lincoln cannot realize to what extent Seward is and has +been his evil spirit. Even the nearest in blood and heart to Lincoln +know it, feel it, are awe-struck by it, warn him, and he is +insensible. + +_June 7._--How I sympathize with Stanton, and admire his +rude--others call it coarse--contempt of all that is said about him. +That impure, lying, McClellan-Copperhead motley crew, accuse Stanton +of all the numberless criminal mistakes committed in the conduct of +the war--committed by the generals, etc. Stanton never interferes +with Mr. Lincoln nor with Halleck in matters that exclusively relate +to pure warfare, as where and how to march the respective armies, +how and in what way to attack the enemy, etc. + +Reliable patriots coincide with me, that Stanton as clearly sees +every thing to-day, as he saw it when entering on his thorny duty. I +only wonder that he holds out in such an atmosphere. Stanton's +energy is indomitable. Blair's party says that "Stanton goes off at +half-cock." It is not true; but even if true, better to go off at +half-cock than not at all. Many say that Stanton ought to retire, if +he is hampered by others in the exercise of his duties. But if he +were to retire, he could not at this moment reveal to the people the +causes of such a step, and by remaining at his post, Stanton +prevents still greater disasters and disgraces. He never asks any of +his friends to say or to write a word in his defence, or rather to +dispel the lies with which McClellanites and copperheads poison the +atmosphere all around them. + +_June 8._--Alexandria fortified, rifle-pits dug, etc. The third +year of the war is the third terror upon Washington, and upon those +counterfeit penates. + +_June 8._--What for--for heaven's or devil's sake--Hooker throws a +division of cavalry across the Rappahannock, right in the dragon's +jaw! All the rebel army is on the other side, and this, our +division, can never be decidedly supported. It cannot be a +_reconnaissance_--of what? It cannot be a stratagem to surprise Lee. +If Lee wants to march anywhere north or west, this demonstration of +Hooker's will not for a minute arrest Lee. + +_June 9._--The great Henry Ward Beecher emigrates for a time to +Europe. His parish richly supports him for the trip, and the +preacher sells his choice, and as it is said, beloved picture +gallery. It is not for want of money. Strange! What a curious +manifestation of patriotism! + +_June 10._--The demonstration over the Rappahannock turned out to be +a slaughter of the cavalry. What! Was Hooker again stunned, to make +such a deliberate mistake--nay, crime? Such a demonstration never +could prevent Stuart from moving, even if our troops had defeated or +worried him--even if victorious, our cavalry would have been forced +to recross the Rappahannock, and Stuart, having behind him Lee's +whole army, which could easily reinforce him, would then move again. +Our force of nine thousand men, distant from support, attack a +superior force of fifteen thousand, who besides have within +supporting distance a whole army! This demonstration prevents +nothing, decides nothing, beyond the worst, the most damnable +generalship. General Hooker and his chief-of-staff are personally +responsible for every soldier lost there. + +_June 11._--Again visitings to the army. Senators, ladies, magnifico +Chase leading on. O, if the guerrillas could sweep them! + +_June 12._--Crippled men are to be met in all directions, on all the +streets. One-third of the amputated limbs undoubtedly could have +been saved by the Medical Department, were it in better hands, and +above all, if surgeons had been called in from Europe--the domestic +surgeons not being sufficient for the demand. + +_June 13._--The principle of election, the only true one, a principle +recognized and asserted as well by antiquity as by the primitive +Church, recognized by rationalists, by Fourier, by radical, or any +democracy whatever--that principle must undergo an immense improvement +before it shall act in all its perfection. The elector must be +altogether self-governing, and not governed or influenced by anybody +in his choice and vote. The elector himself must stand on an elevated +level before by his vote he raises one or several above that level. +When the people's vote confers the highest trust to one rather below +than in the level, and still less one above the level, then even the +most intelligent people in the world, being thus misdirected, +misconducted, confused, in a very short time become almost enervated, +and, so to speak, loses its self-possession, and its sense of duty and +of right becomes shaken, its intellectual light dimmed. _Exempla sunt +odiosa._ + +_June 14._--The cavalry expedition over the Rappahannock was to +arrest any further offensive movements of the rebels. But lo! the +rebel army, so to speak, spreads in all directions, and takes the +offensive. We do not even know positively where Lee is going, where +he will appear and strike. We are shaking in, and for, Washington. + + "Weh, Messina! wehe, wehe, wehe!" + +Mr. Lincoln is unshaken in his confidence in Hooker and Butterfield. + +_June 15._--By a bold and rapid manoeuvre Lee has thrown his troops +over the valley, over the Potomac, into Maryland, and God alone +knows where Lee will stop. Lee's advance must have been already on +the Potomac when the slaughter of our cavalry over the Rappahannock +was planned at the various head-quarters. How splendidly Lee's +movements have been arrested by that demonstration! Lee is on the +Potomac, and it seems that his movements have been ignored. His +armies, to be sure, have not been surrounded by a cloud, as the +Jews were in their exodus from the land of bondage, but the cloud +was hanging over the head-quarters in the army and in Washington. + +_June 16._--The North invaded--threatened, shaken to the marrow! The +audacity of the rebels is stimulated by our sluggishness. If the +accounts in the War Department are true, then from Fortress Monroe +to the Potomac, including Baltimore and Maryland, we have about two +hundred thousand men, and the rebels dare! O, the rebels! what a +desperate conception, what a lightning-like execution! Dutifully +re-echoing the words uttered by their masters, the partisans of the +Administration console themselves by saying that "this invasion of +the North will have the effect of stirring up the North from its +lethargy." O, you blasphemers! worse blasphemers than ever have been +stoned or burned alive! Is the North not pouring forth its blood and +its treasures, and are they not all squandered by counterfeits? + +_June 16._--The draft is not put in motion, because for weeks and +months Mr. Lincoln adjusts the appointments to be made under this +law, adjusts them to the exigencies of politicians. Jeff Davis +executes the draft with an iron hand. Mr. Lincoln thus gives time to +the Copperheads, to the disciples of the Seymours, of the Woods, of +the _World_, to organize a resistance. Bloodshed may come! + +_June 16._--This invasion of Pennsylvania ought to be investigated. +Light must be brought into this dark, muddy, stinking labyrinth. +Weeks ago, honest, clear-sighted, patriotic Governor Curtin asked +authority to arm the militia of his State, and was snubbed in +Washington. Will this new disgrace serve to strengthen the +Administration? Quite possible. + +_June 16._--Pennsylvania invaded, the country disgraced, and our +helmsmen, our Secretaries of State and of the Treasury, give +banquets! O, what a stoicism! a stoicism _sui generis_. The homes of +the farmers whose sons bleed on fields of battle, are invaded, their +hearths threatened with desolation, and the helmsmen sip Champagne, +paid for by the people! + +_June 17._--_Halleckiana._ Rosecrans telegraphed to head-quarters +that he cannot send any troops to Grant, and that if he, Rosecrans, +is to attack Bragg, he must have reinforcements. Answer: "Do what +you like, on your own responsibility." + +_June 17._--Hooker seems to have lost his former _dash_. He must +have known that the rebels extended from Gordonsville to +Pennsylvania, and he, moving in almost a parallel direction to that +line, ought to have cut it, or at least its tail. + +General Ewell at Winchester. Hooker seems to doubt what he can do. +The soldiers of his army can do anything ever done by any soldiers +in the world--but lead them on, O Generals! Hooker has ninety-four +thousand men, and, McClellan-like, waits for more; laments that he +is outnumbered. A good general, having such a number, and of such +troops, would never hesitate to attack an enemy numbering one +hundred and twenty thousand, and the more so, as Hooker's command +is massed, while Lee's is not. And I'll risk my head that Lee's +whole army, all over the valley, and over Pennsylvania, and over +Maryland, is smaller than Hooker's. It is the same old trick of the +rebels and of their friends, to throw dust in our eyes by magnifying +their numbers. The trick is always successful, because on our side +it is wished to extenuate incapacity by the supposed large numbers +of the rebel armies. + +_June 18._--The North rises. New York sends its militia. The people +fails not, but how about the helmsmen? + +The Democrats--the Copperheads roar for McClellan. Well! the like +Democrats glorifying McClellan, show their patriotism, their metal +and their judgment. These Copperhead-Democrats may insist upon +calling McClellan a captain and a hero, but history will give +another verdict, and history will credit to the Democrats the fact +that they have adroitly poisoned and perverted the good faith of the +honest but credulous Democratic rank and file. + +_June 18._--The Administration's _simon pure_ echoes, politicians, +etc., try to persuade everybody that the invasion of Pennsylvania is +nothing, a mere tempest in a tea-pot. Whom do they hope to humbug in +this way? The disgrace is nameless, only they are callous enough not +to feel it. Their cheeks can no more redden.... However, Stanton is +not so optimist. It would look so farcical if it were not so deadly +to witness. Hooker groping his way after Lee; Lincoln and the +all-knowing head-quarters in the utmost darkness about Lee, his +army, his movements, and his plans. And all this while the country, +the people, is kept officially ignorant of its honor, of its fate. +All publicity and communication is suppressed--not to inform thereby +the enemy of our movements. How idiotic, how silly! As if the march +and the movements of an army of one hundred thousand men could be +kept secret from a vigilant and desperate enemy, and the enemy +wanted to read the papers for it. Good for us! + +I cannot hope against hope, and expect that Hooker, Butterfield, +Lincoln, Halleck will out-manoeuvre Lee, bold, quick, and desperate +as he is. + +_June 19._--The jobbers, the contractors, the gold, stock, and +exchange speculators wish for the prolongation of the war. For this +reason, disasters are rather welcome to them. Oh! to crush those +ignoble and demoniac monsters. + +_June 20._--I cannot comprehend how Lee could have dared such a +desperate movement, even if relying on the confusion and +senselessness prevailing in _our_ military movements. Lee must have +had some kind of encouragement from the Copperheads before he risked +a step, which ought to end in his utter destruction, even with a +Halleck, Hooker and Butterfield as our commanders. + +_June 20._--Hooker has more than ninety thousand men in hand--his +rear, his supplies, his _depots_ covered by Heintzelman, and by the +defences of Washington. This alone is equal to fifty thousand more. +And with all this, the treble head-quarters, in the White House in +G street, and in the army cannot find Lee, and therefore the rebels +are not attacked, and lay Pennsylvania waste. O, staffs, O, staffs! + +_June 20._--More than any other army in the world, the American army +requires to have a thoroughly organized staff, with very intelligent +staff officers. Such staff officers carry orders to generals and to +colonels who, although brave and devoted, may often not altogether +comprehend certain sacramental technicalities of an order delivered +by mouth, or written briefly in the saddle. + +The officer ought to be able to explain the order. Think of it, you +wiseacres and organisers of American armies. + +_June 21._--Small cavalry skirmishes without signification. The +curtain is not rended, and the enemy rolls towards the heart of +Pennsylvania. How will it end? + +_June 22._--Nobody of the various upper and lower Chiefs can find +Lee. Give twenty thousand men to a bold man even not a general, and +in twenty-four hours he will bring you positive news about Lee's +army. + +_June 23._--It seems that Lee waits, if we divide our army, to +strike a blow on Washington. Thus he will be baffled; there is a +limit even to our military blunders. + +_June 24._--Incorrigible Seward. France invites our Government to +participate in the diplomatic coercion against Russia. Of course, +Americans refuse. Mr. Seward, in harmony with the feeling of the +people politely snuff off France. But O, Mr. Seward, why pervert +history or show your ignorance, even of the national events and of +Congressional records. The United States, Adams II., President, sent +commissioners to the Congress of Panama, and the United States +Congress did it after a discussion of several days. What is the use +to deny it now? Then Mr. Seward is insincere to both parties. +Speaking of "_a temporary transient revolt here_" he seemingly +insinuates, that but for this _transient revolt_ he would perhaps +try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in +company with the _Decembriseur_. Then the only impediment would be +the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! _The refusal_ in +the dispatch re-echoes the convictions of the American people; its +shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism and only fit +to catch a Russian diplomat in Washington. + +_June 25._--Hooker crosses to Maryland with nearly one hundred +thousand men. Lee is still on both sides of the Potomac. By a blow +Hooker could cut Lee's army, break it, and retrieve what he lost at +Chancellorsville. Oh, how I wish he may do it. But since Hooker has +refused to mend his staff, all hope is lost. Stanton sees the +condition very clearly, but Butterfield is in good odor in the White +House. + +_June 26._--Lee's movements and invasion puzzle me more and more. +The raid into Pennsylvania is the move of a desperate commander, +almost of a madman, playing his whole fortune on one card. If Lee +comes safe out of it, then doubtless he is the best general of our +times, and we the best nincompoops that ever the sun looked upon and +blushed for. + +_June 26._--The reports give to Lee an army of two hundred thousand +men. Impossible! Where could the rebels scrabble together such a +number? The old trick to frighten us. If, however, Lee should have +even only from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand, then +relying on the high capacity of our various head-quarters, the rebel +chiefs may have gathered what they could take from Charleston and +from Bragg, and massed it to try a decided blow on Washington. But +this cloud, this dust cannot last long; whatever be our +head-quarters, light must come, and the cloud burst with blood and +thunder. + +One meets in Washington individuals praising sky-high Mr. Lincoln's +military capacity, and saying that he alone embraces all the +extensive line of military operations, combines, directs them, etc. +Pretty well has all this succeeded, and why cannot the younger +generation seize the helm in this terrible crisis? How I ardently +wish to see there an Andrew, Boutwell, Coffey, and more, more of +those new men. + +_June 27._--From a very reliable, honest, and _not conspiring_ +secessionist in Washington, I learn that a Northern Copperhead +visited Jeff Davis in Richmond, and stimulated the rebel chief to +carry into the north a war of retaliation by fire and sword, but +that Jeff Davis refused to instruct Lee for devastation. I instantly +told Stanton my news; and now I doubt not in the least that the +invasion is concerted with Northern Copperheads. + +_June 28._--The following is this morning the military condition of +the city with the forts and defences: Hooker took all he could and +all he met on his way. To defend the works around Washington +Heintzelman has six thousand infantry, and not two hundred cavalry. +The rebels have cavalry all around, within six or eight miles. A +dash of twenty thousand infantry, and Washington is done! + +_June 28._--Admiral Foote dead. Irreparable loss. Foote was of the +stamp of Lyon, of the stamp of patriot-heroes. He died of +exhaustion, that is, of devotion to the country. Foote was an honor +to the navy and to the American people. + +_June 28._--Yesterday, Friday, the candidate for presidency, +splendid Chase, stood up mightily for Hooker. Oh, Mr. Chase! you may +be a great or a doubtful financier, but keep rather mute on military +matters. You know as much about them as this d---- mosquito that is +just now biting my nose. + +_June 28._--At last, Hooker relieved. I pity Meade to receive a +command at such a critical moment. But now or never, to show his +mettle, his capacity! The army thinks very highly of Meade. Will +Halleck soon be sent to California? Then the country's cause will be +safe. + +_June 29._--Yesterday a rebel cavalry raid captured an immense +train of provisions, cattle, etc., worth about five hundred thousand +dollars, and within eight or twelve miles of Washington! Of course, +it is nobody's fault. In other armies and countries, such a large +train would have a very strong convoy--here it had scarcely a small +squadron of cavalry. The original fault is, first, with Hooker's +chief-of-staff, who is responsible for providing the army, and for +the security of the provision trains. So at least it is in European +armies. Second, with the head-quarters at Washington, who ought to +have known that the enemy, ant-like, spreads in the rear of Hooker. +The head-quarters ought to have informed the quartermaster thereof, +and provided a strong convoy. This train affair is the younger +brother of the Fredericksburg pontoons. + +Third, the head-quarters of the army and the quartermasters ought to +have inquired at the head-quarters of the defenses of Washington, if +the roads are safe. But of course it was not done, as the _big men_ +here possess all the prescience, and need no valuable information. +All of them appear to me as ostriches, who hide their heads and +eyes, not to see the danger. + +_June 29._--General Heintzelman is as thorough a soldier as any +to-day in Washington--a soldier superior to head-quarters of the +army. Heintzelman commands the military district which south, west +and north touches on the theatre of the present campaign. In similar +conditions and circumstances, any other government, sovereign, +commander-in-chief, etc., would consult with the commander of the +defences of the capital and of the military district around the +city; here Heintzelman is not noticed. + +_June 30._--How will Meade compose his staff? All depends on that. +In the present positions of Meade's and Lee's armies, even a +Napoleon could not do much without a very good staff. + +Were the staffs of the American armies organized as they are in +Europe, no difficulty would exist. In Europe the staffs of the +armies are independent from the persons of their commanders. When a +commander is changed, the staff and its chief remains, and thus the +new commander at a glance and in a few hours can become thoroughly +familiar with the position and condition of the army, and with the +plans of his predecessor, etc., etc. Often such commanders are +changed and sent from one end of the country to the other. In 1831, +PASCHKEWITSCH was ordered from the Caucasus to Poland, to supersede +DIESBITSCH. + +_June 30._--Since Calhoun, the creed of the _simon pure_ Democratic +party intrinsically marked a degradation of man and of humanity. Its +logical, unavoidable and final outlets must have been secession, +treason, and copperheadism; its apotheosis, South, the rebels; +North, the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams and the _World_. +The creed of the Republican party is humane. The _simon pure_ +democratic rank and file, North and South, intellectually and +morally constitute the lowest stratum of American society. Progress, +civilization, intellectual, healthy activity principally are +embodied in the Republican rank and file. True men, as a Marcy, a +Guthrie, and some few similar, throw a pure and bright light on the +Democratic party; many from among the official and political +Republican notabilities throw a dismal and dark shadow on the +intrinsically elevated and pure principles of the party. + + + + +JULY, 1863. + + Eneas -- Anchises -- General Warren -- Aldie -- General + Pleasanton -- Superior mettle -- Gettysburgh -- Cholera morbus -- + Vicksburgh -- Army of heroes -- Apotheosis -- "Not name the + Generals" -- Indian warfare -- Politicians -- Spittoons -- Riots + -- Council of War -- Lords and Lordlings -- Williamsport -- Shame + -- Wadsworth -- "To meet the Empress Eugénie," etc., etc., etc. + + +_July 1._--It is worth while to ascertain if the Administration is +prepared to run. During last year's invasion of Maryland, at the +foot of C street a swift vessel was, day and night, kept under +steam--(in the greatest secrecy)--to carry away the American gods. +_Eneas-Seward_ was to carry on his shoulders ANCHISES-LINCOLN. I was +told that certain gallant secretaries promised to certain gallant +_ladies_ to take them into the ark. + +_July 1._--Meade makes General Warren his chief-of-staff. For the +first time in this war, in-doors and out-doors, a man for the place. +I never saw Warren, but have heard much in his favor. Then he is +young. Then he is not conceited. Then he is no intriguer. Then he +is fighting always and everywhere. Then he speaks not of strategy. A +brighter promise. Genuine science and intelligence dawn on our +muddy, dark, ignorant horizon. + +Four weeks ago Meade might have been already in the command of the +army. (See after Chancellorsville.) Perhaps Lee would have been +to-day shut up in Richmond instead of laying waste Pennsylvania. + +_July 1._--The people will never know to what extent Mr. +Lincoln-Halleck are stumbling-blocks in all military affairs. If +Lincoln had even a _Carnot_ for Secretary of War, the affairs would +not go better than they go now. + +_July 1._--General Meade is the pure, simple result of military +necessity. His choice is not adulterated by any party spirit. +Success may be probable, if Meade is in reality what his colleagues +suppose or assert him to be. + +_July 2._--The property of the great patriot THADDEUS STEVENS +destroyed by the rebels. I am as sure as of my existence, that the +rebel hordes were urged by the Copperheads and by Northern traitors, +by the disciples of the _World_, etc. + +_July 2._--Copperheads and their organs scream to have McClellan at +the head of the armies. This enthusiasm for McClellan soon will be a +burning shame. For many it is a mental disease, and almost +unparallelled in the history of our race. A man of defeats and of +incapacity to be thus worshipped as a hero! To what extent sound +intellects can become poisoned by lies! O, Democrats! what a kin and +kith you are! The stubborn, undaunted bravery of the people keeps +the country above water, when McClellan and his medley of believers +dragged and drags her down into the abyss. Soon infamy will cover +the names of those who wail for McClellan's glory, the names of +these deliberate betrayers of the people's good faith. + +_July 2._--Count Zeppelin was at the cavalry fight at Aldie. In his +appreciation, General Pleasanton is almost the ideal of a general of +cavalry, in the manner in which he fought his forces. The Count says +that our soldiers are by far superior to the rebels, that our +regiments, squadrons, showed the utmost bravery, that in +single-handed _mélés_ our soldiers showed a superior mettle, and +that during the whole fight he did not see a single soldier back out +or retire. + +Count Zeppelin spent three weeks with Hooker. The Count _never_ saw +Hooker intoxicated, but nevertheless, he does not believe Hooker to +be the man for the command of a large army. The Count, an educated +officer of staff, deplores the utter absence of that special science +in the heads of the staff. + +The Count was with the army during its march from Falmouth to +Frederick. He admires the endurance, the good spirit, and the +cohesion shown by the army marching under great difficulties, such +as bad roads, heat, &c. + +_July 2._--News of fight at Gettysburgh. It seems that this time a +plan was boldly conceived, and carried out with rapidity and +bravery. It seems that _now a general_ commands, and has at his side +_a chief-of-staff_. + +_July 2._--A crystalized section of abolitionists has, it seems, +dispatched to England a Rev. Dr. _Conway_, who put on airs, began a +silly correspondence with Mason the traitor, and has thrown ridicule +on the cause and on the men whom he is supposed to represent. + +_July 3._--Some details from Gettysburgh. Most sanguinary and +stubborn fighting. General Reynolds, the flower of our army, killed. +The unblemished patriot, General Wadsworth, fought most splendidly, +and is reported to be wounded. His son was beside Reynolds. Mark +this, you world's offals in the WORLD. Nothing like you can be found +in the purlieus of the most stinking social sewers. + +_July 3._--Whoever wishes to know how, in Mr. Seward's mind, right +and law are equipoised, should read the correspondence between the +State Department and the Attorney-General in the case of a criminal +runaway from Saxony. _Astraea-Themis_-BATES is always bold and manly +when right, justice, when individual or general human rights are +questioned. BATES' official, legal opinions will remain as a noble +record of his official activity during this bloody tornado. + +_July 3._--Most contradictory news and rumors. To a great extent, +the fortunes of the Union may be decided at Gettysburgh. Copperheads +alias Peace-Democrats more dangerous than the rebels in arms. The +Copperheads poisoned and paralyzed the spirit of the people; the +Pennsylvanians look on, and rise not as a man in the defence of +their invaded state. + +_July 4._--General Wallbridge the orator of the day. _O tempora +Lincolniana!_ + +It is fortunate for the country and for General Meade that no +telegraphic communication exists between Washington and his camp. + +_July 8._--July 4th, in the evening, I was struck with _cholera +morbus_. In two hours I was delirious, and the end of the DIARY and +of myself was at hand. Those who may be interested in the DIARY, be +thankful to _fatum_ and to my friend in whose house I was taken +sick. I am up and again on the watch. + +_July 8._--However, I have lost the run of events. I have lost the +_piquant_ of observation how the events of Gettysburgh affected the +_big men_ here. I may have lost the echo of some stories told on the +occasion at the White House. + +Vicksburgh taken! No words to glorify GRANT, FARRAGUT, PORTER, _and +the army of heroes on land and on the waters_. + +I wake up and open a paper. Apotheosis! Yesterday evening Mr. Seward +made a speech and glorified himself into CHRIST. Why not? At the +beginning of this internecine war, Mr. Seward repeatedly played the +inspired, the prophet, and even the SPIRIT, having the polyglotic +gift. _In illo tempore_ Mr. Seward advised the foreign diplomats to +bring to him their respective dispatches received from their +respective governments, and he, Seward, would explain to each +diplomat the meanings of what the dispatches contain. Perhaps the +spirit was an after-dinner spirit! + +In the above-mentioned speech Mr. Seward exclaimed, "If I fall!" O, +you will fall, and you will be covered with ... I shall not stain +the paper. Plenty of lickspittles glorifying Lincoln-Seward. + +_July 8._--The battles at Gettysburgh will stand almost unparalleled +in history for the courage, tenacity, and martial rage shown on both +sides, by the soldiers, the officers and the generals. This +four-days' struggle may be put above Attila's fight in the plains of +Chalons; it stands above the celebrated battle of giants at Marignan +between the French and the Swiss. No legions, no troops ever did +more, nay, ever did the same. At Waterloo one-third of the French +infantry was not engaged in the previous days of Ligny and of +Quatres-bras, and three-fourths of the Anglo-allied army were fresh, +and not fatigued even by forced marches. I am sure that no other +troops in the world could fight with such a stubborn bravery four +consecutive days; not the English, not even the _iron-muscled_ +Russians. + +I learn that during the invasion of Pennsylvania, and above all, +during the last days, all the country expected something +extraordinary from the army at Fortress Monroe, under General Dix's +command. But the affair ended in expectations. + +A few days ago the President declared in a speech that he dares not +introduce the names of the generals. Not to name the victor at +Gettysburgh, the undaunted captor of Vicksburgh! The people repeat +your names, O heroes! even if the President remains dumb. + +Already a back-fire against Meade. I cannot believe that his heart +fainted, and that other generals kept him from breaking before the +enemy. But Meade is the man of their own kith and kin, and they +ought to have known him. + +It is now so difficult to disentangle truth from lies, from stories +and from intrigue. It will not do, however, to uphold Hooker--it +will not do. Hooker is a brilliant fighter, but was and always will +be _stunned_ when in command of an army. It is a crime to put up +Hooker as a captain. + +Somebody put in the head of the patriotic but mercurial Senator +Wilson that the terrible onslaught of the rebel columns is not the +result of their having adopted European, continental tactics, but +that the rebels are formidable because they have adopted the Indian +mode of warfare. God forgive him who thus confused my friend's +understanding! Indian tactics or warfare for masses of forty, fifty, +or one hundred thousand men! + +I learn that Christ-Seward wishes to force the hoary, but brave, +steady, and not at all fogyish Neptune WELLES, to recognize to Spain +or Cuba, or to somebody else and to all the world, an extension of +the maritime league. It is excellent. Such extension is _altogether_ +advantageous to the maritime neutrals--all of them, Russia excepted, +our covert or open ill-wishers. + +Mr. Seward, as a good, scriptural Christian, minds not an offense, +and is not rancorous. The Imperial _Decembriseur_, and all the +imperialist liveried lackeys, look with contempt on the cause of the +people, side with secessionists, with copperheads, etc., etc., and +Mr. Seward insists on giving a license for the exportation of +tobacco bought in Richmond for French accounts. Again Neptune +defends the country's honor and interests. + +In proportion as the presidential electioneering season approaches, +Mr. Seward repeatedly and repeatedly attempts to impress upon the +people's mind that he will not accept from the nation any high +reward for his services. Well, it is not cunning--as by this time +Mr. Seward ought to have found in what estimation he is held by +nine-tenths of the people. + +This is all that I caught in one day, after several days' +interruption. + +_July 9._--Lee retreats towards the Potomac. If they let him recross +there, our shame is nameless. Will Meade be after Lee _l'épée dans +les reins_. + +_Halleckiana, minus._ Nobody in Washington, not even the +head-quarters, has any notion or idea what means Lee has to recross +the Potomac. + +_Halleckiana, plus._ I am told that Halleck refused to telegraph to +Meade Mr. Lincoln's strategical conceptions. + +_July 9._--Chewing and spitting paramount here, require incalculable +numbers of spittoons. The lickspittles outnumber the spittoons. + +_July 10._--The politicians already begin to broadly _play their +game_. I use the sacramental expressions. What a disgusting +monstrosity is a thorough politician! Not even a eunuch! There is +nothing in a politician to be emasculated: no mind, no heart, no +manhood. In what a _galere_ I got--not by personal contact--but by +intellectually observing the worms on the body politic of my--at any +rate heartily adopted--country. + +_July 11._--Repeatedly and repeatedly certain newspaper +correspondents announce to the world that Senator Sumner exercises +considerable influence on the supreme power. All things considered, +I wish it may be so, but I see it is not. Sumner's influence ought +to have produced some palpable results. I see none. + +The international maritime complications are watched and defeated +by Welles. + +_Drapez vous, messieurs, drapez vous_--in the statesman toga, +history and truth will take it off from your shoulders. + +_July 12._--Mr. Seward is very ardently at work--Weed marshaling +Seward--to reconstruct slavery and Union, to give a very large if +not a general amnesty to the rebels, to shake hands with them, in +pursuance of the Mercier-Richmond programme, and to be carried into +the White House on the shoulders of the grateful Union-saviours, +Copperheads, and blood-stained traitors. The _Herald_, the _World_, +the _National Intelligencer_ and others of that creed will sing +_gloria in excelsis_ to Seward. + +_July 13._--What is _Meade_ doing? It is exciting to know why a blow +is not yet dealt on the head of retreating rebels. Or is it that +though West Point generals--on both sides--tolerably understand how +to fight a battle, they subside when the finishing stroke is to be +dealt. Oh for a general who understands how to manoeuvre against the +enemy!!! + +I hear from a very reliable source, that during the excitement +brewing before the day of Gettysburgh, the honorable Post Master +General by a special biped message insinuated to the honorable +governor of New York that the governor may ask the removal of +Stanton for the safety of the country and of patriots of the +Postmaster's and the governor's species. + +_July 13._--Besides what _Meade_ has in hand, there must be a +considerable number of troops in Baltimore, in Fortress Monroe and +the volunteer militia. Why not, Lincoln-Halleck! mass them on the +south side of the Potomac under such generals as Heintzelman, Sigel, +etc., and take the enemy between two fires? + +_July 14._--Bloody riots in New York. The teaching of the Woods, of +their former hireling, the _World_, and of those who pay that offal +now. Seymour's democracy; mob, pillage, massacre. + +_July 14._--Lincoln has nominated so many Major-Generals who are +relieved from duty, so many of them, that the Major-Generals ought +to be formed into a squadron, and, Halleck at the head, McClellan at +the tail, make them charge on Lee's centre. In such a way the +major-generals would be some use. + +_July 14._--I meet many who attempt to exculpate Mr. Seward from +_this_ or _that_ untruth which he is accused having told to the +President. Such _Seward's_ men often contradict not the fact, but +attempt to insinuate that somebody else might have told it. To all +this I answer with the Roman Prætor: + + _Ille fecit cui prodest_ + +_July 14._--GRANT has overpowered men, soil--and elements. GRANT, +PORTER, FARRAGUT, and their men overpowered land and waters. They +overpowered _the Mississippi_, hear: the Mississippi's and its +mighty affluents as the Yazoo, the Red River, and others. McClellan +caved in before a brook, as the Chickahominy. McClellan had the +most gigantic resources in men and material ever put in the hands of +a commander, and caved in. O, worshippers of heavy incapacity, take +and digest it if you can. + +_July 16._--Lee re-crossed the Potomac! Thundering storms, rising +waters and about one hundred and fifty thousand at his heels! What a +general! And our brave soldiers again baffled, almost dishonored by +domestic, know-nothing generalship. We have lost the occasion to crush +three-fourths of the rebellion. But where is the responsibility? Foul +work somewhere, but, as always, it will be nobody's fault. + +_July 15._--Stanton in rage and despair. Riots everywhere. All these +riots must be the result of a skillfully laid mine. They coincide +with the invasion by the rebels. At the best, these riots are +generated by Fourth of July Seymourite speeches and by the long +uninterrupted series of incendiary articles in New York papers, like +World, etc., and in Boston, where emasculated parasites as Hilliard, +a Cain Curtis etc., soothingly tried their hands to disgrace their +city and to mislead the people. All the Lincoln-Seward-Halleck +actions cannot excuse these riots and their matricidal, secret +inciters. + +_July 15._--The Administration ought to recall Wool and put Butler +in New York. Butler understands how to deal with riotous traitors. + +_July 15._--Good news from Banks. Now he comes out and will recover +the confidence of all good men. + +_July 15._--If it is true that _Meade_ convoked a council of war, +and that the generals decided not to attack Lee, then whoever voted +and decided so, ought, at the best, to be sent to the hospital of +mental invalids, and the army put in the hands of fighting men. +Lee's escape will henceforth occupy the cardinal place in the annals +of disgraceful generalships of the Potomac army. + +_July 16._--One of the truest men and citizens in this country, +George Forbes, of Milton Hill, returned from England. Forbes says +that aristocracy and the commercial classes (with few exceptions) +are generally against us. But the people at large are on our side. + +Oh! that some method may be found to separate the interests of the +good and noble English people, from the interests of the other +classes; then to have intercourse only with the people; and towards +the other English fulfil: + + _Vos autem o Tyrii prolem gentemque futuram,_ + +and that not one of those lords, lordlings, of inborn snobs and +flunkeys, that not one of that English social sham may ever be +allowed to tread the sacred American soil. And if such an Englishman +ever touches these shores, then be he treated as leprous, and as +carrying in him the most contagious plague, and let the house of any +American that shall be opened to such an Englishman, be torn down +and burned, and its ashes scattered to the winds; and the curse of +the people upon any American harboring those snobbish upstarts of +liberty. + +_July 16._--The incendiaries and murderers in New York cheered +McClellan and came to his house. Bravo! Can, now, any honest man who +is not an idiot, doubt where are the main springs and the animus of +those New York blood-thirsty miscreants, and who are those of whose +hearts McClellan got hold? What a nice Copperhead combination for +saving the Union. Very likely Seymour, Dictator or President, +McClellan Commander-in-chief, or Secretary of War, some of the Woods +or Duncans or Barlows in the Treasury, their hireling any Marble for +Foreign Affairs, and with them some others from among the favorites +of the New York blood-thirsty incendiaries. + +I read in one of the New York poison-dealers, _alias_ Copperhead +newspapers, that McClellanites was ruined by politicians. So-called +honest, but idiotic conservatives sanctimoniously repeat that lie. +It was McClellan, who, inspired by _Barlow_, by the _Herald_ and by +his aristocratic West Point pro-slavery friends, introduced +democratic politics into the army at a time when the army was yet in +an embryo state, already in September and October, 1861. O, impudent +liars! history will nail your names to the gallows, together with +the name of your fetish and of his military tail. + +_July 16._--In that fated, cursed council of war which allowed Lee +to escape, my patriot WADSWORTH was the most decided, the most +out-spoken in favor of attacking Lee. Wadsworth never fails where +honor and patriotism are to be sustained. Warren with Wadsworth. So +Humphries, Pleasanton and Howard. Those names ought to coruscate as +the purest light of patriotism for future generations. Meade's vote +is of no account. He, the commander, ought to have acted up to his +vote. If only Meade had imitated _Radetzky_. In 1849 after the +denunciation of the Armistice of Milan, _Radetzky_ called a council +of war to decide whether the _Po_ was to be crossed and Piedmont +invaded. All the best Austrian generals--_Hesse_ with them, voted +against the proposition. Radetzky quietly listened, then rose and +give orders to cross immediately. + +The result was the battle of Novara and the temporary humiliation of +the house of Savoy. That was a model for _Meade_. And this General +_French_ who advised to entrench! To entrench in pursuit of a +retreating enemy! This French honors West Point and engineering. The +generals who voted to entrench and not to attack Lee, and Meade with +them, they can never, never retrieve. Whatever be their future or +eventual success it will not heal the wound given to the country by +thus allowing Lee to escape. O, God! O, God! + +Such _Frenches_ and others asserted that "Lee will attack before he +crosses." Oh what _Marses!_ _Lee's position at Williamsport was on +heights_, etc., etc., assert those braves. + +When a country is hilly and undulating there will always be found +one point or hill commanding the others. I shall risk my head on the +fact, that around Lee's entrenchments at Williamsport, there exist +other elevations which command Williamsport, and are within +artillery distance. _Natura semper sibi consona._ I am sure that +better positions than that selected by Lee could easily have been +occupied by our troops or artillery. The same must have been the +case at Hagerstown. And if the generals were afraid to fight Lee's +whole army they ought to have more vigilantly watched his crossing. +There was a time when a part only of the rebel army was facing us, +and at least this part ought to have been attacked and crippled, if +not destroyed. Sound common sense teaches it. But it seems that no +will to fight Lee, or to impede his safe recrossing, no such will +animated the majority of the council of war. It seems that some of +the West Point nurslings are still awe-struck at the sight of their +slavocratic former companions, as they were at the time of their +studies at West Point. + +I was told by an officer coming from the army that the soldiers are +exasperated. The soldiers say that the generals did not wish to +destroy Lee's army and finish the rebellion, because their "stars +were to set down." Who knows how far the soldiers are right? + +_July 17._--In New York the _unterrified_ democracy went to arson +and murder, hand in hand with the immense majority of Irishry. +Meagher, Nugent, Corcoran and thousands like you, are exceptions. +The O'Connors, O'Gormans, etc., are the unterrified. For these +bloody saturnalia the wedding was consecrated by the Iro-Roman +priesthood. As the _unterrified_ Democrats pollute the sacred name +of genuine Democracy, so the Irishry stain even the Catholic +confession. The Iro-Roman Church in this country is not even a +Roman-Catholic end. This Iro-Romanism here is a mixture of cunning, +ignorance, brutality and extortion. A European Roman-Catholic at +once finds out the difference in the spirit, and even to a certain +extent, in the form. The incendiaries and murderers in the New York +riots are the nurslings and disciples of the Iro-Roman clergy and +the Iro-hierarchy. + +_July 17._--Mr. Lincoln ought to dismiss every general who voted +against fighting; dismiss _Meade_ for not understanding his power as +commander of an army, and give the places to such Howards, Warrens, +Pleasantons, Humphreys, Wadsworths, and all others, generals, +colonels, etc. who clamorously asked an order for attack. If the +army shall depend upon such generals who let Lee escape, then lay +down arms, and drag not the people's children to a slaughter house. + +To excuse the generals, it is asserted that at Chancellorsville Lee +has allowed to Hooker to recross the river without annoying us, +which Lee could easily do, and damage us considerably. Well! are our +Generals to carry on a mere war of civilities? If Lee committed a +fault, are you, gentlemen, in duty bound to imitate his mistakes? +Imitation for imitation, then rather imitate Lee's several splendid +manoeuvring and tactics. + +_July 17._--I learn that the deep-dyed Copperheads and +slavery-saviours do not consider Seymour of New York safe enough. +They turn now to a certain Seymour in Connecticut. It seems that the +Connecticut Seymour still more hates human rights, self-government, +light and progress, and is a still more ardent lickspittle of +slavocracy, of barbarism, and of the slave-driving whip. + +_July 18._--Splendid Chase urged Wadsworth to go to Florida and +organize that country--very likely to prepare votes for Chase's +presidency. It is not such high-toned men as Wadsworth who become +tools of schemers. + +Again rumors say that Stanton joined the scheme of Lincoln's +re-election. As far as I can judge, Stanton's cardinal aim is to +crush the rebellion. + +_July 18._--The greatest glory for Wadsworth is that the majority +against him in the last November elections is now murdering and +_arsoning_ New York. All of them are unterrified, hard shell +democrats, and cheer McClellan. These murderers are the "friends" of +Seymour--they are the pets of that _World_, itself below the offal +of hell--they are the "gentlemen" incendiaries of H. E. the +Archbishop Hughes. On your head, most eminent Archbishop, is the +whole responsibility. These "gentlemen" are brought up, +Christianized and moralized under your care and direction, and under +that of your tonsured crew. The "gentlemen" murderers are your herd, +O most eminent shepherd! You ought to have and you could have +stopped the rioters. And now your _stola_ is a halter and your +_pallium_ gored with blood, otherwise innocent as is the blood of +the lamb incensed on the altar of Saint Agnes in Rome. + +Mr. Seward strongly opposed the appointment of General Butler to New +York. Mr. Seward wished no harm to the "gentlemen" of his dear +friend the Most Eminent Archbishop, and to the select ones who +helped him to defeat Wadsworth. + +_July 19._--Difficult will be the task of the historian of these +episodes of riots, as well as of the whole civil war. If gifted with +the sacred spark, the future historian must carefully disentangle +the various agencies and forces in this convulsion. Some such +agencies are-- + +_a_ The righteousness of the cause of the North, defending +civilization, justice, humanity. + +_b_ The devotion, the self-sacrifice of the people. + +_c_ The littleness, helplessness, selfishness, cunning, +heartlessness, empty-headedness, narrow-mindedness of the various +leaders. + +_d_ The plague of politicians. + +_e_ The untiring efforts of the heathen, that is, of the Northern +worshippers of the slavocrat and of his whip, efforts to uphold and +save their idol. + +_f_ The fatal influence of the press. The republican or patriot +press neither sufficiently vigilant, nor clear-sighted, nor +intelligent, nor undaunted; not reinvigorated by new, young +agencies; the bad press reckless, unprincipled, without honor and +conscience, but bold, ferocious in its lies, and sacrificing all +that is noble, human and pure to the idol of slavery. + +_July 19._--The more details about the shame of Hagerstown and of +Williamsport, the more it rends heart and mind. I saw many soldiers +and officers, sick, wounded and healthy. Their accounts agree, and +cut to the quick. Our army was flushed with victory, craving for +fight, and in a state of enthusiastic exaltation. But our generals +were not therein in communion with the officers, with the rank and +file. Enthusiasm! this highest and most powerful element to secure +victory, and on which rely all the true captains; enthusiasm, that +made invincible the phalanx of Alexander; invincible Cæsar's legions +and Napoleon's columns; enthusiasm was of no account for the +generals in council. O _Meade_! better were it for you if your +council was held among, or with the soldiers. + +The Rebel army was demoralized, as a retreating army always is; no +doubt exists concerning a partial, at least, disorganization of the +rebels. But Lee and his generals understood how to make a bold show, +and a bold, menacing front, with what was not yet disorganized, and +our generals caved in, in the council. + +This July 19th is heavy, dark and gloomy.... I wish it were all +over. + +_July 19._--Thurlow Weed puffs Stanton and patronises him. O, God! +It is a terrible blow to Stanton. How, now, can one have confidence +in Stanton's manhood. Are contracts at the bottom of the puff, or is +it only one of _Weed's_ tricks to defile and to ruin _Stanton_? + +_July 20._--It is almost humiliating to witness how mongrels and +pigmies attempt to rob the people of their due glory, how they +attempt to absorb to their own credit what the pitiless pressure of +events forced upon them. All of them limped after events as lame +ducks in mud; not one foresaw any thing, not one understood the +_to-day_. Neither emancipation nor the transformation of slave into +free states, are of your special, individual work, O, great men; but +you strut now. + + _Mirmidons, race féconde, enfin nous commandons._ + +Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to +humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan. + +_July 20._--Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses, +but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No +brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And +perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure +it is nobody's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather, +and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub. + +_July 20._--Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war, +captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere +in the vicinity of Bermuda. England asserts that the shoal is a +shore, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once +yields, Neptune defends as he always does, the rights of the +national _Tritons_, and of the national flag. The supreme power +sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or +something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that +Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be +consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand. + +The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's +claims to the _salvage_ of the country. + +_July 20._--From all that I learn, _Meade_ has a better and larger +army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest +brains of the two. + +_July 20._--From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by +the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress +served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of +legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of +patriotic, devoted, far-seeing and undaunted minds and brains. All +glory to the majority of the Thirty-seventh Congress! + +_July 21._--A manly and patriotic letter from James T. Brady is +published in the papers. Such Democrats, Irishmen and lawyers, like +Brady, honor the party, the nationality, and the profession. + +_July 21._--A mystery surrounds the appointment of _Grant_ to the +command of the fated Potomac army. _Yes_ and _no_ say the helmsmen. +The truth seems to be, it was offered to Grant, and he respectfully +refused to accept it. If so, it is an evidence in favor of Grant. To +give up glory and devoted companions in arms, to give all this up +for the sake of running into the unknown, and into the jaws of the +still breathing McClellanism, and into the vicinity of the central +telegraphic station! Grant believes in volunteers; and for this +reason it is to be regretted that he refused to correct the West +Point notions. + +_July 21._--The draft occasions much bad blood, and evokes violent +dissatisfaction. The draft is a dire necessity; but it could have +been avoided if time, men, and the people's enthusiasm had not been +so sacrilegiously wasted. The three hundred dollar clause is not a +happy invention, and its omission would have given a better +character to that law. + +_July 21._--If the New York traitors succeed in preventing the +draft, then they will riot against taxes; after breaking down the +taxes, they will riot against the greenbacks, against the +emancipation, and finally force the reconstruction of the Union with +the murderous rebel chiefs in the senatorial chairs, according to +the Seward-Mercier-Richmond programme. Any one can see in the +Cain-Copperhead newspapers of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, +and in the letters and speeches of those matricides, what are their +aims, and how their plans are laid out. + +_July 21._--Again I am most positively assured that some time ago a +friendly offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between W. +H. Seward and Edwin Stanton. The high powers were represented by +Thurlow Weed and Morgan for Seward, and the virtuous, lachrymose, +white-cravated Whiting acted for Stanton. I was told that this +alliance drove Watson, (Assistant Secretary,) from the War Department. +This would be infernal, if true. I know that no _Weed_ whatever could +approach such a man as Watson; but Watson assured me that he returns +back, and I cannot believe that Stanton could consent to be thus sold. + +_July 22._--Honorable, virtuous, tear-shedding, jockey-dressing +Whiting wanted to make a trip to Europe. Sharp and acute, the great +expounder found out at once that Mr. Seward is one of the greatest +and noblest patriots of all times. Reward followed. Whiting goes to +Europe on a special mission--to dine, if he is invited, with all the +great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce +him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the +Whitings, &c., are the _crème de la crème_ of the American people. +_Vive la bagatelle._ + +_July 22._--How putrescent is all around! But it is not the nation, +not the people. And as the sun raises above the darkest and heaviest +vapors, so in America the spirit of mankind, incarnated in and +animating the people, towers above the filth of politicians, of +cabinet-makers, of presidential-peddlers, etc. Look to the masses to +find consolation. How splendidly acts Massachusetts and New +England's sons! And what free State is not New England's son? The +youth of Massachusetts are almost all in the field--the rich and the +poor, those of the best social standing, and of the genuine good +blood and standing; scholars and mechanics, all of them shouldered +the musket. + +_July 23._--How strangely and how slowly Meade manoeuvres! It looks +McClellan-like. O, God of battles, warm and inspire Meade! + +_July 23._--Only boys in the corps of invalids. It has its good. For +scores of years to come, these invalids will be the living legend of +this treasonable, matricidal rebellion, and of the atrocious +misconduct of our helmsmen. I hope that when returned home, these +invalids will be as many extirpators of all kinds of _Weeds_ in +their respective townships and villages. They will become the lights +of the new era. + +_July 23._--Were it not for the murdered, these New York riots could +be considered welcome. The rioting cannibals, and their prompters +and defenders showed their hands. No one in his senses can now doubt +how heartily and devotedly Jeff Davis was served by his hirelings +among the Copperhead leaders and among the New York Copperhead +press. The cannibals cheered for McClellan, and the Administration +has neither enough courage nor self respect to put that fetish on +the retired list. + +In the old, flourishing times of Romanism and papacy, such a Most +Eminent Hughes would long ago have been suspended by the Holy See. +The Most Eminent's standing among the continental European +Episcopacy is not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion. +The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of the papal +bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. The spirit +animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman Sapienzia. +I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman papal +university. + +_July 24._--As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers +around Washington, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross +over to the Cumberland valley. It seems that the generals whose +council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed +that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to +his brow and eye. + +The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in +the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone +for it. + +It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the +civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and +countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a +splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed +to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science! + +_July 25._--I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten +thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and +defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it +is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to +organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other +within a short, very short supporting distance. And the losses will +almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread repulse and +heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to be quartered +for such a distribution of troops. With the immense resources and +means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty thousand +troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then carry the +troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and act in +masses is not the _credo_ of the--not yet quartered--head-quarters. + +_July 26._--Old--but not slow--Welles again gives to Seward a lesson +of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international +laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white +wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, +unflinching, and progressive. + +_July 26._--O, could I only exclaim, _Exegi monumentum aere +perennius_, to the noble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to +the helpless, the selfish, and the counterfeits. + +_July 27._--_Philadelphia._ Flags in all the streets, volunteers +parading and drilling. Prosperity, activity and devotion permeate +the country. So at least I am led to believe. All this is so +refreshing, after witnessing in Washington such strenuous efforts +how not to do it. + +Bad news. I learn that Gilmore is repulsed. When the _forlorn hope_ +entered Fort Wagner, no support promptly came, and the heroes, black +and white, were massacred or expelled. Gilmore ought to have been +more cautious, and not to have undertaken an operation which was on +its outside stamped with impossibility. Perhaps Gilmore obeyed +peremptory orders. Who gave them? + +Lee's army escapes through Chester Gap, and thus we have not cut the +rebels from Richmond, and now they are ahead of us. Again +out-manoeuvred! and _nobody's fault_, only the campaign prolonged +_ad infinitum_. Perhaps it is in the programme! + +_July 28._--_Philadelphia._ The petty, narrow, school conceit +imbibed in the West Point nursery, is the stumbling-block barring +everywhere the expansion of a healthy and vigorous activity. I +listened to the heaviest absurdities and fogyism on military affairs +_oracularly_ preached by one of the great West Pointers on duty +here. + +_July 31._--_Long Branch._ Away from personal contact, even from the +view of politicians, of plotters, of lickspittles. How refreshing, +how invigorating, how soothing! + +Mr. Seward, with a due tail, visits Fortress Monroe. What for? +Is it to organize some underground road to reunion on the +Mercier-Seward-Richmond programme? + +One well-informed writes me that the last programme of Lincoln, +Halleck and Meade is, that the army of the Potomac is to keep Lee at +bay, but not to attack. If true, how well designed to give time to +Lee to do what he likes, to reorganize, to send away his troops +where he may please, to call them back--in one word to be fully at +his ease on our account. Will this country ever escape the tutorship +of sham science? + +_July 31._--_Long Branch._ Seward's concession policy towards France +bears fruit in Mexico. Of course the _Decembriseur_ outwitted the +Weed-Albany-Auburn politician statesman. But it is not the ignorant +foreign policy which strengthened and strengthens the French policy +in Mexico. It is the blunders, the tergiversations, the gropings, +and the crimes of our internal domestic policy, which, protracting +the war, allows the French conspirator to murder the Mexicans. + +_July 31. L. B._--So the _Decembriseur_ amuses himself in creating +an Imperial throne in Mexico for some European princely idiot or +intriguer. All right. I have confidence in the Mexicans. The future +Emperor, even if established for some time on the cushion of treason +propped by French bayonets, that manikin before short or long will +be _Iturbidised_. Further: I have confidence in the French people. +The upper crust is pestilential. Bonapartists, lickspittles, lackeys +and incarnations of all imaginary corruptions compose that upper +crust. But I would bet a fortune, had I one, that in the course of +the next five years, the _Decembriseur_ and his _Prince Imperial_ +will be visible at Barnum's, and that some shoddy grandee from 5th +Avenue, will issue cards inviting _to meet the Empress Eugénie_. + + + + +AUGUST, 1863. + + Stanton -- Twenty Thousand -- Canadians -- Peterhoff -- Coffey -- + Initiation -- Electioneering -- Reports -- Grant -- McClellan -- + Belligerent Rights -- Menagerie -- Watson -- Jury -- Democrats -- + Bristles -- "Where is Stanton?" -- "Fight the monster" -- + Chasiana -- Luminaries -- Ballistic -- Political Economy, etc., + etc., etc. + + +_August 2. Long Branch._--The organs of all shades and of all +gradations of ill-wishers to the cause of the North, and to that of +Emancipation, the secret friends of Jeff Davis, and the open +supporters of McClellan are untiring in their open, slanderous, +treacherous accusations of _Stanton_; others spread sanctimoniously +perfidious suggestions against the Secretary of War, and so does the +_National Intelligencer_, this foremost Whig-Conservative, double or +treble-faced organ. _Stanton_ is called to account for all mishaps, +mismanagement, disasters and disgraces which befall our armies +between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. Such accusations, to a +certain degree, could be justified if the Secretary of War were +clothed with the same powers, and therefore with the same +responsibilities as is the case in European governments. + +But every one knows that here the war machinery is very complicated, +because wheels turn within wheels. The Secretary of War is not alone +to answer and he is not exclusively responsible for the appointment +of good, middling, or wholly bad generals and commanders. Every one +knows it. _Stanton_ may have all the possible shortcomings and +faults with which his enemies so richly clothe him; one thing is +certain, that _Stanton_ advocated and always advocates fighting, and +Stanton furnishes the generals and commanders with all means and +resources at the country's and the department's disposition. If many +respectable men are to be trusted, _Stanton_ never interferes with +intrinsic military operations, never orders or insinuates, or +dictates to the commanders of our armies where and in what way they +are to get at the enemy and to fight him. As far as I know Stanton +keeps aloof from strategy. + +Stanton _is insincere and untruthful_, say his enemies. Granted. I +never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or +relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be +sincere and truthful. + + Trust in thy sword, + Rather than prince's (president's) word; + Trust in fortuna's sinister, + Rather than prince's minister. + +But _Stanton_ is truthful and sincere to the cause, and that is all +that I want from him. Stanton's alleged _malice_ against McClellan +had the noblest and the most patriotic sources, which, of course, +could not be understood or appreciated by Stanton's revilers. + +The organs of treason and of infamy refer always to McClellan. _O +race, knitted of the devils excrements mixed with his saliva_, [see +Talleyrand about Thiers] your treason is only equal to your +impudence and ignorance. If in February, 1862, Stanton had not urged +McClellan to move, probably the Potomac Army would have spent all +the year in its tents before Washington. McClellan's henchmen and +minions thrusted and still thrust the grossest lies down the throat +of a certain public, eager to gulp slander as sugar plums. +McClellan's stupidity at Yorktown and in the Chickahominy is +vindicated by his crew with the following counter accusation: that +all disasters have been generated because McDowell with his twenty +thousand men did not join McClellan. If McClellan had in him the +soldiership of a non-commissioned officer, on his knees he ought to +implore his crew not to expose him in this way. When a general has +in hand about one hundred and ten thousand men, as McClellan had on +entering the peninsula, and accomplishes nothing, then it is a proof +that he, the general, is wholly unable and ignorant how to handle +large masses. If McClellan could not manage one hundred thousand +men, still less would he have been able to manage the twenty +thousand more of McDowell's corps. + +The stupidity of attempting to invest Richmond is beyond words, and +for such an operation several hundred thousand men would have been +necessary. [Spoke of it in Vol. I.] If twenty thousand men arrive +not at a certain day or hour when a battle is raging, most surely +this failure may occasion a defeat--Grouchy at Waterloo--but in +McClellan's Chickahominy operations, twenty thousand men more would +have served only still more plainly to expose his incapacity, and to +be a prey to fevers and diseases. + +The bulk of the rebel army in Richmond was always less numerous than +McClellan's; the rebels always understood to have more troops than +had McClellan when they attacked him. During that whole cursed and +ignominious (for McClellan) Chickahominy campaign, McClellan never +fought at once more of his men than about thirty thousand. It was +not the absence of twenty thousand men that prevented a commander +of one hundred thousand from engaging more of his troops, and for +quickly supporting such corps as were attacked by the enemy. + +_August 3: L. B._--The Colonists, that is, the appendixes of +England, as the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, and of any other +colonial dignity and name, together with their great statesmen, +certain Howes and Johnsons, etc. etc. etc. agitate; they are in +trances like little fish out of water. They find it so pleasant to +seize an occasion to look like something great. Poor frogs! trying +to blow themselves into leviathans. Their whelpish snarling at the +North reminds one of little curs snarling at a mastiff. How can +these colonists imagine that a royal prince of England could reside +among something which is as indefinite as are colonists--something +neither fish nor flesh. + +_August 3._--The _Evening Post_ contains a letter on the difference +between the behavior of Union men in Missouri during the treasonable +riots in St. Louis in the Spring of 1861, and the conduct of the +Union men in New York during the recent riots. But the Saint Louis +patriot is silent--has forgotten the immortal Lyons who saved that +city and its patriots, who saved Missouri. (General Scott insisted +upon courtmartialing Lyons.) + +Also, have you already forgotten the foremost among heroes and +patriots, and whose loss is more telling now than it was in 1861. +Forgotten one of the purest and noblest victims of Washington +blindness, of General Scott's unmilitary policy and conduct. +Forgotten the true son of the people? But O Lyons! thy name will be +venerated by coming generations. + +_August 4: L. B._--_The Cliques._ + +_a_ The worst, and the womb of all evils is the Weed-Seward clique. +Around it group contractors, jobbers, shoddy, and all kinds of other +social impurities. + +_b_ The ambitious, intriguing, selfish, narrow-minded West Point +clique. + +_c_ The not brave, not patriotic, and freedom-hating, unintelligent +McClellan clique. + +_d_ Copperheads of various hues and gradations. + +Cliques _a_, _b_, and _c_, generated and fostered Copperheads, and +facilitated their expansion. + +_e_ Imbeciles, lickspittles, politicians, etc. + +_f_ The Lincolnites, closely intertwined with the _genus e_; the +Blair men, etc. + +_g_ The partisans of Chase. This clique is the most variously and +most curiously composed. Honest imbeciles, makers of phrases, +rhetors, heavy and narrow-minded, office-hunters, office expectants, +politicians, contractors, admirers of pompousness and of would-be +radicalism, all who turn round and round, and see not beyond their +noses, etc. + +Several minor cliques exist, but deserve not to be mentioned. Behind +these mud-hills rises the true people, as the Himalayas rise above +the plains of Asia. + +_August 4._--Why could not Everett, that good and true patriot, +preside over our relations with Europe; or why is that thorough +American statesman, Governor Marcy, dead! How different, how +respected, how truly American would have been the character of our +relations with Europe! No prophecies, no lies would have been told, +no gross ignorance displayed! + +_August 4. L. B._--In the columns of the _Times_ a friend of Halleck +tries to make a great man of the General-in-chief. Halleck +repudiates Burnside and Hooker, but claims the victory at +Gettysburgh, because Meade, being a good disciplinarian, executed +Halleck's orders. So from his room in G street Washington, Halleck +directed the repulse of the furiously attacking columns. Bravo! more +bravo as no telegraph connects Washington with Gettysburgh! + +Meade being a good disciplinarian, the crime of Williamsport falls +upon Halleck; the commander-in-chief is the more responsible, as the +crime was perpetrated under his nose; about four hours' drive could +have brought him to our army, and then Halleck in person could have +directed the attack upon the enemy. + +From all that transpires about Williamsport one must conclude that +Lee must have known that he would not be seriously attacked, and +that he was not much afraid of the combined disciplinarian +generalship. + +Further: Halleck claims for himself Grant's success, because Grant +obeyed orders, and Rosecrans did the same. How astonishing, +therefore, that their campaigns ended in victories and not in such +shame as Halleck at Corinth, in 1862. Rosecrans was inspired by +telegraph to change defeat into victory; the indomitable Grant +received by telegraph the fertility of resources shown by him at +Vicksburgh. Oh! Halleck! you cannot succeed in thus belittling the +two heroes, and you may tell your little story to the marines. + +_August 4._--The Proclamation on retaliation is a well-written +document; but like all Mr. Lincoln's acts it is done almost too +late, only when the poor President was so cornered by events, that +shifting and escape became impossible. If I am well informed Stanton +long ago demanded such a Proclamation, but Lincoln's familiar demons +prevented it. Nevertheless Lincoln will be credited for what +intrinsically is not his. + +_August 5: L. B._--Thomas--not Paul--Lincoln's pet, returns to the +Mississippi to organise Africo-American regiments. For six months +they organize, organize and have not yet fifteen thousand in field. +If Stanton had been left alone, we would have to-day in battle order +at least fifty thousand Africo-Americans. + +_August 5: L. B._--All computed together, among all Western +Continental European nations, the Germans, both here and in Germany, +behave the best towards the North. I mean the genuine German people. +Thinkers and rationalists are seldom, if ever, found on the wrong +side. I rejoice to see the Germans behave so nobly. + +_August 5._--The Peterhoff condemned, notwithstanding all the +efforts to the contrary of our brilliant, versatile and highly +erudite in international laws Secretary of state. But Mr. Seward +will not understand the lesson. How could he? + +_August 5: L. B._--At least for the fiftieth time, Seward insinuates +to the public that we are on the eve of a breach with England--but +Seward will prevent it. Oh, Oh! Yes, O Seward! when backed by the +iron clads and by twenty-two millions of a brave and stubborn +people! + +_August 5: L. B._--Poor Stanton, I pity him! After Weed comes the +"little villain," with his puffs. Happily, the _World_ abuses +Stanton, and this alone makes up even for the applause of Weed and +his consorts. + +_August 7: L. B._--COFFEY, Assistant Attorney-General, published a +legal, official opinion on maritime, commercial _copperheadism_; +that is, when an American vessel, from an American port, is sent in +ballast to a neutral port to load there, afterwards to run the +blockade, Coffey proves it to be treason and criminality. The +document is clear, logical, precise and not wordy: not in the style +of the State Department logomachy. Why, O why cannot such younger +men be at the head! Emancipation would have been carried out, +slavery destroyed, the Union restored, rebels crushed, and the +French murderers and imperial lackeys would cut very respectful +capers to please a great people. + +_August 8: L. B._--I shudder as I pass in review what little is done +at such an enormous expenditure of human limbs and of human life, +not to speak of squandered time, labor and money. + +It seems that the prevailing rule is to reach the smallest results +at the greatest possible cost. General Scott, Seward and Lincoln +early laid down that rule. McClellan, that quintessence of all +unsoldierlike capacities, faithfully continued what was already +inaugurated. Halleck almost perfected it; and so it became a chronic +disease of the leading spirits in the Administration, Stanton and +Welles excepted. That sacrilegious, murderous method and rule, at +times was forcibly violated by Grant, by Rosecrans, by Banks, by the +glorious Farragut, by Admiral Porter. The would-be statesmen either +see nothing or do not wish to see what ill-disposed minds could +consider to be an almost premeditated slaughter. + +I know too well that every initiation is with sacrifice or blood. It +is a law of progress, absolute, not made by man, but cut out for him +by fate or providence. In a stream of his mother's life-blood man +enters this world; by the blood of the Redeemer the Christian +becomes initiated to another, called a better world. Sacrifice and +blood prevail throughout the eons of the initiation of human +societies and religions. Through sacrifice and blood the Reformation +became a redeemer. Great results are reached at great cost. I am an +atom in a generation which, to assert her deep, earnest +convictions, never caved in before blood and sacrifice; a generation +that has labored and still labors, spreads seed and begins to +harvest; a generation which regrets nothing, and cheerfully takes +the responsibility of its actions. And with all this, the men of +convictions and of undaunted revolutionary courage in Europe, +bestowed and bestow more care upon any unnecessary sacrifice of +human life than I witness here. By heavens! Marat, Saint Just, +Robespierre, could be considered lambs when compared with the +_faiseurs_ here. And Marat, Saint Just, and Robespierre were +fanatics of ideas: here they are _fanaticised_ by selfishness, +intrigue, helplessness and imbecility. + +_August 9: L. B._--For the last few months men of sound and +dispassionate judgment tried to convince me that there is somewhere, +in high regions, a settled purpose to prolong the war until the next +presidential election. I always disbelieved such assertions; but +now, considering all this criminal sluggishness, I begin to believe +in the existence of such a criminal purpose. + +_August 9: L. B._--All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a +shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general +Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the +field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the +next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a +Report of each of his military movements and operations. McClellan +ought to have immediately made a Report to the Government after his +_bloodless victory_ at Centreville and Manassas; a victory crowned +with maple trophies! Then McClellan ought to have sent another +Report after the great success at Yorktown, and so on. Every period +of his campaign ought to have been separately reported. It is done +in all well organized governments and armies, and it is the duty of +the staff of the army to prepare such periodical, successive +Reports. Even if the sovereign himself takes the field, the staff of +the army sends such Reports to the Secretary of War. Nobody stood in +the way of McClellan's doing what it was his imperative duty to do, +and to do immediately. + +But it is unheard of that a commander during a year at the head of +an army, should take another year to prepare his Report. No +self-respecting government would allow such an insubordination, or +accept such a tardy Report. If a government should act upon such a +Report, it would be rather by dismissing from service, etc., the +sluggish--if not worse--commander. + +The so-called "McClellan's Report," concocted by a board of choice +Copperheads in New York, and of which the _World's_ hireling was an +amanuensis, that production is certainly an elaborate essay on +McClellan's campaigns, is certainly bristling with afterthoughts and +_post facta_, as pedestals for the fetish's altar. It must have on +its face the mark of combination, but not of truth. Such a +Report--not written on the spot, in the atmosphere of activity, not +written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff--such a +Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and +ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan +may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein +may shine this labor of a _dasippus_ assisted by vipers. + +_August 11: L. B._--In Washington they seem to insist that Grant +shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he +will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon +will see stained his glorious and matchless military record. He will +not withstand the cliques and the underground intrigues of craving, +selfish and unsatisfied ambitions. + +If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows, +Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment +must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I +spoke somewhere about it.) + +_August 13: L. B._--Can it be possible that several from among the +Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already +begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so--if the +people submit to such an imposition--O, then, genius of history, go +in mourning! + +_August 13: L. B._--The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate +into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its +dissertation--very poor--in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended +to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so +well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating--as do the +three wise men in their Report--on certain psychological qualities +and _non-qualities_ of the Africo-American? The paramount question +is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom. +When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if +not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new +citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for +an old psychological re-hash, without any social or moral +signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at +least, a quarter of a century _behind_ the scientific elucidations +on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons. + +_August 15: L. B._--Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the +various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did +not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did +McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report +resounds with military spirit and simplicity. Grant has not to put +truth on the rack and throw dust into people's eyes. Three cheers +for McClellan! Grant has confidence in the volunteers; not so +McClellan, who had only confidence in shams. Grant and his army, at +the best, were the second sons of the Administration--not of the +people; to the last day McClellan was the pet, the spoiled child, +and as such he disgraced his parents, tutors, etc., and ruined his +parent's house. + +_August 15._--A letter published by the Honorable W. Whiting, (who +is now traveling,) occasions much noise. The letter is pointed and +keen, but the writer knows mighty little about international laws. +Almost _a priori_ he recognizes in the rebels, as he says, "only the +rights of belligerents." Only the rights of belligerents! Such +rights are very ample, and for this reason they belong in their +plenitude exclusively to absolutely independent nations. To +recognize _a priori_ such rights in the rebels, is equivalent to +recognizing them as an independent nation. In pure and absolute +principle of modern (not Roman) _jus gentium_, rebels have not only +no belligerent rights, but not any rights at all. Rebels are _ipso +facto_ outlaws in full. Writers like Abbe Galiano, Vatel, etc., for +the sake of humanity and expediency, recommend to the lawful +sovereign to use mercy, to treat rebels _in parte_ as belligerents, +and not as _a priori_ condemned criminals. + +_August 16: L. B._--Seward is to promenade the diplomats over the +country. He is Barnum, the diplomats are the menagerie. Poor Lord +Lyons. Very probably it is Seward's last rocket to draw upon himself +the attention of the people. + +_August 16. L. B._--The probabilities of a rupture with France are +upon the public mind. I still misbelieve it. I have not the +slightest doubt that the _Decembriseur_ is full of treachery towards +the North, and that his Imperialist lackeys blow brimstone against +the Northern principles. But are the French people so debased as to +submit? We shall see. Let that crowned conspirator begin a war of +treason against the North. Before long the French people will put an +end to the war and to the Decembriseur. + +_August 16. L. B._--I learn that Watson has very gravely injured his +health by labor, that is, by being the most faithful servant of the +country and of its cause. I never, anywhere in my life, met a public +officer so undaunted at his duties, so unassuming, so quiet as +Watson, in his duties of Assistant Secretary of War, which are as +thorny as can be imagined. Watson was, and I hope will be for the +future, the terror of lobbyists, of bad contractors, of jobbers--in +one word, the terror of all the leeches of the people's pocket. And +it honors Stanton to have brought into his Department such a man as +Watson. I heard and hear, and read a great many accusations against +Stanton; but I never found any proofs which could virtually diminish +my confidence. To use a classical, stupid, rhetorical figure: +Stanton is not of antique mould. And who is now? But he is a +sincere, devoted and ardent patriot; he broadly comprehends the task +and the duty to save the country, and he sees clearly and distinctly +the ways and means to reach the sacred aim. Stanton may have, and +very many assert that he has, numerous bristles in his character, in +his deportment. Let it be so. It is the worse for him, but not for +the cause he serves. + +_August 16. L. B._--Are the people again to receive a President from +the hand of intriguers, from politicians, or from honest imbeciles? +If the people will stand it, then they deserve to be kept in leading +strings by all that medley. + +_August 16. L. B._--Rosecrans wants mounted infantry. The men of the +day, the men who understand and comprehend the exigencies, the +necessities of the war, they pierce through the rotten crust of +fogyism. That is promise and hope. The great organizers of the +army--the McClellans and the Hallecks--could never have found out +that mounted infantry is necessary, and will render good service. +Mounted infantry was not considered a necessity in the West Point +halls, and Jomini mentions it not. How should a Halleck do so? + +_August 17. L. B._--A defender of slavery, a Copperhead, and a +traitor, differ so little from each other, that a microscope +magnifying ten thousand times would not disclose the difference. A +proslaveryist, a Copperhead, and a traitor, are the most perfect +_tres in unum_. + +_August 18. L. B._--General Meade is absent from the army, and +Humphreys, his chief-of-staff, is temporarily in command. I notice +this fact as a proof that a more rational, intelligent comprehension +prevails in the military service. A chief-of-staff is the only man +to be the _locum-tenens_ of the commander. At Williamsport Humphreys +voted for fight. It would be well if Meade should not return to +again take the command. + +_August 18._--A patriotic gentlewoman asked me why I write a diary? +"To give conscientious evidence before the jury appointed by +history." + +_August 20._--On the first day of the draft, I had occasion to visit +New York. All was quiet. In Broadway and around the City Hall I saw +less soldiers than I expected. The people are quiet; the true +conspirators are thunderstruck. Before long, the names will be known +of the genuine instigators of arson and of murder in July last. The +tools are in the hands of justice, but the main spirits are hidden. +Smart and keen wretches as are the leading Copperheads, they +successfully screen their names; nevertheless before long their +names will be nailed to the gallows. The _World_--which, for weeks +and weeks, so devotedly, so ardently poisoned the minds, and thus +prepared the way for any riot--the _World_ was and is a tool in the +hands of the hidden traitors. The _World_ is a hireling, and does +the work by order. + +_August 21. L. B._--The final destiny of the Potomac Army seems to +be to keep Lee at bay but not to attack him. Oh! the disgraced +soldiers and officers! Chickahominy, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, +Gettysburgh, are the indestructible evidences of the mettle of the +army, and of the poverty or total eclipse of generalship. + +_August 21._--Impressionable, excitable, wave-like agitated as are +my dear American countrymen, they altogether forget _the yesterday_, +and shout the last success. Further: the people cannot see clearly +through the stultifying or the dirty dust blown in the peoples' +eyes; 1st, by the politicians of all hues, from the Woods, Weeds, +Forneys, to the Greeleys, by the simon-pures or the lobby-impures; +2d, by the press of all parties and shades of parties. The people +may again make a mistake. Is not Lincoln hailed as the new Moses? as +the man for the times, as the only one God sent to direct the +people, and to grapple with the stern, earnest emergencies and +perils? Emancipation is not Lincoln's, is not Sumner's, is not +anybody's personal special work. The necessities, the emergencies of +the times and of the hour did it. Their current drifted Mr. Lincoln +irresistibly along, and to a shore where he must land or perish. + +_August 23. L. B._--From the tone of certain papers, and from +private letters, I perceive that Weed-Seward are hard at work to +pacify, to reunite, to save slavery and to leave unnoticed humanity +and national honor. The unterrified Democrats become Weed's allies, +and the alliance is to carry Seward into the White House. _Nous +verrons._ + +Chase is to overturn Seward-Weed and to secure the prize. Oh, the +intriguers. + +On the authority of the published "DIARY," I am asked, even by +letters, "Where is Stanton?" "I do not know, and I do not care," is +my answer. I would however, like to be sure that Stanton is not in +that dirty path. I am Stanton's man, as they call it; but only as +long as I find him to be _a man_. + +_August 24. L. B._--The Democrats are arrogant in asserting their +superior capacity for government, for carrying on the war, and for +other great things. However, I am sure that the so-called Northern +Democrats would have managed the affairs even worse than do now +those sham representatives of the principles of the Republican +party. No faith in a fundamental human, broad principle ever +actuated the hard shell Democrats. McClellan and the immense +majority of generals, have been, or are full-blooded Democrats, and +their warlike prowess dragged the people into deep, deep mire. +Democrats have to thank God for not being in power; in this way +their incapacity to cope with such gigantic events is not exposed. +The other fortunate occurrence for the Democrats is that the +power-holders for the Republican party are--what everybody sees. + +_August 24. L. B._--I very strongly and urgently advised Gen. +Wadsworth to resign. No one in the country has fulfilled more nobly +his civic and patriotic duty. I urged upon his mind that when the +war is finished, the cause of right, of justice, the interests of a +genuine self-government will require true men to rescue the people +from the hands of the politicians. Vainly I remonstrated. Wadsworth +prefers to remain in the service, and to fight the monster. + +_August 24. L. B._--_Chasiana._ The New York leaders of the Chase +scheme make all possible efforts and platitudes to _conciliate_ Weed +and win him over. What dregs all around! + +The immaculate Chase! to look for support to a Weed! To Weed-Seward, +who for twenty-five years fanned the anti-slavery flame! Seward, +whom the anti-slavery wave elevated where he is, and who now kicks +and spits upon the men most ardent in the cause of emancipation! O +dregs! O dregs! + +_August 24: L. B._--The question of confiscation drags itself slowly +on, and soon it may resound in the courts of the whole country. If +confiscation is ever stringently executed, it will generate +law-suits _ad libitum_ and _ad infinitum_. From the first day when +the banner of rebellion was unfolded, _each State_ became an +_outlaw_ in its relations with the Union. Such a rebel State has not +a legal existence, and any legal act whatever between individual +members--or rather, politically, sovereigns in and of the +State--such acts are valueless in relation to the lawful sovereign, +as is the Union. + +The Confiscation Act is based on a wrong principle--the right to +confiscate the whole rebel property in America. This right is +derived from the public law. A conqueror of a country becomes _ipso +facto_ the proprietor of all that belonged to the conquered +sovereign and what is called public property, as domains, taxes, +revenues, public institutions, etc. The rebels claim to be +sovereigns--that is each freeman in each respective State is a +respective sovereign. The area of such revolted State, with all the +lands, cultivated or uncultivated, with the farms, and all +industrial, mercantile or mining establishments whatever, is the +property of the sovereign, or of the sovereigns. Property of a, or +of many sovereigns, is in its whole nature a public property, and as +such, _ipso facto_, is liable to be confiscated by the conqueror. + +_August 24: L. B._--The massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, must +exclusively be credited to those who appointed for that region a +pro-slavery military commander. But the power-holders are not +troubled by more or less blood, by more or less victims of their +incapacity and double-dealing! + +_August 25: L. B._--Any future historian must beware not to seek +light in the newspapers of this epoch. The so-called good press +throws no light on events; that press is not in the hands of +statesmen or of thinkers, or of ardent students of human events, or +of men having for their aim any pursuits of science or knowledge. +The luminaries of the press are no beacons for the people during +this bloody and deadly tempest! For the sake of what is called +political capital, the most simple fact often becomes distorted and +upturned by this political, short-sighted, and selfishly envious +press. + +_August 26: L. B._--All things considered, the inflation of the +currency and the rise in gold has proved to be beneficial to the +country. The agricultural interest, above all, in the West, was +particularly sustained thereby. Wheat and grain would have fallen to +prices ruinous for the farmers. When the gold fell, the farmer felt +it by the reduction of the price of his produce. The agriculturist, +the backbone and marrow of the country, spends less money for +manufactured products than he netted clear profits by the rise in +gold. If the farmer sold now his wheat for six shillings, without +inflation the price might have been four shillings, and then the +farmer would have been bankrupt, unable to pay the taxes. The +inflation saved the greatest interest in the country. And thus +agriculture and industry flourish, the country is not ruined, is not +bankrupt, as the European wiseacres took great pleasure in +foreboding that it would be. So much for _absolute_ laws of +political economy. + +_August 27: L. B._--The New York Republican papers insinuate that a +Mr. Evarts, who was sent to Europe by Mr. Seward, has given +assurances to European governments that slavery will be abolished. +If such declaration was needed, why not make it through the regular +representatives of the country, as are Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton? Mr. +Seward is incorrigible. I am curious to know where he learned this +original mode of _diplomatizing_. Such unofficial, confidential, +semi-confidential agents confuse European governments. They inspire +very little, if any respect for our statesmanship, and are offensive +to our regularly appointed ministers. What must the crown lawyers in +England have thought of Mr. Evart's great mastery of international +laws? + +_August 30._--Our military powers in Washington, led on and inspired +by Halleck, cannot put an end to guerrillas, or rather to those +highwaymen who rob, so to speak, at the military gates of +Washington. Lieber-Halleck-Hitchcock's treatise frightened not the +guerrillas, but most assuredly the gallows will do it. Everywhere +else the like banditti would be summarily treated; and these +would-be guerrillas here are evidences of the uttermost social +dissolution. They are no soldiers, no guerrillas, and deserve no +mercy. + +_August 31: L. B._--According to the _Tribune_, Mr. Lincoln deserves +all the credit for General Gilmore's success before Charleston. +There we have it! Mr. Lincoln, outdoing Carnot for military sagacity +and capacity, Mr. Lincoln approved Gilmore's plans. Mr. +Lincoln-Halleck aiding--at once understood the laws of ballistics, +and other _et ceteras_ which underlay the plan of every siege. And +now to doubt that Lincoln, with his Halleck, are military geniuses! +O _Tribune_! + +_August 31: L. B._--I learned that Grant most positively refused to +accept the command of the Potomac Army. They cannot ruin Grant--they +will neutralize him. + + + + +SEPTEMBER, 1863. + + Jeff Davis -- Incubuerunt -- O, Youth! -- Lucubrations -- Genuine + Europe -- It is forgotten -- Fremont -- Prof. Draper -- New + Yorkers -- Senator Sumner's Gauntlet -- Prince Gortschakoff -- + Governor Andrew -- New Englanders -- Re-elections -- Loyalty -- + Cruizers -- Matamoras -- Hurrah for Lincoln -- Rosecrans -- + Strategy -- Sabine Pass, etc., etc., etc. + + +_September 1: L. B._--Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred +thousand slaves--calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of +land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful--if true. Jeff Davis +will become immortal! With eight hundred thousand Africo-Americans +in arms, Secession becomes consolidated--and Emancipation a fixed +fact, as the eight hundred thousand armed will emancipate themselves +and their kindred. Lincoln emancipates by tenths of an inch, Jeff +Davis by the wholesale. But it is impossible, as--after all--such a +step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of +their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of +the Union armies would be. If the above news has any foundation in +truth, then the sacredness of the principle of right and of liberty +is victoriously asserted in such a way as never before was any great +principle. The most criminal and ignominious enterprise recorded in +history, the attempt to make human bondage the corner-stone of an +independent polity, this attempt ending in breaking the corner-stone +to atoms, and by the hands of the architects and builders +themselves. Satan's revolt was virtuous, when compared with that of +the Southern slavers, and Satan's revolt ended not in transforming +Hell into an Eden, as will be the South for the slaves when their +emancipation is accomplished. Emancipation, _n'importe par qui_, +must end in the reconstruction of the Union. + +_September 2: L. B._--Garibaldi to Lincoln. The letter, if genuine, is +well-intentioned trash. I am afraid that this prolific letter-writing +will use up Garibaldi. It seems that in letter-writing Garibaldi +intends to rival Lincoln or Seward. + +_September 3: L. B._--More and more manifestations in favor of +Lincoln's re-election. All the New York Republican papers begin to +be lined with Lincoln. And thus politicians in and out of the press +will-- + + _Incubuerunt mare (people) totumque a sedibus imis._ + +_September 3: L. B._--In the great Barnum diplomatic tour, Seward +killed under him nearly all the diplomats, and returned to Washington +in company with one. Poor Europe, and its representatives, to be used +up in such a way! But it is only the official Europe, the crowned +privileged stratum patched up with rotten relics of massacre (December +2d,) of official, regal heartlessness and of servile cunning. That +crust presses down the genuine Europe, the marrow of mankind. The +genuine Europe is ardent, noble, progressive and coruscant; and from +Cadiz to the White Sea, that genuine Europe is on the side of freedom, +on the side of the North. + +_September 3: L. B._--Lincoln to Grant, July 13. This letter shows +how the President dabbles in military operations. It clearly +establishes Mr. Lincoln's right to be considered at least a Carnot, +if not a Napoleon, _vide_ the Republican newspapers. + +_September 3: L. B._--State Conventions, and the old party-hacks +under arms. Will not the younger generation rise in its might, break +the chains of this intellectual subserviency, scatter the hacks to +the winds, take the lead, enlighten the masses, find out new, not +used-up men, brains and hearts, for the sacred duty of serving the +people. To witness so much intelligence, knowledge, ardor, +elasticity, clear-sightedness as animate the American youth, to +witness all this subdued, curbed by the hacks!--O, youth, awake! + +It is the most sacred duty of the younger generation, to rescue the +country from the hands of the old politicians of every kind; to call +to political paramount activity the better and purer agencies. It is +a task as emphatically, nay, even more, urgent and meritorious than +emancipation of the Africo-Americans. + +_September 4: L. B._--In their official or unofficial quality, +numerous Americans amorously dabble in International questions and +laws. How much the _rights of war_, etc., have been discussed; how +many letters, signed, anonymous, official and unofficial, have been +published--and very little, if any light thrown on these questions. +What a cruel fate of a future historian, who, if conscientious, will +be obliged to read all these darkness-spreading lucubrations! + +_September 5: L. B._--Mr. Lincoln's letter to the Illinois +Convention stirs up the whole country. It is a very, _very_ good +manifesto,--had it not a terrible YESTERDAY. It is a heavy bid for +re-election and may secure it. The Americans forget the _yesterday_, +and Mr. Lincoln's _yesterday!_ ... is full of shiftings, +hesitations, mistakes which draw out the people's life-blood. The +people will forget that a man of energy and of firm purpose in the +White House, such a man would have at once clearly seen his way, and +then a year ago rebellion and slavery would have been crushed. + +A man of energy would not have had for his familiar demons, the +Scotts, the Sewards, the Blairs, the border-state politicians, the +Weeds, etc. + +_September 5: L. B._--The siege of Charleston _tire en longueur_; it +has cost thousand of lives and millions upon millions, and will +still cost more. And it is already forgotten that when nearly two +years ago Sherman and Dupont took Port Royal, Charleston and +Savannah were defenceless; it is forgotten that Sherman asked for +orders to siege the two cities, _but such were not given_ from +Washington, because Mr. Lincoln-Seward (literally) was afraid to get +possession of the focuses of rebellion, and General McClellan, with +one hundred and fifty thousand men in Washington, could not bear the +idea that the rebels should be disturbed either in Centerville or in +their _chivalric_ homes in South Carolina. It is forgotten that +civil and military leaders and chiefs then and there refused to deal +a death blow to the rebellion. + +And as I am _en train_ to recall to memory what is already +forgotten, and what the Illinois letter intends to wholly erase from +the people's memory; I go on. + +In the first days and months after the explosion of the rebellion, +Mr. Lincoln was as innocent of any wish to emancipate the slaves, as +could be a Seward, or a Yancey, or McClellan, or a Magruder or a +Wise or a Halleck. All this is forgotten. It is forgotten that +General Butler is the earliest initiator of emancipation, and that +to him exclusively belongs the word and the fact of an emancipated +_contraband_. It is forgotten that when Butler began to emancipate +the contrabands, the _big men_ in the Administration, Lincoln, +General Scott, and Seward, became almost frantic against Butler for +thus introducing the "nigger" into the struggle. The fate of Fremont +is forgotten. Fremont was ahead of the times. Fremont emancipated +when Lincoln-Seward-Scott-Blair, etc., heartily wished to save and +preserve slavery. Down went Fremont. + +Early in the summer of 1861 General Fremont wished to do what was now +accomplished by the, until yet, _sans pareil_ Grant--that is, to clear +the Mississippi at a time when neither Island No. 10, nor Vicksburgh, +nor Port Hudson nor any other port was fortified. But the plan +displeased and frightened the powers in Washington. Fremont was never +to be pardoned for having shown farsightedness when _the great men_ +deliberately blindfolded themselves. Fremont might not be a Napoleon, +not a captain; Fremont committed military mistakes,--other generals +commit military crimes. + +The angel of justice very easily will white-wash Fremont from +military responsibility for the unnecessary waste of human life; and +with all his various faults Fremont's aspirations are patriotic and +lofty, and he is by far a better and nobler man than all his +revilers put together. But all this seems to be forgotten. + +It is, or will be forgotten, what a bloody trail over the North is +left, and has been imprinted by the half measures, the indecisions, +and the vascillations of the Administration. + +The medley composed of politicians, jobbers, contractors, and +newspapers, already scream "Hosanna," and attempt to spatter with +lies and dust the road to the White House, and thus to prepare the +way. And the medley already shakes hands, and enemies kiss each +other, because if their _elect_ succeeds, there will be peace over, +and pickings for all the world. But the justice of history will +overtake them all, and the better, younger generation will crush +them to atoms. + +_September 6. L. B._--Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_ maintains its +paramount, independent position in the American press. I cannot +detect any shadow of a politician in its columns. It is all over +independent and patriotic. The _Spirit_ fights the miscreants. + +"_Principles not men_," is an axiom, but the axiom must be well +understood and applied, and it has its limitations. Are bad, +worthless, insincere, selfish men to be the agencies and the factors +of great and lofty principles? Is such a thing possible? Is the +example of Judas forgotten? O, you Bible-reading people, can Judases +and rotten consciences carry out good principles? The press that +teaches and preaches _principles not men_, that never dares to +attack bad men in its own ranks, such a press betrays the confidence +of the people, and degrades below expression the elevated and noble +position which the press ought to occupy in the development of the +progress of human society. + +_September 6._--Computing together and comparing the mental and +intellectual characteristics, the manifestations and utterances of +passions in the Africo American and in the Irish of the Iro-Roman +nursery, the anthropologist, the psychologist and the philosopher +must give the palm to the Africo-American. And nevertheless Doctors +of Divinity and many truly religious men plead in favor of slavery, +that is, of brute force. I ask all such to meditate the words of +Professor J. W. DRAPER, in his great and profound _History of the +Intellectual Development of Europe: That brute force must give way +to intellect, and that even the meanest human being has rights in +the sight of God._ + +_September 10: New York._--Head-quarters of all kinds of politicians, +of schemers, of perpetrators of treasonable attempts, of falsifiers, +of poisoners of the people's mind. The rendezvous of those who +devour the vitals of the country--who, as contractors, jobbers, +brokers, stock and gold speculators, _agioteurs_, etc. are the most +ardent patriots, and wish that the war may be indefinitely +continued. In the columns of the _Herald_ the future historian will +find the best information concerning all that--not-blessed race. The +race deserves to be recorded and _scavenged_ in the _Herald_. + +And nevertheless New York contains the most pure and the most +devoted patriots. New York and New Yorkers have been foremost in +coming to the rescue when the matricide rebels dealt their first +blow. From New York came the best and the most energetic urgings on +the gasping and vascillating Administration. + +The New Yorkers originated the Sanitary Commission, for which I can +find no words of sufficiently warm praise. New York contains many +young, fresh, elevated and noble minds and intellects. Why, O why do +some of them disappear in the muddy part of the great city, and +others are overawed and overleaped by the hacks and by the +politicians, or the so-called wire-pullers. + +_September 10. New York._--It is the place to ascertain the +manoeuvres of political schemers. Those who know, most emphatically +assure me of the existence of the following _Sewardiana_. + +1. Seward has given up in despair all dreams of finding people to +back him for the next Presidency. + +2. Seward hesitated between McClellan and Banks, + +3. And finally settled on Lincoln; + +4. And although afraid of being finally shelved by Lincoln, he +advocates Lincoln's re-election-- + +5. As being the paramount means to politically murder Chase. + +Oh American people! Oh American people! how those foul political +pilferers dice for thy blood and thy destinies! + +Years ago, I justified the existence and asserted the necessity of +politicians in the political public life of America. I considered +them an unavoidable and harmless result of free democratic +institutions. [See "America and Europe."] At that time I observed +the politician from a distance, and reasoned on him altogether +metaphysically, after the so-called German fashion. Since 1861 I +have come into personal contact with the genus politician--and oh! +what a monstrous breed they are! + +_September 10. New York._--Senator Sumner on our foreign relations. +The Senator enumerates all the violations of good comity, of +international duties, of the obligations of neutrals, violations so +deliberately and so maliciously perpetrated by England and by +France. But why has the Senator forgotten to ascend to one of the +paramount causes? Previous to England or France, the State +Department in Washington and Mr. Lincoln recognized in the rebels +_the condition of belligerents_. It was done by the Proclamation +instituting the blockade. The _Blue Book_ fully proves that already +months before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the English Government had +a perfect knowledge of the vascillating policy which was to be +inaugurated after March 1, 1861. At the same time, the English +Government knew well that already previous to March 4, the rebel +conspirators were fully decided on carrying out their treacherous +aim across streams of blood. A long war was imminent, and a +recognition of the rebels as _in parte_ belligerents, could not have +been avoided. A part of the English nation, a part of the English +Cabinet, was and is overflowing with the most malicious ill will, +and such ones crave for an occasion to satisfy their hatred. But our +domestic and foreign policy singularly served our English +ill-wishers. + +I deeply regret that the Senator preferred the halls of the Cooper +Institute to the hall of the United States Senate; that he threw the +gauntlet to Europe as a lecturer, when for days and months he could +have done it so authoritatively as a Senator of the United States; +could have done it from his senatorial chair, and in the fulfilment +of the most sacred public and patriotic duty. How could the Senator +thus belittle one of the most elevated political positions in the +world, that of a Senator of the United States? + +Not so happy is the part of the lecture concerning _Intervention_. +It is rather sentimental than statesmanlike. _Intervention_ is, and +will remain, an act of physical, material force, and history largely +teaches that _Intervention_, even for higher moral purposes, was +always exercised by the strong against the weak, the strong always +invoking "higher motives." Thus did the Romans; and about a century +ago, the Powers which partitioned Poland began by an _Intervention_, +justified on "higher moral, etc. grounds." + +_September 11: New York._--Prince Gortschakoff's answer to the +demonstration of lying, hypocritical, official diplomatic sympathies +made in favor of the Poles by the cabinets of France, of England, +and of Austria. The Gortschakoff notes are masterpieces for their +clear, quiet, but bold and decided exposition and argument, and in +the records of diplomacy those notes will occupy the most prominent +place. O, why cannot Mr. Seward learn from Gortschakoff how not to +put gas in such weighty documents? Could Seward learn how to be +earnest, precise and clear, without spread-eagleism? The greater and +stronger a nation, the less empty phraseology is needed when one +speaks in the nation's name. + +_September 15._--Returned to Washington. From what I see and hear, +Mr. Lincoln is earnestly and hard at work to secure his re-election. +I hope that Mr. Lincoln is as earnest in his efforts to destroy +Lee's army and to put an end to the guerrillas who rob to the right +and to the left, and under the nose of the supreme military +authorities. + +Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, always the same--active, +intelligent, clear and far-sighted. Andrew is the man to act for, +and in the name of the most intelligent community on the globe, +which the State of Massachusetts undoubtedly is. As I have observed +several times, Andrew is among the leading (_Americanize_, tip-top,) +men of the younger generation, is no politician, and never was one. +If a civilian is to be elected to the Presidency, Andrew ought to be +the choice of the people, if the people will be emancipated from the +politicians. + +I learn that that monster, the politician, has almost wholly +disappeared from New England, above all from Massachusetts. The New +England people are too earnest and too intelligent to be the prey of +the monster. Sound reason throttled the politician. All hail to this +result of the bloody storm! I hope the other States will soon follow +the example of Massachusetts. + +The State of Massachusetts and the city of Boston noiselessly spend +millions for their coast and harbor defences. Governor Andrew has +the confidence of the people, and is untiring in procuring the best +war material. He sent an agent to England to buy heavy guns. + +If the English government take in sail, if it come to its senses and +cease to be the rebels' army and navy arsenal, then all this will be +due to such quiet and decisive active demonstrations as that above +mentioned in Boston, in Massachusetts, and the similar activity of +the New Yorkers, and not at all to any persuasive arguments of Mr. +Seward's dispatches. + +_September 16._--Mr. Seward is slightly mending his ways. His last +circular for the foreign market is considerably sobered, and almost +barren of prophecy. Almost no spread-eagleism, no perversion, +although geography and history, of course, are a little maltreated. + +And so, Mr. Prophet, you at least recognize the utility of arming +the Africo-Americans. And who is it that openly and by secret advice +and influence in the cabinet and out of it, who, during more than a +year, did his utmost to counteract all the efforts to emancipate and +to arm the oppressed? + +_September 16._--The draft is seriously complained of, and the +drafted desert in all directions. To tell the truth, drafting is +odious to every nation, whatever be its government. But it is a dire +necessity, and it is impossible to avoid or to turn it. The draft +became here imperatively necessary by the long uninterrupted chain +of helplessness and mismanagement of events, the sacrifice of blood +and of time. But for the advice of the Scotts, of the Sewards, of +the Blairs, but for the military prowess of McClellan and his +_minions_, but for the high military science of a Halleck, Mr. +Lincoln would not have been obliged to draft. + +In the West, everything is action, operation and victory. Grant, +Rosecrans, Banks, their officers and soldiers honor the American +name; even good Burnside acts and succeeds;--but here the Army of +the Potomac is observing and watching Lee's brow! McClellan's spirit +seems still to permeate these blessed generals, and then +Halleckiana, and then God knows what. The fear of losing won laurels +probably palsies the brains of the commanders; at any rate it is +certain that the inactivity of the Potomac army throws unsurpassed +splendor on the annals of this war. O, the brave, brave soldiers and +officers! how they are maltreated! + +_September 16._--Matamoras will fall into the hands of the +_Decembriseur's_ freebooters, and then Texas will be almost lost. +Matamoras ought long ago to have been seized by us, or at least very +closely blockaded and surrounded; then all the war-contraband to +Texas would have had an end. + +In 1861, when microscopical specks began to loom over Mexico's +destinies, when the _Decembriseur_ began to feel the pulse of Spain +and of England, I most respectfully suggested to Mr. Seward to +blockade Matamoras. No foreign country or government could call us +to account for such a step, if the Mexican government would not +protest. And it was so easy to satisfy and hush the Mexican +liberals. Besides, a paragraph in the treaty of Mexico expressly +stipulates that any violation of the respective territory will not +be considered as a _casus belli_, but the case will be peacefully +investigated, etc., etc. Surely the Mexican government would have +preferred to see Matamoras in our hands, than in those of that +bloody Forey's bands. + +_September 17._--"Loyalty," "loyalty," resounds from all sides. +Loyalty to principles? Why, no. Loyalty to Mr. Lincoln and to his +official crew. If such maxims mark not the downfall of manhood, then +I am at loss to find what does. Such a construction of loyalty +brings many otherwise honest and intelligent men to foster Mr. +Lincoln's re-election. + +_September 17._--At the beginning of the war, Lord John Russell +issued orders for the regulation of the English ports in cases of +belligerents. Our great Doctor of International Law in the State +Department mistook such municipal, English regulations; he considers +them to be absolute international rules and principles, and +concocts instructions for our cruisers, instructions which smell as +if written under Lord Lyons' dictation. As always, Neptune stands up +for the national interests and for the interests of his tars, +because the instructions concocted by the Doctor make it impossible +for our cruisers to fulfill their duties. As always, Mr. Lincoln +bends rather towards the Doctor, who in his world-embracing +_humanitarianism_ defends the interests of all the neutrals at the +cost of the interests of the country and of our brave navy. The +Doctor was right when, some time ago, he compared himself to Christ. + +_September 17._--The border-State politicians establish that the +revolted States are not out of the Union. The States are no +abstractions, no metaphysical notions, but geographical and +political entities. They are States because they are peopled with +individuals, free, intelligent, and who, to give a legality to their +rebellion, claim to be sovereigns. It is not the soil constituting a +State that represents a sovereignty, but the soil or State acquires +political signification through the population dwelling in or on it. +When the population revolted, the State revolted. From Jeff Davis to +the lowest "clay-eater," each rebel who took up arms claims to have +done this in the exercise of his sovereign will and choice. The +revolt quashed all privileges conceded by the Union to a State, and +the Union reconquers its property in reconquering the former States. + +_September 18._--Hurrah for Lincoln! He sends an expedition to +Texas, say his admirers. He forgets nothing. Well, why has Lincoln +forgotten Texas all this time? Notwithstanding all the prayers of +the Texans and of the northern patriots, I am not sure that at this +moment it is expedient to break up our armies into smaller +expeditions instead of concentrating them in Tennessee, Georgia, and +here. Strike on the head or at the heart if you wish to kill the +monster, but not at its extremities. But perhaps the Government and +Halleck have men enough to do the one and the other. But why not put +at the head of the Texan expedition a noble, high-minded, devoted +patriot, such as General Hamilton, instead of putting a Franklin, +unknown to the Texans, who can inspire no confidence, and of whom +the best that can be said is, that he never succeeded in anything, +and disorganized everything. See Pope in Virginia, Burnside at +Fredericksburgh. + +If Hamilton, the Texan, is to participate in this expedition, not +Lincoln and his advisers put Hamilton there--the pressure exercised +by the combined efforts of the governors of New England States did +the work. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and for his crew. + +_September 19._--Governor Andrew's activity and initiative are +admirable. More than any body in the country, Andrew has done to +clear up, and to firmly establish the condition of Africo-Americans +as soldiers, and to push them up to the level with other men. + +_September 19._--_Hurrah for Lincoln_, who hurries the organization +of Africo-American regiments! Oh yes! he hurries them; _festina +lente_. And how many regiments have been organized in Norfolk, which +ought to have been established as _the_ central point to attract +and to organize contrabands? Is not Virginia the first in the slave +States for the number of slaves? In the hands of a clear-sighted +man, Norfolk ought to have been used as a glue to which the slaves +would have wandered from all parts of Virginia, and even from North +Carolina. Norfolk ought to have to-day an army of fifty thousand +Africo-Americans born in Virginia, and not a few regiments of them +raised in the North. An Africo-American army in Norfolk doubtless +would have more impressed Jeff Davis and Lee, than they are +impressed by the marches of the commanders of the Potomac army. And +what is done? Oh, hurrah for Lincoln! A General Naglee, or of some +other name, appointed by Halleck, sustained by Lincoln, and by, who +knows whom--commands in Norfolk. This general so appointed, and so +sustained is the most devoted worshipper of slavery. This favored +general hob-nobs with the slave-making, slave-breeding and +slave-selling aristocracy of Norfolk and of the vicinity, looks down +upon the _nigger_ with all the haughtiness of a plantation whip, and +haughtily snubs off the not slave-breeding Union men in Norfolk, the +mechanics, and the small farmers. Mr. Lincoln knows this all and +keeps the general. Rhetors roar, Hurrah for Lincoln. + +_September 19._--Massachusetts and New England men and women! you +true apostles! your names are unknown but they are recorded by the +genius of humanity. These men and women feel what is the true +apostolate. They follow our armies, take care of the contrabands, +take care of poor whites, establish schools for the children and for +the grown up of both hues, and thus they reorganize society. O +sneer at them you fashionables, you flirts, you ...; but such men +and women, and not you, make one believe in the highest destinies of +our race. + +_September 20._--Grant is the only general who accomplished an +object, showed high, soldier-like qualities, organized and commanded +an excellent army. But scarcely had _Grant_ taken Vicksburgh, when +his army was broken up and scattered in all directions, he himself +was neutralized and reduced to inactivity. It could be considered a +crime against the people's cause--but--hurrah for Lincoln. + +After the shame of Corinth, 1862, the Western army disappeared in +the same way. But it was nobody's fault, oh no! So it is nobody's +fault that Grant is shelved. Will a man start up in the next +Congress and call the malefactors to account? + +_September 20._--This day, General Meade has about eighty thousand +men. General Meade himself estimates the enemy's forces in front of +him at no more than forty thousand men, and General Meade does +nothing beyond feeling his way. O, cunctator! + +_September 20._--The partisans of Mr. Lincoln admit that he came +slowly _to the mark_, but he came to it. Of course, better late than +never, but in Mr. Lincoln's case, the people's honor and the +people's blood paid for Mr. Lincoln's experimental ways. Mr. Lincoln +may now be serious in a great many matters, but if he could have +been serious a year ago--how much money would have been economized? + +Hurrah for Lincoln! + +_September 21._--Rosecrans worsted. Burnside joined him not. They +say that Burnside disobeyed orders. I doubt it, and would wish to +see what orders have been given. Meade or Halleck quietly allow a +third of Lee's army to go and help to crush Rosecrans. + +_September 21._--General Franklin was, in his own way, successful at +the Sabine Pass, as every where. But how could the government +entrust him with this expedition? He graduated _first_ at West +Point. Washingtonians and tip-top West Pointers speak highly of +Franklin. Enough!-- + +_September 22._--The rebels concentrated every available and +fighting man on Chattanooga; we scattered our forces to all winds. +The rebels march on concentrating lines, we select radii running out +in the infinite, or in opposite directions. That is the head +quarters paramount strategy. + +Rosecrans is worsted. Hurrah for Lincoln, who believes in Halleck! + +And to know, as I know, that our army and country has young men who +could carry on the war better in darkness than Lincoln-Halleck do in +broad daylight! + +_September 22._--By depleting the banks by means of loans, by +establishing the so-called National Bank, by creating an army of +officials, by taking into his hands the traffic in the great staple +of the rebel States, by providing the South with the various +Northern products, by holding all the money in his hand, Mr. Chase +concentrated into his hand a patronage never held by any secretary, +nay, scarcely if ever, held by a president. Mr. Chase has more +patronage than even any constitutional king. It is to be seen how +all this will end. + +_September 22._--On all sides I hear the question put, Who is +Gilmore? It seems to me that Gilmore is one of the men generated by +new events and not by Washington or West Point estimation. It seems +to me that Gilmore may be one of the representative men of the +better generation, so luxuriant here, and whose advent to power +would save the country; a generation who alone can give the last +solution, and whose advent I expect as the Jews expected the +Messiah, and I shall hail it as did Anna, Elizabeth, Simeon, etc. +put together. + +_September 23._--As a result of the Meade-Halleck combined military +wisdom, a part of Lee's army fought Rosecrans at Chattanooga, and +may in a very short time be again in Virginia, and it is nobody's +fault. O strategy! thy name is imbecility! + +_September 23._--Better news from Rosecrans. The stubbornness of the +troops, the stubbornness of General Thomas saved the day. +Reinforcements join Rosecrans now. But why not previous to the +battle? If Rosecrans had had men enough on the 19th and 20th, then +Bragg would have been broken, and the rebels almost on their last +legs. But perhaps such glory and victory are not needed! Hurrah for +Lincoln! + +_September 24._--Many of Mr. Lincoln's partisans admit that at the +most favorable calculation, the results obtained up to to-day by the +war and by emancipation, could easily have been obtained by a +smaller expenditure of life, blood, money and time, if any will, and +foresight, and energy presided at the helm. And, nevertheless, +hurrah for Lincoln! And the highest destinies of the principle of +self-government to again be trusted in such hands! + +_September 24._--How could Meade let Lee send troops to Bragg, and +why Meade attacked or attacks not? Those rebel generals show but +little consideration for our commanders, and it would be curious to +know what Lee and his companions think of our Marses. It seems that +a conception of a plan of campaign or of a military operation is +altogether beyond the reach of Meade's _cerebellum_. As commander of +a division, of a corps, Meade had _dash in him_--he lost all when +elevated above the level. + +I am sure that Stanton urges or urged Meade to do something, without +telling him how or where. Had Lincoln, had Halleck meddled? If so, +Meade ought to tell it. The best to do for a commander of the Army +of the Potomac is to keep his secrets to himself and have in his +confidence only his chief-of-staff--not to tell them to any one in +the camp, and still less to any one in Washington. But it seems that +Meade had no plan whatever in view, and had no secrets to keep or +to tell. + +_September 25._--It is to-day exactly a week since Rosecrans was +attacked. At the head-quarters they ought to have known Rosecrans' +force, and the imperative, the paramount necessity of reinforcing +him in time, as they _ought_ to have known that Lee sent to Bragg a +part of his army. But probably the precious head of the +head-quarters is confused by some translation, or by reading +proof-sheets instead of reports. By simply looking on the map, the +head-quarters--perhaps headless--ought to have found out that +Chattanooga and Atlanta are the keys of the black country, and that +the rebels--who neither write silly books nor translate--will +concentrate all available forces to stop Rosecrans's advance, and +eventually to crush him. Weeks ago the head-quarters ought to have +reinforced Rosecrans; it is done to-day, a week after the defeat. +Hurrah for Lincoln, who sustains a Halleck! + +One of the most cautious men that I met in life, and who is in a +position to be well informed, in the most cautious and distant +manner suggested to me that Rosecrans is obnoxious to the +head-quarters, and that in G street, Washington, they may have +wished to see Rosecrans worsted. + +Hurrah for Lincoln! Halleck is his true prophet! + +Shake an apple tree, and the foul fruit falls down; and so it is +with Halleck's western military combinations. All the army of Grant +running dispersed on centrifugal radii, Burnside sent in a direction +opposite to Rosecrans. Bravo, Halleck! You outdo McClellan! + +_September 25._--It seems that with a little, a very little dash, we +could go in the rear of Lee, who is weakened by sending troops to +crush Rosecrans. But we have given Lee time to fortify his position, +and of course we will wait until Lee is again strong, either by +position or by numbers. Then we march a few miles onwards, more +miles backwards, and what not? What splendid combinations coruscate +from the head-quarters here, or in the army! Cæsar, Napoleon, +Frederick, bow your heads in dust before our great captains! + +_September 26._--It seems that at Chattanooga the rebels massed +their infantry in columns _per_ battalion, and Crittenden's and +McCook's troops could not withstand the attack. It was not at West +Point that the rebel generals learned the like continental tactics. +It seems that the rebels like to learn. + +_September 27._--In defence of the _Franklinade_ at the Sabine Pass, +it is alleged that the expedition had bad old vessels, and was +poorly fitted out. Then why make it? It is a crime in this country +to complain of any want of material and of bad vessels--provided no +one steals thereby. In America, not to have an adequate material? +What an infamous slander on the most industrious people! Not +material, but brains, or something else are not adequate. But, of +course, it is nobody's fault, and nobody will be taken to account. + +_September 29._--Hooker is to have a command, and to supersede +Burnside. Probably again a separate command. If generals refuse to +serve under each other, under the plea of seniority, at once expel +such _recalcitrant_ generals from the service; better and younger +men will be found. The French Convention beheaded such generals, not +on paper, but physiologically. The French Directory was not a master +of honesty or energy, but it had sufficient energy to select +Napoleon, twenty-six years old, over the heads of older generals, +and put him in command of the Army of the Alps, which in his hands +became the Army of Italy. And as long as the world shall stand, the +consequences of that violation of the rule of seniority will not be +forgotten. + +_September 29._--General Thomas ought to have the command, if +Rosecrans failed, but not Hooker or Butterfield. + +Halleck's _officina_ of military incongruities and to unmilitary +combinations ought to be shut up, and the occupants sent about the +world. The War Department and the President would get better advice +from the young Colonels in the Department, and around Stanton, than +it gets from all that concern in G street. + +_September 29._--The papers say that all over Europe and the rest of +the world Seward _ex officio_ scatters Sumner's Cooper Institute +oration. Well may Seward do it. Sumner suppressed true events, not +to hurt Seward. + +Now Sumner will find Seward an admirable statesman. + +_September 30._--The suspension of the _habeas corpus_ makes great +noise. It was emphatically necessary. But it would not have been +emphatically, indeed not in the least necessary, if the domestic and +war policy were different. Then the people would not have been +disheartened. If the people's holy enthusiasm--so dreaded in +Washington--were not so sacrilegiously misused and squandered, +volunteers would be forthcoming. + +_September 30._--If Lincoln-Halleck could create a military +department on the moon, they would instantly send thither some +troops and a major-general, so strong is their passion to break up +the armies into fragmentary bodies. + +_September 30._--If this war has already devoured or destroyed three +hundred thousand men in dead, crippled, and disabled in various +ways, then the responsibility is to be divided as follows: + +_a_ 100,000 lost by the policy initiated by Lincoln, Seward, Scott. + +_b_ 100,000 to be credited to McClellan and Halleck's military +combinations; Halleck by half with Lincoln. + +_c_ 100,000 to be credited to the war itself. + +_September 30._--England mends her ways, and stops the arming of +vessels for the rebels. The _Decembriseur_ more and more +treacherous--as a matter of course. + +_September 30._--I understand now, what I never could understand in +Europe. I understand how an all polluting power can force into +alliance men of strong convictions, but of the most deadly opposite +social and political extremes. Such extremes meet in the wish to put +an end to a power whom they hate and despise. + + + + +OCTOBER, 1863. + + Aghast -- Firing -- Supported -- Russian Fleet -- Opposition -- + Amor scelerated -- Cautious -- Mastiffs -- _Grande guerre_ -- + Manoeuvring -- Tambour battant -- Warning, etc., etc., etc. + + +_October 1._--Rosecrans, Bragg, Lee, Meade, Gilmore, Dahlgren and +the iron-clads keep the nation breathless aghast. A terrible and +painful lull. The politicians furiously continue their mole-like +work; election, re-election is inscribed on the mole hills. + +_October 2._--Chase men fire into Blair's men, and Blair's men are +supposed to be Lincoln's men. The skirmishing, the scouting before +the battle. But the day of battle is yet far off, and the proverb, +"many a slip," etc., may yet save the nation from becoming a prey of +politicians. + +_October 3._--News arrives that reinforcements sent from here +reached Rosecrans. For the first time the troops have been +forwarded with such rapidity. The War Department has brought almost +to perfection the system of transportation of large bodies. The +head-quarters, who combine, decide and direct the movements, the +distribution, and the scattering of troops all over the country +could have therefore ordered the troops to Rosecrans, and the War +Department would have rapidly forwarded them there. And if Grant's +army was not broken, and he himself virtually shelved or +neutralized--if he had marched towards Georgia, Secession would have +been compressed to two or three States; Bragg crushed, Alabama and +Georgia rescued! Hurrah for Lincoln-Halleck. + +_October 4._--The Russian fleet evokes an unparalleled enthusiasm in +New York, and all over the country. _Attrappez_ treacherous England +and France! The Russian Emperor, the Russian Statesman Gortschakoff, +and the whole Russian people held steadfast and nobly to the North, +to the cause of right and of freedom. Diplomatic bickerings here +could not destroy the genuine sympathy between the two nations. + +_October 4._--The probable majority in the next Congress is the +great object of present calculation and speculation. The +Administration seems to be of the opinion, that a small republican +majority will do as well, because it will be more compact and more +easily to be played upon. God save the country from a majority +_twistable_ by the Administration! If the majority is small, then it +may be unable to drag such dead-weight as was the Administration +directed by its master spirit. + +The Administration ought to be dusted and pruned. This +Administration especially needs to be shaken and kept always on the +_qui vive_ by an honest and a patriotic opposition. The opposition +made by Copperheads is neither honest nor patriotic. Opposition is a +vital element of parliamentary government; and as by a curse, the +opposition here is made not to acts of the Administration--the +Copperheads wish to throttle the principle which inspires the best +part of the people. If it was possible to have an opposition strong +enough to control the misdeeds of the Administration, to serve for +the Administration as a telescope to penetrate space, and as a +microscope to find out the vermin: if such an opposition could be +built up, it would have forced the Administration to act vigorously +and decidedly, it could have preserved the Administration from +repeated violations of the rules of common sense, and in certain +Administrative brains the opposition could have kindled sagacity and +farsightedness:--such counterpoise would have spared thousands and +thousands of lives, and thousands of millions of money. + +_October 6._--Meade will retreat or already retreats. The choice of +the army, Meade, has not yet greatly justified itself. And Meade, +too, builds up in the army a clique of generals, and therein Meade +begins to imitate McClellan. Likewise McClellan seems to have been +Meade's model at Williamsport, and, McClellan-like, Meade has wasted +precious time. + +And thus the month of October sees us on the defensive on the whole +line, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. After two and a half years +of military misdirection, of rivers of blood, of mines of +money--there we are. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and for his apostles! + +_October 6._--How the world's history is handled, twisted, and +_bungled_. Wiseacres put history on the rack to evidence their own +ignorance. The one invokes England's example during Wellington's +expedition to Spain, as if that war in the Peninsula had been a +civil war, and England's integrity, national independence, and +political institutions had been endangered. And another compares +this war to the civil wars of Rome, and censures the impatience of +those who wish for more energy in the Administration. Do the +wiseacres wish for an + + Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus ætas. + +Others point to Cæsar, and forget that Cæsar fought almost in person +everywhere, in Europe, Africa, and Asia. + +Great commanders-in-chief point out to their subordinates the +example of Napoleon and of Frederick visiting their pickets. Yes, +great military scholars! Frederick and Napoleon visited the pickets +when their armies faced--nay, when they almost touched the lines of +the enemy. But Frederick and Napoleon were with the armies--they +were in the tents, and directed not the movements of armies from a +well warmed and cosy room or office. + +_October 6._--Blair, a member of the Cabinet, in a public speech +delivered in Maryland, most bitterly attacks the emancipationists +and emancipation. Blair is perfectly true to himself. That speech +would honor a Yancey. Blair peddles for Mr. Lincoln's re-election. +Blair thus semi-officially spoke for the President, and for the +Cabinet. Such at least is the construction put in England on an +out-door speech made by a member of the Cabinet, or else another +member takes another occasion to refute the former. Mr. Splendid +Chase is a member of the Cabinet, and claims to represent there the +aspirations, the tendencies, and the aims of the radicals and of the +emancipationists. Such a conflict between two members of the Cabinet +shakes the shaky situation. What will Chase do? Nothing, or very +little. + +_October 7._--Months, weeks and days of the most splendid weather, +and Meade, the choice of the West Point clique in the army, Meade +did nothing. If Meade had not, or has not troops enough, why is not +Foster ordered here with all he has? Keep Fortress Monroe well +garrisoned, and for a time abandon the few points in North Carolina. +Destroy Lee, and then a squad of invalids will reconquer North +Carolina, or that State may then reconquer itself. This, or some +other combination ought to be made. I am told that more than seven +hundred thousand men are now on the Paymasters' rolls. Where are +they? Is it forgery or stealing? Where, oh where are the paid men? +On paper or in the grave? If the half, three hundred and fifty +thousand men, were well kept in hand, Lee and Bragg ought to be +annihilated. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and Halleck! + +_October 8._--From various sides I am assured that Stanton passed +into the camp of Lincoln, with horse, foot and artillery. I doubt +it, but--all is possible in this good-natured world. Stanton, like +others, may be stimulated by the _amor sceleratus_ of power. + +_October 8._--Lee's Report, containing the operations after the +battle of Chancellorsville, the invasion of Pennsylvania, and his +recrossing of the Potomac at Williamsport, is published now. But +Lee, a true soldier, made his report in the last days of July, +therefore almost instantly after the campaign was finished. +Sympathizers with McClellan's essays on military or on other +matters! there is another example for you, how and when such things +ought to be done. Meade has not yet made his Report. + +_October 9._--The cautiousness of Meade and his fidelity to +McClellan-like warfare are above admiration. General Buford, brave +and daring, weeks ago offered to make with his cavalry a raid in the +rear of Lee and destroy the railroads to the south-west--those main +arteries for Virginia. The offer was vetoed by the commander of the +Potomac army. Had Lee ever vetoed Stewart's raids? Lee rather +stimulated and directed them. + +_October 10._--And the power-holders let loose their mastiffs. And +the mastiffs ran at my heels and tried to tear my inexpressibles and +all. And they did not, because they could not. Because my friends +(J. H. Bradley,) stood by me. And the people's justice stepped in +between the mastiffs and me, and I exclaim with the miller of +Potsdam, "There are judges in Washington." + +_October 11._--I most positively learn that even Thurlow Weed urged +upon the President the immediate removal of Halleck, and even +Thurlow Weed could not prevail. Many and many sins be forgiven to +the Prince of the Lobby, to the man who understood how to fish out a +fortune in these national troubles. + +_October 12._--_Cæsar morituri te salutant_, say our brave soldiers +to Lincoln. + +The Meades and the McClellans, like most of the greatnesses of the +West Point clique, have no impulse, no sense for attack, because +what is called _la grande guerre_, that is the offensive war, was +not among the special objects of the military education in West +Point. This is evident by the pre-eminence given to engineering, and +to the engineers who represent the defensive war; and therefore the +contrast to the _grande guerre_. Some of our generals, as Grant, +Rosecrans, Reno, Reynolds, and others, and as I hear likewise of +Warren, made and make up in enthusiasm for the deficiency of +the West Point education. But the majority of the _educated_ +Potomac commanders and generals were not, and are not much troubled +by enthusiasm. + +_October 12._--In his answer to the Missouri patriotic deputation, +Mr. Lincoln, with one eye at least to the re-election, proves to +the observer that he, Lincoln, has not yet found out which party +will be the stronger when the election shall be at the door. Mr. +Lincoln has not yet made his choice between the radical, immediate +emancipationists and those who wish a slow, do-nothing, successive, +_pro rata_ emancipation. Not having yet found it out, Mr. Lincoln +has not yet fully decided which direction finally he has to take; +and therefore he shifts a little to the right, a little to the left, +and tries to hush up both parties. Our so characteristic military +operations are closely connected with the vascillating policy and +with the hesitation to cut the knot. + +_October 13._--Unparalleled in the world's history is the manner in +which the war is conducted here, from May, 1861, to this day. The +annals of the Asiatic, ancient, and of modern Tartar warfare, the +annals of Greece, of Macedon, of Rome, the annals of all wars fought +in Europe since the overthrow of the Romans down to the day of +Solferino, all have nothing similar to what is done here. This new +method henceforth will constitute an epoch in military _un_-science. + +_October 13._--General Meade in full and quick retreat. The most +contradictory rumors and explications of this retreat; some of the +explications having even the flavor of official authority. One thing +is certain, that when a general who confronted an enemy at once +begins to manoeuvre backwards, without having fought or lost a +battle, such a general is out-manoeuvred by his enemy. O for a young +man with enthusiasm, and with inspiration! Suggested to Stanton to +shun the men of Williamsport, or to look for enthusiasts such as +Warren. + +Chaos everywhere; chaos in the direction of affairs, and a +disgraceful chaos in the military operations. But as always, so this +time, it is nobody's fault. + +Fetish McClellan finally and distinctly showed his hand, and joined +the Copperheads in the Pennsylvania election. McClellan is now ripe +for the dictatorship of the Copperheads. Will Mr. Lincoln have +courage to dismiss McClellan from the army? A self-respecting +Government ought to do it. Let McClellan be taken care of by the +_World_. _Par nobile fratrum._ + +_October 14._-- + + _Nox erat et coelo fulgebat luna sereno_, + +and the virtuous city of Washington enjoyed the sleep of innocence: +the genius of the country was watchful. Halleck slept not. +Orderlies, patrols, generals, officers, cavalry, infantry, all were +on their legs. Halleck took the command in person. What a running! +First in the rooms, then in the streets and on the roads, and on the +bridges whose planks were taken off. And thus about the cock's crow +the nightmare vanished, and Halleck, satisfied to have fulfilled his +duty towards the country and towards the innocent Washingtonians, +Halleck went to bed. + +_October 15._--Our head-quarters at Fairfax Court House. It is not +a retreat. O no! It is only splendid backward manoeuvring! + +As far as the Virginia campaign is concerned, the situation to-day +is below that previous to the first Bull Run. Lee menacing, going we +know not where; guerrillas in the rear of our army, at the +gates--literally and geographically at the gates of Alexandria and +of Washington. Previous to the first Bull Run, the country bled not; +to-day the people is minus thousands and thousands of its children, +and to see Lee twenty to thirty miles from Washington! What will be +the manoeuvring to-morrow? + +Warren fought well, but if Sykes was within supporting distance, why +did they not annihilate the rebel corps? Two corps ought not to have +been afraid to be cut off from the rest of the army distant only a +few miles. Or perhaps orders exist not to bring about a general +engagement? All is now possible and probable. _Our great plans may +not yet be ripe._ + +When the smoke and dust of the manoeuvring will be over, I heartily +wish that our losses in the retreat may prove innocent and as +insignificant as they are reported to be. + +On the outside, Lee's movement appears as brilliant as it is +desperate. Has not this time Lee overshot the mark? Cunctator Meade +may have some lucid moment, and punish Lee for his impertinence. And +every and any thing can be done with our brave boys, provided they +are commanded and generaled. + +In military sciences and history, it would be said that Lee has +_ramené tambour battant_ Meade under the defences of Washington. +Such a result obtained without a battle, counts among the most +splendid military accomplishments, and reveals true generalship. + +_October 17._--Meade was decided to retreat, even before Lee began +to move, say the knowing ones, say the military authorities. If +Meade wanted not to go to Culpepper Court-house, or to march towards +the enemy, or to occupy the head waters of those rivers, then why +was our army promenaded in that direction? To amuse the people? to +increase losses in men and in material? Was it done without any +plan? I supposed, and the country supposed, that Meade marched south +to fight Lee where he would have found him; but it turns out that it +was done in order to bring Lee towards Washington and towards the +Potomac. What a snare! + +_October 17._--The electoral victory in Pennsylvania marks a new +evolution in the internal _polity_ of the country. It is the victory +of the younger and better men as represented by Curtin, by Coffey, +etc., over the old hacks, old sepulchres, old tricposters and over +men who sucked the treasury and the people's pocket; they did it +scientifically, thoroughly, and with a coolness of masters. Oh! +could other States therein imitate Pennsylvania, then, the salvation +of the country is certain. + +_October 17: Evening._--The knowing ones promise a battle for +to-morrow. Yes, if Lee will. But if not, will Meade attack Lee? who +I am sure will continue his movement and operation whatever these +may be. We are at _guessing_. + +Repeatedly and repeatedly it is half-officially trumpeted to the +country, that this or that general selected his ground and awaits a +battle. It reminds one of the wars in Italy during the thirteenth +and fourteenth centuries. And if the general who forced backwards +his antagonist, if he prefers not to attack, but continues to +manoeuvre, what becomes of the select, own ground? Who ever read +that Alexander, or Cesar, or Frederic, or Napoleon, or even captains +of lesser fame, selected their ground? All of them fought the enemy +where they found him, or by skillful manoeuvring hemmed the enemy or +forced him to abandon his select position. Cases where a general can +really force the antagonist to attack _such a select, own ground_, +such cases are special, and very rare. + +And so for the second time in this year, Lee shakes and disturbs our +quiet in Washington. Oh why is Lee engaged on the bad and damnable +side? + +_October 18._--A new _whereas_ calling for three hundred thousand +volunteers. The people will volunteer. Oh this great people is ready +for every sacrifice. But you, O you! who so recklessly waste all the +people's sacrifices, will you volunteer more brains and less +selfishness? + +_October 18._--And when all the efforts of great men converged to +the re-election and election, Lee converged towards Washington. Be +the people on their guard and warned! + + NOTE.--The publication of this book has occurred at a culminating + period of annoyances and inconveniences which may possibly have + left traces in the volume now finished. The Author's residence in + Washington--unprecedented delays of the mails--scarcity of + compositors--and beyond all, the confusion from unavoidable + duplication of proofs, have so annoyed the Author, that it is but + just to make this brief explanation and apology. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Diary from November 12, 1862, to +October 18, 1863, by Adam Gurowski + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + +***** This file should be named 29264-8.txt or 29264-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/6/29264/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 + +Author: Adam Gurowski + +Release Date: June 28, 2009 [EBook #29264] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tn"> +<p>Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. +Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all +other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling +has been maintained.</p> + +<p>Page 94: The word "of" has been added in "If the Army of the Potomac".</p> +</div> + +<h1>DIARY,<br> +<span class="small">FROM</span><br> +<span class="smaller">NOVEMBER 18, 1862, TO OCTOBER 18, 1863.</span></h1> + +<p class="smaller center">BY</p> + +<h2>ADAM GUROWSKI.</h2> + +<p class="p2 center">VOLUME SECOND.</p> + +<p class="p4 smaller center">NEW-YORK:<br> +<i>Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway.</i><br> +MDCCCLXIV.</p> + +<p class="p2 smaller center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,<br> +<span class="smcap">By</span> GEO. W. CARLETON,<br> +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern +District of New York.</p> + +<p class="p4">Of all the peoples known in history, the American people most +readily forgets <span class="smcap">YESTERDAY</span>;</p> + +<p>I publish this <span class="smcap">Diary</span> in order to recall <span class="smcap">YESTERDAY</span> to the memory of +my countrymen.</p> + +<p class="right10">GUROWSKI.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, October, 1863.</p> + + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page007" name="page007"></a>(p. 007)</span> CONTENTS.</h3> + +<div class="toc"> +<p class="p2 center">NOVEMBER, 1862.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Secretary Chase</span> — French Mediation — The Decembriseur — + Diplomatic Bendings. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page011">11</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">DECEMBER, 1862.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">President's Message</span> — Political Position — Fredericksburgh — + Fog — Accident — Crisis in the Cabinet — Secretary Chase — + Burnside — Halleck — The Butchers — The Lickspittle Republican + Press — War Committee Patriots — Youth — People — Ring out. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page022">22</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">JANUARY, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Proclamation</span> — Parade — Halleck — Diplomats — Herodians — + Inspired Men — War Powers — Rosecrans — Butler — Seward — + Doctores <span class="pagenum"><a id="page008" name="page008"></a>(p. 008)</span> Constitutionis — Hogarth — Rhetors — + European Enemies — Second Sight — Senator Wright, the Patriot + — Populus Romanus — Future Historian — English People — Gen. + Mitchel — Hooker in Command — Staffs — Arming Africo-Americans + — Thurlow Weed, &c. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page061">61</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">FEBRUARY, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">The Problems before the People</span> — The Circassian — Department of + State and International Laws — Foresight — Patriot Stanton and + the Rats — Honest Conventions — Sanitary Commission — Harper's + Ferry — John Brown — The Yellow Book — The Republican Party — + Epitaph — Prize Courts — Suum cuique — Academy of Sciences — + Democratic Rank and File, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page119">119</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">MARCH, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Press</span> — Ethics — President's Powers — Seward's Manifestoes — + Cavalry — Letters of Marque — Halleck — Sigel — Fighting — + McDowell — Schalk — Hooker — Etat Major-General — Gold — + Cloaca Maxima — Alliance — Burnside — Halleckiana — Had we + but Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page159">159</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">APRIL, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Lord Lyons</span> — Blue Book — Diplomats — Butler — Franklin — + Bancroft — Homunculi — Fetishism — Committee on the Conduct of + the War — Non-intercourse — Peterhoff — Sultan's Firman — + Seward — Halleck — Race — Capua — Feint — Letter-writing — + England — Russia — American Revolution — Renovation — Women + — Monroe Doctrine, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page182">182</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page009" name="page009"></a>(p. 009)</span> MAY, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Advance</span> — Crossing — Chancellorsville — Hooker — Staff — Lee + — Jackson — Stunned — Suggestions — Meade — Swinton — La + Fayette — Happy Grant — Rosecrans — Halleck — Foote — + Elections — Re-elections — Tracks — Seward — 413, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page215">215</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">JUNE, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Banks</span> — "The Enemy Crippled" — Count Zeppelin — Hooker — + Stanton — "Give Him a Chance" — Mr. Lincoln's Looks — + Rappahannock — Slaughter — North Invaded — "To be Stirred up" + — Blasphemous Curtin — Banquetting — Groping — Retaliation — + Foote — Hooker — Seward — Panama — Chase — Relieved — Meade + — Nobody's Fault — Staffs, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page238">238</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">JULY, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Eneas</span> — Anchises — General Warren — Aldie — General + Pleasanton — Superior Mettle — Gettysburgh — Cholera Morbus — + Vicksburgh — Army of Heroes — Apotheosis — "Not Name the + Generals" — Indian Warfare — Politicians — Spittoons — Riots + — Council of War — Lords and Lordlings — Williamsport — Shame + — Wadsworth — "To meet the Empress Eugénie," etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page257">257</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">AUGUST, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Stanton</span> — Twenty Thousand — Canadians — Peterhoff — Coffey — + Initiation — Electioneering — Reports — Grant — McClellan — + Belligerent Rights — Menagerie — Watson — Jury — Democrats — + Bristles — "Where is Stanton?" — "Fight the Monster" — + Chasiana — Luminaries — Ballistic — Political Economy, etc. + <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page286">286</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center"><span class="pagenum"><a id="page010" name="page010"></a>(p. 010)</span> SEPTEMBER, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Jeff Davis</span> — Incubuerunt — O, Youth! — Lucubrations — Genuine + Europe — It is Forgotten — Fremont — Prof. Draper — New + Yorkers — Senator Sumner's Gauntlet — Prince Gortschakoff — + Governor Andrew — New Englanders — Re-elections — Loyalty — + Cruizers — Matamoras — Hurrah for Lincoln — Rosecrans — + Strategy — Sabine Pass, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page310">310</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2 center">OCTOBER, 1863.</p> + +<p><span class="minmargin">Aghast</span> — Firing — Supported — Russian Fleet — Opposition — + Amor scelerated — Cautious — Mastiffs — <i>Grande Guerre</i> — + Manœuvring — Tambour battant — Warning, etc. <span class="ralign5"><a href="#page338">338</a></span></p> +</div> + + +<h1><span class="pagenum"><a id="page011" name="page011"></a>(p. 011)</span> DIARY.</h1> + +<h3>NOVEMBER, 1862.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Secretary Chase — French Mediation — the Decembriseur — + Diplomatic Bendings.</p> + + +<p><i>November 18.</i>—In the street a soldier offered to sell me the pay +already several months overdue to him. As I could not help him, as +gladly I would have done, being poor, he sold it to a curb-stone +broker, a street note-shaver. I need not say that the poor soldier +sustained a loss of twenty-five per cent. by the operation! He +wanted to send the money home to his poor wife and children; yet one +fourth of it was thus given into the hands of a stay-at-home +speculator. Alas, for me! I could not save the poor fellow from the +remorseless shaver, but I could and did join him in a very energetic +cursing of Chase, that at once pompous and passive patriot.</p> + +<p>This induced me to enter upon a further and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page012" name="page012"></a>(p. 012)</span> more particular +investigation, and I found that hundreds of similar cases were of +almost daily occurrence; and that this cheating of the soldiers out +of their nobly and patriotically earned pay, may quite fairly be +denounced as rather the rule than as the exception. The army is +unpaid! Unspeakable infamy! Before,—long before the intellectually +poor occupant of the White House, long before <i>any</i> civil employé, +big or little, the <span class="smcap">Army</span> ought to be paid. Common humanity, common +sense, and sound policy affirm this; and common decency, to say +nothing about chivalric feelings, adds that when paymasters are sent +to the army at all, their first payments should be made to the rank +and file; the generals and their subordinate officers to be paid, +not before, but afterwards. Oh! for the Congress, for the Congress +to meet once again! My hope is in the Congress, to resist, and +sternly put an end to, such heaven-defying and man-torturing +injustice as now braves the curses of outraged men, and the anger of +God. How this pompous Chase disappoints every one, even those who at +first were inclined to be even weakly credulous and hopeful of his +official career. And why is Stanton silent? He ought to roar. As for +Lincoln—he, ah! * * * * The curses of all the books of all the +prophets be upon the culprits who have thus compelled <span class="pagenum"><a id="page013" name="page013"></a>(p. 013)</span> our +gallant and patriotic soldiery to mingle their tears with their own +blood and the blood of the enemy!</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 18.</i>—Again Seward assures Lord Lyons that the national +troubles will soon be over, and that the general affairs of the +country "stand where he wanted them." Seward's crew circulate in the +most positive terms, that the country will be pacified by the State +Department! England, moved by the State papers and official +notes—England, officially and non-officially, will stop the +iron-clads, built and launched in English ports and harbors for the +use of the rebels, and for the annoyance and injury of the United +States. England, these Americans say, England, no doubt, has said +some hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherous +actions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influence of +Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly +irresistible. How the wily Palmerston must chuckle in Downing +Street.</p> + +<p>The difference between Seward and a real statesman, is this: that a +statesman is always, and very wisely, chary about committing himself +in writing, and only does it when compelled by absolutely +irresistible circumstances, or by temptations brilliant enough to +overrule all other considerations; for, such <span class="pagenum"><a id="page014" name="page014"></a>(p. 014)</span> a statesman +never for one moment forgets or disregards the old adage which saith +that "<i>Verba volant, scripta manent</i>." But Seward, on the contrary, +literally revels in a flood of ink, and fancies that the more he +writes, the greater statesman he becomes.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of this month, I wrote to the French minister, M. +Mercier, a friendly and respectful note, warning him against +meddling with politicians and busybodies. I told him that, before he +could even suspect it, such men would bring his name before the +public in a way neither pleasant nor profitable to him. M. Mercier +took it in good part, and cordially thanked me for my advice.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 19.</i>—Burnside means well, and has a good heart; but something +more is required to make a capable captain, more especially in such +times as those in which we are living. It is said that his staff is +well organized; God be praised for that, if it really is so. In that +case, Burnside will be the first among the loudly-lauded and +self-conceited West-Point men, forcibly to impress both the military +and the civilian mind in America, with a wholesome consciousness of +the paramount importance to an army of a thoroughly competent and +trustworthy staff.</p> + +<p>The division of the army into three grand corps is good; it is at +once wise and well-timed, following <span class="pagenum"><a id="page015" name="page015"></a>(p. 015)</span> the example set by +Napoleon, when he invaded Russia in 1812. If his subordinate +generals will but do well, I have entire confidence in Hooker. He is +the man for the time and for the place. As a fighting man, Sumner is +fully and unquestionably reliable; but I have my doubts about +Franklin. He is cold, calculating, and ambitious, and he has the +especially bad quality of being addicted to the alternate blowing of +hot and cold. Burnside did a good thing in confiding to General +Siegel a separate command.</p> + +<p>The <i>New York Times</i> begins to mend its bad ways; but how long will +it continue in the better path?</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 20.</i>—England stirs up and backs up rebellion and disunion +here; but, in Europe, for the sake of the unity of barbarism, +Islamism, and Turkey, England throttles, and manacles, and lays +prostrate beneath the feet of the Osmanli, the Greeks, the Sclavi, +the heroic Montenegrins. England is the very incarnation of a +treachery and a perfidy previously unexampled in the history of the +world. The <i>Punica fides</i>, so fiercely denounced and so bitterly +satirized by the historians and poets of old Rome, was truthful if +compared to the <i>Fides Anglica</i> of our own day.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 22.</i>—Our army seems to be massed so as to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page016" name="page016"></a>(p. 016)</span> be able to +wedge itself in between Jackson in the valley and Lee at +Gordonsville. By a bold manœuvre, each of them could be +separately attacked, and, I firmly believe, destroyed. But, +unfortunately, boldness and manœuvre, that highest gift, that +supreme inspiration of the consummate captain, have no abiding place +in the bemuddled brains of the West-Pointers, who are a dead weight +and drag-chain upon the victimised and humiliated Army of the +Potomac.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 25.</i>—The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towards +Fredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seems +to be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask our +movements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, if +preferable, what is to hinder the interposition of <i>un rideau +vivant</i>, a <i>living curtain</i>, in the form of a false attack, a feint +in considerable force, behind which the whole army might be securely +thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least two days' march +would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on the direct line +for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to be the base for +future operations. In this way, the army would have marched against +Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or, supposing those plans +to be rejected, why not throw a whole army corps at once, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page017" name="page017"></a>(p. 017)</span> +say 40,000 to 50,000 strong, across the Rappahannock. On either +plan, I repeat it, at least two days' march would have been stolen +upon Lee; three or four days of forced marches would have been +healthy for our army, and a bloodless victory would have been +obtained by the taking of the seemingly undefended Fredericksburg. A +dense cloud enveloped this whole enterprise, and it is not even +improbable, that the campaign may become a dead failure even before +it has accomplished the half of its projected and loudly vaunted +course. But bold conceptions, and energetic movements to match them, +are just about as possible to Halleck or Burnside as railroad speed +to the tedious tortoise.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 25.</i>—Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. He offers +his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moral support to +the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That +<i>Decembriseur</i>.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1" title="Go to footnote 1"><span class="smaller">[1]</span></a> Our military slowness, if nothing else is the +matter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, and +Seward's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page018" name="page018"></a>(p. 018)</span> lying and all-confusing foreign policy have +encouraged foreign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all +along anticipated them as an at least very possible result of the +above mentioned causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I +scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same +impertinent French action may prove a second French <i>faux pas</i>, to +follow in the wake of the first and very egregious <i>faux pas</i> in +Mexico. The best that we can say for the <i>Decembriseur</i> is, that he +is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and +atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the +Tuileries. My, Russia—ah! I am very confident of that—will refuse +to join in the dirty and treacherous conspiracy for the +preservation of slavery. Well for mediation. But Mr. <i>Decembriseur</i>, +what think you and your diplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what +determination do you and they form as to the terms and the +termination, too, of your diabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your +shilly-shally generalities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a +commercial union, this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let +us in all plainness of speech know what it is that you really and +positively intend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of +your imperial proposition.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page019" name="page019"></a>(p. 019)</span> <i>Nov. 27.</i>—Lee, with his army, marches or marched on the +south side of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on +the north side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly +follows. They are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, +but stern; still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that +Burnside may be successful, and that I may prove to have been a +false prophet. But the great <i>Fatum</i>, <span class="smcap">Fate</span>, seems to declare against +Burnside, and Fate generally takes sides with bold conceptions and +their energetic execution.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 28.</i>—The French despatch-scheme reads very like a Washington +concoction, and does not at all bear the marks of Parisian origin. I +find in it whole phrases which, for months past, I have repeatedly +heard from the French minister here. Perhaps Mr. Mercier, in his +turn, may have caught many of Mr. Seward's much-cherished +generalities, unintelligible, very probably, even to himself, and +quite certainly so to every one but himself. Perhaps, I say, Mr. +Mercier may have caught up some of them, and making them up at +hap-hazard into a <i>macedoine</i>, a hash, a hotch-potch, has served up +the second-hand and heterogeneous mess to his master in Paris. The +despatch expresses the fear of a servile war; this may very well +have been copied from Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, (May, +1862,) <span class="pagenum"><a id="page020" name="page020"></a>(p. 020)</span> wherein Seward attempted to frighten England by a +prophecy of a servile war in this country.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 30.</i>—Mr. Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the +French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme +corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the +raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, +(see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and +repeatedly warned Stanton.</p> + +<p><i>Nov. 30.</i>—Mercier, the French diplomat, rapidly gravitates towards +the Copperheads—Democrats. Is he acting thus <i>in obedience to +orders</i>? After all, some of the diplomats here, and especially those +of what call themselves the "three great powers," almost openly +sympathize and side with secessionists, and patronize Copperheads, +traitors, and spies. The exceptions to this rule are but few; +strictly speaking, indeed, I should except only one young man. Some +diplomats justify this conduct on the plea that the Republican +Congressmen are "great bores," who will not play at cards, or dine +and drink copiously; accomplishments in which the Secesh was so +pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic +heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its <span class="pagenum"><a id="page021" name="page021"></a>(p. 021)</span> +representatives for thus incurring the contempt of dissipated +diplomats.</p> + +<p>Some persons maintain that Stanton breaks down, perhaps that he +suffers, physically as well as mentally, from his necessitated +contact with his official colleagues and his and their persistent, +inevitable and inexorable hangers-on and supplicants. I do not +perceive the alleged failure of his health or powers, and I do not +believe it; but assuredly, it were no marvel if such really were the +case. It must be an adamantine constitution and temper that could +long bear with impunity the daily contact with a Lincoln, a Seward, +a Halleck, and others less noted, indeed, but not the less +contagious.</p> + + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page022" name="page022"></a>(p. 022)</span> DECEMBER, 1862</h3> + +<p class="resume">President's Message — Political position — Fredericksburgh — + Fog — Accident — Crisis in the Cabinet — Secretary Chase — + Burnside — Halleck — the Butchers — The Lickspittle Republican + Press — War Committee patriots — Youth — People — Ring out.</p> + +<p>Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and +the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that +it is <i>impossible</i> to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course +it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan +and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and +the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of +<span class="smcap">THE PEOPLE</span> left to itself, it would be very <i>possible</i> and even +quite easily <i>possible</i>.</p> + +<p>The message is written with an eye turned towards the Democrats; +they are to be satisfied with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page023" name="page023"></a>(p. 023)</span> the prospect of a convention. +Seward puts lies into Lincoln's pen, in relation to foreign nations. +But all is well, in the judgment of our <i>Great Statesmen</i>. Even the +poor logic is, according to them, quite admirable.</p> + +<p>Contrariwise, Stanton's report corresponds to the height and the +gravity of events, and is worthy alike of the writer, and of the +people to whom it is addressed.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 6.</i>—Nearly four weeks the campaign has been opened; the enemy +adds fortifications to fortifications before the very eyes of our +army, yet nothing has been done towards preventing the rebels from +working upon the formidable strongholds.</p> + +<p>Does Halleck-Burnside intend to wait until the rebels shall be +thoroughly prepared to repel any attack that may be made upon them? +Either there is foul play going on, or there is stupendous +stupidity pervading the entire management. But no one sees it, or +rather few, if any, wish to see it. Stanton, I am quite sure, has +nothing to do with the special plans of this enterprise. All is +planned and ruled by Lincoln, Halleck and Burnside.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 7.</i>—The political situation to-day, may be summarily stated +as follows: the Republicans are confused by recent electoral +defeats, and by the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page024" name="page024"></a>(p. 024)</span> administrative and governmental +helplessness, as exhibited every day by their leaders; the +Democrats, flushed with success, display an unusual activity in evil +doing, and are risking everything to preserve Slavery and the South +from destruction. I speak of the Simon-pure Democrats, <i>alias</i> +Copperheads, such as the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the +Coxes, the Biddles, &c. The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a +compromise. The masses of the people, staggered by all this +bewildering turmoil and impure factiousness, are nevertheless, +stubbornly determined to persevere and to succeed in saving their +country.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 7.</i>—The European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether +in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of +our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have +decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards +preventing this noble American people from working out its mighty +and beneficent destinies, and from elaborating and making more +glorious than ever its own already very glorious history. As well +might the brainless and heartless conspirators against human +progress and human liberty endeavor to arrest the rotation of a +planet by the stroke of a pickaxe.</p> + +<p>Ah! Mr. <i>Decembriseur</i>, with your base crew of lickspittles, your +pigmy, though treacherous efforts, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page025" name="page025"></a>(p. 025)</span> even contending with +those of the English enemies of light, and of right, your common +hatred of Freedom and Freemen will end in being the destruction of +yourself.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 7.</i>—Burnside complains of the manner in which he is +victimised, and explains his inactivity by the fact that the War +Department neglected to furnish him with the necessary pontoons. +How, in fact, was Burnside to move a great army without pontoons? +But it was the duty of Halleck, and his lazy or incompetent, or +traitorous staff, to have seen to the sending on of the pontoons. +However, supposing Burnside and <i>his</i> staff to have as much wit as +an average twelve-year-old school boy, they could have found in the +army not merely hundreds, but even thousands of proficient workmen +in a variety of mechanical trades, who would have constructed on the +spot, and at the shortest notice, any number of bridges, pontoons, +&c. Oh, how little are those wiseacre generals, the conceited and +swaggering West Pointers; oh, how very little, if at all are they +aware of the inexhaustible ingenuity and resources, the marvelous +skill and power of such intelligent masses as those of which they +are the unintelligent, the unsympathising and the thoroughly +unblessed leaders!</p> + +<p>On a Sunday, exactly four weeks back from the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page026" name="page026"></a>(p. 026)</span> day which I +wrote these lines, McClellan was dismissed, and was succeeded by +Burnside. But, after the established McClellan fashion, the great, +great army was marched 30 to 50 miles, and then halts for weeks up +to its knees in mud, and occupies itself in throwing up earthworks. +And this is called making War! and the Hallecks are great men in the +sight of Abraham Lincoln, and of all who profess and call themselves +Lincolnites, and the rest stand around wondering and agape:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>Conticuere omnes intentique ora (asinina) tenebant.</i></p> + +<p>Stanton's magnificent report states that there are about 700,000 men +under arms; yet this tremendous force is paralysed by the inactivity +of most of the generals; those in the West, however, forming a +bright and truly honorable exception. But, to be candid, how can +activity and dash be expected from generals who have at their head, +a shallow brained pedant like Halleck? Napoleon had about 500,000 +men, when, in between four and five months, he marched from the +Rhine to Moscow. Yet he had the aid of no railroad, on land, no +steam, that practical annihilator of distance, no electric +telegraph, with which to be in all but instantaneous communication +with his distant <span class="pagenum"><a id="page027" name="page027"></a>(p. 027)</span> generals, and had not similar material +resources.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 10.</i>—Mr. Seward's long correspondence with Mr. Adams shows to +Europe that Mr. Seward imitated the rebels, and tried to frighten +England with the bugbear of King Cotton; and also that he has no +solid and abiding convictions whatever. Now, he preaches +emancipation, yet, at the beginning of his <i>great</i> diplomatic +activity, he openly sided with slavery; aye, he is still willing to +save it for the sake of the Union, and, above all, and before all, +for his own chances for the next Presidency.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 10.</i>—Burnside has finally crossed the Rappahannock. Of course +I do not know the respective positions. But I am sure that if the +rebels have not a perfectly enormous advantage of position, and if +the leading of the generals be worthy of the courage of their men, +the victory must be ours. Oh! were all our generals Hookers, and not +Burnsides!</p> + +<p>General McDowell's Court of Inquiry produces some strange +revelations. The inquiry will not end in making a thorough general +of McDowell. He may have been somewhat unfortunate, no doubt; but +his want of good fortune was at least equalled by his want of good +generalship. I, and many others besides, were quite mistaken in our +early estimate <span class="pagenum"><a id="page028" name="page028"></a>(p. 028)</span> of McDowell. He should not so easily have +swallowed the second Bull Run. He should at least have been wounded, +if only ever so slightly; his best friends must wish that. But to be +defeated, and come out without even a scratch! What a digestion the +man must have for the hardest kinds of humiliation! But neither the +President nor that curse of the country, McClellan, has great reason +to plume himself much upon his share in the revelations that are +made in the course of this Inquiry. McDowell himself seems to have +been intended, by nature for a scheming and adroit politician. * * * *</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 10.</i>—The Congress feels the ground, hesitates, and apparently +lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even +such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well! +The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional +cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional +digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of political +faithlessness.</p> + +<p>I have only now discovered certain of the reasons why the Battle of +Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no <i>ensemble</i> and such +marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line +many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on +the wing opposed to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page029" name="page029"></a>(p. 029)</span> Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and +centre of the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is +generalship! The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so +mischievous, attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The +victory, such as it was, was due to the subordinate generals, and to +the heroic bravery of the rank and file of the army.</p> + +<p>When Burnside was invested with the command of the Army of the +Potomac, he for nearly twenty-four hours retained McClellan in camp, +with the intention of returning the command of the army to him if +the rebels had attacked, as it was expected they would, during +Sunday and Monday.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 13.</i>—Night. Fight at Fredericksburgh. No news. O God!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 14.</i>—As the consequence of Halleck-Burnside's slowness, our +troops storm positions which are said to be impregnable by nature, +and still farther strengthened by artificial works.</p> + +<p>The President is even worse than I had imagined him to be. He has no +earnestness, but is altogether in the hands of Seward and Halleck. +He cannot, even in this supreme crisis, be earnest and serious for +half an hour. Such was the severe but terribly true verdict passed +upon him by Fessenden of Maine.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page030" name="page030"></a>(p. 030)</span> <i>Dec. 15.</i>—Slaughter and infamy! Slaughter of our troops +who fought like Titans, though handled in a style to reflect nothing +but infamy upon their commanders. When the rebel works had become +impregnable, then, but not until then, our troops were hurled +against them! The flower of the army has thus been butchered by the +surpassing stupidity of its commanders. The details of that +slaughter, and of the imbecility displayed by our officers in high +command,—those details, when published, will be horrible. The +Lincoln-Seward-Halleck-influence gave Burnside the command because +he was to take care of the army. And how Burnside has fulfilled +their expectations! It seems that the best way to take care of an +army is to make it victorious.</p> + +<p>My brave and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two +sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery +was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and +most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast +of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence to say—"Wadsworth +may go wherever he pleases, even if he pleases to go to Hell!"</p> + +<p>Hell itself, would be too good a place for Halleck; imbeciles are +not admitted there!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page031" name="page031"></a>(p. 031)</span> <i>Dec. 17.</i>—The details are coming in. The disaster of our +army is terrible—indescribable; the heroic people bleeds, bleeds! +And all this calamity and all this suffering and humiliation, are +brought on by the stupidity of Burnside and Halleck, or both of +them. The curse of the people ought to rest for centuries upon the +very names of the authors of such frightful disaster. They are +fiends, yea, worse, even, than the very fiends themselves.</p> + +<p>Why, even the very rabble in Constantinople would storm the seraglio +after such a massacre. But here—oh, here, it just reminds Mr. +Lincoln of a little anecdote.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 17.</i>—I meet with but few such as Wade, Grimes, Chandler and +other radicals in both Houses of Congress, who seem to feel all the +heart burning and bitterness of soul at this awful Fredericksburgh +disaster. The real criminals, those who ought, in the agonies of a +great shame, call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them +not, blush not, sorrow not.</p> + +<p>In many of the general public, I have no doubt that the feeling of +shame and sympathy, are blunted by these repeated military +calamities, and by Mr. Lincoln's undaunted i..........</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <span class="pagenum"><a id="page032" name="page032"></a>(p. 032)</span> + * * * * * and men,<br> + Have wept enough, for what? To weep,<br> + To weep again.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 17.</i>—About ten days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to +Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means +Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and +immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is +always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward +the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some +of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward +from playing either the prophet or the fool.</p> + +<p>Burnside took care of the army, no doubt, but it was of the rebel +army. Our soldiers have been brought by him to the block, to an easy +slaughter, he himself being some few miles in the rear, and having +between him the river, and the intervening miles of land. All this, +however, was according to the regulations, and on the most approved +Halleck-McClellan fashion of fighting great battles.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 18.</i>—The disaster was inaugurated by the shelling of +Fredericksburgh. One hundred and forty-seven (147!) guns playing +upon a few houses. It was the play of a maddened child, exhibiting +in equal proportions, reckless ferocity and egregious stupidity; and +it is difficult to find one dyslogistic <span class="pagenum"><a id="page033" name="page033"></a>(p. 033)</span> term which will +adequately describe and condemn it.</p> + +<p>From what I can already gather of the details of the attack, it may +be peremptorily concluded that Burnside, Sumner, and above all, +Franklin, are utterly incompetent of a skillful and effective +handling of great masses of troops. They attacked by brigades, +positions so formidable, that if they could possibly be carried by +any exertion of human skill and strength, they could only be carried +by large masses impetuously hurled against them. Franklin seems +especially to have acted ill in not at once throwing in 10,000 men +to be followed rapidly and again and again by 10,000 more. In that +wise and only in that wise, he might possibly have broken and turned +the enemy, and thrown him on his own centre. It is said that +Franklin had 60,000. If so, he could easily have risked some 20,000 +in the first onslaught. Sixty thousand! Great God! Why, it is an +army in itself, in the hands of a general at all deserving of that +name. If those great West Pointers had only even the slightest idea +of military history! More battles have been fought and won with +60,000 men, and with fewer still, than with larger numbers, and at +Fredericksburgh Franklin's force formed only a wing against an enemy +whose whole army could number <span class="pagenum"><a id="page034" name="page034"></a>(p. 034)</span> but little more than 60,000. +I want the reports with the full and positive details.</p> + +<p>The clear-sighted and warlike <span class="smcap">Tribune</span> discovered in Burnside high, +brilliant, and soldier-like qualities—admirably borne out and +illustrated no doubt, by the Fredericksburgh butchery! To the +hospital of imbeciles with all such imbeciles!</p> + +<p>The <i>Times</i> was manly in its appreciation, and flunkeyed to no one +under hand, that is, confidentially and for newspaper publication.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward reveals to the world at large, that, besides his volume +of 700 pages, containing the last diplomatic correspondence, he has +still an equal number of masterpieces as yet not published. What a +dreadful dysentery of despatch-writing the poor man and his still +more afflicted readers must labor under.</p> + +<p>The Lincoln-Seward policy, has rebuilt the awful Democratic party, +which was broken up, prostrated in the dust. Lincoln—Seward—Weed, +partially emasculated the Republican party, and may even emasculate +the thus far thoroughly virile and devoted patriotism of the people.</p> + +<p>A helpless imbecile in the hands of a cunning and selfish and +ruthless charlatan, is the sight that daily meets our eyes in +Washington.</p> + +<p>General Bayard, one of the slaughtered at Fredericksburgh, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page035" name="page035"></a>(p. 035)</span> +was a true Bayard of the army, and one of the very few West Pointers +free from conceit, that corrosive and terribly prevalent malady of +the West Point clique.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 18.</i>—Senators waking up to their duties, and to the +consciousness of their power. These patriots have said to Seward, +<i>Averte Sathanas</i>, and overboard he goes, after having done as much +evil as only <i>he</i> could do.</p> + +<p>The most contradictory rumors are in circulation about Stanton. I +cannot find out the truth. I do not believe all that is said, but it +is necessary to put the rumors on record. It is said then, that +Stanton stands up for the butchers and asses in the army and in his +department. I believe that in all this, there is not a single word +of truth; but if it were true, then I should say, Stanton is ruined +by bad company, and down with him and with them!</p> + +<p><i>Quoniam sic Fata tulerunt.</i> But worthy Senators and +Representatives, believe still in Stanton, and so do I; only the +Seward-Blair-McClellan clique tears Stanton's reputation to pieces. +Stanton seems to be, in some measure, infatuated with Halleck, who, +perhaps, humbugs Stanton with military technicalities, which Halleck +so well knows how to pass current for military science.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 20.</i>—The American generals, at least those <span class="pagenum"><a id="page036" name="page036"></a>(p. 036)</span> in the +Army of the Potomac, for the sake of shirking responsibility, +maintain that when once in line of battle, they must rigidly abide +by the orders given to them. No doubt, such is the military law and +rule, but it is susceptible of exceptions. The generals of the +Potomac shun the exceptions, and thus deprive their action of all +spontaneity. Perhaps, indeed, spontaneity of action is not among +their military gifts. Thus we have from them, none of those <i>coups +d'éclat</i>, those sudden, brilliant, and impetuously improvised +dashes, which so often decide the fate of the day, and turn imminent +defeat and partial panic into glorious and crowning victory. We find +none such, if we except some actions of Hooker and Kearney, on a +small scale, and at the beginning of the campaign in the +Chickahominy, or the Peninsula. The most celebrated <i>coups d'éclat</i> +in general military history, have mostly been, so to speak, the +children of inspiration, seizing Time by the forelock,—thus using +opportunity which sometimes exists but for a few minutes, and thus a +doubtful struggle terminates in a brilliant success. At such +critical moments, the commander of a wing, or a corps, nay, even a +division, ought to have the courage, the lofty self-abnegation, and +firm confidence in his star or good luck, and still more in the +enduring pluck of his men, and boldly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page037" name="page037"></a>(p. 037)</span> strike for the +accomplishment of that which the "Orders" have not mentioned or +foreseen. Such a general acts on his own inspiration, and at the +same time reports to the Commander-in-Chief, what he has determined +upon. If instead of acting thus promptly, he sends and waits for +further orders, the auspicious opportunity may pass away; the +decisive moments in a battle are very rapid, and a single hour lost, +loses the day, or reduces the results of a victory.</p> + +<p>I respectfully submit these undeniable but much disregarded truths +to the Hallecks, McClellans, McDowells, and other great West +Pointers.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 20.</i>—The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and +more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have +very much elongated countenances.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 21.</i>—Senator Wilson has learned from Halleck, Burnside, and +from some other and similarly <i>great</i> captains, that the affair of +Fredericksburgh, and the recrossing of the river, brilliantly +compares with the countermarchings of Wagram, and with that +celebrated crossing of the Danube. As there is not, in reality, a +single point of similitude, the comparison is well selected, and +does great honor to the judgment of the military wiseacres. At all +events, never was the memory of a Napoleon, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page038" name="page038"></a>(p. 038)</span> a Massena, or a +Davoust, more ignominiously desecrated than by this comparison.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 22.</i>—So, then, Sathanas Seward remains, and Mr. Lincoln +scorns the advice of the wisest and most patriotic Senators. To be +snubbed by Lincoln and Seward, is the greatest of all possible +humiliations. Border-state politicians, Harrises, Brownings and +other etceteras of grain, are the confidential advisers. Political +manhood is utterly, and to all seeming, irretrievably lost.</p> + +<p>Stanton still holds with Seward. <i>Embrassons nous, et que cela +finisse.</i></p> + +<p>How brilliantly do even the very basest times of any government +whatever, Parliamentary, royal or despotic, compare with what I now +daily see here in the capital of the great republic!</p> + +<p>Since the earliest existence of political parties, rarely, if ever, +has a party been in such a difficult, and, at times, even +disgraceful position, as that of the patriots of both houses of +Congress. Against the combined attacks of all stripes of traitors, +such as ultra Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Copperheads and +pure and impure Democrats, the patriots must defend an +administration which they themselves condemn, and with the personnel +of which, (Stanton and Wells excepted,) they have no sympathy and no +identity of ideas. They must defend <span class="pagenum"><a id="page039" name="page039"></a>(p. 039)</span> an administration which +opposes even measures which they, the patriots, demand,—an +administration which, in the recent elections, either betrayed or +disgraced the whole party, and which brought into suspicion, if not +into actual contempt, the name, nay, even the principles of the +Republicans. And thus the patriots have the dead weight to support, +and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded and shallow Republican +press, has no comprehension of the difficulty of the position in +which the patriots are placed; and that press, being in various ways +connected with the administration, rarely, if ever, supports the +patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best and noblest +efforts. Thus, in the move against Seward, and for a reform in the +Cabinet, the enlightened and patriotic Republican press of New York, +was either persistently mute or hostile to the movement. Every day I +am the more firmly convinced that Seward is the great stumbling +block alike to Mr. Lincoln and the country at large.</p> + +<p><i>Dec, 22.</i>—Utterly incapable as is McClellan, and absolutely +unfitted by nature to be a great captain as is Burnside, yet I think +it quite clear that neither of them would have blundered quite so +terribly if he had been provided with a really <span class="pagenum"><a id="page040" name="page040"></a>(p. 040)</span> competent, +zealous and faithful staff, as the generals of continental Europe +invariably are. But it seems that here, neither the generals nor the +government even desire to understand the true nature, duty, and +value of the staff of an army, or what the chief of such a staff +ought to know and ought to do. What, in fact, can we at all +reasonably expect from a Halleck! After all, however, and shallow +as are his brains, this mock Carnot must have read books on military +science; and yet he has not learned either the use or the +composition of a staff for an army! Had he done so, he would have +organized a staff for himself, and one for each of the commanders in +the field. It is true that in this country there is no school of +staffs, and West Pointers are generally ignorant on that point. +Nevertheless, with a little good will and care, it would be easy +enough to find intelligent officers of all grades fit for staff +duties as arranged for staff officers in Europe. But then, the +necessary good will and good judgment are wanting in the head of +this military organization. And this Halleck, this Halleck is a mere +mockery, a mere sciolist, a shallow pretender to military science. +He may have the capacity to translate a book, but nothing of all +that he translates effects any hold upon his brain, or he would, +long before now, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page041" name="page041"></a>(p. 041)</span> have done something towards organising the +army. A general inspector is the first necessity. Then establish the +necessary proportions of each arm of the service, <i>i. e.</i>, of +infantry, cavalry and artillery for each division. Then organise the +cavalry as a body. When you do this, or even a considerable part of +all this, oh, sham-Carnot, Halleck! then your chance to be +considered a military authority will be established. Oh, science, +oh, insulted science! How desecrated is thy name in the high places +here, and especially on the right and left of the White House. And +oh! you really great and intelligent American <span class="smcap">PEOPLE</span>, how +ignominiously you are cheated of your blood, your time, your money, +and most of all, of your so recently magnificent national +reputation!</p> + +<p>What your military wiseacres show you as an organized army, would +actually thrill, as with the death-shudder, any European military +organizer.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 23.</i>—I learn that the day following the butchery at +Fredericksburgh, Burnside wished to renew the attack. What madness! +The generals protested, and Burnside, greatly exasperated, declared +that at the head of his former corps, the 9th, he would himself +storm the miniature Torres Vedras. If all this is true, then +Burnside is weaker headed than I had judged him to be; but I will +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page042" name="page042"></a>(p. 042)</span> not do him the injustice to say that he really intended to +play a mere farce. What, in the name of common sense, could he do +with a single corps, when the whole army was repulsed?</p> + +<p>I am warned by a friend, that the Army of the Potomac is so infected +with McClellanism, that is to say, by presumption, intriguing, envy +and misconception of what is true generalship,—that the army must +undergo the process of strong purification, fumigation, pruning and +weeding, (and especially among the higher branches,) before it can +ever again be made truly useful and reliable.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 22.</i>—Burnside's report. I am sure that the great luminaries +of the press, and the declaimers, the intriguants and the imbeciles, +will be thrown into fits of ecstatic admiration of what they will +call the manly and straight-forward conduct of Burnside in assuming +the responsibility and confessing his own fault. But what else could +he do? And if he acted thus in obedience to the orders of Halleck, +then instead of manliness, his conduct is almost treasonable towards +the people, for in withholding the truth as to the orders given by +Halleck, he gives that incarnation of calamity the power to repeat +the butchery and ensure the ill success of our armies.</p> + +<p>The report is altogether unsoldierly; it is fussy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page043" name="page043"></a>(p. 043)</span> and +inflated; a full blown specimen of the pompously inane. How can +Burnside venture to say that after the repulse, during three days he +expected the enemy to leave his stronghold and attack him—Burnside? +The rebels never did anything to justify such a supposition. They +are neither idiots nor madmen, and only from a McClellan, or some +bright pupils of the McClellan school, could such imbecility, such +gratuitously ruinous playing into the hands of an enemy be +expected. A commander ought to be on the watch for any mistake that +his antagonist may commit, but he is not justified in setting that +antagonist down as an ass. For two days the army was unnecessarily +kept under the guns of the enemy, that is the truth, and I will make +the truth known, no matter who may try to conceal it. Here, for the +present, I stop in sheer and uncontrollable disgust. By and by, +however, I will return to the consideration of this report.</p> + +<p>Oh! American people! In so very many respects, truly great people! +Far, very far beyond my poor powers of expression are the great love +and veneration with which ever and always I look upon you. But allow +me, pray allow me to use the frank familiarity of a true friend, so +far as just plainly to tell you, that even I, your sincere friend, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page044" name="page044"></a>(p. 044)</span> should love you none the less, and certainly should hold +you in all the greater reverence, were you not quite so +ultra-favorable in judgment of your civil and military rulers and +pastors and masters and nincompoops generally!</p> + +<p>Further back in this diary, I termed Mr. Secretary Chase a <i>passive +patriot</i>. <i>Peccavi.</i> And here let me write down my recantation! +Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet, +and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel +Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official +assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the +present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than +any other living man in daily, hourly, <i>all the time</i>, denunciation +of Seward,—of course, behind Seward's back! Several insoluble +problems, no doubt, there are; but there is not one thing, physical +or not physical, which so completely defies any comprehension and +baffles my most persistent inquiry, as just this.</p> + +<p>How, unless Chase has drank of the waters of Lethe, how can he +possibly look, now, in the face of, for instance, Fessenden of +Maine, to whom he has said so many bitter things against the now +belauded "Secretary Seward!" Bah! Chase most certainly must have a +forty-or-fifty-diplomatist power of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page045" name="page045"></a>(p. 045)</span> commanding—literally +and not slangishly be it spoken!—his <i>cheek</i>, if, without burning +blushes he can look in the face of Fessenden, Sumner or any honest +man and say,—"I admire and I support Secretary Seward!" God! If all +who, during the last two years, have come into contact with Chase, +would but come forward and speak out! In that case, thousands would +stand forth, a "cloud of witnesses," to confirm this statement. +Chase! Faugh! I hereby brand him, and leave him to the bitter +judgment of all men who can conscientiously claim to be even <i>half +honest</i>.</p> + +<p>In merest and barest justice to Seward, greatly as I disapprove of +his general course, I must here note the fact that he is by no means +addicted to evil speaking about any one. Not that this reticence +proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward, +however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one +who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or +to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but, +in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially +civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste +ammunition upon worthless game.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 23.</i>—Why could not Mr. Lincoln choose for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page046" name="page046"></a>(p. 046)</span> his +Secretary of State some man who has a holy and wholesome horror of +pen, ink, and paper? Some man gifted with a sound brain, who never +is quick at writing a dispatch, and would demand double salary as +the price of writing one? Oh! Mr. Lincoln, had you but done this, +not only would all America, but all Europe also be truly thankful +for great immunity from the curse of morbid attempts at diplomacy +and statesmanship.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 23.</i>—Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For +heaven's sake let us know, pray, <i>pray</i> let us know who was +Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is +defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has +prevented victory." <i>What</i> accident? Let the country know the +precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and +place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a +deep, dense terribly foul fog—in the <i>cerebellum</i>! Is that the +<i>accident</i> of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks? +Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the +recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled +military achievements.</p> + +<p>Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at +Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers <span class="pagenum"><a id="page047" name="page047"></a>(p. 047)</span> gave far other and +nobler proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere +crossing and recrossing of a river.</p> + +<p>The <i>Tribune</i> is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's +unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors +of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of +immortal Waterloo! The <i>Tribune</i> lauds the crossing and the +recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and +Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles +extensively about <i>comparative</i> losses. Comparative to what? Oh! +spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, +veil your blushing brows! And the <i>Tribune</i> dares to make this +impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same +time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent."</p> + +<p>But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what? +To those of the enemy? What knows he about them?</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 24.</i>—Crisis in the Seward cabinet. The "little Villain" of +the <i>Times</i>, repeated what he did after the first "Bull Run." But he +did not now confess to his dining with Seward, as formerly he did +with the great "anaconda Scott!" The New <span class="pagenum"><a id="page048" name="page048"></a>(p. 048)</span> York Republican +press is attracted to Seward by natural affinity of election. +Seward, however, holds the honey pot, and the flies are all eager to +dip into it.</p> + +<p>I wish, yet dread to hear the exact particulars of Stanton's +behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, <i>very</i> +painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have +too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become +accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What +man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the +surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain will be +followed by permanent relief?</p> + +<p>At the public dinner of "The New England Society," John Van Buren +nominated McClellan for next President, and proposed the health of +Secretary Seward. <i>Oh! quam pulchra societas!</i></p> + +<p>I am charged with being "dissatisfied with every thing, and abusing +every body." The charge is unjust. I speak most lovingly and in most +sincere admiration of the millions, of the great, toiling, brave, +honest People, and of the hundreds of thousands of the gallant +people-militant—the army! But I <i>do</i> censure some thirty or forty +individuals who dispense favors and appoint to fat offices, and, +quite naturally, every dirty-souled lickspittle is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page049" name="page049"></a>(p. 049)</span> +indignant against me therefor! The blame of such people is far +preferable to their praise!</p> + +<p>I am rejoiced, I am almost proud that Hooker insisted upon crossing +the Rappahannock, and marching to Fredericksburgh, and that he +opposed the subsequent attack.</p> + +<p>But of what benefit to me is this fatal, this Cassandra gift of +foreseeing? Alas! Better, happier would it be for me could I not +have foreseen and vainly, all vainly foretold, the terrible butchery +of a brave people during two long and fatal years!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 24.</i>—It is impossible to keep cool while reading Burnside's +report. Once more this report justifies and corroborates Prince +Napoleon's judgment on American generals, <i>i. e.</i>, that their plan +of campaigns will always be deficient in practice, like the +theoretical war-exercises of schoolboys. From this sweeping and +terribly true charge, however, we must except the Grants and +the—alas! how few!—Rosecranses.</p> + +<p>The report says, "but for the fog," etc. All lost battles in the +world had for cause some <i>buts</i>—except the genuine <i>but</i>—in the +brains of the commander.</p> + +<p>"How near we came to accomplishing," etc.—is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page050" name="page050"></a>(p. 050)</span> only a +repetition of what, <i>ad nauseam</i>, is recorded by history as +lamentations of defeated generals.</p> + +<p>"The battle would have been far more decisive." Of course it would +have been so, if—won.</p> + +<p>"As it was, we were very near success," etc. So the man who takes +the chance in the lottery. He has No. 4, and No. 3 wins the prize.</p> + +<p>The apostrophe to the heroism of the soldiers is sickly and pale. +The heroism of the soldiers! It is as brilliant, as pure, and as +certain as the sun.</p> + +<p>The attack was planned, (see paragraph 2 of the report,) on the +circumstance or supposition that the enemy extended too much his +line, and thus scattered his forces. But in paragraph 4, Burnside +stated that the fog, (O, fog!) etc., gave the enemy twenty-four +hours' time to concentrate his forces in his strong positions—when +the calculation based on the enemy's <i>division of forces</i> failed, +and the attack lost all the chances considered propitious.</p> + +<p>The whole plan had for its basis probabilities and +impossibilities—schoolroom speculations—instead of being, as it +ought to have been, as every plan of a battle should be, based on +the chances of the <i>terrain</i>, by the position of the enemy, and +other conditions, almost wholly depending upon <span class="pagenum"><a id="page051" name="page051"></a>(p. 051)</span> which the +armies operate. It is natural that martial Hooker objected to it.</p> + +<p>Oh! could I have blood, blood, blood, instead of ink!</p> + +<p>Constructing the bridge over the Rappahannock, our engineers were +killed in scores by the sharp-shooters of the enemy. Malediction on +those imbecile staffs! The <i>A B C</i> of warfare, and of sound common +sense teach, that such works are to be made either under cover of a +powerful artillery fire, or, what is still better, if possible, a +general sends over the river in some way, with infantry to clear its +banks, and to dislodge the enemy. In such cases one engineer saved, +and time won, justify the loss of almost twenty soldiers to one +workman. Some one finally suggested an expedition and they did at +the end what ought to have been done at the start. O West Point! thy +science is marvellous! The staff treated the construction of a +bridge over the Rappahannock as if it were building some railroad +bridge, in times of peace!</p> + +<p>I am told that Stanton took sides with Seward. I deny it; Stanton +remained rather passive. But were it true that Stanton, too, is +<i>Sewardized</i>,—then, Oh Mud, how powerful thou art!</p> + +<p>In Boston, the B.s and Curtises, and all of that kidney, make a +great fuss and invoke the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page052" name="page052"></a>(p. 052)</span> name of Webster. If so, they are +only <i>excrementa Websteriana</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 24.</i>—Patriots in both Houses of Congress! your efforts to put +the conduct of the national affairs in honorable hands, and on +honorable tracks, to prevent the very life blood of the people from +being sacrilegiously wasted, to prevent the people's wealth from +being recklessly squandered; your efforts to introduce order and +spirit in certain parts of a spiritless Administration, to fill the +higher and inferior offices with men whose hearts and minds are in +the cause, and to expel therefrom, if not absolute disloyalty, at +least, the most criminal indifference to the people's cause and +welfare; your efforts to make us speak to Europe like men of sense, +and not in the senseless oracles which justly evoke the scorn and +the sneers of all European statesmen; all these your efforts as +patriots rebounded against a nameless stubbornness.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless you fulfilled a noble, sacred and patriotic duty. +Whatever be to-day the outcry of the Flatfoots, lickspittles, +intriguers, imbeciles; whatever be the subserviency or want of civic +courage in the public press—when all these stinking, suffocating, +deleterious vapors shall be destroyed by the ever-living light of +truth, then the grateful people will bless your names, which, pure +and luminous, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page053" name="page053"></a>(p. 053)</span> will shine high above the stupidity, conceit, +heartlessness, turpitude, selfish ambition, indirect and direct +treason darkening now the national horizon.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 25.</i>—<i>Christmas.</i> The Angel of Death hovers over thousands +and thousands of hearths. Thousands and thousands of families in +tears and shrouds. Communities, villages, huts and log-houses, +nursing their crippled, invalid, patriotic heroes! A year ago, all +was quiet on the <i>Potomac</i>—now all is quiet on the <i>Rappahannock</i>.</p> + +<p>What a progress we have made in a year! and at the small, +insignificant cost of about sixty to eighty thousand killed or +crippled, and of one thousand millions of dollars! But it matters +not! The quietude of the official butchers and money squanderers is, +and must remain undisturbed in their mansions, whatever be the moral +leprosy dwelling therein!</p> + +<p>A young man from New England, (whom I saw for the first time,) told +me that my Diary stirred up the youth. Oh, if so, then I feel happy. +Youth! youth! you are all the promise and the realization! But why +do you suffer yourselves to be crushed down by the upper-crust of +senile nincompoops? Oh youth, arise, and sun-like penetrate through +and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page054" name="page054"></a>(p. 054)</span> through the magnitude of the work to be accomplished, +and save the cause of humanity!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 25.</i>—As it was and is in all Revolutions and upheavals, so +here. A part of the people constitute the winners, in various ways, +(through shoddy names, jobs, positions, etc.) while the immense +majority bleeds and sacrifices. Here many people left poorly +salaried desks, railroads, shops, &c. to become great men but poor +statesmen, cursed Generals, and mischief-makers in every possible +way and manner. The people's true children abandoned homes, +families, honest pursuits of an industrious and laborious life—in +one word, their <span class="smcap">ALL</span>, to bleed, to be butcherer, to die in the +country's cause. The former are the winners, the sacrificers, and +the butchers; the second are the victims.</p> + +<p>The evidence before the War Committee shows, to a most disgusting +satiety, that General Halleck is exclusively a red-tapist, and a +small pettifogger, who is unworthy to be even a non-commissioned +officer; General Burnside an honest, well intentioned soldier, +thoroughly brave, but as thoroughly destitute of generalship; +General Sumner an unquestionably brave but headlong trooper; and +Hooker alone in possession of all the capacity and resources of a +captain. General Woodbury's evidence is that of a man under +difficulties, on whom his superiors <span class="pagenum"><a id="page055" name="page055"></a>(p. 055)</span> in rank have thrown the +responsibility of their own crime.</p> + +<p>Halleck alone is responsible for the non-arrival of the pontoons. +Burnside could not look for them; it was the duty of Halleck to +order some of the semi-geniuses of his staff to the special duty of +seeing to their delivery at Fredericksburgh, to give them necessary +power to use roads, steamers, water, animals and men for +transportation, and make it a capital responsibility if Sumner finds +not the pontoons on the spot, and at the precise day and hour when +he wanted them. Then, Gen. Meigs, who coolly asserts that he "gave +orders." O yes! but he never dreamed it was his duty to look for +their execution. The fate of the campaign depended upon the +pontoons, and Halleck-Meigs "gave orders," and there was an end of +it. In any other country, such culprits would have been at the least +dismissed—cashiered, if not shot; here, their influence is on the +increase. Halleck and Meigs are still great before Mr. Lincoln, and +before the mass of nincompoops.</p> + +<p>Rhetors and sham-erudites are ecstatic about Burnside's conduct. +Well! Burnside is good-natured—that is all. They forget the example +of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having +commanded the army, gave up <span class="pagenum"><a id="page056" name="page056"></a>(p. 056)</span> the command, and served under +Pellisier. Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world—let +Rome alone, and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.—Disturb not +history, which, for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You +understand not events under your long noses, and before your opaque +eyes.</p> + +<p>When in animal bodies the brains are diseased, the whole body's +functions are more or less paralyzed. The official brains of the +nation are in a morbid condition. <i>That</i> explains all.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 27.</i>—I wish I could succeed in bringing about the +organization of a good Staff for the army. <i>Etat Major General de +l'Armée</i> Stanton seems to understand it, but the Hallecks and other +West Pointers have neither the first idea of it, nor the will to see +it done.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 28.</i>—The so-called great papers of the Republican party in +New York, as well as some would-be statesmen here, discuss the +probability of some new manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by +other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The +probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only +have one of the following causes:—Our terrible disaster at +Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the +absolute incapacity of our leaders to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page057" name="page057"></a>(p. 057)</span> cope with such great +and terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of +our soldiers will be applauded, admired, and pitied in Europe, but +the utter intellectual marasmus, as shown by our administration, +will and must embolden the European marplots to attempt to stop what +they consider a further unnecessary massacre. General Burnside's +report, and the evidence before the War Committee are before the +country and before Europe. Therefore Europe and our country are to +judge.</p> + +<p>During his last visit in summer to New York, etc. the French +Minister came in contact with low French adventurers, (Courriers des +États Unis) with copperheads and with democrats, and now he is taken +with sickly diplomatic sentimentalism to conciliate, to mediate, to +unite, to meddle, and to get a feather in his diplomatic cap. I am +sorry for him, for in other respects he has considerable sound +judgment. <i>Mais il est toqué sur cette question çi.</i> He is ignorant +of the temper of the masses, and considers the assertions of +adventurers, of traitors, and of meddlers, as being the expression +of the sentiments of the people. But sensible diplomats are <i>rari +aves</i>.</p> + +<p>Hooker, because he alone is a <i>captain</i>, cannot be in command. +Infamous intriguers, traitors, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page058" name="page058"></a>(p. 058)</span> imbeciles, prevent +Hooker from being intrusted with the destinies of our army. Whole +regiments claim to serve under him, and above all such regiments as +fought under others in the peninsula, and always have been worsted, +and who wish once to be led to success and victory, as were always +Hooker's soldiers. The Franklins, and other marplotters in the +Potomac Army, menace to resign if Hooker is put in command. The +sooner the better for the army to get rid of such trash. But the +imbeciles and the intriguers in power think not so; and all may +remain as it was, and a new slaughter of our heroes may loom in the +future.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 29.</i>—General Butler's proclamation to his soldiers in New +Orleans is the best and noblest document written since this war. It +is good, because it records noble and patriotic deeds. During those +eighteen months General Butler has shown capacity, activity, energy, +fertility of resources and readiness to meet any emergency, +unequalled by any one in the administration or in command. And for +this, Butler is superseded, because Seward promised it to the +<i>Decembriseur</i> in the Tuilleries, and because he is a <i>man</i>, and +<i>conservative patriots</i>, <i>alias</i> traitors, could not get at him.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 30.</i>—Angel of wrath, smite, smite! Oh, genius of humanity, +take into thy mercy this noble <span class="pagenum"><a id="page059" name="page059"></a>(p. 059)</span> people! Oh, eternal reason, +send the feeblest breath of divine emanation and arrest this +all-devouring torrent of imbecility, selfishness and conceit that is +reigning paramount here. Only the <span class="smcap">PEOPLE'S</span> devotion and patriotism, +only the <i>unnamed</i> save the country!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 30.</i>—Those foreign caterwaulings against Butler. England, in +1848-9, whipped women in Ireland, and how many thousands have been +murdered by the <i>Decembriseur</i>? And the Russian minister joining in +this music. A shame for him and for his government!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 30.</i>—Poor Greeley looks for intervention, mediation, +arbitration; and selects Switzerland for the fitting arbitrator! How +little—nay—nothing at all, he knows about Switzerland and the +Swiss! Stop! stop! respectable old man!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 31.</i>—Stanton is not at all responsible for the slaughter at +Fredericksburgh, or for the infamy of the belated pontoons. Halleck +has the exclusive control of all military movements, etc., in the +field. But Stanton ought not be benumbed by a Halleck or a Meigs.</p> + +<p>The people at large cannot realize the really awful position of +patriotic members of Congress, and above all, of such senators as +Wade, Grimes, Fessenden, Wilson, Morrill, Chandler and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page060" name="page060"></a>(p. 060)</span> +others, or the almost similar position of Stanton, in his contact +with the double-dealings or the obstinacy of Lincoln.</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 31.</i>—To-morrow few, if any, shall miss the occasion to shake +hands with the official butchers, with men dripping with the gore of +their brethren. Oh, Cains! oh, fratricides!</p> + +<p><i>Dec. 31.</i>—<i>Midnight.</i>—Disappear! oh year of disgraces, year of +slaughters and of sacrifices.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Tschto den griadoustchi nam gotowit?</i> (Puschkine.)</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ring out the false, ring in the true,<br> + Ring out the grief that saps the mind,<br> +<span class="add3em spaced3"> * * *</span><br> +<span class="add3em spaced3"> * * *</span><br> + Ring in <span class="smcap">REDRESS</span> <i>for all mankind</i>!</p> + + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page061" name="page061"></a>(p. 061)</span> JANUARY, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Proclamation — Parade — Halleck — Diplomats — Herodians — + Inspired Men — War Powers — Rosecrans — Butler — Seward — + Doctores Constitutionis — Hogarth — Rhetors — European Enemies + — Second Sight — Senator Wright the Patriot — Populus Romanus + — Future Historian — English People — Gen. Mitchell — Hooker + in Command — Staffs — Arming Africo-Americans — Thurlow Weed, + &c.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 1.</i>—The morning papers. No proclamation! Has Lincoln played +false to humanity?</p> + +<p>The proclamation will appear. All right so far! Hallelujah! How the +friends of darkness, how the demons must wince and tremble.</p> + +<p>There! Red-tape commander-in-chief, field marshal (who never saw a +field of battle!) parades at the head of victorious generals, of +intelligent staffs, of active pontoon providers, and of really and +highly qualified quartermasters general. To the White House! They +will congratulate Mr. Lincoln. Upon what? Upon Fredericksburgh and +other massacres; but especially they will congratulate Mr. Lincoln +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page062" name="page062"></a>(p. 062)</span> upon the fact of his being surrounded by such a bright +galaxy of know-nothings and do-nothings!</p> + +<p>Death-knell to slavery and to the slaveocracy. The foulest relic of +the past will at length be destroyed. The new era has a glorious +dawn; it rises in the glories of sacrifices made by a generous and +inspired people. Yes! The new era rises above darkness, selfishness, +and imbecility. The shades of the slaughtered are now at length +propitiated; their slaughter is at least in part atoned for; and +outraged humanity is, at least in part, avenged! Let rebels and +conservatives remain hardened in crime; a just and condign vengeance +shall overtake them.</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>Nunc pede libero<br> + Pulsanda tellus.</i></p> + +<p><i>Jan. 2.</i>—Shallow and brainless diplomats sneer at the +proclamation. So did the Herodians sneer at the star of Bethlehem; +and where now are the Herodians? Oh! shallow and heartless +diplomats, your days are numbered, too!</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 2.</i>—A man inspired by conviction and glowing with a fervent +faith, thoroughly knows what he is about. Strong in his faith, and +by his faith, he clearly sees his way, and steadily walks in it, +while others grope hither and thither amidst shadows and darkness +and bewildering doubts! Such a man <span class="pagenum"><a id="page063" name="page063"></a>(p. 063)</span> boldly takes the +initiative, marches onward, and is as a beacon-light to a nation, to +a people; often, sometimes, even for all humanity. A man who has a +profound faith in his convictions has coruscations, fierce flashes +of that second-sight for the signs of the times. The mere trimming +and selfish politician is ever ready to swim with the stream which +he had neither strength nor skill to breast; he never ventures to +take the initiative. In issuing the proclamation, Mr. Lincoln gives +legal sanction, form, and record to what the storm of events and the +loud cry of the best of the people have long demanded and now +inexorably dictate.</p> + +<p>History will pitilessly tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth; and small credit will history give to Lincoln beyond +that of being the legal recorder of a righteous deed, and not even +that credit will be given to the countersigner, Seward.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward countersigned both proclamations of freedom. Europe is +filled with his despatches, written at first plainly for, then +lukewarmly tolerating, and, at length, flatly against, slavery. +European statesmen have thus the exact measure of Mr. Seward's +political character. They know that to the very last he defended +slavery, and then countersigned the decree of its destruction! In +Europe, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page064" name="page064"></a>(p. 064)</span> self-respecting statesmen resign rather than +countersign a measure which they disapprove or have strongly +opposed.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 3.</i>—Emancipation under war powers. A mistake by a +contradiction. Spoke of it before. And nevertheless: under war +powers alone, emancipation is palatable to a great many, nay, almost +to millions of small, narrow intellects, dried up by the formulas, +and who in the Constitution see only the latter, and not the +expanding, all-embracing principle and spirit. O, Rabbis! O, +Talmudists!</p> + +<p>Lincoln is very unhappy in his phraseology. He invites the +sympathies of humanity on a measure decided by him to favor the war. +It is a contradiction; humanity and war are antipodic.</p> + +<p>The papers in the confidence of Seward, such as the <i>Intelligencer</i> +(without intelligence,) the border-state friends of Lincoln, and all +that is muddy and rotten, even the supposed to be well-informed +diplomats unanimously assert that Mr. Lincoln has no confidence in +his proclamation. As for Seward—this Lincoln's evil genius—no +doubt exists concerning his contempt for the proclamation. Ask the +diplomats. But these highest pilots in this administration are +bound—as by a terrible oath—to violate all the laws of psychology, +of human nature, of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page065" name="page065"></a>(p. 065)</span> sense, of logic and of honor, to make +the people bleed and suffer in its honor.</p> + +<p>Well, pompous Chase; how do you feel for having sided with Seward?</p> + +<p>Gen. Butler's farewell proclamation to New Orleans rings the purest +and most patriotic harmony. Compare Butler's with Lincoln's +writings. All the hearts in the country resounded with Butler; and +because he acted as he did, Lincoln-Seward-Blair-Halleck's policy +shelved Butler.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 3.</i>—By the united efforts of Lincoln-Seward-Blair, of the +<i>Herald</i>, and of that cesspool of infamies, the <i>World</i>, of +McClellan, and of his tail, by the stupifying influence of Halleck, +the Potomac army, notwithstanding its matchless heroism, and +equipped as well as any army in Europe; up to this day the Potomac +army serves to—establish—the military superiority of the rebels, +to morally strengthen, nay, even to nurse the rebellion. +Lincoln-Halleck dare not entrust the army into the hands of a true +soldier,—Stanton is outvoted. The next commander inherits all the +faults generated by Lincoln, McClellan, Halleck, Burnside, and it +would otherwise tax a Napoleon's brains to reorganize the army but +for the patriotic spirit of the rank and file and most of the +officers.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 3.</i>—What a pity that petty, quibbling constitutionalism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page066" name="page066"></a>(p. 066)</span> +alone is understood by Lincoln and by his followers. To +emancipate in virtue of a war power is scarcely to perform half the +work, and is a full logical incongruity. Like all kind of war power, +that of the president has for its geographical limits the pickets of +his army—has no executive authority beyond, besides being +obligatory only as long as bayonets back it. Such a power cannot +change social and municipal conditions, laws or relations (see Vol. +I.)</p> + +<p>The civil power of the president penetrates beyond the pickets, and +in virtue of that civil power, and of the sacred duty to save the +fatherland, the President of the United States, and not the +Commander-in-Chief, can say to the slaves: "Arise, you are free, you +have no servitude, no duties towards a rebel and traitor to the +Union. I, the president, dissolve your bonds in the name of the +American people."</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 4.</i>—How the tempest of events changes or modifies principles. +The South rebelled in the name of State rights, and now Jeff Davis +absorbs all States and all parliamentary rights for the sake of +<i>salus populi</i> or rather of <i>salus</i> of slavocracy. Jeff Davis +nominates officers in the regiments whatever be the opposition of +the respective Governors. In the North, the Governors, all of them, +(Seymour?) <span class="pagenum"><a id="page067" name="page067"></a>(p. 067)</span> true patriots, insist upon power and the right +to organize new regiments, and resist the centralization by the +United States Government. Perhaps—as the satraps and martinets +assert—thereby the organisation of the army is thrown on a false +track. Whether so or not, one thing is certain, but for the States +and Governors, Lincoln, Scott, Seward, McClellan, Halleck, or the +Union, would be nowhere.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 4.</i>—They fight battles in the West. Generals, to be +victorious, must be in spiritual and in electric communion with the +heroic soldiers. So it was at Murfreesborough. Rosecrans, at the +head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns +the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on +McClellan nor on his tail. Rosecrans sticks not to regulations, and +keeps not a few miles in the rear. Franklin, at Fredericksburgh +mounted not even his horse but stood in front of his tent. Similar +to Rosecrans here was Kearney, the bravest of the brave, more of a +captain than any of the West-Point high-nosed nurslings; so is +Heintzelman, Hooker, Reno, Sigel and many, many others, whom +McClellanism, Halleckism, Lincolnism kept or keeps down.</p> + +<p>I positively learned that in the last days of the summer of 1862, a +list without heading circulated in the Potomac army, and all who +signed it bound <span class="pagenum"><a id="page068" name="page068"></a>(p. 068)</span> themselves to obey only McClellan. The +McClellan clique originated this conspiracy, which extended +throughout all the grades.</p> + +<p>What confusion prevails about the rights of existence of slavery. +How they discuss it. How they pettifog. Why not establish the +rights of existence of syphilis, of <i>plica</i> in the human body. O, +casuists. O, <i>Intelligencers</i>. O, <i>Worlds</i>!</p> + +<p>Well, to me, slavery seems to legally (cursed legality) exist in +virtue of the special State rights, and not in virtue of the +Constitution. But for the State rights, the Africo-American is a man +and citizen of the United States—and this under the Constitution +which is paramount to State rights. The rebellion annihilates the +State rights, and all special constitutions guaranteed by the Union, +and at the same time annihilates the relation of the Africo-American +to the specific States or constitutions. It restores to him the +rights of man guaranteed to him as man by the Union and the +Constitution of the United States. The Africo-American recovers his +rights, lost and annihilated by specific State rights and municipal, +local laws. The president had to issue his proclamation as guardian +and executor of the Constitution, and then Africo-Americans +recovered their citizenship on firmer and broader grounds than +under, or by the war power. Calhoun, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page069" name="page069"></a>(p. 069)</span> the father of the +rebellion—as Milton's Satan—and all the rebels now curse or cursed +the preamble of the Constitution as Satan cursed the light. I +suppose Calhoun's and the rebels' reasons are similar to me. <i>Inde +iræ.</i></p> + +<p>The commanders in the West bear evidence of the devotion, the +heroism and the endurance of the Africo-Americans, sacrificing their +lives without hope; martyrs by the rebels as well as by Hallecks and +the like.</p> + +<p>I met a farmer from Maine. He was rather old and poor. Had two +sons—lost them both—they were all his hope. He spoke simply of it, +but to break one's heart. <i>He grudged not</i>, (his own words,) his +hopes and blood for the cause, and considered it good luck to have +recovered the body of one of his boys, and brought it back home to +the "old woman," (wife, mother.) I shook hands with him. I ought to +have kissed him. Unknown, unnamed hero-patriot! and similar are +hundreds of thousands, and such is the true people. And so +sacrilegiously dealt with by insane helplessness.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 5.</i>—The <i>Doctors Constitutionis</i> break their formula brains +concerning the constitutionality of the proclamation, and foretell +endless complications. If so, if complications arise, the reasons +thereof are moral, logical and practical. 1st.—The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page070" name="page070"></a>(p. 070)</span> +emancipation was neither conceived nor executed in love; but it was +for Lincoln as Vulcan for Jupiter. The proclamation is generated +neither by Lincoln's brains, heart or soul, and what is born in such +a way is always monstrous. 2d.—Legally and logically, the +proclamation has the smallest and the most narrow basis that could +have been selected. When one has the free choice between two bases, +it is more logical to select the broader one. The written +Constitution had neither slavery nor emancipation in view, but it is +in the preamble, and the emancipation ought to be deduced from the +preamble. Many other reasons can be enumerated pregnant with +complications and above all when Lincoln-Seward are the +<i>accoucheurs</i>. My hope and confidence is in the logic of events +always stronger than man's helplessness and imbecility.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 5.</i>—European rulers, wiseacres, meddlers, humbugs, traitors, +demons, diplomats, assert that they must interfere here because +European interests suffer by the war. Indeed! You have the whole old +continent and Australia to boot, and about nine hundreds millions of +population; can you not organise yourself so as not to depend from +us? And if by your misrules, etc., our interests were to suffer, you +would find very strange any complaint made on our part. Keep aloof +with your <span class="pagenum"><a id="page071" name="page071"></a>(p. 071)</span> good wishes, and with your advices, and with your +interference. You may burn your noses, and even lose your little +scalps. You robbers, murderers, hypocrites, surrounded by your +liveried lackeys, you presumptuous, arrogant curses of the human +race, stand off, and let these people whose worst criminal is a +saint when compared to a Decembriseur—let this people work out its +destinies, be it for good or for evil.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 5.</i>—Early in December, 1860, therefore soon after Mr. +Lincoln's election, a shrewd and clear-sighted politician, Gen. +Walsh, from New York, visited Springfield, and made his bow to the +rising sun. On his return from the Illinois Medira, I asked the +general what was his opinion concerning the new President. "Well, +sir," was the general's answer, "in parting, I advised Mr. Lincoln +to get a very eminent man for his private secretary."—<i>Sapienti +sat.</i></p> + +<p><i>Jan. 6.</i>—Oh for a voice of thousand storms to render justice to +the patriots in Congress, to make the masses of the people know and +appreciate them, and to show up the littleness and the ignorance of +the pillars of the Republican press. Never and in no country has the +so-called good press shown itself so below the great emergencies of +the day as are the old hacks semperliving in the press.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page072" name="page072"></a>(p. 072)</span> <i>Jan. 7.</i>—The great military qualities shown by Gen. +Rosecrans, thrilled with joy all the best men in the Potomac Army. +The war horse Hooker is the loudest to admire Rosecrans. Happy the +Western heroes to be beyond the immediate influence of +Washington—of the White House—and above all, of such as Halleck!</p> + +<p>Rosecrans has revealed all the higher qualities of a captain; +coolness, resolution, stubbornness and inspiration. His army began +to break,—he ordered the attack on the whole line, and thus +transformed defeat into victory. Not of McClellan's school, is +Rosecrans.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 7.</i>—Senator Sumner who, during the ministerial crisis, ought +to have exposed to the country the mischievous direction given by +Mr. Seward to our foreign relations, and who ought to have done it +nobly, boldly, authoritatively, patriotically, and from his +Senatorial chair, Senator Sumner's preferred to keep stoically +quiet, notwithstanding that his personal friends and the country +expected it from him. Yet next to Chase, Senator Sumner, more than +any body, attacks Seward in private conversation! I read in the +papers that Senator Sumner's influence on Mr. Lincoln is +considerable (nevertheless Seward remained as the greatest curse to +the country,) and that he, Sumner, is a <i>power behind <span class="pagenum"><a id="page073" name="page073"></a>(p. 073)</span> the +throne</i>. Has Sumner insinuated this himself to some newspaper +reporter in <i>extremis</i> for news? <i>Power behind the throne</i>, what a +tableau: Sumner and Lincoln! O, Hogarth, O, Callot! Oh, for your +crayon! and now—of course—the country is safe, having such <i>Power +behind the throne</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Mr. Lincoln's good intentions</i> I hear talked about right and left. +Oh, for one sensible, good, energetic action, and all his intentions +may go where the French proverb puts them.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 7.</i>—The city crowded with Major Generals and +Brigadier-Generals not in activity. When Mr. Lincoln is cornered, +then he makes a Brigadier or a Major General, according to +circumstances and in obedience to political or to backstairs +influence. From the beginning of the war, no sound notions directed +the nominations, either under Cameron, Scott, or McClellan, or now; +at the beginning of the war they had Generals without troops, then +troops without Generals, and now they have Generals who have not +commanded, or cannot command, troops. If, during the war in Poland +in 1831, Warsaw, the Capital, had been overrun in such a way by +do-nothing Generals, the chambermaids in the city would have taken +the affair into their fair hands, and armed with certain night +effluvia made short work with the military drones.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page074" name="page074"></a>(p. 074)</span> <i>Jan. 8.</i>—A poor negro woman with her child was refused +entrance into the cars. It snowed and stormed, and she was allowed +to shiver on the platform. A so-called abolitionist Congress and +President gave the charter to the constructors of the city railroad +and the members of Congress have free tickets, and the +Africo-American is treated as a dog. Human honesty and justice!</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 8.</i>—Horse contracts the word. Never in my life saw I the +horse so maltreated and the cavalry so poorly, badly, brainlessly +organised, drilled and used. Some few exceptions change not the +truth of my assertions, and McClellan is considered a great +organiser. They ruin more horses here in this war than did Napoleon +I. in Russia, (I speak not of the cold which killed thousands at +once.)</p> + +<p>How ignorant and conceited! Halleck solicits Rarey, the horse-tamer, +for instructions. O, Halleck, you are unique! Officers who have +served in armies with large, good, well-organised and well-drilled +cavalry—such officers will teach you more than Rarey. But such +officers are from Europe, and it would be a shame for a West-Point +incarnation of ignorance and conceit to learn anything from an +officer of European experience. Bayard, however, thought not so. +Justice to his name.</p> + +<p>The rebels are not so conceited as the simon pure <span class="pagenum"><a id="page075" name="page075"></a>(p. 075)</span> +West-Pointers. Above all the rebels wish success, and have no +objections to learn; they imported good European cavalry officers, +and have now under Stuart (his chief of staff is a Prussian officer) +a cavalry which has made a mark in this war.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 8.</i>—O rhetors! O, rhetors! malediction upon you and upon the +politicians! You have no heart, no sensibilities. Not one, not one +has yet uttered a single word for the fallen, for the suffering, the +dying and nameless heroes of our armies. It seems, O rhetors and +politicians! that the people ought to bleed that you may prosper. +Corpses are needed for your stepping stones! The fallen are not +mentioned now in Congress, as you never mentioned them in your poor +stump speeches. O, you whitened sepulchres!</p> + +<p>O rhetors and politicians! O, powers on, before, and "behind the +throne!" In your selfish, heartless conceit, you imagine that the +Emancipation is and will be your work, and will be credited to you. +Oh yes, but by old women.</p> + +<p>The people's blood, the fallen heroes, tore the divine work of +emancipation, from the hands of jealously watching demons. To the +shadows of the fallen the glory, and not to your round, polished or +unpolished phrases. Not the pen with which the proclamation was +written is a trophy and a relic, but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page076" name="page076"></a>(p. 076)</span> the blood steaming to +heaven, the corpses of the fallen, corpses mouldering scattered on +all the fields of the Union.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 8.</i>—As a rapid spring tide, so higher and higher, and with +all parties—even, with the decided Copperheads—rises the haughty +contempt toward the crowned, the official, the aristocratic, and the +flatfooted (livery stable) part of Europe. Good and just! Marshy, +rotten rulers and aristocrats who scarcely can keep your various +shaky and undermined seats, you and your lackeys, you take on airs +of advisors, of guardians, of initiators of civilization! Forsooth! +I except Russia. In Russia the sovereign, his ministers and +nine-tenths of the aristocracy are in <i>uni sono</i> with the whole +nation; and all are against slavery, against the rebels, against +traitors. The Russian government and the Russian nation often are +misrepresented by their official or diplomatic agents.</p> + +<p>Any well organized American village in the free States contains more +genuine, moral and intellectual civilization than prevails among +European higher circles, those gilded pasteboards. This is all that +you, you conceited advisors, represent in that splendid, +all-embracing edifice of civilization! At the best you are +ornaments, or—with Wilhelm von Humboldt—you are culture, but not +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page077" name="page077"></a>(p. 077)</span> the higher, man-inspiring civilization. A John S. Mill, a +Godwin Smith, and those many outside of the <i>would-be-something</i> +strata in England, in France, almost the whole Germany, those are +the representatives of the genuine civilized Europe.</p> + +<p>The freemen of the North, on whom you European exquisites look +superciliously down with your albino eyes, the freemen of the North, +bleeding in this deadly struggle, are the confessors for the general +civilization, and stand on the level with any martyrs, with any +progressive people on record on history.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 9.</i>—Quo, quo scelesti ruitis.........</p> + +<p>It is maddening to witness for so many months the reckless waste of +men, of time, of money, and of material means, and all this +squandered by governmental and administrative helplessness and +conceit. In the military part, notwithstanding Stanton's devotion +and efforts, that Halleck, <i>excrementum Scotti</i>, as by appointment, +carries out everything contrary to common sense, to well established +and experienced (Halleck and experience, ah!... military practice, +and Mr. Lincoln is as perfectly) charmed by it, as is the innocent +bird by the snake.</p> + +<p>And thus the sacrifices and the blood of the people run out as does +the mighty Rhine—they run out in sand. O, Lincoln-Seward's domestic +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page078" name="page078"></a>(p. 078)</span> policy. O, Lincoln-Halleck's war power! You make one +shudder as with a death pang.</p> + +<p><i>January 9.</i>—The worshippers of slavery, that is, the Democrats, of +the Seymour's, Wood's, and the <i>World's</i> church, call the war waged +for the defence of human rights, for civilization and for +maintaining the genuine rational self-government, they call it an +unholy war. In some respects the Copperheads are right. The holy war +loses its holiness in the hands of Lincoln, Seward, Halleck, and +their disciples and followers, because those leaders violate all the +laws of logic and of reason, this holy of holies. At times I would +prefer peace than see devoted men so recklessly murdered by such....</p> + +<p>A critique of the first volume of the "Diary" asserts that all my +statements are made after the events occurred, <i>ex post</i>. To a very +respectable General I showed a part of the original manuscript which +squared with the printed book. Often I am ashamed to find that the +bit of study and experience acquired by me goes so far when compared +with many around me, and in action. I foresee, because I have no +earthly personal views, no cares, nothing in the world to think of +or to aim at, no charms, no ties—only my heart, my ideas, my +convictions, and civilization is my worship. Nothing prevents me, +day and night, from concentrating <span class="pagenum"><a id="page079" name="page079"></a>(p. 079)</span> whatever powers and +reading I can have in one single focus. This cause, this people, +this war, its conduct, are the events amidst which I breathe. +Uninterruptedly I turn and return all that is in my mind—that is +all. And I am proud to have my heart in harmony with my head.</p> + +<p>Almost every event has its undercurrent, and of ten the little +undercurrents pre-eminently shape the events themselves. The truth +of this axiom is illustrated principally in the recall of the +resolute, indefatigable, far and clear-sighted patriot and +statesman, General Butler. To jump to a conclusion without much ado, +the recall of Butler from New Orleans is due principally, if not +even exclusively, to the united efforts—or conspiracy—of Mr. +Seward and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. Thirteen months ago Mr. Seward +expected, as he still expects for the future, an uprising of a Union +Party in the hottest hot-bed of Secessia. That such are the +Secretary of State's expectations, I emphatically assert, and as +proof, it may be stated that only yesterday, January 9th, Mr. Seward +most authoritatively tried to impress upon foreign diplomats the +speedy reunion and <i>restoration</i> of the Union as it was, +notwithstanding the Proclamation, <i>still considered by the Secretary +of State</i> as being <i>a waste of paper</i>. How far the foreign diplomats +believe the like oracular <span class="pagenum"><a id="page080" name="page080"></a>(p. 080)</span> decisions, is another question; +certain it is that they shrug their shoulders.</p> + +<p>But to return to Butler and New Orleans. The patriotic activity by +which General Butler won, conquered and maintained the rebel city +for the Union, was emphatically considered by Mr. Seward, as +crushing out every spark of any latent Union feeling among the +rebels. Thurlow Weed, then abroad, urged Mr. Seward to find out the +said Union feeling, to blow it into almighty fire and to rely +exclusively upon it. Here Reverdy Johnson was and is, the principal +Union crony of the Secretary of State, and Seaton of the +<i>Intelligencer</i>; but above all, since the murder of Massachusetts +men at Baltimore in 1861, Reverdy Johnson was the devoted advocate +of all rich traitors, as the Winans and others, who were called by +him "misled Union men." When Gen. Butler dealt deserved justice to +rich traitors in New Orleans, the Washington Unionists surrounding +Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward—some of them from New Orleans—urged an +investigation. The Secretary of State eagerly seized the occasion to +dispatch to the Crescent City Mr. Reverdy Johnson with the principal +secret mission to gather together the elements of the scattered +Union feeling in Louisiana and in the South, and to make them +blaze—in honor of the Secretary of State. It was a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page081" name="page081"></a>(p. 081)</span> rich +harvest in every way for Reverdy Johnson; he harvested it, and on +his return fully convinced the Secretary of State, that the Union +could not be saved if Gen. Butler remained in his command in the +Department of the Gulf.</p> + +<p>This surreptitious undermining of General Butler by the Secretary of +State, is one more evidence of how truly patriotic was the effort of +the Republican Senators and Congressmen to liberate the President +and the country from the all-choking and all-poisoning influence of +Mr. Seward, and how cursed must remain forever the conduct of Mr. +Chase, who, after having during two years cried against Seward, +accusing him almost of treason, when the hour struck, preferred to +embarrass the patriots and the President rather that to let Mr. +Seward retire and deprive the people of his <i>patriotic</i> services. It +was moreover expected that, thus warned by the patriots, the +President would seize the first occasion to infuse energy into his +Cabinet. But there is a Mr. Usher, a docile nonentity, made +Secretary of the Interior; of course the Secretary of State will be +strengthened thereby.</p> + +<p><i>January 10.</i>—Senator Wright of Indiana, in an ardent and lofty—of +course, not rhetorical, speech, hit the nail on the head, when, +rendering due homage to Rosecrans, he called him "the first general +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page082" name="page082"></a>(p. 082)</span> who fights for the people and not for the White House." The +greatest praise for the man, and the most saddening picture of our +internal sores.</p> + +<p><i>January 10.</i>—As the pure <i>populus Romanus</i> had an inborn aversion +to Kings and diadems, and could not patiently bear their +neighborhood, so the genuine American Democrat, one by principles +and not by a party name or by a party organization, such a Democrat +feels it to be death for his institutions to have slavocracy in his +country or in its neighborhood.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 10.</i>—O how is to be pitied the future historian of this +bloody tragedy! Through what a loathsome cesspool of documentary +evidence, preserved in the various State Archives, the unhappy +historian will have to wade, and wade deep to his chin. Original +works of Lincoln, Seward, etc.</p> + +<p>It is easy to play a game at chess with a far superior player, then +at least one learns something; but impossible to sit at a chess +board with a child who throws all into confusion. The national +chessboard is very confused in the White House. Cunning is good for, +and only succeeds in dealing with, mean and petty facts.</p> + +<p><i>Jan. 10.</i>—Halleck's congratulatory order to Rosecrans and to the +Western heroes. How cold and pedantic. How differently, how +enthusiastically <span class="pagenum"><a id="page083" name="page083"></a>(p. 083)</span> and fiery rang Stanton's words on the +capture of forts Henry and Donelson and to Lander's (now dead) +troops. Why is Stanton silent? Is it the Constitution, the Statute, +is it the incarnate four years formula which seals Stanton's heart +and brains? or is Stanton eaten up by the rats in the Cabinet?</p> + +<p><i>January 10.</i>—The messages of the loyal Governors, not copperheads, +(as is Seymour of N. Y.) above all, the message of Andrew of +Massachusetts, throw a ray of hope and promise over this dark, cold, +unpatriotic confusion so eminent here in Washington. This confusion, +this groping, double-dealing and helplessness can be only cured by a +wonder, or else all will be lost. The wonder is daily perpetrated by +the all enduring, all-sacrificing people.</p> + +<p>Those criminals who ought to have been shot, or, at the mildest, +cashiered for the slaughter at Fredericksburgh, the engineers, +mock-Jominis, the sham soldiers: all these Washington engineers of +that recent butchery, assert now, that, after all, the possession of +Fredericksburgh was immaterial; that Lee would have then selected a +better position. All this is thrown to the public to palliate the +crime of the Washington military conclave, and to weaken and +invalidate Hooker's evidence before the War Committee. It must be +admitted that if Hooker—having fifty thousand in hand, and one +hundred <span class="pagenum"><a id="page084" name="page084"></a>(p. 084)</span> thousand in his rear, had seized the +Fredericksburgh heights, he would not have allowed Lee to so easily +select a position and to fortify it. Nay, I suppose, that not only +Hooker, but even a Halleck, a Cullum or a Meigs would have prevented +Lee from settling in any comfortable position. However, I might be +mistaken. Corinth, Corinth, for Halleck. Those great nightcaps here +have so original and so new military conceptions, their general +comprehension of warfare so widely differs from science, experience, +and from common sense, that, holding Fredericksburgh they might have +invited Lee to select whatever he wanted as a strong position.</p> + +<p>I learn that Halleck is at work to translate some French military +book. What an inimitable narrow-minded pedant. If Halleck had +brains, he could not have an hour leisure for translation. But in +such way he humbugs Mr. Lincoln, who looks on Halleck as the +quintessence of military knowledge and genius. A man who can +translate a French book must be a genius. Is it not so, Lincoln? And +thus Halleck translates a book instead of taking care that the +pontoons be sent in time; and Halleck prepared sheets for the press, +and our soldiers to be massacred.</p> + +<p>Burnside prepares a movement; Franklin, to undermine Burnside, to +appear great, or to get hold <span class="pagenum"><a id="page085" name="page085"></a>(p. 085)</span> of the army, denounces +Burnside secretly to the President: the President forbids the +movement. What a confusion! Mr. Lincoln, either accept Burnside's +resignation, which he has repeatedly offered, or kick down the +denouncers. Accident made me discover almost next day, the names of +the two generals sent by Franklin on this denunciatory errand—John +Cochran and Newton. I instantly told all to Stanton, who was almost +ignorant of Franklin's surreptitiousness. I also told it to several +Senators.</p> + +<p>The Army of the Potomac is altogether demoralized—above all, in the +higher grades. It could not be otherwise if they were angels. +McClellanism was and is propitious to general disorder, and how Mr. +Lincoln improves is exemplified above. Independent men, independent +Senators and Representatives who approach Mr. Lincoln, find him +peevish, irritable, intractable to all patriots. <i>All these are +criteria of a lofty mind and character.</i> Weed, Seward, Harris, +Blair, and such ones alone, are agreeable in the White House.</p> + +<p>So much is spoken of the war powers of the President; I study, and +study, and cannot find them as absolute as the Lincolnites construe +them. All that I read in the Constitution are the real <i>war powers</i> +in the Congress, and the President is only the executor <span class="pagenum"><a id="page086" name="page086"></a>(p. 086)</span> of +those powers. The President must have permission for every thing, +almost at every step—and has no right to issue decrees. He has no +war powers over those of Congress, and can act very little on his +own hook. It seems to me that Congress, misled, confused by +casuists, expounders, and by small intellects worshipping routine, +that Congress rather abdicated their powers, and that the bunglers +around Lincoln, in his name greedily seized the above powers.</p> + +<p>Poor Lincoln! As the devil dreads holy water, so Mr. Lincoln dreads +to be surrounded with stern, earnest, ardent, patriotic advisers. +Such men would not listen to stories!</p> + +<p><i>January 11.</i>—The thus-called metropolitan press is in the hands of +old politicians, old hacks—and no new forces or intellects pierce +through. It is a phenomenon. In any whatever country in Europe, at +every convulsion the press bristles with new, fresh intellects. +Here, the old nightcaps have the monopoly. Farther: those +respectable fossils reside at a distance from the focus of affairs, +are not directly in contact with events and men, and are in no +communion with them. The Grand Lamas of the press depend for +information upon the correspondents, who catch news and ideas at +random, and nourish with them their employers and the public.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page087" name="page087"></a>(p. 087)</span> <i>January 11.</i>—Senator Sumner has made a motion to give +homesteads to the liberated Africo-Americans. That is a better and a +nobler action than all his declamations put together.</p> + +<p><i>January 12.</i>—Sentinels in double line surrounding the White House. +Odious, ridiculous, unnecessary, and an aspect unwonted in this +country—giving the aspect to the White House of an abode of a +tyrant, when it is only that of a shifting politician. It is +Halleck, who, with the like futilities and absurdities, amuses +Lincoln and gets the better of him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln is very depressed at the condition of the Army of the +Potomac, and decides—nothing for its reorganization. But for +Halleck, Stanton would reorganize and give a new and healthy life to +the army. I mean the upper grades, and not the rank and file, who +are patriotic and healthy.</p> + +<p>After Corinth, Halleck-Buell disorganized the Western, now Halleck +is at work to do the same with the Potomac Army. I know that in the +presence of a diplomat, Halleck complained that he is paid only five +thousand dollars, and earned by far more in California. He had +better return to California and to his pettifogging.</p> + +<p>Since the beginning of this Administration, Mr. Seward wrote, I am +sure, more dispatches than <span class="pagenum"><a id="page088" name="page088"></a>(p. 088)</span> France, England, Prussia, +Russia, Austria, Spain, and Italy put together during the Crimean +war, and up to this day. Great is ink, and paper is patient!</p> + +<p><i>January 13.</i>—It is more than probable that Mr. Mercier stirred up, +or at least heartily supported the mediation scheme. The Frenchmen +in New York maintain that Mr. Mercier derives his knowledge of +America and his political inspirations from that foul sheet, the +<i>Courrier des États Unis</i>. There is some truth in this assertion, as +the reasons enumerated to justify mediation can be found in various +numbers of that sheet. I am sorry that Mr. Mercier has fallen so +low; as for his master, he is a fit associate for the <i>Courrier</i>.</p> + +<p><i>January 13.</i>—Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired and not silenced by the +storm. He alone stands up from among the Athenian school. He alone +is undaunted. So would be Longfellow, but for the terrible domestic +calamity whose crushing blow no man's heart could resist. I never +was a great admirer of Emerson, but now I bow, and burn to him my +humble incense.</p> + +<p><i>January 15.</i>—The patriotic, and at times inspired orator—not +rhetor—Kelly, from Pennsylvania, told me that all is at sixes and +sevens in the Administration, and in the army. I believe it. How +could <span class="pagenum"><a id="page089" name="page089"></a>(p. 089)</span> it be otherwise, with Lincoln, Seward and Halleck at +the head?</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward did his utmost to defeat the re-election of Judge Potter +from Wisconsin, one among the best and noblest patriots in the +country. For this object Mr. Seward used the influence of the +pro-Catholic Bonzes. Then Mr. Seward wrote a letter denying all +this—a letter which not in the least convinced the brave Judge, as +I have it from himself.</p> + +<p>If all the lies could only be ferreted out with which Seward +bamboozles Lincoln, even the God of Lies himself would shudder.</p> + +<p><i>January 15.</i>—The noble and lofty voice of the genuine English +people, the voice of the working classes, begins to be heard. The +people re-echo the key-note struck by a J. S. Mills, by a Bright, a +Cobden, and others of like pure mind and noble heart. The voice of +the genuine English people resounds altogether differently from the +shrill <i>falsetto</i> with which turf hunters, rent-roll devourers, +lords, lordlings, and all the like shams and whelps try to +intimidate the patriotic North, and comfort the traitors, the +rebels.</p> + +<p><i>January 16.</i>—But for the truly enlightened and patriotic efforts +of the Senators Wade, Lane, (of Kansas) and Trumbull, the debate of +yesterday, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page090" name="page090"></a>(p. 090)</span> Thursday, on the appropriation for the West +Point Military Academy would have gone to the country, absolutely +misleading and stultifying the noble and enlightened people. It was +most sorrowful, nay, wholly disgusting to witness how Senators who, +until then, had stood firmly against small influences and narrow +prejudices, blended together in an unholy alliance to sustain the +accursed clique of West Point engineers. Much allowance is to be +made for the allied Senators' ignorance of the matter, and for the +natural wish to appear wise. The country, the people, ought to +treasure the names of the ten patriotic Senators whose voices +protested against further sustaining that cursed nursery of +arrogance, of pro-slavery, or of something worse.</p> + +<p>Whatever might have been the efforts of the Senatorial patrons and +the allies of the engineers, the following facts remained for ever +unalterable: 1st. That the spirit of close educational corporation +which have exclusive monopoly and patronage, is perfectly similar to +the spirit which prevailed and still prevails in monasteries, and +permeates the pupils during their whole after life; 2d. That the +prevailing spirit in West Point was and is rather monarchical and +altogether Pro-Slavery; 3d, that of course some noble exceptions +are to be found and made,—but they are exceptions; 4th, that such +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page091" name="page091"></a>(p. 091)</span> educational monasteries nurse conceit and arrogance; and +this the mass of West Pointers have prominently shown during this +war in their relations with the noble and devoted volunteers, and +that this arrogant spirit of clique and of caste works mischievously +in the army; 5th, that exceptions, noble and patriotic, as a Reno, a +Lyons, a Bayard, a Stevens, and other such heroes and patriots, do +not disprove the general rule; 6th, that Lyons, Grant, Rosecrans, +Hooker, Heintzelman, etc., have shown glorious qualities not on +account of what they learnt in West Point, but by what they did not +learn there; 7th, that these heroes rose above the dry and narrow +school wisdom, and are what they are, not because educated in West +Point, but notwithstanding their education there. And here I +interrupt the further enumeration to give an extract from a private +letter directed to me by one of the most eminent pupils from West +Point, and the ablest <i>true</i>, not <i>mock</i>, engineer in our army:</p> + +<p class="quote">"In regard to your views of West Point's influence I am at a loss + to make any answer," (the writer is a great defender of West + Point,) "but would suggest that it may be after all not West + Point, but the want of <i>a supreme hand</i> to our military affairs + to <i>combine</i> and <i>use</i> the materials West Point furnishes, that + is in fault. * * * <i>West Point cannot make a general</i>—no + military school can—but it can and does furnish good soldiers. + All the distinguished Confederate generals are West Pointers, and + yet we know the men, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page092" name="page092"></a>(p. 092)</span> know that neither Lee, nor + Johnson nor Jackson, nor Beauregard, nor the Hills are men of any + very extraordinary ability," etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p>To this I answer: the rebels are with their heart and soul in their +cause, and thus their capacities are expanded, they are inspired on +the field of battle. (Similar answer I gave to General McDowell +about six months ago.) So was our Lyon, so are Rosecrans, Hooker, +Grant, and a few others; and for such generals, Senators Trumbull, +Wade and Lane ardently called in the above debate.</p> + +<p>I continue the enumeration: 8th. The military direction of the war +is exclusively in the hands of a West Point clique, and of West +Point engineers,—not <i>very much</i> with their hearts in the people's +cause; 9th, that that clique of West Point engineers from McClellan +down to Halleck prevents any truly higher military capacity getting +a free untrammelled scope, (General Halleck with all his might +opposes giving the command of the army to Hooker,) and this Halleck, +an engineer from West Point, who never saw a cartridge burnt or a +file of soldiers fighting, to-day decides the military fate of our +country on the authority of a book said to be on military science, +but if such a book had been written by any officer in the armies of +France, Prussia or Russia, the ignorant author would have had the +friendly advice from his superiors to resign and select some pursuit +in life more congenial to his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page093" name="page093"></a>(p. 093)</span> intellectual capacities; +further, this Halleck complains in following words: "that they (the +Administration) made him leave a profitable business in San +Francisco, and pay him only 5,000 dollars to fight <span class="smcap">THEIR</span> (not his) +battles." So much for a Halleck. 10th. That the West Point clique of +engineers, the McClellans, the Hallecks, the Franklins, etc., have +brought the country to the verge of the grave, as stated by Senator +Lane.</p> + +<p>Such were the facts established by the patriotic and not +would-be-wise Senators; and there is an illustration recorded in +history as proof that the above not engineering Senators were right +in their assertions. Frederick II. was in no military school; the +captains second to Napoleon in the French wars were Hoche, Moreau, +and Massena, all of them from private life.</p> + +<p>—The clique of engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its +grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble +children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from +the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation +of the country.</p> + +<p>The clique accuses the volunteers; but the clique, the engineers in +power have disorganized, morally and materially, and disgraced the +Army of the Potomac. They did this from the day of the encampments +around Washington, in the fall of 1861, down to the day of +Fredericksburgh. Fredericksburgh <span class="pagenum"><a id="page094" name="page094"></a>(p. 094)</span> was altogether prepared by +engineers; at Fredericksburgh the engineer Franklin did not even +mount his horse when his soldiers were misled and miscommanded—by +himself.</p> + +<p>—Stragglers are generated by generals. Besides, to explain +straggling, I quote from a <i>genuine</i> book on genuine military +science, published in Berlin in 1862, by Captain Boehn, the most +eminent professor at the military school in Potsdam: "The greatest +losses, during a war, inflicted on an army are by maladies and by +straggling. Such losses are five times greater than those of killed +and wounded; and an <i>intelligent administration</i> takes preparatory +measures to meet the losses and to compensate them. Such measures of +foresight consist in organizing depots for battalions, which depots +ought to equal one sixth of the number of the active army." O, +Halleck, where are the depots?</p> + +<p>—"In any ordinary campaign, excepting a winter campaign, the losses +amount (as established by experience) to one half in infantry, one +fourth in cavalry, and to one third in artillery." (Do you know any +thing about it, O, Halleck?)</p> + +<p>Let the people be warned, and they may understand the location of +the cause generating further disasters. If the Army of the Potomac +shall win glory, it will win it notwithstanding the West Point +clique of engineers. The disasters have root in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page095" name="page095"></a>(p. 095)</span> White +House, where the advice of such a Halleck prevails.</p> + +<p>—I know very well that the formation of the volunteers in +respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great +difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and +genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to +be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius and talent.</p> + +<p>Taking into account the patriotism, the devotion of the governors of +the respective states, [not <i>à la</i> Copperhead Seymour], it would +have been possible, nay, even easy to organize some kind of +reserves. O, Halleck, O, fogies!</p> + +<p><i>January 17.</i>—Mr. Lincoln loads on his shoulders all kinds of +responsibilities, more so than even Jackson would have dared to +take. Admirable if generated by the boldness of self-consciousness, +of faith, and of convictions. True men measure the danger—and the +means in their grasp to meet the emergency; others play +unconsciously with events, as do children with explosive and +death-dealing matters.</p> + +<p><i>January 17.</i>—General and astronomer Mitchel's death may be +credited to Halleck. Halleck and Buell's envy—if not +worse—paralysed Mitchel and Turtschin's activity in the West. +Mitchel and Turtschin were too quick, that is, too patriotic. In +early summer, 1862, they were sure to take <span class="pagenum"><a id="page096" name="page096"></a>(p. 096)</span> Chattanooga, a +genuine strategic point, one of those principal knots and nurseries +in the life of the secesh. How imprudent! Chattanooga is still in +the hands of the rebels, and if we ever take it, it will cost +streams of blood and millions of money. Down with Mitchel and +Turtschin. Mitchel's <i>excrementa</i> were more valuable than are +Halleck's heavy, but not expanding, brains. Mitchel revealed at once +all the qualities of an eminent, if not of a great general. +Quickness of mind, fertility of resources. An astronomer, a +mathematician, Mitchel's mind was familiar with broad combinations. +Such a mind penetrated space, calculated means and chances, balanced +forces and probabilities. Not to compare, however, is it to be borne +in mind that Napoleon was a mathematician in the fullest sense, and +not an engineer, not a translator.</p> + +<p><i>January 18.</i>—Mr. Lincoln's letter to McClellan when the hero of +the Copperheads was in search of mud in the Peninsula. The letter +rings as sound common sense; it shows, however, that common sense +debarred of strong will remains unproductive of good. Mr. Lincoln +commonly shows strong will, in the wrong place.</p> + +<p class="poem"> + ——ein Theil von jener Krafft,<br> + Die stehts das Guthe will, und stehts das Boese schaff.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page097" name="page097"></a>(p. 097)</span> <i>January 18.</i>—The emancipation proclamation is out. Very +well. But until yet not the slightest signs of any measures to +execute the proclamation, at once, and in its broadest sense. Now +days, even hours, are equal to years in common times. Had Lincoln +his heart in the proclamation, on January 2d he would begin to work +out its expansion, realization, execution. I wish Lincoln may lift +himself, or be lifted by angels to the grandeur of the work. But it +is impossible. Surrounded as he is, and led in the strings by +Seward, Blair, Halleck, and by border-state politicians, the best +that can be expected are belated half measures.</p> + +<p>Stanton comprehends broadly and thoroughly the question of +emancipation and of arming the Africo-Americans. As I intend to +realize my plans of last year and organise Africo-American +regiments, I had conversations with Stanton, and find him more +thorough about the matter than is any body whom I met. He agreed +with me, that the cursed land of Secessia ought to be surrounded by +camps to enlist and organise the enslaved, as a scorpion surrounded +with burning coals. Such organizations introduced rapidly and +simultaneously on all points, would shake Secessia to its +foundations, and put an end to guerillas, <i>alias</i> murderers and +robbers. We will again think and talk it over. But as is wont with +Lincoln, he will hesitate, hesitate, until much of precious time +will be lost.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page098" name="page098"></a>(p. 098)</span> <i>January 18.</i>—A surgeon in one of the hospitals in +Alexandria writes in a private note:</p> + +<p class="quote">"Our wounded bear their sufferings nobly; I have hardly heard a + word of complaint from one of them. A soldier from the 'stern and + rock bound coast' of Maine—a victim of the slaughter at + Fredericksburgh—lay in this hospital, his life ebbing away from + a fatal wound. He had a father, brothers and sisters, a wife, and + one little boy of two or three years old, on whom his heart + seemed set. Half an hour before he ceased to breathe, I stood by + his side, holding his hand. He was in the full exercise of his + intellectual faculties, and knew he had but a brief time to live. + He was asked if he had any message to leave for his dear ones + whom he loved so well. "<i>Tell them</i>," said he, "<i>how I died—they + know how I lived!</i>"</p> + +<p><i>January 19.</i>—Senator Wright, of Indiana, stirred the hearts of the +Senate and of the people. It was not the oration of a rhetor—it was +the confession of an ardent, pure patriot. I never heard or +witnessed anything so inspiring and so kindling to soul and heart.</p> + +<p><i>January 20.</i>—General Butler palsied and shelved, Halleck all +powerful and with full steam running the country and the army to +destruction—such is the truest photograph of the situation. But as +an adamantine rock among storms, so Mr. Lincoln remains unmoved. +Unmoved by the yawning, bleeding wounds of the devoted, noble +people—unmoved by the prayers and supplication of patriots—of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page099" name="page099"></a>(p. 099)</span> +his—once—best friends. Mr. Lincoln answers, with dignity not +Roman, and with obstinacy unparallelled even by Jackson, that he +will stand or fall with his present advisers, and that he takes the +responsibility for all the cursed misdeeds of Seward, Halleck, +Chase, and others. So children are ready to set a match to a powder +magazine unconscious of the terrible results—unconscious of the +awful responsibility for its destructive action.</p> + +<p>A death pang runs through one's body to see how rapidly the dial +marks the disappearing hours, and how unrelentingly approaches March +4th, and the death-knell of this present patriotic, devoted +Congress. For this terrible storm and clash of events, the people, +perhaps, feel not the immensity of the loss. Paralyzed as Congress +has been and now is, by the infernal machinations of Seward, Chase, +and others, and by Mr. Lincoln's stubborn helplessness, the patriots +in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which +the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The +patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest +aspirations of the American people, whipped in—and this literally, +not figuratively—whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having +issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this +dying Congress initiated the Emancipation—generated the +Proclamation of the 22d September, and of January 1st. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>(p. 100)</span> +History will not allow one to wear borrowed plumage.</p> + +<p>—Congress ought not to have so easily abdicated its well +established rights of more absolute and direct control of the deeds +of the Administration and of its clerks, <i>alias</i> Secretaries of +Departments. It is to be eternally regretted that Congress has shown +such unnecessary leniency; but in justice it must be said that the +patriotic and high-minded members of Congress wished to avoid the +degrading necessity of showing the nation the prurient +administrative sores. Advised, directed, tutored and pushed by +Seward, Blair and Chase, Mr. Lincoln is—innocently—as grasping for +power, as are any of those despots not over respectfully recorded by +history.</p> + +<p>With all this, the presence of Congress keeps in awe the reckless +and unscrupulous Administration, as, according to the pious belief +of medieval times, holy water awed the devil. But Congress once out +of the way, without having succeeded in rescuing Mr. Lincoln from +the hands of those mean, ignorant, egotistic bunglers, all the time +squinting towards the succession to the White House, and unable to +surround the President with men and patriots, then all the plagues +of Egypt may easily overrun this fated country. Such conjurors of +evil as the Sewards, Hallecks, and others, will have no dread of any +holy water before them, and they will be sure that the great party +of the "Copperheads" in the future <span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>(p. 101)</span> Congress will applaud +them for all the mischief done, and lift them sky high, if they +succeed in treading down in the gutter, or in any way palsying +emancipation, tarnishing the people's noble creed, and endangering +the country's holiest cause.</p> + +<p>General Fitz-John Porter's trial before court-martial ended in his +dismissal, but ought punishment to fall on him alone, when the +butchers of Fredericksburgh and when the pontoon men are in high +command? when a Franklin is still sustained, when a Seward and a +Halleck remain firm in their high places as the gates of hell?</p> + +<p><i>January 20.</i>—Wrote a respectful letter to the President on +Halleck's military science, his book, and capacity. Told +respectfully to Mr. Lincoln that not even the Sultan would dare to +palm such a Halleck on his army and on his people.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln in his greatness says that "he will stand and fall with +his Cabinet." O, Mr. Lincoln! O, Mr. Lincoln! purple-born sovereigns +can no more speak so!</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln! with the gang of politicians, your advisers and +friends, <i>you all desire immensely, and will feebly</i>. You desire the +reconstruction of the Union, and you almost shun the ways and means +to do it. And thus this noble people is dragged to a slaughter +house.</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Parumne campis atque Neptuno super<br> + Fusum est—[Yankee] sanguinis?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>(p. 102)</span> <i>January 21.</i>—Deep, irreconcilable as is my hatred of +slavocrats and rebels, nevertheless I am forced to admire the high +intellectual qualities of their chiefs, when compared with that of +ours. Of Lincoln <i>versus</i> Jeff Davis I spoke in the first volume. +But now Lee, Jackson, Hill, Ewall, <i>versus</i> Halleck, McClellan, +McDowell, Franklin, etc.</p> + +<p><i>January 22.</i>—Wendell Phillips's <i>Amen</i> oration to the Proclamation +is noble and torrent-like oratory. Greeley is the better Greeley of +former times. I heartily wish to admire and speak well of Greeley, +as of every body else. Is it my fault that they give me no occasion?</p> + +<p><i>January 23.</i>—General Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's pet, told me +to-day, that after the battle at Hanover Court House, he supplicated +McClellan to attack Richmond at once—which in Porter's opinion +could have been taken without much ado,—and not to change his base +to James River; and even Fitz-John could not prevail on this demigod +of imbeciles, traitors and intriguers.</p> + +<p><i>January 24.</i>—Here is one of the thousand flagrant lies with which +Seward entangles Lincoln, as with a net of steel. Lincoln assured +General Ashley that the public is unjust toward Seward in accusing +him of having worked for the defeat of Wadsworth. That they have +been the best friends for long years; that, when Military Governor +of Washington, Wadsworth was a daily visitor in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>(p. 103)</span> Seward's +house; and that, during the canvass, Wadsworth consulted with Seward +concerning his (Wadsworth's) actions.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward knows that every one of those assertions which he or +Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant +lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned +Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a +lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never +was his political or private friend.</p> + +<p>I am sorry to bring such details before the public, but how +otherwise convict a liar? As for Thurlow Weed's secret and open +machinations against the election of Wadsworth, only an idiot or a +s.... doubts them. Ask the New York politicians, provided they have +manhood to tell the truth.</p> + +<p><i>January 24th.</i>—<i>Caveant Senators and Representatives!</i> cannot be +too often hurled into the ears of the people and of the Congressmen. +The time runs lightning like—the 4th of March approaches with +comet-like velocity. If the tempest is not roaring, its signs are +visible, and most of the helmsmen are blind or unsteady. Oh! could +every move of the pendulums of the clocks of the Senate Chamber and +the Representatives' Hall, thunder-like repeat that <i>caveant</i>, +transmitted by the purest and best days of Rome! The Republicans and +many of the war <span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>(p. 104)</span> Democrats are faithful and true to the +people and to its sacred cause; but the names of the "filibustering" +traitors in both houses ought to be nailed to the gallows!</p> + +<p>European winds bring Louis Napoleon's opening speech, and the +confession, that although once rebuked, he, the dissolute, the +profligate, with his corrosive breath still intends to pollute the +virginity of our country; for such is the indelible stain to any +nation, to any people which accepts or submits to any, even the most +friendly, foreign mediation or arbitration. Never, never any great +nation or any self-respecting government, accepted or submitted to +any similar foreign interference. Of the peoples, nations and +governments, which allowed such interference, some collapsed into +degradation for a long time, only slowly recovering, like Spain; +others, like Poland, disappeared. Those who advocate such mediation +unveil their weakness, their thorough ignorance of the world's +history and of the historic and political bearings of the words, +<i>mediation</i>, and <i>arbitration</i>; and to crown all, these advocates +bring to market their imbecility.</p> + +<p>The Africo-Americans ought to receive military organization and be +armed. But it ought to be done instantly and without loss of time; +it ought to be done earnestly, boldly, broadly; it ought to be done +at once on all points and on the largest scale; it ought to be done +here in Washington, under the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>(p. 105)</span> eyes of the chief of the +people; here in the heart of the country; here, so to speak, in the +face of slave-breeding Virginia, this most intense focus of +treason; it ought to be done here, that the loyal freemen of +Virginia's soil be enabled to fight and crush the F. F. V's, the +progeny of hell; it ought to be done here on every inch of soil +covered with shattered shackles; and not partially on the outskirts, +in the Carolinas and Louisiana. Stanton, alone, and Welles among the +helmsmen, are so inspired; but alas, for the rest of the crew.</p> + +<p>On the flags of the Africo-Americans under my command, I shall +inscribe: <i>Hic niger est! hunc tu (rebel) caveto!</i> I shall inculcate +upon my men that they had better not make prisoners in the battle, +and not allow themselves to be taken alive.</p> + +<p><i>January 25th.</i>—So Gen. McClellan's services to the rebellion are +acknowledged by the gift of a splendid mansion situated in New York, +in the social sewer of American society. The donors, are the shavers +from Wall Street, individuals who coin money from the blood and from +the misfortunes of the people, and who by high rents mercilessly +crush the poor; who sacrifice nothing for the sacred cause; who, if +they put their names as voluntary contributors of a trifle for the +war, thousand and thousand times recover that trifle which they +ostentatiously throw to gull the good-natured public opinion; not to +speak of those so numerous among <span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>(p. 106)</span> the McClellanites, who +openly or secretly are in mental communion with treason and +rebellion. Naturally, all this gang honors its hero.</p> + +<p>McClellan's pedestal is already built of the corpses of hundreds of +thousands butchered by his generalship, poisoned in the +Chickahominy, and decimated by diseases. His trophies are the wooden +guns from Centreville and Manassas.</p> + +<p><i>January 25th.</i>—What from the beginning of this war, I witness as +administrative acts and dispositions, and further the debates in +Congress on the various bills for military organizations and for the +organization of the various branches of the military medical, +surgical, and quartermaster's service; all this fully convinces me +that the military and administrative routine, as transmitted by Gen. +Scott, or by his school, and as continued by his pets and remnants, +is almost the paramount cause of all mischief and evils. In the +medical, surgical, and in the quartermasters' offices, ought have +been appointed young civilians and business men as chiefs, having +under them some old routinists for the sake of technicalities of the +service. Such men would have done by far better than those old +intellectual drones. A merchant accustomed to carry on an extensive +and complicated business would have been by far a better +quartermaster-general—<i>Intendant des armées</i>—than the wholly +inexperienced Gen. Meigs. This last would serve as an aid to the +merchant. At the beginning <span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>(p. 107)</span> of the war, I suggested to +Senator Wilson to import such quartermasters from France or Russia, +men experienced and accustomed to provide for armies of 100,000 men +each. By paying well, such men could have been easily found, and the +military medical and surgical bureau, as organized by Scott, was +about sixty years behind real science. These senile representatives +of non-science snubbed off Professor Van Buren of the New York +academy, to whom they compare as the light of a common match to that +of calcium. If men like Dr. Van Buren, Dr. Barker, and others of +real science from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., had been +listened to, thousands and thousands of limbs and lives would have +been saved and preserved.</p> + +<p><i>January 25th.</i>—Mr. Lincoln relishes the idea that if the cause of +the North is victorious, no one can claim much credit for it. I put +this on record for some future assumptions. Mr. Lincoln is the best +judge of the merits of his clerks and lieutenants. But Mr. Lincoln +forgets that the success will be due exclusively to the people—and, +<i>per contra</i>, he alone will be arrayed for the failure. His friends +and advisers, as the Sewards, the Weeds, the Blairs, the Hallecks, +will very cleverly wash their gored hands from any complicity with +him—Lincoln.</p> + +<p>The army to be formed from Africo-Americans is to be entrusted to +converted conservatives. It is feared that sincere abolitionists if +entrusted with the command, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>(p. 108)</span> may use the forces for some +awful, untold aims. It is feared that abolitionists once possessed +of arms and troops, may use them indiscriminately, and emancipate +right and left, by friend and foe, paying no attention to the +shrieks of border-States, of old women, of politicians, of cowards, +of Sewardites; nay, it is feared that genuine abolitionists may +carry too far their notions of absolute equality of races, and +without hesitation treat the white rebels with even more severity +than they threaten to treat loyal armed Africo-Americans. And why +not?...</p> + +<p>The history of England, the history of any free country has not on +record a position thus anomalous, even humiliating, as is that of +the patriots in Congress, thanks to Mr. Lincoln's helpless +stubbornness. The patriots forcibly must consider Mr. Lincoln, even +Sewardised, Blairised, Halleckised as he is, as being the only legal +power for the salvation of the country. The patriots must support +him, and instead of exposing the wretched faults, mistakes, often +ill-will of his administration, must defend the administration +against the attacks of the Copperheads, who try to destroy or +disorganize the administration on account of that atom of good that +it accidentally carries out on its own hook. And thus the patriots +must suffer and bear patiently abuses heaped on them by the +treasonable or by the stupid press, by intriguers and traitors; and +patriots cannot <span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>(p. 109)</span> make even the slightest attempt to +vindicate their names.</p> + +<p><i>January 26th.</i>—The visits to the White House and the "<i>I had a +talk with the President</i>," are among the prominent causes of the +distracted condition of affairs. With comparatively few exceptions, +almost everybody expands a few inches in his own estimation, when he +says to his listeners, nay, to his friends: "I had a talk with the +President." Of course it is no harm in private individuals to have +such <i>a talk</i>, but I have frequently observed and experienced that +public men had better refrain from having any talk with him. Very +often he is not a jot improved by their talk, and they come out from +the interview worsted in some sort or other.</p> + +<p>Sumner, the Roman, the Cicero, was to-day urged by several +abolitionists from Boston to expose the mischief of both the foreign +and the domestic policy of Seward. The Senator replied that he is +more certain to succeed against that public nuisance and public +enemy by not attacking him openly. I vainly ransack my recollection +of my classic reading for the name of any Roman who ever made such a +reply.</p> + +<p><i>January 26th: Two o'clock P. M.</i>—Hooker is in command! And +patriotic hearts thrill with joy! Mud, bad season, mortality, loss +of time, demoralization, such is the inheritance left by McClellan, +Halleck and Burnside—such are the results prepared <span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>(p. 110)</span> by the +infamous West Point and other muddy intriguers in Washington, and in +the army,—such is the inheritance transmitted to Hooker, by the +cursed Administration procrastinations. In all military history +there is seldom, if ever, a record of a commander receiving an army +under such ominous circumstances. If Hooker succeeds, then his +genius will astonish even his warmest friends.</p> + +<p>When Hooker was wounded, and in the hospital, he repeatedly +complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of +it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a +flaw.</p> + +<p>I immediately wrote to Stanton, sending him several pages translated +from the German works of Boehn (before spoken of) to give to the +Secretary a general idea of what are the qualities, the science, the +knowledge and the duties of a good chief of staff. I explained that +the staff and the chief of the staff of an army are to it what the +brains and the nervous system are to the human body.</p> + +<p><i>9 o'clock, P. M.</i>—I am told that Hooker wished to have for his +chief of staff General Stone, (white-washed) who is considered to be +one of the most brilliant capacities of the army. If so, it was a +good choice, and the opposition made by Stanton is for me—at the +best—unintelligible.</p> + +<p>Hooker selected Butterfield. What a fall from Stone to Butterfield. +Between the two extend <span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>(p. 111)</span> hundreds, nay, thousands, of various +gradations. Gen. Butterfield is brave, can well organize a regiment +or a brigade, but he has not and can not have the first atom of +knowledge required in a chief of staff of such a large army. Staff +duties require special studies, they are the highest military +science; and where, in the name of all, could Butterfield have +acquired it? I am certain Butterfield is not even aware that staff +duties are a special science. All this is a very bad omen, very bad, +very bad. Literally they laugh at me; now they hurrah for Hooker. +May they not cry very soon on account of Hooker's staff. When I +warn, Senators and Representatives tell me that I am very difficult +to be satisfied. We will see.</p> + +<p><i>January 27.</i>—It is said that Franklin, Sumner, and even +Heintzelman declared they would not serve under Hooker. Let them go. +Bow them out, the hole in the army will be invisible. I am sorry +that Heintzelman plays such pranks, as he is a very good general and +a very good man. Well, a new galaxy of generals and commanders is +the inevitable gestation of every war. Seldom if ever the same men +end a war who began it. New men will prove better than the present +sickly reputations consecrated by Scott, West Point and Washington.</p> + +<p><i>January 27.</i>—Governor Andrew—the man always to the point, or as +the French would say <i>toujours à la hauteur de la question</i>—insists +on <span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>(p. 112)</span> forming African or black regiments in Boston from free +blacks. Such formations interfere not with my project, as I +principally, nay exclusively, look to contrabands, to actual slaves. +Governor Andrew wishes to give the start, to stir up the Government +and other Governors and to drag them in his footsteps. He is the +representative man of the new and better generation which ought to +have the affairs of the country in hand, and not these old worn-out +hacks who are at it now. If such new men were at the helm in both +civil and military affairs, Secesh would have been already crushed +and Emancipation accomplished. To such a new generation belongs +Coffey, one of the Assistant Attorney Generals, Austin Stevens, Jr., +Charles Dana, Woodman, etc., etc. The country bristles with such +men, and only prejudices, stupidity, and routine prevents them from +becoming really active and from saving the country.</p> + +<p><i>January 27.</i>—The patriotic majorities of both Houses of Congress +pass laws after laws concerning the finances, arming the +Africo-Americans, increasing the powers of the President, etc., each +of which taken alone, would not only save the cause but raise it +triumphant over the ruins of crime and of slavery, if used by +patriotic, firm, devoted, unegotistic hands and brains. But alas! +alas! very little of such, except in one or two individuals, is +located <span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>(p. 113)</span> in the various edifices in and around the +presidential quarters.</p> + +<p>The military organization of Africo-Americans is a powerful social +and military engine by which slavery, secession, rebellion, and all +other dark and criminal Northern and Southern excrescences can be +crushed and pulverized to atoms, and this in a trice. But as is the +case with all other powerful and explosive gases, elements, forces, +etc. this mighty element put in the hands of the Administration must +be handled resolutely, and with unquivering hands and intellect; +otherwise the explosion may turn out useless for the country and for +humanity.</p> + +<p>At present the indications are very small that the administration +has a decided, clear comprehension how to use this accession of +loyal forces on a large scale; how to bring them boldly into action +in Virginia, as the heart of the rebellion. Nothing yet indicates +that the administration intends to arm and equip Africo-Americans +here under the eyes of the government. Nothing indicates that it +intends to do this avowedly and openly, and thereby terrify and +strike the proud slave-breeders, the F. F. V's. of Virginia, in the +heart of treason, and do it by their own once chattels, now their +betters.</p> + +<p><i>January 28.</i>—The Congress almost expires; and will or can the +incarnated constitutional formula save the country? It is a chilling +thought to doubt, yet how can we have confidence! All in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>(p. 114)</span> +people! the people alone and its true men will not and cannot +fail, and they alone are up to the mission.</p> + +<p>The dying Congress can no more reconquer its abdicated power. This +noble and patriotic majority—many of them, are not re-elected, +thanks to Lincoln-Seward—provide the incarnate formula with all +imaginable legal, constitutional powers, more than twice sufficient +to save the country. Could only the brains and hands entrusted with +laws, be able to execute them! Oh for a legal, constitutional, +statute Cromwell, ready to behead treason, rebellion, slavocracy and +slavo-sympathy, as the great Oliver beheaded and crushed the +poisonous weeds of his time. If the democratic-copperhead vermin +had the possibility, they would make a McClellan-Seymour +dictatorship, and extinguish for a century at least, light, right, +justice, and freedom. Not yet! Oh, Copperheads! not yet.</p> + +<p><i>January 29.</i>—They dance to madness in New York, they dance here +and give dancing parties! O what a heartlessness, recklessness, +flippancy, and crime, of those mothers, wives and young crinolines, +when one half of the population is already in mourning, when they +have fathers, brothers, husbands in the army. I hope that Boston and +New England as well as the towns and villages of the country all +over, spit on this example given by New York and Washington. My +friend N——, progressive, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>(p. 115)</span> enlightened and therefore a true +Russian, is amazed and displeased with such an intolerable +flippancy. During the Crimean war, no one danced in Russia from the +Imperial palace down to the remotest village; the people's +indignation would have prevented any body—even the Czar, from such +a sacrilegious display of recklessness when the country's integrity +and honor were at stake, when the nation's blood was pouring in +torrents.</p> + +<p>Unspeakably worse, is the cold indifference with which many +generals, many men in power, the rhetors and the politicians, speak +of what is more than a sacrifice in a sacred cause, is an unholy and +demoniac waste of human life. But some one—some avenging angel, +will call them all to a terrible account.</p> + +<p><i>January 30.</i>—I would have ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, +Secretary of State. The conduct of European affairs requires pure +patriotism—that is, conscientiousness of being an American by +principle, in the noblest philosophical sense, sound common sense, +discretion, simplicity, sobriety of mind, firmness, +clear-sightedness. Boutwell would be a Secretary of State similar to +Marcy.</p> + +<p><i>January 30.</i>—Wrote a letter to Stanton with the following +suggestions for the organization of a large and efficacious force, +nay, army, from the Africo-Americans.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>(p. 116)</span> Some of the points submitted to this genuine patriot have +been already variously mentioned above; here are some others.</p> + +<p>1. It may be possible—even probable—on account of inveterate +prejudices and stupidity, that an Africo-American regiment may be +left unsupported during a battle.</p> + +<p>2. It would be therefore more available to organize such a force at +once on a large scale, so as to be able to have strong brigades, and +even divisions. At the head of six to eight thousand men, resistance +is possible for several hours if the enemy outnumbers not in too +great proportions—four or five to one, and if the terrain is not +altogether against the smaller force.</p> + +<p>3. The Africo-Americans ought to be formed, drilled and armed +principally with the view to constitute light infantry—and, if +possible, light cavalry—but above all, for a <i>set fight</i>.</p> + +<p>4. Their dress must be adapted to such a light service—as ought to +be the dress of our whole infantry, facilitating to the utmost the +quick and easy movements of the body and of the feet; both +impossible or at least difficult in the present equipment of the +American infantry. On account of the modern improvements in fire +arms, the fights begin at longer distances, and it is important that +the soldier be trained to march as quickly as possible, so as to +force the enemy from their positions at the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>(p. 117)</span> point of the +bayonet. In this country of clay, bad roads, forests and underbrush, +even more than care must be bestowed upon the feet and legs of the +infantry. I suggested an imitation of the equipment of the French +infantry.</p> + +<p>5. In the case of the arsenals not having the requisite number of +fire-arms, I would have the third line armed with scythes. As a +Pole, I am familiar with that really terrible weapon.</p> + +<p>6. To adapt the drill to the object in view—to free it as far as +possible from needless technicalities, and to reduce it to the most +urgently needed and the most readily comprehended particulars.</p> + +<p>7. In view of the above-mentioned reasons, I would have the Tactics +now in use very carefully revised, or have an entirely new book of +Tactics and Regulations.</p> + +<p>8. Suggested that General Casey should be entrusted with the matters +treated of in suggestions 6 and 7.</p> + +<p><i>January 31.</i>—The Copperheads in Congress are shedding crocodile +tears over the doom that awaits those Africo-Americans who may +unfortunately be taken prisoners by the rebels. Now, in the first +place enlisted Africo-Americans are under the protection of the +United States Government, and that Government will not be guilty of +the infamy of seeing its captured soldiers murdered in cold +blood—and in the next place the Africo-American will <span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>(p. 118)</span> prove +anything rather than an easily-made captive to Southern murderers. +The Africo-Americans will sell their lives so dearly as to disgust +the rebels with the task of attempting to capture them.</p> + +<p><i>January 31.</i>—Few people can understand the intensity of the +disgust with which I find myself often obliged to mention Thurlow +Weed—that darkest incarnation of all that is evil in black mail, +lobbyism, and all hideous corruptions. It is not my fault that such +a man is allowed to exert a malign influence on the country's fate, +and I am obliged to give the dark as well as the bright parts of the +great social picture. How deeply I regret my inability to collect +and record, in part at least, if not as a whole, all the deeds of +heroism and devotion, of generous and brave self-abnegation, which +have been done by thousands, even by millions of those who are both +falsely and foolishly called the lower classes.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>(p. 119)</span> FEBRUARY, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">The Problems before the People — the Circassian — Department of + State and International Laws — Foresight — Patriot Stanton and + the Rats — Honest Conventions — Sanitary Commission — Harper's + Ferry — John Brown — the Yellow Book — the Republican Party — + Epitaph — Prize Courts — Suum cuique — Academy of Sciences — + Democratic Rank and File, etc. etc. etc.</p> + +<p><i>February 1.</i>—The task which this great American people has on its +hands is one utterly unexampled in the history of the world. While +in the midst of a great civil war, and struggling as it were in very +death-throes, to emancipate and organize four millions of men, most +of whom, up to this very day, have by deliberate legislation been +kept in ignorance and savagery. Thoroughly to comprehend the +immensity of such a task, we must also reflect that the men to whom +that task is intrusted are anything rather than intellectual +giants. Yet the true solution of the problem will be given by the +principle of self-government and by the self-governing People. And +it is therein that consists the genuine American originality which +Europe finds it so impossible to understand. And it is just as +little understood by most of the diplomatists here, and what <span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>(p. 120)</span> +is still worse, it is not even studied by them. It is wretched +work to be obliged to witness the low, the actually ignoble parts +which many men play in the great farce of political life. I could +easily mention a full score of would-be-eminent men, who are +unsurpassed by the meanest of the vulgar herd in flippancy and an +utter want of self-respect.</p> + +<p>The diary published in London by Bull Run Russell deserves to be +read by every American. Russell deals blows to slavery which will +tell in England. However annoying may be to many the disclosures +made by this indiscreet confidant of their vanity, Russell's +revelations establish firmly the broad historical—not +gossipping—fact, that before and after Sumter, the most absolute +want of earnestness, of statesmanlike foresight, and the most +childish but fathomless vanity inspired all the actions of the +American Secretary of State. I am one of the few who, having often +met Russell here, never fawned to him, nay who not even took any +notice of him; but I am grateful to him for his falsely-called +indiscreetness—for his having done the utmost to bring out +truth—in his own way. It is the best that I have seen, or heard, or +read of him. Flatterers, Secretaries, Senators, and Generals crowded +to Russell and to his table, and he exposes them. Among others, +General McDowell was Russell's guest, very likely to show his +gratitude to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>(p. 121)</span> slanderer of the volunteers, whom McDowell +did not understand how to lead to victory.</p> + +<p>Seward showed to Russell his dispatches to Lord John Russell. Mr. +Sumner, at Bull Run Russell's table, asked Russell's aid to keep +peace with England. Good! Unspeakably good!</p> + +<p>Not only the Emancipation problem must be solved, so to speak, +amidst the storm of battle—but other and very mighty problems, +social, constitutional, jurisprudential, and financial, must be +similarly and promptly dealt with. And these great questions must be +debated to the accompaniment of the music of musketry and cannon. In +some respects the situation of America at present may be said to +resemble that of France in the days of her great Revolution. But +affairs here and now are still more complicated than they were in +France from 1789 to 1793.</p> + +<p>Formerly I took a more active part than I now take in revolutionary +and reformatory struggles, and was seldom daunted by their difficult +problems, or by their most violent tempests. But now I have a +chilling sense of weariness and disgust as I note the strange things +that are done under my very eyes.</p> + +<p>The burden of taxes laid upon a people who have an inborn hatred of +taxation, a debt created in a few months surpassing that which +England and France contracted in half a century; and that debt <span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>(p. 122)</span> +contracted as if by magic, and in the very crisis of a civil +war such as any foreign war would be mere baby's play to.</p> + +<p>The people at large see the precipice, and hear the roaring of the +breakers ahead, but despair not! Sublime phenomena for the future +historian to dwell upon! All this is genuine American originality. +In its sublime presence, down, down upon your knees in the dust, all +you European wiseacres!</p> + +<p>The capture of the <i>Circassian</i>, an English blockade runner, gave +birth to some very delicate international complications. The +decision of the Prize Court shows up the absolute destitution of +statesmanship in the Department of State, generally coruscated with +ignorance of international principles, rules of judicial +international decisions, and of belligerent rights and observances. +Every day shows what a masterly stroke it was of the Secretary of +State to have proclaimed the blockade in April, 1861, and to have +been the first to recognize the rebels in the character of +independent belligerents. The more blockade runners will be captured +by our cruisers, the more the complications will grow. A false first +step generates false conditions <i>ad infinitum</i>. The question of the +<i>Circassian</i> is only the beginning, and not even the worst. The +worst will come by and by. But Seward is great before Allah! The +truth is, that Mr. Seward and the Department are as innocent of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>(p. 123)</span> +any familiarity with international laws, as can be. The people, +the intelligent people would be horror-stricken could they suddenly +be made acquainted with all the shameful ignorance which is +corrosively fermenting in the State Department.</p> + +<p>To every intelligent and well regulated Government in Europe, the +Department of Foreign Affairs—which in America is called the State +Department—has attached to it a board of advisers for the solution +of all international questions.</p> + +<p>In England, for instance, all such questions are referred to the +Crown Lawyers, i.e. the Attorney and Solicitor General, and, in +specially important cases, to the Lord High Chancellor, and one or +two of the Judges. And in order to obtain the advice he obviously +stands so much in need of, Mr. Seward ought to have consulted two or +three American juriconsults of eminence. Mr. Seward ought to have +foreseen that the war would necessarily give rise to international, +commercial, and maritime complications. Such men as Charles Eames, +Upton, etc. would have been excellent advisers on all international +and statutory questions. Presumptuous that I am—to venture upon +the mere supposition that Seward the Great can possibly need advice! +Not he, of course—not he. Mr. Seward is the Alpha and Omega—knows +everything, and can do every thing himself. Happily, the people at +large is the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>(p. 124)</span> genuine statesman, and can correct the +mistakes—and worse—of its blundering, bungling servants.</p> + +<p>American pilots and statesmen! Forget not that foresight is the germ +of action. Foresight reveals to the mind the opportuneness of the +needed measure by which a solution is to be given, a question +decided, and the hoped-for results obtained.</p> + +<p>American people! How much foresight have your—dearly-paid—servants +shown? You, the people alone, you have been far-seeing and +prophetic; but not they.</p> + +<p><i>February 2.</i>—All the efforts of the worshippers of treason, of +darkness, of barbarism, of cruelty, and of infamy—all their +manœuvres and menaces could not prevail. The majority of the +Congress has decided that the powerful element of Africo-Americans +is to be used on behalf of justice, of freedom, and of human rights. +The bill passed both the Houses. It is to be observed that the "big" +diplomats swallowed <i>col gusto</i> all the pro-slavery speeches, and +snubbed off the patriotic ones. The noblest eulogy of the patriots!</p> + +<p>The patriots may throb with joy! The President intends great changes +in his policy, and has telegraphed for——Thurlow Weed, that prince +of dregs, to get from him light about the condition of the country.</p> + +<p>The conservative "Copperheads" of Boston and of other places in New +England press as a baby to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>(p. 125)</span> their bosom, and lift to worship +McClellan, the conservative, and all this out of deepest hatred +towards all that is noble, humane, and lofty in the genuine American +people. Well they may! If by his generalship McClellan butchered +hundreds of thousands in the field, he was always very conservative +of his precious little self.</p> + +<p>Biting snow storm all over Virginia! Our soldiers! our soldiers in +the camp! It is heart-rending to think of them. Conservative +McClellan so conservatively campaigned until last November as to +preserve—the rebel armies, and make a terrible winter campaign an +inevitable necessity. O, Copperheads and Boston conservatives! When +you bend your knees before McClellan, you dip them in the best and +purest blood of the people!</p> + +<p><i>February 3.</i>—The Secretary of War appointed General Casey to +shorten the general tactics for the use of Africo-American regiments +to use them as light infantry.</p> + +<p>The devotion of American women to the sick and wounded soldiers, +makes them be envied by the angels in Heaven (provided there are +any). This devotion of these genuine gentlewomen atones for the +ignoble flippancy of dancing crinolines.</p> + +<p>Down, down goes slavery notwithstanding the <i>gates of hell</i>, and +their guard, the McClellans, the Sewards, amorously embracing the +Copperheads <span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>(p. 126)</span> and all that is dark and criminal. Humanity is +avenged and Eternal Justice is satisfied.</p> + +<p><i>February 4.</i>—Sumner is re-elected to the Senate. His re-election +vindicates a sound principle, because his opponents were all the +Copperheads and slavery-saviours in Massachusetts. Sumner's +influence in the Senate is rather limited. Politically he is on all +points most honest; but his conduct towards Seward is not calculated +to impress one with any very high esteem for his manhood.</p> + +<p>It is not force, or decision, or power, that is cruel in +revolutionary times—but, weakness. All societies have had their +epochs of progress and of retrogression. Sylla was a conservative, +and so too was Phocion. The Pharisees were reactionists and +conservatives. Europe has millions of them, of various hues, shapes, +tendencies and convictions. But the reactionists and conservatives +in the past of Europe all have been and are of a purer metal than +the conservatives here, and their impure organs, as the National +Intelligencer, the World, the Boston Courier, and the rest of that +fetish creed.</p> + +<p><i>February 4.</i>—The French Yellow Book, or State Correspondence, +justifies my forebodings of November last. Mr. Mercier's diplomatic +sentimentalism, and his associations, germinated the +<i>Decembriseur's</i> scheme for mediation and humiliation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>(p. 127)</span> Further is to be found in the Yellow Book the evidence how, +from the start of this dark rebellion, Mr. Seward, the master spirit +of the Administration, dealt death blows to all energetic, +unyielding prosecution of the war for crushing the rebellion, and +that he was double-dealing in all his public actions. The published +state papers of the French government disclose the fact that nine +months ago Mr. Seward sent the French minister to Richmond with a +mission to invite the Jeff. Davises, Hunters, Wigfalls, Benjamins +and others to come back to their seats in the Senate, and in the +name of the cruelly outraged North, Mr. Seward proffered to the +traitors a hearty welcome. So says the French diplomat in his +official dispatch to the French Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Such +underhanded dealings should not be allowed, and most assuredly would +be stringently punished, if perpetrated under similar circumstances +by the minister of any European government dealing with treason in +arms. But here, Mr. Seward's impudence—if not worse—displays its +flying colors. The Republican press will swallow all this, and +Senator Sumner as Chairman of the Committee will—keep quiet.</p> + +<p>That confidential mission entrusted to the French diplomat by Mr. +Seward, was more than sufficient to evoke the subsequent attempt at +mediation, because it revealed to the piercing eye of European +statesmanship, how the Administration, and above <span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>(p. 128)</span> all how +its master spirit had little confidence in the cause; it revealed +the want of earnestness in official quarters. I hate and denounce +all attempts, even by the most friendly foreign power, to meddle +with the internal affairs of our country. But I have some little +knowledge of European statecraft, of European diplomacy, of European +rulers, and of European diplomats; and I assert, emphatically, that +they are emboldened to offer their meddlesome services because they +have very little if any respect for our official leaders; and +because the want of energy and of good faith to the principles of +the North as displayed by Seward, he nevertheless remaining at the +helm, has firmly settled the conviction in European minds, that the +rebels cannot be crushed by such traffickers and used up politicians +as have in their hands the destinies of the Union.</p> + +<p><i>February 5.</i>—The new Copperhead Senators—in their appearance +resembling bushwhackers; the pillars of Copperheadism in the House, +take umbrage at the sight and the name of New England, and abuse the +New England spirit with all their coppery might. Well they may. So +did Satan hate and abuse light.</p> + +<p>Patriot Stanton is earnestly at work concerning the organization of +Africo-Americans on a mighty scale; busy against him, likewise, are +the intriguers, the traitors, the cavillers, the Sewardites and the +McClellanites, all being of the same kidney. Seward <span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>(p. 129)</span> sighs +for McClellan. But Stanton will override the muddy storm. He has at +his side men as pure, energetic and devoted as Watson, a patriot +without a flaw.</p> + +<p>Stanton surrounds himself and selects young men—as far as he can, +he crowds out the remains of Scott, so tenderly protected by +Lincoln. Could he only have swept out the rest of the old fogies! +Undoubtedly these young men in the War Department would give new +life to it.</p> + +<p><i>February 6.</i>—The people at large are at a loss to find the cause +of the recent disasters. The general axiom is, "we are not a +military nation." Neither is the South. But here they forget that +every great or small effect has its—not only—cause, but several +causes. Many such causes have been repeatedly pointed out. Old +routine in military organization stands foremost. Few, if any, +understand wherein consists the proper organization of an army, and +most have notions reaching back sixty years. The medical and +surgical bureaus are obsolete. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, who +is always on the right side, and with him many young men, insisted +upon organizing the above services as they are organized in the +Continental armies of Europe. But even in the Senate prevailed the +respect for dusty, rusty, domestic tradition. The few changes forced +by the outcry of the people cure not the evil. Skeletons and not +men are at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>(p. 130)</span> work, and if they are not skeletons they are +leeches of the government and of the people's blood.</p> + +<p>Thus likewise, when the organizations of the staffs was discussed, +no one had the first notion of the nature and duties of a staff; and +the military authorities were as ignorant as the civilians. Of +course a McClellan, then a Halleck, Meigs, Hitchcock, etc., could +not disperse the fog. Many Congressmen were thunderstruck by the +display of words which, as they were purely technical terms, the +Congressmen in question could not understand. Others sought for +guidance in the Staff of Wellington, and thus oddly but unmistakably +proved themselves completely in the dark as to the difference +between the personal staff of the commander of an army, and the +Staff of that Army itself. And all this in a country of the most +rapid movement and progress, and amongst a people which +unhesitatingly adopts and adapts to its own needs and welfare almost +every novelty from almost every part of the world. The great fault +committed by the People is its too great respect for false +authorities and false prophets.</p> + +<p>The so-called honest Conservatives have exercised and still continue +to exercise a most fatal influence on public affairs, and especially +on what is called the domestic policy. These same "honest +Conservatives" are more dangerous than the out-spoken Copperheads; +more dangerous, perhaps, than all the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>(p. 131)</span> friends of slavery +and foes of the Union combined. These "honest Conservatives" have +contrived to surround themselves with a halo of honesty and +respectability. But they as cordially hate and dread every vivid +light and vigorous progress as the traitors themselves do. Those +Conservatives opposed every vigorous measure. They spoke tenderly of +the "misguided brethren" in the South, and took their own servile +and blundering, though quite possibly sincere fancies, for actual +and tangible facts. The honest Conservatives will support whatever +is slow, double-dealing, and, therefore, conservative. The honest +Conservatives took McClellan to their honest hearts, and not one of +them has any clear notion of military affairs, and still less can +any of them fathom the awful depth of McClellan's military +criminality. I repeat what I said in the first volume of my Diary: +McClellan and his tail fell, not on account of their Democratism, or +their pro-slavery creed, but because McClellan repeatedly displayed +all the worst qualities of a thoroughly unsoldierly commander. No +one would have uttered a word of censure if McClellan with his +hundred and eighty thousand men had surrounded the thirty to forty +thousand rebels in Centreville and Manassas in the winter of 1861-2, +and taken some nobler trophies than camp manure and maple guns! The +honest Conservatives attack and hate Stanton, yet not one of them +has <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>(p. 132)</span> any notion whatever of Stanton's action towards +McClellan. Stanton would have been the first to raise McClellan +sky-high if McClellan had preferred to fight instead of reposing in +his bed in Washington, and then in various muds. Such is your +knowledge of this and of all other public affairs, O respectable +soul and spiritless body of honest Conservatives! Historians of this +country! collect the names of the <i>honest</i> Conservatives, but expose +them not to the abomination of coming generations.</p> + +<p><i>February 7.</i>—The Sanitary Commission, with all its branches and +subdivisions, is among the noblest manifestations of what can be +done by a free people, and how private enterprise of intelligent, +patriotic and unselfish men can confer benefit. Nor must the praise +of that great work be limited to men. Warm-hearted gentlewomen also +have done their share in it. The Sanitary Commission is one of the +best out-croppings of self-government, and does honor to the people, +and softens and ameliorates the warlike roughness of the times.</p> + +<p>The Sanitary Commission marks a new era in the history of genuine +and not bogus and merely verbal philanthropy, and its spontaneity +and expansion were only possible in free, and therefore humane and +enlightened America.</p> + +<p><i>February 8.</i>—Mr. Seward is busily at work endeavoring to crush the +radicals, and to make the Emancipation Proclamation a mere sheet of +waste <span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>(p. 133)</span> paper. All that is mean and nasty, all that is +reeking and foul with all kinds of corruptions, takes Seward for its +standard-bearer. The so-called radical press aids Seward with all +its might.</p> + +<p><i>February 9.</i>—Gen. Casey adopts some of my ideas and suggestions, +which I discussed with him. Gen. Casey is honestly at work, and the +new tactics will be in print.</p> + +<p>Stanton would wish to establish a thorough military camp on a large +scale, for organizing Africo-Americans. But the higher powers are +against it. Virginia, the most populous slave state, the nursery of +slaves, must, scorpion-like, be surrounded with glowing contraband +camps. What a splendid position for such a camp is Harper's Ferry +under the shadow of immortal John Brown!</p> + +<p>A few days ago, Mr. Lincoln was full of joy because the defences of +Washington are in excellent condition. Thus the country will learn +with joy that the——spade is still at work, that the military curse +hurled by Scott and McClellan is still influencing the operation of +the war, that Halleck is the worthy continuator of his predecessors, +that Mr. Lincoln's fears and uneasiness about the fate of the city +of Washington are slowly, slowly assuaged, that the President's +fancy is nursed, that the construction of the extensive +fortifications around the capital is still continued, that new forts +are continually erected, that the fear of an attack on Washington +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>(p. 134)</span> is still paramount, and that to-day—sixty to seventy +thousand troops are kept idle in these old and new forts—when +Rosecrans has no succor, when Texas is lost, and when the whole +rebel region trembles under the tread of savage hordes.</p> + +<p>Through one of its clerks, the State Department intends to sue me +for libel, contained, as they say, in the first volume of my +<i>Diary</i>. Well, great masters, if you swallow me, you may not digest +me. Let us try.<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2" title="Go to footnote 2"><span class="smaller">[2]</span></a></p> + +<p><i>February 10.</i>—... mens agitat molem ... oh, could I only believe +that such is the case with Mr. Lincoln, how devoted I could become, +and loyal to him, according to the new theory of the lickspittles +and politicians!</p> + +<p><i>February 10.</i>—Resolute Senator Grimes did what was the duty of +Sumner to have done long ago. Grimes presented resolutions relative +to the mission of Mercier to Richmond, a mission allowed, almost +authorized by Mr. Seward. Mercier cannot be blamed, and his veracity +is supported by the fact that Lord Lyons was at once informed of the +whole transaction, and Lord Lyons is to be believed. Seward will +play the innocent, and take his refuge in the god of—lies.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>(p. 135)</span> <i>February 12.</i>—In his answer to the Senate, Mr. Seward +gives to Mercier the lie direct. It will be rich if Mercier stands +square.</p> + +<p><i>February 12.</i>—Congress draws to its close. Lincoln accumulates +powers, responsibilities, and hereafter perhaps curses, sufficient +to break the turtle on which stands the elephant that sustains the +Sanscrit world.</p> + +<p><i>February 13.</i>—The almost imperceptible ripple on the diplomatic +pool of Washington has disappeared. Simple people might have +believed that there was an issue of veracity between Mr. Seward and +the French Minister. But since a long, a very long time, Seward and +veracity have run in different orbits, and diplomats, +Talleyrand-like, ought to be the incarnation of equanimity even if +any one—diplomatically—treads on their toes. Besides, the answer +given to the Senate before it reached its destination <i>might have +been arranged</i> at any such confidential chat as was that one where +the little innocent, nobody-hurting (no, not even the people's +honour) trip to Richmond was concocted. The French Minister's name +<i>appears not</i> in the document sent to the Senate; so the lie direct +is after all only a constructive lie; nobody is hurt. A general +shaking of hands and all is well. But strange things may come out +yet, and others may not be so blazened out.</p> + +<p>The soap bubble of mediation exploded under the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>(p. 136)</span> nose of the +French schemers. The soap used by them was of the finest and most +aromatic quality, but the democratic nerves of the American people +resisted the Franco-diplomatic cunningly mixed aroma. The applause +gained by Mr. Seward's very indifferent document, wherein the great +initiator of the Latin race on this free continent was rebuked, the +satisfaction shown by the public, ought to open the eyes of the +sentimental French trio. They ought to understand, by this time, +that Seward's argumentative dispatch, incomplete and below mark as +it is, won applause, although it expresses only the hundredth of the +patriotic ire bursting from the people's bosom. Otherwise the people +would have at once found out all skillfully, cunningly, +chameleon-like Seward dodges, which ignore before Europe the sublime +character of the struggle forced by treason upon the loyal free +States; and in which how he avoids to hurt the slavocracy.</p> + +<p>The Imperial mediator and bottle-holder to slavocracy belies not his +bloody origin and his bloody appetites. The events in Egypt, the +negro kidnapping in Alexandria, have torn the mask from his astute +policy. If, for his filibustering raid into Mexico, Louis Napoleon +wanted colored soldiers accustomed to the climate, he could raise +them among the free colored population of the French possessions in +Martinique, Guadaloupe, etc. But to use the freemen from the +Antilles would have set a bad <span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>(p. 137)</span> example to the +Africo-Americans in the revolted States; Louis Napoleon wished not +to hurt or offend his slaveocratic pets and traitors; by kidnapping +slaves in Egypt the French ruler showed how highly he values the +stealing qualities of the Southern chivalry—and he paid a tribute +to the principle of slavery.</p> + +<p>But while treating with all possible horror and disrespect the +French officiousness, the American people ought not to forget the +innermost interconnection of events. If the French diplomacy, if the +French Cabinet became sentimental at the sight of our deadly +struggle with the demon of treason, it was because they witnessed +our helplessness, and witnessed the uninterrupted chain of faults +and of bad policy; it was because they and the whole world saw the +want of earnestness in our official leaders; and from all this these +<i>Messieurs</i> concluded that the patriots of the North never will be +able to crush the traitors in the South. So speak the French +diplomatic documents, so speaks Mercier, Drouyn de l'Huys and Louis +Napoleon; and has not the Seward-Weed influence, paramount in the +policy of the Government, brought about all these bad results, +palsied the war, and thus almost justified the officiousness of the +<i>Messieurs</i>?</p> + +<p><i>February 13.</i>—Many forebode the downfall, the dissolution, and the +disappearance of the Republican party. That may be, and if so then +one of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>(p. 138)</span> the cardinal laws of human progress, development and +ascension, will be fullfilled. <i>The initiator either perishes by the +initiated, or the initiator perishes, disappears because his +special mission, his task is done.</i></p> + +<p>The progress of humanity is marked by the sacrifice and death of its +initiators. Such was the end of the founders of religions, of +societies; such of political bodies. Osiris, Lycurgus, Romulus, +Christ, the martyrs, the apostles, are a few from numberless +illustrations that might be cited. The Long Parliament, the French +Convention, disappeared after having fullfilled the work of +destruction pointed out to them by the genius of progress and of our +race. As an organized political party the Republican may disappear +with the war, for slavery is finally destroyed. This is the noble +initiation and solution fulfilled by the Republican party. To +destroy slavery and the political defenders and props of slavery, +was the mission that was fatally thrown or entrusted by inexorable +destiny to the Republican party. With the destruction of slavery, +disappears from the political life of America the <i>Northern man with +Southern principles</i>; those very dregs of dregs of all times and of +all political bodies and societies. Slavery is destroyed both +virtually and <i>de facto</i>, new issues are looming, new solutions will +be given, and new men will bear the new word.</p> + +<p>All in creation, and in every party, has its light <span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>(p. 139)</span> and its +shadow, its pure principle, its pure men and its dregs. Every party +has its faults and its shortcomings. The dregs fall, and the work of +the party is done. Some of the chiefs and leaders of the Republican +party became faithless, (Seward,) went over to darkness, but thereby +the onward march to the sacred aim was not arrested. The +irresistible current of events and of human affairs carried onwards +the Republican party. Perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless +emphatically, the Republican party in its <i>ensemble</i> was a +providential agency; it became the incarnation of the loftiest +aspirations of the best among the American people. Against its wish +and will, contrary to expectations, the Republican party was +challenged to action; the sword of law, of justice and of right, was +forcibly thrust into the party's hand, and slavocracy, the +challenger, is already bleeding its life-blood, and its death-knell +resounds from pole to pole. To speak the language of politicians; +abolition, emancipation by the sword, was forced upon the Republican +party.</p> + +<p>And the Republican party carried out the principle of the preamble +of the bill of rights; a principle eternal as right, but +nevertheless hitherto only partially realized. The Republican party +has borne the brunt, and accomplished the appointed evolutions of +progress; and the Republican party has deserved well of the American +people, of history and of humanity. And the children and +grandchildren <span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>(p. 140)</span> of those who to-day cavil, defile and stone +the party, they hereafter will bless the Republican party, who, with +noble consciousness can say to the spirit of light and of duty: +<i>Nunc dimitte in pacem servum tuum Domine.</i></p> + +<p>One of the best evidences of purity and of the elevation of the +Republican party in its noblest representative men is that the +obtusest among the great diplomats shunned the Republicans as little +monsters shun the daylight. I mention this as a collateral +illustration without intending to raise a diplomat or the poor +diplomacy of the world to an undeserved significance, for I bear in +mind the behest, <i>ne misceantur sacra prophanis</i>.</p> + +<p>The nobleness of the accomplished mission, the glorious Sunset +wherein will disappear the Republican party, frees, not from +reproaches nor from maledictions, those Republicans who, by their +selfishness and faithlessness, obstructed its progress, and polluted +the party. Their names remain nailed to the pillory.</p> + +<p>I may here observe that I never belonged and never claimed to belong +to the Republican party. For nearly half a century my creed has +been—Onward! onward! struggle, fight, sacrifice for light, for +progress, for human rights; for that cause fight and struggle under +every banner, under every name, and in rank and file with every +body.</p> + +<p><i>February 13.</i>—Seward seizes by the hair the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>(p. 141)</span> occasion +proffered to him by the <i>Decembriseur's</i> offer of mediation, and +tries to reconquer the confidence of the public. This shows to +Drouyn de l'Huys and to his master, that they are misinformed +concerning the condition of America, (also M. Mercier misinformed +them; how could he do otherwise?) The despatch to Dayton, February +7, will lead astray public opinion. The majority will forget and +lose sight of the intercatenation of events and actions perpetrated +by Mr. Seward. O Chase! O Sumner! Seward rises with his patient pen +and paper in the inky glory of a patriot, and you——cave in.</p> + +<p>Speaking of Mr. Seward's answer to France, a diplomat observed to +me: "The European Cabinets are so accustomed to Mr. Seward's +duplicity and want of veracity, that now that Seward refuses to +accept mediation, in Europe they will conclude that Seward's +acceptation of mediation is at hand."</p> + +<p><i>February 14.</i>—The struggle is for the rights of man, for the +Christian idea, purified of all dogma and worship. Those who see it +not, are similar to a fish from the Kentucky Cave.</p> + +<p><i>February 14.</i>—Could Mr. Lincoln only be inspired, be warmed by the +sacred fire of enthusiasm, then his natural and selected affinities +would be other minds than those of a Seward, a Weed, a Halleck, +etc.; then what is night could become light; and where he painfully +gropes along his path, Mr. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>(p. 142)</span> Lincoln would march with a firm, +almost with a godlike step, at the head of such a peerless people as +those of whom he is the Chief Magistrate.</p> + +<p>But as it is now, I may turn the mind in any direction whatever, all +the causes of mishaps and disasters converge on Mr. Lincoln. +According to his partisans, Mr. Lincoln's intentions are the best, +and he is always trying to conciliate—and to shift. It is useless +to discuss Mr. Lincoln's peculiar ways. In most cases, Mr. Lincoln +uses old, rotten tools for a new and heavy work. I have it from the +most truthful and positive authority, that Mr. Lincoln is fully +acquainted with the opinions of the so called <i>dissatisfied</i>, of +those with Southern propensities, proclivities and affinities, of +whom many are in the superior civil and military service. Contrary +to the advice of patriots in the Cabinet and out of it, Mr. Lincoln +insists upon keeping such at their post—doubtless always expecting +that they will <i>turn round</i>. Such a heavy difficulty and task as is +the present, must be worked out, with absolute devotion and +sincerity; and can this logically be expected from men whose hearts +and minds are not in their actions? Mr. Lincoln forgets that +thousands of lives and millions of money are sacrificed to the +experiment as to whether the insincere officials will <i>turn round</i>.</p> + +<p>The cause will not fail, light will not be extinguish, even if the +leaders break down or betray, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>(p. 143)</span> even if the Copperheads +frighten some of the pilots, or if some of the faithless pilots +shake hands with the Copperheads, as was the case in the elections +of November last in New York and elsewhere. The people will save +light, dissipate darkness, save the cause, save the leaders, the +pilots and the politicians.</p> + +<p><i>February 15.</i>—Some days ago in compliance with summons, that +pedler of all corruptions, Thurlow Weed, came to Washington, and +with Mr. Seward, his <i>fidus Achates</i>, was for days or nights +closeted with Mr. Lincoln, pouring into the president's soul as much +poison and darkness as was possible. That such was the case can, +besides, easily be concluded from what that incarnation of all +perversions predicated to all who came within his nauseous +preachings here. According to Mr. T. Weed's revelations, "<i>The +proclamation is an absurdity, and the Union will soon—as it +ought—be ruled by the rebels.</i>" So it was told me. Perhaps it is +already done through Thurlow Weed's mediation and instrumentality.</p> + +<p>Continually inspired by Weed, Mr. Seward is therefore untiring in +his over-patriotic efforts to preserve the former Union and +Slavery—to save the matricide slave-holders.</p> + +<p>In what clutches is Mr. Lincoln! Even I pity him. Even I am forced +to give him credit for being what he is—considering his intimacies +and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>(p. 144)</span> his surroundings. Few men entrusted with power over +nations have resisted such fatal influences,—not even Cromwell and +Napoleon. History has not yet settled how it was with Cæsar, and so +far as I know, Frederick the Great of Prussia is of the very few who +have been unimpressionable. Pericles coruscates over ruins and the +night of the ancient world; Pericles's intimacy was with the best +and the manliest Athenians.</p> + +<p>But has Mr. Lincoln an unlimited confidence in the few men with +large brains and with big hearts, brains and hearts burning with the +sacred and purest patriotic fire? Or are not rather all his +favorites—not even whitened—sepulchres of manhood, of mind and of +sacred intellect?</p> + +<p><i>February 16.</i>—It is asserted, and some day or other it will be +verified, that the Committee on the Conduct of the War have +investigated how far certain generals from the army on the +Rappahannock used their influence with the President to paralyze a +movement against the enemy ordered by Burnside. That facts +discovered may be published or not, for the Administration shuns +publicity. <i>The Committee discovered that Mr. Seward was implicated +in that conspiracy of generals against Burnside.</i> Any qualification +of such conduct is impossible, and the vocabulary of crimes has no +name for it; let it, therefore, be <i>Sewardism</i>. The editors of the +New <span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>(p. 145)</span> York <i>Tribune</i> did their utmost to prevent <i>Sewardism</i> +being exposed.</p> + +<p><i>February 16.</i>—Often, so to speak, the hand refuses to record what +the head hears and sees, what the reason must judge. To witness how +one of the greatest events in the development of mankind, how the +deadly struggle between right and crime, between good and evil, how +the blood and sweat of <i>such a people</i> are dealt with +by—counterfeits!</p> + +<p><i>February 17.</i>—Poor Banks! He is ruined by having been last year +pressed to Seward's bosom, and having been thus initiated into the +Seward-Weed Union and slavery-restoring policy. Banks and Louis +Napoleon in Mexico and in his mediation scheme; both Banks and +Napoleon were ruined by yielding to bad advice—Banks to that of +Seward, and Louis Napoleon to that of his diplomats. I hope that +Banks will shake off the nightmare that is throttling him now; that +he will no more write senseless proclamations, will give up the +attempt to save slave-holders, and will march straight to the great +task of crushing the rebellion and rebels. He will blot slavery, +that Cain's mark on the brow of the Union; blot it and throw it into +the marshes of the parishes of Louisiana. I rely upon Banks's sound +common sense. He will come out from among the evil ones.</p> + +<p><i>February 18.</i>—Under no other transcendent leadership than that of +its patriotism and convictions, the majority of this expiring +Congress boldly and squarely <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>(p. 146)</span> faced the emergencies and all +the necessities daily, hourly evoked by the Rebellion, and +unhesitatingly met them. If the majority was at times confused, the +confusion was generated by many acts of the administration, and not +by any shrinking before the mighty and crushing task, or by the +attempt to evade the responsibility. The impartial historian will +find in the Statutes an undisputable confirmation of my assertions. +The majority met all the prejudices against taxation, indebtedness, +paper currency, draft, and other similar cases.</p> + +<p>And all the time the majority of Congress was stormed by traitors, +by intriguers, by falsifiers and prisoners of public opinion; the +minority in Congress taking the lead therein. Many who ought to +have supported the majority either fainted or played false. The +so-called good press, neither resolute nor clear-sighted, nor +far-seeing, more than once confused, and as a whole seldom +thoroughly supported the majority.</p> + +<p>If the good press had the indomitable courage in behalf of good and +truth, that the <i>Herald</i> has in behalf of untruth and of mischief, +how differently would the affairs look and stand!</p> + +<p><i>February 19.</i>—Jackson first formed, attracted and led on the +people's opinion. Has not Mr. Lincoln thrown confusion around?</p> + +<p><i>February 19.</i>—The Supreme Court of the United States has before it +the prize cases resulting from captures made by our navy. The +counsel for the English <span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>(p. 147)</span> and rebel blockade-runners and +pilferers find the best point of legal defence in the +unstatesmanlike and unlegal wording of the proclamation of the +blockade, as concocted and issued by Mr. Seward, and in the repeated +declarations contained in the voluminous diplomatic correspondence +of our Secretary of State,—declarations asserting that <i>no war +whatever is going on in the Federal Republic</i>. No war, therefore no +lawful prizes on the ocean. So ignorance, and humbug mark every step +of this foremost among the pilots of a noble, high-minded, but too +confiding people.</p> + +<p>The facts, the rules, and the principles in these prize cases are +almost unprecedented and new; new in the international laws, and +new in the history of governments of nations. Seldom, if ever, were +so complicated the powers of government, its rights, and the duties +of neutrals, the rights and the duties of the captors, and the +condition of the captured. This rebellion is, so to speak, <i>sui +generis</i>, almost unprecedented on land and sea. The difficulties and +complications thus arising, became more complicated by the either +reckless or unscientific (or both) turn given by the State +Department in conceding to the rebels the condition of belligerents. +Thus the great statutory power of the sovereign, (that is, of the +Union through its president) for the suppression of the rebellion +was palsied at the start. The insurrection of the Netherlands alone +has some very small similarity with our civil war; however, that +insurrection took <span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>(p. 148)</span> place at a time when very few, if any, +principles of international laws were generally laid down and +generally recognized. Here the municipal laws, the right of the +sovereign and his duty to save itself and the people, the rights and +the laws of war, wrongly applied to such virtual outlaws as the +rebels, the maritime code of prize laws and rules, play into and +intertwine each other. When Mr. Seward penned his doleful +proclamation of the blockade, etc., he never had before his mind +what a mess he generated; what complications might arise therefrom. +I am sure he never knew that such proclamation was <i>a priori</i> +pregnant with complications, and that at least its wording ought to +have been very careful. Mr. Seward was not at all cognizant of the +fact that the wording of a proclamation of a blockade, for the time +being, lays down a rule for the judges in the prize courts. For him +it was rather a declamation than a proclamation; he who believed the +rebellion would end in July, 1861, and that no occasion would arise +to apply the rules of the blockade.</p> + +<p>Thus Mr. Seward, with his thorough knowledge of international law +rendered difficult the position of the captors; he equally increased +the difficulty for the judge to administer justice. By this +proclamation and the commentaries put on it, Mr. Seward curtailed +the rights of the government of which he is a part, conceded undue +conditions to the rebels, and facilitated to the neutrals the means +of violating his blockade. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>(p. 149)</span> So much is clear and palpable +to-day, and I am sure more complications and imbecilities are in +store. If Mr. Seward had had good advisors for these nice and +difficult questions, he would not have blundered in this way. Thus +Charles Eames, who in the pleadings before the Superior United +States Court has shown a consummate mastery in prize +questions—Eames could teach Mr. Seward a great deal about the +constitutional powers of the president to suppress the rebellion, +and about the meaning and the bearing of international maritime +laws, rights, duties and rules.</p> + +<p><i>February 20.</i>—A Mr. Funk, a member of the Illinois Senate, a +farmer, and a man of sixty-five years, on February 13, made a speech +in that body which sounds better than all the rhetories and +oratories. It was the sound and genuine utterance of a man from the +people, and I hope some future historian will record the speech and +the name of the old, indomitable patriot.</p> + +<p><i>February 20.</i>—Stimulated by a pure Athenian breeze, the Congress +passed a law organizing an Academy of Sciences. What a gigantic +folly; the only one committed by this Congress. The pressure was +very great, and exercised by the bottomless vanity of certain +scientific, self-styled magnates, and by the Athenians. Up to this +day, the American scientific development and progress consisted in +its freedom and independence. No legal corporation impeded and +trammeled the limitless scope of the intellectual <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>(p. 150)</span> and +scientific development. That was the soul and secret of our rapid +and luminous onward march. Now fifty patented, incorporated +respectabilities will put the curb on, will hamper the expansion. +Academies turn to fossils. My hope is that the true American spirit +will soar above the vanity and pettiness of corporated wisdom, and +that this scientific Academy bubble will end in inanity and in +ridicule. I am sorry that Congress was taken in, and committed such +a blunder. It was caught napping.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chase's bank bill, prospective of money, and as many say, +prospective of presidency, passed the house. What fools are they +already begin to direct their steps and their ardent wishes toward +the White House.</p> + +<p><i>February 22.</i>—The, at any price, supporters of the Administration, +point with satisfaction to the various successes, and to the space +of land already redeemed from rebellion. I protest against such +explanation given to events, and call to it the attention of every +future historian. Never had the <i>suum cuique</i> required a more +stringent, philosophical application. With the various inexhaustible +means at its disposal, with the unextinguishable enthusiasm of the +people, far different and more conclusive results, <i>could</i> and ought +to have been obtained. The ship makes headway if even, by the +negligence of the officers and of the crew, she drags a cable or an +anchor. The ship is the people dragging its administrators.</p> + +<p>A western Democrat, but patriot, said to me that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>(p. 151)</span> Lincoln +compares to Jeff Davis, as a wheel-barrow does to a steam engine!</p> + +<p>The Democrats claim to be the genuine fighting element, and to be +possessed of the civic courage, and of governmental capacity. How, +then, can the Democrats rave for McClellan, the most unfighting +soldier ever known?</p> + +<p>The future historian must be warned not to look to the newspapers +for information concerning facts and concerning the spirit of the +people. The <i>Tribune's</i> senile clamor for peace, for arbitration, +for meditation, its Jewitt, Mercier, Napoleon, and Switzerland +combinations, fell dead and in ridicule before the sound judgment of +ninety-nine hundredths of the people.</p> + +<p><i>February 24.</i>—In Europe I had experience of political prisons and +of their horror. But I would prefer to rot, to be eaten up by rats, +rather than be defended by such arch-copperheads as are the Coxes, +the Biddles, the Powells, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>In the discussion concerning the issue of the letters of marque, +Sumner was dwelling in sentimentalities and generalities, altogether +losing sight of the means of defense of the country, and the genuine +national resources. With all respect for high and sentimental +principles and patriotism, with due reverence of the opinion, the +applause or the condemnatory verdict to be issued by +philanthropists, by doctors, and other Tommities, my heart and my +brains prefer the resolute, patriotic, manly Grimes, Wades, etc., +the various <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>(p. 152)</span> <i>skippers</i> and masters, all of whom look not +over the ocean for applause, but above all have in view to save or +to defend the country, whatever be the rules or expectations of the +self-constituted Doctors of International laws.</p> + +<p><i>February 25.</i>—The Union-Slavery saviours, led on by the <i>Herald</i>, +by Seward, by Weed, etc., all are busily at work.</p> + +<p><i>Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from +us.</i></p> + +<p>I hear that great disorder prevails in the Quartermaster's +Department. It is no wonder. In all armies, countries, government +and wars, the Quartermaster's Department is always disorderly. Why +shall it not be so here, when want of energy is the word? At times +Napoleon hung or shot such infamous thieves, as by their thefts +skinned and destroyed the soldiers and the army; at times in Russia, +such curses are sent to Siberia. But as yet, I have not heard that +any body was hurt here, with the exception of the treasury of the +country, and of the soldiers. The chain-gang of those +quartermaster's thieves, contractors, jobbers and lobbyists must be +strong, very long, and composed of all kind of influential and +not-influential vampyres. Somebody told me, perhaps in joke, that +all of them constitute a kind of free-masonry, and have signs of +recognition. After all, that may be true. Impudence, brazen brow, +and blank conscience may be among such signs of recognition.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>(p. 153)</span> <i>February 26.</i>—O, could I only win confidence in Mr. +Lincoln, it would be one of the most cheerful days and events in my +life. Perhaps, elephant-like, Mr. Lincoln slowly, cautiously but +surely feels his way across a bridge leading over a precipice. +Perhaps so; only his slowness is marked with blood and disasters. +But the most discouraging and distressing is his <i>cortège</i>, his +official and unofficial friends. Mars Stanton, Neptune Welles, are +good and reliable, but have no decided preponderance. +Astrea-Themis-Bates is mostly right when disinfected from +border-State's policy, and from fear of direct, unconditional +emancipation. But neither in Olympus nor in Tartarus, neither in +heaven nor in hell, can I find names of prototypes for the official +and unofficial body-guard which, commanded by Seward, surrounds and +watches Mr. Lincoln, so that no ray of light, no breath of spirit +and energy may reach him.</p> + +<p><i>February 26.</i>—This civil war with its <i>cortège</i> of losses and +disasters, which after all fall most bloodily and crushingly on the +laborious, and rather comparatively, poorer part of the whole +people; perhaps all this will form the education of the rank and +file of the political Democratic party. The like Democratic masses +are intellectually by far inferior to the Republican masses. +Experience will perhaps teach those unwashed Democrats how degrading +was their submission to slavocracy, which reduced them to the +condition of political helots. This rank and file may <span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>(p. 154)</span> find +out how they were blindfolded by slave breeders and their northern +abettors. A part of the Democratic masses were, and still are kept +in as brutal political ignorance and depravity as are the poor +whites in the South, under whatever name one may record them. Now, +or never, is the time for the <i>unwashed</i> to find out that during +their alliance with the Southern traitors, all genuine manhood, all +that ennobles, elevates the man and warms his heart, was poisoned or +violently torn from them—that brutality is not liberty, and +finally, that the Northern leaders have been or are more abject than +abjectness itself. If the rank and file finds out all this, the +blood and disasters are, in part at least, atoned for.</p> + +<p><i>February 27.</i>—O! could I from every word, from every page of this +Diary, for eternities, make coruscate the nobleness, the simple +faith with which the people sacrifices all to the cause. To be +biblical, the sacrifice of the people is as pure as was that made +by Abel; that made by the people's captains, leaders, pilots is +Cain-like.</p> + +<p><i>February 27.</i>—All the Copperheads fused together have done less +mischief, have less distorted and less thrown out of the track the +holy cause, they have exercised a less fatal and sacrilegious +influence, they are responsible for less blood and lives, than is +Mr. Seward, with all his arguments and spread-eagleism. Even +McClellan and McClellanism recede before Seward and Sewardism, the +latter having <span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>(p. 155)</span> generated the former. In times of political +convulsions, perverse minds and intellects at the helm, more fatally +influence the fate of a nation than do lost battles. Lost battles +often harden the temper of a people; a perverse mind vitiates it.</p> + +<p><i>February 27.</i>—Gold rises, and no panic, a phenomenon upsetting the +old theories of political economy. This rise will not affect the +public credit, will not even ruin the poor. I am sure it will be so, +and political economy, as every thing else in this country, will +receive new and more true solutions for its old, absolute problems. +The genuine credit, the prosperity of this country, is wholly +independent of this or that financial or governmental would-be +capacity; is independent of European exchanges, and of the +appreciation by the Rothschilds, the Barings, and whatever be the +names of the European appraisers. The American credit is based on +the consciousness of the people, and on the faith in its own +vitality, in its inexhaustible intellectual and material resources. +The people credits to itself, it asks not the foreigners to open +for it any credit. The foreign capitalists will come and beg. The +nation is not composed here as it is composed all over Europe, of a +large body of oppressed, who are cheated, taxed by the upper-strata +and by a Government. Thus credit and discredit in America have other +causes and foundations, their fluctuations differ from all that +decides such eventualities in Europe.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>(p. 156)</span> I am sure that subsequent events will justify these my +assertions.</p> + +<p><i>February 28.</i>—Inveterate West Pointers got hold of the dizzy +brains of some Senators and of other Congressmen, and Congress +wasted its precious time in regulating the military position of +engineers. This action of Congress is a <i>pendant</i> to the Academy of +Sciences. The leaders in this discussion proved to <i>nausea</i>; 1st. +Their utter ignorance of the whole military science, of its +subdivisions, branches and classifications; 2d. Their ignorance of +the nature of intellectual hierarchy in sciences; 3d. Those +Congressional wiseacres proved how easily the West Point Engineers +humbugged them. Congress consecrates the engineer as number one. +Congress had better send a trustful man to Europe, to the continent, +and find out what is considered as number one in the science of +warfare. But every luminous body throws a shadow; the Academy of +Sciences, and this number one, are the shadows thrown by that +political body.</p> + +<p><i>February 28.</i>—Seldom, if ever, in history was the vital principle +of a society, of a nation, of a Government, so bitterly assailed, +and its destruction attempted by combined elements and forces of the +most hellish origin and nature, as the vital principle of American +institutions is now assailed. The enemies, the sappers, the miners, +are the Union-Slavery-Saviours of all kinds and hues. But darkness +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>(p. 157)</span> cannot destroy light, nor cold overpower heat:—so the +united conspiracy will not prevail against light and right and +justice.</p> + +<p><i>February 28.</i>—The last batch of various generals sent for +confirmation to the Senate, reflects and illustrates the manner in +which promotion is managed, and military powers and capacity +estimated at the White House.</p> + +<p>Hooker and Heintzelman are made major generals because they +brilliantly fought at Williamsburgh, and Sumner is likewise promoted +for Williamsburgh, where, in pursuance of McClellan's orders, Sumner +looked on when Heintzelman and Hooker were almost cut to pieces. The +dignitaries of Halleck's pacific staff are promoted, and colonels +who fight, and who, by their bravery and blood correct or neutralize +the awful deadly blunders of Halleck and of his staff, such colonels +are <i>not</i> promoted!</p> + +<p><i>February 28.</i>—Congress outlawed all foreign intervention, +mediation! Catch it, foreign meddlers. Catch it, <i>Decembriseur</i> and +your lackeys.</p> + +<p><i>February 28.</i>—Congress by its boldness, saved the immaculate +Republican idea, saved the principle of self-government, and +deserves the gratitude of all those from pole to pole, who have at +heart the triumph of freedom, the triumph of light! To its last +hours, this Congress had to overcome all the mean, petty appetites +and cravings, which so often palsy, defile, or at the best, +neutralize the noblest activity; Congress <span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>(p. 158)</span> had to overcome +prejudices, narrow-mindedness and bad faith. Many of the so called +political friends—<i>vide</i>, the great Republican press—are as +troublesome, as much nuisances, as are the Sewardites and the +Copperheads. Others accuse the Congress for not having done enough. +Copperheads and Sewardites accuse Congress of having done too much. +And thus, the majority of Congress marches on across impediments and +abuses thrown in its way both by friends and by enemies.</p> + +<p>The <i>Tribune</i> bitterly and boldly attacks Dahlgren, and trembling +caves in before Seward. Of course! Dahlgren can only send 11 and 15 +inch shells to crush the enemy; brother politician Seward can be +useful for some scheme.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>(p. 159)</span> MARCH, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Press — Ethics — President's Powers — Seward's Manifestoes — + Cavalry — Letters of Marque — Halleck — Siegel — Fighting — + McDowell — Schalk — Hooker — Etat Major-General — Gold — + Cloaca Maxima — Alliance — Burnside — Halleckiana — Had we + but Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc.</p> + +<p><i>March 1.</i>—Unprecedented is the fact in the history of +constitutionally-governed nations, that the patriots of a political +party in power, that its most devoted and ardent men, as a question +of life or death, are forced to support and defend an Administration +which they placed at the helm, and whose many, many acts they +disapprove.</p> + +<p>The soldiers in the hospitals die the death of confessors to the +great cause. And the hair turns not white on the heads of those +whose policy, helplessness, and ignorance, crowd the hospitals with +the people's best children.</p> + +<p><i>March 2.</i>—The New-York <i>Times</i>—one among the great beacons and +authorities in the country—the New York <i>Times</i> belies its title as +the "little villain." Gigantically, Atlas-like, that sheet upholds +Seward and Weed. The <i>Times</i> makes one admire the senile, +compromising, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>(p. 160)</span> mediating, arbitrating, and, at times, +stumbling <i>Tribune</i>, and the cautious but often ardent <i>Evening +Post</i>.</p> + +<p>The <i>Times</i> joins in the outcry against the radicals. It is +Seward-Weed's watchword. It is the watchword of the <i>Herald</i>. It is +the watchword of the most thickly coppered Copperheads. Genuine, +pure convictions and principles are always radical. Christianity +could not have been established were not the first Christians most +absolute radicals. They compromised not with heathenism, compromised +not with Judaism, which in every way was their father. +Radicals—true ones—look to the great aim, forget their persons, +and are not moved by mean interests and vanities.</p> + +<p>The press in Europe, above all, on the Continent, is different. Its +editors and contributors risk their liberty, their persons, their +pockets, and sacrifice all to their convictions. They are not afraid +to speak out their convictions, even if under the penalty to +lose—subscribers; and that is all the risk run by an American +newspaper. The <i>Herald</i>, the <i>World</i>, the <i>Express</i>, all organs of +the evil spirit, through thick and thin, stand to their fetish, that +McClellan; the Republican papers neither pitilessly attack the +enemies, nor boldly and manfully support the friends, of the cause.</p> + +<p>I nurse no personal likings or dislikings; the times are too mighty, +too earnest for such pettiness. For me, men are agencies of +principles: bad agencies of an intrinsically good principle are +often more mischievous <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>(p. 161)</span> than are bad principles and their +confessors. The eternal tendency of human elevation and purification +is to eliminate, to dissolve, to uproot social evils, to neutralize +or push aside bad men, in whatever skin they may go about. It is a +slow and difficult, but nevertheless incessant work of our race. It +is consecrated by all founders of religions, by legislators, by +philosophers, by moralists; it is an article of human, social and +political ethics. As far as I experienced, the European radical +press more strictly observes that rule of political ethics than the +American press is wont to do. And the press, bad or good, is the +high pontifex of our times; more than any other social agency +whatever, the press ought, at least, to be manly, elevated, +indomitable, vigilant and straight-forward. I mean the respectable +press.</p> + +<p><i>March 3.</i>—Senator Wilson's kind of farewell speech to the +Copperheads was ringing with fiery and elevated patriotism. It +re-echoed the sentiments, the notions, the aspirations of the +people. The cobbler of Natick rose above the rhetors, above the +deliverers of prosy, classical, polished, elaborated orations, above +young and above gray-haired Athenians, high as our fiery and stormy +epoch towers over the epochs of quiet, self-satisfied, smooth, cold, +elaborate and soulless civilities.</p> + +<p><i>March 4.</i>—Mr. Lincoln hesitates—and, as many assert, is +altogether opposed to use all the severity of the laws against the +rebels. And shall not our butchered <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>(p. 162)</span> soldiers be avenged? It +is sacrilegious to put in the same scales the Union soldier and the +rebels; it is the same as to put on equal terms before justice the +incendiary and the man who stops or kills the criminal in <i>flagrante +delicto</i>.</p> + +<p><i>March 3.</i>—After a tedious labor I waded through the State papers. +O, what an accumulation of ignorance! Almost every historical and +chronological fact misplaced, misunderstood, perverted, distorted, +wrongly applied. And how many, many contradictions! Only when Mr. +Seward can simply—(very, very seldom) point out to England that by +<i>this</i> and <i>that fact</i> and <i>act</i> England violates the international +laws and rules of neutrality and of good comity between two +<i>friendly</i> governments and nations: then, <i>only</i>, Mr. Seward's +papers acquire historical and political signification. But not his +spread eagleism, not his argumentation; and, still less his broad +and inexhaustible and variegated information. Diplomatic and +statesmanlike character can not be conceded to his State papers. +Few, very few, will read them, although foreign Courts, ministers, +statesmen, princes, and the so-called celebrated women are +complimented and deluged with them. The most pitiless critics of +these productions would be the smaller clerks in the Departments of +Foreign Affairs in London and Paris. Only they are not fools to +waste their time on such specimens of literature.</p> + +<p><i>March 4.</i>—Congress adjourned. This Thirty-Seventh <span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>(p. 163)</span> +Congress marks a new era in the American and in the world's history. +It inaugurated and directed a new evolution in the onward progress +of mankind. The task of this Congress was by far more difficult and +heavier than was the task of the revolutionary and of the +constitutional Congresses. The revolutionary Congress had to fight +an external enemy. The tories of that epoch were comparatively less +dangerous than are now all kinds of Copperheads; it had to overcome +material wants and impediments, and not moral, nor social ones. That +Congress was omnipotent, governed the country, and was backed by its +virgin enthusiasm, by unity of purpose, and was not hampered by any +formulas and precedents. The Thirty-Seventh Congress had to fight a +powerful enemy, spread almost over two-thirds of the territory of +the Union; it had to fight and stand, so to speak, at home against +inveterate prejudices, against such bitter and dangerous domestic +enemies as are the Northern men with Southern principles. This +Congress was manacled by constitutional formulas, and had to carry +various other deadweights already pointed out. In the first part of +the session, Pike, Member of Congress from Maine, laid down as the +task for the Congress, <i>Fight, Tax, Emancipate</i>—and the Congress +fulfilled the task. In a certain aspect the Thirty-Seventh Congress +showed itself almost superior to the great immortal French +Convention, which ruled, governed, administered, and legislated, +while this Congress dragged a Lincoln, a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>(p. 164)</span> Seward, etc. This +Congress accomplished noble and great things without containing the +so-called "great" or "representative" men, and thus Congress +thoroughly vindicated the great social truth of genuine, democratic +self-government.</p> + +<p><i>March 5.</i>—The <i>good</i> press reduces the activity of the Thirty +Seventh Congress to its own rather pigmy-like proportions.</p> + +<p>Congress was powerless to purify the corrosive air prevailing in +Washington, above all in the various official strata. Congress +ardently wished to purify, but the third side of the Congressional +triangle, the executive and administrative power, preferred to nurse +the foul elements. Such doubtful, and some worse than doubtful +officials, undoubtedly will become more bold, expecting the +near-at-hand advent of the Copperhead Democratic Millennium.</p> + +<p><i>March 6.</i>—The Copperhead members of both the Houses have been very +prolific and <i>scientific</i> about the inferiority of race. Pretty +specimens of superiority are they, with their sham, superficial, at +hap-hazard gathered, unvaluable small information, with their +inveterate prejudices, with their opaque, heavy, unlofty minds! Give +to any Africo-American equal chances with these props of darkness, +and he very speedily will assert over them an unquestionable +superiority. Are not the humble, suffering, orderly contrabands +infinitely superior to the rowdy, unruly, ignorant, savage and +bloody whites?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>(p. 165)</span> Southern papers are filled with accounts of the savage +persecutions to which the Union men are exposed in the rebel +region. It is the result of what Mr. Seward likes to call his +forbearing policy and of the McClellan and Halleck warfare of +1861-62.</p> + +<p><i>March 7.</i>—For the first time in the world's history, for the first +time in the history of nations governed and administered by +positive, well established, well organised, well defined +laws—powers, such as those conferred by Congress on Mr. Lincoln, +have been so conferred. Never have such powers been in advance, +coolly, legally deliberated, and in advance granted, to any +sovereign, as are forced upon Mr. Lincoln by Congress, and forced +upon him with the assent of a considerable majority of the people.</p> + +<p>Never has a nation or an honest political body whatever, shown to +any mortal a confidence similar to that shown to Mr. Lincoln. Never +in antiquity, in the days of Athens' and Rome's purest patriotism +and civic virtue, has the people invested its best men with a trust +so boundless as did the last Congress give to Mr. Lincoln.</p> + +<p>The powers granted to a Roman dictator were granted for a short +time, and they were extra legal in their nature and character; in +their action and execution the dictatorial powers were rather taken +than granted in detail. The powers forced on Mr. Lincoln are most +minutely specified; they have been most carefully framed and +surrounded by all the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>(p. 166)</span> sacred rites of law, according to +justice and the written Constitution. These powers are sanctioned by +all formulas constituting the legal cement of a social structure +erected by the freest people that ever existed. These powers deliver +into Mr. Lincoln's hand all that is dear and sacred to man—his +liberty, his domestic hearth, his family, life and fortune. A well +and deliberately discussed and matured statute puts all such earthly +goods at Mr. Lincoln's disposal and free use.</p> + +<p>The sublime axiom, <i>salus populi suprema lex esto</i> again becomes +blood and life, and becomes so by the free, deliberate will and +decision of the foremost standard-bearer of light and civilization, +the first born in the spirit of Christian ethics and of the rights +of man.—</p> + +<p>The Cromwells, the Napoleons, the absolute kings, the autocrats, and +all those whose rule was unlimited and not defined—all such grasped +at such powers. They seized them under the pressure of the direst +necessity, or to satisfy their personal ambition and exaltation. The +French Convention itself exercised unlimited dictatorial powers. But +the Convention allowed not these powers to be carried out of the +legislative sanctuary. The Committee of Robespierre was a board +belonging to and emanating from the Convention; the Commissaries +sent to the provinces and to the armies were members of the +Convention and represented its unlimited powers. When the Committee +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>(p. 167)</span> of Public Safety wanted a new power to meet a new +emergency, the Convention, so to speak, daily adjusted the law and +its might to such emergencies.</p> + +<p>Will Mr. Lincoln realize the grandeur of this unparallelled trust? +Has he a clear comprehension of the sacrifice thus perpetrated by +the people? I shudder to think about it and to doubt.</p> + +<p>The men of the people's heart—a Fremont, a Butler, are still +shelved, and the Sewards, the Hallecks, are in positions wherein no +true patriot wishes them to be. The Republican press had better +learn tenacity from the Copperhead press, which never has given up +that fetish, McClellan, and never misses the slightest occasion to +bring his name in a wreath of lies before the public.</p> + +<p><i>March 8.</i>—A great Union meeting in New York. War Democrats, +Republicans, etc., etc., etc. War to the knife with the rebels is +the watchword. Of course, Mr. Seward writes a letter to the meeting. +The letter bristles with stereotyped generalities and Unionism. The +substance of the Seward manifesto is: "Look at me; I, Seward, I am +the man to lead the Union party. I am not a Republican nor a +Democrat, but Union, Union, Union."</p> + +<p>The <i>I</i>, the No. 1, looks out from every word of that manifesto. +With a certain skill, Mr. Seward packs together high-sounding words, +but these his phrases, are cold and hollow. Mr. Seward begins by +saying that the people are to confer upon him the highest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>(p. 168)</span> +honors. Mr. Seward enlightens, and, so to speak, <i>pedagogues</i> the +people concerning what everybody ought to sacrifice. The twenty-two +millions of people have already sacrificed every thing, and +sacrificed it without being doctrined by you, O, great patriot! and +you, great patriot, you have hitherto sacrificed NOTHING!</p> + +<p>Let Mr. Seward show his patriotic record! To his ambition, +selfishness, ignorance and innate insincerity he has sacrificed as +much of the people's honor, of the people's interests, and of the +people's blood as was feasible. History cannot be cheated. History +will compare Mr. Seward's manifestoes and phrases with his actions!</p> + +<p><i>March 8.</i>—The cavalry horses look as if they came from Egypt +during the seven years' famine. I inquired the reason from different +soldiers and officers of various regiments. Nine-tenths of them +agreed that the horses scarcely receive half the ration of oats and +hay allotted to them by the government. Somebody steals the other +half, but every body is satisfied. All this could very easily be +ferreted out, but it seems that no will exists any where to bring +the thieves to punishment.</p> + +<p><i>March 8.</i>—During weeks and weeks I watched McDowell's inquiry. +What an honest and straight-forward man is Sigel. McDowell would +make an excellent criminal lawyer. McDowell is the most cunning to +cross-examine; he would shine among all criminal <span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>(p. 169)</span> catchers. +The Know-Nothing West Point hatred is stirred up against Sigel. I +was most positively assured that at Pea Ridge a West Point drunkard +and general expressly fired his batteries in Sigel's rear, to throw +Sigel's troops into disorder and disgrace. But in the fire Sigel +cannot be disgraced nor confused; so say his soldiers and +companions. Sigel would do a great deal of good, but the +Know-Nothing-West Point-Halleck envy, ignorance and selfishness are +combined and bitter against Sigel.</p> + +<p>In this inquiry Sigel proved that he always fought his whole corps +himself. So do all good commanders; so did Reno, Kearney, so do +Hooker, Heintzelman, Rosecrans, and very likely all generals in the +West.</p> + +<p>The McClellan-Franklin school, and very probably the Simon-pure West +Pointers, fight differently. In their opinion, the commander of a +corps relies on his generals of divisions; these on the generals of +brigades, who, in their turn rely on colonels, and thus any kind of +<i>ensemble</i> disappears. Of course exceptions exist, but in general +our battles seem to be fought by regiments and by colonels. O West +Point! At the last Bull Run two days' battles, McDowell fought his +corps in the West Point-McClellan fashion. His own statements show +that his corps was scattered, that he had it not in hand, that he +even knew not where the divisions of his corps were located; and +during the night of 29-30, he, McDowell, after wandering about <span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>(p. 170)</span> +the field in search of his corps, spent that night bivouacking +amidst Sigel's corps!</p> + +<p><i>March 9.</i>—New York politicians behaved as meanly towards +Wadsworth as if they were all from Seward's school.</p> + +<p><i>March 9.</i>—Hooker is at the Herculean work of reorganizing the +army. Those who visited it assert that Hooker is very active, very +just; and that he has already accomplished the magician's work in +introducing order and changing the spirit of the army. Only some few +inveterate McClellanites and envious, genuine West Pointers are +slandering Hooker.</p> + +<p><i>March 12.</i>—Since the adjournment of Congress, everything looks +sluggish and in suspense. The Administration, that is, Mr. Lincoln, +is at work preparing measures, etc., to carry out the laws of +Congress; Mr. Seward is at work to baffle them; Blair is going over +to border-State policy; Stanton, firm, as of old; so is Welles; +Bates recognises good principles, but is afraid to see such +principles at once brought to light; Chase makes bonds and notes. We +shall see what will come from all these preparations. But for +Congress, Lincoln or the executive, would have been disabled from +executing the laws. Congress, by its laws or statutes, aided the +Executive branch in its <i>sworn duty</i>.</p> + +<p><i>March 13.</i>—The various Chambers of Commerce petition and ask that +the president may issue letters of marque. It is to be supposed, or +rather to be admitted, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>(p. 171)</span> that the Chambers of Commerce know +what is the best for them, how our commerce is to be protected, how +the rebel pirates swept from the oceans, and how England, +treacherous England, perfidious Albion, be punished. But Sumner—of +course—knows better than our Chambers of Commerce, and our +commercial marine; with all his little might, Sumner opposes what +the country's interests demand, and demand urgently. I am sure that +already this general demonstration of the national wish and will, +the demonstrations made by our Chambers of Commerce, etc., will +impress England, or at least the English supporters of piracy.</p> + +<p>Sumner will believe that his letters to English old women will +change the minds of the English semi-pirates. Sumner is a little +afraid of losing ground with the English guardians of civilization. +Sumner is full of good wishes, of generous conceptions, and is the +man for the millennium. Sumner lacks the keen, sharp, piercing +appreciation of common events. And thus Sumner cannot detect that +England makes war on our commerce, under the piratic flag of the +rebels.</p> + +<p><i>March 14.</i>—The primitive Christians scarcely had more terrible +enemies, scarcely had to overcome greater impediments, than are +opposed to the principle of human rights, and of emancipation. All +that is the meanest, the most degraded, the most dastardly and the +most treacherous, is combined against us. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>(p. 172)</span> Many of the +former confessors, many of our friends, many, unconscious of +it—<i>Sewardise</i> and <i>Blairise</i>.</p> + +<p>Mud is stirred up, flows, rises and penetrates in all directions. +The <i>Cloaca Maxima</i> in Rome, during thirty centuries scarcely +carried more filth than is here besieging, storming the +departments, all the administrative issues, and all the so-called +political issues.</p> + +<p>I am sure that the enemies of emancipation, that Seward, Weed, etc., +wait for some great victory, for the fall of Vicksburgh or of +Charleston, to renew their efforts to pacify, to unite, to kiss the +hands of traitors, and to save slavery. I see positive indications +of it. Seward expects in 1864 to ride into the White House on such +reconciliation. What a good time then for the Weeds, and for all the +Sewardites!</p> + +<p><i>March 15.</i>—Persons who seemed well informed, assured me that Weed +got hold of Stanton, and secretly presides over the contracts in the +War Department. If so, it is very secretly done; as I investigated, +traced it, and found out nothing. At any rate, Weed would never get +at a Watson, a man altogether independent of any political +influences. Watson is the incarnation of honest and intelligent +duty.</p> + +<p>Wilkes' <i>Spirit of the Times</i> is unrelenting in its haughty +independence. It is the only public organ in this country of like +character; at least I know not another.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>(p. 173)</span> <i>March 15.</i>—It is so saddening to witness how all kinds of +incapacities, stupidities, how meanness, hollowness, heartlessness, +all incarnated in politicians, in trimmers, in narrow brained; how +all of them ride on the shoulders of the masses, and use them for +their sordid, mean, selfish and ambitious ends. And the masses are +superior to those riders in everything constituting manhood, honesty +and intellect!</p> + +<p><i>March 16.</i>—Halleck wrote a letter to Rosecrans, explaining how to +deal with all kinds of treason, and with all kinds of traitors. It +looks as if Halleck improved, and tried to become energetic. What is +in the wind? Is Mr. Lincoln becoming seriously serious?</p> + +<p><i>March 16.</i>—Genuine, social and practical freedom, is generated by +individual rational freedom. If a man cannot, or even worse, if a +man understands not to act as a free rational being in every daily +circumstance of life during the week, then he cannot understand to +behave on Sunday as a free man; and act as a free man in all his +political and social relations and duties. The North upholds that +law of freedom against the slavocracy, and fights to carry and +establish a genuine social organism where at present barbarity, +oppression, lawlessness and recklessness, prevail and preside.</p> + +<p><i>March 18.</i>—I sent Hooker Schalk's <i>Summary of the Science of War</i>. +It is the best, the clearest handbook ever published. About six +months ago, when Banks <span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>(p. 174)</span> commanded the defenses of +Washington, I suggested to him to try and get Schalk into +head-quarters, or into the staff. The ruling powers proffered to +Schalk to make him captain at large, and this was proffered at a +time when altogether unmilitary men became colonels, etc., at the +head-quarters. I never myself saw Schalk, but he refused the offer, +as years ago he was a captain in the Austrian army, is independent, +and knows his own value. Any European government, above all when +having on hand a great war, with both hands with military grades, +would seize upon a capacity such as Schalk's. Here they know better. +My hobby is that the president be surrounded by a genuine staff +composed either of General Butler or any other capable American +general, of Sigel, of Schalk, and of a few more American officers, +who easily could organise a staff, <i>un état Major général</i>, such as +all European governments have. But West Point wisdom, engineers and +routine, kill, murder, throttle, everything beyond their reach, and +thus murder the people.</p> + +<p><i>March 20.</i>—Every week Mr. Seward pours over the fated country his +cold, shallow Union rhetoric. But whoever reads it feels that all +this combined phraseology gushes not from a patriotic heart; every +one detects therein bids for the next Presidency.</p> + +<p>Gold is at fifty-five per cent here; in Richmond, gold is four to +six hundred per cent. The money bags, and all those who adjust the +affairs of the world <span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>(p. 175)</span> to the rise and to the fall of all +kind of exchanges, they may base their calculations on the above +figures, and find out who has more chances of success, the rebels or +we!</p> + +<p>Mud, stench on the increase, and because I see, smell and feel it, +"<i>My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth</i> tears <i>into</i>" [Psalm] the +noble American people.</p> + +<p><i>March 21.</i>—The <i>honest</i> Conservatives and the small church of +abolitionists are equally narrow-minded, and abuse the last +Congress. The one and the other comprehend not, and cannot +comprehend the immense social and historical signification of the +last Congress. It made me almost sick to find Edward Everett joining +in the chorus. But he, too, is growing very old.</p> + +<p><i>March 22.</i>—What are generally called excellent authorities assert +that an offensive and defensive alliance is concluded between Seward +and Stanton. Further, I am told, that Senator Morgan, Thurlow Weed, +and a certain Whiting, a new star on the politician's horizon, have +been the attorneys of the two contracting powers. I cannot yet +detect any signs of such an alliance, and disbelieve the story. A +short time will be necessary to see its fruits. Until I see I +wait!... But were it true? Who will be taken in? I am sure it will +not be Seward. Is Stanton dragged down by the infuriated fates?</p> + +<p><i>March 23.</i>—Burnside is to save Kentucky, almost lost by Halleck +and Buell. Congress adjourned, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>(p. 176)</span> no investigation was +made into Halleck's conduct after Corinth in 1862. The Western army +disappeared; Buell commanded in Kentucky, and rebels, guerillas, +cut-throats, murderers and thieves overflow the west, menaced +Cincinnati. And all this when the Secretary of War in his report +speaks about eight hundred thousand men in the field. But the +Secretary of War provides men and means; great Lincoln, the still +greater Halleck distribute and use them. This explains all. Burnside +is honest and loyal, only give him no army to command. I deeply +regret that Burnside's honesty squares not at all with his military +capacity.</p> + +<p>The Government is at a loss what to do with honest, ignorant, +useless military big men, who in some way or other rose above their +congenial but very low level. Already last year I suggested (in +writing) to Stanton to gather together such intellectual military +invalids and to establish an honorary military council, to counsel +nothing. Occasionally such a council could direct various +investigations, give its advice about shoes, pants, horses and +horse-shoes. Something like such council really exists in Russia, +and I pointed it out to Stanton for imitation.</p> + +<p><i>March 25.</i>—Stanton scorns the slander concerning his alliance with +Seward and Weed. It is an invention of Blair, and based on the fact +that Stanton sides with Seward in the question <i>of letters of +marque</i>, opposed by Blair under the influence of Sumner the +civiliser. I believe Stanton, and not my former informer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>(p. 177)</span> <i>Halleckiana.</i> This great, unequalled great man declared +that "it were better even to send McClellan to Kentucky, or to the +West, than to send there Fremont, as Fremont would at once free the +niggers."</p> + +<p>The admirers of poor argument, of spread-eagleism, and of ignorant +quotations stolen from history, make a fuss about Mr. Seward's State +papers. The good in these papers is where Mr. Seward, in his +confused phraseology, re-echoes the will, the decision of the +people, no longer to be humbugged by England's perversion of +international laws and of the rights and duties of neutrals; the +will of the people sooner or later to take England to account. (I +hope it will be done, and no English goods will ever pollute the +American soil. It will be the best vengeance.) The repudiation of +any mediation is in the marrow of the people, and Seward's muddy +arguments only perverted and weakened it. In Europe, the substance +of Seward's dispatch, is considered the passage where Seward's +highfalutin logomachy offers to the rebels their vacant seats in the +Congress.</p> + +<p><i>March 26.</i>—Had we generals, the rebel army in Virginia ought to +have been dispersed and destroyed after the first Bull Run:</p> + +<p>A. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—Any day in November and December, 1861.</p> + +<p>B. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—Any day in January and February, 1862, at +Centerville, Manassas.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>(p. 178)</span> C. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—At Yorktown, and when the rebels retreated +to Richmond.</p> + +<p>D. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—After the battle of Fair Oaks, Richmond easily could +and ought to have been taken. (See Hurlbut, Hooker, Kearney and +Heintzelman.)</p> + +<p>E. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—Richmond could have been taken before the fatal +change of base. (See January, Fitz John Porter.)</p> + +<p>F. But for the wailings of McClellan and his stick-in-the-mud +do-nothing strategy, McDowell, Banks and Fremont would have marched +to Richmond from north, north-west, and west, when we already +reached Stanton, and could take Gordonsville.</p> + +<p>G. General Pope and General McDowell, the McClellan pretorians, at +the August 1862, fights between the Rappahannock and the Potomac.</p> + +<p>H. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—Invasion of Maryland, 1862. Go in the rear of Lee, +cut him from his basis, and then Lee would be lost, even having a +McClellan for an antagonist.</p> + +<p>I. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—After Antietam battle, won by Hooker, and above all +by the indomitable bravery of the soldiers and officers, and not by +McClellan's generalship, Lee ought to have been followed and thrown +into the Potomac.</p> + +<p>K. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—Lay for weeks idle at Harper's Ferry, gave Lee time +to reorganize his army and to take positions. Elections. +Copperheads, French mediation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>(p. 179)</span> L. <span class="smcap">McClellan.</span>—By not cutting Lee in two when he was near +Gordonsville, Jackson at Winchester, and our army around Warrenton.</p> + +<p>M. <span class="smcap">Burnside.</span>—By continuing the above mentioned fault of McClellan.</p> + +<p>N. <span class="smcap">Burnside.</span>—By his sluggish march to Fredericksburgh, (see Diary, +December.)</p> + +<p>O. <span class="smcap">Halleck</span>, <span class="smcap">Meigs</span>, etc. The affair of the pontoons.</p> + +<p>P. <span class="smcap">Burnside</span>, <i>Franklin</i>.—The attack of the Fredericksburg Heights.</p> + +<p><i>March 28.</i>—From the day of Sumter, and when the Massachusetts men +hurrying to the defence of the Union, were murdered by the Southern +<i>gentlemen</i> in Baltimore, this struggle in reality is carried on +between the Southern gentlemen, backed by abettors in the North, +(abettors existing even in our army,) all of them united against the +<span class="smcap">Yankee</span>, who incarnates civilization, right, liberty, intellectual +superior development, and therefore is hated by the +<i>gentleman</i>—this genuine Southern growth embodying darkness, +violence, and all the virtues highly prized in hell. The Yankee, +that is, the intelligent, laborious inhabitant of New England and of +the Northern villages and towns, represents the highest +civilization: the best <i>Southern gentleman</i>, that lord of +plantations, that cotton, tobacco and slavemonger, at the best is +somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish covers all kinds of +barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted that our army <span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>(p. 180)</span> +contains officers modelled on the Southern pattern, to whom +human rights and civilization are as distasteful as they are to any +high-toned slave-whipper in the South.</p> + +<p><i>March 29.</i>—The destruction of slavery, the triumph of self +government ought not to be the only fruit of this war. The +politician ought to be buried in the offal of the war. The crushing +of politicians is a question as vital as the crushing of the +rebellion and of treason. All the politicians are a nuisance, a +curse, a plague worse than was any in Egypt. All of them are equal, +be they Thurlow Weeds or Forneys, or etc. etc. etc. A better and +purer race of leaders of the people will, I hope, be born from this +terrible struggle. Were I a stump speaker I should day and night +campaign against the politician, that luxuriant and poisonous weed +in the American Eden.</p> + +<p><i>March 30.</i>—Glorious news from Hooker's army. Even the most +inveterate McClellanites admire his activity and indeed are +astonished to what degree Hooker has recast, reinvigorated, purified +the spirit of the army. To reorganise a demoralised army requires +more nerve than to win a battle. Hooker takes care of the soldiers. +And now I hope that Hooker, having reorganised the army, will not +keep it idly in camp, but move, and strike and crush the traitors. +Hooker! <i>En avant! marchons!</i></p> + +<p><i>March 31.</i>—Some newspapers in New York and the National +Intelligencer here in Washington, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>(p. 181)</span> paid organ of Seward +and likewise organ of treason gilded by Unionism—all of them begin +to discuss the necessity of a staff. All of them reveal a West Point +knowledge of the subject; and the staff which they demand or which +they would organise, would be not a bit better than the existing +ones.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>(p. 182)</span> APRIL, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Lord Lyons — Blue book — Diplomats — Butler — Franklin — + Bancroft — Homunculi — Fetishism — Committee on the Conduct of + the War — Non-intercourse — Peterhoff — Sultan's Firman — + Seward — Halleck — Race — Capua — Feint — Letter writing — + England — Russia — American Revolution — Renovation — Women + — Monroe doctrine, etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>April 1.</i>—The English Blue Book reveals the fact that Lord Lyons +held meetings and semi-official, or if one will, unofficial <i>talks</i> +with what he calls "the leaders of the Conservatives in New York;" +that is, with the leaders of the Copperheads, and of the slavery and +rebellion saviours. The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult +it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country, +even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman. But +perhaps we should say, <i>because</i> an Englishman, Lord Lyons became +confused. Lord Lyons took for reality a bubble emanating from a +putrescent fermentation. I am at a loss to understand why Earl +Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting +Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in +power.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>(p. 183)</span> As for the fact itself, it is neither new nor unwonted. +Diplomacy and diplomats meddle with all parties; they do it openly +or secretly, according to circumstances. English diplomacy was +always foremost in meddling, and above all it has been so during +this whole century. The English diplomat is not yet born, who will +not meddle or intrigue with all kinds of parties, either in a +nation, in a body politic, in a cabinet or at court.</p> + +<p>When a nation, a dynasty, a government becomes entangled in domestic +troubles, the first thing they have to do is to politely bow out of +the country all the foreign diplomacy and diplomats, be these +diplomats hostile, indifferent, or even friendly. And the longer a +diplomat has resided in a country, the more absolutely he ought to +be bowed out with his other colleagues; to bow them all in or back, +when the domestic struggle is finished.</p> + +<p>History bristles with evidences of the meddling of diplomats with +political parties, and bears evidence of the mischief done, and of +the fatal misfortunes accruing to a country that is victimised by +foreign diplomacy and by diplomats. Without ransacking history so +far back as to the treaty of Vienna, (1815) look to Spain, above +all, during Isabella I.'s minority, to Greece, to Turkey, etc. And +under my eyes, Mexico is killed by diplomacy and by diplomats.</p> + +<p>Diplomatic meddlings become the more dangerous when no court exists +that might more or less control <span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>(p. 184)</span> them, to impress on them a +certain curb in their semi-official and non-official conduct. But at +times it is difficult, even to a sovereign, to a court, to keep in +order the intriguing diplomats, above all to keep them at bay in +their semi-official social relations.</p> + +<p>In principle, and <i>de facto</i>, a diplomat, and principally a diplomat +representing a powerful sovereign or nation, has no, or very few, +private, inoffensive, social, worldly, parlor relations in the +country, or in the place to which he is appointed, and where he +resides. Every action, step, relation, intimacy of a diplomat has a +signification, and is watched by very argus-like eyes; alike by the +government to which he is accredited, and by his colleagues, most of +whom are also his rivals. Not even the Jesuits watch each other more +vigilantly, and denounce each other more pitilessly, than do the +diplomats—officially, semi-officially and privately.</p> + +<p>It requires great tact in a diplomat to bring into harmony his +official and his social, and non-official conduct. Lord Lyons +generally showed this tact and adroitly avoided the breakers. At +times such want of harmony is apparent and is the result of the +will, or of the principles of the court and of the sovereign +represented by a diplomat. Thus, after the revolution of July, 1830, +the sovereign and the diplomats in the Holy Alliance, of Russia, +Austria, and Prussia recognised Louis Phillipe's royalty as a fact +but not as a principle. Therefore, in their social relations the +Ambassadors <span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>(p. 185)</span> of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, most +emphatically sided with the Carlists, the most bitter and +unrelenting enemies of the Orleans and of the order of things +inaugurated by the revolution of July, and Carlists always crowded +the saloons of the Holy Alliance's diplomats. The Duke d'Orleans, +Louis Phillipe's son, scarcely dared to enter the brilliant, highly +aristocratic, and purely legitimist saloon of the Countess Appony, +wife of the Austrian Ambassador. Of course the conduct of the Count +and Countess was approved, and applauded, in Vienna. But at times, +for some reason or other, a diplomat puts in contradiction his +official and non-official conduct, and does it not only without +instructions or approval of his sovereign and government, but in +contradiction to the intentions of his master and in contradiction +to the prevailing opinion of his country. And thus it happens, that +a diplomat presents to a government in trouble the most sincere and +the most cheering official expressions of sympathy from his master; +and with the same hand the diplomat gives the heartiest shakes to +the most unrelenting enemies of the same government.</p> + +<p>The Russian, skillful, shrewd and proud diplomacy, generally holds +an independent, almost an isolated position from England and from +France. The Russian diplomacy goes its own way, at times joined or +joining according to circumstances, but never, never following in +the wake of the two rival powers. During this our war, and doubtless +for the first time since Russian <span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>(p. 186)</span> diplomacy has existed, a +Russian diplomat semi and non-officially, seemingly, limped after +the diplomats of England and of France. But such a diplomatic +<i>mistake</i> can not last long.</p> + +<p><i>April 2.</i>—Official, lordish, Toryish England, plays treason and +infamy right and left. The English money lenders to rebels, the +genuine owners of rebel piratical ships, are anxious to destroy the +American commerce and to establish over the South an English +monopoly. All this because <i>odiunt dum metuant</i> the Yankee. You +tories, you enemies of freedom, your time of reckoning will come, +and it will come at the hands of your own people. You fear the +example of America for your oppressions, for your rent-rolls.</p> + +<p><i>April 3.</i>—The country ought to have had already about one hundred +thousand Africo-Americans, either under arms, in the field, or +drilling in camps. But to-day Lincoln has not yet brought together +more than ten to fifteen thousand in the field; and what is done, is +done rather, so to speak, by private enterprise than by the +Government. Mr. Lincoln hesitates, meditates, and shifts, instead of +going to work manfully, boldly, and decidedly. Every time an +Africo-American regiment is armed or created, Mr. Lincoln seems as +though making an effort, or making a gracious concession in +permitting the increase of our forces. It seems as if Mr. Lincoln +were ready to exhaust all the resources of the country before he +boldly strikes the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>(p. 187)</span> Africo American vein. How differently +the whole affair should have been conducted!</p> + +<p><i>April 4.</i>—Almost every day I hear very intelligent and patriotic +men wonder why every thing is going on so undecidedly, so +sluggishly; and all of them, in their despondency, dare not or will +not ascend to the cause. And when they finally see where the fault +lies, they are still more desponding.</p> + +<p>Europe, that is, European statesmen, judge the country, the people, +by its leaders and governors. European statesmen judge the events by +the turn given to them by a Lincoln, a Seward; this furnishes an +explanation of many of the misdeeds committed by English and French +statesmen.</p> + +<p><i>April 4.</i>—The people at large, with indomitable activity, mends, +repairs the disasters resulting from the inability and the +selfishness of its official chiefs. One day, however, the people +will turn its eyes and exclaim:</p> + +<p>"<i>But thou, O God! shalt bring them down into the pit of +destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their +days.</i>"</p> + +<p><i>April 4.</i>—General Butler's speech in New York, at the Academy of +Music, is the best, nay, is the paramount exposition of the whole +rebellion in its social, governmental and military aspects. No +President's Message, no letter, no one of the emanations of Seward's +letter and dispatch-writing, corrosive disease, not an article in +any press compares with Butler's speech <span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>(p. 188)</span> for lucidity, +logic, conciseness and strong reasoning. Butler laid down a law, a +doctrine—and what he lays down as such, contains more cardinal +truth and reason than all that was ever uttered by the +Administration. And Butler is shelved and bartered to France by +Seward as long since as 1862; and the people bear it, and the great +clear-sighted press subsides, instead of day and night battering the +Administration for pushing aside the <i>only man</i>, emphatically the +<span class="smcap">ONLY MAN</span> who was always and everywhere equal to every emergency—who +never was found amiss, and who never forgot that an abyss separates +the condition of a rebel, be he armed or unarmed, (the second even +more dangerous,) from a loyal citizen and from the loyal Government.</p> + +<p><i>April 4.</i>—The annals of the Navy during this war will constitute a +cheering and consoling page for any future historian. If the Navy at +times is unsuccessful, the want of success can be traced to +altogether different reasons than many of the disasters on land. +Nothing similar to McClellanism pollutes the Navy—and want of +vigilance and other mistakes become virtues when compared with want +of convictions, with selfishness, and with intrigue. I have not yet +heard any justified complaint against the honesty of the Navy +Department; I feel so happy not to be disappointed in the tars of +all grades, and that Neptune Welles, with his Fox, (but not a +red-haired, thieving fox,) keep steady, clean, and as active as +possible.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>(p. 189)</span> <i>April 5.</i>—Senator Sumner pines and laments, +Jeremiah-like, on the ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses +Seward of it—behind his back. Why has not <i>pater conscriptus</i> +uttered a single word of condemnation from his Senatorial +<i>fauteuil</i>, and kept mute during three sessions? <i>Sunt nobis +homunculi sed non homines.</i></p> + +<p><i>April 5.</i>—A letter in the papers, in all probability written under +the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all +the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the +writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders +General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men, +(he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave +and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse +for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from +head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones, +suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless—at the +best—helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand +men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack. +Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in +Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order +from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of +a large part of the army—or rather such a crime not to support a +part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special +orders from <span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>(p. 190)</span> head-quarters prescribed his doing so—such a +case or excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And +when such cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in +command. Three bloody groans for Franklin!</p> + +<p><i>April 6.</i>—George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian. +Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth, +and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and +embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless, +and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of +the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the +pilots.</p> + +<p><i>April 6.</i>—The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War +will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No +one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been +thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there +could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and +constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most disgusting +psychological anomaly. It is an evidence how a mental poison rapidly +spreads and permeates all. As was repeatedly pointed out in this +<span class="smcap">Diary</span>, individuals who started the McClellan fetishism, were +admirers of the <i>Southern gentlemen</i>, were worshippers of slavery, +were secret or open partisans of rebellion. Many such subsequently +appear as Copperheads, peace men, as Union men, as Conservatives. +The other stratum of McClellanism <span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>(p. 191)</span> is composed of +intriguers. These combined forces, supported by would-be wise +ignorance, spread the worship, and poisoned thousands and tens of +thousands of honest but not clear-sighted minds. The Report, or +rather the investigation was conducted with the utmost fairness; of +course Ben Wade could not act otherwise than fairly and nobly. Some +critics say that McClellan's case could have been yet more strongly +brought out, and the fetish could have been shown to the people in +his most disgustingly true nakedness.</p> + +<p><i>April 6.</i>—The people feel how the treason of the English +evilwishers slowly extends through its organs. By Butler, Wade, +Grimes and others, the people ask for non-intercourse with the +English assassin, who surreptitiously, stealthily under cover of +darkness, of legal formality, deals, or attempts to deal, a deadly +blow. The American sentimentalists strain to the utmost their soft +brains, to find excuses for English treason.</p> + +<p>English lordlings, scholars, moralists of the Carlyleian mental +perversion comment Homer, instead of being clear sighted +commentators of what passes under their noses. The English +phrase-mongering philanthropists all with joy smacked their bloody +lips at the, by them ardently wished and expected downfall of a +noble, free and self-governing people. Tigers, hyenas and jackals! +clatter your teeth, smack your lips! but you shall not get at the +prey.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>(p. 192)</span> <i>April 7.</i>—The President visits the Potomac army at +Falmouth. Seward wished to be of the party, offering to make a +stirring speech to the soldiers—that is, to impress the heroes with +the notion that in Seward they beheld a still greater hero, a +patriot reeking with Unionism and sacrifices, and eventually prepare +their votes for the next presidential election. Certain influences +took the wind out of Seward's sails, and as a naughty, arrogant boy, +he was left behind to bite his nails, and to pour out a logomachy.</p> + +<p><i>April 7.</i>—I am very uneasy about Charleston. It seems that +something works foul. Either they have not men enough, or brains +enough. A good artillerist, having confidence in the guns, and +having the needed insight how and where to use them, ought to +command our forces. Will the iron-clads resist the concentric fire +from so numerous batteries?</p> + +<p>The diplomats of the <i>prospective mediation</i> and their tails are +scared by the elections in Connecticut. Others, however, of that +illustrious European body are out-spoken friends of Union and of +freedom. The representatives of the American republics are to be +relied upon. St. Domingo, Mexico sufficiently teaches all races, +<i>latin</i> (<i>?</i>) as well as non-latin, that honey-mouthed governmental +Europe is an all-devouring wolf under a sheep's skin.</p> + +<p>Non-intercourse! no intercourse with England and with France as +long as France chooses to be ridden <span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>(p. 193)</span> by the <i>Decembriseur</i>! +Such ought to be the watchword for a long, long time to come.</p> + +<p><i>April 8.</i>—The New York <i>Times</i> is now boiling with patriotic wrath +against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns +at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our +soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the <i>Times</i> was +extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured +plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan—and at that epoch the +<i>Times</i> powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion.</p> + +<p><i>April 8.</i>—A Mr. Ockford, (or of similar name,) who for many years, +was a ship broker in England, advised our government and above all, +Mr. Seward, to institute proceedings before the English courts +against the building and arming of the iron-clads for the rebels. +Seward, of course, snubbed him off with the Sewardian verdict that +the jury in England will give or pronounce no verdict of guilty, in +our favor, as our jury would not find any one guilty of treason. +Good for a Seward.</p> + +<p>Patriots from various States, among them Boutwell, now member of +Congress from Massachusetts, urged the Cabinet; 1st, to declare +peremptorily to the English Government that if the rebel iron-clads +are allowed to go out from English ports, our government will +consider it as being a deliberate and willful act of hostility; 2d, +to publish at once the above declaration, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>(p. 194)</span> that the English +people at large may judge of the affair. Seward opposed such a bold +step—Sumner ditto.</p> + +<p><i>April 9.</i>—I am at a loss to find in history, any government +whatever that so little took or takes into account the intrinsic and +intellectual fitness of an individual for the office entrusted to +him, as does the government of Mr. Lincoln. I cannot imagine that it +could have been always so, under previous administrations. It seems +that in the opinion of the Executive, not only geniuses, but men of +studies, and of special and specific preparation and knowledge run +in the streets, crowd the villages and states, and the Executive has +only to stretch his hand from the window, to take hold of an +unmistakable capacity, etc. The Executive ought to have some +experience by this time; but alas, <i>experientia non docet</i> in the +White House.</p> + +<p><i>April 10.</i>—Agitated as my existence has been, I never fell among +so much littleness, meanness, servility as here. To avoid it, and +not to despair, or rage, or despond, several times a day, it is +necessary to avoid contact with politicians, and reduce to few, very +few, all intercourse with them. I cannot complain, as I find +compensation—but nevertheless, I am afraid that the study and the +analysis of so much mud and offal may tell upon me. Physical +monstrosities are attractive to physiologists or rather to +pathologists. But an anthropologist prefers normal nobleness of +mind, and shudders at sight and contact with intellectual and moral +crookedness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>(p. 195)</span> <i>April 11.</i>—Sumter day. Two years elapsed, and treason not +yet crushed; Charleston not yet ploughed over and sown with salt; +Beauregard still in command, and the snake still keeping at bay the +eagle. And all this because in December, 1861, and in January, 1862, +McClellan wished not, Seward wished not, and Mr. Lincoln could not +decide whether to wish that Charleston and Savannah—defenceless at +that time—be taken after the fall of Port Royal. Two years! and the +people still bleed, and the exterminating angel strikes not the +malefactors, and the earth bursts not, and they are not yet in +Gehenna's embrace.</p> + +<p>Old patriot Everett made an uncompromising speech. That is by far +better than to make a hero out of a McClellan. But the misdeeds of +the Administration easily confused such impressionable receptive +minds as is Edward Everett's.</p> + +<p><i>April 11.</i>—The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, +discloses how McClellan deliberately ruined General Stone, and I +have little doubt that McClellan ruined Fitz-John Porter.</p> + +<p><i>April 12.</i>—Our navy makes brilliant prizes of Anglo-rebel flags +and ships. But Mr. Seward does his utmost to render the labor of our +cruisers as difficult and as dangerous as possible. Of course he +does it not intentionally, only because he so <i>masterly masters</i> the +international laws, the laws and rules of search, the rights and +duties of neutrals, etc., and as a genuine <span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>(p. 196)</span> incarnation of +<i>fiat justitia</i>, he is indifferent to national interests and to the +national flag.</p> + +<p>I am curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known +concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then +the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what <i>turpe</i> +Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what +an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England +of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade +runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by +Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible the +condemnation of the Anglo-rebel property. The people would know how +<i>turpe</i> Seward tried to urge and to persuade Neptune Welles to +violate the statutes of the country; how the great Secretary of +State declared that he cared very little for law, and how he and +Lincoln, by a Sultan's firman, directed the decision of the Judge on +his bench.</p> + +<p><i>April 14.</i>—My gloomy forebodings about the attack on Charleston +are already partly realized. Beaten off! that is the short solution +of a long story. But of course nobody will be at fault. This attack +on Charleston to some extent justifies: <i>parturiunt montes</i>, etc.</p> + +<p><i>De profundis clamavi</i> for light and some inklings of sense and +energy. But to search for sense and energy among counterfeits!... +The condition here vividly brings to mind Ovid's</p> + +<p class="poem"> + ...... ...... quem dixere chaos!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>(p. 197)</span> <i>April 14.</i>—In a letter to the Loyal League of New York, +Mr. Seward is out with his—at least—one hundred and fiftieth +prophecy. As fate finds a particular pleasure in quickly giving the +lie to the inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, +and some other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to +pass a law forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself +ridiculous? Among others, hear the following query: <i>Whether this +unconquerable and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through +imbecility?</i> etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and +mercilessly criticise your own deeds and policy? Seward squints +toward the presidency that he may complete that masterly production.</p> + +<p>Oh! how the old hacks turn their dizzy heads towards the White +House. It would be ludicrous, and the lowest comedy of life, were +not the track running through blood and among corpses. I am told +that even Halleck squints that way. And why not? All is possible; +and Halleck's nag has as long ears as have the nags and hacks of the +other race-runners.</p> + +<p><i>April 14.</i>—Halleck consolidates the regiments and incidentally +deprives the army of the best and most experienced officers. The +numerically smaller regiment is dissolved in the larger one. But +most generally the smaller regiment was the bravest and has seen +more fire which melted it. Thus good officers are mustered out and +thrown on the pavement, and the enthusiasm for the flag of the +regiment destroyed, for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>(p. 198)</span> its victorious memories, for the +recollections of common hardships and all the like noble cements of +a military life. Certainly, great difficulty exists to remount or to +restore a regiment. But O, Hallecks! O, Thomases! O, McDowells! all +of you, genii, or genuises, surmount difficulties.</p> + +<p><i>April 14.</i>—In a public speech in New York, General Fremont has +explained the duty and the obligations of a soldier in a republic. +Few, very few, of our striped and starred citizens, and still less +those educated at West Point have a comprehension of what a +Republican citizen soldier is.</p> + +<p><i>April 14.</i>—Halleck directly and indirectly exercises a fatal +influence on our army. I learn that his book on military not-science +largely circulates; above all, in the Potomac Army.</p> + +<p><i>April 14.</i>—It is the mission of the American people to make all +the trials and experiences by which all other nations will hereafter +profit. So the social experiment of self-government; the same with +various mechanical and commercial inventions. The Americans +experiment in political and domestic economy, in the art provided +for man's well-being and in the art of killing him. New fire-arms, +guns, etc., are now first used.</p> + +<p>The until now undecided question between batteries on land and +floating ones will be decided in Charleston harbor. Who will have +the best, the Monitors or the batteries?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>(p. 199)</span> <i>April 15.</i>—I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake +of the country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to +the carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be +they wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of +crinolines.</p> + +<p><i>April 15.</i>—Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same +capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to +puff McClellan when in power.</p> + +<p><i>April 16.</i>—Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why +not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on +sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere +Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and +lickspittles are numberless.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="add1em">Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude,</span><br> + Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebaüde!</p> + +<p>My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ... +it would be all over.</p> + +<p class="poem">... tibi desinet.</p> + +<p><i>April 17.</i>—I met one of the best and of the most radical +ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at +the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and +notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr. +Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities +finally will save the country. <i>Et tu, Brute</i>, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>(p. 200)</span> exclaimed I, +without the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in +his pocket a nomination for an influential office.</p> + +<p><i>April 17.</i>—Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts, +equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless +abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for +more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis.</i></p> + +<p>A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as +patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous +condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least +the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their +indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of +resources." What was to be answered?</p> + +<p><i>April 18.</i>—As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy, +whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of +every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of +<span class="smcap">John S. Mill</span>, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and +then the two peoples may be friends.</p> + +<p><i>April 18.</i>—Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army +victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put +by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire +Hooker's genius. Such a manœuvre will be a revelation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>(p. 201)</span> <i>April 18.</i>—I learn that General Hunter has about seven +thousand disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of +Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has +not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order, +or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston.</p> + +<p><i>April 18.</i>—Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to +violate the national statutes and the international rules, by +insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that +Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner +enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail +agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously, +neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the +mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the +State Department knows better.</p> + +<p>In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr. +Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide, +ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the +English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for +costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is +the incarnation of wisdom and of justice!</p> + +<p><i>April 20.</i>—The not quite heavenly trio—Lincoln, Seward and +Halleck—maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to +believe them, that they, the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>(p. 202)</span> trio, could not as yet, act +decidedly in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in +other questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! +Those <i>lumina mundi</i> believe that the people will forget their +records. To be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily +forget the misdeeds of <i>yesterday</i>, but this <i>yesterday</i> shall be +somehow recalled to their memory.</p> + +<p>If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard +and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would +be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad +clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating +influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in +disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers +are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar +their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, <i>esprit +du corps</i>.</p> + +<p><i>April 20.</i>—The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in +court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the +egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the +assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in +Administration, in politics, in war.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!</i></p> + +<p><i>April 20.</i>—Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide, +Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit <span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>(p. 203)</span> Hooker, to have a +peep into his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope +Hooker will most politely keep his own secrets.</p> + +<p><i>April 21.</i>—The American people never will and never can know and +realize the whole immensity of McClellan's treasonable incapacity, +and to what extent all subsequent disasters have their roots in the +inactivity of McClellan during 1861-62. Whatever may be the official +reports, or private investigations, chronicles, confessions, +memoirs, all the facts will never be known. Never will it be known +how almost from the day when he was intrusted with the command, +McClellan was without any settled plans, always hesitating, +irresolute; how almost hourly he (deliberately or not, I will not +decide) stuffed Mr. Lincoln with lies, and did the same to others +members of the Cabinet. The evidences thereof are scattered in all +directions, and it is impossible to gather them all. Mr Lincoln +could testify—if he would. Almost every day I learn some such fact, +but I could not gather and record them all. Seward mostly sided with +McClellan, and so did Blair, <i>par nobile fratrum</i>.</p> + +<p>Few, if any, detailed reports of the campaigns and battles fought +by McClellan have been sent by him to the President or to the War +Department. Such reports ought to be made immediately; so it is done +in every well regulated government. It is the duty of the staff of +the army to prepare the like reports. But McClellan did in his own +way, and his reports, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>(p. 204)</span> if ever he sends them, would only be +disquisitions elaborated <i>ex post</i>, and even apart from their +truthfulness—null.</p> + +<p>All kinds of lies against Stanton have been elaborated by McClellan +and his partisans, and circulated in the public. The truth is, that +when Stanton became McClellan's superior, Stanton tried in every +friendly and devoted way to awake McClellan to the sense of honor +and duty, to make him fight the enemy, and not dodge the fight under +false pretenses. Stanton implored McClellan to get ready, and not to +evade from day to day; and only when utterly disappointed by +McClellan's hesitation and untruthfulness, Stanton, so to say, in +despair, forced McClellan to action. Stanton was a friend of +McClellan, but sacrificed friendship to the sacred duty of a +patriot.</p> + +<p><i>April 21.</i>—England plays as false in Europe as she does here. +England makes a noise about Poland, and after a few speeches will +give up Poland. More than forty years of experience satisfied me +about England's political honesty. In 1831, Englishmen made +speeches, the Russian fought and finally overpowered us. England +hates Russia as it hates this country, and fears them both. I hope a +time will come when America and Russia joining hands will throttle +that perfidious England. Were only Russia represented here in her +tendencies, convictions and aspirations! What a brilliant, elevated, +dominating position could have been that of a Russian diplomat here, +during this civil <span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>(p. 205)</span> war. England and France would have been +always in his <i>ante-chambre</i>.</p> + +<p><i>April 21.</i>—Letter-writing is the fashion of the day. Halleck +treads into Seward's footsteps or shoes. Halleck thunders to Union +leagues; to meetings; it reads splendidly, had only Halleck not +contributed to increase the "perils" of the country. Letter-writing +is to atone for deadly blunders. The same with Seward as with +Halleck. If Halleck would not have been fooled by Beauregard, if +Halleck had taken Corinth instead of approaching the city by +parallels distant <i>five miles</i>; the "peril" would no longer exist.</p> + +<p><i>April 21.</i>—Foreign and domestic papers herald that the honorable +Sanford, United States Minister to Belgium, and residing in +Brussels, has given a great and highly admired diplomatic dinner, +etc., etc. I hope the Sewing machine was in honor and exposed as a +<i>surtout</i> on the banquet's table, and that only the guano-claim +successfully recovered from Venezuela, and other equally innocent +pickings paid the piper. <i>Vive la bagatelle</i>, and Seward's <i>alter +ego</i> at the European courts.</p> + +<p><i>April 22.</i>—I so often meet men pushed into the background of +affairs; men young, intelligent, active, clear-sighted, in one word, +fitted out with all mental and intellectual requisites for +commanders, leaders, pilots and helmsmen of every kind; and +nevertheless twenty times a day I hear repeated the question: "Whom +shall we put? we have no men."—It is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>(p. 206)</span> wonderful that such +men cannot cut their way through the apathy of public opinion, which +seems to prefer old hacks for dragging a steam engine instead of +putting to it good, energetic engineers, and let the steam work. +Young men! young men, it is likewise your fault; you ought to assert +yourselves; you ought to act, and push the fogies aside, instead of +subsiding into useless criticism, and useless consideration for +<i>experienced</i> narrow-mindedness, for ignorance or for helplessness. +In times as trying as ours are, men and not counterfeits are needed.</p> + +<p><i>April 22.</i>—In Europe, they wonder at our manner of carrying on the +war, at our General-in-Chief, who, in the eyes and the judgment of +European generals, acts without a plan and without <i>an ensemble</i>; +they wonder at the groping and shy general policy, and nevertheless +a policy full of contradictions. The Europeans thus astonished are +true friends of the North, of the emancipation, and are competent +judges.</p> + +<p><i>April 22.</i>—I hear that Hooker intends to make a kind of feint +against Lee. Feints are old, silly tricks, almost impossible with +large armies, and therefore very seldom feints are successful. Lee +is not to be caught in this way, and the less so as he has as many +spies as inhabitants, in, and around Hooker's camp. To cross the +river on a well selected point, and, Hooker-like, attack the +surprised enemy is the thing.</p> + +<p><i>April 22.</i>—"Loyalty, loyalty," resounds in speeches, is re-echoed +in letters, in newspapers. Well, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>(p. 207)</span> Loyalty, but to whom? I +hope not to the person of any president, but to the ever-living +principle of human liberty. Next eureka is, "the administration must +be sustained." Of course, but not because it intrinsically deserves +it, but because no better one can be had, and no radical change can +be effected.</p> + +<p><i>April 22.</i>—The English Cabinet takes in sails, and begins to show +less impudence in the violation of neutral duties. Lord John +Russell's letter to the constructors of the piratical ships. +Certainly Mr. Seward will claim the credit of having brought England +to terms by his eloquent dispatches. Sumner may dispute with Seward +the influence on English fogies. In reality, the bitter and +exasperated feeling of the people frightened England.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—It is repulsive to read how the press exults that the +famine in the South is our best ally. Well! I hate the rebels, but I +would rather that the superiority of brains may crush them, and not +famine. The rebels manfully supporting famine, give evidence of +heroism; and why is it in such disgusting cause!</p> + +<p><i>April 23.</i>—Senator Sumner emphatically receives and admits into +church and communion, the freshly to emancipation converted General +Thomas, Adjutant General, now organizing Africo-American regiments +in the Mississippi valley. Better <i>late than never</i>, for such +Thomases, Hallecks, etc., only I doubt if a Thomas will ever become +a Paul.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—Our State Department does not enjoy a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>(p. 208)</span> high +consideration abroad. I see this from public diplomatic acts, and +from private letters. I am sure that Mr. Dayton has found this out +long ago, and I suppose so did Mr. Adams. Of course not a Sanford. +If the State Department had not at its back twenty-two millions of +Americans, foreign Cabinets would treat us—God, alone, knows how.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—I hope to live long enough to see the end of this war, +and then to disentangle my brains from the pursuits which now fill +them. Then goodbye, O, international laws, with your customs and +rules. England handled them for centuries, as the wolf with the lamb +at the spring. When I witness the confusion and worse, here, I seem +to see—<i>en miniature</i>—reproduced some parts of the Byzantine +times. All cracks but not the people, and to —— I am indebted that +my brains hold out.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—What a confusion Burnside's order No. 8 reveals; the +president willing, unwilling, shifting, and time rapidly running on.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—Senator Sumner, without being called as he ought to +have been—to give advice, discovered the Peterhoff case. The +Senator laid before the President, all the authorities bearing on +the case, showed by them to the President, that the mail was not to +be returned to the English Consul, but lawfully ought to be opened +by the Prize Court. The Senator so far convinced the President, that +Mr. Lincoln, next morning at once violated the statutes, and through +Mr. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>(p. 209)</span> Seward, instructed the District Attorney to instruct +the Court to give up the mail unopened to England.</p> + +<p>Brave and good Sumner exercises influence on Mr. Lincoln.</p> + +<p><i>April 24.</i>—Every one has his word to say about civilized warfare, +about international warfare, laws of war, etc. In principle, no laws +of public war are applicable to rebels, and if they are, it is only +on the grounds of expediency or of humanity. Laws of international +warfare are applicable to independent nations, and not to rebels. +Has England ever treated the Irish according to the laws of +international warfare? Has England considered Napper Tandy and his +aids as belligerents? The word <i>war</i> in its legal or international +sense ought to have been suppressed at the start from the official, +national vocabulary; to suppress a rebellion is not to <i>wage a war</i>.</p> + +<p><i>April 25.</i>—When the bloody tornado shall pass over, and the normal +condition be restored, then only will begin to germinate the seeds +of good and of evil, seeds so broadcast sown by this rebellion. All +will become either recast or renovated, the plough of war having +penetrated to the core of the people. Customs, habits, notions, +modes of thinking and of appreciating events and men, political, +social, domestic morals will be changed or modified. The men +baptized in blood and fire will shake all. Many of them endowed with +all the rays of manhood, others lawless and reckless. Many domestic +hearths will be upturned, extinct, destroyed; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>(p. 210)</span> the women +likewise passing through the terrible probation. Many women remained +true to the loftiest womanhood, others became carried away by the +impure turmoil. All this will tell and shape out the next +generations.</p> + +<p>I ardently hope that this war will breed and educate a population +strong, clear-sighted, manly, decided in ideas and in action; and +such a population will be scattered all over this extensive country. +Men who stood the test of battles, will not submit to the village, +township, or to politicians at large, but will judge for themselves, +and will take the lead. These men went into the field a common iron +ore, they will return steel. The shock will tear the scales from the +people's eyes, and the people easily will discern between pure grain +and chaff. I am sure that a man who fought for the great cause, who +brought home honorable wounds and scars, whose limbs are rotting on +fields of battle; such a man will become an authority; and +death-knell to the abject race of politicians; the days of shallow, +cold, rhetors are numbered, and vanity and selfishness will be +doomed. <i>Non vobis, non vobis—sed populo....</i></p> + +<p><i>April 25.</i>—Mr. Seward is elated, triumphant, grand. Emigration +from Europe, evoked, beckoned by him is to replace the population +lost in the war.</p> + +<p>What is to be more scorned? Seward's heartless cruelty or his +reckless ignorance, to believe that such a numerous emigration will +pour in, as to at once make <span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>(p. 211)</span> up for those of whom at least +one third were butchered by flippancy of Mr. Seward's policy to +which Lincoln became committed.</p> + +<p><i>April 26.</i>—The people are bound onwards <i>per aspera ad astra</i>: the +giddy brained helmsmen, military and civil chiefs and commanders may +hurl the people in an opposite direction.</p> + +<p><i>April 26.</i>—Whoever will dispassionately read the various statutes +published by the 37th Congress; will speak of its labors as I do, +and the future historian will find in those statutes the best light +by which to comprehend and to appreciate the prevailing temper of +the people.</p> + +<p><i>April 27.</i>—Rhetors and some abolitionists of the small church—not +Wendell Phillips—still are satisfied with mistakes and disasters, +because <i>otherwise slavery would not have been destroyed</i>. If they +have a heart, it is a clump of ice, and their brains are common +jelly. With men at the head who would have had faith and a lofty +consciousness of their task, the rebellion and slavery could have +been both crushed in the year 1861, or any time in 1862. Any one but +an idiot ought to have seen at the start, that as the rebels fight +to maintain slavery, in striking slavery you strike at the rebels. +The blood spilt because of the narrow-mindedness of the leaders, +that blood will cry to heaven, whatever be the absolution granted by +the rhetors and by the small church.</p> + +<p><i>April 27.</i>—Mr. Seward went on a visit to the army, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>(p. 212)</span> +dragging with him some diplomats. The army was not to forget the +existence of the Secretary of State, this foremost Union-saviour, +and the candidate for the next Presidency. Others say that Seward +ran away to dodge the Peterhoff case.</p> + +<p><i>April 27.</i>—How the politicians of the <i>Times</i> and of the +<i>Chronicle</i> lustily attack—<span class="smcap">NOW</span>—McClellan. If I am well informed, +it was the editor of the <i>Chronicle</i>, himself a leading politician, +and influential in both Houses, who instigated Lovejoy, Member of +Congress, to move resolutions in favor of McClellan for the battle +at Williamsburgh, where McClellan did what he could to have his own +army destroyed.</p> + +<p><i>April 28.</i>—Mr. Seward elaborated for the President a paper in the +Peterhoff case—and, <i>horribile dictu</i>, as I am told—even the +President found the argument, or whatever else it was, very, very +light. The President sent for the chief clerk to explain to him the +unintelligible document—and more darkness prevailed. Bravo, Mr. +Seward! your name and your place in the history of the times are +firmly nailed!</p> + +<p><i>April 28.</i>—The time will come, and even I may yet witness it, when +these deep wounds struck by the rebellion will be healed; when even +the scars of blows dealt to the people by such Lincolns, Sewards, +McClellans, Hallecks, the other <i>minor gens</i>, will be invisible—and +this great people, steeled by events, will be more powerful than it +ever was. Then the Monroe doctrine will be applied in all its +sternness <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>(p. 213)</span> and rigor, and from pole to pole no European +power will defile this continent. The so-called +Americo-Hispano-Latin races humbugged by Europe, will have found how +cursed is <i>any whatever</i> European influence. The main land and the +Isles must be purified therefrom. Will any European government, +power, or statesman permit the United States to acquire even the +most barren rock on the European continent? The American continent +is equal, if not more to Europe, and the degrading stigma of +European colonies and possessions must be blotted from this +American soil.</p> + +<p><i>April 29.</i>—The President appoints a day of fasting and prayer. +Well! it is not for the people to fast and to pray, but for the +evil-doers. Lead on, Mr. Lincoln, attended by Seward and +Halleck—all in sackcloth and ashes.</p> + +<p><i>April 29.</i>—The President's and General Martindale's proclamations +officially recognize the existence of God. It is consoling, and +knocks down the far-famed <i>Deo erexit Voltaire</i>.</p> + +<p><i>April 29.</i>—To the right and to the left I hear praise of Mr. Chase +as the great financier. Well he may be praised, having in his hand +thousands and thousands of cows to be milked. The <i>financier</i> is the +people, and prevents Chase from ruining the country.</p> + +<p><i>April 29.</i>—A Richmond paper calls McClellan a compound of lies and +of cowardice. McClellan, the fetish of Copperheads and of +peace-makers. The Richmond <span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>(p. 214)</span> paper must have some special +reasons which justify this stern appreciation.</p> + +<p><i>April 30.</i>—The <i>World</i>, a paper born in barter, in mud and in +shamelessness, condemns General Wadsworth's name to eternal infamy. +What a court of honor the <i>World's</i> scribblers! The one a hireling +of the brothers Woods, and sold by them in the lump to some other +Copperhead financier; the other a pants and overcoats stealing beau. +The rest must be similar.</p> + +<p><i>April 30.</i>—The abomination of slavery makes such a splendid field +to any rhetor attacking that curse. Were it not so, how many rhetors +would be abolitionists?</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>(p. 215)</span> MAY, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Advance — Crossing — Chancellorsville — Hooker — Staff — Lee + — Jackson — Stunned — Suggestions — Meade — Swinton — La + Fayette — Intrigues — Happy Grant — Rosecrans — Halleck — + Foote — Elections — Re-elections — Tracks — Seward — 413 — + etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>May 1.</i>—General anxiety about Hooker. If he successfully crosses +the river, this alone will count among the most brilliant actions in +military history. To cross a river with a large army under the eyes, +almost under the guns of an enemy, concentrated, strong, vigilant, +and supported by the population, would honor the name of any +world-renowned captain.</p> + +<p><i>May 2.</i>—Mr. Seward forces upon the Department of the Navy, +instructions for our cruizers that are so obviously favorable to +blockade-runners, that our officers may rather give up capturing. +Mr. Seward's instructions concede more to England, than was ever +asked by England, or by any neutral from a belligerent of a third +class power.</p> + +<p><i>May 2.</i>—How could Mr. Adams to that extent violate all the +international proprieties, and deliver <span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>(p. 216)</span> a kind of pass to a +vessel loaded in England with arms and ammunition for Matamoras. It +is an offence against England, and a flagrant violation of +neutrality to France. Not yet time to show our teeth to them. And +all this in favor of that adventurer and almost pickpocket Zermann, +this mock-admiral, mock-general, whom twice here they put up for a +general in our army. But for me they would have made him one, and +disgraced the American uniform. This police malefactor was +patronised by some New Yorkers, by Senator Harris and from Mr. +Seward may have got strong letters for Mr. Adams. It is probable +that Zermann sold Mr. Adams to secessionists who may have wished to +stir up trouble by this passport business. I am sure the affair will +be hushed up and entirely forgotten.</p> + +<p><i>May 2.</i>—Glorious! glorious. Hooker crossed—and successfully. The +rebels, caught napping, disturbed him not. Now at them, at them, +without loss of an hour! The soldiers will perform wonders when in +the hands of true soldiers for commanders, when led on by a true +soldier.</p> + +<p>O heaven! Why does Hooker publish such a proclamation? It is the +merest nonsense. To thank the soldiers, few words were needed. But +to say that the enemy must come and fight us on our own ground. O +heaven! Hooker ought not to have had time to write a proclamation, +but ought to pitch into the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>(p. 217)</span> rebels, surprise and confuse +them, and not wait for them. What is the matter? I tremble.</p> + +<p><i>May 3.</i>—Rumors, anxiety. The patriots feverish. One might easily +become delirious.... Copperheads, Washington secessionists, spread +all kinds of disastrous rumors. The secessionists here in +Washington, are always invisible when any success attends our arms; +but when we are worsted, they are forth coming on all corners, as +toads are after a shower of rain.</p> + +<p><i>May 4.</i>—Confused news, but it seems that Hooker is successful. +Still not so complete as was expected. Hooker's manœuvring seems +heavy, slow.</p> + +<p>The Copperheads more dangerous and more envenomed than the +secessionists. And very natural. The secesh risks all for a bad +cause and a bad creed. But the <i>World</i> has no conviction, only envy +and mischief, and risks nothing.</p> + +<p><i>May 5.</i>—Nothing decided; nothing certain. From what I can gather, +the new generation or stratum of generals fights differently from +the style of the Simon-pure McClellan tribe. They are in front, and +not in the rear according to regulations.</p> + +<p>Halleck digs, digs entrenchments around Washington. I meet +battalions with spades. Engineers show their poor skill! and Mr. +Lincoln is comforted to be strongly defended!</p> + +<p><i>May 5.</i>—Night, storm, rain. News rather doubtful. Stanton said to +me that he believes in Hooker, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>(p. 218)</span> even if Hooker be +unsuccessful. Bravo! Not want of success condemns a general, but the +way and manner in which he acted; and how he dealt with events.</p> + +<p><i>May 6.</i>—Seward is bitterly attacked by the <i>World</i>, and by other +Copperheads. I could not unite with a <i>World</i> and with Copperheads +to attack even a Seward. They are too filthy.—<i>Arcades ambo.</i></p> + +<p><i>May 6.</i>—Hooker retreats and recrosses the river. Say now what you +will to make it swallow, at the best it is an unsuccessful affair, +if not an actual disaster. I believe not in the swelling of the +river. Bosh! in three days these rivers fell. Have any generals +Franklinized? I dare not ask; I most wish not to know anything.</p> + +<p><i>May 7.</i>—<i>Nocte pluit tota (not) redeunt spectacula mane</i>; grim, +dark, cold, rainy night. Are the Gods against us? Or has imbecility +exasperated even the merciful but rational Christian God to that +extent, that God turns his back upon us?</p> + +<p><i>May 7.</i>—Hiob's news come in, confused to sure, but still one finds +something like a foothold. I am thunderstruck, annihilated. I +listened to Hooker's best friends but can hardly help crying. Hooker +is a failure as a commander of a large army. Hooker is good for a +corps or two, but not for the whole command and responsibility. From +all that I can learn, Hooker fights well, courageously, but he, like +the others, <i>has not the greatest and truest gift</i> in a commander: +<i>Hooker cannot manœuvre his army.</i> All <span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>(p. 219)</span> that I hear up to +this moment strengthened my conclusion, and I am sure that the more +the details come in, the stronger the truth will come out. Hooker +can not manœuvre an army. Hooker may attack vigorously, stand as +a rock, but cannot manœuvre.</p> + +<p>Hooker seems to have committed the same faults and mistake as his +predecessors did. He kept more men out of the fire than in the fire. +And this from Hooker who accused his former chiefs of that very +fault. But poor Hooker was unsupported by a good staff. This check +may turn out to be a great disaster. At any rate, a whole campaign +is lost, and one more commander may go overboard. Hooker will raise +against him a terrible storm. God grant that Hooker could be +honestly defended.</p> + +<p>—<i>La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile</i> is perhaps again +illustrated by Hooker. If Hooker is in fault, then he ought not to +survive this disaster. After all that he said, after all that we +said and repeated in his favor, to turn out an awful mistake!</p> + +<p><i>May 8.</i>—Worse and worse. I do not learn one single fact +exculpating Hooker. I scarcely dare to look in the people's faces. +The rain is no justification. Hooker showed no vigor before the +rain. After he crossed, and had his army in hand, instead of +attacking, he subsided, seemingly trying to find out the plans of +the rebels instead of acting so as not to give them time to make +plans or to execute them.</p> + +<p><i>Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier</i>, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>(p. 220)</span> is +almost all to be said in Hooker's defense. I tremble to know all +the minute details. A paroled prisoner returned from Richmond said +to me that terror was terrible in Richmond—that Lee and his army +had no supplies. No troops in Richmond—Stoneman cut the bridges. +The rebels were on the brink of a precipice, and extricated +themselves.</p> + +<p><i>May 8.</i>—Boutwell, Member of Congress, told me that the district of +St. Louis paid more new taxes to January than any other district in +the United States. Bravo, Missourians. That is loyalty.</p> + +<p><i>May 8: Evening</i>—More details about this unhappy Chancellorsville. +Lee and the rebel generals have been decidedly surprised—in the +military sense—by the crossing of the river, and by Hooker coming +thus in part in their rear. But we lost time, they retrieved and +<i>manœuvred</i> splendidly; better than they ever have done before. +Lee showed that he has learned something. Lee showed that, by a +year's practice, he has at length acquired skill in handling a large +army. The apprenticeship on our side is not so successful; our +generals have no experience therein, and McClellan was worse at +Harper's Ferry in November than at Williamsburg in the spring. +McClellan learned nothing. Will it be possible to find among our +Potomac generals one in whom revelation will supply experience?</p> + +<p>The more I learn about that affair the more thoroughly I am +convinced that Hooker's misfortune had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>(p. 221)</span> the same cause and +source as the misfortunes of those before him. No military +scientific staff and chief-of-staff. Butterfield was not even with +Hooker, but at Falmouth at the telegraph. If it is so, then no +words can sufficiently condemn them all.</p> + +<p>If Kepler, or Herschel, or Fulton, or Ericcson had violated axioms +and laws of mathematics and dynamics, their labors would have been +as so much chaff and dust. War is mechanism and science, inspiration +and rule; a genuine staff for an army is a scientific law, and if +this law is not recognized and is violated, then the disasters +become a mathematically certain result.</p> + +<p><i>May 8.</i>—The defenders of Hooker call the result a drawn battle. +Mr. Lincoln calls it a lost battle. I call it a miscarried, if not +altogether lost, campaign.</p> + +<p><i>May 9.</i>—The poorest defence of Hooker is that the terrain was +such that he could not manœuvre. If the terrain was so bad, +Hooker ought to have known it beforehand, and not brought his army +there. The rebels have not been prevented from marching and +manœuvring on the same ground, and not prevented from attacking +Hooker, all of which ought to have been done by our army.</p> + +<p><i>May 9.</i>—All is again in unspeakable confusion. All seems to crack. +This time, more than ever, a powerful mind is necessary to +disentangle the country. If all is confirmed concerning Hooker's +incapacity, then <span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>(p. 222)</span> it is a crime to keep him in command; but +who after him? It becomes now only a guess, a lottery.</p> + +<p>The acting Chief-of Staff on the battle-field was General Van Alen. +Brave and devoted; but Van Alen saw the fire for the first time, and +makes no claims to be a scientific soldier.</p> + +<p><i>May 10.</i>—I wrote to Stanton to call his attention to, and explain +the reasons of Hooker's so-called miscarriage. The insufficiency, +the inadequacy of his staff and of chief-of-staff. Hooker attempted +what not even Napoleon would have dared to attempt, to fight an army +of more than one hundred thousand men, literally without a staff, or +without a thorough, scientific and experienced chief-of-staff. I +directed Stanton's attention to evidences from military history. +Persons interested in such questions read Battle of Ligny and +Waterloo, by Thiers.</p> + +<p>Cobden, Cobden the friend of the Union, can no more stand Mr. +Seward's confused logomachy, and in a speech sneers at Mr. Seward's +dispatches. The New York <i>Times</i> <i>dutifully</i> perverts Cobden's +speech; other papers <i>dutifully</i> keep silent.</p> + +<p><i>May 10.</i>—To extenuate Hooker's misconduct, his supporters assert +that he was struck, stunned, and his brains affected. Hooker was +stunned on Friday, and his campaign was already lost on Tuesday +before, when he wrote his silly proclamation, when he subsided with +the army in a <i>semi-lunar</i> (the worst form of all) camp, and +challenged Lee to come and fight him. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>(p. 223)</span> Lee did it. Hooker +was intellectually stunned on Tuesday. Further: the results of the +material stunning on Friday could never have been so fatal if the +army had been organized on the basis of common sense, as are all the +armies of intelligent governments in Europe. The chief-of-staff +elaborates with the commander the plan of the action; he is +therefore familiar with the intentions of the commander. When the +commander is disabled, the chief-of-staff continues the action. At +the storming of Warsaw, in 1831, Prince Paschkewitsch, the +commander, was disabled or stunned, and his chief-of-staff, Count +Toll, directed the storm for two days, and Warsaw fell into Russian +hands.</p> + +<p>No more effective is the defence of the defeat, by throwing the +fault on the Eleventh Army Corps. The Eleventh Corps was put so much +in advance of a very foggishly—if not worse—laid out camp, that +it was temptingly exposed to any attack of the enemy. The Eleventh +Corps was separated from the rest of the army, as was Casey's +division in the Chickahominy. The laying of a camp, the distribution +of the corps, in a well organized army, is the work of the staff and +of its chief; but Butterfield was not even then in Chancellorsville. +Lee, who if caught napping, quickly awoke, wheeled his army as if it +were a child's toy, cut his way through woods which amazed Hooker, +and arrived before Hooker's semi-lunar camp. We, all the time, as it +seems, were ignorant of Lee's movements. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>(p. 224)</span> A good staff, and +what Lee did, we would have accomplished. Lee quietly found out our +vulnerable point; and struck the blow. That, if you please, <i>was</i> a +stunner. Finally: the Eleventh Corps was eleven or twelve thousand +strong. The weakest in the army, equal to a strong division in a +European army of one hundred thousand men. The breaking of a +division or of twelve thousand men posted at the extreme flank, +ought not and could not have been so fatal to the whole campaign. A +true captain would have been prepared for such eventuality. Battles +are recorded in history when a whole wing broke down and retreated, +and nevertheless the true captain restored order and fortunes, and +won the battle.</p> + +<p>I am told that the rebels attacked in columns, and not in lines. The +rebels learn and learned, and are not conceited. The terrain here in +Virginia is specially fit for attacks in columns, according to +continental European tactics. We will not learn, we know all, we +have graduated—at West Point.</p> + +<p><i>May 11.</i>—I have it from a very reliable source, that Mr. Lincoln +considers Sumner to be not very entertaining.</p> + +<p><i>May 11.</i>—The confusion is on the increase. Statesmen, politicians, +honest, dishonest, stupid and intelligent, all huddled together. +Their name is legion—and what a stench. It is abominable! And many +think, and many may think, that I find pleasure in dwelling on such +events, on such men as are here. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>(p. 225)</span> When I was a child, my +tutor ingrained into my memory the <i>Cum stercore dum certo</i>, etc. +But at any cost, I shall try to preserve the true reflection of +events, of times, and of the actors.</p> + +<p><i>May 12.</i>—Jackson dead. Dead invincible! and therefore fell in time +for his heroic name. Jackson took a sham, a falsehood, for faith and +for truth—but he stood up faithfully, earnestly, devotedly to his +convictions. Whatever have been his political errors, Jackson will +pass to posterity, the hero of history, of poetry, and of the +legend. His name was a terror, it was an army for friend and for +enemy. For Jackson</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>O selig der, dem er in Siegesglantze,<br> + Die blutigen Lorbeer'n um die Schlaefe windet.</i></p> + +<p><i>May 12.</i>—<i>Sewardiana.</i> Lord Lyons, or rather the English +government, objects and protests against the instructions given to +our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr. +Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to +our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this +time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was +quashed, or, at least, recast.</p> + +<p>The Morning <i>Chronicle</i>, of Washington—<i>magnum</i> Administration's +<i>excrementum</i>—attacks <span class="smcap">Schalk</span> and his military reasonings. Oh! great +politician.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Sus Minervam docet.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>(p. 226)</span> <i>May 13.</i>—The defenders of Hooker affirm that Sedgwick was +in fault, and disobeyed orders.</p> + +<p>1st. I have good reasons firmly to believe that Sedgwick heroically +obeyed and executed orders sent to him. No doubt can exist about it.</p> + +<p>2d. The orders written by <i>such</i> a staff as Hooker's might have been +written in <i>such</i> a way as to confuse the God Mars himself. Marshal +Soult could fight, but as a chief of Napoleon's staff at Waterloo, +could not write intelligible orders.</p> + +<p>3d. Setting aside Sedgwick's disobedience of orders, it does not in +the least justify Hooker in hearing the roar of cannon, and knowing +what was going on, and at the head of eighty thousand men allowing +Sedgwick to be crushed; and all this within a few miles. Fitz-John +Porter was cashiered for a similar offense. Hooker's action is by +far worse, and thus Hooker deserves to be shot.</p> + +<p><i>May 13.</i>—Rumors that Halleck is to take the command of the army, +together with Hooker. I almost believe it, because it is nameless, +and here all that is illogical is, eventually, probable.</p> + +<p>Poor Hooker. Undoubtedly, he had a soldier's spark in him. But +adulation, flunkeyism, concert, covered the spark with dirt and mud. +I pity him, but for all that, down with Hooker!</p> + +<p>If Hooker or Halleck commands the army, Lee will have the <i>knack</i> to +always whip them.</p> + +<p><i>May 14.</i>—Wrote a paper for Senators Wade and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>(p. 227)</span> Chandler, to +point out the reasons of Hooker's failure. Did my utmost to explain +to them that warfare to-day is not empiricism, but science, and that +empiricism is only better when sham-science has the upper hand. +Hooker's staff was worse than sham-science, and was not even +empiricism.</p> + +<p>I explained that such evils, although very deeply rooted, can, +nevertheless, be remedied. An energetic government can, and ought to +look for and find, the remedy. The army, as it is, contains good +materials for every branch of organization; it is the duty of the +government to discover them and give them adequate functions.</p> + +<p>Further: I suggested to these patriotic Senators that as in the +present emergency, it is difficult to put the hand on any general +inspiring confidence, the President, the Secretary of War and the +Senators, ought immediately to go to the army, and call together +all the commanders of corps and of divisions. The President ought +to explain to the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of making a new +choice. But as the generals are well aware that there must be a +commander, and that they know each other in the fire, the President +appeals to their patriotism, and asks them to elect, by secret +ballot on the spot, one from among themselves.</p> + +<p><i>May 14: One o'clock, P. M.</i>—The President, Halleck and Hooker in +secret conclave. Stanton, it seems, is excluded. If so, I am glad on +his account. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>(p. 228)</span> God have mercy on this wronged and slaughtered +people. No holy spirit will inspire the Conclave.</p> + +<p><i>May 15.</i>—The English Government shelters behind the Enlistment +Act. The Act is a municipal law, and a foreign nation has nothing to +do with it. We are with England on friendly terms, and England has +towards us duties of friendly comity, whatever be the municipal law. +To invoke the Enlistment Act against us, is a mean pettifogger's +trick.</p> + +<p>A good-natured imbecile, C——, everybody's friend, and friend of +Lincoln, Seward and the Administration in the lump, C—— asked me +what I want by thus bitterly attacking everybody.</p> + +<p>"I want the rebellion crushed, the slaves emancipated; but above all +I want human life not to be sacrilegiously wasted; I want men, not +counterfeits."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, point out where to find them?" answered everybody's +friend.</p> + +<p><i>May 15.</i>—On their return from Falmouth, the patriotic Senators +told me that they felt the ground for my proposed election of a +commander by his colleagues, and that General Meade would have the +greatest chance of being elected. <i>Va pour Meade.</i> Some say that +Meade is a Copperhead at heart. Nonsense. Let him be a Copperhead at +heart, and fight as he fought under Franklin, or fight as he would +have fought at Chancellorsville if Hooker had not been trebly +<i>stunned</i>.</p> + +<p><i>May 15.</i>—Much that I see here reminds me of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>(p. 229)</span> debauched +times in France; on a microscopic scale, however; as well as of the +times of the <i>Directoire</i>. The jobbers, contractors, lobbyists, +etc., here could perhaps carry the prize even over the +supereminently infamous jobbers, etc., during the <i>Directoire</i>.</p> + +<p><i>May 15.</i>—"Peel of Halleck, Seward and Sumner," exclaims Wendell +Philips, the apostle. Wendell Samson shakes the pillars, and the +roof may crush the Philistines, and those who lack the needed pluck.</p> + +<p><i>May 16.</i>—The President visited Falmouth, consoled Hooker and +Butterfield, shook hands with the generals, told them a story, and +returned as wise as he went concerning the miscarriage at +Chancellorsville. The repulse of our army does not frighten Mr. +Lincoln, and this I must applaud from my whole heart. It is however +another thing to admire the cool philosophy with which are swallowed +the causes of a Fredericksburgh and a Chancellorsville—causes +which devoured about twenty thousand men, if not more.</p> + +<p><i>May 16.</i>—Strange stories, and incredible, if any thing now-a-days +is incredible. Mr. Lincoln, inspired by Hitchcock and Owen, turns +spiritualist and rapper. Poor spirits, to be obliged to answer such +calls!</p> + +<p><i>May 17.</i>—A high-minded, devoted, ardent patriot, a general of the +army, had a long conversation with the President, who was sad, and +very earnest. The patriot observed that Mr. Lincoln wanted only +encouragement to take himself the command of the Army of the +Potomac. As it stands now, this would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>(p. 230)</span> be even better than +any other choice. I am sure that once with the army, separated from +Seward & Co., Mr. Lincoln will show great courage. If only Mr. +Lincoln could then give the <i>walking papers</i> to General Halleck!</p> + +<p>On the authority of the above conversation, I respectfully wrote to +the President, and urged him to take the army's command, but to +create a genuine staff for the army around his person.</p> + +<p>I submitted to the President that the question relating to a staff +for the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy [the President] and +for the commander-in-chief of the Army, Major-General Halleck, has +been often discussed by some New York, Boston and Washington +dailies, and the wonted amount of confusion is thereby thrown +broadcast among the public. The names of several generals have been +mentioned by the press as a staff of the President. I doubt if any +of them are properly qualified for such an important position. They +are rather fitted for a military council <i>ad latus</i> to the +President. Such a council exists in Russia near the person of the +emperor; but it has nothing in common with a staff, with staff +duties, or with the intellectual qualification for such duties. The +project of such a council here was many months ago submitted to the +Secretary of War. A Commander-in-chief, as mentioned above—one +fighting and manœuvring on paper—making plans in his office, +unfamiliar with every thing constituting a genuine military, +scientific or <span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>(p. 231)</span> practical soldier—to whom field and battle +are uncongenial or improper—to whom grand and even small tactics +are a <i>terra incognita</i>—such a chief is at best but an imitation of +the English military organization, and certainly it is only in this +country that obsolete English routine is almost uniformly imitated. +Such a Commander-in-chief might have been of some small usefulness +when our Army was but thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand strong, +was scattered over the country, or warred only with Indians on the +frontier. But all the great and highly perfected military powers on +the continent of Europe consider such a commander a wholly +unnecessary luxury, and not even Austria indulges in it now.</p> + +<p>During the campaign against Napoleon in 1813-14 the allies were +commanded by a generalissimo, the Prince Schwartzenberg; but he +moved with the army, actively directed that great campaign.</p> + +<p>The Continental sovereigns of Europe are born Commanders-in-chief of +their respective land and naval forces. As such, each of them has a +personal staff; but such a personal staff must not be confused with +a general, central staff, the paramount necessity of which for any +military organization is similar to the nervous system and the brain +for the human body. Special extensive studies as well as practical +familiarity with the use of the drill and the tactics of infantry, +cavalry and artillery, constitute absolutely essential requirements +for an officer of such a staff. The necessary <span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>(p. 232)</span> military +special information also, as well as the duties, are very varied and +complicated (see "<i>Logistics</i>" by Jomini and others.) This country +has no such school of staff. West Point neither instructs nor +provides the Army with officers for staff duties; and of course the +difficulty now to obtain efficient officers for a staff, if not +insurmountable, is appalling, and is only to be mastered by a great +deal of good will, by insight and by discernment.</p> + +<p>Many months ago, I pointed out, in the press, this paramount +deficiency in the organization of the Federal Army. The Prince de +Joinville ascribes General McClellan's military failures to the +paramount inefficiency of that General's staff. Any one in the least +familiar with military organization and military science is +thunderstruck to find how the Federal military organization deal +with staffs, and what is their comprehension of the qualification +for staff duties.</p> + +<p>It deserves a mention that engineers and engineering constitute what +is rather a secondary element in the organization of a special or of +a general central staff.</p> + +<p>Plans of wide comprehensive campaigns are generally elaborated by +such general staffs. In the campaigns of 1813-14, the sovereigns of +Russia and Prussia were surrounded by their respective general, and +not only personal staffs. With the Colonels Dybitsch and Toll, of +the Russian general staff, originated that bold, direct march on +Paris, whose results changed the destinies <span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>(p. 233)</span> of Europe. Other +similar, although not so mighty facts are easily found in general +military history.</p> + +<p>Finally, I pointed out to the President, the names of Generals +Sedgewick, Meade, Warren, Humphries, and Colonel J. Fry as fit for, +and understanding, the duties of the staff.</p> + +<p><i>May 17.</i>—I record a rumor, which I supposed, and found out to be, +without much foundation; it is nevertheless worth recording.</p> + +<p>The rumor in question says that the President wished to dismiss +Stanton and to take General Butler; that Mr. Seward was to decide +between the two, and that he declined the responsibility. Seward and +Butler in the same sack! Butler would have swallowed Seward, hat, +international laws and all—and of course Seward declined the +responsibility.</p> + +<p>But now a story comes, which is a sad truth. William Swinton, +military reporter for the <i>Times</i>, a young man of uncommon ability +and truthfulness, prepared for his paper a detailed article about +the whole of Hooker's Chancellorsville expedition. Before being +published, the article was shown to Mr. Lincoln; and it was +telegraphed to New York that if the article comes out, the author +may accidentally find himself a boarder in Fort Lafayette. Almost +the same day the President telegraphed to a patriot to whom Mr. +Lincoln unbuttoned himself, not to reveal to anybody the +conversation. Both these occurrences had in view <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>(p. 234)</span> only one +object—it was to keep truth out of the people's knowledge. Truth is +a dangerous weapon in the hands of a people.</p> + +<p><i>May 19.</i>—The President repeatedly refuses to make General Butler +useful to the country's cause, notwithstanding the best men in the +country ask Butler's appointment. I am only astonished that the best +men can hope and expect anything of the sort; for, when a Butler +will come up, then Sewards and Hallecks easily may go +down—but—<i>pia desideria</i>.</p> + +<p><i>May 20.</i>—From many, many and various quarters, continually unholy +efforts are made to excuse Hooker and Butterfield; the President +seemingly listens and excuses. Well, I know what a Napoleon, or any +other even unmilitary sovereign, would do with both.</p> + +<p><i>May 21.</i>—O, for light! for light! O, to find a man! one to prize, +to trust, to have faith in him! It is so sickening to almost hourly +dip the pen in—mud! I regret now to have started this <i>Diary</i>. I go +on because it is started, and because I wish to contribute, even in +the smallest manner, towards rendering justice to a great people, +besides being always on the watch, always expecting to have to +record a chain of brilliant actions, accomplished by noble and +eminent men. But day after day passes by, page heaps on page, and I +must criticise, when I would be so happy to prize.</p> + +<p>As a watchdog faithful to the people's cause, I try to stir up the +shepherds—but alas! alas....</p> + +<p><i>May 22.</i>—Wrote a letter to Senator Wade explaining <span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>(p. 235)</span> to him +how incapable is Hooker of commanding a large army, how his habits +and associations are contaminating and ruinous to the spirit of the +army, and that Hooker is to return to the command of a corps or two.</p> + +<p><i>May 23.</i>—Vainly! vainly in all directions, among the helmsmen, +leaders and commanders I search for a man inspired, or, at least, an +enthusiast wholly forgetting himself for the holiness of the aim. +Enthusiasm is eliminated from higher regions; is outlawed, is almost +spit upon. Enthusiasm! that most powerful stimulus for heart and +reason, and which alone expands, purifies, elevates man's +intellectual faculties. Here the people, the unnamed, have +enthusiasm, and to the people belong those noble patriots so often +mentioned. But the men in power are cold, and extinguished as ashes. +Jackson the President, Jackson the general, was an enthusiast. +Enthusiasts have been the founders of this Republic.</p> + +<p>Whatever was done great and noble in this world, was done by +enthusiasts. The whole scientific progress of the human mind is the +work of enthusiasm!</p> + +<p><i>May 24.</i>—Grant and the Western army before Vicksburgh unfold +endurance, and fertility of resources, which, if shown by a +McClellan and his successors, having in their hands such a powerful +engine as was and is the Potomac Army, would have made an end to the +rebellion. Happy Grant, Rosecrans and their armies! to be far off +from the deleterious <span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>(p. 236)</span> Washington influences and adulations. +Influences and adulations ruined the commanders and many among the +generals of the Potomac army. Adulations, intrigue, and helplessness +fill, nay constitute the generals atmosphere. In various ways every +body contributes to that atmosphere—participates in it. Every body +influences or intrigues in the army. The President, the various +Secretaries, Senators, Congressmen, newspapers, contractors, +sutlers, jobbers, politicians, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts +and loose crinolines. Jews, publicans, etc., and the rest of social +leprosy. All this cannot thus immediately and directly reach the +Western armies, the Western commanders, when it reaches, it is +already—to some extent—weakened, oxygenated, purified. Add to it +here the direct influence and meddling of the head-quarters. I pity +this fated army here, and at times I even pity the commanders and +the generals.</p> + +<p><i>May 25.</i>—Grant is an eminent man as to character and as to +capacity. To Admiral Foote and to him are due the victories at Fort +Henry, of Donelson, and the bold stroke to enter into the interior +of Secessia. Had Halleck not intervened, had Halleck and Buell not +taken the affairs in their hands, <i>Foote</i> and <i>Grant</i> would have +taken Nashville early in the spring of 1862, and cleared perhaps +half of the Mississippi. After the capture of Fort Donelson, Foote +demanded to be allowed at once to go with his gunboats to Nashville, +to clear the Tennessee; but Halleck caved in, or rather <span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>(p. 237)</span> +comprehended not. Grant and Rosecrans restored what Halleck and +Buell brought to the brink of ruin.</p> + +<p><i>May 28.</i>—Mr. Seward, omnipotent in the White House, tries to +conciliate the public, and in letters, etc., whitewashes himself +from arrests of persons, etc. Mr. Seward is therefore innocent, +thereof, as a lamb. But who inaugurated and directed them in 1861? I +know the necessities of certain times, and am far from accusing; but +how can Seward attempt to throw upon others the first steps made in +the direction of arrests?</p> + +<p><i>May 28.</i>—Hooker still in command, and not even his staff changed. +I am certain that Stanton is for the change in the staff.</p> + +<p><i>May 28.</i>—I am assured that the Blairs (I am not sure if General +Blair is counted in) are the pedlars for Mr. Lincoln's re-election, +as stated by the New York <i>Herald</i>. If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected, +then the self-government is not yet founded on reason, intellect, +and on sound judgment.</p> + +<p><i>May 31.</i>—I am assured by a diplomat that four hundred and thirteen +is the last number of the correspondence between the Department of +State and Lord Lyons. Oh, how much ink and paper wasted, and what a +writing dysentery on both sides. The diplomat in question added that +it was only from January first—of course it was a joke.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>(p. 238)</span> JUNE, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Banks — "The Enemy Crippled" — Count Zeppelin — + Hooker-Stanton — "Give Him a Chance" — Mr. Lincoln's Looks — + Rappahannock — Slaughter — North Invaded — "To be Stirred up" + — Blasphemous Curtin — Banquetting — Desperate — Groping — + Retaliation — Foote — Hooker — Seward — Panama — Chase — + Relieved — Meade — Nobody's fault — Staffs, etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>June 1.</i>—For some time Banks seems to move in the right direction. +Banks no more intends to destroy slavery, and not thereby to hurt +the slave-holders. So Banks has become himself again, and the +Sewardean creed is evaporated. Banks has under him very good +officers, and intelligent, fighting generals; some of them left by +Butler, others, as for instance, Generals Augur, Stone, etc., who +embarked with Banks.</p> + +<p><i>June 2.</i>—I hear it reported that Hooker maintains that he has +worsted and crippled the enemy more than if he had taken Richmond.</p> + +<p>If the enemy in reality was worsted to that extent, it was not in +the least done by Hooker, Butterfield & Co.'s generalship, but this +time, as always, it was done by the bravery of the troops, +notwithstanding the bad generalship, not by, but <i>in spite of</i>, that +bad generalship.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>(p. 239)</span> <i>June 3.</i>—Count Zeppelin, an officer of the staff and aide +to the King of Wurtemberg, came here to observe and to learn how +<i>not</i> to do it! The Count visited the army at Falmouth. He was +horror-struck at the prevailing disorder, and at the general and +special miscomprehension of the needed knowledge and of the duties +prevailing in the staff of the army. The Count says that if this +confusion continues, the rebels may dare almost every thing. Count +Zeppelin is what would be called here, a thorough Union man. He +revolted greatly at witnessing the <i>nonchalance</i> with which human +life is dealt with in the army, and the carelessness of commanders +about the condition of soldiers; the latter he most heartily +admires, and therefore the more pities their fate. He assured me +that rebel agents scattered in Germany tried their utmost to secure +for the rebel army officers of the various arms. This explains the +organization and the brilliant manœuvrings of the celebrated +Stuart's cavalry, the novel rebel tactics in the use of artillery, +and the attack by columns at Chancellorsville.</p> + +<p><i>June 3.</i>—Hooker, they say, waits to see what Lee will do. In other +words, we are on the defensive, after such efforts and so much blood +wasted. O, Ezekiel! O, Deuteronomy! help me to bless the leaders and +the chiefs of this people.</p> + +<p>I am told by a very good authority, that Mr. Lincoln takes a special +care of his fellow-townsmen in Springfield. What a good, honest, +neighborly sentiment, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>(p. 240)</span> provided always that the public good +is not suffering by it!</p> + +<p><i>June 3.</i>—A senator, who urged Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Halleck, was +answered, that "as Halleck has not a single friend in the country, +Mr. Lincoln feels himself in duty bound to stand by him." Admirable, +but costly stubbornness.</p> + +<p><i>June 3.</i>—Poor Hooker! He is now the laughingstock of Europe. I +wish he may recover what he has lost or squandered. But alas! even +now Hooker makes no attempt to surround himself with a genuine +staff.</p> + +<p>I wrote to Stanton, imploring him for the country's and for his own +sake, to compel Hooker to reform his staff, and not to allow science +to be any longer trodden under foot. I implored Stanton that either +the President or he would select and nominate a chief-of-staff for +Hooker, or rather for the Potomac army, as it is done in Europe. +Stanton understands well the disastrous deficiency, and if he could, +he would immediately go at it and change. But, first, the statutes +or regulations, obligatory here, leave it with the commander to +appoint his own staff and its chief. Stupid, rusty, foggyish and +fogyish regulations, so perfectly in harmony with the general +ignorance of what ought to be the staff of an army! Second, Stanton +must yield to another will, and to what is believed here to be the +higher knowledge of military affairs.</p> + +<p><i>June 3.</i>—"Give to Hooker one chance more," says <span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>(p. 241)</span> Mr. +Lincoln, and so say several members of the Cabinet; "McClellan had +so many."—Because they allowed McClellan to waste human life and +time, it surely is no reason to repeat the sacrilegious +condescension. A general may be unfortunate, lose a battle, or even +lose a campaign; all this without being damnable when he has shown +capacity, when he did his utmost, but could not conciliate <i>fatum</i> +on his side. But such is not the case with Hooker, and such +<i>emphatically</i> was <i>not</i> the case with McClellan and with Burnside.</p> + +<p><i>June 3.</i>—During these last fourteen days, the <i>big men</i> have been +expecting a raid on Washington. More fortifications are constructed, +and rifle pits dug. This time the Administration is perfectly right. +All is probable and possible when capacity, decision, and +lightning-like execution are on the one side, and on the other +sham-science, want of earnestness, slowness and indecision.</p> + +<p><i>June 5.</i>—A very reliable and honorable patriot tells me that +<i>grandissimo</i> Chase <i>looks down</i> upon any advice, suggestion, or +warning. O, the great man! A time must come when all these great men +will be held to a terrible account, will shed tears of blood, and +their names will be scorned by coming generations, and the track to +the White House may become also the track to the Tarpeian rock.</p> + +<p><i>June 5.</i>—I often meet Mr. Lincoln in the streets. Poor man! He +looks exhausted, care-worn, spiritless, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>(p. 242)</span> extinct. I pity +him! Mr. Lincoln's looks are those of a man whose nights are +sleepless, and whose days are comfortless. That is the price for a +greatness to which he is not equal. Yet Mr. Lincoln, they say, +wishes to be re-elected!</p> + +<p><i>June 5.</i>—Mr. Seward makes a speech to the volunteers of Auburn. +All the same logomachy, all the same cold patriotism, all the same +<i>I</i>, and all the same squint towards the next presidential election.</p> + +<p><i>June 6.</i>—Lincoln cannot realize to what extent Seward is and has +been his evil spirit. Even the nearest in blood and heart to Lincoln +know it, feel it, are awe-struck by it, warn him, and he is +insensible.</p> + +<p><i>June 7.</i>—How I sympathize with Stanton, and admire his +rude—others call it coarse—contempt of all that is said about him. +That impure, lying, McClellan-Copperhead motley crew, accuse Stanton +of all the numberless criminal mistakes committed in the conduct of +the war—committed by the generals, etc. Stanton never interferes +with Mr. Lincoln nor with Halleck in matters that exclusively relate +to pure warfare, as where and how to march the respective armies, +how and in what way to attack the enemy, etc.</p> + +<p>Reliable patriots coincide with me, that Stanton as clearly sees +every thing to-day, as he saw it when entering on his thorny duty. I +only wonder that he holds out in such an atmosphere. Stanton's +energy is indomitable. Blair's party says that "Stanton goes off at +half-cock." It is not true; but even if true, better <span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>(p. 243)</span> to go +off at half-cock than not at all. Many say that Stanton ought to +retire, if he is hampered by others in the exercise of his duties. +But if he were to retire, he could not at this moment reveal to the +people the causes of such a step, and by remaining at his post, +Stanton prevents still greater disasters and disgraces. He never +asks any of his friends to say or to write a word in his defence, or +rather to dispel the lies with which McClellanites and copperheads +poison the atmosphere all around them.</p> + +<p><i>June 8.</i>—Alexandria fortified, rifle-pits dug, etc. The third +year of the war is the third terror upon Washington, and upon those +counterfeit penates.</p> + +<p><i>June 8.</i>—What for—for heaven's or devil's sake—Hooker throws a +division of cavalry across the Rappahannock, right in the dragon's +jaw! All the rebel army is on the other side, and this, our +division, can never be decidedly supported. It cannot be a +<i>reconnaissance</i>—of what? It cannot be a stratagem to surprise Lee. +If Lee wants to march anywhere north or west, this demonstration of +Hooker's will not for a minute arrest Lee.</p> + +<p><i>June 9.</i>—The great Henry Ward Beecher emigrates for a time to +Europe. His parish richly supports him for the trip, and the +preacher sells his choice, and as it is said, beloved picture +gallery. It is not for want of money. Strange! What a curious +manifestation of patriotism!</p> + +<p><i>June 10.</i>—The demonstration over the Rappahannock <span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>(p. 244)</span> turned +out to be a slaughter of the cavalry. What! Was Hooker again +stunned, to make such a deliberate mistake—nay, crime? Such a +demonstration never could prevent Stuart from moving, even if our +troops had defeated or worried him—even if victorious, our cavalry +would have been forced to recross the Rappahannock, and Stuart, +having behind him Lee's whole army, which could easily reinforce +him, would then move again. Our force of nine thousand men, distant +from support, attack a superior force of fifteen thousand, who +besides have within supporting distance a whole army! This +demonstration prevents nothing, decides nothing, beyond the worst, +the most damnable generalship. General Hooker and his chief-of-staff +are personally responsible for every soldier lost there.</p> + +<p><i>June 11.</i>—Again visitings to the army. Senators, ladies, magnifico +Chase leading on. O, if the guerrillas could sweep them!</p> + +<p><i>June 12.</i>—Crippled men are to be met in all directions, on all the +streets. One-third of the amputated limbs undoubtedly could have +been saved by the Medical Department, were it in better hands, and +above all, if surgeons had been called in from Europe—the domestic +surgeons not being sufficient for the demand.</p> + +<p><i>June 13.</i>—The principle of election, the only true one, a +principle recognized and asserted as well by antiquity as by the +primitive Church, recognized by rationalists, by Fourier, by +radical, or any democracy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>(p. 245)</span> whatever—that principle must +undergo an immense improvement before it shall act in all its +perfection. The elector must be altogether self-governing, and not +governed or influenced by anybody in his choice and vote. The +elector himself must stand on an elevated level before by his vote +he raises one or several above that level. When the people's vote +confers the highest trust to one rather below than in the level, and +still less one above the level, then even the most intelligent +people in the world, being thus misdirected, misconducted, confused, +in a very short time become almost enervated, and, so to speak, +loses its self-possession, and its sense of duty and of right +becomes shaken, its intellectual light dimmed. <i>Exempla sunt +odiosa.</i></p> + +<p><i>June 14.</i>—The cavalry expedition over the Rappahannock was to +arrest any further offensive movements of the rebels. But lo! the +rebel army, so to speak, spreads in all directions, and takes the +offensive. We do not even know positively where Lee is going, where +he will appear and strike. We are shaking in, and for, Washington.</p> + +<p class="poem">"Weh, Messina! wehe, wehe, wehe!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Lincoln is unshaken in his confidence in Hooker and Butterfield.</p> + +<p><i>June 15.</i>—By a bold and rapid manœuvre Lee has thrown his +troops over the valley, over the Potomac, into Maryland, and God +alone knows where Lee will <span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>(p. 246)</span> stop. Lee's advance must have +been already on the Potomac when the slaughter of our cavalry over +the Rappahannock was planned at the various head-quarters. How +splendidly Lee's movements have been arrested by that demonstration! +Lee is on the Potomac, and it seems that his movements have been +ignored. His armies, to be sure, have not been surrounded by a +cloud, as the Jews were in their exodus from the land of bondage, +but the cloud was hanging over the head-quarters in the army and in +Washington.</p> + +<p><i>June 16.</i>—The North invaded—threatened, shaken to the marrow! The +audacity of the rebels is stimulated by our sluggishness. If the +accounts in the War Department are true, then from Fortress Monroe +to the Potomac, including Baltimore and Maryland, we have about two +hundred thousand men, and the rebels dare! O, the rebels! what a +desperate conception, what a lightning-like execution! Dutifully +re-echoing the words uttered by their masters, the partisans of the +Administration console themselves by saying that "this invasion of +the North will have the effect of stirring up the North from its +lethargy." O, you blasphemers! worse blasphemers than ever have been +stoned or burned alive! Is the North not pouring forth its blood and +its treasures, and are they not all squandered by counterfeits?</p> + +<p><i>June 16.</i>—The draft is not put in motion, because for weeks and +months Mr. Lincoln adjusts the appointments to be made under this +law, adjusts them to the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>(p. 247)</span> exigencies of politicians. Jeff +Davis executes the draft with an iron hand. Mr. Lincoln thus gives +time to the Copperheads, to the disciples of the Seymours, of the +Woods, of the <i>World</i>, to organize a resistance. Bloodshed may come!</p> + +<p><i>June 16.</i>—This invasion of Pennsylvania ought to be investigated. +Light must be brought into this dark, muddy, stinking labyrinth. +Weeks ago, honest, clear-sighted, patriotic Governor Curtin asked +authority to arm the militia of his State, and was snubbed in +Washington. Will this new disgrace serve to strengthen the +Administration? Quite possible.</p> + +<p><i>June 16.</i>—Pennsylvania invaded, the country disgraced, and our +helmsmen, our Secretaries of State and of the Treasury, give +banquets! O, what a stoicism! a stoicism <i>sui generis</i>. The homes of +the farmers whose sons bleed on fields of battle, are invaded, their +hearths threatened with desolation, and the helmsmen sip Champagne, +paid for by the people!</p> + +<p><i>June 17.</i>—<i>Halleckiana.</i> Rosecrans telegraphed to head-quarters +that he cannot send any troops to Grant, and that if he, Rosecrans, +is to attack Bragg, he must have reinforcements. Answer: "Do what +you like, on your own responsibility."</p> + +<p><i>June 17.</i>—Hooker seems to have lost his former <i>dash</i>. He must +have known that the rebels extended from Gordonsville to +Pennsylvania, and he, moving in almost a parallel direction to that +line, ought to have cut it, or at least its tail.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>(p. 248)</span> General Ewell at Winchester. Hooker seems to doubt what he +can do. The soldiers of his army can do anything ever done by any +soldiers in the world—but lead them on, O Generals! Hooker has +ninety-four thousand men, and, McClellan-like, waits for more; +laments that he is outnumbered. A good general, having such a +number, and of such troops, would never hesitate to attack an enemy +numbering one hundred and twenty thousand, and the more so, as +Hooker's command is massed, while Lee's is not. And I'll risk my +head that Lee's whole army, all over the valley, and over +Pennsylvania, and over Maryland, is smaller than Hooker's. It is the +same old trick of the rebels and of their friends, to throw dust in +our eyes by magnifying their numbers. The trick is always +successful, because on our side it is wished to extenuate incapacity +by the supposed large numbers of the rebel armies.</p> + +<p><i>June 18.</i>—The North rises. New York sends its militia. The people +fails not, but how about the helmsmen?</p> + +<p>The Democrats—the Copperheads roar for McClellan. Well! the like +Democrats glorifying McClellan, show their patriotism, their metal +and their judgment. These Copperhead-Democrats may insist upon +calling McClellan a captain and a hero, but history will give +another verdict, and history will credit to the Democrats the fact +that they have adroitly poisoned and perverted the good faith of the +honest but credulous Democratic rank and file.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>(p. 249)</span> <i>June 18.</i>—The Administration's <i>simon pure</i> echoes, +politicians, etc., try to persuade everybody that the invasion of +Pennsylvania is nothing, a mere tempest in a tea-pot. Whom do they +hope to humbug in this way? The disgrace is nameless, only they are +callous enough not to feel it. Their cheeks can no more redden.... +However, Stanton is not so optimist. It would look so farcical if it +were not so deadly to witness. Hooker groping his way after Lee; +Lincoln and the all-knowing head-quarters in the utmost darkness +about Lee, his army, his movements, and his plans. And all this +while the country, the people, is kept officially ignorant of its +honor, of its fate. All publicity and communication is +suppressed—not to inform thereby the enemy of our movements. How +idiotic, how silly! As if the march and the movements of an army of +one hundred thousand men could be kept secret from a vigilant and +desperate enemy, and the enemy wanted to read the papers for it. +Good for us!</p> + +<p>I cannot hope against hope, and expect that Hooker, Butterfield, +Lincoln, Halleck will out-manœuvre Lee, bold, quick, and +desperate as he is.</p> + +<p><i>June 19.</i>—The jobbers, the contractors, the gold, stock, and +exchange speculators wish for the prolongation of the war. For this +reason, disasters are rather welcome to them. Oh! to crush those +ignoble and demoniac monsters.</p> + +<p><i>June 20.</i>—I cannot comprehend how Lee could <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>(p. 250)</span> have dared +such a desperate movement, even if relying on the confusion and +senselessness prevailing in <i>our</i> military movements. Lee must have +had some kind of encouragement from the Copperheads before he risked +a step, which ought to end in his utter destruction, even with a +Halleck, Hooker and Butterfield as our commanders.</p> + +<p><i>June 20.</i>—Hooker has more than ninety thousand men in hand—his +rear, his supplies, his <i>depots</i> covered by Heintzelman, and by the +defences of Washington. This alone is equal to fifty thousand more. +And with all this, the treble head-quarters, in the White House in +G street, and in the army cannot find Lee, and therefore the rebels +are not attacked, and lay Pennsylvania waste. O, staffs, O, staffs!</p> + +<p><i>June 20.</i>—More than any other army in the world, the American army +requires to have a thoroughly organized staff, with very intelligent +staff officers. Such staff officers carry orders to generals and to +colonels who, although brave and devoted, may often not altogether +comprehend certain sacramental technicalities of an order delivered +by mouth, or written briefly in the saddle.</p> + +<p>The officer ought to be able to explain the order. Think of it, you +wiseacres and organisers of American armies.</p> + +<p><i>June 21.</i>—Small cavalry skirmishes without signification. The +curtain is not rended, and the enemy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>(p. 251)</span> rolls towards the +heart of Pennsylvania. How will it end?</p> + +<p><i>June 22.</i>—Nobody of the various upper and lower Chiefs can find +Lee. Give twenty thousand men to a bold man even not a general, and +in twenty-four hours he will bring you positive news about Lee's +army.</p> + +<p><i>June 23.</i>—It seems that Lee waits, if we divide our army, to +strike a blow on Washington. Thus he will be baffled; there is a +limit even to our military blunders.</p> + +<p><i>June 24.</i>—Incorrigible Seward. France invites our Government to +participate in the diplomatic coercion against Russia. Of course, +Americans refuse. Mr. Seward, in harmony with the feeling of the +people politely snuff off France. But O, Mr. Seward, why pervert +history or show your ignorance, even of the national events and of +Congressional records. The United States, Adams II., President, sent +commissioners to the Congress of Panama, and the United States +Congress did it after a discussion of several days. What is the use +to deny it now? Then Mr. Seward is insincere to both parties. +Speaking of "<i>a temporary transient revolt here</i>" he seemingly +insinuates, that but for this <i>transient revolt</i> he would perhaps +try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in +company with the <i>Decembriseur</i>. Then the only impediment would be +the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! <i>The refusal</i> in +the dispatch <span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>(p. 252)</span> re-echoes the convictions of the American +people; its shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism +and only fit to catch a Russian diplomat in Washington.</p> + +<p><i>June 25.</i>—Hooker crosses to Maryland with nearly one hundred +thousand men. Lee is still on both sides of the Potomac. By a blow +Hooker could cut Lee's army, break it, and retrieve what he lost at +Chancellorsville. Oh, how I wish he may do it. But since Hooker has +refused to mend his staff, all hope is lost. Stanton sees the +condition very clearly, but Butterfield is in good odor in the White +House.</p> + +<p><i>June 26.</i>—Lee's movements and invasion puzzle me more and more. +The raid into Pennsylvania is the move of a desperate commander, +almost of a madman, playing his whole fortune on one card. If Lee +comes safe out of it, then doubtless he is the best general of our +times, and we the best nincompoops that ever the sun looked upon and +blushed for.</p> + +<p><i>June 26.</i>—The reports give to Lee an army of two hundred thousand +men. Impossible! Where could the rebels scrabble together such a +number? The old trick to frighten us. If, however, Lee should have +even only from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand, then +relying on the high capacity of our various head-quarters, the rebel +chiefs may have gathered what they could take from Charleston and +from Bragg, and massed it to try a decided blow on Washington. But +this cloud, this dust cannot last long; whatever be our <span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>(p. 253)</span> +head-quarters, light must come, and the cloud burst with blood and +thunder.</p> + +<p>One meets in Washington individuals praising sky-high Mr. Lincoln's +military capacity, and saying that he alone embraces all the +extensive line of military operations, combines, directs them, etc. +Pretty well has all this succeeded, and why cannot the younger +generation seize the helm in this terrible crisis? How I ardently +wish to see there an Andrew, Boutwell, Coffey, and more, more of +those new men.</p> + +<p><i>June 27.</i>—From a very reliable, honest, and <i>not conspiring</i> +secessionist in Washington, I learn that a Northern Copperhead +visited Jeff Davis in Richmond, and stimulated the rebel chief to +carry into the north a war of retaliation by fire and sword, but +that Jeff Davis refused to instruct Lee for devastation. I instantly +told Stanton my news; and now I doubt not in the least that the +invasion is concerted with Northern Copperheads.</p> + +<p><i>June 28.</i>—The following is this morning the military condition of +the city with the forts and defences: Hooker took all he could and +all he met on his way. To defend the works around Washington +Heintzelman has six thousand infantry, and not two hundred cavalry. +The rebels have cavalry all around, within six or eight miles. A +dash of twenty thousand infantry, and Washington is done!</p> + +<p><i>June 28.</i>—Admiral Foote dead. Irreparable loss. Foote was of the +stamp of Lyon, of the stamp of patriot-heroes. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>(p. 254)</span> He died of +exhaustion, that is, of devotion to the country. Foote was an honor +to the navy and to the American people.</p> + +<p><i>June 28.</i>—Yesterday, Friday, the candidate for presidency, +splendid Chase, stood up mightily for Hooker. Oh, Mr. Chase! you may +be a great or a doubtful financier, but keep rather mute on military +matters. You know as much about them as this d—— mosquito that is +just now biting my nose.</p> + +<p><i>June 28.</i>—At last, Hooker relieved. I pity Meade to receive a +command at such a critical moment. But now or never, to show his +mettle, his capacity! The army thinks very highly of Meade. Will +Halleck soon be sent to California? Then the country's cause will be +safe.</p> + +<p><i>June 29.</i>—Yesterday a rebel cavalry raid captured an immense +train of provisions, cattle, etc., worth about five hundred thousand +dollars, and within eight or twelve miles of Washington! Of course, +it is nobody's fault. In other armies and countries, such a large +train would have a very strong convoy—here it had scarcely a small +squadron of cavalry. The original fault is, first, with Hooker's +chief-of-staff, who is responsible for providing the army, and for +the security of the provision trains. So at least it is in European +armies. Second, with the head-quarters at Washington, who ought to +have known that the enemy, ant-like, spreads in the rear of Hooker. +The head-quarters ought to have informed the quartermaster thereof, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>(p. 255)</span> and provided a strong convoy. This train affair is the +younger brother of the Fredericksburg pontoons.</p> + +<p>Third, the head-quarters of the army and the quartermasters ought to +have inquired at the head-quarters of the defenses of Washington, if +the roads are safe. But of course it was not done, as the <i>big men</i> +here possess all the prescience, and need no valuable information. +All of them appear to me as ostriches, who hide their heads and +eyes, not to see the danger.</p> + +<p><i>June 29.</i>—General Heintzelman is as thorough a soldier as any +to-day in Washington—a soldier superior to head-quarters of the +army. Heintzelman commands the military district which south, west +and north touches on the theatre of the present campaign. In similar +conditions and circumstances, any other government, sovereign, +commander-in-chief, etc., would consult with the commander of the +defences of the capital and of the military district around the +city; here Heintzelman is not noticed.</p> + +<p><i>June 30.</i>—How will Meade compose his staff? All depends on that. +In the present positions of Meade's and Lee's armies, even a +Napoleon could not do much without a very good staff.</p> + +<p>Were the staffs of the American armies organized as they are in +Europe, no difficulty would exist. In Europe the staffs of the +armies are independent from the persons of their commanders. When a +commander is changed, the staff and its chief remains, and thus the +new commander at a glance and in a few hours <span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>(p. 256)</span> can become +thoroughly familiar with the position and condition of the army, and +with the plans of his predecessor, etc., etc. Often such commanders +are changed and sent from one end of the country to the other. In +1831, <span class="smcap">Paschkewitsch</span> was ordered from the Caucasus to Poland, to +supersede <span class="smcap">Diesbitsch</span>.</p> + +<p><i>June 30.</i>—Since Calhoun, the creed of the <i>simon pure</i> Democratic +party intrinsically marked a degradation of man and of humanity. Its +logical, unavoidable and final outlets must have been secession, +treason, and copperheadism; its apotheosis, South, the rebels; +North, the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams and the <i>World</i>. +The creed of the Republican party is humane. The <i>simon pure</i> +democratic rank and file, North and South, intellectually and +morally constitute the lowest stratum of American society. Progress, +civilization, intellectual, healthy activity principally are +embodied in the Republican rank and file. True men, as a Marcy, a +Guthrie, and some few similar, throw a pure and bright light on the +Democratic party; many from among the official and political +Republican notabilities throw a dismal and dark shadow on the +intrinsically elevated and pure principles of the party.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>(p. 257)</span> JULY, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Eneas — Anchises — General Warren — Aldie — General + Pleasanton — Superior mettle — Gettysburgh — Cholera morbus — + Vicksburgh — Army of heroes — Apotheosis — "Not name the + Generals" — Indian warfare — Politicians — Spittoons — Riots + — Council of War — Lords and Lordlings — Williamsport — Shame + — Wadsworth — "To meet the Empress Eugénie," etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>July 1.</i>—It is worth while to ascertain if the Administration is +prepared to run. During last year's invasion of Maryland, at the +foot of C street a swift vessel was, day and night, kept under +steam—(in the greatest secrecy)—to carry away the American gods. +<i>Eneas-Seward</i> was to carry on his shoulders <span class="smcap">Anchises-Lincoln</span>. I was +told that certain gallant secretaries promised to certain gallant +<i>ladies</i> to take them into the ark.</p> + +<p><i>July 1.</i>—Meade makes General Warren his chief-of-staff. For the +first time in this war, in-doors and out-doors, a man for the place. +I never saw Warren, but have heard much in his favor. Then he is +young. Then he is not conceited. Then he is no intriguer. Then he +is fighting always and everywhere. Then he speaks not of strategy. A +brighter promise. Genuine science and intelligence dawn on our +muddy, dark, ignorant horizon.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>(p. 258)</span> Four weeks ago Meade might have been already in the command +of the army. (See after Chancellorsville.) Perhaps Lee would have +been to-day shut up in Richmond instead of laying waste +Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p><i>July 1.</i>—The people will never know to what extent Mr. +Lincoln-Halleck are stumbling-blocks in all military affairs. If +Lincoln had even a <i>Carnot</i> for Secretary of War, the affairs would +not go better than they go now.</p> + +<p><i>July 1.</i>—General Meade is the pure, simple result of military +necessity. His choice is not adulterated by any party spirit. +Success may be probable, if Meade is in reality what his colleagues +suppose or assert him to be.</p> + +<p><i>July 2.</i>—The property of the great patriot <span class="smcap">Thaddeus Stevens</span> +destroyed by the rebels. I am as sure as of my existence, that the +rebel hordes were urged by the Copperheads and by Northern traitors, +by the disciples of the <i>World</i>, etc.</p> + +<p><i>July 2.</i>—Copperheads and their organs scream to have McClellan at +the head of the armies. This enthusiasm for McClellan soon will be a +burning shame. For many it is a mental disease, and almost +unparallelled in the history of our race. A man of defeats and of +incapacity to be thus worshipped as a hero! To what extent sound +intellects can become poisoned by lies! O, Democrats! what a kin and +kith you are! The stubborn, undaunted bravery of the people keeps +the country above water, when McClellan and his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>(p. 259)</span> medley of +believers dragged and drags her down into the abyss. Soon infamy +will cover the names of those who wail for McClellan's glory, the +names of these deliberate betrayers of the people's good faith.</p> + +<p><i>July 2.</i>—Count Zeppelin was at the cavalry fight at Aldie. In his +appreciation, General Pleasanton is almost the ideal of a general of +cavalry, in the manner in which he fought his forces. The Count says +that our soldiers are by far superior to the rebels, that our +regiments, squadrons, showed the utmost bravery, that in +single-handed <i>mélés</i> our soldiers showed a superior mettle, and +that during the whole fight he did not see a single soldier back out +or retire.</p> + +<p>Count Zeppelin spent three weeks with Hooker. The Count <i>never</i> saw +Hooker intoxicated, but nevertheless, he does not believe Hooker to +be the man for the command of a large army. The Count, an educated +officer of staff, deplores the utter absence of that special science +in the heads of the staff.</p> + +<p>The Count was with the army during its march from Falmouth to +Frederick. He admires the endurance, the good spirit, and the +cohesion shown by the army marching under great difficulties, such +as bad roads, heat, &c.</p> + +<p><i>July 2.</i>—News of fight at Gettysburgh. It seems that this time a +plan was boldly conceived, and carried out with rapidity and +bravery. It seems that <i>now a general</i> commands, and has at his side +<i>a chief-of-staff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>(p. 260)</span> <i>July 2.</i>—A crystalized section of abolitionists has, it +seems, dispatched to England a Rev. Dr. <i>Conway</i>, who put on airs, +began a silly correspondence with Mason the traitor, and has thrown +ridicule on the cause and on the men whom he is supposed to +represent.</p> + +<p><i>July 3.</i>—Some details from Gettysburgh. Most sanguinary and +stubborn fighting. General Reynolds, the flower of our army, killed. +The unblemished patriot, General Wadsworth, fought most splendidly, +and is reported to be wounded. His son was beside Reynolds. Mark +this, you world's offals in the <span class="smcap">World</span>. Nothing like you can be found +in the purlieus of the most stinking social sewers.</p> + +<p><i>July 3.</i>—Whoever wishes to know how, in Mr. Seward's mind, right +and law are equipoised, should read the correspondence between the +State Department and the Attorney-General in the case of a criminal +runaway from Saxony. <i>Astraea-Themis</i>-<span class="smcap">Bates</span> is always bold and manly +when right, justice, when individual or general human rights are +questioned. <span class="smcap">Bates'</span> official, legal opinions will remain as a noble +record of his official activity during this bloody tornado.</p> + +<p><i>July 3.</i>—Most contradictory news and rumors. To a great extent, +the fortunes of the Union may be decided at Gettysburgh. Copperheads +alias Peace-Democrats more dangerous than the rebels in arms. The +Copperheads poisoned and paralyzed the spirit of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>(p. 261)</span> the +people; the Pennsylvanians look on, and rise not as a man in the +defence of their invaded state.</p> + +<p><i>July 4.</i>—General Wallbridge the orator of the day. <i>O tempora +Lincolniana!</i></p> + +<p>It is fortunate for the country and for General Meade that no +telegraphic communication exists between Washington and his camp.</p> + +<p><i>July 8.</i>—July 4th, in the evening, I was struck with <i>cholera +morbus</i>. In two hours I was delirious, and the end of the <span class="smcap">Diary</span> and +of myself was at hand. Those who may be interested in the <span class="smcap">Diary</span>, be +thankful to <i>fatum</i> and to my friend in whose house I was taken +sick. I am up and again on the watch.</p> + +<p><i>July 8.</i>—However, I have lost the run of events. I have lost the +<i>piquant</i> of observation how the events of Gettysburgh affected the +<i>big men</i> here. I may have lost the echo of some stories told on the +occasion at the White House.</p> + +<p>Vicksburgh taken! No words to glorify <span class="smcap">Grant</span>, <span class="smcap">Farragut</span>, <span class="smcap">Porter</span>, <i>and +the army of heroes on land and on the waters</i>.</p> + +<p>I wake up and open a paper. Apotheosis! Yesterday evening Mr. Seward +made a speech and glorified himself into <span class="smcap">Christ</span>. Why not? At the +beginning of this internecine war, Mr. Seward repeatedly played the +inspired, the prophet, and even the <span class="smcap">Spirit</span>, having the polyglotic +gift. <i>In illo tempore</i> Mr. Seward advised the foreign diplomats to +bring to him their respective dispatches received from their +respective <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>(p. 262)</span> governments, and he, Seward, would explain to +each diplomat the meanings of what the dispatches contain. Perhaps +the spirit was an after-dinner spirit!</p> + +<p>In the above-mentioned speech Mr. Seward exclaimed, "If I fall!" O, +you will fall, and you will be covered with ... I shall not stain +the paper. Plenty of lickspittles glorifying Lincoln-Seward.</p> + +<p><i>July 8.</i>—The battles at Gettysburgh will stand almost unparalleled +in history for the courage, tenacity, and martial rage shown on both +sides, by the soldiers, the officers and the generals. This +four-days' struggle may be put above Attila's fight in the plains of +Chalons; it stands above the celebrated battle of giants at Marignan +between the French and the Swiss. No legions, no troops ever did +more, nay, ever did the same. At Waterloo one-third of the French +infantry was not engaged in the previous days of Ligny and of +Quatres-bras, and three-fourths of the Anglo-allied army were fresh, +and not fatigued even by forced marches. I am sure that no other +troops in the world could fight with such a stubborn bravery four +consecutive days; not the English, not even the <i>iron-muscled</i> +Russians.</p> + +<p>I learn that during the invasion of Pennsylvania, and above all, +during the last days, all the country expected something +extraordinary from the army at Fortress Monroe, under General Dix's +command. But the affair ended in expectations.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>(p. 263)</span> A few days ago the President declared in a speech that he +dares not introduce the names of the generals. Not to name the +victor at Gettysburgh, the undaunted captor of Vicksburgh! The +people repeat your names, O heroes! even if the President remains +dumb.</p> + +<p>Already a back-fire against Meade. I cannot believe that his heart +fainted, and that other generals kept him from breaking before the +enemy. But Meade is the man of their own kith and kin, and they +ought to have known him.</p> + +<p>It is now so difficult to disentangle truth from lies, from stories +and from intrigue. It will not do, however, to uphold Hooker—it +will not do. Hooker is a brilliant fighter, but was and always will +be <i>stunned</i> when in command of an army. It is a crime to put up +Hooker as a captain.</p> + +<p>Somebody put in the head of the patriotic but mercurial Senator +Wilson that the terrible onslaught of the rebel columns is not the +result of their having adopted European, continental tactics, but +that the rebels are formidable because they have adopted the Indian +mode of warfare. God forgive him who thus confused my friend's +understanding! Indian tactics or warfare for masses of forty, fifty, +or one hundred thousand men!</p> + +<p>I learn that Christ-Seward wishes to force the hoary, but brave, +steady, and not at all fogyish Neptune <span class="smcap">Welles</span>, to recognize to Spain +or Cuba, or to somebody else and to all the world, an extension of +the maritime <span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264"></a>(p. 264)</span> league. It is excellent. Such extension is +<i>altogether</i> advantageous to the maritime neutrals—all of them, +Russia excepted, our covert or open ill-wishers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward, as a good, scriptural Christian, minds not an offense, +and is not rancorous. The Imperial <i>Decembriseur</i>, and all the +imperialist liveried lackeys, look with contempt on the cause of the +people, side with secessionists, with copperheads, etc., etc., and +Mr. Seward insists on giving a license for the exportation of +tobacco bought in Richmond for French accounts. Again Neptune +defends the country's honor and interests.</p> + +<p>In proportion as the presidential electioneering season approaches, +Mr. Seward repeatedly and repeatedly attempts to impress upon the +people's mind that he will not accept from the nation any high +reward for his services. Well, it is not cunning—as by this time +Mr. Seward ought to have found in what estimation he is held by +nine-tenths of the people.</p> + +<p>This is all that I caught in one day, after several days' +interruption.</p> + +<p><i>July 9.</i>—Lee retreats towards the Potomac. If they let him recross +there, our shame is nameless. Will Meade be after Lee <i>l'épée dans +les reins</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Halleckiana, minus.</i> Nobody in Washington, not even the +head-quarters, has any notion or idea what means Lee has to recross +the Potomac.</p> + +<p><i>Halleckiana, plus.</i> I am told that Halleck refused <span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265"></a>(p. 265)</span> to +telegraph to Meade Mr. Lincoln's strategical conceptions.</p> + +<p><i>July 9.</i>—Chewing and spitting paramount here, require incalculable +numbers of spittoons. The lickspittles outnumber the spittoons.</p> + +<p><i>July 10.</i>—The politicians already begin to broadly <i>play their +game</i>. I use the sacramental expressions. What a disgusting +monstrosity is a thorough politician! Not even a eunuch! There is +nothing in a politician to be emasculated: no mind, no heart, no +manhood. In what a <i>galere</i> I got—not by personal contact—but by +intellectually observing the worms on the body politic of my—at any +rate heartily adopted—country.</p> + +<p><i>July 11.</i>—Repeatedly and repeatedly certain newspaper +correspondents announce to the world that Senator Sumner exercises +considerable influence on the supreme power. All things considered, +I wish it may be so, but I see it is not. Sumner's influence ought +to have produced some palpable results. I see none.</p> + +<p>The international maritime complications are watched and defeated +by Welles.</p> + +<p><i>Drapez vous, messieurs, drapez vous</i>—in the statesman toga, +history and truth will take it off from your shoulders.</p> + +<p><i>July 12.</i>—Mr. Seward is very ardently at work—Weed marshaling +Seward—to reconstruct slavery and Union, to give a very large if +not a general amnesty to the rebels, to shake hands with them, in +pursuance of the Mercier-Richmond programme, and to be carried <span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266"></a>(p. 266)</span> +into the White House on the shoulders of the grateful +Union-saviours, Copperheads, and blood-stained traitors. The +<i>Herald</i>, the <i>World</i>, the <i>National Intelligencer</i> and others of +that creed will sing <i>gloria in excelsis</i> to Seward.</p> + +<p><i>July 13.</i>—What is <i>Meade</i> doing? It is exciting to know why a blow +is not yet dealt on the head of retreating rebels. Or is it that +though West Point generals—on both sides—tolerably understand how +to fight a battle, they subside when the finishing stroke is to be +dealt. Oh for a general who understands how to manœuvre against +the enemy!!!</p> + +<p>I hear from a very reliable source, that during the excitement +brewing before the day of Gettysburgh, the honorable Post Master +General by a special biped message insinuated to the honorable +governor of New York that the governor may ask the removal of +Stanton for the safety of the country and of patriots of the +Postmaster's and the governor's species.</p> + +<p><i>July 13.</i>—Besides what <i>Meade</i> has in hand, there must be a +considerable number of troops in Baltimore, in Fortress Monroe and +the volunteer militia. Why not, Lincoln-Halleck! mass them on the +south side of the Potomac under such generals as Heintzelman, Sigel, +etc., and take the enemy between two fires?</p> + +<p><i>July 14.</i>—Bloody riots in New York. The teaching of the Woods, of +their former hireling, the <i>World</i>, and of those who pay that offal +now. Seymour's democracy; mob, pillage, massacre.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267"></a>(p. 267)</span> <i>July 14.</i>—Lincoln has nominated so many Major-Generals +who are relieved from duty, so many of them, that the Major-Generals +ought to be formed into a squadron, and, Halleck at the head, +McClellan at the tail, make them charge on Lee's centre. In such a +way the major-generals would be some use.</p> + +<p><i>July 14.</i>—I meet many who attempt to exculpate Mr. Seward from +<i>this</i> or <i>that</i> untruth which he is accused having told to the +President. Such <i>Seward's</i> men often contradict not the fact, but +attempt to insinuate that somebody else might have told it. To all +this I answer with the Roman Prætor:</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Ille fecit cui prodest</i></p> + +<p><i>July 14.</i>—<span class="smcap">Grant</span> has overpowered men, soil—and elements. <span class="smcap">Grant</span>, +<span class="smcap">Porter</span>, <span class="smcap">Farragut</span>, and their men overpowered land and waters. They +overpowered <i>the Mississippi</i>, hear: the Mississippi's and its +mighty affluents as the Yazoo, the Red River, and others. McClellan +caved in before a brook, as the Chickahominy. McClellan had the +most gigantic resources in men and material ever put in the hands of +a commander, and caved in. O, worshippers of heavy incapacity, take +and digest it if you can.</p> + +<p><i>July 16.</i>—Lee re-crossed the Potomac! Thundering storms, rising +waters and about one hundred and fifty thousand at his heels! What a +general! And our brave soldiers again baffled, almost dishonored by +domestic, know-nothing generalship. We have lost <span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268"></a>(p. 268)</span> the +occasion to crush three-fourths of the rebellion. But where is the +responsibility? Foul work somewhere, but, as always, it will be +nobody's fault.</p> + +<p><i>July 15.</i>—Stanton in rage and despair. Riots everywhere. All these +riots must be the result of a skillfully laid mine. They coincide +with the invasion by the rebels. At the best, these riots are +generated by Fourth of July Seymourite speeches and by the long +uninterrupted series of incendiary articles in New York papers, like +World, etc., and in Boston, where emasculated parasites as Hilliard, +a Cain Curtis etc., soothingly tried their hands to disgrace their +city and to mislead the people. All the Lincoln-Seward-Halleck +actions cannot excuse these riots and their matricidal, secret +inciters.</p> + +<p><i>July 15.</i>—The Administration ought to recall Wool and put Butler +in New York. Butler understands how to deal with riotous traitors.</p> + +<p><i>July 15.</i>—Good news from Banks. Now he comes out and will recover +the confidence of all good men.</p> + +<p><i>July 15.</i>—If it is true that <i>Meade</i> convoked a council of war, +and that the generals decided not to attack Lee, then whoever voted +and decided so, ought, at the best, to be sent to the hospital of +mental invalids, and the army put in the hands of fighting men. +Lee's escape will henceforth occupy the cardinal place in the annals +of disgraceful generalships of the Potomac army.</p> + +<p><i>July 16.</i>—One of the truest men and citizens in this country, +George Forbes, of Milton Hill, returned <span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269"></a>(p. 269)</span> from England. +Forbes says that aristocracy and the commercial classes (with few +exceptions) are generally against us. But the people at large are on +our side.</p> + +<p>Oh! that some method may be found to separate the interests of the +good and noble English people, from the interests of the other +classes; then to have intercourse only with the people; and towards +the other English fulfil:</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Vos autem o Tyrii prolem gentemque futuram,</i></p> + +<p class="noindent">and that not one of those lords, lordlings, of inborn snobs and +flunkeys, that not one of that English social sham may ever be +allowed to tread the sacred American soil. And if such an Englishman +ever touches these shores, then be he treated as leprous, and as +carrying in him the most contagious plague, and let the house of any +American that shall be opened to such an Englishman, be torn down +and burned, and its ashes scattered to the winds; and the curse of +the people upon any American harboring those snobbish upstarts of +liberty.</p> + +<p><i>July 16.</i>—The incendiaries and murderers in New York cheered +McClellan and came to his house. Bravo! Can, now, any honest man who +is not an idiot, doubt where are the main springs and the animus of +those New York blood-thirsty miscreants, and who are those of whose +hearts McClellan got hold? What a nice Copperhead combination for +saving the Union. Very likely Seymour, Dictator or <span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270"></a>(p. 270)</span> +President, McClellan Commander-in-chief, or Secretary of War, some +of the Woods or Duncans or Barlows in the Treasury, their hireling +any Marble for Foreign Affairs, and with them some others from among +the favorites of the New York blood-thirsty incendiaries.</p> + +<p>I read in one of the New York poison-dealers, <i>alias</i> Copperhead +newspapers, that McClellanites was ruined by politicians. So-called +honest, but idiotic conservatives sanctimoniously repeat that lie. +It was McClellan, who, inspired by <i>Barlow</i>, by the <i>Herald</i> and by +his aristocratic West Point pro-slavery friends, introduced +democratic politics into the army at a time when the army was yet in +an embryo state, already in September and October, 1861. O, impudent +liars! history will nail your names to the gallows, together with +the name of your fetish and of his military tail.</p> + +<p><i>July 16.</i>—In that fated, cursed council of war which allowed Lee +to escape, my patriot <span class="smcap">Wadsworth</span> was the most decided, the most +out-spoken in favor of attacking Lee. Wadsworth never fails where +honor and patriotism are to be sustained. Warren with Wadsworth. So +Humphries, Pleasanton and Howard. Those names ought to coruscate as +the purest light of patriotism for future generations. Meade's vote +is of no account. He, the commander, ought to have acted up to his +vote. If only Meade had imitated <i>Radetzky</i>. In 1849 after the +denunciation of the Armistice of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271"></a>(p. 271)</span> Milan, <i>Radetzky</i> called a +council of war to decide whether the <i>Po</i> was to be crossed and +Piedmont invaded. All the best Austrian generals—<i>Hesse</i> with them, +voted against the proposition. Radetzky quietly listened, then rose +and give orders to cross immediately.</p> + +<p>The result was the battle of Novara and the temporary humiliation of +the house of Savoy. That was a model for <i>Meade</i>. And this General +<i>French</i> who advised to entrench! To entrench in pursuit of a +retreating enemy! This French honors West Point and engineering. The +generals who voted to entrench and not to attack Lee, and Meade with +them, they can never, never retrieve. Whatever be their future or +eventual success it will not heal the wound given to the country by +thus allowing Lee to escape. O, God! O, God!</p> + +<p>Such <i>Frenches</i> and others asserted that "Lee will attack before he +crosses." Oh what <i>Marses!</i> <i>Lee's position at Williamsport was on +heights</i>, etc., etc., assert those braves.</p> + +<p>When a country is hilly and undulating there will always be found +one point or hill commanding the others. I shall risk my head on the +fact, that around Lee's entrenchments at Williamsport, there exist +other elevations which command Williamsport, and are within +artillery distance. <i>Natura semper sibi consona.</i> I am sure that +better positions than that selected by Lee could easily have been +occupied by our troops or artillery. The same must have been the +case at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272"></a>(p. 272)</span> Hagerstown. And if the generals were afraid to +fight Lee's whole army they ought to have more vigilantly watched +his crossing. There was a time when a part only of the rebel army +was facing us, and at least this part ought to have been attacked +and crippled, if not destroyed. Sound common sense teaches it. But +it seems that no will to fight Lee, or to impede his safe +recrossing, no such will animated the majority of the council of +war. It seems that some of the West Point nurslings are still +awe-struck at the sight of their slavocratic former companions, as +they were at the time of their studies at West Point.</p> + +<p>I was told by an officer coming from the army that the soldiers are +exasperated. The soldiers say that the generals did not wish to +destroy Lee's army and finish the rebellion, because their "stars +were to set down." Who knows how far the soldiers are right?</p> + +<p><i>July 17.</i>—In New York the <i>unterrified</i> democracy went to arson +and murder, hand in hand with the immense majority of Irishry. +Meagher, Nugent, Corcoran and thousands like you, are exceptions. +The O'Connors, O'Gormans, etc., are the unterrified. For these +bloody saturnalia the wedding was consecrated by the Iro-Roman +priesthood. As the <i>unterrified</i> Democrats pollute the sacred name +of genuine Democracy, so the Irishry stain even the Catholic +confession. The Iro-Roman Church in this country is not even a +Roman-Catholic end. This Iro-Romanism here is a mixture of cunning, +ignorance, brutality and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name="page273"></a>(p. 273)</span> extortion. A European +Roman-Catholic at once finds out the difference in the spirit, and +even to a certain extent, in the form. The incendiaries and +murderers in the New York riots are the nurslings and disciples of +the Iro-Roman clergy and the Iro-hierarchy.</p> + +<p><i>July 17.</i>—Mr. Lincoln ought to dismiss every general who voted +against fighting; dismiss <i>Meade</i> for not understanding his power as +commander of an army, and give the places to such Howards, Warrens, +Pleasantons, Humphreys, Wadsworths, and all others, generals, +colonels, etc. who clamorously asked an order for attack. If the +army shall depend upon such generals who let Lee escape, then lay +down arms, and drag not the people's children to a slaughter house.</p> + +<p>To excuse the generals, it is asserted that at Chancellorsville Lee +has allowed to Hooker to recross the river without annoying us, +which Lee could easily do, and damage us considerably. Well! are our +Generals to carry on a mere war of civilities? If Lee committed a +fault, are you, gentlemen, in duty bound to imitate his mistakes? +Imitation for imitation, then rather imitate Lee's several splendid +manœuvring and tactics.</p> + +<p><i>July 17.</i>—I learn that the deep-dyed Copperheads and +slavery-saviours do not consider Seymour of New York safe enough. +They turn now to a certain Seymour in Connecticut. It seems that the +Connecticut Seymour still more hates human rights, self-government, +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name="page274"></a>(p. 274)</span> light and progress, and is a still more ardent lickspittle +of slavocracy, of barbarism, and of the slave-driving whip.</p> + +<p><i>July 18.</i>—Splendid Chase urged Wadsworth to go to Florida and +organize that country—very likely to prepare votes for Chase's +presidency. It is not such high-toned men as Wadsworth who become +tools of schemers.</p> + +<p>Again rumors say that Stanton joined the scheme of Lincoln's +re-election. As far as I can judge, Stanton's cardinal aim is to +crush the rebellion.</p> + +<p><i>July 18.</i>—The greatest glory for Wadsworth is that the majority +against him in the last November elections is now murdering and +<i>arsoning</i> New York. All of them are unterrified, hard shell +democrats, and cheer McClellan. These murderers are the "friends" of +Seymour—they are the pets of that <i>World</i>, itself below the offal +of hell—they are the "gentlemen" incendiaries of H. E. the +Archbishop Hughes. On your head, most eminent Archbishop, is the +whole responsibility. These "gentlemen" are brought up, +Christianized and moralized under your care and direction, and under +that of your tonsured crew. The "gentlemen" murderers are your herd, +O most eminent shepherd! You ought to have and you could have +stopped the rioters. And now your <i>stola</i> is a halter and your +<i>pallium</i> gored with blood, otherwise innocent as is the blood of +the lamb incensed on the altar of Saint Agnes in Rome.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name="page275"></a>(p. 275)</span> Mr. Seward strongly opposed the appointment of General +Butler to New York. Mr. Seward wished no harm to the "gentlemen" of +his dear friend the Most Eminent Archbishop, and to the select ones +who helped him to defeat Wadsworth.</p> + +<p><i>July 19.</i>—Difficult will be the task of the historian of these +episodes of riots, as well as of the whole civil war. If gifted with +the sacred spark, the future historian must carefully disentangle +the various agencies and forces in this convulsion. Some such +agencies are—</p> + +<p><i>a</i> The righteousness of the cause of the North, defending +civilization, justice, humanity.</p> + +<p><i>b</i> The devotion, the self-sacrifice of the people.</p> + +<p><i>c</i> The littleness, helplessness, selfishness, cunning, +heartlessness, empty-headedness, narrow-mindedness of the various +leaders.</p> + +<p><i>d</i> The plague of politicians.</p> + +<p><i>e</i> The untiring efforts of the heathen, that is, of the Northern +worshippers of the slavocrat and of his whip, efforts to uphold and +save their idol.</p> + +<p><i>f</i> The fatal influence of the press. The republican or patriot +press neither sufficiently vigilant, nor clear-sighted, nor +intelligent, nor undaunted; not reinvigorated by new, young +agencies; the bad press reckless, unprincipled, without honor and +conscience, but bold, ferocious in its lies, and sacrificing all +that is noble, human and pure to the idol of slavery.</p> + +<p><i>July 19.</i>—The more details about the shame of Hagerstown <span class="pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276"></a>(p. 276)</span> +and of Williamsport, the more it rends heart and mind. I saw many +soldiers and officers, sick, wounded and healthy. Their accounts +agree, and cut to the quick. Our army was flushed with victory, +craving for fight, and in a state of enthusiastic exaltation. But +our generals were not therein in communion with the officers, with +the rank and file. Enthusiasm! this highest and most powerful +element to secure victory, and on which rely all the true captains; +enthusiasm, that made invincible the phalanx of Alexander; +invincible Cæsar's legions and Napoleon's columns; enthusiasm was of +no account for the generals in council. O <i>Meade</i>! better were it +for you if your council was held among, or with the soldiers.</p> + +<p>The Rebel army was demoralized, as a retreating army always is; no +doubt exists concerning a partial, at least, disorganization of the +rebels. But Lee and his generals understood how to make a bold show, +and a bold, menacing front, with what was not yet disorganized, and +our generals caved in, in the council.</p> + +<p>This July 19th is heavy, dark and gloomy.... I wish it were all +over.</p> + +<p><i>July 19.</i>—Thurlow Weed puffs Stanton and patronises him. O, God! +It is a terrible blow to Stanton. How, now, can one have confidence +in Stanton's manhood. Are contracts at the bottom of the puff, or is +it only one of <i>Weed's</i> tricks to defile and to ruin <i>Stanton</i>?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name="page277"></a>(p. 277)</span> <i>July 20.</i>—It is almost humiliating to witness how +mongrels and pigmies attempt to rob the people of their due glory, +how they attempt to absorb to their own credit what the pitiless +pressure of events forced upon them. All of them limped after events +as lame ducks in mud; not one foresaw any thing, not one understood +the <i>to-day</i>. Neither emancipation nor the transformation of slave +into free states, are of your special, individual work, O, great +men; but you strut now.</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Mirmidons, race féconde, enfin nous commandons.</i></p> + +<p>Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to +humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan.</p> + +<p><i>July 20.</i>—Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses, +but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No +brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And +perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure +it is nobody's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather, +and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub.</p> + +<p><i>July 20.</i>—Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war, +captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere +in the vicinity of Bermuda. England asserts that the shoal is a +shore, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once +yields, Neptune defends as he always <span class="pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278"></a>(p. 278)</span> does, the rights of +the national <i>Tritons</i>, and of the national flag. The supreme power +sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or +something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that +Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be +consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand.</p> + +<p>The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's +claims to the <i>salvage</i> of the country.</p> + +<p><i>July 20.</i>—From all that I learn, <i>Meade</i> has a better and larger +army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest +brains of the two.</p> + +<p><i>July 20.</i>—From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by +the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress +served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of +legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of +patriotic, devoted, far-seeing and undaunted minds and brains. All +glory to the majority of the Thirty-seventh Congress!</p> + +<p><i>July 21.</i>—A manly and patriotic letter from James T. Brady is +published in the papers. Such Democrats, Irishmen and lawyers, like +Brady, honor the party, the nationality, and the profession.</p> + +<p><i>July 21.</i>—A mystery surrounds the appointment of <i>Grant</i> to the +command of the fated Potomac army. <i>Yes</i> and <i>no</i> say the helmsmen. +The truth seems to be, it was offered to Grant, and he respectfully +refused to accept it. If so, it is an evidence in favor of Grant. +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name="page279"></a>(p. 279)</span> To give up glory and devoted companions in arms, to give +all this up for the sake of running into the unknown, and into the +jaws of the still breathing McClellanism, and into the vicinity of +the central telegraphic station! Grant believes in volunteers; and +for this reason it is to be regretted that he refused to correct +the West Point notions.</p> + +<p><i>July 21.</i>—The draft occasions much bad blood, and evokes violent +dissatisfaction. The draft is a dire necessity; but it could have +been avoided if time, men, and the people's enthusiasm had not been +so sacrilegiously wasted. The three hundred dollar clause is not a +happy invention, and its omission would have given a better +character to that law.</p> + +<p><i>July 21.</i>—If the New York traitors succeed in preventing the +draft, then they will riot against taxes; after breaking down the +taxes, they will riot against the greenbacks, against the +emancipation, and finally force the reconstruction of the Union with +the murderous rebel chiefs in the senatorial chairs, according to +the Seward-Mercier-Richmond programme. Any one can see in the +Cain-Copperhead newspapers of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, +and in the letters and speeches of those matricides, what are their +aims, and how their plans are laid out.</p> + +<p><i>July 21.</i>—Again I am most positively assured that some time ago a +friendly offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between W. +H. Seward and Edwin Stanton. The high powers were represented by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name="page280"></a>(p. 280)</span> +Thurlow Weed and Morgan for Seward, and the virtuous, +lachrymose, white-cravated Whiting acted for Stanton. I was told +that this alliance drove Watson, (Assistant Secretary,) from the War +Department. This would be infernal, if true. I know that no <i>Weed</i> +whatever could approach such a man as Watson; but Watson assured me +that he returns back, and I cannot believe that Stanton could +consent to be thus sold.</p> + +<p><i>July 22.</i>—Honorable, virtuous, tear-shedding, jockey-dressing +Whiting wanted to make a trip to Europe. Sharp and acute, the great +expounder found out at once that Mr. Seward is one of the greatest +and noblest patriots of all times. Reward followed. Whiting goes to +Europe on a special mission—to dine, if he is invited, with all the +great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce +him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the +Whitings, &c., are the <i>crème de la crème</i> of the American people. +<i>Vive la bagatelle.</i></p> + +<p><i>July 22.</i>—How putrescent is all around! But it is not the nation, +not the people. And as the sun raises above the darkest and heaviest +vapors, so in America the spirit of mankind, incarnated in and +animating the people, towers above the filth of politicians, of +cabinet-makers, of presidential-peddlers, etc. Look to the masses to +find consolation. How splendidly acts Massachusetts and New +England's sons! And what free State is not New England's son? The +youth of Massachusetts are almost all in the field—the rich and the +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" name="page281"></a>(p. 281)</span> poor, those of the best social standing, and of the genuine +good blood and standing; scholars and mechanics, all of them +shouldered the musket.</p> + +<p><i>July 23.</i>—How strangely and how slowly Meade manœuvres! It +looks McClellan-like. O, God of battles, warm and inspire Meade!</p> + +<p><i>July 23.</i>—Only boys in the corps of invalids. It has its good. For +scores of years to come, these invalids will be the living legend of +this treasonable, matricidal rebellion, and of the atrocious +misconduct of our helmsmen. I hope that when returned home, these +invalids will be as many extirpators of all kinds of <i>Weeds</i> in +their respective townships and villages. They will become the lights +of the new era.</p> + +<p><i>July 23.</i>—Were it not for the murdered, these New York riots could +be considered welcome. The rioting cannibals, and their prompters +and defenders showed their hands. No one in his senses can now doubt +how heartily and devotedly Jeff Davis was served by his hirelings +among the Copperhead leaders and among the New York Copperhead +press. The cannibals cheered for McClellan, and the Administration +has neither enough courage nor self respect to put that fetish on +the retired list.</p> + +<p>In the old, flourishing times of Romanism and papacy, such a Most +Eminent Hughes would long ago have been suspended by the Holy See. +The Most Eminent's standing among the continental European +Episcopacy is not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion. +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name="page282"></a>(p. 282)</span> The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of +the papal bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. +The spirit animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman +Sapienzia. I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman +papal university.</p> + +<p><i>July 24.</i>—As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers +around Washington, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross +over to the Cumberland valley. It seems that the generals whose +council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed +that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to +his brow and eye.</p> + +<p>The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in +the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone +for it.</p> + +<p>It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the +civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and +countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a +splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed +to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science!</p> + +<p><i>July 25.</i>—I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten +thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and +defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it +is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to +organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name="page283"></a>(p. 283)</span> within a short, very short supporting distance. And the +losses will almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread +repulse and heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to +be quartered for such a distribution of troops. With the immense +resources and means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty +thousand troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then +carry the troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and +act in masses is not the <i>credo</i> of the—not yet +quartered—head-quarters.</p> + +<p><i>July 26.</i>—Old—but not slow—Welles again gives to Seward a lesson +of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international +laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white +wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, +unflinching, and progressive.</p> + +<p><i>July 26.</i>—O, could I only exclaim, <i>Exegi monumentum aere +perennius</i>, to the noble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to +the helpless, the selfish, and the counterfeits.</p> + +<p><i>July 27.</i>—<i>Philadelphia.</i> Flags in all the streets, volunteers +parading and drilling. Prosperity, activity and devotion permeate +the country. So at least I am led to believe. All this is so +refreshing, after witnessing in Washington such strenuous efforts +how not to do it.</p> + +<p>Bad news. I learn that Gilmore is repulsed. When the <i>forlorn hope</i> +entered Fort Wagner, no support promptly came, and the heroes, black +and white, were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name="page284"></a>(p. 284)</span> massacred or expelled. Gilmore ought to +have been more cautious, and not to have undertaken an operation +which was on its outside stamped with impossibility. Perhaps Gilmore +obeyed peremptory orders. Who gave them?</p> + +<p>Lee's army escapes through Chester Gap, and thus we have not cut the +rebels from Richmond, and now they are ahead of us. Again +out-manœuvred! and <i>nobody's fault</i>, only the campaign prolonged +<i>ad infinitum</i>. Perhaps it is in the programme!</p> + +<p><i>July 28.</i>—<i>Philadelphia.</i> The petty, narrow, school conceit +imbibed in the West Point nursery, is the stumbling-block barring +everywhere the expansion of a healthy and vigorous activity. I +listened to the heaviest absurdities and fogyism on military affairs +<i>oracularly</i> preached by one of the great West Pointers on duty +here.</p> + +<p><i>July 31.</i>—<i>Long Branch.</i> Away from personal contact, even from the +view of politicians, of plotters, of lickspittles. How refreshing, +how invigorating, how soothing!</p> + +<p>Mr. Seward, with a due tail, visits Fortress Monroe. What for? Is it +to organize some underground road to reunion on the +Mercier-Seward-Richmond programme?</p> + +<p>One well-informed writes me that the last programme of Lincoln, +Halleck and Meade is, that the army of the Potomac is to keep Lee at +bay, but not to attack. If true, how well designed to give time to +Lee <span class="pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285"></a>(p. 285)</span> to do what he likes, to reorganize, to send away his +troops where he may please, to call them back—in one word to be +fully at his ease on our account. Will this country ever escape the +tutorship of sham science?</p> + +<p><i>July 31.</i>—<i>Long Branch.</i> Seward's concession policy towards France +bears fruit in Mexico. Of course the <i>Decembriseur</i> outwitted the +Weed-Albany-Auburn politician statesman. But it is not the ignorant +foreign policy which strengthened and strengthens the French policy +in Mexico. It is the blunders, the tergiversations, the gropings, +and the crimes of our internal domestic policy, which, protracting +the war, allows the French conspirator to murder the Mexicans.</p> + +<p><i>July 31. L. B.</i>—So the <i>Decembriseur</i> amuses himself in creating +an Imperial throne in Mexico for some European princely idiot or +intriguer. All right. I have confidence in the Mexicans. The future +Emperor, even if established for some time on the cushion of treason +propped by French bayonets, that manikin before short or long will +be <i>Iturbidised</i>. Further: I have confidence in the French people. +The upper crust is pestilential. Bonapartists, lickspittles, lackeys +and incarnations of all imaginary corruptions compose that upper +crust. But I would bet a fortune, had I one, that in the course of +the next five years, the <i>Decembriseur</i> and his <i>Prince Imperial</i> +will be visible at Barnum's, and that some shoddy grandee from 5th +Avenue, will issue cards inviting <i>to meet the Empress Eugénie</i>.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" name="page286"></a>(p. 286)</span> AUGUST, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Stanton — Twenty Thousand — Canadians — Peterhoff — Coffey — + Initiation — Electioneering — Reports — Grant — McClellan — + Belligerent Rights — Menagerie — Watson — Jury — Democrats — + Bristles — "Where is Stanton?" — "Fight the monster" — + Chasiana — Luminaries — Ballistic — Political Economy, etc., + etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>August 2. Long Branch.</i>—The organs of all shades and of all +gradations of ill-wishers to the cause of the North, and to that of +Emancipation, the secret friends of Jeff Davis, and the open +supporters of McClellan are untiring in their open, slanderous, +treacherous accusations of <i>Stanton</i>; others spread sanctimoniously +perfidious suggestions against the Secretary of War, and so does the +<i>National Intelligencer</i>, this foremost Whig-Conservative, double or +treble-faced organ. <i>Stanton</i> is called to account for all mishaps, +mismanagement, disasters and disgraces which befall our armies +between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. Such accusations, to a +certain degree, could be justified if the Secretary of War were +clothed with the same powers, and therefore with the same +responsibilities as is the case in European governments.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name="page287"></a>(p. 287)</span> But every one knows that here the war machinery is very +complicated, because wheels turn within wheels. The Secretary of War +is not alone to answer and he is not exclusively responsible for the +appointment of good, middling, or wholly bad generals and +commanders. Every one knows it. <i>Stanton</i> may have all the possible +shortcomings and faults with which his enemies so richly clothe him; +one thing is certain, that <i>Stanton</i> advocated and always advocates +fighting, and Stanton furnishes the generals and commanders with all +means and resources at the country's and the department's +disposition. If many respectable men are to be trusted, <i>Stanton</i> +never interferes with intrinsic military operations, never orders or +insinuates, or dictates to the commanders of our armies where and in +what way they are to get at the enemy and to fight him. As far as I +know Stanton keeps aloof from strategy.</p> + +<p>Stanton <i>is insincere and untruthful</i>, say his enemies. Granted. I +never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or +relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be +sincere and truthful.</p> + +<p class="poem">Trust in thy sword,<br> + Rather than prince's (president's) word;<br> + Trust in fortuna's sinister,<br> + Rather than prince's minister.</p> + +<p>But <i>Stanton</i> is truthful and sincere to the cause, and that is all +that I want from him. Stanton's alleged <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name="page288"></a>(p. 288)</span> <i>malice</i> against +McClellan had the noblest and the most patriotic sources, which, of +course, could not be understood or appreciated by Stanton's +revilers.</p> + +<p>The organs of treason and of infamy refer always to McClellan. <i>O +race, knitted of the devils excrements mixed with his saliva</i>, [see +Talleyrand about Thiers] your treason is only equal to your +impudence and ignorance. If in February, 1862, Stanton had not urged +McClellan to move, probably the Potomac Army would have spent all +the year in its tents before Washington. McClellan's henchmen and +minions thrusted and still thrust the grossest lies down the throat +of a certain public, eager to gulp slander as sugar plums. +McClellan's stupidity at Yorktown and in the Chickahominy is +vindicated by his crew with the following counter accusation: that +all disasters have been generated because McDowell with his twenty +thousand men did not join McClellan. If McClellan had in him the +soldiership of a non-commissioned officer, on his knees he ought to +implore his crew not to expose him in this way. When a general has +in hand about one hundred and ten thousand men, as McClellan had on +entering the peninsula, and accomplishes nothing, then it is a proof +that he, the general, is wholly unable and ignorant how to handle +large masses. If McClellan could not manage one hundred thousand +men, still less would he have been able to manage the twenty +thousand more of McDowell's corps.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name="page289"></a>(p. 289)</span> The stupidity of attempting to invest Richmond is beyond +words, and for such an operation several hundred thousand men would +have been necessary. [Spoke of it in Vol. I.] If twenty thousand men +arrive not at a certain day or hour when a battle is raging, most +surely this failure may occasion a defeat—Grouchy at Waterloo—but +in McClellan's Chickahominy operations, twenty thousand men more +would have served only still more plainly to expose his incapacity, +and to be a prey to fevers and diseases.</p> + +<p>The bulk of the rebel army in Richmond was always less numerous than +McClellan's; the rebels always understood to have more troops than +had McClellan when they attacked him. During that whole cursed and +ignominious (for McClellan) Chickahominy campaign, McClellan never +fought at once more of his men than about thirty thousand. It was +not the absence of twenty thousand men that prevented a commander +of one hundred thousand from engaging more of his troops, and for +quickly supporting such corps as were attacked by the enemy.</p> + +<p><i>August 3: L. B.</i>—The Colonists, that is, the appendixes of +England, as the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, and of any other +colonial dignity and name, together with their great statesmen, +certain Howes and Johnsons, etc. etc. etc. agitate; they are in +trances like little fish out of water. They find it so pleasant to +seize an occasion to look like something great. Poor frogs! trying +to blow themselves into leviathans. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name="page290"></a>(p. 290)</span> Their whelpish snarling +at the North reminds one of little curs snarling at a mastiff. How +can these colonists imagine that a royal prince of England could +reside among something which is as indefinite as are +colonists—something neither fish nor flesh.</p> + +<p><i>August 3.</i>—The <i>Evening Post</i> contains a letter on the difference +between the behavior of Union men in Missouri during the treasonable +riots in St. Louis in the Spring of 1861, and the conduct of the +Union men in New York during the recent riots. But the Saint Louis +patriot is silent—has forgotten the immortal Lyons who saved that +city and its patriots, who saved Missouri. (General Scott insisted +upon courtmartialing Lyons.)</p> + +<p>Also, have you already forgotten the foremost among heroes and +patriots, and whose loss is more telling now than it was in 1861. +Forgotten one of the purest and noblest victims of Washington +blindness, of General Scott's unmilitary policy and conduct. +Forgotten the true son of the people? But O Lyons! thy name will be +venerated by coming generations.</p> + +<p><i>August 4: L. B.</i>—<i>The Cliques.</i></p> + +<p><i>a</i> The worst, and the womb of all evils is the Weed-Seward clique. +Around it group contractors, jobbers, shoddy, and all kinds of other +social impurities.</p> + +<p><i>b</i> The ambitious, intriguing, selfish, narrow-minded West Point +clique.</p> + +<p><i>c</i> The not brave, not patriotic, and freedom-hating, unintelligent +McClellan clique.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page291" name="page291"></a>(p. 291)</span> <i>d</i> Copperheads of various hues and gradations.</p> + +<p>Cliques <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, and <i>c</i>, generated and fostered Copperheads, and +facilitated their expansion.</p> + +<p><i>e</i> Imbeciles, lickspittles, politicians, etc.</p> + +<p><i>f</i> The Lincolnites, closely intertwined with the <i>genus e</i>; the +Blair men, etc.</p> + +<p><i>g</i> The partisans of Chase. This clique is the most variously and +most curiously composed. Honest imbeciles, makers of phrases, +rhetors, heavy and narrow-minded, office-hunters, office expectants, +politicians, contractors, admirers of pompousness and of would-be +radicalism, all who turn round and round, and see not beyond their +noses, etc.</p> + +<p>Several minor cliques exist, but deserve not to be mentioned. Behind +these mud-hills rises the true people, as the Himalayas rise above +the plains of Asia.</p> + +<p><i>August 4.</i>—Why could not Everett, that good and true patriot, +preside over our relations with Europe; or why is that thorough +American statesman, Governor Marcy, dead! How different, how +respected, how truly American would have been the character of our +relations with Europe! No prophecies, no lies would have been told, +no gross ignorance displayed!</p> + +<p><i>August 4. L. B.</i>—In the columns of the <i>Times</i> a friend of Halleck +tries to make a great man of the General-in-chief. Halleck +repudiates Burnside and Hooker, but claims the victory at +Gettysburgh, because Meade, being a good disciplinarian, executed +Halleck's orders. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name="page292"></a>(p. 292)</span> So from his room in G street Washington, +Halleck directed the repulse of the furiously attacking columns. +Bravo! more bravo as no telegraph connects Washington with +Gettysburgh!</p> + +<p>Meade being a good disciplinarian, the crime of Williamsport falls +upon Halleck; the commander-in-chief is the more responsible, as the +crime was perpetrated under his nose; about four hours' drive could +have brought him to our army, and then Halleck in person could have +directed the attack upon the enemy.</p> + +<p>From all that transpires about Williamsport one must conclude that +Lee must have known that he would not be seriously attacked, and +that he was not much afraid of the combined disciplinarian +generalship.</p> + +<p>Further: Halleck claims for himself Grant's success, because Grant +obeyed orders, and Rosecrans did the same. How astonishing, +therefore, that their campaigns ended in victories and not in such +shame as Halleck at Corinth, in 1862. Rosecrans was inspired by +telegraph to change defeat into victory; the indomitable Grant +received by telegraph the fertility of resources shown by him at +Vicksburgh. Oh! Halleck! you cannot succeed in thus belittling the +two heroes, and you may tell your little story to the marines.</p> + +<p><i>August 4.</i>—The Proclamation on retaliation is a well-written +document; but like all Mr. Lincoln's acts it is done almost too +late, only when the poor President was so cornered by events, that +shifting and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name="page293"></a>(p. 293)</span> escape became impossible. If I am well +informed Stanton long ago demanded such a Proclamation, but +Lincoln's familiar demons prevented it. Nevertheless Lincoln will be +credited for what intrinsically is not his.</p> + +<p><i>August 5: L. B.</i>—Thomas—not Paul—Lincoln's pet, returns to the +Mississippi to organise Africo-American regiments. For six months +they organize, organize and have not yet fifteen thousand in field. +If Stanton had been left alone, we would have to-day in battle order +at least fifty thousand Africo-Americans.</p> + +<p><i>August 5: L. B.</i>—All computed together, among all Western +Continental European nations, the Germans, both here and in Germany, +behave the best towards the North. I mean the genuine German people. +Thinkers and rationalists are seldom, if ever, found on the wrong +side. I rejoice to see the Germans behave so nobly.</p> + +<p><i>August 5.</i>—The Peterhoff condemned, notwithstanding all the +efforts to the contrary of our brilliant, versatile and highly +erudite in international laws Secretary of state. But Mr. Seward +will not understand the lesson. How could he?</p> + +<p><i>August 5: L. B.</i>—At least for the fiftieth time, Seward insinuates +to the public that we are on the eve of a breach with England—but +Seward will prevent it. Oh, Oh! Yes, O Seward! when backed by the +iron clads and by twenty-two millions of a brave and stubborn +people!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name="page294"></a>(p. 294)</span> <i>August 5: L. B.</i>—Poor Stanton, I pity him! After Weed +comes the "little villain," with his puffs. Happily, the <i>World</i> +abuses Stanton, and this alone makes up even for the applause of +Weed and his consorts.</p> + +<p><i>August 7: L. B.</i>—<span class="smcap">Coffey</span>, Assistant Attorney-General, published a +legal, official opinion on maritime, commercial <i>copperheadism</i>; +that is, when an American vessel, from an American port, is sent in +ballast to a neutral port to load there, afterwards to run the +blockade, Coffey proves it to be treason and criminality. The +document is clear, logical, precise and not wordy: not in the style +of the State Department logomachy. Why, O why cannot such younger +men be at the head! Emancipation would have been carried out, +slavery destroyed, the Union restored, rebels crushed, and the +French murderers and imperial lackeys would cut very respectful +capers to please a great people.</p> + +<p><i>August 8: L. B.</i>—I shudder as I pass in review what little is done +at such an enormous expenditure of human limbs and of human life, +not to speak of squandered time, labor and money.</p> + +<p>It seems that the prevailing rule is to reach the smallest results +at the greatest possible cost. General Scott, Seward and Lincoln +early laid down that rule. McClellan, that quintessence of all +unsoldierlike capacities, faithfully continued what was already +inaugurated. Halleck almost perfected it; and so it became a chronic +disease of the leading spirits in the Administration, Stanton and +Welles excepted. That sacrilegious, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page295" name="page295"></a>(p. 295)</span> murderous method and +rule, at times was forcibly violated by Grant, by Rosecrans, by +Banks, by the glorious Farragut, by Admiral Porter. The would-be +statesmen either see nothing or do not wish to see what ill-disposed +minds could consider to be an almost premeditated slaughter.</p> + +<p>I know too well that every initiation is with sacrifice or blood. It +is a law of progress, absolute, not made by man, but cut out for him +by fate or providence. In a stream of his mother's life-blood man +enters this world; by the blood of the Redeemer the Christian +becomes initiated to another, called a better world. Sacrifice and +blood prevail throughout the eons of the initiation of human +societies and religions. Through sacrifice and blood the Reformation +became a redeemer. Great results are reached at great cost. I am an +atom in a generation which, to assert her deep, earnest +convictions, never caved in before blood and sacrifice; a generation +that has labored and still labors, spreads seed and begins to +harvest; a generation which regrets nothing, and cheerfully takes +the responsibility of its actions. And with all this, the men of +convictions and of undaunted revolutionary courage in Europe, +bestowed and bestow more care upon any unnecessary sacrifice of +human life than I witness here. By heavens! Marat, Saint Just, +Robespierre, could be considered lambs when compared with the +<i>faiseurs</i> here. And Marat, Saint Just, and Robespierre were +fanatics <span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name="page296"></a>(p. 296)</span> of ideas: here they are <i>fanaticised</i> by +selfishness, intrigue, helplessness and imbecility.</p> + +<p><i>August 9: L. B.</i>—For the last few months men of sound and +dispassionate judgment tried to convince me that there is somewhere, +in high regions, a settled purpose to prolong the war until the next +presidential election. I always disbelieved such assertions; but +now, considering all this criminal sluggishness, I begin to believe +in the existence of such a criminal purpose.</p> + +<p><i>August 9: L. B.</i>—All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a +shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general +Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the +field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the +next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a +Report of each of his military movements and operations. McClellan +ought to have immediately made a Report to the Government after his +<i>bloodless victory</i> at Centreville and Manassas; a victory crowned +with maple trophies! Then McClellan ought to have sent another +Report after the great success at Yorktown, and so on. Every period +of his campaign ought to have been separately reported. It is done +in all well organized governments and armies, and it is the duty of +the staff of the army to prepare such periodical, successive +Reports. Even if the sovereign himself takes the field, the staff of +the army sends such Reports to the Secretary of War. Nobody stood in +the way of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page297" name="page297"></a>(p. 297)</span> McClellan's doing what it was his imperative +duty to do, and to do immediately.</p> + +<p>But it is unheard of that a commander during a year at the head of +an army, should take another year to prepare his Report. No +self-respecting government would allow such an insubordination, or +accept such a tardy Report. If a government should act upon such a +Report, it would be rather by dismissing from service, etc., the +sluggish—if not worse—commander.</p> + +<p>The so-called "McClellan's Report," concocted by a board of choice +Copperheads in New York, and of which the <i>World's</i> hireling was an +amanuensis, that production is certainly an elaborate essay on +McClellan's campaigns, is certainly bristling with afterthoughts and +<i>post facta</i>, as pedestals for the fetish's altar. It must have on +its face the mark of combination, but not of truth. Such a +Report—not written on the spot, in the atmosphere of activity, not +written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff—such a +Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and +ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan +may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein +may shine this labor of a <i>dasippus</i> assisted by vipers.</p> + +<p><i>August 11: L. B.</i>—In Washington they seem to insist that Grant +shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he +will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon +will see stained his glorious and matchless military <span class="pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298"></a>(p. 298)</span> +record. He will not withstand the cliques and the underground +intrigues of craving, selfish and unsatisfied ambitions.</p> + +<p>If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows, +Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment +must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I +spoke somewhere about it.)</p> + +<p><i>August 13: L. B.</i>—Can it be possible that several from among the +Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already +begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so—if the +people submit to such an imposition—O, then, genius of history, go +in mourning!</p> + +<p><i>August 13: L. B.</i>—The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate +into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its +dissertation—very poor—in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended +to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so +well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating—as do the +three wise men in their Report—on certain psychological qualities +and <i>non-qualities</i> of the Africo-American? The paramount question +is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom. +When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if +not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new +citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for +an old psychological re-hash, without any social or <span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name="page299"></a>(p. 299)</span> moral +signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at +least, a quarter of a century <i>behind</i> the scientific elucidations +on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons.</p> + +<p><i>August 15: L. B.</i>—Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the +various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did +not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did +McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report +resounds with military spirit and simplicity. Grant has not to put +truth on the rack and throw dust into people's eyes. Three cheers +for McClellan! Grant has confidence in the volunteers; not so +McClellan, who had only confidence in shams. Grant and his army, at +the best, were the second sons of the Administration—not of the +people; to the last day McClellan was the pet, the spoiled child, +and as such he disgraced his parents, tutors, etc., and ruined his +parent's house.</p> + +<p><i>August 15.</i>—A letter published by the Honorable W. Whiting, (who +is now traveling,) occasions much noise. The letter is pointed and +keen, but the writer knows mighty little about international laws. +Almost <i>a priori</i> he recognizes in the rebels, as he says, "only the +rights of belligerents." Only the rights of belligerents! Such +rights are very ample, and for this reason they belong in their +plenitude exclusively to absolutely independent nations. To +recognize <i>a priori</i> such rights in the rebels, is equivalent to +recognizing them as an independent nation. In pure and absolute +principle <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name="page300"></a>(p. 300)</span> of modern (not Roman) <i>jus gentium</i>, rebels have +not only no belligerent rights, but not any rights at all. Rebels +are <i>ipso facto</i> outlaws in full. Writers like Abbe Galiano, Vatel, +etc., for the sake of humanity and expediency, recommend to the +lawful sovereign to use mercy, to treat rebels <i>in parte</i> as +belligerents, and not as <i>a priori</i> condemned criminals.</p> + +<p><i>August 16: L. B.</i>—Seward is to promenade the diplomats over the +country. He is Barnum, the diplomats are the menagerie. Poor Lord +Lyons. Very probably it is Seward's last rocket to draw upon himself +the attention of the people.</p> + +<p><i>August 16. L. B.</i>—The probabilities of a rupture with France are +upon the public mind. I still misbelieve it. I have not the +slightest doubt that the <i>Decembriseur</i> is full of treachery towards +the North, and that his Imperialist lackeys blow brimstone against +the Northern principles. But are the French people so debased as to +submit? We shall see. Let that crowned conspirator begin a war of +treason against the North. Before long the French people will put an +end to the war and to the Decembriseur.</p> + +<p><i>August 16. L. B.</i>—I learn that Watson has very gravely injured his +health by labor, that is, by being the most faithful servant of the +country and of its cause. I never, anywhere in my life, met a public +officer so undaunted at his duties, so unassuming, so quiet as +Watson, in his duties of Assistant Secretary of War, which are as +thorny as can be imagined. Watson <span class="pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301"></a>(p. 301)</span> was, and I hope will be +for the future, the terror of lobbyists, of bad contractors, of +jobbers—in one word, the terror of all the leeches of the people's +pocket. And it honors Stanton to have brought into his Department +such a man as Watson. I heard and hear, and read a great many +accusations against Stanton; but I never found any proofs which +could virtually diminish my confidence. To use a classical, stupid, +rhetorical figure: Stanton is not of antique mould. And who is now? +But he is a sincere, devoted and ardent patriot; he broadly +comprehends the task and the duty to save the country, and he sees +clearly and distinctly the ways and means to reach the sacred aim. +Stanton may have, and very many assert that he has, numerous +bristles in his character, in his deportment. Let it be so. It is +the worse for him, but not for the cause he serves.</p> + +<p><i>August 16. L. B.</i>—Are the people again to receive a President from +the hand of intriguers, from politicians, or from honest imbeciles? +If the people will stand it, then they deserve to be kept in leading +strings by all that medley.</p> + +<p><i>August 16. L. B.</i>—Rosecrans wants mounted infantry. The men of the +day, the men who understand and comprehend the exigencies, the +necessities of the war, they pierce through the rotten crust of +fogyism. That is promise and hope. The great organizers of the +army—the McClellans and the Hallecks—could never have found out +that mounted infantry is necessary, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name="page302"></a>(p. 302)</span> and will render good +service. Mounted infantry was not considered a necessity in the West +Point halls, and Jomini mentions it not. How should a Halleck do so?</p> + +<p><i>August 17. L. B.</i>—A defender of slavery, a Copperhead, and a +traitor, differ so little from each other, that a microscope +magnifying ten thousand times would not disclose the difference. A +proslaveryist, a Copperhead, and a traitor, are the most perfect +<i>tres in unum</i>.</p> + +<p><i>August 18. L. B.</i>—General Meade is absent from the army, and +Humphreys, his chief-of-staff, is temporarily in command. I notice +this fact as a proof that a more rational, intelligent comprehension +prevails in the military service. A chief-of-staff is the only man +to be the <i>locum-tenens</i> of the commander. At Williamsport Humphreys +voted for fight. It would be well if Meade should not return to +again take the command.</p> + +<p><i>August 18.</i>—A patriotic gentlewoman asked me why I write a diary? +"To give conscientious evidence before the jury appointed by +history."</p> + +<p><i>August 20.</i>—On the first day of the draft, I had occasion to visit +New York. All was quiet. In Broadway and around the City Hall I saw +less soldiers than I expected. The people are quiet; the true +conspirators are thunderstruck. Before long, the names will be known +of the genuine instigators of arson and of murder in July last. The +tools are in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name="page303"></a>(p. 303)</span> hands of justice, but the main spirits are +hidden. Smart and keen wretches as are the leading Copperheads, they +successfully screen their names; nevertheless before long their +names will be nailed to the gallows. The <i>World</i>—which, for weeks +and weeks, so devotedly, so ardently poisoned the minds, and thus +prepared the way for any riot—the <i>World</i> was and is a tool in the +hands of the hidden traitors. The <i>World</i> is a hireling, and does +the work by order.</p> + +<p><i>August 21. L. B.</i>—The final destiny of the Potomac Army seems to +be to keep Lee at bay but not to attack him. Oh! the disgraced +soldiers and officers! Chickahominy, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, +Gettysburgh, are the indestructible evidences of the mettle of the +army, and of the poverty or total eclipse of generalship.</p> + +<p><i>August 21.</i>—Impressionable, excitable, wave-like agitated as are +my dear American countrymen, they altogether forget <i>the yesterday</i>, +and shout the last success. Further: the people cannot see clearly +through the stultifying or the dirty dust blown in the peoples' +eyes; 1st, by the politicians of all hues, from the Woods, Weeds, +Forneys, to the Greeleys, by the simon-pures or the lobby-impures; +2d, by the press of all parties and shades of parties. The people +may again make a mistake. Is not Lincoln hailed as the new Moses? as +the man for the times, as the only one God sent to direct the +people, and to grapple with the stern, earnest emergencies and +perils? Emancipation <span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name="page304"></a>(p. 304)</span> is not Lincoln's, is not Sumner's, is +not anybody's personal special work. The necessities, the +emergencies of the times and of the hour did it. Their current +drifted Mr. Lincoln irresistibly along, and to a shore where he must +land or perish.</p> + +<p><i>August 23. L. B.</i>—From the tone of certain papers, and from +private letters, I perceive that Weed-Seward are hard at work to +pacify, to reunite, to save slavery and to leave unnoticed humanity +and national honor. The unterrified Democrats become Weed's allies, +and the alliance is to carry Seward into the White House. <i>Nous +verrons.</i></p> + +<p>Chase is to overturn Seward-Weed and to secure the prize. Oh, the +intriguers.</p> + +<p>On the authority of the published "<span class="smcap">Diary</span>," I am asked, even by +letters, "Where is Stanton?" "I do not know, and I do not care," is +my answer. I would however, like to be sure that Stanton is not in +that dirty path. I am Stanton's man, as they call it; but only as +long as I find him to be <i>a man</i>.</p> + +<p><i>August 24. L. B.</i>—The Democrats are arrogant in asserting their +superior capacity for government, for carrying on the war, and for +other great things. However, I am sure that the so-called Northern +Democrats would have managed the affairs even worse than do now +those sham representatives of the principles of the Republican +party. No faith in a fundamental human, broad principle ever +actuated the hard shell Democrats. McClellan and the immense +majority <span class="pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305"></a>(p. 305)</span> of generals, have been, or are full-blooded +Democrats, and their warlike prowess dragged the people into deep, +deep mire. Democrats have to thank God for not being in power; in +this way their incapacity to cope with such gigantic events is not +exposed. The other fortunate occurrence for the Democrats is that +the power-holders for the Republican party are—what everybody sees.</p> + +<p><i>August 24. L. B.</i>—I very strongly and urgently advised Gen. +Wadsworth to resign. No one in the country has fulfilled more nobly +his civic and patriotic duty. I urged upon his mind that when the +war is finished, the cause of right, of justice, the interests of a +genuine self-government will require true men to rescue the people +from the hands of the politicians. Vainly I remonstrated. Wadsworth +prefers to remain in the service, and to fight the monster.</p> + +<p><i>August 24. L. B.</i>—<i>Chasiana.</i> The New York leaders of the Chase +scheme make all possible efforts and platitudes to <i>conciliate</i> Weed +and win him over. What dregs all around!</p> + +<p>The immaculate Chase! to look for support to a Weed! To Weed-Seward, +who for twenty-five years fanned the anti-slavery flame! Seward, +whom the anti-slavery wave elevated where he is, and who now kicks +and spits upon the men most ardent in the cause of emancipation! O +dregs! O dregs!</p> + +<p><i>August 24: L. B.</i>—The question of confiscation drags itself slowly +on, and soon it may resound in the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306"></a>(p. 306)</span> courts of the whole +country. If confiscation is ever stringently executed, it will +generate law-suits <i>ad libitum</i> and <i>ad infinitum</i>. From the first +day when the banner of rebellion was unfolded, <i>each State</i> became +an <i>outlaw</i> in its relations with the Union. Such a rebel State has +not a legal existence, and any legal act whatever between +individual members—or rather, politically, sovereigns in and of the +State—such acts are valueless in relation to the lawful sovereign, +as is the Union.</p> + +<p>The Confiscation Act is based on a wrong principle—the right to +confiscate the whole rebel property in America. This right is +derived from the public law. A conqueror of a country becomes <i>ipso +facto</i> the proprietor of all that belonged to the conquered +sovereign and what is called public property, as domains, taxes, +revenues, public institutions, etc. The rebels claim to be +sovereigns—that is each freeman in each respective State is a +respective sovereign. The area of such revolted State, with all the +lands, cultivated or uncultivated, with the farms, and all +industrial, mercantile or mining establishments whatever, is the +property of the sovereign, or of the sovereigns. Property of a, or +of many sovereigns, is in its whole nature a public property, and as +such, <i>ipso facto</i>, is liable to be confiscated by the conqueror.</p> + +<p><i>August 24: L. B.</i>—The massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, must +exclusively be credited to those who appointed for that region a +pro-slavery military commander. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307"></a>(p. 307)</span> But the power-holders are +not troubled by more or less blood, by more or less victims of their +incapacity and double-dealing!</p> + +<p><i>August 25: L. B.</i>—Any future historian must beware not to seek +light in the newspapers of this epoch. The so-called good press +throws no light on events; that press is not in the hands of +statesmen or of thinkers, or of ardent students of human events, or +of men having for their aim any pursuits of science or knowledge. +The luminaries of the press are no beacons for the people during +this bloody and deadly tempest! For the sake of what is called +political capital, the most simple fact often becomes distorted and +upturned by this political, short-sighted, and selfishly envious +press.</p> + +<p><i>August 26: L. B.</i>—All things considered, the inflation of the +currency and the rise in gold has proved to be beneficial to the +country. The agricultural interest, above all, in the West, was +particularly sustained thereby. Wheat and grain would have fallen to +prices ruinous for the farmers. When the gold fell, the farmer felt +it by the reduction of the price of his produce. The agriculturist, +the backbone and marrow of the country, spends less money for +manufactured products than he netted clear profits by the rise in +gold. If the farmer sold now his wheat for six shillings, without +inflation the price might have been four shillings, and then the +farmer would have been bankrupt, unable to pay the taxes. The +inflation saved the greatest interest in the country. And thus +agriculture and industry <span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name="page308"></a>(p. 308)</span> flourish, the country is not +ruined, is not bankrupt, as the European wiseacres took great +pleasure in foreboding that it would be. So much for <i>absolute</i> laws +of political economy.</p> + +<p><i>August 27: L. B.</i>—The New York Republican papers insinuate that a +Mr. Evarts, who was sent to Europe by Mr. Seward, has given +assurances to European governments that slavery will be abolished. +If such declaration was needed, why not make it through the regular +representatives of the country, as are Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton? Mr. +Seward is incorrigible. I am curious to know where he learned this +original mode of <i>diplomatizing</i>. Such unofficial, confidential, +semi-confidential agents confuse European governments. They inspire +very little, if any respect for our statesmanship, and are offensive +to our regularly appointed ministers. What must the crown lawyers in +England have thought of Mr. Evart's great mastery of international +laws?</p> + +<p><i>August 30.</i>—Our military powers in Washington, led on and inspired +by Halleck, cannot put an end to guerrillas, or rather to those +highwaymen who rob, so to speak, at the military gates of +Washington. Lieber-Halleck-Hitchcock's treatise frightened not the +guerrillas, but most assuredly the gallows will do it. Everywhere +else the like banditti would be summarily treated; and these +would-be guerrillas here are evidences of the uttermost social +dissolution. They are no soldiers, no guerrillas, and deserve no +mercy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name="page309"></a>(p. 309)</span> <i>August 31: L. B.</i>—According to the <i>Tribune</i>, Mr. Lincoln +deserves all the credit for General Gilmore's success before +Charleston. There we have it! Mr. Lincoln, outdoing Carnot for +military sagacity and capacity, Mr. Lincoln approved Gilmore's +plans. Mr. Lincoln-Halleck aiding—at once understood the laws of +ballistics, and other <i>et ceteras</i> which underlay the plan of every +siege. And now to doubt that Lincoln, with his Halleck, are military +geniuses! O <i>Tribune</i>!</p> + +<p><i>August 31: L. B.</i>—I learned that Grant most positively refused to +accept the command of the Potomac Army. They cannot ruin Grant—they +will neutralize him.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name="page310"></a>(p. 310)</span> SEPTEMBER, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Jeff Davis — Incubuerunt — O, Youth! — Lucubrations — Genuine + Europe — It is forgotten — Fremont — Prof. Draper — New + Yorkers — Senator Sumner's Gauntlet — Prince Gortschakoff — + Governor Andrew — New Englanders — Re-elections — Loyalty — + Cruizers — Matamoras — Hurrah for Lincoln — Rosecrans — + Strategy — Sabine Pass, etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>September 1: L. B.</i>—Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred +thousand slaves—calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of +land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful—if true. Jeff Davis +will become immortal! With eight hundred thousand Africo-Americans +in arms, Secession becomes consolidated—and Emancipation a fixed +fact, as the eight hundred thousand armed will emancipate themselves +and their kindred. Lincoln emancipates by tenths of an inch, Jeff +Davis by the wholesale. But it is impossible, as—after all—such a +step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of +their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of +the Union armies would be. If the above news has any foundation in +truth, then the sacredness of the principle of right and of liberty +is victoriously asserted in such a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name="page311"></a>(p. 311)</span> way as never before was +any great principle. The most criminal and ignominious enterprise +recorded in history, the attempt to make human bondage the +corner-stone of an independent polity, this attempt ending in +breaking the corner-stone to atoms, and by the hands of the +architects and builders themselves. Satan's revolt was virtuous, +when compared with that of the Southern slavers, and Satan's revolt +ended not in transforming Hell into an Eden, as will be the South +for the slaves when their emancipation is accomplished. +Emancipation, <i>n'importe par qui</i>, must end in the reconstruction of +the Union.</p> + +<p><i>September 2: L. B.</i>—Garibaldi to Lincoln. The letter, if genuine, +is well-intentioned trash. I am afraid that this prolific +letter-writing will use up Garibaldi. It seems that in +letter-writing Garibaldi intends to rival Lincoln or Seward.</p> + +<p><i>September 3: L. B.</i>—More and more manifestations in favor of +Lincoln's re-election. All the New York Republican papers begin to +be lined with Lincoln. And thus politicians in and out of the press +will—</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Incubuerunt mare (people) totumque a sedibus imis.</i></p> + +<p><i>September 3: L. B.</i>—In the great Barnum diplomatic tour, Seward +killed under him nearly all the diplomats, and returned to +Washington in company with one. Poor Europe, and its +representatives, to be used up in such a way! But it is only the +official Europe, the crowned privileged stratum patched up <span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name="page312"></a>(p. 312)</span> +with rotten relics of massacre (December 2d,) of official, regal +heartlessness and of servile cunning. That crust presses down the +genuine Europe, the marrow of mankind. The genuine Europe is ardent, +noble, progressive and coruscant; and from Cadiz to the White Sea, +that genuine Europe is on the side of freedom, on the side of the +North.</p> + +<p><i>September 3: L. B.</i>—Lincoln to Grant, July 13. This letter shows +how the President dabbles in military operations. It clearly +establishes Mr. Lincoln's right to be considered at least a Carnot, +if not a Napoleon, <i>vide</i> the Republican newspapers.</p> + +<p><i>September 3: L. B.</i>—State Conventions, and the old party-hacks +under arms. Will not the younger generation rise in its might, break +the chains of this intellectual subserviency, scatter the hacks to +the winds, take the lead, enlighten the masses, find out new, not +used-up men, brains and hearts, for the sacred duty of serving the +people. To witness so much intelligence, knowledge, ardor, +elasticity, clear-sightedness as animate the American youth, to +witness all this subdued, curbed by the hacks!—O, youth, awake!</p> + +<p>It is the most sacred duty of the younger generation, to rescue the +country from the hands of the old politicians of every kind; to call +to political paramount activity the better and purer agencies. It is +a task as emphatically, nay, even more, urgent and meritorious than +emancipation of the Africo-Americans.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313"></a>(p. 313)</span> <i>September 4: L. B.</i>—In their official or unofficial +quality, numerous Americans amorously dabble in International +questions and laws. How much the <i>rights of war</i>, etc., have been +discussed; how many letters, signed, anonymous, official and +unofficial, have been published—and very little, if any light +thrown on these questions. What a cruel fate of a future historian, +who, if conscientious, will be obliged to read all these +darkness-spreading lucubrations!</p> + +<p><i>September 5: L. B.</i>—Mr. Lincoln's letter to the Illinois +Convention stirs up the whole country. It is a very, <i>very</i> good +manifesto,—had it not a terrible <span class="smcap">YESTERDAY</span>. It is a heavy bid for +re-election and may secure it. The Americans forget the <i>yesterday</i>, +and Mr. Lincoln's <i>yesterday!</i> ... is full of shiftings, +hesitations, mistakes which draw out the people's life-blood. The +people will forget that a man of energy and of firm purpose in the +White House, such a man would have at once clearly seen his way, and +then a year ago rebellion and slavery would have been crushed.</p> + +<p>A man of energy would not have had for his familiar demons, the +Scotts, the Sewards, the Blairs, the border-state politicians, the +Weeds, etc.</p> + +<p><i>September 5: L. B.</i>—The siege of Charleston <i>tire en longueur</i>; it +has cost thousand of lives and millions upon millions, and will +still cost more. And it is already forgotten that when nearly two +years ago Sherman and Dupont took Port Royal, Charleston and +Savannah were defenceless; it is forgotten that Sherman <span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name="page314"></a>(p. 314)</span> +asked for orders to siege the two cities, <i>but such were not given</i> +from Washington, because Mr. Lincoln-Seward (literally) was afraid +to get possession of the focuses of rebellion, and General +McClellan, with one hundred and fifty thousand men in Washington, +could not bear the idea that the rebels should be disturbed either +in Centerville or in their <i>chivalric</i> homes in South Carolina. It +is forgotten that civil and military leaders and chiefs then and +there refused to deal a death blow to the rebellion.</p> + +<p>And as I am <i>en train</i> to recall to memory what is already +forgotten, and what the Illinois letter intends to wholly erase from +the people's memory; I go on.</p> + +<p>In the first days and months after the explosion of the rebellion, +Mr. Lincoln was as innocent of any wish to emancipate the slaves, as +could be a Seward, or a Yancey, or McClellan, or a Magruder or a +Wise or a Halleck. All this is forgotten. It is forgotten that +General Butler is the earliest initiator of emancipation, and that +to him exclusively belongs the word and the fact of an emancipated +<i>contraband</i>. It is forgotten that when Butler began to emancipate +the contrabands, the <i>big men</i> in the Administration, Lincoln, +General Scott, and Seward, became almost frantic against Butler for +thus introducing the "nigger" into the struggle. The fate of Fremont +is forgotten. Fremont was ahead of the times. Fremont emancipated +when Lincoln-Seward-Scott-Blair, etc., heartily wished to save and +preserve slavery. Down went Fremont.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name="page315"></a>(p. 315)</span> Early in the summer of 1861 General Fremont wished to do +what was now accomplished by the, until yet, <i>sans pareil</i> +Grant—that is, to clear the Mississippi at a time when neither +Island No. 10, nor Vicksburgh, nor Port Hudson nor any other port +was fortified. But the plan displeased and frightened the powers in +Washington. Fremont was never to be pardoned for having shown +farsightedness when <i>the great men</i> deliberately blindfolded +themselves. Fremont might not be a Napoleon, not a captain; Fremont +committed military mistakes,—other generals commit military crimes.</p> + +<p>The angel of justice very easily will white-wash Fremont from +military responsibility for the unnecessary waste of human life; and +with all his various faults Fremont's aspirations are patriotic and +lofty, and he is by far a better and nobler man than all his +revilers put together. But all this seems to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>It is, or will be forgotten, what a bloody trail over the North is +left, and has been imprinted by the half measures, the indecisions, +and the vascillations of the Administration.</p> + +<p>The medley composed of politicians, jobbers, contractors, and +newspapers, already scream "Hosanna," and attempt to spatter with +lies and dust the road to the White House, and thus to prepare the +way. And the medley already shakes hands, and enemies kiss each +other, because if their <i>elect</i> succeeds, there will <span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name="page316"></a>(p. 316)</span> be +peace over, and pickings for all the world. But the justice of +history will overtake them all, and the better, younger generation +will crush them to atoms.</p> + +<p><i>September 6. L. B.</i>—Wilkes' <i>Spirit of the Times</i> maintains its +paramount, independent position in the American press. I cannot +detect any shadow of a politician in its columns. It is all over +independent and patriotic. The <i>Spirit</i> fights the miscreants.</p> + +<p>"<i>Principles not men</i>," is an axiom, but the axiom must be well +understood and applied, and it has its limitations. Are bad, +worthless, insincere, selfish men to be the agencies and the factors +of great and lofty principles? Is such a thing possible? Is the +example of Judas forgotten? O, you Bible-reading people, can Judases +and rotten consciences carry out good principles? The press that +teaches and preaches <i>principles not men</i>, that never dares to +attack bad men in its own ranks, such a press betrays the confidence +of the people, and degrades below expression the elevated and noble +position which the press ought to occupy in the development of the +progress of human society.</p> + +<p><i>September 6.</i>—Computing together and comparing the mental and +intellectual characteristics, the manifestations and utterances of +passions in the Africo American and in the Irish of the Iro-Roman +nursery, the anthropologist, the psychologist and the philosopher +must give the palm to the Africo-American. And nevertheless Doctors +of Divinity and many truly religious men plead in favor of slavery, +that is, of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317"></a>(p. 317)</span> brute force. I ask all such to meditate the +words of Professor J. W. <span class="smcap">Draper</span>, in his great and profound <i>History +of the Intellectual Development of Europe: That brute force must +give way to intellect, and that even the meanest human being has +rights in the sight of God.</i></p> + +<p><i>September 10: New York.</i>—Head-quarters of all kinds of politicians, +of schemers, of perpetrators of treasonable attempts, of falsifiers, +of poisoners of the people's mind. The rendezvous of those who +devour the vitals of the country—who, as contractors, jobbers, +brokers, stock and gold speculators, <i>agioteurs</i>, etc. are the most +ardent patriots, and wish that the war may be indefinitely +continued. In the columns of the <i>Herald</i> the future historian will +find the best information concerning all that—not-blessed race. The +race deserves to be recorded and <i>scavenged</i> in the <i>Herald</i>.</p> + +<p>And nevertheless New York contains the most pure and the most +devoted patriots. New York and New Yorkers have been foremost in +coming to the rescue when the matricide rebels dealt their first +blow. From New York came the best and the most energetic urgings on +the gasping and vascillating Administration.</p> + +<p>The New Yorkers originated the Sanitary Commission, for which I can +find no words of sufficiently warm praise. New York contains many +young, fresh, elevated and noble minds and intellects. Why, O why do +some of them disappear in the muddy part of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318"></a>(p. 318)</span> great city, +and others are overawed and overleaped by the hacks and by the +politicians, or the so-called wire-pullers.</p> + +<p><i>September 10. New York.</i>—It is the place to ascertain the +manœuvres of political schemers. Those who know, most +emphatically assure me of the existence of the following +<i>Sewardiana</i>.</p> + +<p>1. Seward has given up in despair all dreams of finding people to +back him for the next Presidency.</p> + +<p>2. Seward hesitated between McClellan and Banks,</p> + +<p>3. And finally settled on Lincoln;</p> + +<p>4. And although afraid of being finally shelved by Lincoln, he +advocates Lincoln's re-election—</p> + +<p>5. As being the paramount means to politically murder Chase.</p> + +<p>Oh American people! Oh American people! how those foul political +pilferers dice for thy blood and thy destinies!</p> + +<p>Years ago, I justified the existence and asserted the necessity of +politicians in the political public life of America. I considered +them an unavoidable and harmless result of free democratic +institutions. [See "America and Europe."] At that time I observed +the politician from a distance, and reasoned on him altogether +metaphysically, after the so-called German fashion. Since 1861 I +have come into personal contact with the genus politician—and oh! +what a monstrous breed they are!</p> + +<p><i>September 10. New York.</i>—Senator Sumner on our foreign relations. +The Senator enumerates all the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name="page319"></a>(p. 319)</span> violations of good comity, +of international duties, of the obligations of neutrals, violations +so deliberately and so maliciously perpetrated by England and by +France. But why has the Senator forgotten to ascend to one of the +paramount causes? Previous to England or France, the State +Department in Washington and Mr. Lincoln recognized in the rebels +<i>the condition of belligerents</i>. It was done by the Proclamation +instituting the blockade. The <i>Blue Book</i> fully proves that already +months before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the English Government had +a perfect knowledge of the vascillating policy which was to be +inaugurated after March 1, 1861. At the same time, the English +Government knew well that already previous to March 4, the rebel +conspirators were fully decided on carrying out their treacherous +aim across streams of blood. A long war was imminent, and a +recognition of the rebels as <i>in parte</i> belligerents, could not have +been avoided. A part of the English nation, a part of the English +Cabinet, was and is overflowing with the most malicious ill will, +and such ones crave for an occasion to satisfy their hatred. But our +domestic and foreign policy singularly served our English +ill-wishers.</p> + +<p>I deeply regret that the Senator preferred the halls of the Cooper +Institute to the hall of the United States Senate; that he threw the +gauntlet to Europe as a lecturer, when for days and months he could +have done it so authoritatively as a Senator of the United States; +could have done it from his senatorial chair, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name="page320"></a>(p. 320)</span> and in the +fulfilment of the most sacred public and patriotic duty. How could +the Senator thus belittle one of the most elevated political +positions in the world, that of a Senator of the United States?</p> + +<p>Not so happy is the part of the lecture concerning <i>Intervention</i>. +It is rather sentimental than statesmanlike. <i>Intervention</i> is, and +will remain, an act of physical, material force, and history largely +teaches that <i>Intervention</i>, even for higher moral purposes, was +always exercised by the strong against the weak, the strong always +invoking "higher motives." Thus did the Romans; and about a century +ago, the Powers which partitioned Poland began by an <i>Intervention</i>, +justified on "higher moral, etc. grounds."</p> + +<p><i>September 11: New York.</i>—Prince Gortschakoff's answer to the +demonstration of lying, hypocritical, official diplomatic sympathies +made in favor of the Poles by the cabinets of France, of England, +and of Austria. The Gortschakoff notes are masterpieces for their +clear, quiet, but bold and decided exposition and argument, and in +the records of diplomacy those notes will occupy the most prominent +place. O, why cannot Mr. Seward learn from Gortschakoff how not to +put gas in such weighty documents? Could Seward learn how to be +earnest, precise and clear, without spread-eagleism? The greater and +stronger a nation, the less empty phraseology is needed when one +speaks in the nation's name.</p> + +<p><i>September 15.</i>—Returned to Washington. From <span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name="page321"></a>(p. 321)</span> what I see +and hear, Mr. Lincoln is earnestly and hard at work to secure his +re-election. I hope that Mr. Lincoln is as earnest in his efforts to +destroy Lee's army and to put an end to the guerrillas who rob to +the right and to the left, and under the nose of the supreme +military authorities.</p> + +<p>Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, always the same—active, +intelligent, clear and far-sighted. Andrew is the man to act for, +and in the name of the most intelligent community on the globe, +which the State of Massachusetts undoubtedly is. As I have observed +several times, Andrew is among the leading (<i>Americanize</i>, tip-top,) +men of the younger generation, is no politician, and never was one. +If a civilian is to be elected to the Presidency, Andrew ought to be +the choice of the people, if the people will be emancipated from the +politicians.</p> + +<p>I learn that that monster, the politician, has almost wholly +disappeared from New England, above all from Massachusetts. The New +England people are too earnest and too intelligent to be the prey of +the monster. Sound reason throttled the politician. All hail to this +result of the bloody storm! I hope the other States will soon follow +the example of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>The State of Massachusetts and the city of Boston noiselessly spend +millions for their coast and harbor defences. Governor Andrew has +the confidence of the people, and is untiring in procuring the best +war material. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name="page322"></a>(p. 322)</span> He sent an agent to England to buy heavy +guns.</p> + +<p>If the English government take in sail, if it come to its senses and +cease to be the rebels' army and navy arsenal, then all this will be +due to such quiet and decisive active demonstrations as that above +mentioned in Boston, in Massachusetts, and the similar activity of +the New Yorkers, and not at all to any persuasive arguments of Mr. +Seward's dispatches.</p> + +<p><i>September 16.</i>—Mr. Seward is slightly mending his ways. His last +circular for the foreign market is considerably sobered, and almost +barren of prophecy. Almost no spread-eagleism, no perversion, +although geography and history, of course, are a little maltreated.</p> + +<p>And so, Mr. Prophet, you at least recognize the utility of arming +the Africo-Americans. And who is it that openly and by secret advice +and influence in the cabinet and out of it, who, during more than a +year, did his utmost to counteract all the efforts to emancipate and +to arm the oppressed?</p> + +<p><i>September 16.</i>—The draft is seriously complained of, and the +drafted desert in all directions. To tell the truth, drafting is +odious to every nation, whatever be its government. But it is a dire +necessity, and it is impossible to avoid or to turn it. The draft +became here imperatively necessary by the long uninterrupted chain +of helplessness and mismanagement of events, the sacrifice of blood +and of time. But for the advice of the Scotts, of the Sewards, of +the Blairs, but for the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page323" name="page323"></a>(p. 323)</span> military prowess of McClellan and +his <i>minions</i>, but for the high military science of a Halleck, Mr. +Lincoln would not have been obliged to draft.</p> + +<p>In the West, everything is action, operation and victory. Grant, +Rosecrans, Banks, their officers and soldiers honor the American +name; even good Burnside acts and succeeds;—but here the Army of +the Potomac is observing and watching Lee's brow! McClellan's spirit +seems still to permeate these blessed generals, and then +Halleckiana, and then God knows what. The fear of losing won laurels +probably palsies the brains of the commanders; at any rate it is +certain that the inactivity of the Potomac army throws unsurpassed +splendor on the annals of this war. O, the brave, brave soldiers and +officers! how they are maltreated!</p> + +<p><i>September 16.</i>—Matamoras will fall into the hands of the +<i>Decembriseur's</i> freebooters, and then Texas will be almost lost. +Matamoras ought long ago to have been seized by us, or at least very +closely blockaded and surrounded; then all the war-contraband to +Texas would have had an end.</p> + +<p>In 1861, when microscopical specks began to loom over Mexico's +destinies, when the <i>Decembriseur</i> began to feel the pulse of Spain +and of England, I most respectfully suggested to Mr. Seward to +blockade Matamoras. No foreign country or government could call us +to account for such a step, if the Mexican government would not +protest. And it was so easy to satisfy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page324" name="page324"></a>(p. 324)</span> and hush the Mexican +liberals. Besides, a paragraph in the treaty of Mexico expressly +stipulates that any violation of the respective territory will not +be considered as a <i>casus belli</i>, but the case will be peacefully +investigated, etc., etc. Surely the Mexican government would have +preferred to see Matamoras in our hands, than in those of that +bloody Forey's bands.</p> + +<p><i>September 17.</i>—"Loyalty," "loyalty," resounds from all sides. +Loyalty to principles? Why, no. Loyalty to Mr. Lincoln and to his +official crew. If such maxims mark not the downfall of manhood, then +I am at loss to find what does. Such a construction of loyalty +brings many otherwise honest and intelligent men to foster Mr. +Lincoln's re-election.</p> + +<p><i>September 17.</i>—At the beginning of the war, Lord John Russell +issued orders for the regulation of the English ports in cases of +belligerents. Our great Doctor of International Law in the State +Department mistook such municipal, English regulations; he considers +them to be absolute international rules and principles, and +concocts instructions for our cruisers, instructions which smell as +if written under Lord Lyons' dictation. As always, Neptune stands up +for the national interests and for the interests of his tars, +because the instructions concocted by the Doctor make it impossible +for our cruisers to fulfill their duties. As always, Mr. Lincoln +bends rather towards the Doctor, who in his world-embracing +<i>humanitarianism</i> defends the interests of all the neutrals at the +cost of the interests of the country <span class="pagenum"><a id="page325" name="page325"></a>(p. 325)</span> and of our brave navy. +The Doctor was right when, some time ago, he compared himself to +Christ.</p> + +<p><i>September 17.</i>—The border-State politicians establish that the +revolted States are not out of the Union. The States are no +abstractions, no metaphysical notions, but geographical and +political entities. They are States because they are peopled with +individuals, free, intelligent, and who, to give a legality to their +rebellion, claim to be sovereigns. It is not the soil constituting a +State that represents a sovereignty, but the soil or State acquires +political signification through the population dwelling in or on it. +When the population revolted, the State revolted. From Jeff Davis to +the lowest "clay-eater," each rebel who took up arms claims to have +done this in the exercise of his sovereign will and choice. The +revolt quashed all privileges conceded by the Union to a State, and +the Union reconquers its property in reconquering the former States.</p> + +<p><i>September 18.</i>—Hurrah for Lincoln! He sends an expedition to +Texas, say his admirers. He forgets nothing. Well, why has Lincoln +forgotten Texas all this time? Notwithstanding all the prayers of +the Texans and of the northern patriots, I am not sure that at this +moment it is expedient to break up our armies into smaller +expeditions instead of concentrating them in Tennessee, Georgia, and +here. Strike on the head or at the heart if you wish to kill the +monster, but not at its extremities. But perhaps the Government and +Halleck have men enough to do the one and the other. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page326" name="page326"></a>(p. 326)</span> But +why not put at the head of the Texan expedition a noble, +high-minded, devoted patriot, such as General Hamilton, instead of +putting a Franklin, unknown to the Texans, who can inspire no +confidence, and of whom the best that can be said is, that he never +succeeded in anything, and disorganized everything. See Pope in +Virginia, Burnside at Fredericksburgh.</p> + +<p>If Hamilton, the Texan, is to participate in this expedition, not +Lincoln and his advisers put Hamilton there—the pressure exercised +by the combined efforts of the governors of New England States did +the work.</p> + +<p>Hurrah for Lincoln and for his crew.</p> + +<p><i>September 19.</i>—Governor Andrew's activity and initiative are +admirable. More than any body in the country, Andrew has done to +clear up, and to firmly establish the condition of Africo-Americans +as soldiers, and to push them up to the level with other men.</p> + +<p><i>September 19.</i>—<i>Hurrah for Lincoln</i>, who hurries the organization +of Africo-American regiments! Oh yes! he hurries them; <i>festina +lente</i>. And how many regiments have been organized in Norfolk, which +ought to have been established as <i>the</i> central point to attract +and to organize contrabands? Is not Virginia the first in the slave +States for the number of slaves? In the hands of a clear-sighted +man, Norfolk ought to have been used as a glue to which the slaves +would have wandered from all parts of Virginia, and even from North +Carolina. Norfolk ought to have to-day an army of fifty thousand +Africo-Americans born in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page327" name="page327"></a>(p. 327)</span> Virginia, and not a few regiments +of them raised in the North. An Africo-American army in Norfolk +doubtless would have more impressed Jeff Davis and Lee, than they +are impressed by the marches of the commanders of the Potomac army. +And what is done? Oh, hurrah for Lincoln! A General Naglee, or of +some other name, appointed by Halleck, sustained by Lincoln, and by, +who knows whom—commands in Norfolk. This general so appointed, and +so sustained is the most devoted worshipper of slavery. This favored +general hob-nobs with the slave-making, slave-breeding and +slave-selling aristocracy of Norfolk and of the vicinity, looks down +upon the <i>nigger</i> with all the haughtiness of a plantation whip, and +haughtily snubs off the not slave-breeding Union men in Norfolk, the +mechanics, and the small farmers. Mr. Lincoln knows this all and +keeps the general. Rhetors roar, Hurrah for Lincoln.</p> + +<p><i>September 19.</i>—Massachusetts and New England men and women! you +true apostles! your names are unknown but they are recorded by the +genius of humanity. These men and women feel what is the true +apostolate. They follow our armies, take care of the contrabands, +take care of poor whites, establish schools for the children and for +the grown up of both hues, and thus they reorganize society. O +sneer at them you fashionables, you flirts, you ...; but such men +and women, and not you, make one believe in the highest destinies of +our race.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page328" name="page328"></a>(p. 328)</span> <i>September 20.</i>—Grant is the only general who accomplished +an object, showed high, soldier-like qualities, organized and +commanded an excellent army. But scarcely had <i>Grant</i> taken +Vicksburgh, when his army was broken up and scattered in all +directions, he himself was neutralized and reduced to inactivity. It +could be considered a crime against the people's cause—but—hurrah +for Lincoln.</p> + +<p>After the shame of Corinth, 1862, the Western army disappeared in +the same way. But it was nobody's fault, oh no! So it is nobody's +fault that Grant is shelved. Will a man start up in the next +Congress and call the malefactors to account?</p> + +<p><i>September 20.</i>—This day, General Meade has about eighty thousand +men. General Meade himself estimates the enemy's forces in front of +him at no more than forty thousand men, and General Meade does +nothing beyond feeling his way. O, cunctator!</p> + +<p><i>September 20.</i>—The partisans of Mr. Lincoln admit that he came +slowly <i>to the mark</i>, but he came to it. Of course, better late than +never, but in Mr. Lincoln's case, the people's honor and the +people's blood paid for Mr. Lincoln's experimental ways. Mr. Lincoln +may now be serious in a great many matters, but if he could have +been serious a year ago—how much money would have been economized?</p> + +<p>Hurrah for Lincoln!</p> + +<p><i>September 21.</i>—Rosecrans worsted. Burnside joined him not. They +say that Burnside disobeyed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page329" name="page329"></a>(p. 329)</span> orders. I doubt it, and would +wish to see what orders have been given. Meade or Halleck quietly +allow a third of Lee's army to go and help to crush Rosecrans.</p> + +<p><i>September 21.</i>—General Franklin was, in his own way, successful at +the Sabine Pass, as every where. But how could the government +entrust him with this expedition? He graduated <i>first</i> at West +Point. Washingtonians and tip-top West Pointers speak highly of +Franklin. Enough!—</p> + +<p><i>September 22.</i>—The rebels concentrated every available and +fighting man on Chattanooga; we scattered our forces to all winds. +The rebels march on concentrating lines, we select radii running out +in the infinite, or in opposite directions. That is the head +quarters paramount strategy.</p> + +<p>Rosecrans is worsted. Hurrah for Lincoln, who believes in Halleck!</p> + +<p>And to know, as I know, that our army and country has young men who +could carry on the war better in darkness than Lincoln-Halleck do in +broad daylight!</p> + +<p><i>September 22.</i>—By depleting the banks by means of loans, by +establishing the so-called National Bank, by creating an army of +officials, by taking into his hands the traffic in the great staple +of the rebel States, by providing the South with the various +Northern products, by holding all the money in his hand, Mr. Chase +concentrated into his hand a patronage never held by any secretary, +nay, scarcely if ever, held by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page330" name="page330"></a>(p. 330)</span> a president. Mr. Chase has +more patronage than even any constitutional king. It is to be seen +how all this will end.</p> + +<p><i>September 22.</i>—On all sides I hear the question put, Who is +Gilmore? It seems to me that Gilmore is one of the men generated by +new events and not by Washington or West Point estimation. It seems +to me that Gilmore may be one of the representative men of the +better generation, so luxuriant here, and whose advent to power +would save the country; a generation who alone can give the last +solution, and whose advent I expect as the Jews expected the +Messiah, and I shall hail it as did Anna, Elizabeth, Simeon, etc. +put together.</p> + +<p><i>September 23.</i>—As a result of the Meade-Halleck combined military +wisdom, a part of Lee's army fought Rosecrans at Chattanooga, and +may in a very short time be again in Virginia, and it is nobody's +fault. O strategy! thy name is imbecility!</p> + +<p><i>September 23.</i>—Better news from Rosecrans. The stubbornness of the +troops, the stubbornness of General Thomas saved the day. +Reinforcements join Rosecrans now. But why not previous to the +battle? If Rosecrans had had men enough on the 19th and 20th, then +Bragg would have been broken, and the rebels almost on their last +legs. But perhaps such glory and victory are not needed! Hurrah for +Lincoln!</p> + +<p><i>September 24.</i>—Many of Mr. Lincoln's partisans admit that at the +most favorable calculation, the results <span class="pagenum"><a id="page331" name="page331"></a>(p. 331)</span> obtained up to +to-day by the war and by emancipation, could easily have been +obtained by a smaller expenditure of life, blood, money and time, if +any will, and foresight, and energy presided at the helm. And, +nevertheless, hurrah for Lincoln! And the highest destinies of the +principle of self-government to again be trusted in such hands!</p> + +<p><i>September 24.</i>—How could Meade let Lee send troops to Bragg, and +why Meade attacked or attacks not? Those rebel generals show but +little consideration for our commanders, and it would be curious to +know what Lee and his companions think of our Marses. It seems that +a conception of a plan of campaign or of a military operation is +altogether beyond the reach of Meade's <i>cerebellum</i>. As commander of +a division, of a corps, Meade had <i>dash in him</i>—he lost all when +elevated above the level.</p> + +<p>I am sure that Stanton urges or urged Meade to do something, without +telling him how or where. Had Lincoln, had Halleck meddled? If so, +Meade ought to tell it. The best to do for a commander of the Army +of the Potomac is to keep his secrets to himself and have in his +confidence only his chief-of-staff—not to tell them to any one in +the camp, and still less to any one in Washington. But it seems that +Meade had no plan whatever in view, and had no secrets to keep or +to tell.</p> + +<p><i>September 25.</i>—It is to-day exactly a week since Rosecrans was +attacked. At the head-quarters they <span class="pagenum"><a id="page332" name="page332"></a>(p. 332)</span> ought to have known +Rosecrans' force, and the imperative, the paramount necessity of +reinforcing him in time, as they <i>ought</i> to have known that Lee sent +to Bragg a part of his army. But probably the precious head of the +head-quarters is confused by some translation, or by reading +proof-sheets instead of reports. By simply looking on the map, the +head-quarters—perhaps headless—ought to have found out that +Chattanooga and Atlanta are the keys of the black country, and that +the rebels—who neither write silly books nor translate—will +concentrate all available forces to stop Rosecrans's advance, and +eventually to crush him. Weeks ago the head-quarters ought to have +reinforced Rosecrans; it is done to-day, a week after the defeat. +Hurrah for Lincoln, who sustains a Halleck!</p> + +<p>One of the most cautious men that I met in life, and who is in a +position to be well informed, in the most cautious and distant +manner suggested to me that Rosecrans is obnoxious to the +head-quarters, and that in G street, Washington, they may have +wished to see Rosecrans worsted.</p> + +<p>Hurrah for Lincoln! Halleck is his true prophet!</p> + +<p>Shake an apple tree, and the foul fruit falls down; and so it is +with Halleck's western military combinations. All the army of Grant +running dispersed on centrifugal radii, Burnside sent in a direction +opposite to Rosecrans. Bravo, Halleck! You outdo McClellan!</p> + +<p><i>September 25.</i>—It seems that with a little, a very <span class="pagenum"><a id="page333" name="page333"></a>(p. 333)</span> little +dash, we could go in the rear of Lee, who is weakened by sending +troops to crush Rosecrans. But we have given Lee time to fortify his +position, and of course we will wait until Lee is again strong, +either by position or by numbers. Then we march a few miles onwards, +more miles backwards, and what not? What splendid combinations +coruscate from the head-quarters here, or in the army! Cæsar, +Napoleon, Frederick, bow your heads in dust before our great +captains!</p> + +<p><i>September 26.</i>—It seems that at Chattanooga the rebels massed +their infantry in columns <i>per</i> battalion, and Crittenden's and +McCook's troops could not withstand the attack. It was not at West +Point that the rebel generals learned the like continental tactics. +It seems that the rebels like to learn.</p> + +<p><i>September 27.</i>—In defence of the <i>Franklinade</i> at the Sabine Pass, +it is alleged that the expedition had bad old vessels, and was +poorly fitted out. Then why make it? It is a crime in this country +to complain of any want of material and of bad vessels—provided no +one steals thereby. In America, not to have an adequate material? +What an infamous slander on the most industrious people! Not +material, but brains, or something else are not adequate. But, of +course, it is nobody's fault, and nobody will be taken to account.</p> + +<p><i>September 29.</i>—Hooker is to have a command, and to supersede +Burnside. Probably again a separate command. If generals refuse to +serve under each other, under the plea of seniority, at once expel +such <span class="pagenum"><a id="page334" name="page334"></a>(p. 334)</span> <i>recalcitrant</i> generals from the service; better and +younger men will be found. The French Convention beheaded such +generals, not on paper, but physiologically. The French Directory +was not a master of honesty or energy, but it had sufficient energy +to select Napoleon, twenty-six years old, over the heads of older +generals, and put him in command of the Army of the Alps, which in +his hands became the Army of Italy. And as long as the world shall +stand, the consequences of that violation of the rule of seniority +will not be forgotten.</p> + +<p><i>September 29.</i>—General Thomas ought to have the command, if +Rosecrans failed, but not Hooker or Butterfield.</p> + +<p>Halleck's <i>officina</i> of military incongruities and to unmilitary +combinations ought to be shut up, and the occupants sent about the +world. The War Department and the President would get better advice +from the young Colonels in the Department, and around Stanton, than +it gets from all that concern in G street.</p> + +<p><i>September 29.</i>—The papers say that all over Europe and the rest of +the world Seward <i>ex officio</i> scatters Sumner's Cooper Institute +oration. Well may Seward do it. Sumner suppressed true events, not +to hurt Seward.</p> + +<p>Now Sumner will find Seward an admirable statesman.</p> + +<p><i>September 30.</i>—The suspension of the <i>habeas corpus</i> makes great +noise. It was emphatically necessary. But it would not have been +emphatically, indeed not <span class="pagenum"><a id="page335" name="page335"></a>(p. 335)</span> in the least necessary, if the +domestic and war policy were different. Then the people would not +have been disheartened. If the people's holy enthusiasm—so dreaded +in Washington—were not so sacrilegiously misused and squandered, +volunteers would be forthcoming.</p> + +<p><i>September 30.</i>—If Lincoln-Halleck could create a military +department on the moon, they would instantly send thither some +troops and a major-general, so strong is their passion to break up +the armies into fragmentary bodies.</p> + +<p><i>September 30.</i>—If this war has already devoured or destroyed three +hundred thousand men in dead, crippled, and disabled in various +ways, then the responsibility is to be divided as follows:</p> + +<p><i>a</i> 100,000 lost by the policy initiated by Lincoln, Seward, Scott.</p> + +<p><i>b</i> 100,000 to be credited to McClellan and Halleck's military +combinations; Halleck by half with Lincoln.</p> + +<p><i>c</i> 100,000 to be credited to the war itself.</p> + +<p><i>September 30.</i>—England mends her ways, and stops the arming of +vessels for the rebels. The <i>Decembriseur</i> more and more +treacherous—as a matter of course.</p> + +<p><i>September 30.</i>—I understand now, what I never could understand in +Europe. I understand how an all polluting power can force into +alliance men of strong convictions, but of the most deadly opposite +social and political extremes. Such extremes meet in the wish to put +an end to a power whom they hate and despise.</p> + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page336" name="page336"></a>(p. 336)</span> OCTOBER, 1863.</h3> + +<p class="resume">Aghast — Firing — Supported — Russian Fleet — Opposition — + Amor scelerated — Cautious — Mastiffs — <i>Grande guerre</i> — + Manœuvring — Tambour battant — Warning, etc., etc., etc.</p> + +<p><i>October 1.</i>—Rosecrans, Bragg, Lee, Meade, Gilmore, Dahlgren and +the iron-clads keep the nation breathless aghast. A terrible and +painful lull. The politicians furiously continue their mole-like +work; election, re-election is inscribed on the mole hills.</p> + +<p><i>October 2.</i>—Chase men fire into Blair's men, and Blair's men are +supposed to be Lincoln's men. The skirmishing, the scouting before +the battle. But the day of battle is yet far off, and the proverb, +"many a slip," etc., may yet save the nation from becoming a prey of +politicians.</p> + +<p><i>October 3.</i>—News arrives that reinforcements sent from here +reached Rosecrans. For the first time the troops have been +forwarded with such rapidity. The War Department has brought almost +to perfection the system of transportation of large bodies. The +head-quarters, who combine, decide and direct the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page337" name="page337"></a>(p. 337)</span> +movements, the distribution, and the scattering of troops all over +the country could have therefore ordered the troops to Rosecrans, +and the War Department would have rapidly forwarded them there. And +if Grant's army was not broken, and he himself virtually shelved or +neutralized—if he had marched towards Georgia, Secession would have +been compressed to two or three States; Bragg crushed, Alabama and +Georgia rescued! Hurrah for Lincoln-Halleck.</p> + +<p><i>October 4.</i>—The Russian fleet evokes an unparalleled enthusiasm in +New York, and all over the country. <i>Attrappez</i> treacherous England +and France! The Russian Emperor, the Russian Statesman Gortschakoff, +and the whole Russian people held steadfast and nobly to the North, +to the cause of right and of freedom. Diplomatic bickerings here +could not destroy the genuine sympathy between the two nations.</p> + +<p><i>October 4.</i>—The probable majority in the next Congress is the +great object of present calculation and speculation. The +Administration seems to be of the opinion, that a small republican +majority will do as well, because it will be more compact and more +easily to be played upon. God save the country from a majority +<i>twistable</i> by the Administration! If the majority is small, then it +may be unable to drag such dead-weight as was the Administration +directed by its master spirit.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page338" name="page338"></a>(p. 338)</span> The Administration ought to be dusted and pruned. This +Administration especially needs to be shaken and kept always on the +<i>qui vive</i> by an honest and a patriotic opposition. The opposition +made by Copperheads is neither honest nor patriotic. Opposition is a +vital element of parliamentary government; and as by a curse, the +opposition here is made not to acts of the Administration—the +Copperheads wish to throttle the principle which inspires the best +part of the people. If it was possible to have an opposition strong +enough to control the misdeeds of the Administration, to serve for +the Administration as a telescope to penetrate space, and as a +microscope to find out the vermin: if such an opposition could be +built up, it would have forced the Administration to act vigorously +and decidedly, it could have preserved the Administration from +repeated violations of the rules of common sense, and in certain +Administrative brains the opposition could have kindled sagacity and +farsightedness:—such counterpoise would have spared thousands and +thousands of lives, and thousands of millions of money.</p> + +<p><i>October 6.</i>—Meade will retreat or already retreats. The choice of +the army, Meade, has not yet greatly justified itself. And Meade, +too, builds up in the army a clique of generals, and therein Meade +begins to imitate McClellan. Likewise McClellan seems to have been +Meade's model at Williamsport, and, McClellan-like, Meade has wasted +precious time.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page339" name="page339"></a>(p. 339)</span> And thus the month of October sees us on the defensive on +the whole line, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. After two and a +half years of military misdirection, of rivers of blood, of mines of +money—there we are.</p> + +<p>Hurrah for Lincoln and for his apostles!</p> + +<p><i>October 6.</i>—How the world's history is handled, twisted, and +<i>bungled</i>. Wiseacres put history on the rack to evidence their own +ignorance. The one invokes England's example during Wellington's +expedition to Spain, as if that war in the Peninsula had been a +civil war, and England's integrity, national independence, and +political institutions had been endangered. And another compares +this war to the civil wars of Rome, and censures the impatience of +those who wish for more energy in the Administration. Do the +wiseacres wish for an</p> + +<p class="poem">Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus ætas.</p> + +<p>Others point to Cæsar, and forget that Cæsar fought almost in person +everywhere, in Europe, Africa, and Asia.</p> + +<p>Great commanders-in-chief point out to their subordinates the +example of Napoleon and of Frederick visiting their pickets. Yes, +great military scholars! Frederick and Napoleon visited the pickets +when their armies faced—nay, when they almost touched the lines of +the enemy. But Frederick and Napoleon were with the armies—they +were in the tents, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page340" name="page340"></a>(p. 340)</span> directed not the movements of armies +from a well warmed and cosy room or office.</p> + +<p><i>October 6.</i>—Blair, a member of the Cabinet, in a public speech +delivered in Maryland, most bitterly attacks the emancipationists +and emancipation. Blair is perfectly true to himself. That speech +would honor a Yancey. Blair peddles for Mr. Lincoln's re-election. +Blair thus semi-officially spoke for the President, and for the +Cabinet. Such at least is the construction put in England on an +out-door speech made by a member of the Cabinet, or else another +member takes another occasion to refute the former. Mr. Splendid +Chase is a member of the Cabinet, and claims to represent there the +aspirations, the tendencies, and the aims of the radicals and of the +emancipationists. Such a conflict between two members of the Cabinet +shakes the shaky situation. What will Chase do? Nothing, or very +little.</p> + +<p><i>October 7.</i>—Months, weeks and days of the most splendid weather, +and Meade, the choice of the West Point clique in the army, Meade +did nothing. If Meade had not, or has not troops enough, why is not +Foster ordered here with all he has? Keep Fortress Monroe well +garrisoned, and for a time abandon the few points in North Carolina. +Destroy Lee, and then a squad of invalids will reconquer North +Carolina, or that State may then reconquer itself. This, or some +other combination ought to be made. I am told that more than seven +hundred thousand men are now on <span class="pagenum"><a id="page341" name="page341"></a>(p. 341)</span> the Paymasters' rolls. +Where are they? Is it forgery or stealing? Where, oh where are the +paid men? On paper or in the grave? If the half, three hundred and +fifty thousand men, were well kept in hand, Lee and Bragg ought to +be annihilated.</p> + +<p>Hurrah for Lincoln and Halleck!</p> + +<p><i>October 8.</i>—From various sides I am assured that Stanton passed +into the camp of Lincoln, with horse, foot and artillery. I doubt +it, but—all is possible in this good-natured world. Stanton, like +others, may be stimulated by the <i>amor sceleratus</i> of power.</p> + +<p><i>October 8.</i>—Lee's Report, containing the operations after the +battle of Chancellorsville, the invasion of Pennsylvania, and his +recrossing of the Potomac at Williamsport, is published now. But +Lee, a true soldier, made his report in the last days of July, +therefore almost instantly after the campaign was finished. +Sympathizers with McClellan's essays on military or on other +matters! there is another example for you, how and when such things +ought to be done. Meade has not yet made his Report.</p> + +<p><i>October 9.</i>—The cautiousness of Meade and his fidelity to +McClellan-like warfare are above admiration. General Buford, brave +and daring, weeks ago offered to make with his cavalry a raid in the +rear of Lee and destroy the railroads to the south-west—those main +arteries for Virginia. The offer was vetoed by the commander of the +Potomac army. Had Lee ever <span class="pagenum"><a id="page342" name="page342"></a>(p. 342)</span> vetoed Stewart's raids? Lee +rather stimulated and directed them.</p> + +<p><i>October 10.</i>—And the power-holders let loose their mastiffs. And +the mastiffs ran at my heels and tried to tear my inexpressibles and +all. And they did not, because they could not. Because my friends +(J. H. Bradley,) stood by me. And the people's justice stepped in +between the mastiffs and me, and I exclaim with the miller of +Potsdam, "There are judges in Washington."</p> + +<p><i>October 11.</i>—I most positively learn that even Thurlow Weed urged +upon the President the immediate removal of Halleck, and even +Thurlow Weed could not prevail. Many and many sins be forgiven to +the Prince of the Lobby, to the man who understood how to fish out a +fortune in these national troubles.</p> + +<p><i>October 12.</i>—<i>Cæsar morituri te salutant</i>, say our brave soldiers +to Lincoln.</p> + +<p>The Meades and the McClellans, like most of the greatnesses of the +West Point clique, have no impulse, no sense for attack, because +what is called <i>la grande guerre</i>, that is the offensive war, was +not among the special objects of the military education in West +Point. This is evident by the pre-eminence given to engineering, and +to the engineers who represent the defensive war; and therefore the +contrast to the <i>grande guerre</i>. Some of our generals, as Grant, +Rosecrans, Reno, Reynolds, and others, and as I hear likewise of +Warren, made and make up in enthusiasm for the deficiency of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page343" name="page343"></a>(p. 343)</span> +the West Point education. But the majority of the <i>educated</i> +Potomac commanders and generals were not, and are not much troubled +by enthusiasm.</p> + +<p><i>October 12.</i>—In his answer to the Missouri patriotic deputation, +Mr. Lincoln, with one eye at least to the re-election, proves to +the observer that he, Lincoln, has not yet found out which party +will be the stronger when the election shall be at the door. Mr. +Lincoln has not yet made his choice between the radical, immediate +emancipationists and those who wish a slow, do-nothing, successive, +<i>pro rata</i> emancipation. Not having yet found it out, Mr. Lincoln +has not yet fully decided which direction finally he has to take; +and therefore he shifts a little to the right, a little to the left, +and tries to hush up both parties. Our so characteristic military +operations are closely connected with the vascillating policy and +with the hesitation to cut the knot.</p> + +<p><i>October 13.</i>—Unparalleled in the world's history is the manner in +which the war is conducted here, from May, 1861, to this day. The +annals of the Asiatic, ancient, and of modern Tartar warfare, the +annals of Greece, of Macedon, of Rome, the annals of all wars fought +in Europe since the overthrow of the Romans down to the day of +Solferino, all have nothing similar to what is done here. This new +method henceforth will constitute an epoch in military <i>un</i>-science.</p> + +<p><i>October 13.</i>—General Meade in full and quick retreat. The most +contradictory rumors and explications <span class="pagenum"><a id="page344" name="page344"></a>(p. 344)</span> of this retreat; some +of the explications having even the flavor of official authority. +One thing is certain, that when a general who confronted an enemy at +once begins to manœuvre backwards, without having fought or lost +a battle, such a general is out-manœuvred by his enemy. O for a +young man with enthusiasm, and with inspiration! Suggested to +Stanton to shun the men of Williamsport, or to look for enthusiasts +such as Warren.</p> + +<p>Chaos everywhere; chaos in the direction of affairs, and a +disgraceful chaos in the military operations. But as always, so this +time, it is nobody's fault.</p> + +<p>Fetish McClellan finally and distinctly showed his hand, and joined +the Copperheads in the Pennsylvania election. McClellan is now ripe +for the dictatorship of the Copperheads. Will Mr. Lincoln have +courage to dismiss McClellan from the army? A self-respecting +Government ought to do it. Let McClellan be taken care of by the +<i>World</i>. <i>Par nobile fratrum.</i></p> + +<p><i>October 14.</i>—</p> + +<p class="poem"><i>Nox erat et cœlo fulgebat luna sereno</i>,</p> + +<p class="noindent">and the virtuous city of Washington enjoyed the sleep of innocence: +the genius of the country was watchful. Halleck slept not. +Orderlies, patrols, generals, officers, cavalry, infantry, all were +on their legs. Halleck took the command in person. What a running! +First in the rooms, then in the streets and on the roads, and on the +bridges whose planks were taken off. And thus about the cock's crow +the nightmare vanished, and Halleck, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page345" name="page345"></a>(p. 345)</span> satisfied to have +fulfilled his duty towards the country and towards the innocent +Washingtonians, Halleck went to bed.</p> + +<p><i>October 15.</i>—Our head-quarters at Fairfax Court House. It is not +a retreat. O no! It is only splendid backward manœuvring!</p> + +<p>As far as the Virginia campaign is concerned, the situation to-day +is below that previous to the first Bull Run. Lee menacing, going we +know not where; guerrillas in the rear of our army, at the +gates—literally and geographically at the gates of Alexandria and +of Washington. Previous to the first Bull Run, the country bled not; +to-day the people is minus thousands and thousands of its children, +and to see Lee twenty to thirty miles from Washington! What will be +the manœuvring to-morrow?</p> + +<p>Warren fought well, but if Sykes was within supporting distance, why +did they not annihilate the rebel corps? Two corps ought not to have +been afraid to be cut off from the rest of the army distant only a +few miles. Or perhaps orders exist not to bring about a general +engagement? All is now possible and probable. <i>Our great plans may +not yet be ripe.</i></p> + +<p>When the smoke and dust of the manœuvring will be over, I +heartily wish that our losses in the retreat may prove innocent and +as insignificant as they are reported to be.</p> + +<p>On the outside, Lee's movement appears as brilliant as it is +desperate. Has not this time Lee overshot <span class="pagenum"><a id="page346" name="page346"></a>(p. 346)</span> the mark? +Cunctator Meade may have some lucid moment, and punish Lee for his +impertinence. And every and any thing can be done with our brave +boys, provided they are commanded and generaled.</p> + +<p>In military sciences and history, it would be said that Lee has +<i>ramené tambour battant</i> Meade under the defences of Washington. +Such a result obtained without a battle, counts among the most +splendid military accomplishments, and reveals true generalship.</p> + +<p><i>October 17.</i>—Meade was decided to retreat, even before Lee began +to move, say the knowing ones, say the military authorities. If +Meade wanted not to go to Culpepper Court-house, or to march towards +the enemy, or to occupy the head waters of those rivers, then why +was our army promenaded in that direction? To amuse the people? to +increase losses in men and in material? Was it done without any +plan? I supposed, and the country supposed, that Meade marched south +to fight Lee where he would have found him; but it turns out that it +was done in order to bring Lee towards Washington and towards the +Potomac. What a snare!</p> + +<p><i>October 17.</i>—The electoral victory in Pennsylvania marks a new +evolution in the internal <i>polity</i> of the country. It is the victory +of the younger and better men as represented by Curtin, by Coffey, +etc., over the old hacks, old sepulchres, old tricposters and over +men who sucked the treasury and the people's pocket; they did it +scientifically, thoroughly, and with a coolness <span class="pagenum"><a id="page347" name="page347"></a>(p. 347)</span> of masters. +Oh! could other States therein imitate Pennsylvania, then, the +salvation of the country is certain.</p> + +<p><i>October 17: Evening.</i>—The knowing ones promise a battle for +to-morrow. Yes, if Lee will. But if not, will Meade attack Lee? who +I am sure will continue his movement and operation whatever these +may be. We are at <i>guessing</i>.</p> + +<p>Repeatedly and repeatedly it is half-officially trumpeted to the +country, that this or that general selected his ground and awaits a +battle. It reminds one of the wars in Italy during the thirteenth +and fourteenth centuries. And if the general who forced backwards +his antagonist, if he prefers not to attack, but continues to +manœuvre, what becomes of the select, own ground? Who ever read +that Alexander, or Cesar, or Frederic, or Napoleon, or even captains +of lesser fame, selected their ground? All of them fought the enemy +where they found him, or by skillful manœuvring hemmed the enemy +or forced him to abandon his select position. Cases where a general +can really force the antagonist to attack <i>such a select, own +ground</i>, such cases are special, and very rare.</p> + +<p>And so for the second time in this year, Lee shakes and disturbs our +quiet in Washington. Oh why is Lee engaged on the bad and damnable +side?</p> + +<p><i>October 18.</i>—A new <i>whereas</i> calling for three hundred thousand +volunteers. The people will volunteer. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page348" name="page348"></a>(p. 348)</span> Oh this great people +is ready for every sacrifice. But you, O you! who so recklessly +waste all the people's sacrifices, will you volunteer more brains +and less selfishness?</p> + +<p><i>October 18.</i>—And when all the efforts of great men converged to +the re-election and election, Lee converged towards Washington. Be +the people on their guard and warned!</p> + +<p class="quote"><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—The publication of this book has occurred at a culminating + period of annoyances and inconveniences which may possibly have + left traces in the volume now finished. The Author's residence in + Washington—unprecedented delays of the mails—scarcity of + compositors—and beyond all, the confusion from unavoidable + duplication of proofs, have so annoyed the Author, that it is but + just to make this brief explanation and apology.</p> + + +<p class="p4"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a> +<b>Footnote 1:</b> The men who, in the great French revolution, and under +the leadership of Danton and of the municipality of Paris, massacred +the political prisoners in September, 1792, are recorded in history +under the name of <i>Septembriseurs</i>. Louis Napoleon may no less +justly be called the <i>Decembriseur</i>, from that frightful massacre on +the 2nd of December, from which he dates his despotism.<a href="#footnotetag1"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p> + +<p><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a> +<b>Footnote 2:</b> I must here record that Mr. Carlisle, the eminent +lawyer in Washington, although in every respect opposed to my +political and social views, behaved, in this affair, as a thorough +man of honor. I am sorry that on a similar former occasion, not in +Washington, my political friends showed themselves not Carlisles.<a href="#footnotetag2"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Diary from November 12, 1862, to +October 18, 1863, by Adam Gurowski + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + +***** This file should be named 29264-h.htm or 29264-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/6/29264/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 + +Author: Adam Gurowski + +Release Date: June 28, 2009 [EBook #29264] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. +Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all +other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling +has been maintained. + +Page 94: The word "of" has been added in "If the Army of the Potomac".] + + + + +DIARY, + +FROM + +NOVEMBER 18, 1862, TO OCTOBER 18, 1863. + + +BY + +ADAM GUROWSKI. + + + + +VOLUME SECOND. + + + + +NEW-YORK: + +_Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway._ + +MDCCCLXIV. + + + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, + +By GEO. W. CARLETON, + +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern +District of New York. + + + + +Of all the peoples known in history, the American people most +readily forgets YESTERDAY; + +I publish this DIARY in order to recall YESTERDAY to the memory of +my countrymen. + + GUROWSKI. + +WASHINGTON, October, 1863. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + NOVEMBER, 1862. 11 + +Secretary Chase -- French Mediation -- The Decembriseur -- +Diplomatic Bendings. + + + DECEMBER, 1862. 22 + +President's Message -- Political Position -- Fredericksburgh -- Fog +-- Accident -- Crisis in the Cabinet -- Secretary Chase -- Burnside +-- Halleck -- The Butchers -- The Lickspittle Republican Press -- +War Committee Patriots -- Youth -- People -- Ring out. + + + JANUARY, 1863. 61 + +Proclamation -- Parade -- Halleck -- Diplomats -- Herodians -- +Inspired Men -- War Powers -- Rosecrans -- Butler -- Seward -- +Doctores Constitutionis -- Hogarth -- Rhetors -- European Enemies -- +Second Sight -- Senator Wright, the Patriot -- Populus Romanus -- +Future Historian -- English People -- Gen. Mitchel -- Hooker in +Command -- Staffs -- Arming Africo-Americans -- Thurlow Weed, &c. + + + FEBRUARY, 1863. 119 + +The Problems before the People -- The Circassian -- Department of +State and International Laws -- Foresight -- Patriot Stanton and the +Rats -- Honest Conventions -- Sanitary Commission -- Harper's Ferry +-- John Brown -- The Yellow Book -- The Republican Party -- Epitaph +-- Prize Courts -- Suum cuique -- Academy of Sciences -- Democratic +Rank and File, etc. + + + MARCH, 1863. 159 + +Press -- Ethics -- President's Powers -- Seward's Manifestoes -- +Cavalry -- Letters of Marque -- Halleck -- Sigel -- Fighting -- +McDowell -- Schalk -- Hooker -- Etat Major-General -- Gold -- Cloaca +Maxima -- Alliance -- Burnside -- Halleckiana -- Had we but +Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. + + + APRIL, 1863. 182 + +Lord Lyons -- Blue Book -- Diplomats -- Butler -- Franklin -- +Bancroft -- Homunculi -- Fetishism -- Committee on the Conduct of +the War -- Non-intercourse -- Peterhoff -- Sultan's Firman -- Seward +-- Halleck -- Race -- Capua -- Feint -- Letter-writing -- England -- +Russia -- American Revolution -- Renovation -- Women -- Monroe +Doctrine, etc. + + + MAY, 1863. 215 + +Advance -- Crossing -- Chancellorsville -- Hooker -- Staff -- Lee -- +Jackson -- Stunned -- Suggestions -- Meade -- Swinton -- La Fayette +-- Happy Grant -- Rosecrans -- Halleck -- Foote -- Elections -- +Re-elections -- Tracks -- Seward -- 413, etc. + + + JUNE, 1863. 238 + +Banks -- "The Enemy Crippled" -- Count Zeppelin -- Hooker -- Stanton +-- "Give Him a Chance" -- Mr. Lincoln's Looks -- Rappahannock -- +Slaughter -- North Invaded -- "To be Stirred up" -- Blasphemous +Curtin -- Banquetting -- Groping -- Retaliation -- Foote -- Hooker +-- Seward -- Panama -- Chase -- Relieved -- Meade -- Nobody's Fault +-- Staffs, etc. + + + JULY, 1863. 257 + +Eneas -- Anchises -- General Warren -- Aldie -- General Pleasanton +-- Superior Mettle -- Gettysburgh -- Cholera Morbus -- Vicksburgh -- +Army of Heroes -- Apotheosis -- "Not Name the Generals" -- Indian +Warfare -- Politicians -- Spittoons -- Riots -- Council of War -- +Lords and Lordlings -- Williamsport -- Shame -- Wadsworth -- "To +meet the Empress Eugenie," etc. + + + AUGUST, 1863. 286 + +Stanton -- Twenty Thousand -- Canadians -- Peterhoff -- Coffey -- +Initiation -- Electioneering -- Reports -- Grant -- McClellan -- +Belligerent Rights -- Menagerie -- Watson -- Jury -- Democrats -- +Bristles -- "Where is Stanton?" -- "Fight the Monster" -- Chasiana +-- Luminaries -- Ballistic -- Political Economy, etc. + + + SEPTEMBER, 1863. 310 + +Jeff Davis -- Incubuerunt -- O, Youth! -- Lucubrations -- Genuine +Europe -- It is Forgotten -- Fremont -- Prof. Draper -- New Yorkers +-- Senator Sumner's Gauntlet -- Prince Gortschakoff -- Governor +Andrew -- New Englanders -- Re-elections -- Loyalty -- Cruizers -- +Matamoras -- Hurrah for Lincoln -- Rosecrans -- Strategy -- Sabine +Pass, etc. + + + OCTOBER, 1863. 338 + +Aghast -- Firing -- Supported -- Russian Fleet -- Opposition -- Amor +scelerated -- Cautious -- Mastiffs -- _Grande Guerre_ -- Manoeuvring +-- Tambour battant -- Warning, etc. + + + + +DIARY. + + + + +NOVEMBER, 1862. + + Secretary Chase -- French Mediation -- the Decembriseur -- + Diplomatic Bendings. + + +_November 18._--In the street a soldier offered to sell me the pay +already several months overdue to him. As I could not help him, as +gladly I would have done, being poor, he sold it to a curb-stone +broker, a street note-shaver. I need not say that the poor soldier +sustained a loss of twenty-five per cent. by the operation! He +wanted to send the money home to his poor wife and children; yet one +fourth of it was thus given into the hands of a stay-at-home +speculator. Alas, for me! I could not save the poor fellow from the +remorseless shaver, but I could and did join him in a very energetic +cursing of Chase, that at once pompous and passive patriot. + +This induced me to enter upon a further and more particular +investigation, and I found that hundreds of similar cases were of +almost daily occurrence; and that this cheating of the soldiers out +of their nobly and patriotically earned pay, may quite fairly be +denounced as rather the rule than as the exception. The army is +unpaid! Unspeakable infamy! Before,--long before the intellectually +poor occupant of the White House, long before _any_ civil employe, +big or little, the ARMY ought to be paid. Common humanity, common +sense, and sound policy affirm this; and common decency, to say +nothing about chivalric feelings, adds that when paymasters are sent +to the army at all, their first payments should be made to the rank +and file; the generals and their subordinate officers to be paid, +not before, but afterwards. Oh! for the Congress, for the Congress +to meet once again! My hope is in the Congress, to resist, and +sternly put an end to, such heaven-defying and man-torturing +injustice as now braves the curses of outraged men, and the anger of +God. How this pompous Chase disappoints every one, even those who at +first were inclined to be even weakly credulous and hopeful of his +official career. And why is Stanton silent? He ought to roar. As for +Lincoln--he, ah! * * * * The curses of all the books of all the +prophets be upon the culprits who have thus compelled our gallant +and patriotic soldiery to mingle their tears with their own blood +and the blood of the enemy! + +_Nov. 18._--Again Seward assures Lord Lyons that the national +troubles will soon be over, and that the general affairs of the +country "stand where he wanted them." Seward's crew circulate in the +most positive terms, that the country will be pacified by the State +Department! England, moved by the State papers and official +notes--England, officially and non-officially, will stop the +iron-clads, built and launched in English ports and harbors for the +use of the rebels, and for the annoyance and injury of the United +States. England, these Americans say, England, no doubt, has said +some hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherous +actions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influence of +Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly +irresistible. How the wily Palmerston must chuckle in Downing +Street. + +The difference between Seward and a real statesman, is this: that a +statesman is always, and very wisely, chary about committing himself +in writing, and only does it when compelled by absolutely +irresistible circumstances, or by temptations brilliant enough to +overrule all other considerations; for, such a statesman never for +one moment forgets or disregards the old adage which saith that +"_Verba volant, scripta manent_." But Seward, on the contrary, +literally revels in a flood of ink, and fancies that the more he +writes, the greater statesman he becomes. + +At the beginning of this month, I wrote to the French minister, M. +Mercier, a friendly and respectful note, warning him against +meddling with politicians and busybodies. I told him that, before he +could even suspect it, such men would bring his name before the +public in a way neither pleasant nor profitable to him. M. Mercier +took it in good part, and cordially thanked me for my advice. + +_Nov. 19._--Burnside means well, and has a good heart; but something +more is required to make a capable captain, more especially in such +times as those in which we are living. It is said that his staff is +well organized; God be praised for that, if it really is so. In that +case, Burnside will be the first among the loudly-lauded and +self-conceited West-Point men, forcibly to impress both the military +and the civilian mind in America, with a wholesome consciousness of +the paramount importance to an army of a thoroughly competent and +trustworthy staff. + +The division of the army into three grand corps is good; it is at +once wise and well-timed, following the example set by Napoleon, +when he invaded Russia in 1812. If his subordinate generals will but +do well, I have entire confidence in Hooker. He is the man for the +time and for the place. As a fighting man, Sumner is fully and +unquestionably reliable; but I have my doubts about Franklin. He is +cold, calculating, and ambitious, and he has the especially bad +quality of being addicted to the alternate blowing of hot and cold. +Burnside did a good thing in confiding to General Siegel a separate +command. + +The _New York Times_ begins to mend its bad ways; but how long will +it continue in the better path? + +_Nov. 20._--England stirs up and backs up rebellion and disunion +here; but, in Europe, for the sake of the unity of barbarism, +Islamism, and Turkey, England throttles, and manacles, and lays +prostrate beneath the feet of the Osmanli, the Greeks, the Sclavi, +the heroic Montenegrins. England is the very incarnation of a +treachery and a perfidy previously unexampled in the history of the +world. The _Punica fides_, so fiercely denounced and so bitterly +satirized by the historians and poets of old Rome, was truthful if +compared to the _Fides Anglica_ of our own day. + +_Nov. 22._--Our army seems to be massed so as to be able to wedge +itself in between Jackson in the valley and Lee at Gordonsville. By +a bold manoeuvre, each of them could be separately attacked, and, I +firmly believe, destroyed. But, unfortunately, boldness and +manoeuvre, that highest gift, that supreme inspiration of the +consummate captain, have no abiding place in the bemuddled brains of +the West-Pointers, who are a dead weight and drag-chain upon the +victimised and humiliated Army of the Potomac. + +_Nov. 25._--The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towards +Fredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seems +to be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask our +movements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, if +preferable, what is to hinder the interposition of _un rideau +vivant_, a _living curtain_, in the form of a false attack, a feint +in considerable force, behind which the whole army might be securely +thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least two days' march +would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on the direct line +for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to be the base for +future operations. In this way, the army would have marched against +Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or, supposing those plans +to be rejected, why not throw a whole army corps at once, say 40,000 +to 50,000 strong, across the Rappahannock. On either plan, I repeat +it, at least two days' march would have been stolen upon Lee; three +or four days of forced marches would have been healthy for our army, +and a bloodless victory would have been obtained by the taking of +the seemingly undefended Fredericksburg. A dense cloud enveloped +this whole enterprise, and it is not even improbable, that the +campaign may become a dead failure even before it has accomplished +the half of its projected and loudly vaunted course. But bold +conceptions, and energetic movements to match them, are just about +as possible to Halleck or Burnside as railroad speed to the tedious +tortoise. + +_Nov. 25._--Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. He offers +his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moral support to +the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That +_Decembriseur_.[1] Our military slowness, if nothing else is the +matter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, and +Seward's lying and all-confusing foreign policy have encouraged +foreign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all along +anticipated them as an at least very possible result of the above +mentioned causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I +scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same +impertinent French action may prove a second French _faux pas_, to +follow in the wake of the first and very egregious _faux pas_ in +Mexico. The best that we can say for the _Decembriseur_ is, that he +is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and +atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the +Tuileries. My, Russia--ah! I am very confident of that--will refuse +to join in the dirty and treacherous conspiracy for the +preservation of slavery. Well for mediation. But Mr. _Decembriseur_, +what think you and your diplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what +determination do you and they form as to the terms and the +termination, too, of your diabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your +shilly-shally generalities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a +commercial union, this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let +us in all plainness of speech know what it is that you really and +positively intend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of +your imperial proposition. + + [Footnote 1: The men who, in the great French revolution, + and under the leadership of Danton and of the municipality + of Paris, massacred the political prisoners in September, + 1792, are recorded in history under the name of + _Septembriseurs_. Louis Napoleon may no less justly be + called the _Decembriseur_, from that frightful massacre on + the 2nd of December, from which he dates his despotism.] + +_Nov. 27._--Lee, with his army, marches or marched on the south side +of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on the north +side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly follows. They +are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, but stern; +still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that Burnside may +be successful, and that I may prove to have been a false prophet. +But the great _Fatum_, FATE, seems to declare against Burnside, and +Fate generally takes sides with bold conceptions and their energetic +execution. + +_Nov. 28._--The French despatch-scheme reads very like a Washington +concoction, and does not at all bear the marks of Parisian origin. I +find in it whole phrases which, for months past, I have repeatedly +heard from the French minister here. Perhaps Mr. Mercier, in his +turn, may have caught many of Mr. Seward's much-cherished +generalities, unintelligible, very probably, even to himself, and +quite certainly so to every one but himself. Perhaps, I say, Mr. +Mercier may have caught up some of them, and making them up at +hap-hazard into a _macedoine_, a hash, a hotch-potch, has served up +the second-hand and heterogeneous mess to his master in Paris. The +despatch expresses the fear of a servile war; this may very well +have been copied from Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, (May, +1862,) wherein Seward attempted to frighten England by a prophecy of +a servile war in this country. + +_Nov. 30._--Mr. Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the +French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme +corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the +raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, +(see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and +repeatedly warned Stanton. + +_Nov. 30._--Mercier, the French diplomat, rapidly gravitates towards +the Copperheads--Democrats. Is he acting thus _in obedience to +orders_? After all, some of the diplomats here, and especially those +of what call themselves the "three great powers," almost openly +sympathize and side with secessionists, and patronize Copperheads, +traitors, and spies. The exceptions to this rule are but few; +strictly speaking, indeed, I should except only one young man. Some +diplomats justify this conduct on the plea that the Republican +Congressmen are "great bores," who will not play at cards, or dine +and drink copiously; accomplishments in which the Secesh was so +pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic +heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its +representatives for thus incurring the contempt of dissipated +diplomats. + +Some persons maintain that Stanton breaks down, perhaps that he +suffers, physically as well as mentally, from his necessitated +contact with his official colleagues and his and their persistent, +inevitable and inexorable hangers-on and supplicants. I do not +perceive the alleged failure of his health or powers, and I do not +believe it; but assuredly, it were no marvel if such really were the +case. It must be an adamantine constitution and temper that could +long bear with impunity the daily contact with a Lincoln, a Seward, +a Halleck, and others less noted, indeed, but not the less +contagious. + + + + +DECEMBER, 1862 + + President's Message -- Political position -- Fredericksburgh -- + Fog -- Accident -- Crisis in the Cabinet -- Secretary Chase -- + Burnside -- Halleck -- the Butchers -- The Lickspittle Republican + Press -- War Committee patriots -- Youth -- People -- Ring out. + + +Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and +the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that +it is _impossible_ to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course +it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan +and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and +the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of +THE PEOPLE left to itself, it would be very _possible_ and even +quite easily _possible_. + +The message is written with an eye turned towards the Democrats; +they are to be satisfied with the prospect of a convention. Seward +puts lies into Lincoln's pen, in relation to foreign nations. But +all is well, in the judgment of our _Great Statesmen_. Even the poor +logic is, according to them, quite admirable. + +Contrariwise, Stanton's report corresponds to the height and the +gravity of events, and is worthy alike of the writer, and of the +people to whom it is addressed. + +_Dec. 6._--Nearly four weeks the campaign has been opened; the enemy +adds fortifications to fortifications before the very eyes of our +army, yet nothing has been done towards preventing the rebels from +working upon the formidable strongholds. + +Does Halleck-Burnside intend to wait until the rebels shall be +thoroughly prepared to repel any attack that may be made upon them? +Either there is foul play going on, or there is stupendous +stupidity pervading the entire management. But no one sees it, or +rather few, if any, wish to see it. Stanton, I am quite sure, has +nothing to do with the special plans of this enterprise. All is +planned and ruled by Lincoln, Halleck and Burnside. + +_Dec. 7._--The political situation to-day, may be summarily stated +as follows: the Republicans are confused by recent electoral +defeats, and by the administrative and governmental helplessness, as +exhibited every day by their leaders; the Democrats, flushed with +success, display an unusual activity in evil doing, and are risking +everything to preserve Slavery and the South from destruction. I +speak of the Simon-pure Democrats, _alias_ Copperheads, such as the +Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the Coxes, the Biddles, &c. +The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a compromise. The masses of +the people, staggered by all this bewildering turmoil and impure +factiousness, are nevertheless, stubbornly determined to persevere +and to succeed in saving their country. + +_Dec. 7._--The European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether +in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of +our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have +decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards +preventing this noble American people from working out its mighty +and beneficent destinies, and from elaborating and making more +glorious than ever its own already very glorious history. As well +might the brainless and heartless conspirators against human +progress and human liberty endeavor to arrest the rotation of a +planet by the stroke of a pickaxe. + +Ah! Mr. _Decembriseur_, with your base crew of lickspittles, your +pigmy, though treacherous efforts, even contending with those of the +English enemies of light, and of right, your common hatred of +Freedom and Freemen will end in being the destruction of yourself. + +_Dec. 7._--Burnside complains of the manner in which he is +victimised, and explains his inactivity by the fact that the War +Department neglected to furnish him with the necessary pontoons. +How, in fact, was Burnside to move a great army without pontoons? +But it was the duty of Halleck, and his lazy or incompetent, or +traitorous staff, to have seen to the sending on of the pontoons. +However, supposing Burnside and _his_ staff to have as much wit as +an average twelve-year-old school boy, they could have found in the +army not merely hundreds, but even thousands of proficient workmen +in a variety of mechanical trades, who would have constructed on the +spot, and at the shortest notice, any number of bridges, pontoons, +&c. Oh, how little are those wiseacre generals, the conceited and +swaggering West Pointers; oh, how very little, if at all are they +aware of the inexhaustible ingenuity and resources, the marvelous +skill and power of such intelligent masses as those of which they +are the unintelligent, the unsympathising and the thoroughly +unblessed leaders! + +On a Sunday, exactly four weeks back from the day which I wrote +these lines, McClellan was dismissed, and was succeeded by Burnside. +But, after the established McClellan fashion, the great, great army +was marched 30 to 50 miles, and then halts for weeks up to its knees +in mud, and occupies itself in throwing up earthworks. And this is +called making War! and the Hallecks are great men in the sight of +Abraham Lincoln, and of all who profess and call themselves +Lincolnites, and the rest stand around wondering and agape: + + _Conticuere omnes intentique ora (asinina) tenebant._ + +Stanton's magnificent report states that there are about 700,000 men +under arms; yet this tremendous force is paralysed by the inactivity +of most of the generals; those in the West, however, forming a +bright and truly honorable exception. But, to be candid, how can +activity and dash be expected from generals who have at their head, +a shallow brained pedant like Halleck? Napoleon had about 500,000 +men, when, in between four and five months, he marched from the +Rhine to Moscow. Yet he had the aid of no railroad, on land, no +steam, that practical annihilator of distance, no electric +telegraph, with which to be in all but instantaneous communication +with his distant generals, and had not similar material resources. + +_Dec. 10._--Mr. Seward's long correspondence with Mr. Adams shows to +Europe that Mr. Seward imitated the rebels, and tried to frighten +England with the bugbear of King Cotton; and also that he has no +solid and abiding convictions whatever. Now, he preaches +emancipation, yet, at the beginning of his _great_ diplomatic +activity, he openly sided with slavery; aye, he is still willing to +save it for the sake of the Union, and, above all, and before all, +for his own chances for the next Presidency. + +_Dec. 10._--Burnside has finally crossed the Rappahannock. Of course +I do not know the respective positions. But I am sure that if the +rebels have not a perfectly enormous advantage of position, and if +the leading of the generals be worthy of the courage of their men, +the victory must be ours. Oh! were all our generals Hookers, and not +Burnsides! + +General McDowell's Court of Inquiry produces some strange revelations. +The inquiry will not end in making a thorough general of McDowell. He +may have been somewhat unfortunate, no doubt; but his want of good +fortune was at least equalled by his want of good generalship. I, and +many others besides, were quite mistaken in our early estimate of +McDowell. He should not so easily have swallowed the second Bull Run. +He should at least have been wounded, if only ever so slightly; his +best friends must wish that. But to be defeated, and come out without +even a scratch! What a digestion the man must have for the hardest +kinds of humiliation! But neither the President nor that curse of the +country, McClellan, has great reason to plume himself much upon his +share in the revelations that are made in the course of this Inquiry. +McDowell himself seems to have been intended, by nature for a scheming +and adroit politician. * * * * + +_Dec. 10._--The Congress feels the ground, hesitates, and apparently +lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even +such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well! +The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional +cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional +digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of political +faithlessness. + +I have only now discovered certain of the reasons why the Battle of +Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no _ensemble_ and such +marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line +many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on +the wing opposed to Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and centre of +the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is generalship! +The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so mischievous, +attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The victory, such as +it was, was due to the subordinate generals, and to the heroic +bravery of the rank and file of the army. + +When Burnside was invested with the command of the Army of the +Potomac, he for nearly twenty-four hours retained McClellan in camp, +with the intention of returning the command of the army to him if +the rebels had attacked, as it was expected they would, during +Sunday and Monday. + +_Dec. 13._--Night. Fight at Fredericksburgh. No news. O God! + +_Dec. 14._--As the consequence of Halleck-Burnside's slowness, our +troops storm positions which are said to be impregnable by nature, +and still farther strengthened by artificial works. + +The President is even worse than I had imagined him to be. He has no +earnestness, but is altogether in the hands of Seward and Halleck. +He cannot, even in this supreme crisis, be earnest and serious for +half an hour. Such was the severe but terribly true verdict passed +upon him by Fessenden of Maine. + +_Dec. 15._--Slaughter and infamy! Slaughter of our troops who fought +like Titans, though handled in a style to reflect nothing but infamy +upon their commanders. When the rebel works had become impregnable, +then, but not until then, our troops were hurled against them! The +flower of the army has thus been butchered by the surpassing stupidity +of its commanders. The details of that slaughter, and of the +imbecility displayed by our officers in high command,--those details, +when published, will be horrible. The Lincoln-Seward-Halleck-influence +gave Burnside the command because he was to take care of the army. And +how Burnside has fulfilled their expectations! It seems that the best +way to take care of an army is to make it victorious. + +My brave and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two +sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery +was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and +most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast +of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence to say--"Wadsworth +may go wherever he pleases, even if he pleases to go to Hell!" + +Hell itself, would be too good a place for Halleck; imbeciles are +not admitted there! + +_Dec. 17._--The details are coming in. The disaster of our army is +terrible--indescribable; the heroic people bleeds, bleeds! And all +this calamity and all this suffering and humiliation, are brought on +by the stupidity of Burnside and Halleck, or both of them. The curse +of the people ought to rest for centuries upon the very names of the +authors of such frightful disaster. They are fiends, yea, worse, +even, than the very fiends themselves. + +Why, even the very rabble in Constantinople would storm the seraglio +after such a massacre. But here--oh, here, it just reminds Mr. +Lincoln of a little anecdote. + +_Dec. 17._--I meet with but few such as Wade, Grimes, Chandler and +other radicals in both Houses of Congress, who seem to feel all the +heart burning and bitterness of soul at this awful Fredericksburgh +disaster. The real criminals, those who ought, in the agonies of a +great shame, call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them +not, blush not, sorrow not. + +In many of the general public, I have no doubt that the feeling of +shame and sympathy, are blunted by these repeated military +calamities, and by Mr. Lincoln's undaunted i.......... + + * * * * * and men, + Have wept enough, for what? To weep, + To weep again. + +_Dec. 17._--About ten days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to +Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means +Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and +immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is +always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward +the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some +of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward +from playing either the prophet or the fool. + +Burnside took care of the army, no doubt, but it was of the rebel +army. Our soldiers have been brought by him to the block, to an easy +slaughter, he himself being some few miles in the rear, and having +between him the river, and the intervening miles of land. All this, +however, was according to the regulations, and on the most approved +Halleck-McClellan fashion of fighting great battles. + +_Dec. 18._--The disaster was inaugurated by the shelling of +Fredericksburgh. One hundred and forty-seven (147!) guns playing +upon a few houses. It was the play of a maddened child, exhibiting +in equal proportions, reckless ferocity and egregious stupidity; and +it is difficult to find one dyslogistic term which will adequately +describe and condemn it. + +From what I can already gather of the details of the attack, it may +be peremptorily concluded that Burnside, Sumner, and above all, +Franklin, are utterly incompetent of a skillful and effective +handling of great masses of troops. They attacked by brigades, +positions so formidable, that if they could possibly be carried by +any exertion of human skill and strength, they could only be carried +by large masses impetuously hurled against them. Franklin seems +especially to have acted ill in not at once throwing in 10,000 men +to be followed rapidly and again and again by 10,000 more. In that +wise and only in that wise, he might possibly have broken and turned +the enemy, and thrown him on his own centre. It is said that +Franklin had 60,000. If so, he could easily have risked some 20,000 +in the first onslaught. Sixty thousand! Great God! Why, it is an +army in itself, in the hands of a general at all deserving of that +name. If those great West Pointers had only even the slightest idea +of military history! More battles have been fought and won with +60,000 men, and with fewer still, than with larger numbers, and at +Fredericksburgh Franklin's force formed only a wing against an enemy +whose whole army could number but little more than 60,000. I want +the reports with the full and positive details. + +The clear-sighted and warlike TRIBUNE discovered in Burnside high, +brilliant, and soldier-like qualities--admirably borne out and +illustrated no doubt, by the Fredericksburgh butchery! To the +hospital of imbeciles with all such imbeciles! + +The _Times_ was manly in its appreciation, and flunkeyed to no one +under hand, that is, confidentially and for newspaper publication. + +Mr. Seward reveals to the world at large, that, besides his volume +of 700 pages, containing the last diplomatic correspondence, he has +still an equal number of masterpieces as yet not published. What a +dreadful dysentery of despatch-writing the poor man and his still +more afflicted readers must labor under. + +The Lincoln-Seward policy, has rebuilt the awful Democratic party, +which was broken up, prostrated in the dust. Lincoln--Seward--Weed, +partially emasculated the Republican party, and may even emasculate +the thus far thoroughly virile and devoted patriotism of the people. + +A helpless imbecile in the hands of a cunning and selfish and +ruthless charlatan, is the sight that daily meets our eyes in +Washington. + +General Bayard, one of the slaughtered at Fredericksburgh, was a +true Bayard of the army, and one of the very few West Pointers free +from conceit, that corrosive and terribly prevalent malady of the +West Point clique. + +_Dec. 18._--Senators waking up to their duties, and to the +consciousness of their power. These patriots have said to Seward, +_Averte Sathanas_, and overboard he goes, after having done as much +evil as only _he_ could do. + +The most contradictory rumors are in circulation about Stanton. I +cannot find out the truth. I do not believe all that is said, but it +is necessary to put the rumors on record. It is said then, that +Stanton stands up for the butchers and asses in the army and in his +department. I believe that in all this, there is not a single word +of truth; but if it were true, then I should say, Stanton is ruined +by bad company, and down with him and with them! + +_Quoniam sic Fata tulerunt._ But worthy Senators and +Representatives, believe still in Stanton, and so do I; only the +Seward-Blair-McClellan clique tears Stanton's reputation to pieces. +Stanton seems to be, in some measure, infatuated with Halleck, who, +perhaps, humbugs Stanton with military technicalities, which Halleck +so well knows how to pass current for military science. + +_Dec. 20._--The American generals, at least those in the Army of the +Potomac, for the sake of shirking responsibility, maintain that +when once in line of battle, they must rigidly abide by the orders +given to them. No doubt, such is the military law and rule, but it +is susceptible of exceptions. The generals of the Potomac shun the +exceptions, and thus deprive their action of all spontaneity. +Perhaps, indeed, spontaneity of action is not among their military +gifts. Thus we have from them, none of those _coups d'eclat_, those +sudden, brilliant, and impetuously improvised dashes, which so often +decide the fate of the day, and turn imminent defeat and partial +panic into glorious and crowning victory. We find none such, if we +except some actions of Hooker and Kearney, on a small scale, and at +the beginning of the campaign in the Chickahominy, or the Peninsula. +The most celebrated _coups d'eclat_ in general military history, +have mostly been, so to speak, the children of inspiration, seizing +Time by the forelock,--thus using opportunity which sometimes exists +but for a few minutes, and thus a doubtful struggle terminates in a +brilliant success. At such critical moments, the commander of a +wing, or a corps, nay, even a division, ought to have the courage, +the lofty self-abnegation, and firm confidence in his star or good +luck, and still more in the enduring pluck of his men, and boldly +strike for the accomplishment of that which the "Orders" have not +mentioned or foreseen. Such a general acts on his own inspiration, +and at the same time reports to the Commander-in-Chief, what he has +determined upon. If instead of acting thus promptly, he sends and +waits for further orders, the auspicious opportunity may pass away; +the decisive moments in a battle are very rapid, and a single hour +lost, loses the day, or reduces the results of a victory. + +I respectfully submit these undeniable but much disregarded truths +to the Hallecks, McClellans, McDowells, and other great West +Pointers. + +_Dec. 20._--The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and +more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have +very much elongated countenances. + +_Dec. 21._--Senator Wilson has learned from Halleck, Burnside, and +from some other and similarly _great_ captains, that the affair of +Fredericksburgh, and the recrossing of the river, brilliantly +compares with the countermarchings of Wagram, and with that +celebrated crossing of the Danube. As there is not, in reality, a +single point of similitude, the comparison is well selected, and +does great honor to the judgment of the military wiseacres. At all +events, never was the memory of a Napoleon, a Massena, or a Davoust, +more ignominiously desecrated than by this comparison. + +_Dec. 22._--So, then, Sathanas Seward remains, and Mr. Lincoln +scorns the advice of the wisest and most patriotic Senators. To be +snubbed by Lincoln and Seward, is the greatest of all possible +humiliations. Border-state politicians, Harrises, Brownings and +other etceteras of grain, are the confidential advisers. Political +manhood is utterly, and to all seeming, irretrievably lost. + +Stanton still holds with Seward. _Embrassons nous, et que cela +finisse._ + +How brilliantly do even the very basest times of any government +whatever, Parliamentary, royal or despotic, compare with what I now +daily see here in the capital of the great republic! + +Since the earliest existence of political parties, rarely, if ever, +has a party been in such a difficult, and, at times, even disgraceful +position, as that of the patriots of both houses of Congress. Against +the combined attacks of all stripes of traitors, such as ultra +Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Copperheads and pure and impure +Democrats, the patriots must defend an administration which they +themselves condemn, and with the personnel of which, (Stanton and +Wells excepted,) they have no sympathy and no identity of ideas. They +must defend an administration which opposes even measures which they, +the patriots, demand,--an administration which, in the recent +elections, either betrayed or disgraced the whole party, and which +brought into suspicion, if not into actual contempt, the name, nay, +even the principles of the Republicans. And thus the patriots have the +dead weight to support, and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded +and shallow Republican press, has no comprehension of the difficulty +of the position in which the patriots are placed; and that press, +being in various ways connected with the administration, rarely, if +ever, supports the patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best +and noblest efforts. Thus, in the move against Seward, and for a +reform in the Cabinet, the enlightened and patriotic Republican press +of New York, was either persistently mute or hostile to the movement. +Every day I am the more firmly convinced that Seward is the great +stumbling block alike to Mr. Lincoln and the country at large. + +_Dec, 22._--Utterly incapable as is McClellan, and absolutely +unfitted by nature to be a great captain as is Burnside, yet I think +it quite clear that neither of them would have blundered quite so +terribly if he had been provided with a really competent, zealous +and faithful staff, as the generals of continental Europe invariably +are. But it seems that here, neither the generals nor the government +even desire to understand the true nature, duty, and value of the +staff of an army, or what the chief of such a staff ought to know +and ought to do. What, in fact, can we at all reasonably expect from +a Halleck! After all, however, and shallow as are his brains, this +mock Carnot must have read books on military science; and yet he has +not learned either the use or the composition of a staff for an +army! Had he done so, he would have organized a staff for himself, +and one for each of the commanders in the field. It is true that in +this country there is no school of staffs, and West Pointers are +generally ignorant on that point. Nevertheless, with a little good +will and care, it would be easy enough to find intelligent officers +of all grades fit for staff duties as arranged for staff officers in +Europe. But then, the necessary good will and good judgment are +wanting in the head of this military organization. And this Halleck, +this Halleck is a mere mockery, a mere sciolist, a shallow pretender +to military science. He may have the capacity to translate a book, +but nothing of all that he translates effects any hold upon his +brain, or he would, long before now, have done something towards +organising the army. A general inspector is the first necessity. +Then establish the necessary proportions of each arm of the service, +_i. e._, of infantry, cavalry and artillery for each division. Then +organise the cavalry as a body. When you do this, or even a +considerable part of all this, oh, sham-Carnot, Halleck! then your +chance to be considered a military authority will be established. +Oh, science, oh, insulted science! How desecrated is thy name in the +high places here, and especially on the right and left of the White +House. And oh! you really great and intelligent American PEOPLE, how +ignominiously you are cheated of your blood, your time, your money, +and most of all, of your so recently magnificent national +reputation! + +What your military wiseacres show you as an organized army, would +actually thrill, as with the death-shudder, any European military +organizer. + +_Dec. 23._--I learn that the day following the butchery at +Fredericksburgh, Burnside wished to renew the attack. What madness! +The generals protested, and Burnside, greatly exasperated, declared +that at the head of his former corps, the 9th, he would himself +storm the miniature Torres Vedras. If all this is true, then +Burnside is weaker headed than I had judged him to be; but I will +not do him the injustice to say that he really intended to play a +mere farce. What, in the name of common sense, could he do with a +single corps, when the whole army was repulsed? + +I am warned by a friend, that the Army of the Potomac is so infected +with McClellanism, that is to say, by presumption, intriguing, envy +and misconception of what is true generalship,--that the army must +undergo the process of strong purification, fumigation, pruning and +weeding, (and especially among the higher branches,) before it can +ever again be made truly useful and reliable. + +_Dec. 22._--Burnside's report. I am sure that the great luminaries +of the press, and the declaimers, the intriguants and the imbeciles, +will be thrown into fits of ecstatic admiration of what they will +call the manly and straight-forward conduct of Burnside in assuming +the responsibility and confessing his own fault. But what else could +he do? And if he acted thus in obedience to the orders of Halleck, +then instead of manliness, his conduct is almost treasonable towards +the people, for in withholding the truth as to the orders given by +Halleck, he gives that incarnation of calamity the power to repeat +the butchery and ensure the ill success of our armies. + +The report is altogether unsoldierly; it is fussy and inflated; a +full blown specimen of the pompously inane. How can Burnside venture +to say that after the repulse, during three days he expected the +enemy to leave his stronghold and attack him--Burnside? The rebels +never did anything to justify such a supposition. They are neither +idiots nor madmen, and only from a McClellan, or some bright pupils +of the McClellan school, could such imbecility, such gratuitously +ruinous playing into the hands of an enemy be expected. A commander +ought to be on the watch for any mistake that his antagonist may +commit, but he is not justified in setting that antagonist down as +an ass. For two days the army was unnecessarily kept under the guns +of the enemy, that is the truth, and I will make the truth known, no +matter who may try to conceal it. Here, for the present, I stop in +sheer and uncontrollable disgust. By and by, however, I will return +to the consideration of this report. + +Oh! American people! In so very many respects, truly great people! +Far, very far beyond my poor powers of expression are the great love +and veneration with which ever and always I look upon you. But allow +me, pray allow me to use the frank familiarity of a true friend, so +far as just plainly to tell you, that even I, your sincere friend, +should love you none the less, and certainly should hold you in all +the greater reverence, were you not quite so ultra-favorable in +judgment of your civil and military rulers and pastors and masters +and nincompoops generally! + +Further back in this diary, I termed Mr. Secretary Chase a _passive +patriot_. _Peccavi._ And here let me write down my recantation! +Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet, +and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel +Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official +assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the +present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than +any other living man in daily, hourly, _all the time_, denunciation +of Seward,--of course, behind Seward's back! Several insoluble +problems, no doubt, there are; but there is not one thing, physical +or not physical, which so completely defies any comprehension and +baffles my most persistent inquiry, as just this. + +How, unless Chase has drank of the waters of Lethe, how can he +possibly look, now, in the face of, for instance, Fessenden of +Maine, to whom he has said so many bitter things against the now +belauded "Secretary Seward!" Bah! Chase most certainly must have a +forty-or-fifty-diplomatist power of commanding--literally and not +slangishly be it spoken!--his _cheek_, if, without burning blushes +he can look in the face of Fessenden, Sumner or any honest man and +say,--"I admire and I support Secretary Seward!" God! If all who, +during the last two years, have come into contact with Chase, would +but come forward and speak out! In that case, thousands would stand +forth, a "cloud of witnesses," to confirm this statement. Chase! +Faugh! I hereby brand him, and leave him to the bitter judgment of +all men who can conscientiously claim to be even _half honest_. + +In merest and barest justice to Seward, greatly as I disapprove of +his general course, I must here note the fact that he is by no means +addicted to evil speaking about any one. Not that this reticence +proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward, +however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one +who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or +to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but, +in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially +civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste +ammunition upon worthless game. + +_Dec. 23._--Why could not Mr. Lincoln choose for his Secretary of +State some man who has a holy and wholesome horror of pen, ink, and +paper? Some man gifted with a sound brain, who never is quick at +writing a dispatch, and would demand double salary as the price of +writing one? Oh! Mr. Lincoln, had you but done this, not only would +all America, but all Europe also be truly thankful for great +immunity from the curse of morbid attempts at diplomacy and +statesmanship. + +_Dec. 23._--Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For +heaven's sake let us know, pray, _pray_ let us know who was +Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is +defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has +prevented victory." _What_ accident? Let the country know the +precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and +place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a +deep, dense terribly foul fog--in the _cerebellum_! Is that the +_accident_ of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks? +Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the +recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled +military achievements. + +Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at +Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers gave far other and nobler +proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere +crossing and recrossing of a river. + +The _Tribune_ is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's +unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors +of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of +immortal Waterloo! The _Tribune_ lauds the crossing and the +recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and +Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles +extensively about _comparative_ losses. Comparative to what? Oh! +spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, +veil your blushing brows! And the _Tribune_ dares to make this +impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same +time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent." + +But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what? +To those of the enemy? What knows he about them? + +_Dec. 24._--Crisis in the Seward cabinet. The "little Villain" of +the _Times_, repeated what he did after the first "Bull Run." But he +did not now confess to his dining with Seward, as formerly he did +with the great "anaconda Scott!" The New York Republican press is +attracted to Seward by natural affinity of election. Seward, +however, holds the honey pot, and the flies are all eager to dip +into it. + +I wish, yet dread to hear the exact particulars of Stanton's +behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, _very_ +painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have +too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become +accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What +man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the +surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain will be +followed by permanent relief? + +At the public dinner of "The New England Society," John Van Buren +nominated McClellan for next President, and proposed the health of +Secretary Seward. _Oh! quam pulchra societas!_ + +I am charged with being "dissatisfied with every thing, and abusing +every body." The charge is unjust. I speak most lovingly and in most +sincere admiration of the millions, of the great, toiling, brave, +honest People, and of the hundreds of thousands of the gallant +people-militant--the army! But I _do_ censure some thirty or forty +individuals who dispense favors and appoint to fat offices, and, +quite naturally, every dirty-souled lickspittle is indignant against +me therefor! The blame of such people is far preferable to their +praise! + +I am rejoiced, I am almost proud that Hooker insisted upon crossing +the Rappahannock, and marching to Fredericksburgh, and that he +opposed the subsequent attack. + +But of what benefit to me is this fatal, this Cassandra gift of +foreseeing? Alas! Better, happier would it be for me could I not +have foreseen and vainly, all vainly foretold, the terrible butchery +of a brave people during two long and fatal years! + +_Dec. 24._--It is impossible to keep cool while reading Burnside's +report. Once more this report justifies and corroborates Prince +Napoleon's judgment on American generals, _i. e._, that their plan +of campaigns will always be deficient in practice, like the +theoretical war-exercises of schoolboys. From this sweeping and +terribly true charge, however, we must except the Grants and +the--alas! how few!--Rosecranses. + +The report says, "but for the fog," etc. All lost battles in the +world had for cause some _buts_--except the genuine _but_--in the +brains of the commander. + +"How near we came to accomplishing," etc.--is only a repetition of +what, _ad nauseam_, is recorded by history as lamentations of +defeated generals. + +"The battle would have been far more decisive." Of course it would +have been so, if--won. + +"As it was, we were very near success," etc. So the man who takes +the chance in the lottery. He has No. 4, and No. 3 wins the prize. + +The apostrophe to the heroism of the soldiers is sickly and pale. +The heroism of the soldiers! It is as brilliant, as pure, and as +certain as the sun. + +The attack was planned, (see paragraph 2 of the report,) on the +circumstance or supposition that the enemy extended too much his +line, and thus scattered his forces. But in paragraph 4, Burnside +stated that the fog, (O, fog!) etc., gave the enemy twenty-four +hours' time to concentrate his forces in his strong positions--when +the calculation based on the enemy's _division of forces_ failed, +and the attack lost all the chances considered propitious. + +The whole plan had for its basis probabilities and +impossibilities--schoolroom speculations--instead of being, as it +ought to have been, as every plan of a battle should be, based on +the chances of the _terrain_, by the position of the enemy, and +other conditions, almost wholly depending upon which the armies +operate. It is natural that martial Hooker objected to it. + +Oh! could I have blood, blood, blood, instead of ink! + +Constructing the bridge over the Rappahannock, our engineers were +killed in scores by the sharp-shooters of the enemy. Malediction on +those imbecile staffs! The _A B C_ of warfare, and of sound common +sense teach, that such works are to be made either under cover of a +powerful artillery fire, or, what is still better, if possible, a +general sends over the river in some way, with infantry to clear its +banks, and to dislodge the enemy. In such cases one engineer saved, +and time won, justify the loss of almost twenty soldiers to one +workman. Some one finally suggested an expedition and they did at +the end what ought to have been done at the start. O West Point! thy +science is marvellous! The staff treated the construction of a +bridge over the Rappahannock as if it were building some railroad +bridge, in times of peace! + +I am told that Stanton took sides with Seward. I deny it; Stanton +remained rather passive. But were it true that Stanton, too, is +_Sewardized_,--then, Oh Mud, how powerful thou art! + +In Boston, the B.s and Curtises, and all of that kidney, make a +great fuss and invoke the name of Webster. If so, they are only +_excrementa Websteriana_. + +_Dec. 24._--Patriots in both Houses of Congress! your efforts to put +the conduct of the national affairs in honorable hands, and on +honorable tracks, to prevent the very life blood of the people from +being sacrilegiously wasted, to prevent the people's wealth from +being recklessly squandered; your efforts to introduce order and +spirit in certain parts of a spiritless Administration, to fill the +higher and inferior offices with men whose hearts and minds are in +the cause, and to expel therefrom, if not absolute disloyalty, at +least, the most criminal indifference to the people's cause and +welfare; your efforts to make us speak to Europe like men of sense, +and not in the senseless oracles which justly evoke the scorn and +the sneers of all European statesmen; all these your efforts as +patriots rebounded against a nameless stubbornness. + +Nevertheless you fulfilled a noble, sacred and patriotic duty. +Whatever be to-day the outcry of the Flatfoots, lickspittles, +intriguers, imbeciles; whatever be the subserviency or want of civic +courage in the public press--when all these stinking, suffocating, +deleterious vapors shall be destroyed by the ever-living light of +truth, then the grateful people will bless your names, which, pure +and luminous, will shine high above the stupidity, conceit, +heartlessness, turpitude, selfish ambition, indirect and direct +treason darkening now the national horizon. + +_Dec. 25._--_Christmas._ The Angel of Death hovers over thousands +and thousands of hearths. Thousands and thousands of families in +tears and shrouds. Communities, villages, huts and log-houses, +nursing their crippled, invalid, patriotic heroes! A year ago, all +was quiet on the _Potomac_--now all is quiet on the _Rappahannock_. + +What a progress we have made in a year! and at the small, +insignificant cost of about sixty to eighty thousand killed or +crippled, and of one thousand millions of dollars! But it matters +not! The quietude of the official butchers and money squanderers is, +and must remain undisturbed in their mansions, whatever be the moral +leprosy dwelling therein! + +A young man from New England, (whom I saw for the first time,) told +me that my Diary stirred up the youth. Oh, if so, then I feel happy. +Youth! youth! you are all the promise and the realization! But why +do you suffer yourselves to be crushed down by the upper-crust of +senile nincompoops? Oh youth, arise, and sun-like penetrate through +and through the magnitude of the work to be accomplished, and save +the cause of humanity! + +_Dec. 25._--As it was and is in all Revolutions and upheavals, so +here. A part of the people constitute the winners, in various ways, +(through shoddy names, jobs, positions, etc.) while the immense +majority bleeds and sacrifices. Here many people left poorly +salaried desks, railroads, shops, &c. to become great men but poor +statesmen, cursed Generals, and mischief-makers in every possible +way and manner. The people's true children abandoned homes, +families, honest pursuits of an industrious and laborious life--in +one word, their ALL, to bleed, to be butcherer, to die in the +country's cause. The former are the winners, the sacrificers, and +the butchers; the second are the victims. + +The evidence before the War Committee shows, to a most disgusting +satiety, that General Halleck is exclusively a red-tapist, and a +small pettifogger, who is unworthy to be even a non-commissioned +officer; General Burnside an honest, well intentioned soldier, +thoroughly brave, but as thoroughly destitute of generalship; +General Sumner an unquestionably brave but headlong trooper; and +Hooker alone in possession of all the capacity and resources of a +captain. General Woodbury's evidence is that of a man under +difficulties, on whom his superiors in rank have thrown the +responsibility of their own crime. + +Halleck alone is responsible for the non-arrival of the pontoons. +Burnside could not look for them; it was the duty of Halleck to +order some of the semi-geniuses of his staff to the special duty of +seeing to their delivery at Fredericksburgh, to give them necessary +power to use roads, steamers, water, animals and men for +transportation, and make it a capital responsibility if Sumner finds +not the pontoons on the spot, and at the precise day and hour when +he wanted them. Then, Gen. Meigs, who coolly asserts that he "gave +orders." O yes! but he never dreamed it was his duty to look for +their execution. The fate of the campaign depended upon the +pontoons, and Halleck-Meigs "gave orders," and there was an end of +it. In any other country, such culprits would have been at the least +dismissed--cashiered, if not shot; here, their influence is on the +increase. Halleck and Meigs are still great before Mr. Lincoln, and +before the mass of nincompoops. + +Rhetors and sham-erudites are ecstatic about Burnside's conduct. +Well! Burnside is good-natured--that is all. They forget the example +of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having +commanded the army, gave up the command, and served under Pellisier. +Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world--let Rome alone, +and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.--Disturb not history, which, +for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You understand not +events under your long noses, and before your opaque eyes. + +When in animal bodies the brains are diseased, the whole body's +functions are more or less paralyzed. The official brains of the +nation are in a morbid condition. _That_ explains all. + +_Dec. 27._--I wish I could succeed in bringing about the +organization of a good Staff for the army. _Etat Major General de +l'Armee_ Stanton seems to understand it, but the Hallecks and other +West Pointers have neither the first idea of it, nor the will to see +it done. + +_Dec. 28._--The so-called great papers of the Republican party in +New York, as well as some would-be statesmen here, discuss the +probability of some new manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by +other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The +probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only +have one of the following causes:--Our terrible disaster at +Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the +absolute incapacity of our leaders to cope with such great and +terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of our +soldiers will be applauded, admired, and pitied in Europe, but the +utter intellectual marasmus, as shown by our administration, will +and must embolden the European marplots to attempt to stop what they +consider a further unnecessary massacre. General Burnside's report, +and the evidence before the War Committee are before the country and +before Europe. Therefore Europe and our country are to judge. + +During his last visit in summer to New York, etc. the French +Minister came in contact with low French adventurers, (Courriers des +Etats Unis) with copperheads and with democrats, and now he is taken +with sickly diplomatic sentimentalism to conciliate, to mediate, to +unite, to meddle, and to get a feather in his diplomatic cap. I am +sorry for him, for in other respects he has considerable sound +judgment. _Mais il est toque sur cette question ci._ He is ignorant +of the temper of the masses, and considers the assertions of +adventurers, of traitors, and of meddlers, as being the expression +of the sentiments of the people. But sensible diplomats are _rari +aves_. + +Hooker, because he alone is a _captain_, cannot be in command. +Infamous intriguers, traitors, and imbeciles, prevent Hooker from +being intrusted with the destinies of our army. Whole regiments +claim to serve under him, and above all such regiments as fought +under others in the peninsula, and always have been worsted, and who +wish once to be led to success and victory, as were always Hooker's +soldiers. The Franklins, and other marplotters in the Potomac Army, +menace to resign if Hooker is put in command. The sooner the better +for the army to get rid of such trash. But the imbeciles and the +intriguers in power think not so; and all may remain as it was, and +a new slaughter of our heroes may loom in the future. + +_Dec. 29._--General Butler's proclamation to his soldiers in New +Orleans is the best and noblest document written since this war. It +is good, because it records noble and patriotic deeds. During those +eighteen months General Butler has shown capacity, activity, energy, +fertility of resources and readiness to meet any emergency, +unequalled by any one in the administration or in command. And for +this, Butler is superseded, because Seward promised it to the +_Decembriseur_ in the Tuilleries, and because he is a _man_, and +_conservative patriots_, _alias_ traitors, could not get at him. + +_Dec. 30._--Angel of wrath, smite, smite! Oh, genius of humanity, +take into thy mercy this noble people! Oh, eternal reason, send the +feeblest breath of divine emanation and arrest this all-devouring +torrent of imbecility, selfishness and conceit that is reigning +paramount here. Only the PEOPLE'S devotion and patriotism, only the +_unnamed_ save the country! + +_Dec. 30._--Those foreign caterwaulings against Butler. England, in +1848-9, whipped women in Ireland, and how many thousands have been +murdered by the _Decembriseur_? And the Russian minister joining in +this music. A shame for him and for his government! + +_Dec. 30._--Poor Greeley looks for intervention, mediation, +arbitration; and selects Switzerland for the fitting arbitrator! How +little--nay--nothing at all, he knows about Switzerland and the +Swiss! Stop! stop! respectable old man! + +_Dec. 31._--Stanton is not at all responsible for the slaughter at +Fredericksburgh, or for the infamy of the belated pontoons. Halleck +has the exclusive control of all military movements, etc., in the +field. But Stanton ought not be benumbed by a Halleck or a Meigs. + +The people at large cannot realize the really awful position of +patriotic members of Congress, and above all, of such senators as +Wade, Grimes, Fessenden, Wilson, Morrill, Chandler and others, or +the almost similar position of Stanton, in his contact with the +double-dealings or the obstinacy of Lincoln. + +_Dec. 31._--To-morrow few, if any, shall miss the occasion to shake +hands with the official butchers, with men dripping with the gore of +their brethren. Oh, Cains! oh, fratricides! + +_Dec. 31._--_Midnight._--Disappear! oh year of disgraces, year of +slaughters and of sacrifices. + + _Tschto den griadoustchi nam gotowit?_ (Puschkine.) + + + Ring out the false, ring in the true, + Ring out the grief that saps the mind, + * * * + * * * + Ring in REDRESS _for all mankind_! + + + + +JANUARY, 1863. + + Proclamation -- Parade -- Halleck -- Diplomats -- Herodians -- + Inspired Men -- War Powers -- Rosecrans -- Butler -- Seward -- + Doctores Constitutionis -- Hogarth -- Rhetors -- European Enemies + -- Second Sight -- Senator Wright the Patriot -- Populus Romanus + -- Future Historian -- English People -- Gen. Mitchell -- Hooker + in Command -- Staffs -- Arming Africo-Americans -- Thurlow Weed, + &c. + + +_Jan. 1._--The morning papers. No proclamation! Has Lincoln played +false to humanity? + +The proclamation will appear. All right so far! Hallelujah! How the +friends of darkness, how the demons must wince and tremble. + +There! Red-tape commander-in-chief, field marshal (who never saw a +field of battle!) parades at the head of victorious generals, of +intelligent staffs, of active pontoon providers, and of really and +highly qualified quartermasters general. To the White House! They +will congratulate Mr. Lincoln. Upon what? Upon Fredericksburgh and +other massacres; but especially they will congratulate Mr. Lincoln +upon the fact of his being surrounded by such a bright galaxy of +know-nothings and do-nothings! + +Death-knell to slavery and to the slaveocracy. The foulest relic of +the past will at length be destroyed. The new era has a glorious +dawn; it rises in the glories of sacrifices made by a generous and +inspired people. Yes! The new era rises above darkness, selfishness, +and imbecility. The shades of the slaughtered are now at length +propitiated; their slaughter is at least in part atoned for; and +outraged humanity is, at least in part, avenged! Let rebels and +conservatives remain hardened in crime; a just and condign vengeance +shall overtake them. + + _Nunc pede libero + Pulsanda tellus._ + +_Jan. 2._--Shallow and brainless diplomats sneer at the +proclamation. So did the Herodians sneer at the star of Bethlehem; +and where now are the Herodians? Oh! shallow and heartless +diplomats, your days are numbered, too! + +_Jan. 2._--A man inspired by conviction and glowing with a fervent +faith, thoroughly knows what he is about. Strong in his faith, and +by his faith, he clearly sees his way, and steadily walks in it, +while others grope hither and thither amidst shadows and darkness +and bewildering doubts! Such a man boldly takes the initiative, +marches onward, and is as a beacon-light to a nation, to a people; +often, sometimes, even for all humanity. A man who has a profound +faith in his convictions has coruscations, fierce flashes of that +second-sight for the signs of the times. The mere trimming and +selfish politician is ever ready to swim with the stream which he +had neither strength nor skill to breast; he never ventures to take +the initiative. In issuing the proclamation, Mr. Lincoln gives legal +sanction, form, and record to what the storm of events and the loud +cry of the best of the people have long demanded and now inexorably +dictate. + +History will pitilessly tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing +but the truth; and small credit will history give to Lincoln beyond +that of being the legal recorder of a righteous deed, and not even +that credit will be given to the countersigner, Seward. + +Mr. Seward countersigned both proclamations of freedom. Europe is +filled with his despatches, written at first plainly for, then +lukewarmly tolerating, and, at length, flatly against, slavery. +European statesmen have thus the exact measure of Mr. Seward's +political character. They know that to the very last he defended +slavery, and then countersigned the decree of its destruction! In +Europe, self-respecting statesmen resign rather than countersign a +measure which they disapprove or have strongly opposed. + +_Jan. 3._--Emancipation under war powers. A mistake by a +contradiction. Spoke of it before. And nevertheless: under war +powers alone, emancipation is palatable to a great many, nay, almost +to millions of small, narrow intellects, dried up by the formulas, +and who in the Constitution see only the latter, and not the +expanding, all-embracing principle and spirit. O, Rabbis! O, +Talmudists! + +Lincoln is very unhappy in his phraseology. He invites the +sympathies of humanity on a measure decided by him to favor the war. +It is a contradiction; humanity and war are antipodic. + +The papers in the confidence of Seward, such as the _Intelligencer_ +(without intelligence,) the border-state friends of Lincoln, and all +that is muddy and rotten, even the supposed to be well-informed +diplomats unanimously assert that Mr. Lincoln has no confidence in +his proclamation. As for Seward--this Lincoln's evil genius--no +doubt exists concerning his contempt for the proclamation. Ask the +diplomats. But these highest pilots in this administration are +bound--as by a terrible oath--to violate all the laws of psychology, +of human nature, of sense, of logic and of honor, to make the people +bleed and suffer in its honor. + +Well, pompous Chase; how do you feel for having sided with Seward? + +Gen. Butler's farewell proclamation to New Orleans rings the purest +and most patriotic harmony. Compare Butler's with Lincoln's +writings. All the hearts in the country resounded with Butler; and +because he acted as he did, Lincoln-Seward-Blair-Halleck's policy +shelved Butler. + +_Jan. 3._--By the united efforts of Lincoln-Seward-Blair, of the +_Herald_, and of that cesspool of infamies, the _World_, of +McClellan, and of his tail, by the stupifying influence of Halleck, +the Potomac army, notwithstanding its matchless heroism, and +equipped as well as any army in Europe; up to this day the Potomac +army serves to--establish--the military superiority of the rebels, +to morally strengthen, nay, even to nurse the rebellion. +Lincoln-Halleck dare not entrust the army into the hands of a true +soldier,--Stanton is outvoted. The next commander inherits all the +faults generated by Lincoln, McClellan, Halleck, Burnside, and it +would otherwise tax a Napoleon's brains to reorganize the army but +for the patriotic spirit of the rank and file and most of the +officers. + +_Jan. 3._--What a pity that petty, quibbling constitutionalism +alone is understood by Lincoln and by his followers. To +emancipate in virtue of a war power is scarcely to perform half the +work, and is a full logical incongruity. Like all kind of war power, +that of the president has for its geographical limits the pickets of +his army--has no executive authority beyond, besides being +obligatory only as long as bayonets back it. Such a power cannot +change social and municipal conditions, laws or relations (see Vol. +I.) + +The civil power of the president penetrates beyond the pickets, and +in virtue of that civil power, and of the sacred duty to save the +fatherland, the President of the United States, and not the +Commander-in-Chief, can say to the slaves: "Arise, you are free, you +have no servitude, no duties towards a rebel and traitor to the +Union. I, the president, dissolve your bonds in the name of the +American people." + +_Jan. 4._--How the tempest of events changes or modifies principles. +The South rebelled in the name of State rights, and now Jeff Davis +absorbs all States and all parliamentary rights for the sake of +_salus populi_ or rather of _salus_ of slavocracy. Jeff Davis +nominates officers in the regiments whatever be the opposition of +the respective Governors. In the North, the Governors, all of them, +(Seymour?) true patriots, insist upon power and the right to +organize new regiments, and resist the centralization by the United +States Government. Perhaps--as the satraps and martinets +assert--thereby the organisation of the army is thrown on a false +track. Whether so or not, one thing is certain, but for the States +and Governors, Lincoln, Scott, Seward, McClellan, Halleck, or the +Union, would be nowhere. + +_Jan. 4._--They fight battles in the West. Generals, to be +victorious, must be in spiritual and in electric communion with the +heroic soldiers. So it was at Murfreesborough. Rosecrans, at the +head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns +the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on +McClellan nor on his tail. Rosecrans sticks not to regulations, and +keeps not a few miles in the rear. Franklin, at Fredericksburgh +mounted not even his horse but stood in front of his tent. Similar +to Rosecrans here was Kearney, the bravest of the brave, more of a +captain than any of the West-Point high-nosed nurslings; so is +Heintzelman, Hooker, Reno, Sigel and many, many others, whom +McClellanism, Halleckism, Lincolnism kept or keeps down. + +I positively learned that in the last days of the summer of 1862, a +list without heading circulated in the Potomac army, and all who +signed it bound themselves to obey only McClellan. The McClellan +clique originated this conspiracy, which extended throughout all the +grades. + +What confusion prevails about the rights of existence of slavery. +How they discuss it. How they pettifog. Why not establish the +rights of existence of syphilis, of _plica_ in the human body. O, +casuists. O, _Intelligencers_. O, _Worlds_! + +Well, to me, slavery seems to legally (cursed legality) exist in +virtue of the special State rights, and not in virtue of the +Constitution. But for the State rights, the Africo-American is a man +and citizen of the United States--and this under the Constitution +which is paramount to State rights. The rebellion annihilates the +State rights, and all special constitutions guaranteed by the Union, +and at the same time annihilates the relation of the Africo-American +to the specific States or constitutions. It restores to him the +rights of man guaranteed to him as man by the Union and the +Constitution of the United States. The Africo-American recovers his +rights, lost and annihilated by specific State rights and municipal, +local laws. The president had to issue his proclamation as guardian +and executor of the Constitution, and then Africo-Americans +recovered their citizenship on firmer and broader grounds than +under, or by the war power. Calhoun, the father of the rebellion--as +Milton's Satan--and all the rebels now curse or cursed the preamble +of the Constitution as Satan cursed the light. I suppose Calhoun's +and the rebels' reasons are similar to me. _Inde irae._ + +The commanders in the West bear evidence of the devotion, the +heroism and the endurance of the Africo-Americans, sacrificing their +lives without hope; martyrs by the rebels as well as by Hallecks and +the like. + +I met a farmer from Maine. He was rather old and poor. Had two +sons--lost them both--they were all his hope. He spoke simply of it, +but to break one's heart. _He grudged not_, (his own words,) his +hopes and blood for the cause, and considered it good luck to have +recovered the body of one of his boys, and brought it back home to +the "old woman," (wife, mother.) I shook hands with him. I ought to +have kissed him. Unknown, unnamed hero-patriot! and similar are +hundreds of thousands, and such is the true people. And so +sacrilegiously dealt with by insane helplessness. + +_Jan. 5._--The _Doctors Constitutionis_ break their formula brains +concerning the constitutionality of the proclamation, and foretell +endless complications. If so, if complications arise, the reasons +thereof are moral, logical and practical. 1st.--The emancipation was +neither conceived nor executed in love; but it was for Lincoln as +Vulcan for Jupiter. The proclamation is generated neither by +Lincoln's brains, heart or soul, and what is born in such a way is +always monstrous. 2d.--Legally and logically, the proclamation has +the smallest and the most narrow basis that could have been +selected. When one has the free choice between two bases, it is more +logical to select the broader one. The written Constitution had +neither slavery nor emancipation in view, but it is in the preamble, +and the emancipation ought to be deduced from the preamble. Many +other reasons can be enumerated pregnant with complications and +above all when Lincoln-Seward are the _accoucheurs_. My hope and +confidence is in the logic of events always stronger than man's +helplessness and imbecility. + +_Jan. 5._--European rulers, wiseacres, meddlers, humbugs, traitors, +demons, diplomats, assert that they must interfere here because +European interests suffer by the war. Indeed! You have the whole old +continent and Australia to boot, and about nine hundreds millions of +population; can you not organise yourself so as not to depend from +us? And if by your misrules, etc., our interests were to suffer, you +would find very strange any complaint made on our part. Keep aloof +with your good wishes, and with your advices, and with your +interference. You may burn your noses, and even lose your little +scalps. You robbers, murderers, hypocrites, surrounded by your +liveried lackeys, you presumptuous, arrogant curses of the human +race, stand off, and let these people whose worst criminal is a +saint when compared to a Decembriseur--let this people work out its +destinies, be it for good or for evil. + +_Jan. 5._--Early in December, 1860, therefore soon after Mr. +Lincoln's election, a shrewd and clear-sighted politician, Gen. +Walsh, from New York, visited Springfield, and made his bow to the +rising sun. On his return from the Illinois Medira, I asked the +general what was his opinion concerning the new President. "Well, +sir," was the general's answer, "in parting, I advised Mr. Lincoln +to get a very eminent man for his private secretary."--_Sapienti +sat._ + +_Jan. 6._--Oh for a voice of thousand storms to render justice to +the patriots in Congress, to make the masses of the people know and +appreciate them, and to show up the littleness and the ignorance of +the pillars of the Republican press. Never and in no country has the +so-called good press shown itself so below the great emergencies of +the day as are the old hacks semperliving in the press. + +_Jan. 7._--The great military qualities shown by Gen. Rosecrans, +thrilled with joy all the best men in the Potomac Army. The war +horse Hooker is the loudest to admire Rosecrans. Happy the Western +heroes to be beyond the immediate influence of Washington--of the +White House--and above all, of such as Halleck! + +Rosecrans has revealed all the higher qualities of a captain; +coolness, resolution, stubbornness and inspiration. His army began +to break,--he ordered the attack on the whole line, and thus +transformed defeat into victory. Not of McClellan's school, is +Rosecrans. + +_Jan. 7._--Senator Sumner who, during the ministerial crisis, ought +to have exposed to the country the mischievous direction given by +Mr. Seward to our foreign relations, and who ought to have done it +nobly, boldly, authoritatively, patriotically, and from his +Senatorial chair, Senator Sumner's preferred to keep stoically +quiet, notwithstanding that his personal friends and the country +expected it from him. Yet next to Chase, Senator Sumner, more than +any body, attacks Seward in private conversation! I read in the +papers that Senator Sumner's influence on Mr. Lincoln is +considerable (nevertheless Seward remained as the greatest curse to +the country,) and that he, Sumner, is a _power behind the throne_. +Has Sumner insinuated this himself to some newspaper reporter in +_extremis_ for news? _Power behind the throne_, what a tableau: +Sumner and Lincoln! O, Hogarth, O, Callot! Oh, for your crayon! and +now--of course--the country is safe, having such _Power behind the +throne_. + +_Mr. Lincoln's good intentions_ I hear talked about right and left. +Oh, for one sensible, good, energetic action, and all his intentions +may go where the French proverb puts them. + +_Jan. 7._--The city crowded with Major Generals and +Brigadier-Generals not in activity. When Mr. Lincoln is cornered, +then he makes a Brigadier or a Major General, according to +circumstances and in obedience to political or to backstairs +influence. From the beginning of the war, no sound notions directed +the nominations, either under Cameron, Scott, or McClellan, or now; +at the beginning of the war they had Generals without troops, then +troops without Generals, and now they have Generals who have not +commanded, or cannot command, troops. If, during the war in Poland +in 1831, Warsaw, the Capital, had been overrun in such a way by +do-nothing Generals, the chambermaids in the city would have taken +the affair into their fair hands, and armed with certain night +effluvia made short work with the military drones. + +_Jan. 8._--A poor negro woman with her child was refused entrance +into the cars. It snowed and stormed, and she was allowed to shiver +on the platform. A so-called abolitionist Congress and President +gave the charter to the constructors of the city railroad and the +members of Congress have free tickets, and the Africo-American is +treated as a dog. Human honesty and justice! + +_Jan. 8._--Horse contracts the word. Never in my life saw I the +horse so maltreated and the cavalry so poorly, badly, brainlessly +organised, drilled and used. Some few exceptions change not the +truth of my assertions, and McClellan is considered a great +organiser. They ruin more horses here in this war than did Napoleon +I. in Russia, (I speak not of the cold which killed thousands at +once.) + +How ignorant and conceited! Halleck solicits Rarey, the horse-tamer, +for instructions. O, Halleck, you are unique! Officers who have +served in armies with large, good, well-organised and well-drilled +cavalry--such officers will teach you more than Rarey. But such +officers are from Europe, and it would be a shame for a West-Point +incarnation of ignorance and conceit to learn anything from an +officer of European experience. Bayard, however, thought not so. +Justice to his name. + +The rebels are not so conceited as the simon pure West-Pointers. +Above all the rebels wish success, and have no objections to learn; +they imported good European cavalry officers, and have now under +Stuart (his chief of staff is a Prussian officer) a cavalry which +has made a mark in this war. + +_Jan. 8._--O rhetors! O, rhetors! malediction upon you and upon the +politicians! You have no heart, no sensibilities. Not one, not one +has yet uttered a single word for the fallen, for the suffering, the +dying and nameless heroes of our armies. It seems, O rhetors and +politicians! that the people ought to bleed that you may prosper. +Corpses are needed for your stepping stones! The fallen are not +mentioned now in Congress, as you never mentioned them in your poor +stump speeches. O, you whitened sepulchres! + +O rhetors and politicians! O, powers on, before, and "behind the +throne!" In your selfish, heartless conceit, you imagine that the +Emancipation is and will be your work, and will be credited to you. +Oh yes, but by old women. + +The people's blood, the fallen heroes, tore the divine work of +emancipation, from the hands of jealously watching demons. To the +shadows of the fallen the glory, and not to your round, polished or +unpolished phrases. Not the pen with which the proclamation was +written is a trophy and a relic, but the blood steaming to heaven, +the corpses of the fallen, corpses mouldering scattered on all the +fields of the Union. + +_Jan. 8._--As a rapid spring tide, so higher and higher, and with +all parties--even, with the decided Copperheads--rises the haughty +contempt toward the crowned, the official, the aristocratic, and the +flatfooted (livery stable) part of Europe. Good and just! Marshy, +rotten rulers and aristocrats who scarcely can keep your various +shaky and undermined seats, you and your lackeys, you take on airs +of advisors, of guardians, of initiators of civilization! Forsooth! +I except Russia. In Russia the sovereign, his ministers and +nine-tenths of the aristocracy are in _uni sono_ with the whole +nation; and all are against slavery, against the rebels, against +traitors. The Russian government and the Russian nation often are +misrepresented by their official or diplomatic agents. + +Any well organized American village in the free States contains more +genuine, moral and intellectual civilization than prevails among +European higher circles, those gilded pasteboards. This is all that +you, you conceited advisors, represent in that splendid, +all-embracing edifice of civilization! At the best you are +ornaments, or--with Wilhelm von Humboldt--you are culture, but not +the higher, man-inspiring civilization. A John S. Mill, a Godwin +Smith, and those many outside of the _would-be-something_ strata in +England, in France, almost the whole Germany, those are the +representatives of the genuine civilized Europe. + +The freemen of the North, on whom you European exquisites look +superciliously down with your albino eyes, the freemen of the North, +bleeding in this deadly struggle, are the confessors for the general +civilization, and stand on the level with any martyrs, with any +progressive people on record on history. + +_Jan. 9._--Quo, quo scelesti ruitis......... + +It is maddening to witness for so many months the reckless waste of +men, of time, of money, and of material means, and all this +squandered by governmental and administrative helplessness and +conceit. In the military part, notwithstanding Stanton's devotion +and efforts, that Halleck, _excrementum Scotti_, as by appointment, +carries out everything contrary to common sense, to well established +and experienced (Halleck and experience, ah!... military practice, +and Mr. Lincoln is as perfectly) charmed by it, as is the innocent +bird by the snake. + +And thus the sacrifices and the blood of the people run out as does +the mighty Rhine--they run out in sand. O, Lincoln-Seward's domestic +policy. O, Lincoln-Halleck's war power! You make one shudder as with +a death pang. + +_January 9._--The worshippers of slavery, that is, the Democrats, of +the Seymour's, Wood's, and the _World's_ church, call the war waged +for the defence of human rights, for civilization and for +maintaining the genuine rational self-government, they call it an +unholy war. In some respects the Copperheads are right. The holy war +loses its holiness in the hands of Lincoln, Seward, Halleck, and +their disciples and followers, because those leaders violate all the +laws of logic and of reason, this holy of holies. At times I would +prefer peace than see devoted men so recklessly murdered by such.... + +A critique of the first volume of the "Diary" asserts that all my +statements are made after the events occurred, _ex post_. To a very +respectable General I showed a part of the original manuscript which +squared with the printed book. Often I am ashamed to find that the +bit of study and experience acquired by me goes so far when compared +with many around me, and in action. I foresee, because I have no +earthly personal views, no cares, nothing in the world to think of +or to aim at, no charms, no ties--only my heart, my ideas, my +convictions, and civilization is my worship. Nothing prevents me, +day and night, from concentrating whatever powers and reading I can +have in one single focus. This cause, this people, this war, its +conduct, are the events amidst which I breathe. Uninterruptedly I +turn and return all that is in my mind--that is all. And I am proud +to have my heart in harmony with my head. + +Almost every event has its undercurrent, and of ten the little +undercurrents pre-eminently shape the events themselves. The truth +of this axiom is illustrated principally in the recall of the +resolute, indefatigable, far and clear-sighted patriot and +statesman, General Butler. To jump to a conclusion without much ado, +the recall of Butler from New Orleans is due principally, if not +even exclusively, to the united efforts--or conspiracy--of Mr. +Seward and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. Thirteen months ago Mr. Seward +expected, as he still expects for the future, an uprising of a Union +Party in the hottest hot-bed of Secessia. That such are the +Secretary of State's expectations, I emphatically assert, and as +proof, it may be stated that only yesterday, January 9th, Mr. Seward +most authoritatively tried to impress upon foreign diplomats the +speedy reunion and _restoration_ of the Union as it was, +notwithstanding the Proclamation, _still considered by the Secretary +of State_ as being _a waste of paper_. How far the foreign diplomats +believe the like oracular decisions, is another question; certain it +is that they shrug their shoulders. + +But to return to Butler and New Orleans. The patriotic activity by +which General Butler won, conquered and maintained the rebel city +for the Union, was emphatically considered by Mr. Seward, as +crushing out every spark of any latent Union feeling among the +rebels. Thurlow Weed, then abroad, urged Mr. Seward to find out the +said Union feeling, to blow it into almighty fire and to rely +exclusively upon it. Here Reverdy Johnson was and is, the principal +Union crony of the Secretary of State, and Seaton of the +_Intelligencer_; but above all, since the murder of Massachusetts +men at Baltimore in 1861, Reverdy Johnson was the devoted advocate +of all rich traitors, as the Winans and others, who were called by +him "misled Union men." When Gen. Butler dealt deserved justice to +rich traitors in New Orleans, the Washington Unionists surrounding +Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward--some of them from New Orleans--urged an +investigation. The Secretary of State eagerly seized the occasion to +dispatch to the Crescent City Mr. Reverdy Johnson with the principal +secret mission to gather together the elements of the scattered +Union feeling in Louisiana and in the South, and to make them +blaze--in honor of the Secretary of State. It was a rich harvest in +every way for Reverdy Johnson; he harvested it, and on his return +fully convinced the Secretary of State, that the Union could not be +saved if Gen. Butler remained in his command in the Department of +the Gulf. + +This surreptitious undermining of General Butler by the Secretary of +State, is one more evidence of how truly patriotic was the effort of +the Republican Senators and Congressmen to liberate the President +and the country from the all-choking and all-poisoning influence of +Mr. Seward, and how cursed must remain forever the conduct of Mr. +Chase, who, after having during two years cried against Seward, +accusing him almost of treason, when the hour struck, preferred to +embarrass the patriots and the President rather that to let Mr. +Seward retire and deprive the people of his _patriotic_ services. It +was moreover expected that, thus warned by the patriots, the +President would seize the first occasion to infuse energy into his +Cabinet. But there is a Mr. Usher, a docile nonentity, made +Secretary of the Interior; of course the Secretary of State will be +strengthened thereby. + +_January 10._--Senator Wright of Indiana, in an ardent and lofty--of +course, not rhetorical, speech, hit the nail on the head, when, +rendering due homage to Rosecrans, he called him "the first general +who fights for the people and not for the White House." The greatest +praise for the man, and the most saddening picture of our internal +sores. + +_January 10._--As the pure _populus Romanus_ had an inborn aversion +to Kings and diadems, and could not patiently bear their +neighborhood, so the genuine American Democrat, one by principles +and not by a party name or by a party organization, such a Democrat +feels it to be death for his institutions to have slavocracy in his +country or in its neighborhood. + +_Jan. 10._--O how is to be pitied the future historian of this +bloody tragedy! Through what a loathsome cesspool of documentary +evidence, preserved in the various State Archives, the unhappy +historian will have to wade, and wade deep to his chin. Original +works of Lincoln, Seward, etc. + +It is easy to play a game at chess with a far superior player, then +at least one learns something; but impossible to sit at a chess +board with a child who throws all into confusion. The national +chessboard is very confused in the White House. Cunning is good for, +and only succeeds in dealing with, mean and petty facts. + +_Jan. 10._--Halleck's congratulatory order to Rosecrans and to the +Western heroes. How cold and pedantic. How differently, how +enthusiastically and fiery rang Stanton's words on the capture of +forts Henry and Donelson and to Lander's (now dead) troops. Why is +Stanton silent? Is it the Constitution, the Statute, is it the +incarnate four years formula which seals Stanton's heart and brains? +or is Stanton eaten up by the rats in the Cabinet? + +_January 10._--The messages of the loyal Governors, not copperheads, +(as is Seymour of N. Y.) above all, the message of Andrew of +Massachusetts, throw a ray of hope and promise over this dark, cold, +unpatriotic confusion so eminent here in Washington. This confusion, +this groping, double-dealing and helplessness can be only cured by a +wonder, or else all will be lost. The wonder is daily perpetrated by +the all enduring, all-sacrificing people. + +Those criminals who ought to have been shot, or, at the mildest, +cashiered for the slaughter at Fredericksburgh, the engineers, +mock-Jominis, the sham soldiers: all these Washington engineers of +that recent butchery, assert now, that, after all, the possession of +Fredericksburgh was immaterial; that Lee would have then selected a +better position. All this is thrown to the public to palliate the +crime of the Washington military conclave, and to weaken and +invalidate Hooker's evidence before the War Committee. It must be +admitted that if Hooker--having fifty thousand in hand, and one +hundred thousand in his rear, had seized the Fredericksburgh +heights, he would not have allowed Lee to so easily select a +position and to fortify it. Nay, I suppose, that not only Hooker, +but even a Halleck, a Cullum or a Meigs would have prevented Lee +from settling in any comfortable position. However, I might be +mistaken. Corinth, Corinth, for Halleck. Those great nightcaps here +have so original and so new military conceptions, their general +comprehension of warfare so widely differs from science, experience, +and from common sense, that, holding Fredericksburgh they might have +invited Lee to select whatever he wanted as a strong position. + +I learn that Halleck is at work to translate some French military +book. What an inimitable narrow-minded pedant. If Halleck had +brains, he could not have an hour leisure for translation. But in +such way he humbugs Mr. Lincoln, who looks on Halleck as the +quintessence of military knowledge and genius. A man who can +translate a French book must be a genius. Is it not so, Lincoln? And +thus Halleck translates a book instead of taking care that the +pontoons be sent in time; and Halleck prepared sheets for the press, +and our soldiers to be massacred. + +Burnside prepares a movement; Franklin, to undermine Burnside, to +appear great, or to get hold of the army, denounces Burnside +secretly to the President: the President forbids the movement. What +a confusion! Mr. Lincoln, either accept Burnside's resignation, +which he has repeatedly offered, or kick down the denouncers. +Accident made me discover almost next day, the names of the two +generals sent by Franklin on this denunciatory errand--John Cochran +and Newton. I instantly told all to Stanton, who was almost ignorant +of Franklin's surreptitiousness. I also told it to several Senators. + +The Army of the Potomac is altogether demoralized--above all, in the +higher grades. It could not be otherwise if they were angels. +McClellanism was and is propitious to general disorder, and how Mr. +Lincoln improves is exemplified above. Independent men, independent +Senators and Representatives who approach Mr. Lincoln, find him +peevish, irritable, intractable to all patriots. _All these are +criteria of a lofty mind and character._ Weed, Seward, Harris, +Blair, and such ones alone, are agreeable in the White House. + +So much is spoken of the war powers of the President; I study, and +study, and cannot find them as absolute as the Lincolnites construe +them. All that I read in the Constitution are the real _war powers_ +in the Congress, and the President is only the executor of those +powers. The President must have permission for every thing, almost +at every step--and has no right to issue decrees. He has no war +powers over those of Congress, and can act very little on his own +hook. It seems to me that Congress, misled, confused by casuists, +expounders, and by small intellects worshipping routine, that +Congress rather abdicated their powers, and that the bunglers around +Lincoln, in his name greedily seized the above powers. + +Poor Lincoln! As the devil dreads holy water, so Mr. Lincoln dreads +to be surrounded with stern, earnest, ardent, patriotic advisers. +Such men would not listen to stories! + +_January 11._--The thus-called metropolitan press is in the hands of +old politicians, old hacks--and no new forces or intellects pierce +through. It is a phenomenon. In any whatever country in Europe, at +every convulsion the press bristles with new, fresh intellects. +Here, the old nightcaps have the monopoly. Farther: those +respectable fossils reside at a distance from the focus of affairs, +are not directly in contact with events and men, and are in no +communion with them. The Grand Lamas of the press depend for +information upon the correspondents, who catch news and ideas at +random, and nourish with them their employers and the public. + +_January 11._--Senator Sumner has made a motion to give homesteads +to the liberated Africo-Americans. That is a better and a nobler +action than all his declamations put together. + +_January 12._--Sentinels in double line surrounding the White House. +Odious, ridiculous, unnecessary, and an aspect unwonted in this +country--giving the aspect to the White House of an abode of a +tyrant, when it is only that of a shifting politician. It is +Halleck, who, with the like futilities and absurdities, amuses +Lincoln and gets the better of him. + +Mr. Lincoln is very depressed at the condition of the Army of the +Potomac, and decides--nothing for its reorganization. But for +Halleck, Stanton would reorganize and give a new and healthy life to +the army. I mean the upper grades, and not the rank and file, who +are patriotic and healthy. + +After Corinth, Halleck-Buell disorganized the Western, now Halleck +is at work to do the same with the Potomac Army. I know that in the +presence of a diplomat, Halleck complained that he is paid only five +thousand dollars, and earned by far more in California. He had +better return to California and to his pettifogging. + +Since the beginning of this Administration, Mr. Seward wrote, I am +sure, more dispatches than France, England, Prussia, Russia, +Austria, Spain, and Italy put together during the Crimean war, and +up to this day. Great is ink, and paper is patient! + +_January 13._--It is more than probable that Mr. Mercier stirred up, +or at least heartily supported the mediation scheme. The Frenchmen +in New York maintain that Mr. Mercier derives his knowledge of +America and his political inspirations from that foul sheet, the +_Courrier des Etats Unis_. There is some truth in this assertion, as +the reasons enumerated to justify mediation can be found in various +numbers of that sheet. I am sorry that Mr. Mercier has fallen so +low; as for his master, he is a fit associate for the _Courrier_. + +_January 13._--Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired and not silenced by the +storm. He alone stands up from among the Athenian school. He alone +is undaunted. So would be Longfellow, but for the terrible domestic +calamity whose crushing blow no man's heart could resist. I never +was a great admirer of Emerson, but now I bow, and burn to him my +humble incense. + +_January 15._--The patriotic, and at times inspired orator--not +rhetor--Kelly, from Pennsylvania, told me that all is at sixes and +sevens in the Administration, and in the army. I believe it. How +could it be otherwise, with Lincoln, Seward and Halleck at the head? + +Mr. Seward did his utmost to defeat the re-election of Judge Potter +from Wisconsin, one among the best and noblest patriots in the +country. For this object Mr. Seward used the influence of the +pro-Catholic Bonzes. Then Mr. Seward wrote a letter denying all +this--a letter which not in the least convinced the brave Judge, as +I have it from himself. + +If all the lies could only be ferreted out with which Seward +bamboozles Lincoln, even the God of Lies himself would shudder. + +_January 15._--The noble and lofty voice of the genuine English +people, the voice of the working classes, begins to be heard. The +people re-echo the key-note struck by a J. S. Mills, by a Bright, a +Cobden, and others of like pure mind and noble heart. The voice of +the genuine English people resounds altogether differently from the +shrill _falsetto_ with which turf hunters, rent-roll devourers, +lords, lordlings, and all the like shams and whelps try to +intimidate the patriotic North, and comfort the traitors, the +rebels. + +_January 16._--But for the truly enlightened and patriotic efforts +of the Senators Wade, Lane, (of Kansas) and Trumbull, the debate of +yesterday, Thursday, on the appropriation for the West Point +Military Academy would have gone to the country, absolutely +misleading and stultifying the noble and enlightened people. It was +most sorrowful, nay, wholly disgusting to witness how Senators who, +until then, had stood firmly against small influences and narrow +prejudices, blended together in an unholy alliance to sustain the +accursed clique of West Point engineers. Much allowance is to be +made for the allied Senators' ignorance of the matter, and for the +natural wish to appear wise. The country, the people, ought to +treasure the names of the ten patriotic Senators whose voices +protested against further sustaining that cursed nursery of +arrogance, of pro-slavery, or of something worse. + +Whatever might have been the efforts of the Senatorial patrons and +the allies of the engineers, the following facts remained for ever +unalterable: 1st. That the spirit of close educational corporation +which have exclusive monopoly and patronage, is perfectly similar to +the spirit which prevailed and still prevails in monasteries, and +permeates the pupils during their whole after life; 2d. That the +prevailing spirit in West Point was and is rather monarchical and +altogether Pro-Slavery; 3d, that of course some noble exceptions +are to be found and made,--but they are exceptions; 4th, that such +educational monasteries nurse conceit and arrogance; and this the +mass of West Pointers have prominently shown during this war in +their relations with the noble and devoted volunteers, and that this +arrogant spirit of clique and of caste works mischievously in the +army; 5th, that exceptions, noble and patriotic, as a Reno, a Lyons, +a Bayard, a Stevens, and other such heroes and patriots, do not +disprove the general rule; 6th, that Lyons, Grant, Rosecrans, +Hooker, Heintzelman, etc., have shown glorious qualities not on +account of what they learnt in West Point, but by what they did not +learn there; 7th, that these heroes rose above the dry and narrow +school wisdom, and are what they are, not because educated in West +Point, but notwithstanding their education there. And here I +interrupt the further enumeration to give an extract from a private +letter directed to me by one of the most eminent pupils from West +Point, and the ablest _true_, not _mock_, engineer in our army: + + "In regard to your views of West Point's influence I am at a loss + to make any answer," (the writer is a great defender of West + Point,) "but would suggest that it may be after all not West + Point, but the want of _a supreme hand_ to our military affairs + to _combine_ and _use_ the materials West Point furnishes, that + is in fault. * * * _West Point cannot make a general_--no + military school can--but it can and does furnish good soldiers. + All the distinguished Confederate generals are West Pointers, and + yet we know the men, and know that neither Lee, nor Johnson nor + Jackson, nor Beauregard, nor the Hills are men of any very + extraordinary ability," etc., etc., etc. + +To this I answer: the rebels are with their heart and soul in their +cause, and thus their capacities are expanded, they are inspired on +the field of battle. (Similar answer I gave to General McDowell +about six months ago.) So was our Lyon, so are Rosecrans, Hooker, +Grant, and a few others; and for such generals, Senators Trumbull, +Wade and Lane ardently called in the above debate. + +I continue the enumeration: 8th. The military direction of the war is +exclusively in the hands of a West Point clique, and of West Point +engineers,--not _very much_ with their hearts in the people's cause; +9th, that that clique of West Point engineers from McClellan down to +Halleck prevents any truly higher military capacity getting a free +untrammelled scope, (General Halleck with all his might opposes giving +the command of the army to Hooker,) and this Halleck, an engineer from +West Point, who never saw a cartridge burnt or a file of soldiers +fighting, to-day decides the military fate of our country on the +authority of a book said to be on military science, but if such a book +had been written by any officer in the armies of France, Prussia or +Russia, the ignorant author would have had the friendly advice from +his superiors to resign and select some pursuit in life more congenial +to his intellectual capacities; further, this Halleck complains in +following words: "that they (the Administration) made him leave a +profitable business in San Francisco, and pay him only 5,000 dollars +to fight THEIR (not his) battles." So much for a Halleck. 10th. That +the West Point clique of engineers, the McClellans, the Hallecks, the +Franklins, etc., have brought the country to the verge of the grave, +as stated by Senator Lane. + +Such were the facts established by the patriotic and not +would-be-wise Senators; and there is an illustration recorded in +history as proof that the above not engineering Senators were right +in their assertions. Frederick II. was in no military school; the +captains second to Napoleon in the French wars were Hoche, Moreau, +and Massena, all of them from private life. + +--The clique of engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its +grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble +children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from +the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation +of the country. + +The clique accuses the volunteers; but the clique, the engineers in +power have disorganized, morally and materially, and disgraced the +Army of the Potomac. They did this from the day of the encampments +around Washington, in the fall of 1861, down to the day of +Fredericksburgh. Fredericksburgh was altogether prepared by +engineers; at Fredericksburgh the engineer Franklin did not even +mount his horse when his soldiers were misled and miscommanded--by +himself. + +--Stragglers are generated by generals. Besides, to explain +straggling, I quote from a _genuine_ book on genuine military +science, published in Berlin in 1862, by Captain Boehn, the most +eminent professor at the military school in Potsdam: "The greatest +losses, during a war, inflicted on an army are by maladies and by +straggling. Such losses are five times greater than those of killed +and wounded; and an _intelligent administration_ takes preparatory +measures to meet the losses and to compensate them. Such measures of +foresight consist in organizing depots for battalions, which depots +ought to equal one sixth of the number of the active army." O, +Halleck, where are the depots? + +--"In any ordinary campaign, excepting a winter campaign, the losses +amount (as established by experience) to one half in infantry, one +fourth in cavalry, and to one third in artillery." (Do you know any +thing about it, O, Halleck?) + +Let the people be warned, and they may understand the location of +the cause generating further disasters. If the Army of the Potomac +shall win glory, it will win it notwithstanding the West Point +clique of engineers. The disasters have root in the White House, +where the advice of such a Halleck prevails. + +--I know very well that the formation of the volunteers in +respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great +difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and +genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to +be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius and talent. + +Taking into account the patriotism, the devotion of the governors of +the respective states, [not _a la_ Copperhead Seymour], it would +have been possible, nay, even easy to organize some kind of +reserves. O, Halleck, O, fogies! + +_January 17._--Mr. Lincoln loads on his shoulders all kinds of +responsibilities, more so than even Jackson would have dared to +take. Admirable if generated by the boldness of self-consciousness, +of faith, and of convictions. True men measure the danger--and the +means in their grasp to meet the emergency; others play +unconsciously with events, as do children with explosive and +death-dealing matters. + +_January 17._--General and astronomer Mitchel's death may be credited +to Halleck. Halleck and Buell's envy--if not worse--paralysed Mitchel +and Turtschin's activity in the West. Mitchel and Turtschin were too +quick, that is, too patriotic. In early summer, 1862, they were sure +to take Chattanooga, a genuine strategic point, one of those principal +knots and nurseries in the life of the secesh. How imprudent! +Chattanooga is still in the hands of the rebels, and if we ever take +it, it will cost streams of blood and millions of money. Down with +Mitchel and Turtschin. Mitchel's _excrementa_ were more valuable than +are Halleck's heavy, but not expanding, brains. Mitchel revealed at +once all the qualities of an eminent, if not of a great general. +Quickness of mind, fertility of resources. An astronomer, a +mathematician, Mitchel's mind was familiar with broad combinations. +Such a mind penetrated space, calculated means and chances, balanced +forces and probabilities. Not to compare, however, is it to be borne +in mind that Napoleon was a mathematician in the fullest sense, and +not an engineer, not a translator. + +_January 18._--Mr. Lincoln's letter to McClellan when the hero of +the Copperheads was in search of mud in the Peninsula. The letter +rings as sound common sense; it shows, however, that common sense +debarred of strong will remains unproductive of good. Mr. Lincoln +commonly shows strong will, in the wrong place. + + ----ein Theil von jener Krafft, + Die stehts das Guthe will, und stehts das Boese schaff. + +_January 18._--The emancipation proclamation is out. Very well. But +until yet not the slightest signs of any measures to execute the +proclamation, at once, and in its broadest sense. Now days, even +hours, are equal to years in common times. Had Lincoln his heart in +the proclamation, on January 2d he would begin to work out its +expansion, realization, execution. I wish Lincoln may lift himself, +or be lifted by angels to the grandeur of the work. But it is +impossible. Surrounded as he is, and led in the strings by Seward, +Blair, Halleck, and by border-state politicians, the best that can +be expected are belated half measures. + +Stanton comprehends broadly and thoroughly the question of +emancipation and of arming the Africo-Americans. As I intend to +realize my plans of last year and organise Africo-American +regiments, I had conversations with Stanton, and find him more +thorough about the matter than is any body whom I met. He agreed +with me, that the cursed land of Secessia ought to be surrounded by +camps to enlist and organise the enslaved, as a scorpion surrounded +with burning coals. Such organizations introduced rapidly and +simultaneously on all points, would shake Secessia to its +foundations, and put an end to guerillas, _alias_ murderers and +robbers. We will again think and talk it over. But as is wont with +Lincoln, he will hesitate, hesitate, until much of precious time +will be lost. + +_January 18._--A surgeon in one of the hospitals in Alexandria +writes in a private note: + + "Our wounded bear their sufferings nobly; I have hardly heard a + word of complaint from one of them. A soldier from the 'stern and + rock bound coast' of Maine--a victim of the slaughter at + Fredericksburgh--lay in this hospital, his life ebbing away from + a fatal wound. He had a father, brothers and sisters, a wife, and + one little boy of two or three years old, on whom his heart + seemed set. Half an hour before he ceased to breathe, I stood by + his side, holding his hand. He was in the full exercise of his + intellectual faculties, and knew he had but a brief time to live. + He was asked if he had any message to leave for his dear ones + whom he loved so well. "_Tell them_," said he, "_how I died--they + know how I lived!_" + +_January 19._--Senator Wright, of Indiana, stirred the hearts of the +Senate and of the people. It was not the oration of a rhetor--it was +the confession of an ardent, pure patriot. I never heard or +witnessed anything so inspiring and so kindling to soul and heart. + +_January 20._--General Butler palsied and shelved, Halleck all +powerful and with full steam running the country and the army to +destruction--such is the truest photograph of the situation. But as +an adamantine rock among storms, so Mr. Lincoln remains unmoved. +Unmoved by the yawning, bleeding wounds of the devoted, noble +people--unmoved by the prayers and supplication of patriots--of +his--once--best friends. Mr. Lincoln answers, with dignity not +Roman, and with obstinacy unparallelled even by Jackson, that he +will stand or fall with his present advisers, and that he takes the +responsibility for all the cursed misdeeds of Seward, Halleck, +Chase, and others. So children are ready to set a match to a powder +magazine unconscious of the terrible results--unconscious of the +awful responsibility for its destructive action. + +A death pang runs through one's body to see how rapidly the dial +marks the disappearing hours, and how unrelentingly approaches March +4th, and the death-knell of this present patriotic, devoted +Congress. For this terrible storm and clash of events, the people, +perhaps, feel not the immensity of the loss. Paralyzed as Congress +has been and now is, by the infernal machinations of Seward, Chase, +and others, and by Mr. Lincoln's stubborn helplessness, the patriots +in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which +the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The +patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest +aspirations of the American people, whipped in--and this literally, +not figuratively--whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having +issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this +dying Congress initiated the Emancipation--generated the +Proclamation of the 22d September, and of January 1st. History will +not allow one to wear borrowed plumage. + +--Congress ought not to have so easily abdicated its well established +rights of more absolute and direct control of the deeds of the +Administration and of its clerks, _alias_ Secretaries of Departments. +It is to be eternally regretted that Congress has shown such +unnecessary leniency; but in justice it must be said that the +patriotic and high-minded members of Congress wished to avoid the +degrading necessity of showing the nation the prurient administrative +sores. Advised, directed, tutored and pushed by Seward, Blair and +Chase, Mr. Lincoln is--innocently--as grasping for power, as are any +of those despots not over respectfully recorded by history. + +With all this, the presence of Congress keeps in awe the reckless +and unscrupulous Administration, as, according to the pious belief +of medieval times, holy water awed the devil. But Congress once out +of the way, without having succeeded in rescuing Mr. Lincoln from +the hands of those mean, ignorant, egotistic bunglers, all the time +squinting towards the succession to the White House, and unable to +surround the President with men and patriots, then all the plagues +of Egypt may easily overrun this fated country. Such conjurors of +evil as the Sewards, Hallecks, and others, will have no dread of any +holy water before them, and they will be sure that the great party +of the "Copperheads" in the future Congress will applaud them for +all the mischief done, and lift them sky high, if they succeed in +treading down in the gutter, or in any way palsying emancipation, +tarnishing the people's noble creed, and endangering the country's +holiest cause. + +General Fitz-John Porter's trial before court-martial ended in his +dismissal, but ought punishment to fall on him alone, when the +butchers of Fredericksburgh and when the pontoon men are in high +command? when a Franklin is still sustained, when a Seward and a +Halleck remain firm in their high places as the gates of hell? + +_January 20._--Wrote a respectful letter to the President on +Halleck's military science, his book, and capacity. Told +respectfully to Mr. Lincoln that not even the Sultan would dare to +palm such a Halleck on his army and on his people. + +Mr. Lincoln in his greatness says that "he will stand and fall with +his Cabinet." O, Mr. Lincoln! O, Mr. Lincoln! purple-born sovereigns +can no more speak so! + +Mr. Lincoln! with the gang of politicians, your advisers and +friends, _you all desire immensely, and will feebly_. You desire the +reconstruction of the Union, and you almost shun the ways and means +to do it. And thus this noble people is dragged to a slaughter +house. + + Parumne campis atque Neptuno super + Fusum est--[Yankee] sanguinis? + +_January 21._--Deep, irreconcilable as is my hatred of slavocrats +and rebels, nevertheless I am forced to admire the high intellectual +qualities of their chiefs, when compared with that of ours. Of +Lincoln _versus_ Jeff Davis I spoke in the first volume. But now +Lee, Jackson, Hill, Ewall, _versus_ Halleck, McClellan, McDowell, +Franklin, etc. + +_January 22._--Wendell Phillips's _Amen_ oration to the Proclamation +is noble and torrent-like oratory. Greeley is the better Greeley of +former times. I heartily wish to admire and speak well of Greeley, +as of every body else. Is it my fault that they give me no occasion? + +_January 23._--General Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's pet, told me +to-day, that after the battle at Hanover Court House, he supplicated +McClellan to attack Richmond at once--which in Porter's opinion +could have been taken without much ado,--and not to change his base +to James River; and even Fitz-John could not prevail on this demigod +of imbeciles, traitors and intriguers. + +_January 24._--Here is one of the thousand flagrant lies with which +Seward entangles Lincoln, as with a net of steel. Lincoln assured +General Ashley that the public is unjust toward Seward in accusing +him of having worked for the defeat of Wadsworth. That they have +been the best friends for long years; that, when Military Governor +of Washington, Wadsworth was a daily visitor in Seward's house; and +that, during the canvass, Wadsworth consulted with Seward concerning +his (Wadsworth's) actions. + +Mr. Seward knows that every one of those assertions which he or +Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant +lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned +Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a +lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never +was his political or private friend. + +I am sorry to bring such details before the public, but how +otherwise convict a liar? As for Thurlow Weed's secret and open +machinations against the election of Wadsworth, only an idiot or a +s.... doubts them. Ask the New York politicians, provided they have +manhood to tell the truth. + +_January 24th._--_Caveant Senators and Representatives!_ cannot be +too often hurled into the ears of the people and of the Congressmen. +The time runs lightning like--the 4th of March approaches with +comet-like velocity. If the tempest is not roaring, its signs are +visible, and most of the helmsmen are blind or unsteady. Oh! could +every move of the pendulums of the clocks of the Senate Chamber and +the Representatives' Hall, thunder-like repeat that _caveant_, +transmitted by the purest and best days of Rome! The Republicans and +many of the war Democrats are faithful and true to the people and to +its sacred cause; but the names of the "filibustering" traitors in +both houses ought to be nailed to the gallows! + +European winds bring Louis Napoleon's opening speech, and the +confession, that although once rebuked, he, the dissolute, the +profligate, with his corrosive breath still intends to pollute the +virginity of our country; for such is the indelible stain to any +nation, to any people which accepts or submits to any, even the most +friendly, foreign mediation or arbitration. Never, never any great +nation or any self-respecting government, accepted or submitted to +any similar foreign interference. Of the peoples, nations and +governments, which allowed such interference, some collapsed into +degradation for a long time, only slowly recovering, like Spain; +others, like Poland, disappeared. Those who advocate such mediation +unveil their weakness, their thorough ignorance of the world's +history and of the historic and political bearings of the words, +_mediation_, and _arbitration_; and to crown all, these advocates +bring to market their imbecility. + +The Africo-Americans ought to receive military organization and be +armed. But it ought to be done instantly and without loss of time; +it ought to be done earnestly, boldly, broadly; it ought to be done +at once on all points and on the largest scale; it ought to be done +here in Washington, under the eyes of the chief of the people; here +in the heart of the country; here, so to speak, in the face of +slave-breeding Virginia, this most intense focus of treason; it +ought to be done here, that the loyal freemen of Virginia's soil be +enabled to fight and crush the F. F. V's, the progeny of hell; it +ought to be done here on every inch of soil covered with shattered +shackles; and not partially on the outskirts, in the Carolinas and +Louisiana. Stanton, alone, and Welles among the helmsmen, are so +inspired; but alas, for the rest of the crew. + +On the flags of the Africo-Americans under my command, I shall +inscribe: _Hic niger est! hunc tu (rebel) caveto!_ I shall inculcate +upon my men that they had better not make prisoners in the battle, +and not allow themselves to be taken alive. + +_January 25th._--So Gen. McClellan's services to the rebellion are +acknowledged by the gift of a splendid mansion situated in New York, +in the social sewer of American society. The donors, are the shavers +from Wall Street, individuals who coin money from the blood and from +the misfortunes of the people, and who by high rents mercilessly +crush the poor; who sacrifice nothing for the sacred cause; who, if +they put their names as voluntary contributors of a trifle for the +war, thousand and thousand times recover that trifle which they +ostentatiously throw to gull the good-natured public opinion; not to +speak of those so numerous among the McClellanites, who openly or +secretly are in mental communion with treason and rebellion. +Naturally, all this gang honors its hero. + +McClellan's pedestal is already built of the corpses of hundreds of +thousands butchered by his generalship, poisoned in the +Chickahominy, and decimated by diseases. His trophies are the wooden +guns from Centreville and Manassas. + +_January 25th._--What from the beginning of this war, I witness as +administrative acts and dispositions, and further the debates in +Congress on the various bills for military organizations and for the +organization of the various branches of the military medical, +surgical, and quartermaster's service; all this fully convinces me +that the military and administrative routine, as transmitted by Gen. +Scott, or by his school, and as continued by his pets and remnants, +is almost the paramount cause of all mischief and evils. In the +medical, surgical, and in the quartermasters' offices, ought have +been appointed young civilians and business men as chiefs, having +under them some old routinists for the sake of technicalities of the +service. Such men would have done by far better than those old +intellectual drones. A merchant accustomed to carry on an extensive +and complicated business would have been by far a better +quartermaster-general--_Intendant des armees_--than the wholly +inexperienced Gen. Meigs. This last would serve as an aid to the +merchant. At the beginning of the war, I suggested to Senator Wilson +to import such quartermasters from France or Russia, men experienced +and accustomed to provide for armies of 100,000 men each. By paying +well, such men could have been easily found, and the military +medical and surgical bureau, as organized by Scott, was about sixty +years behind real science. These senile representatives of +non-science snubbed off Professor Van Buren of the New York +academy, to whom they compare as the light of a common match to that +of calcium. If men like Dr. Van Buren, Dr. Barker, and others of +real science from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., had been +listened to, thousands and thousands of limbs and lives would have +been saved and preserved. + +_January 25th._--Mr. Lincoln relishes the idea that if the cause of +the North is victorious, no one can claim much credit for it. I put +this on record for some future assumptions. Mr. Lincoln is the best +judge of the merits of his clerks and lieutenants. But Mr. Lincoln +forgets that the success will be due exclusively to the people--and, +_per contra_, he alone will be arrayed for the failure. His friends +and advisers, as the Sewards, the Weeds, the Blairs, the Hallecks, +will very cleverly wash their gored hands from any complicity with +him--Lincoln. + +The army to be formed from Africo-Americans is to be entrusted to +converted conservatives. It is feared that sincere abolitionists if +entrusted with the command, may use the forces for some awful, +untold aims. It is feared that abolitionists once possessed of arms +and troops, may use them indiscriminately, and emancipate right and +left, by friend and foe, paying no attention to the shrieks of +border-States, of old women, of politicians, of cowards, of +Sewardites; nay, it is feared that genuine abolitionists may carry +too far their notions of absolute equality of races, and without +hesitation treat the white rebels with even more severity than they +threaten to treat loyal armed Africo-Americans. And why not?... + +The history of England, the history of any free country has not on +record a position thus anomalous, even humiliating, as is that of +the patriots in Congress, thanks to Mr. Lincoln's helpless +stubbornness. The patriots forcibly must consider Mr. Lincoln, even +Sewardised, Blairised, Halleckised as he is, as being the only legal +power for the salvation of the country. The patriots must support +him, and instead of exposing the wretched faults, mistakes, often +ill-will of his administration, must defend the administration +against the attacks of the Copperheads, who try to destroy or +disorganize the administration on account of that atom of good that +it accidentally carries out on its own hook. And thus the patriots +must suffer and bear patiently abuses heaped on them by the +treasonable or by the stupid press, by intriguers and traitors; and +patriots cannot make even the slightest attempt to vindicate their +names. + +_January 26th._--The visits to the White House and the "_I had a +talk with the President_," are among the prominent causes of the +distracted condition of affairs. With comparatively few exceptions, +almost everybody expands a few inches in his own estimation, when he +says to his listeners, nay, to his friends: "I had a talk with the +President." Of course it is no harm in private individuals to have +such _a talk_, but I have frequently observed and experienced that +public men had better refrain from having any talk with him. Very +often he is not a jot improved by their talk, and they come out from +the interview worsted in some sort or other. + +Sumner, the Roman, the Cicero, was to-day urged by several +abolitionists from Boston to expose the mischief of both the foreign +and the domestic policy of Seward. The Senator replied that he is +more certain to succeed against that public nuisance and public +enemy by not attacking him openly. I vainly ransack my recollection +of my classic reading for the name of any Roman who ever made such a +reply. + +_January 26th: Two o'clock P. M._--Hooker is in command! And +patriotic hearts thrill with joy! Mud, bad season, mortality, loss +of time, demoralization, such is the inheritance left by McClellan, +Halleck and Burnside--such are the results prepared by the infamous +West Point and other muddy intriguers in Washington, and in the +army,--such is the inheritance transmitted to Hooker, by the cursed +Administration procrastinations. In all military history there is +seldom, if ever, a record of a commander receiving an army under +such ominous circumstances. If Hooker succeeds, then his genius will +astonish even his warmest friends. + +When Hooker was wounded, and in the hospital, he repeatedly +complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of +it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a +flaw. + +I immediately wrote to Stanton, sending him several pages translated +from the German works of Boehn (before spoken of) to give to the +Secretary a general idea of what are the qualities, the science, the +knowledge and the duties of a good chief of staff. I explained that +the staff and the chief of the staff of an army are to it what the +brains and the nervous system are to the human body. + +_9 o'clock, P. M._--I am told that Hooker wished to have for his +chief of staff General Stone, (white-washed) who is considered to be +one of the most brilliant capacities of the army. If so, it was a +good choice, and the opposition made by Stanton is for me--at the +best--unintelligible. + +Hooker selected Butterfield. What a fall from Stone to Butterfield. +Between the two extend hundreds, nay, thousands, of various +gradations. Gen. Butterfield is brave, can well organize a regiment +or a brigade, but he has not and can not have the first atom of +knowledge required in a chief of staff of such a large army. Staff +duties require special studies, they are the highest military +science; and where, in the name of all, could Butterfield have +acquired it? I am certain Butterfield is not even aware that staff +duties are a special science. All this is a very bad omen, very bad, +very bad. Literally they laugh at me; now they hurrah for Hooker. +May they not cry very soon on account of Hooker's staff. When I +warn, Senators and Representatives tell me that I am very difficult +to be satisfied. We will see. + +_January 27._--It is said that Franklin, Sumner, and even +Heintzelman declared they would not serve under Hooker. Let them go. +Bow them out, the hole in the army will be invisible. I am sorry +that Heintzelman plays such pranks, as he is a very good general and +a very good man. Well, a new galaxy of generals and commanders is +the inevitable gestation of every war. Seldom if ever the same men +end a war who began it. New men will prove better than the present +sickly reputations consecrated by Scott, West Point and Washington. + +_January 27._--Governor Andrew--the man always to the point, or as the +French would say _toujours a la hauteur de la question_--insists on +forming African or black regiments in Boston from free blacks. Such +formations interfere not with my project, as I principally, nay +exclusively, look to contrabands, to actual slaves. Governor Andrew +wishes to give the start, to stir up the Government and other +Governors and to drag them in his footsteps. He is the representative +man of the new and better generation which ought to have the affairs +of the country in hand, and not these old worn-out hacks who are at it +now. If such new men were at the helm in both civil and military +affairs, Secesh would have been already crushed and Emancipation +accomplished. To such a new generation belongs Coffey, one of the +Assistant Attorney Generals, Austin Stevens, Jr., Charles Dana, +Woodman, etc., etc. The country bristles with such men, and only +prejudices, stupidity, and routine prevents them from becoming really +active and from saving the country. + +_January 27._--The patriotic majorities of both Houses of Congress +pass laws after laws concerning the finances, arming the +Africo-Americans, increasing the powers of the President, etc., each +of which taken alone, would not only save the cause but raise it +triumphant over the ruins of crime and of slavery, if used by +patriotic, firm, devoted, unegotistic hands and brains. But alas! +alas! very little of such, except in one or two individuals, is +located in the various edifices in and around the presidential +quarters. + +The military organization of Africo-Americans is a powerful social +and military engine by which slavery, secession, rebellion, and all +other dark and criminal Northern and Southern excrescences can be +crushed and pulverized to atoms, and this in a trice. But as is the +case with all other powerful and explosive gases, elements, forces, +etc. this mighty element put in the hands of the Administration must +be handled resolutely, and with unquivering hands and intellect; +otherwise the explosion may turn out useless for the country and for +humanity. + +At present the indications are very small that the administration +has a decided, clear comprehension how to use this accession of +loyal forces on a large scale; how to bring them boldly into action +in Virginia, as the heart of the rebellion. Nothing yet indicates +that the administration intends to arm and equip Africo-Americans +here under the eyes of the government. Nothing indicates that it +intends to do this avowedly and openly, and thereby terrify and +strike the proud slave-breeders, the F. F. V's. of Virginia, in the +heart of treason, and do it by their own once chattels, now their +betters. + +_January 28._--The Congress almost expires; and will or can the +incarnated constitutional formula save the country? It is a chilling +thought to doubt, yet how can we have confidence! All in the +people! the people alone and its true men will not and cannot +fail, and they alone are up to the mission. + +The dying Congress can no more reconquer its abdicated power. This +noble and patriotic majority--many of them, are not re-elected, +thanks to Lincoln-Seward--provide the incarnate formula with all +imaginable legal, constitutional powers, more than twice sufficient +to save the country. Could only the brains and hands entrusted with +laws, be able to execute them! Oh for a legal, constitutional, +statute Cromwell, ready to behead treason, rebellion, slavocracy and +slavo-sympathy, as the great Oliver beheaded and crushed the +poisonous weeds of his time. If the democratic-copperhead vermin +had the possibility, they would make a McClellan-Seymour +dictatorship, and extinguish for a century at least, light, right, +justice, and freedom. Not yet! Oh, Copperheads! not yet. + +_January 29._--They dance to madness in New York, they dance here +and give dancing parties! O what a heartlessness, recklessness, +flippancy, and crime, of those mothers, wives and young crinolines, +when one half of the population is already in mourning, when they +have fathers, brothers, husbands in the army. I hope that Boston and +New England as well as the towns and villages of the country all +over, spit on this example given by New York and Washington. My +friend N----, progressive, enlightened and therefore a true Russian, +is amazed and displeased with such an intolerable flippancy. During +the Crimean war, no one danced in Russia from the Imperial palace +down to the remotest village; the people's indignation would have +prevented any body--even the Czar, from such a sacrilegious display +of recklessness when the country's integrity and honor were at +stake, when the nation's blood was pouring in torrents. + +Unspeakably worse, is the cold indifference with which many +generals, many men in power, the rhetors and the politicians, speak +of what is more than a sacrifice in a sacred cause, is an unholy and +demoniac waste of human life. But some one--some avenging angel, +will call them all to a terrible account. + +_January 30._--I would have ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, +Secretary of State. The conduct of European affairs requires pure +patriotism--that is, conscientiousness of being an American by +principle, in the noblest philosophical sense, sound common sense, +discretion, simplicity, sobriety of mind, firmness, clear-sightedness. +Boutwell would be a Secretary of State similar to Marcy. + +_January 30._--Wrote a letter to Stanton with the following +suggestions for the organization of a large and efficacious force, +nay, army, from the Africo-Americans. + +Some of the points submitted to this genuine patriot have been +already variously mentioned above; here are some others. + +1. It may be possible--even probable--on account of inveterate +prejudices and stupidity, that an Africo-American regiment may be +left unsupported during a battle. + +2. It would be therefore more available to organize such a force at +once on a large scale, so as to be able to have strong brigades, and +even divisions. At the head of six to eight thousand men, resistance +is possible for several hours if the enemy outnumbers not in too +great proportions--four or five to one, and if the terrain is not +altogether against the smaller force. + +3. The Africo-Americans ought to be formed, drilled and armed +principally with the view to constitute light infantry--and, if +possible, light cavalry--but above all, for a _set fight_. + +4. Their dress must be adapted to such a light service--as ought to +be the dress of our whole infantry, facilitating to the utmost the +quick and easy movements of the body and of the feet; both +impossible or at least difficult in the present equipment of the +American infantry. On account of the modern improvements in fire +arms, the fights begin at longer distances, and it is important that +the soldier be trained to march as quickly as possible, so as to +force the enemy from their positions at the point of the bayonet. In +this country of clay, bad roads, forests and underbrush, even more +than care must be bestowed upon the feet and legs of the infantry. I +suggested an imitation of the equipment of the French infantry. + +5. In the case of the arsenals not having the requisite number of +fire-arms, I would have the third line armed with scythes. As a +Pole, I am familiar with that really terrible weapon. + +6. To adapt the drill to the object in view--to free it as far as +possible from needless technicalities, and to reduce it to the most +urgently needed and the most readily comprehended particulars. + +7. In view of the above-mentioned reasons, I would have the Tactics +now in use very carefully revised, or have an entirely new book of +Tactics and Regulations. + +8. Suggested that General Casey should be entrusted with the matters +treated of in suggestions 6 and 7. + +_January 31._--The Copperheads in Congress are shedding crocodile +tears over the doom that awaits those Africo-Americans who may +unfortunately be taken prisoners by the rebels. Now, in the first +place enlisted Africo-Americans are under the protection of the +United States Government, and that Government will not be guilty of +the infamy of seeing its captured soldiers murdered in cold +blood--and in the next place the Africo-American will prove anything +rather than an easily-made captive to Southern murderers. The +Africo-Americans will sell their lives so dearly as to disgust the +rebels with the task of attempting to capture them. + +_January 31._--Few people can understand the intensity of the +disgust with which I find myself often obliged to mention Thurlow +Weed--that darkest incarnation of all that is evil in black mail, +lobbyism, and all hideous corruptions. It is not my fault that such +a man is allowed to exert a malign influence on the country's fate, +and I am obliged to give the dark as well as the bright parts of the +great social picture. How deeply I regret my inability to collect +and record, in part at least, if not as a whole, all the deeds of +heroism and devotion, of generous and brave self-abnegation, which +have been done by thousands, even by millions of those who are both +falsely and foolishly called the lower classes. + + + + +FEBRUARY, 1863. + + The Problems before the People -- the Circassian -- Department of + State and International Laws -- Foresight -- Patriot Stanton and + the Rats -- Honest Conventions -- Sanitary Commission -- Harper's + Ferry -- John Brown -- the Yellow Book -- the Republican Party -- + Epitaph -- Prize Courts -- Suum cuique -- Academy of Sciences -- + Democratic Rank and File, etc. etc. etc. + + +_February 1._--The task which this great American people has on its +hands is one utterly unexampled in the history of the world. While +in the midst of a great civil war, and struggling as it were in very +death-throes, to emancipate and organize four millions of men, most +of whom, up to this very day, have by deliberate legislation been +kept in ignorance and savagery. Thoroughly to comprehend the +immensity of such a task, we must also reflect that the men to whom +that task is intrusted are anything rather than intellectual +giants. Yet the true solution of the problem will be given by the +principle of self-government and by the self-governing People. And +it is therein that consists the genuine American originality which +Europe finds it so impossible to understand. And it is just as +little understood by most of the diplomatists here, and what +is still worse, it is not even studied by them. It is wretched +work to be obliged to witness the low, the actually ignoble parts +which many men play in the great farce of political life. I could +easily mention a full score of would-be-eminent men, who are +unsurpassed by the meanest of the vulgar herd in flippancy and an +utter want of self-respect. + +The diary published in London by Bull Run Russell deserves to be read +by every American. Russell deals blows to slavery which will tell in +England. However annoying may be to many the disclosures made by this +indiscreet confidant of their vanity, Russell's revelations establish +firmly the broad historical--not gossipping--fact, that before and +after Sumter, the most absolute want of earnestness, of statesmanlike +foresight, and the most childish but fathomless vanity inspired all +the actions of the American Secretary of State. I am one of the few +who, having often met Russell here, never fawned to him, nay who not +even took any notice of him; but I am grateful to him for his +falsely-called indiscreetness--for his having done the utmost to bring +out truth--in his own way. It is the best that I have seen, or heard, +or read of him. Flatterers, Secretaries, Senators, and Generals +crowded to Russell and to his table, and he exposes them. Among +others, General McDowell was Russell's guest, very likely to show his +gratitude to the slanderer of the volunteers, whom McDowell did not +understand how to lead to victory. + +Seward showed to Russell his dispatches to Lord John Russell. Mr. +Sumner, at Bull Run Russell's table, asked Russell's aid to keep +peace with England. Good! Unspeakably good! + +Not only the Emancipation problem must be solved, so to speak, +amidst the storm of battle--but other and very mighty problems, +social, constitutional, jurisprudential, and financial, must be +similarly and promptly dealt with. And these great questions must be +debated to the accompaniment of the music of musketry and cannon. In +some respects the situation of America at present may be said to +resemble that of France in the days of her great Revolution. But +affairs here and now are still more complicated than they were in +France from 1789 to 1793. + +Formerly I took a more active part than I now take in revolutionary +and reformatory struggles, and was seldom daunted by their difficult +problems, or by their most violent tempests. But now I have a +chilling sense of weariness and disgust as I note the strange things +that are done under my very eyes. + +The burden of taxes laid upon a people who have an inborn hatred of +taxation, a debt created in a few months surpassing that which +England and France contracted in half a century; and that debt +contracted as if by magic, and in the very crisis of a civil +war such as any foreign war would be mere baby's play to. + +The people at large see the precipice, and hear the roaring of the +breakers ahead, but despair not! Sublime phenomena for the future +historian to dwell upon! All this is genuine American originality. +In its sublime presence, down, down upon your knees in the dust, all +you European wiseacres! + +The capture of the _Circassian_, an English blockade runner, gave +birth to some very delicate international complications. The +decision of the Prize Court shows up the absolute destitution of +statesmanship in the Department of State, generally coruscated with +ignorance of international principles, rules of judicial +international decisions, and of belligerent rights and observances. +Every day shows what a masterly stroke it was of the Secretary of +State to have proclaimed the blockade in April, 1861, and to have +been the first to recognize the rebels in the character of +independent belligerents. The more blockade runners will be captured +by our cruisers, the more the complications will grow. A false first +step generates false conditions _ad infinitum_. The question of the +_Circassian_ is only the beginning, and not even the worst. The +worst will come by and by. But Seward is great before Allah! The +truth is, that Mr. Seward and the Department are as innocent of +any familiarity with international laws, as can be. The people, +the intelligent people would be horror-stricken could they suddenly +be made acquainted with all the shameful ignorance which is +corrosively fermenting in the State Department. + +To every intelligent and well regulated Government in Europe, the +Department of Foreign Affairs--which in America is called the State +Department--has attached to it a board of advisers for the solution +of all international questions. + +In England, for instance, all such questions are referred to the +Crown Lawyers, i.e. the Attorney and Solicitor General, and, in +specially important cases, to the Lord High Chancellor, and one or +two of the Judges. And in order to obtain the advice he obviously +stands so much in need of, Mr. Seward ought to have consulted two or +three American juriconsults of eminence. Mr. Seward ought to have +foreseen that the war would necessarily give rise to international, +commercial, and maritime complications. Such men as Charles Eames, +Upton, etc. would have been excellent advisers on all international +and statutory questions. Presumptuous that I am--to venture upon +the mere supposition that Seward the Great can possibly need advice! +Not he, of course--not he. Mr. Seward is the Alpha and Omega--knows +everything, and can do every thing himself. Happily, the people at +large is the genuine statesman, and can correct the mistakes--and +worse--of its blundering, bungling servants. + +American pilots and statesmen! Forget not that foresight is the germ +of action. Foresight reveals to the mind the opportuneness of the +needed measure by which a solution is to be given, a question +decided, and the hoped-for results obtained. + +American people! How much foresight have your--dearly-paid--servants +shown? You, the people alone, you have been far-seeing and +prophetic; but not they. + +_February 2._--All the efforts of the worshippers of treason, of +darkness, of barbarism, of cruelty, and of infamy--all their +manoeuvres and menaces could not prevail. The majority of the +Congress has decided that the powerful element of Africo-Americans +is to be used on behalf of justice, of freedom, and of human rights. +The bill passed both the Houses. It is to be observed that the "big" +diplomats swallowed _col gusto_ all the pro-slavery speeches, and +snubbed off the patriotic ones. The noblest eulogy of the patriots! + +The patriots may throb with joy! The President intends great changes +in his policy, and has telegraphed for----Thurlow Weed, that prince +of dregs, to get from him light about the condition of the country. + +The conservative "Copperheads" of Boston and of other places in New +England press as a baby to their bosom, and lift to worship +McClellan, the conservative, and all this out of deepest hatred +towards all that is noble, humane, and lofty in the genuine American +people. Well they may! If by his generalship McClellan butchered +hundreds of thousands in the field, he was always very conservative +of his precious little self. + +Biting snow storm all over Virginia! Our soldiers! our soldiers in +the camp! It is heart-rending to think of them. Conservative +McClellan so conservatively campaigned until last November as to +preserve--the rebel armies, and make a terrible winter campaign an +inevitable necessity. O, Copperheads and Boston conservatives! When +you bend your knees before McClellan, you dip them in the best and +purest blood of the people! + +_February 3._--The Secretary of War appointed General Casey to +shorten the general tactics for the use of Africo-American regiments +to use them as light infantry. + +The devotion of American women to the sick and wounded soldiers, +makes them be envied by the angels in Heaven (provided there are +any). This devotion of these genuine gentlewomen atones for the +ignoble flippancy of dancing crinolines. + +Down, down goes slavery notwithstanding the _gates of hell_, and +their guard, the McClellans, the Sewards, amorously embracing the +Copperheads and all that is dark and criminal. Humanity is avenged +and Eternal Justice is satisfied. + +_February 4._--Sumner is re-elected to the Senate. His re-election +vindicates a sound principle, because his opponents were all the +Copperheads and slavery-saviours in Massachusetts. Sumner's +influence in the Senate is rather limited. Politically he is on all +points most honest; but his conduct towards Seward is not calculated +to impress one with any very high esteem for his manhood. + +It is not force, or decision, or power, that is cruel in +revolutionary times--but, weakness. All societies have had their +epochs of progress and of retrogression. Sylla was a conservative, +and so too was Phocion. The Pharisees were reactionists and +conservatives. Europe has millions of them, of various hues, shapes, +tendencies and convictions. But the reactionists and conservatives +in the past of Europe all have been and are of a purer metal than +the conservatives here, and their impure organs, as the National +Intelligencer, the World, the Boston Courier, and the rest of that +fetish creed. + +_February 4._--The French Yellow Book, or State Correspondence, +justifies my forebodings of November last. Mr. Mercier's diplomatic +sentimentalism, and his associations, germinated the _Decembriseur's_ +scheme for mediation and humiliation. + +Further is to be found in the Yellow Book the evidence how, from the +start of this dark rebellion, Mr. Seward, the master spirit of the +Administration, dealt death blows to all energetic, unyielding +prosecution of the war for crushing the rebellion, and that he was +double-dealing in all his public actions. The published state papers +of the French government disclose the fact that nine months ago Mr. +Seward sent the French minister to Richmond with a mission to invite +the Jeff. Davises, Hunters, Wigfalls, Benjamins and others to come +back to their seats in the Senate, and in the name of the cruelly +outraged North, Mr. Seward proffered to the traitors a hearty +welcome. So says the French diplomat in his official dispatch to the +French Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Such underhanded dealings +should not be allowed, and most assuredly would be stringently +punished, if perpetrated under similar circumstances by the minister +of any European government dealing with treason in arms. But here, +Mr. Seward's impudence--if not worse--displays its flying colors. +The Republican press will swallow all this, and Senator Sumner as +Chairman of the Committee will--keep quiet. + +That confidential mission entrusted to the French diplomat by Mr. +Seward, was more than sufficient to evoke the subsequent attempt at +mediation, because it revealed to the piercing eye of European +statesmanship, how the Administration, and above all how its master +spirit had little confidence in the cause; it revealed the want of +earnestness in official quarters. I hate and denounce all attempts, +even by the most friendly foreign power, to meddle with the internal +affairs of our country. But I have some little knowledge of European +statecraft, of European diplomacy, of European rulers, and of +European diplomats; and I assert, emphatically, that they are +emboldened to offer their meddlesome services because they have very +little if any respect for our official leaders; and because the want +of energy and of good faith to the principles of the North as +displayed by Seward, he nevertheless remaining at the helm, has +firmly settled the conviction in European minds, that the rebels +cannot be crushed by such traffickers and used up politicians as +have in their hands the destinies of the Union. + +_February 5._--The new Copperhead Senators--in their appearance +resembling bushwhackers; the pillars of Copperheadism in the House, +take umbrage at the sight and the name of New England, and abuse the +New England spirit with all their coppery might. Well they may. So +did Satan hate and abuse light. + +Patriot Stanton is earnestly at work concerning the organization of +Africo-Americans on a mighty scale; busy against him, likewise, are +the intriguers, the traitors, the cavillers, the Sewardites and the +McClellanites, all being of the same kidney. Seward sighs for +McClellan. But Stanton will override the muddy storm. He has at his +side men as pure, energetic and devoted as Watson, a patriot without +a flaw. + +Stanton surrounds himself and selects young men--as far as he can, +he crowds out the remains of Scott, so tenderly protected by +Lincoln. Could he only have swept out the rest of the old fogies! +Undoubtedly these young men in the War Department would give new +life to it. + +_February 6._--The people at large are at a loss to find the cause +of the recent disasters. The general axiom is, "we are not a +military nation." Neither is the South. But here they forget that +every great or small effect has its--not only--cause, but several +causes. Many such causes have been repeatedly pointed out. Old +routine in military organization stands foremost. Few, if any, +understand wherein consists the proper organization of an army, and +most have notions reaching back sixty years. The medical and +surgical bureaus are obsolete. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, who +is always on the right side, and with him many young men, insisted +upon organizing the above services as they are organized in the +Continental armies of Europe. But even in the Senate prevailed the +respect for dusty, rusty, domestic tradition. The few changes forced +by the outcry of the people cure not the evil. Skeletons and not +men are at work, and if they are not skeletons they are leeches of +the government and of the people's blood. + +Thus likewise, when the organizations of the staffs was discussed, +no one had the first notion of the nature and duties of a staff; and +the military authorities were as ignorant as the civilians. Of +course a McClellan, then a Halleck, Meigs, Hitchcock, etc., could +not disperse the fog. Many Congressmen were thunderstruck by the +display of words which, as they were purely technical terms, the +Congressmen in question could not understand. Others sought for +guidance in the Staff of Wellington, and thus oddly but unmistakably +proved themselves completely in the dark as to the difference +between the personal staff of the commander of an army, and the +Staff of that Army itself. And all this in a country of the most +rapid movement and progress, and amongst a people which +unhesitatingly adopts and adapts to its own needs and welfare almost +every novelty from almost every part of the world. The great fault +committed by the People is its too great respect for false +authorities and false prophets. + +The so-called honest Conservatives have exercised and still continue +to exercise a most fatal influence on public affairs, and especially +on what is called the domestic policy. These same "honest +Conservatives" are more dangerous than the out-spoken Copperheads; +more dangerous, perhaps, than all the friends of slavery and foes +of the Union combined. These "honest Conservatives" have contrived +to surround themselves with a halo of honesty and respectability. +But they as cordially hate and dread every vivid light and vigorous +progress as the traitors themselves do. Those Conservatives opposed +every vigorous measure. They spoke tenderly of the "misguided +brethren" in the South, and took their own servile and blundering, +though quite possibly sincere fancies, for actual and tangible +facts. The honest Conservatives will support whatever is slow, +double-dealing, and, therefore, conservative. The honest +Conservatives took McClellan to their honest hearts, and not one of +them has any clear notion of military affairs, and still less can +any of them fathom the awful depth of McClellan's military +criminality. I repeat what I said in the first volume of my Diary: +McClellan and his tail fell, not on account of their Democratism, or +their pro-slavery creed, but because McClellan repeatedly displayed +all the worst qualities of a thoroughly unsoldierly commander. No +one would have uttered a word of censure if McClellan with his +hundred and eighty thousand men had surrounded the thirty to forty +thousand rebels in Centreville and Manassas in the winter of 1861-2, +and taken some nobler trophies than camp manure and maple guns! The +honest Conservatives attack and hate Stanton, yet not one of them +has any notion whatever of Stanton's action towards McClellan. +Stanton would have been the first to raise McClellan sky-high if +McClellan had preferred to fight instead of reposing in his bed in +Washington, and then in various muds. Such is your knowledge of this +and of all other public affairs, O respectable soul and spiritless +body of honest Conservatives! Historians of this country! collect +the names of the _honest_ Conservatives, but expose them not to the +abomination of coming generations. + +_February 7._--The Sanitary Commission, with all its branches and +subdivisions, is among the noblest manifestations of what can be +done by a free people, and how private enterprise of intelligent, +patriotic and unselfish men can confer benefit. Nor must the praise +of that great work be limited to men. Warm-hearted gentlewomen also +have done their share in it. The Sanitary Commission is one of the +best out-croppings of self-government, and does honor to the people, +and softens and ameliorates the warlike roughness of the times. + +The Sanitary Commission marks a new era in the history of genuine +and not bogus and merely verbal philanthropy, and its spontaneity +and expansion were only possible in free, and therefore humane and +enlightened America. + +_February 8._--Mr. Seward is busily at work endeavoring to crush the +radicals, and to make the Emancipation Proclamation a mere sheet of +waste paper. All that is mean and nasty, all that is reeking and +foul with all kinds of corruptions, takes Seward for its +standard-bearer. The so-called radical press aids Seward with all +its might. + +_February 9._--Gen. Casey adopts some of my ideas and suggestions, +which I discussed with him. Gen. Casey is honestly at work, and the +new tactics will be in print. + +Stanton would wish to establish a thorough military camp on a large +scale, for organizing Africo-Americans. But the higher powers are +against it. Virginia, the most populous slave state, the nursery of +slaves, must, scorpion-like, be surrounded with glowing contraband +camps. What a splendid position for such a camp is Harper's Ferry +under the shadow of immortal John Brown! + +A few days ago, Mr. Lincoln was full of joy because the defences of +Washington are in excellent condition. Thus the country will learn +with joy that the----spade is still at work, that the military curse +hurled by Scott and McClellan is still influencing the operation of +the war, that Halleck is the worthy continuator of his predecessors, +that Mr. Lincoln's fears and uneasiness about the fate of the city +of Washington are slowly, slowly assuaged, that the President's +fancy is nursed, that the construction of the extensive +fortifications around the capital is still continued, that new forts +are continually erected, that the fear of an attack on Washington is +still paramount, and that to-day--sixty to seventy thousand troops +are kept idle in these old and new forts--when Rosecrans has no +succor, when Texas is lost, and when the whole rebel region +trembles under the tread of savage hordes. + +Through one of its clerks, the State Department intends to sue me +for libel, contained, as they say, in the first volume of my +_Diary_. Well, great masters, if you swallow me, you may not digest +me. Let us try.[2] + + [Footnote 2: I must here record that Mr. Carlisle, the + eminent lawyer in Washington, although in every respect + opposed to my political and social views, behaved, in this + affair, as a thorough man of honor. I am sorry that on a + similar former occasion, not in Washington, my political + friends showed themselves not Carlisles.] + +_February 10._--... mens agitat molem ... oh, could I only believe +that such is the case with Mr. Lincoln, how devoted I could become, +and loyal to him, according to the new theory of the lickspittles +and politicians! + +_February 10._--Resolute Senator Grimes did what was the duty of +Sumner to have done long ago. Grimes presented resolutions relative +to the mission of Mercier to Richmond, a mission allowed, almost +authorized by Mr. Seward. Mercier cannot be blamed, and his veracity +is supported by the fact that Lord Lyons was at once informed of the +whole transaction, and Lord Lyons is to be believed. Seward will +play the innocent, and take his refuge in the god of--lies. + +_February 12._--In his answer to the Senate, Mr. Seward gives to +Mercier the lie direct. It will be rich if Mercier stands square. + +_February 12._--Congress draws to its close. Lincoln accumulates +powers, responsibilities, and hereafter perhaps curses, sufficient +to break the turtle on which stands the elephant that sustains the +Sanscrit world. + +_February 13._--The almost imperceptible ripple on the diplomatic pool +of Washington has disappeared. Simple people might have believed that +there was an issue of veracity between Mr. Seward and the French +Minister. But since a long, a very long time, Seward and veracity have +run in different orbits, and diplomats, Talleyrand-like, ought to be +the incarnation of equanimity even if any one--diplomatically--treads +on their toes. Besides, the answer given to the Senate before it +reached its destination _might have been arranged_ at any such +confidential chat as was that one where the little innocent, +nobody-hurting (no, not even the people's honour) trip to Richmond was +concocted. The French Minister's name _appears not_ in the document +sent to the Senate; so the lie direct is after all only a constructive +lie; nobody is hurt. A general shaking of hands and all is well. But +strange things may come out yet, and others may not be so blazened +out. + +The soap bubble of mediation exploded under the nose of the French +schemers. The soap used by them was of the finest and most aromatic +quality, but the democratic nerves of the American people resisted +the Franco-diplomatic cunningly mixed aroma. The applause gained by +Mr. Seward's very indifferent document, wherein the great initiator +of the Latin race on this free continent was rebuked, the +satisfaction shown by the public, ought to open the eyes of the +sentimental French trio. They ought to understand, by this time, +that Seward's argumentative dispatch, incomplete and below mark as +it is, won applause, although it expresses only the hundredth of the +patriotic ire bursting from the people's bosom. Otherwise the people +would have at once found out all skillfully, cunningly, +chameleon-like Seward dodges, which ignore before Europe the sublime +character of the struggle forced by treason upon the loyal free +States; and in which how he avoids to hurt the slavocracy. + +The Imperial mediator and bottle-holder to slavocracy belies not his +bloody origin and his bloody appetites. The events in Egypt, the +negro kidnapping in Alexandria, have torn the mask from his astute +policy. If, for his filibustering raid into Mexico, Louis Napoleon +wanted colored soldiers accustomed to the climate, he could raise +them among the free colored population of the French possessions in +Martinique, Guadaloupe, etc. But to use the freemen from the +Antilles would have set a bad example to the Africo-Americans in the +revolted States; Louis Napoleon wished not to hurt or offend his +slaveocratic pets and traitors; by kidnapping slaves in Egypt the +French ruler showed how highly he values the stealing qualities of +the Southern chivalry--and he paid a tribute to the principle of +slavery. + +But while treating with all possible horror and disrespect the +French officiousness, the American people ought not to forget the +innermost interconnection of events. If the French diplomacy, if the +French Cabinet became sentimental at the sight of our deadly +struggle with the demon of treason, it was because they witnessed +our helplessness, and witnessed the uninterrupted chain of faults +and of bad policy; it was because they and the whole world saw the +want of earnestness in our official leaders; and from all this these +_Messieurs_ concluded that the patriots of the North never will be +able to crush the traitors in the South. So speak the French +diplomatic documents, so speaks Mercier, Drouyn de l'Huys and Louis +Napoleon; and has not the Seward-Weed influence, paramount in the +policy of the Government, brought about all these bad results, +palsied the war, and thus almost justified the officiousness of the +_Messieurs_? + +_February 13._--Many forebode the downfall, the dissolution, and the +disappearance of the Republican party. That may be, and if so then +one of the cardinal laws of human progress, development and +ascension, will be fullfilled. _The initiator either perishes by the +initiated, or the initiator perishes, disappears because his +special mission, his task is done._ + +The progress of humanity is marked by the sacrifice and death of its +initiators. Such was the end of the founders of religions, of +societies; such of political bodies. Osiris, Lycurgus, Romulus, +Christ, the martyrs, the apostles, are a few from numberless +illustrations that might be cited. The Long Parliament, the French +Convention, disappeared after having fullfilled the work of +destruction pointed out to them by the genius of progress and of our +race. As an organized political party the Republican may disappear +with the war, for slavery is finally destroyed. This is the noble +initiation and solution fulfilled by the Republican party. To +destroy slavery and the political defenders and props of slavery, +was the mission that was fatally thrown or entrusted by inexorable +destiny to the Republican party. With the destruction of slavery, +disappears from the political life of America the _Northern man with +Southern principles_; those very dregs of dregs of all times and of +all political bodies and societies. Slavery is destroyed both +virtually and _de facto_, new issues are looming, new solutions will +be given, and new men will bear the new word. + +All in creation, and in every party, has its light and its shadow, +its pure principle, its pure men and its dregs. Every party has its +faults and its shortcomings. The dregs fall, and the work of the +party is done. Some of the chiefs and leaders of the Republican +party became faithless, (Seward,) went over to darkness, but thereby +the onward march to the sacred aim was not arrested. The +irresistible current of events and of human affairs carried onwards +the Republican party. Perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless +emphatically, the Republican party in its _ensemble_ was a +providential agency; it became the incarnation of the loftiest +aspirations of the best among the American people. Against its wish +and will, contrary to expectations, the Republican party was +challenged to action; the sword of law, of justice and of right, was +forcibly thrust into the party's hand, and slavocracy, the +challenger, is already bleeding its life-blood, and its death-knell +resounds from pole to pole. To speak the language of politicians; +abolition, emancipation by the sword, was forced upon the Republican +party. + +And the Republican party carried out the principle of the preamble +of the bill of rights; a principle eternal as right, but +nevertheless hitherto only partially realized. The Republican party +has borne the brunt, and accomplished the appointed evolutions of +progress; and the Republican party has deserved well of the American +people, of history and of humanity. And the children and +grandchildren of those who to-day cavil, defile and stone the party, +they hereafter will bless the Republican party, who, with noble +consciousness can say to the spirit of light and of duty: _Nunc +dimitte in pacem servum tuum Domine._ + +One of the best evidences of purity and of the elevation of the +Republican party in its noblest representative men is that the +obtusest among the great diplomats shunned the Republicans as little +monsters shun the daylight. I mention this as a collateral +illustration without intending to raise a diplomat or the poor +diplomacy of the world to an undeserved significance, for I bear in +mind the behest, _ne misceantur sacra prophanis_. + +The nobleness of the accomplished mission, the glorious Sunset +wherein will disappear the Republican party, frees, not from +reproaches nor from maledictions, those Republicans who, by their +selfishness and faithlessness, obstructed its progress, and polluted +the party. Their names remain nailed to the pillory. + +I may here observe that I never belonged and never claimed to belong +to the Republican party. For nearly half a century my creed has +been--Onward! onward! struggle, fight, sacrifice for light, for +progress, for human rights; for that cause fight and struggle under +every banner, under every name, and in rank and file with every +body. + +_February 13._--Seward seizes by the hair the occasion proffered to +him by the _Decembriseur's_ offer of mediation, and tries to +reconquer the confidence of the public. This shows to Drouyn de +l'Huys and to his master, that they are misinformed concerning the +condition of America, (also M. Mercier misinformed them; how could +he do otherwise?) The despatch to Dayton, February 7, will lead +astray public opinion. The majority will forget and lose sight of +the intercatenation of events and actions perpetrated by Mr. +Seward. O Chase! O Sumner! Seward rises with his patient pen and +paper in the inky glory of a patriot, and you----cave in. + +Speaking of Mr. Seward's answer to France, a diplomat observed to +me: "The European Cabinets are so accustomed to Mr. Seward's +duplicity and want of veracity, that now that Seward refuses to +accept mediation, in Europe they will conclude that Seward's +acceptation of mediation is at hand." + +_February 14._--The struggle is for the rights of man, for the +Christian idea, purified of all dogma and worship. Those who see it +not, are similar to a fish from the Kentucky Cave. + +_February 14._--Could Mr. Lincoln only be inspired, be warmed by the +sacred fire of enthusiasm, then his natural and selected affinities +would be other minds than those of a Seward, a Weed, a Halleck, +etc.; then what is night could become light; and where he painfully +gropes along his path, Mr. Lincoln would march with a firm, almost +with a godlike step, at the head of such a peerless people as those +of whom he is the Chief Magistrate. + +But as it is now, I may turn the mind in any direction whatever, all +the causes of mishaps and disasters converge on Mr. Lincoln. +According to his partisans, Mr. Lincoln's intentions are the best, +and he is always trying to conciliate--and to shift. It is useless +to discuss Mr. Lincoln's peculiar ways. In most cases, Mr. Lincoln +uses old, rotten tools for a new and heavy work. I have it from the +most truthful and positive authority, that Mr. Lincoln is fully +acquainted with the opinions of the so called _dissatisfied_, of +those with Southern propensities, proclivities and affinities, of +whom many are in the superior civil and military service. Contrary +to the advice of patriots in the Cabinet and out of it, Mr. Lincoln +insists upon keeping such at their post--doubtless always expecting +that they will _turn round_. Such a heavy difficulty and task as is +the present, must be worked out, with absolute devotion and +sincerity; and can this logically be expected from men whose hearts +and minds are not in their actions? Mr. Lincoln forgets that +thousands of lives and millions of money are sacrificed to the +experiment as to whether the insincere officials will _turn round_. + +The cause will not fail, light will not be extinguish, even if the +leaders break down or betray, even if the Copperheads frighten some +of the pilots, or if some of the faithless pilots shake hands with +the Copperheads, as was the case in the elections of November last +in New York and elsewhere. The people will save light, dissipate +darkness, save the cause, save the leaders, the pilots and the +politicians. + +_February 15._--Some days ago in compliance with summons, that +pedler of all corruptions, Thurlow Weed, came to Washington, and +with Mr. Seward, his _fidus Achates_, was for days or nights +closeted with Mr. Lincoln, pouring into the president's soul as much +poison and darkness as was possible. That such was the case can, +besides, easily be concluded from what that incarnation of all +perversions predicated to all who came within his nauseous +preachings here. According to Mr. T. Weed's revelations, "_The +proclamation is an absurdity, and the Union will soon--as it +ought--be ruled by the rebels._" So it was told me. Perhaps it is +already done through Thurlow Weed's mediation and instrumentality. + +Continually inspired by Weed, Mr. Seward is therefore untiring in +his over-patriotic efforts to preserve the former Union and +Slavery--to save the matricide slave-holders. + +In what clutches is Mr. Lincoln! Even I pity him. Even I am forced +to give him credit for being what he is--considering his intimacies +and his surroundings. Few men entrusted with power over nations have +resisted such fatal influences,--not even Cromwell and Napoleon. +History has not yet settled how it was with Caesar, and so far as I +know, Frederick the Great of Prussia is of the very few who have +been unimpressionable. Pericles coruscates over ruins and the night +of the ancient world; Pericles's intimacy was with the best and the +manliest Athenians. + +But has Mr. Lincoln an unlimited confidence in the few men with +large brains and with big hearts, brains and hearts burning with the +sacred and purest patriotic fire? Or are not rather all his +favorites--not even whitened--sepulchres of manhood, of mind and of +sacred intellect? + +_February 16._--It is asserted, and some day or other it will be +verified, that the Committee on the Conduct of the War have +investigated how far certain generals from the army on the +Rappahannock used their influence with the President to paralyze a +movement against the enemy ordered by Burnside. That facts +discovered may be published or not, for the Administration shuns +publicity. _The Committee discovered that Mr. Seward was implicated +in that conspiracy of generals against Burnside._ Any qualification +of such conduct is impossible, and the vocabulary of crimes has no +name for it; let it, therefore, be _Sewardism_. The editors of the +New York _Tribune_ did their utmost to prevent _Sewardism_ being +exposed. + +_February 16._--Often, so to speak, the hand refuses to record what the +head hears and sees, what the reason must judge. To witness how one of +the greatest events in the development of mankind, how the deadly +struggle between right and crime, between good and evil, how the blood +and sweat of _such a people_ are dealt with by--counterfeits! + +_February 17._--Poor Banks! He is ruined by having been last year +pressed to Seward's bosom, and having been thus initiated into the +Seward-Weed Union and slavery-restoring policy. Banks and Louis +Napoleon in Mexico and in his mediation scheme; both Banks and +Napoleon were ruined by yielding to bad advice--Banks to that of +Seward, and Louis Napoleon to that of his diplomats. I hope that +Banks will shake off the nightmare that is throttling him now; that +he will no more write senseless proclamations, will give up the +attempt to save slave-holders, and will march straight to the great +task of crushing the rebellion and rebels. He will blot slavery, +that Cain's mark on the brow of the Union; blot it and throw it into +the marshes of the parishes of Louisiana. I rely upon Banks's sound +common sense. He will come out from among the evil ones. + +_February 18._--Under no other transcendent leadership than that of +its patriotism and convictions, the majority of this expiring Congress +boldly and squarely faced the emergencies and all the necessities +daily, hourly evoked by the Rebellion, and unhesitatingly met them. If +the majority was at times confused, the confusion was generated by +many acts of the administration, and not by any shrinking before the +mighty and crushing task, or by the attempt to evade the +responsibility. The impartial historian will find in the Statutes an +undisputable confirmation of my assertions. The majority met all the +prejudices against taxation, indebtedness, paper currency, draft, and +other similar cases. + +And all the time the majority of Congress was stormed by traitors, +by intriguers, by falsifiers and prisoners of public opinion; the +minority in Congress taking the lead therein. Many who ought to +have supported the majority either fainted or played false. The +so-called good press, neither resolute nor clear-sighted, nor +far-seeing, more than once confused, and as a whole seldom +thoroughly supported the majority. + +If the good press had the indomitable courage in behalf of good and +truth, that the _Herald_ has in behalf of untruth and of mischief, +how differently would the affairs look and stand! + +_February 19._--Jackson first formed, attracted and led on the +people's opinion. Has not Mr. Lincoln thrown confusion around? + +_February 19._--The Supreme Court of the United States has before it +the prize cases resulting from captures made by our navy. The +counsel for the English and rebel blockade-runners and pilferers +find the best point of legal defence in the unstatesmanlike and +unlegal wording of the proclamation of the blockade, as concocted +and issued by Mr. Seward, and in the repeated declarations contained +in the voluminous diplomatic correspondence of our Secretary of +State,--declarations asserting that _no war whatever is going on in +the Federal Republic_. No war, therefore no lawful prizes on the +ocean. So ignorance, and humbug mark every step of this foremost +among the pilots of a noble, high-minded, but too confiding people. + +The facts, the rules, and the principles in these prize cases are +almost unprecedented and new; new in the international laws, and +new in the history of governments of nations. Seldom, if ever, were +so complicated the powers of government, its rights, and the duties +of neutrals, the rights and the duties of the captors, and the +condition of the captured. This rebellion is, so to speak, _sui +generis_, almost unprecedented on land and sea. The difficulties and +complications thus arising, became more complicated by the either +reckless or unscientific (or both) turn given by the State +Department in conceding to the rebels the condition of belligerents. +Thus the great statutory power of the sovereign, (that is, of the +Union through its president) for the suppression of the rebellion +was palsied at the start. The insurrection of the Netherlands alone +has some very small similarity with our civil war; however, that +insurrection took place at a time when very few, if any, principles +of international laws were generally laid down and generally +recognized. Here the municipal laws, the right of the sovereign and +his duty to save itself and the people, the rights and the laws of +war, wrongly applied to such virtual outlaws as the rebels, the +maritime code of prize laws and rules, play into and intertwine each +other. When Mr. Seward penned his doleful proclamation of the +blockade, etc., he never had before his mind what a mess he +generated; what complications might arise therefrom. I am sure he +never knew that such proclamation was _a priori_ pregnant with +complications, and that at least its wording ought to have been very +careful. Mr. Seward was not at all cognizant of the fact that the +wording of a proclamation of a blockade, for the time being, lays +down a rule for the judges in the prize courts. For him it was +rather a declamation than a proclamation; he who believed the +rebellion would end in July, 1861, and that no occasion would arise +to apply the rules of the blockade. + +Thus Mr. Seward, with his thorough knowledge of international law +rendered difficult the position of the captors; he equally increased +the difficulty for the judge to administer justice. By this +proclamation and the commentaries put on it, Mr. Seward curtailed +the rights of the government of which he is a part, conceded undue +conditions to the rebels, and facilitated to the neutrals the means +of violating his blockade. So much is clear and palpable to-day, and +I am sure more complications and imbecilities are in store. If Mr. +Seward had had good advisors for these nice and difficult questions, +he would not have blundered in this way. Thus Charles Eames, who in +the pleadings before the Superior United States Court has shown a +consummate mastery in prize questions--Eames could teach Mr. Seward +a great deal about the constitutional powers of the president to +suppress the rebellion, and about the meaning and the bearing of +international maritime laws, rights, duties and rules. + +_February 20._--A Mr. Funk, a member of the Illinois Senate, a +farmer, and a man of sixty-five years, on February 13, made a speech +in that body which sounds better than all the rhetories and +oratories. It was the sound and genuine utterance of a man from the +people, and I hope some future historian will record the speech and +the name of the old, indomitable patriot. + +_February 20._--Stimulated by a pure Athenian breeze, the Congress +passed a law organizing an Academy of Sciences. What a gigantic +folly; the only one committed by this Congress. The pressure was +very great, and exercised by the bottomless vanity of certain +scientific, self-styled magnates, and by the Athenians. Up to this +day, the American scientific development and progress consisted in +its freedom and independence. No legal corporation impeded and +trammeled the limitless scope of the intellectual and scientific +development. That was the soul and secret of our rapid and luminous +onward march. Now fifty patented, incorporated respectabilities will +put the curb on, will hamper the expansion. Academies turn to +fossils. My hope is that the true American spirit will soar above +the vanity and pettiness of corporated wisdom, and that this +scientific Academy bubble will end in inanity and in ridicule. I am +sorry that Congress was taken in, and committed such a blunder. It +was caught napping. + +Mr. Chase's bank bill, prospective of money, and as many say, +prospective of presidency, passed the house. What fools are they +already begin to direct their steps and their ardent wishes toward +the White House. + +_February 22._--The, at any price, supporters of the Administration, +point with satisfaction to the various successes, and to the space +of land already redeemed from rebellion. I protest against such +explanation given to events, and call to it the attention of every +future historian. Never had the _suum cuique_ required a more +stringent, philosophical application. With the various inexhaustible +means at its disposal, with the unextinguishable enthusiasm of the +people, far different and more conclusive results, _could_ and ought +to have been obtained. The ship makes headway if even, by the +negligence of the officers and of the crew, she drags a cable or an +anchor. The ship is the people dragging its administrators. + +A western Democrat, but patriot, said to me that Lincoln compares to +Jeff Davis, as a wheel-barrow does to a steam engine! + +The Democrats claim to be the genuine fighting element, and to be +possessed of the civic courage, and of governmental capacity. How, +then, can the Democrats rave for McClellan, the most unfighting +soldier ever known? + +The future historian must be warned not to look to the newspapers +for information concerning facts and concerning the spirit of the +people. The _Tribune's_ senile clamor for peace, for arbitration, +for meditation, its Jewitt, Mercier, Napoleon, and Switzerland +combinations, fell dead and in ridicule before the sound judgment of +ninety-nine hundredths of the people. + +_February 24._--In Europe I had experience of political prisons and +of their horror. But I would prefer to rot, to be eaten up by rats, +rather than be defended by such arch-copperheads as are the Coxes, +the Biddles, the Powells, etc., etc. + +In the discussion concerning the issue of the letters of marque, +Sumner was dwelling in sentimentalities and generalities, altogether +losing sight of the means of defense of the country, and the genuine +national resources. With all respect for high and sentimental +principles and patriotism, with due reverence of the opinion, the +applause or the condemnatory verdict to be issued by philanthropists, +by doctors, and other Tommities, my heart and my brains prefer the +resolute, patriotic, manly Grimes, Wades, etc., the various _skippers_ +and masters, all of whom look not over the ocean for applause, but +above all have in view to save or to defend the country, whatever be +the rules or expectations of the self-constituted Doctors of +International laws. + +_February 25._--The Union-Slavery saviours, led on by the _Herald_, +by Seward, by Weed, etc., all are busily at work. + +_Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from +us._ + +I hear that great disorder prevails in the Quartermaster's Department. +It is no wonder. In all armies, countries, government and wars, the +Quartermaster's Department is always disorderly. Why shall it not be +so here, when want of energy is the word? At times Napoleon hung or +shot such infamous thieves, as by their thefts skinned and destroyed +the soldiers and the army; at times in Russia, such curses are sent to +Siberia. But as yet, I have not heard that any body was hurt here, +with the exception of the treasury of the country, and of the +soldiers. The chain-gang of those quartermaster's thieves, +contractors, jobbers and lobbyists must be strong, very long, and +composed of all kind of influential and not-influential vampyres. +Somebody told me, perhaps in joke, that all of them constitute a kind +of free-masonry, and have signs of recognition. After all, that may be +true. Impudence, brazen brow, and blank conscience may be among such +signs of recognition. + +_February 26._--O, could I only win confidence in Mr. Lincoln, it +would be one of the most cheerful days and events in my life. +Perhaps, elephant-like, Mr. Lincoln slowly, cautiously but surely +feels his way across a bridge leading over a precipice. Perhaps so; +only his slowness is marked with blood and disasters. But the most +discouraging and distressing is his _cortege_, his official and +unofficial friends. Mars Stanton, Neptune Welles, are good and +reliable, but have no decided preponderance. Astrea-Themis-Bates is +mostly right when disinfected from border-State's policy, and from +fear of direct, unconditional emancipation. But neither in Olympus +nor in Tartarus, neither in heaven nor in hell, can I find names of +prototypes for the official and unofficial body-guard which, +commanded by Seward, surrounds and watches Mr. Lincoln, so that no +ray of light, no breath of spirit and energy may reach him. + +_February 26._--This civil war with its _cortege_ of losses and +disasters, which after all fall most bloodily and crushingly on the +laborious, and rather comparatively, poorer part of the whole +people; perhaps all this will form the education of the rank and +file of the political Democratic party. The like Democratic masses +are intellectually by far inferior to the Republican masses. +Experience will perhaps teach those unwashed Democrats how degrading +was their submission to slavocracy, which reduced them to the +condition of political helots. This rank and file may find out how +they were blindfolded by slave breeders and their northern abettors. +A part of the Democratic masses were, and still are kept in as +brutal political ignorance and depravity as are the poor whites in +the South, under whatever name one may record them. Now, or never, +is the time for the _unwashed_ to find out that during their +alliance with the Southern traitors, all genuine manhood, all that +ennobles, elevates the man and warms his heart, was poisoned or +violently torn from them--that brutality is not liberty, and +finally, that the Northern leaders have been or are more abject than +abjectness itself. If the rank and file finds out all this, the +blood and disasters are, in part at least, atoned for. + +_February 27._--O! could I from every word, from every page of this +Diary, for eternities, make coruscate the nobleness, the simple +faith with which the people sacrifices all to the cause. To be +biblical, the sacrifice of the people is as pure as was that made +by Abel; that made by the people's captains, leaders, pilots is +Cain-like. + +_February 27._--All the Copperheads fused together have done less +mischief, have less distorted and less thrown out of the track the +holy cause, they have exercised a less fatal and sacrilegious +influence, they are responsible for less blood and lives, than is +Mr. Seward, with all his arguments and spread-eagleism. Even +McClellan and McClellanism recede before Seward and Sewardism, the +latter having generated the former. In times of political +convulsions, perverse minds and intellects at the helm, more fatally +influence the fate of a nation than do lost battles. Lost battles +often harden the temper of a people; a perverse mind vitiates it. + +_February 27._--Gold rises, and no panic, a phenomenon upsetting the +old theories of political economy. This rise will not affect the +public credit, will not even ruin the poor. I am sure it will be so, +and political economy, as every thing else in this country, will +receive new and more true solutions for its old, absolute problems. +The genuine credit, the prosperity of this country, is wholly +independent of this or that financial or governmental would-be +capacity; is independent of European exchanges, and of the +appreciation by the Rothschilds, the Barings, and whatever be the +names of the European appraisers. The American credit is based on +the consciousness of the people, and on the faith in its own +vitality, in its inexhaustible intellectual and material resources. +The people credits to itself, it asks not the foreigners to open +for it any credit. The foreign capitalists will come and beg. The +nation is not composed here as it is composed all over Europe, of a +large body of oppressed, who are cheated, taxed by the upper-strata +and by a Government. Thus credit and discredit in America have other +causes and foundations, their fluctuations differ from all that +decides such eventualities in Europe. + +I am sure that subsequent events will justify these my assertions. + +_February 28._--Inveterate West Pointers got hold of the dizzy +brains of some Senators and of other Congressmen, and Congress +wasted its precious time in regulating the military position of +engineers. This action of Congress is a _pendant_ to the Academy of +Sciences. The leaders in this discussion proved to _nausea_; 1st. +Their utter ignorance of the whole military science, of its +subdivisions, branches and classifications; 2d. Their ignorance of +the nature of intellectual hierarchy in sciences; 3d. Those +Congressional wiseacres proved how easily the West Point Engineers +humbugged them. Congress consecrates the engineer as number one. +Congress had better send a trustful man to Europe, to the continent, +and find out what is considered as number one in the science of +warfare. But every luminous body throws a shadow; the Academy of +Sciences, and this number one, are the shadows thrown by that +political body. + +_February 28._--Seldom, if ever, in history was the vital principle +of a society, of a nation, of a Government, so bitterly assailed, +and its destruction attempted by combined elements and forces of the +most hellish origin and nature, as the vital principle of American +institutions is now assailed. The enemies, the sappers, the miners, +are the Union-Slavery-Saviours of all kinds and hues. But darkness +cannot destroy light, nor cold overpower heat:--so the united +conspiracy will not prevail against light and right and justice. + +_February 28._--The last batch of various generals sent for +confirmation to the Senate, reflects and illustrates the manner in +which promotion is managed, and military powers and capacity +estimated at the White House. + +Hooker and Heintzelman are made major generals because they +brilliantly fought at Williamsburgh, and Sumner is likewise promoted +for Williamsburgh, where, in pursuance of McClellan's orders, Sumner +looked on when Heintzelman and Hooker were almost cut to pieces. The +dignitaries of Halleck's pacific staff are promoted, and colonels +who fight, and who, by their bravery and blood correct or neutralize +the awful deadly blunders of Halleck and of his staff, such colonels +are _not_ promoted! + +_February 28._--Congress outlawed all foreign intervention, +mediation! Catch it, foreign meddlers. Catch it, _Decembriseur_ and +your lackeys. + +_February 28._--Congress by its boldness, saved the immaculate +Republican idea, saved the principle of self-government, and +deserves the gratitude of all those from pole to pole, who have at +heart the triumph of freedom, the triumph of light! To its last +hours, this Congress had to overcome all the mean, petty appetites +and cravings, which so often palsy, defile, or at the best, +neutralize the noblest activity; Congress had to overcome +prejudices, narrow-mindedness and bad faith. Many of the so called +political friends--_vide_, the great Republican press--are as +troublesome, as much nuisances, as are the Sewardites and the +Copperheads. Others accuse the Congress for not having done enough. +Copperheads and Sewardites accuse Congress of having done too much. +And thus, the majority of Congress marches on across impediments and +abuses thrown in its way both by friends and by enemies. + +The _Tribune_ bitterly and boldly attacks Dahlgren, and trembling +caves in before Seward. Of course! Dahlgren can only send 11 and 15 +inch shells to crush the enemy; brother politician Seward can be +useful for some scheme. + + + + +MARCH, 1863. + + Press -- Ethics -- President's Powers -- Seward's Manifestoes -- + Cavalry -- Letters of Marque -- Halleck -- Siegel -- Fighting -- + McDowell -- Schalk -- Hooker -- Etat Major-General -- Gold -- + Cloaca Maxima -- Alliance -- Burnside -- Halleckiana -- Had we + but Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. + + +_March 1._--Unprecedented is the fact in the history of +constitutionally-governed nations, that the patriots of a political +party in power, that its most devoted and ardent men, as a question +of life or death, are forced to support and defend an Administration +which they placed at the helm, and whose many, many acts they +disapprove. + +The soldiers in the hospitals die the death of confessors to the +great cause. And the hair turns not white on the heads of those +whose policy, helplessness, and ignorance, crowd the hospitals with +the people's best children. + +_March 2._--The New-York _Times_--one among the great beacons and +authorities in the country--the New York _Times_ belies its title as +the "little villain." Gigantically, Atlas-like, that sheet upholds +Seward and Weed. The _Times_ makes one admire the senile, +compromising, mediating, arbitrating, and, at times, stumbling +_Tribune_, and the cautious but often ardent _Evening Post_. + +The _Times_ joins in the outcry against the radicals. It is +Seward-Weed's watchword. It is the watchword of the _Herald_. It is +the watchword of the most thickly coppered Copperheads. Genuine, pure +convictions and principles are always radical. Christianity could not +have been established were not the first Christians most absolute +radicals. They compromised not with heathenism, compromised not with +Judaism, which in every way was their father. Radicals--true +ones--look to the great aim, forget their persons, and are not moved +by mean interests and vanities. + +The press in Europe, above all, on the Continent, is different. Its +editors and contributors risk their liberty, their persons, their +pockets, and sacrifice all to their convictions. They are not afraid +to speak out their convictions, even if under the penalty to +lose--subscribers; and that is all the risk run by an American +newspaper. The _Herald_, the _World_, the _Express_, all organs of +the evil spirit, through thick and thin, stand to their fetish, that +McClellan; the Republican papers neither pitilessly attack the +enemies, nor boldly and manfully support the friends, of the cause. + +I nurse no personal likings or dislikings; the times are too mighty, +too earnest for such pettiness. For me, men are agencies of +principles: bad agencies of an intrinsically good principle are +often more mischievous than are bad principles and their confessors. +The eternal tendency of human elevation and purification is to +eliminate, to dissolve, to uproot social evils, to neutralize or +push aside bad men, in whatever skin they may go about. It is a slow +and difficult, but nevertheless incessant work of our race. It is +consecrated by all founders of religions, by legislators, by +philosophers, by moralists; it is an article of human, social and +political ethics. As far as I experienced, the European radical +press more strictly observes that rule of political ethics than the +American press is wont to do. And the press, bad or good, is the +high pontifex of our times; more than any other social agency +whatever, the press ought, at least, to be manly, elevated, +indomitable, vigilant and straight-forward. I mean the respectable +press. + +_March 3._--Senator Wilson's kind of farewell speech to the +Copperheads was ringing with fiery and elevated patriotism. It +re-echoed the sentiments, the notions, the aspirations of the +people. The cobbler of Natick rose above the rhetors, above the +deliverers of prosy, classical, polished, elaborated orations, above +young and above gray-haired Athenians, high as our fiery and stormy +epoch towers over the epochs of quiet, self-satisfied, smooth, cold, +elaborate and soulless civilities. + +_March 4._--Mr. Lincoln hesitates--and, as many assert, is +altogether opposed to use all the severity of the laws against the +rebels. And shall not our butchered soldiers be avenged? It is +sacrilegious to put in the same scales the Union soldier and the +rebels; it is the same as to put on equal terms before justice the +incendiary and the man who stops or kills the criminal in _flagrante +delicto_. + +_March 3._--After a tedious labor I waded through the State papers. +O, what an accumulation of ignorance! Almost every historical and +chronological fact misplaced, misunderstood, perverted, distorted, +wrongly applied. And how many, many contradictions! Only when Mr. +Seward can simply--(very, very seldom) point out to England that by +_this_ and _that fact_ and _act_ England violates the international +laws and rules of neutrality and of good comity between two +_friendly_ governments and nations: then, _only_, Mr. Seward's +papers acquire historical and political signification. But not his +spread eagleism, not his argumentation; and, still less his broad +and inexhaustible and variegated information. Diplomatic and +statesmanlike character can not be conceded to his State papers. +Few, very few, will read them, although foreign Courts, ministers, +statesmen, princes, and the so-called celebrated women are +complimented and deluged with them. The most pitiless critics of +these productions would be the smaller clerks in the Departments of +Foreign Affairs in London and Paris. Only they are not fools to +waste their time on such specimens of literature. + +_March 4._--Congress adjourned. This Thirty-Seventh Congress marks a +new era in the American and in the world's history. It inaugurated +and directed a new evolution in the onward progress of mankind. The +task of this Congress was by far more difficult and heavier than was +the task of the revolutionary and of the constitutional Congresses. +The revolutionary Congress had to fight an external enemy. The +tories of that epoch were comparatively less dangerous than are now +all kinds of Copperheads; it had to overcome material wants and +impediments, and not moral, nor social ones. That Congress was +omnipotent, governed the country, and was backed by its virgin +enthusiasm, by unity of purpose, and was not hampered by any +formulas and precedents. The Thirty-Seventh Congress had to fight a +powerful enemy, spread almost over two-thirds of the territory of +the Union; it had to fight and stand, so to speak, at home against +inveterate prejudices, against such bitter and dangerous domestic +enemies as are the Northern men with Southern principles. This +Congress was manacled by constitutional formulas, and had to carry +various other deadweights already pointed out. In the first part of +the session, Pike, Member of Congress from Maine, laid down as the +task for the Congress, _Fight, Tax, Emancipate_--and the Congress +fulfilled the task. In a certain aspect the Thirty-Seventh Congress +showed itself almost superior to the great immortal French +Convention, which ruled, governed, administered, and legislated, +while this Congress dragged a Lincoln, a Seward, etc. This Congress +accomplished noble and great things without containing the so-called +"great" or "representative" men, and thus Congress thoroughly +vindicated the great social truth of genuine, democratic +self-government. + +_March 5._--The _good_ press reduces the activity of the Thirty +Seventh Congress to its own rather pigmy-like proportions. + +Congress was powerless to purify the corrosive air prevailing in +Washington, above all in the various official strata. Congress +ardently wished to purify, but the third side of the Congressional +triangle, the executive and administrative power, preferred to nurse +the foul elements. Such doubtful, and some worse than doubtful +officials, undoubtedly will become more bold, expecting the +near-at-hand advent of the Copperhead Democratic Millennium. + +_March 6._--The Copperhead members of both the Houses have been very +prolific and _scientific_ about the inferiority of race. Pretty +specimens of superiority are they, with their sham, superficial, at +hap-hazard gathered, unvaluable small information, with their +inveterate prejudices, with their opaque, heavy, unlofty minds! Give +to any Africo-American equal chances with these props of darkness, +and he very speedily will assert over them an unquestionable +superiority. Are not the humble, suffering, orderly contrabands +infinitely superior to the rowdy, unruly, ignorant, savage and +bloody whites? + +Southern papers are filled with accounts of the savage persecutions +to which the Union men are exposed in the rebel region. It is the +result of what Mr. Seward likes to call his forbearing policy and of +the McClellan and Halleck warfare of 1861-62. + +_March 7._--For the first time in the world's history, for the first +time in the history of nations governed and administered by +positive, well established, well organised, well defined +laws--powers, such as those conferred by Congress on Mr. Lincoln, +have been so conferred. Never have such powers been in advance, +coolly, legally deliberated, and in advance granted, to any +sovereign, as are forced upon Mr. Lincoln by Congress, and forced +upon him with the assent of a considerable majority of the people. + +Never has a nation or an honest political body whatever, shown to +any mortal a confidence similar to that shown to Mr. Lincoln. Never +in antiquity, in the days of Athens' and Rome's purest patriotism +and civic virtue, has the people invested its best men with a trust +so boundless as did the last Congress give to Mr. Lincoln. + +The powers granted to a Roman dictator were granted for a short +time, and they were extra legal in their nature and character; in +their action and execution the dictatorial powers were rather taken +than granted in detail. The powers forced on Mr. Lincoln are most +minutely specified; they have been most carefully framed and +surrounded by all the sacred rites of law, according to justice and +the written Constitution. These powers are sanctioned by all +formulas constituting the legal cement of a social structure +erected by the freest people that ever existed. These powers deliver +into Mr. Lincoln's hand all that is dear and sacred to man--his +liberty, his domestic hearth, his family, life and fortune. A well +and deliberately discussed and matured statute puts all such earthly +goods at Mr. Lincoln's disposal and free use. + +The sublime axiom, _salus populi suprema lex esto_ again becomes +blood and life, and becomes so by the free, deliberate will and +decision of the foremost standard-bearer of light and civilization, +the first born in the spirit of Christian ethics and of the rights +of man.-- + +The Cromwells, the Napoleons, the absolute kings, the autocrats, and +all those whose rule was unlimited and not defined--all such grasped +at such powers. They seized them under the pressure of the direst +necessity, or to satisfy their personal ambition and exaltation. The +French Convention itself exercised unlimited dictatorial powers. But +the Convention allowed not these powers to be carried out of the +legislative sanctuary. The Committee of Robespierre was a board +belonging to and emanating from the Convention; the Commissaries +sent to the provinces and to the armies were members of the +Convention and represented its unlimited powers. When the Committee +of Public Safety wanted a new power to meet a new emergency, the +Convention, so to speak, daily adjusted the law and its might to +such emergencies. + +Will Mr. Lincoln realize the grandeur of this unparallelled trust? +Has he a clear comprehension of the sacrifice thus perpetrated by +the people? I shudder to think about it and to doubt. + +The men of the people's heart--a Fremont, a Butler, are still +shelved, and the Sewards, the Hallecks, are in positions wherein no +true patriot wishes them to be. The Republican press had better +learn tenacity from the Copperhead press, which never has given up +that fetish, McClellan, and never misses the slightest occasion to +bring his name in a wreath of lies before the public. + +_March 8._--A great Union meeting in New York. War Democrats, +Republicans, etc., etc., etc. War to the knife with the rebels is +the watchword. Of course, Mr. Seward writes a letter to the meeting. +The letter bristles with stereotyped generalities and Unionism. The +substance of the Seward manifesto is: "Look at me; I, Seward, I am +the man to lead the Union party. I am not a Republican nor a +Democrat, but Union, Union, Union." + +The _I_, the No. 1, looks out from every word of that manifesto. +With a certain skill, Mr. Seward packs together high-sounding words, +but these his phrases, are cold and hollow. Mr. Seward begins by +saying that the people are to confer upon him the highest honors. +Mr. Seward enlightens, and, so to speak, _pedagogues_ the people +concerning what everybody ought to sacrifice. The twenty-two +millions of people have already sacrificed every thing, and +sacrificed it without being doctrined by you, O, great patriot! and +you, great patriot, you have hitherto sacrificed NOTHING! + +Let Mr. Seward show his patriotic record! To his ambition, +selfishness, ignorance and innate insincerity he has sacrificed as +much of the people's honor, of the people's interests, and of the +people's blood as was feasible. History cannot be cheated. History +will compare Mr. Seward's manifestoes and phrases with his actions! + +_March 8._--The cavalry horses look as if they came from Egypt +during the seven years' famine. I inquired the reason from different +soldiers and officers of various regiments. Nine-tenths of them +agreed that the horses scarcely receive half the ration of oats and +hay allotted to them by the government. Somebody steals the other +half, but every body is satisfied. All this could very easily be +ferreted out, but it seems that no will exists any where to bring +the thieves to punishment. + +_March 8._--During weeks and weeks I watched McDowell's inquiry. +What an honest and straight-forward man is Sigel. McDowell would +make an excellent criminal lawyer. McDowell is the most cunning to +cross-examine; he would shine among all criminal catchers. The +Know-Nothing West Point hatred is stirred up against Sigel. I was +most positively assured that at Pea Ridge a West Point drunkard and +general expressly fired his batteries in Sigel's rear, to throw +Sigel's troops into disorder and disgrace. But in the fire Sigel +cannot be disgraced nor confused; so say his soldiers and +companions. Sigel would do a great deal of good, but the +Know-Nothing-West Point-Halleck envy, ignorance and selfishness are +combined and bitter against Sigel. + +In this inquiry Sigel proved that he always fought his whole corps +himself. So do all good commanders; so did Reno, Kearney, so do +Hooker, Heintzelman, Rosecrans, and very likely all generals in the +West. + +The McClellan-Franklin school, and very probably the Simon-pure West +Pointers, fight differently. In their opinion, the commander of a +corps relies on his generals of divisions; these on the generals of +brigades, who, in their turn rely on colonels, and thus any kind of +_ensemble_ disappears. Of course exceptions exist, but in general +our battles seem to be fought by regiments and by colonels. O West +Point! At the last Bull Run two days' battles, McDowell fought his +corps in the West Point-McClellan fashion. His own statements show +that his corps was scattered, that he had it not in hand, that he +even knew not where the divisions of his corps were located; and +during the night of 29-30, he, McDowell, after wandering about +the field in search of his corps, spent that night bivouacking +amidst Sigel's corps! + +_March 9._--New York politicians behaved as meanly towards +Wadsworth as if they were all from Seward's school. + +_March 9._--Hooker is at the Herculean work of reorganizing the +army. Those who visited it assert that Hooker is very active, very +just; and that he has already accomplished the magician's work in +introducing order and changing the spirit of the army. Only some few +inveterate McClellanites and envious, genuine West Pointers are +slandering Hooker. + +_March 12._--Since the adjournment of Congress, everything looks +sluggish and in suspense. The Administration, that is, Mr. Lincoln, +is at work preparing measures, etc., to carry out the laws of +Congress; Mr. Seward is at work to baffle them; Blair is going over +to border-State policy; Stanton, firm, as of old; so is Welles; +Bates recognises good principles, but is afraid to see such +principles at once brought to light; Chase makes bonds and notes. We +shall see what will come from all these preparations. But for +Congress, Lincoln or the executive, would have been disabled from +executing the laws. Congress, by its laws or statutes, aided the +Executive branch in its _sworn duty_. + +_March 13._--The various Chambers of Commerce petition and ask that +the president may issue letters of marque. It is to be supposed, or +rather to be admitted, that the Chambers of Commerce know what is +the best for them, how our commerce is to be protected, how the +rebel pirates swept from the oceans, and how England, treacherous +England, perfidious Albion, be punished. But Sumner--of +course--knows better than our Chambers of Commerce, and our +commercial marine; with all his little might, Sumner opposes what +the country's interests demand, and demand urgently. I am sure that +already this general demonstration of the national wish and will, +the demonstrations made by our Chambers of Commerce, etc., will +impress England, or at least the English supporters of piracy. + +Sumner will believe that his letters to English old women will +change the minds of the English semi-pirates. Sumner is a little +afraid of losing ground with the English guardians of civilization. +Sumner is full of good wishes, of generous conceptions, and is the +man for the millennium. Sumner lacks the keen, sharp, piercing +appreciation of common events. And thus Sumner cannot detect that +England makes war on our commerce, under the piratic flag of the +rebels. + +_March 14._--The primitive Christians scarcely had more terrible +enemies, scarcely had to overcome greater impediments, than are +opposed to the principle of human rights, and of emancipation. All +that is the meanest, the most degraded, the most dastardly and the +most treacherous, is combined against us. Many of the former +confessors, many of our friends, many, unconscious of it--_Sewardise_ +and _Blairise_. + +Mud is stirred up, flows, rises and penetrates in all directions. +The _Cloaca Maxima_ in Rome, during thirty centuries scarcely +carried more filth than is here besieging, storming the +departments, all the administrative issues, and all the so-called +political issues. + +I am sure that the enemies of emancipation, that Seward, Weed, etc., +wait for some great victory, for the fall of Vicksburgh or of +Charleston, to renew their efforts to pacify, to unite, to kiss the +hands of traitors, and to save slavery. I see positive indications +of it. Seward expects in 1864 to ride into the White House on such +reconciliation. What a good time then for the Weeds, and for all the +Sewardites! + +_March 15._--Persons who seemed well informed, assured me that Weed +got hold of Stanton, and secretly presides over the contracts in the +War Department. If so, it is very secretly done; as I investigated, +traced it, and found out nothing. At any rate, Weed would never get +at a Watson, a man altogether independent of any political +influences. Watson is the incarnation of honest and intelligent +duty. + +Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_ is unrelenting in its haughty +independence. It is the only public organ in this country of like +character; at least I know not another. + +_March 15._--It is so saddening to witness how all kinds of +incapacities, stupidities, how meanness, hollowness, heartlessness, +all incarnated in politicians, in trimmers, in narrow brained; how +all of them ride on the shoulders of the masses, and use them for +their sordid, mean, selfish and ambitious ends. And the masses are +superior to those riders in everything constituting manhood, honesty +and intellect! + +_March 16._--Halleck wrote a letter to Rosecrans, explaining how to +deal with all kinds of treason, and with all kinds of traitors. It +looks as if Halleck improved, and tried to become energetic. What is +in the wind? Is Mr. Lincoln becoming seriously serious? + +_March 16._--Genuine, social and practical freedom, is generated by +individual rational freedom. If a man cannot, or even worse, if a +man understands not to act as a free rational being in every daily +circumstance of life during the week, then he cannot understand to +behave on Sunday as a free man; and act as a free man in all his +political and social relations and duties. The North upholds that +law of freedom against the slavocracy, and fights to carry and +establish a genuine social organism where at present barbarity, +oppression, lawlessness and recklessness, prevail and preside. + +_March 18._--I sent Hooker Schalk's _Summary of the Science of War_. +It is the best, the clearest handbook ever published. About six +months ago, when Banks commanded the defenses of Washington, I +suggested to him to try and get Schalk into head-quarters, or into +the staff. The ruling powers proffered to Schalk to make him captain +at large, and this was proffered at a time when altogether +unmilitary men became colonels, etc., at the head-quarters. I never +myself saw Schalk, but he refused the offer, as years ago he was a +captain in the Austrian army, is independent, and knows his own +value. Any European government, above all when having on hand a +great war, with both hands with military grades, would seize upon a +capacity such as Schalk's. Here they know better. My hobby is that +the president be surrounded by a genuine staff composed either of +General Butler or any other capable American general, of Sigel, of +Schalk, and of a few more American officers, who easily could +organise a staff, _un etat Major general_, such as all European +governments have. But West Point wisdom, engineers and routine, +kill, murder, throttle, everything beyond their reach, and thus +murder the people. + +_March 20._--Every week Mr. Seward pours over the fated country his +cold, shallow Union rhetoric. But whoever reads it feels that all +this combined phraseology gushes not from a patriotic heart; every +one detects therein bids for the next Presidency. + +Gold is at fifty-five per cent here; in Richmond, gold is four to +six hundred per cent. The money bags, and all those who adjust the +affairs of the world to the rise and to the fall of all kind of +exchanges, they may base their calculations on the above figures, +and find out who has more chances of success, the rebels or we! + +Mud, stench on the increase, and because I see, smell and feel it, +"_My friends scorn me, but my eye poureth =tears= into_" [Psalm] the +noble American people. + +_March 21._--The _honest_ Conservatives and the small church of +abolitionists are equally narrow-minded, and abuse the last +Congress. The one and the other comprehend not, and cannot +comprehend the immense social and historical signification of the +last Congress. It made me almost sick to find Edward Everett joining +in the chorus. But he, too, is growing very old. + +_March 22._--What are generally called excellent authorities assert +that an offensive and defensive alliance is concluded between Seward +and Stanton. Further, I am told, that Senator Morgan, Thurlow Weed, +and a certain Whiting, a new star on the politician's horizon, have +been the attorneys of the two contracting powers. I cannot yet +detect any signs of such an alliance, and disbelieve the story. A +short time will be necessary to see its fruits. Until I see I +wait!... But were it true? Who will be taken in? I am sure it will +not be Seward. Is Stanton dragged down by the infuriated fates? + +_March 23._--Burnside is to save Kentucky, almost lost by Halleck +and Buell. Congress adjourned, and no investigation was made into +Halleck's conduct after Corinth in 1862. The Western army +disappeared; Buell commanded in Kentucky, and rebels, guerillas, +cut-throats, murderers and thieves overflow the west, menaced +Cincinnati. And all this when the Secretary of War in his report +speaks about eight hundred thousand men in the field. But the +Secretary of War provides men and means; great Lincoln, the still +greater Halleck distribute and use them. This explains all. Burnside +is honest and loyal, only give him no army to command. I deeply +regret that Burnside's honesty squares not at all with his military +capacity. + +The Government is at a loss what to do with honest, ignorant, +useless military big men, who in some way or other rose above their +congenial but very low level. Already last year I suggested (in +writing) to Stanton to gather together such intellectual military +invalids and to establish an honorary military council, to counsel +nothing. Occasionally such a council could direct various +investigations, give its advice about shoes, pants, horses and +horse-shoes. Something like such council really exists in Russia, +and I pointed it out to Stanton for imitation. + +_March 25._--Stanton scorns the slander concerning his alliance with +Seward and Weed. It is an invention of Blair, and based on the fact +that Stanton sides with Seward in the question _of letters of +marque_, opposed by Blair under the influence of Sumner the +civiliser. I believe Stanton, and not my former informer. + +_Halleckiana._ This great, unequalled great man declared that "it +were better even to send McClellan to Kentucky, or to the West, than +to send there Fremont, as Fremont would at once free the niggers." + +The admirers of poor argument, of spread-eagleism, and of ignorant +quotations stolen from history, make a fuss about Mr. Seward's State +papers. The good in these papers is where Mr. Seward, in his +confused phraseology, re-echoes the will, the decision of the +people, no longer to be humbugged by England's perversion of +international laws and of the rights and duties of neutrals; the +will of the people sooner or later to take England to account. (I +hope it will be done, and no English goods will ever pollute the +American soil. It will be the best vengeance.) The repudiation of +any mediation is in the marrow of the people, and Seward's muddy +arguments only perverted and weakened it. In Europe, the substance +of Seward's dispatch, is considered the passage where Seward's +highfalutin logomachy offers to the rebels their vacant seats in the +Congress. + +_March 26._--Had we generals, the rebel army in Virginia ought to +have been dispersed and destroyed after the first Bull Run: + +A. McCLELLAN.--Any day in November and December, 1861. + +B. McCLELLAN.--Any day in January and February, 1862, at +Centerville, Manassas. + +C. McCLELLAN.--At Yorktown, and when the rebels retreated to +Richmond. + +D. McCLELLAN.--After the battle of Fair Oaks, Richmond easily could +and ought to have been taken. (See Hurlbut, Hooker, Kearney and +Heintzelman.) + +E. McCLELLAN.--Richmond could have been taken before the fatal +change of base. (See January, Fitz John Porter.) + +F. But for the wailings of McClellan and his stick-in-the-mud +do-nothing strategy, McDowell, Banks and Fremont would have marched +to Richmond from north, north-west, and west, when we already +reached Stanton, and could take Gordonsville. + +G. General Pope and General McDowell, the McClellan pretorians, at +the August 1862, fights between the Rappahannock and the Potomac. + +H. McCLELLAN.--Invasion of Maryland, 1862. Go in the rear of Lee, +cut him from his basis, and then Lee would be lost, even having a +McClellan for an antagonist. + +I. McCLELLAN.--After Antietam battle, won by Hooker, and above all +by the indomitable bravery of the soldiers and officers, and not by +McClellan's generalship, Lee ought to have been followed and thrown +into the Potomac. + +K. McCLELLAN.--Lay for weeks idle at Harper's Ferry, gave Lee time +to reorganize his army and to take positions. Elections. +Copperheads, French mediation. + +L. McCLELLAN.--By not cutting Lee in two when he was near +Gordonsville, Jackson at Winchester, and our army around Warrenton. + +M. BURNSIDE.--By continuing the above mentioned fault of McClellan. + +N. BURNSIDE.--By his sluggish march to Fredericksburgh, (see Diary, +December.) + +O. HALLECK, MEIGS, etc. The affair of the pontoons. + +P. BURNSIDE, _Franklin_.--The attack of the Fredericksburg Heights. + +_March 28._--From the day of Sumter, and when the Massachusetts men +hurrying to the defence of the Union, were murdered by the Southern +_gentlemen_ in Baltimore, this struggle in reality is carried on +between the Southern gentlemen, backed by abettors in the North, +(abettors existing even in our army,) all of them united against the +YANKEE, who incarnates civilization, right, liberty, intellectual +superior development, and therefore is hated by the _gentleman_--this +genuine Southern growth embodying darkness, violence, and all the +virtues highly prized in hell. The Yankee, that is, the intelligent, +laborious inhabitant of New England and of the Northern villages and +towns, represents the highest civilization: the best _Southern +gentleman_, that lord of plantations, that cotton, tobacco and +slavemonger, at the best is somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish +covers all kinds of barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted +that our army contains officers modelled on the Southern +pattern, to whom human rights and civilization are as distasteful as +they are to any high-toned slave-whipper in the South. + +_March 29._--The destruction of slavery, the triumph of self +government ought not to be the only fruit of this war. The +politician ought to be buried in the offal of the war. The crushing +of politicians is a question as vital as the crushing of the +rebellion and of treason. All the politicians are a nuisance, a +curse, a plague worse than was any in Egypt. All of them are equal, +be they Thurlow Weeds or Forneys, or etc. etc. etc. A better and +purer race of leaders of the people will, I hope, be born from this +terrible struggle. Were I a stump speaker I should day and night +campaign against the politician, that luxuriant and poisonous weed +in the American Eden. + +_March 30._--Glorious news from Hooker's army. Even the most +inveterate McClellanites admire his activity and indeed are +astonished to what degree Hooker has recast, reinvigorated, purified +the spirit of the army. To reorganise a demoralised army requires +more nerve than to win a battle. Hooker takes care of the soldiers. +And now I hope that Hooker, having reorganised the army, will not +keep it idly in camp, but move, and strike and crush the traitors. +Hooker! _En avant! marchons!_ + +_March 31._--Some newspapers in New York and the National +Intelligencer here in Washington, the paid organ of Seward and +likewise organ of treason gilded by Unionism--all of them begin to +discuss the necessity of a staff. All of them reveal a West Point +knowledge of the subject; and the staff which they demand or which +they would organise, would be not a bit better than the existing +ones. + + + + +APRIL, 1863. + + Lord Lyons -- Blue book -- Diplomats -- Butler -- Franklin -- + Bancroft -- Homunculi -- Fetishism -- Committee on the Conduct of + the War -- Non-intercourse -- Peterhoff -- Sultan's Firman -- + Seward -- Halleck -- Race -- Capua -- Feint -- Letter writing -- + England -- Russia -- American Revolution -- Renovation -- Women + -- Monroe doctrine, etc., etc., etc. + + +_April 1._--The English Blue Book reveals the fact that Lord Lyons +held meetings and semi-official, or if one will, unofficial _talks_ +with what he calls "the leaders of the Conservatives in New York;" +that is, with the leaders of the Copperheads, and of the slavery and +rebellion saviours. The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult +it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country, +even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman. But +perhaps we should say, _because_ an Englishman, Lord Lyons became +confused. Lord Lyons took for reality a bubble emanating from a +putrescent fermentation. I am at a loss to understand why Earl +Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting +Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in +power. + +As for the fact itself, it is neither new nor unwonted. Diplomacy +and diplomats meddle with all parties; they do it openly or +secretly, according to circumstances. English diplomacy was always +foremost in meddling, and above all it has been so during this whole +century. The English diplomat is not yet born, who will not meddle +or intrigue with all kinds of parties, either in a nation, in a body +politic, in a cabinet or at court. + +When a nation, a dynasty, a government becomes entangled in domestic +troubles, the first thing they have to do is to politely bow out of +the country all the foreign diplomacy and diplomats, be these +diplomats hostile, indifferent, or even friendly. And the longer a +diplomat has resided in a country, the more absolutely he ought to +be bowed out with his other colleagues; to bow them all in or back, +when the domestic struggle is finished. + +History bristles with evidences of the meddling of diplomats with +political parties, and bears evidence of the mischief done, and of +the fatal misfortunes accruing to a country that is victimised by +foreign diplomacy and by diplomats. Without ransacking history so +far back as to the treaty of Vienna, (1815) look to Spain, above +all, during Isabella I.'s minority, to Greece, to Turkey, etc. And +under my eyes, Mexico is killed by diplomacy and by diplomats. + +Diplomatic meddlings become the more dangerous when no court exists +that might more or less control them, to impress on them a certain +curb in their semi-official and non-official conduct. But at times +it is difficult, even to a sovereign, to a court, to keep in order +the intriguing diplomats, above all to keep them at bay in their +semi-official social relations. + +In principle, and _de facto_, a diplomat, and principally a diplomat +representing a powerful sovereign or nation, has no, or very few, +private, inoffensive, social, worldly, parlor relations in the +country, or in the place to which he is appointed, and where he +resides. Every action, step, relation, intimacy of a diplomat has a +signification, and is watched by very argus-like eyes; alike by the +government to which he is accredited, and by his colleagues, most of +whom are also his rivals. Not even the Jesuits watch each other more +vigilantly, and denounce each other more pitilessly, than do the +diplomats--officially, semi-officially and privately. + +It requires great tact in a diplomat to bring into harmony his +official and his social, and non-official conduct. Lord Lyons +generally showed this tact and adroitly avoided the breakers. At +times such want of harmony is apparent and is the result of the +will, or of the principles of the court and of the sovereign +represented by a diplomat. Thus, after the revolution of July, 1830, +the sovereign and the diplomats in the Holy Alliance, of Russia, +Austria, and Prussia recognised Louis Phillipe's royalty as a fact +but not as a principle. Therefore, in their social relations the +Ambassadors of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, most emphatically sided +with the Carlists, the most bitter and unrelenting enemies of the +Orleans and of the order of things inaugurated by the revolution of +July, and Carlists always crowded the saloons of the Holy Alliance's +diplomats. The Duke d'Orleans, Louis Phillipe's son, scarcely dared +to enter the brilliant, highly aristocratic, and purely legitimist +saloon of the Countess Appony, wife of the Austrian Ambassador. Of +course the conduct of the Count and Countess was approved, and +applauded, in Vienna. But at times, for some reason or other, a +diplomat puts in contradiction his official and non-official +conduct, and does it not only without instructions or approval of +his sovereign and government, but in contradiction to the intentions +of his master and in contradiction to the prevailing opinion of his +country. And thus it happens, that a diplomat presents to a +government in trouble the most sincere and the most cheering +official expressions of sympathy from his master; and with the same +hand the diplomat gives the heartiest shakes to the most unrelenting +enemies of the same government. + +The Russian, skillful, shrewd and proud diplomacy, generally holds +an independent, almost an isolated position from England and from +France. The Russian diplomacy goes its own way, at times joined or +joining according to circumstances, but never, never following in +the wake of the two rival powers. During this our war, and doubtless +for the first time since Russian diplomacy has existed, a Russian +diplomat semi and non-officially, seemingly, limped after the +diplomats of England and of France. But such a diplomatic _mistake_ +can not last long. + +_April 2._--Official, lordish, Toryish England, plays treason and +infamy right and left. The English money lenders to rebels, the +genuine owners of rebel piratical ships, are anxious to destroy the +American commerce and to establish over the South an English +monopoly. All this because _odiunt dum metuant_ the Yankee. You +tories, you enemies of freedom, your time of reckoning will come, +and it will come at the hands of your own people. You fear the +example of America for your oppressions, for your rent-rolls. + +_April 3._--The country ought to have had already about one hundred +thousand Africo-Americans, either under arms, in the field, or +drilling in camps. But to-day Lincoln has not yet brought together +more than ten to fifteen thousand in the field; and what is done, is +done rather, so to speak, by private enterprise than by the +Government. Mr. Lincoln hesitates, meditates, and shifts, instead of +going to work manfully, boldly, and decidedly. Every time an +Africo-American regiment is armed or created, Mr. Lincoln seems as +though making an effort, or making a gracious concession in +permitting the increase of our forces. It seems as if Mr. Lincoln +were ready to exhaust all the resources of the country before he +boldly strikes the Africo American vein. How differently the whole +affair should have been conducted! + +_April 4._--Almost every day I hear very intelligent and patriotic +men wonder why every thing is going on so undecidedly, so +sluggishly; and all of them, in their despondency, dare not or will +not ascend to the cause. And when they finally see where the fault +lies, they are still more desponding. + +Europe, that is, European statesmen, judge the country, the people, +by its leaders and governors. European statesmen judge the events by +the turn given to them by a Lincoln, a Seward; this furnishes an +explanation of many of the misdeeds committed by English and French +statesmen. + +_April 4._--The people at large, with indomitable activity, mends, +repairs the disasters resulting from the inability and the +selfishness of its official chiefs. One day, however, the people +will turn its eyes and exclaim: + +"_But thou, O God! shalt bring them down into the pit of +destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their +days._" + +_April 4._--General Butler's speech in New York, at the Academy of +Music, is the best, nay, is the paramount exposition of the whole +rebellion in its social, governmental and military aspects. No +President's Message, no letter, no one of the emanations of Seward's +letter and dispatch-writing, corrosive disease, not an article in any +press compares with Butler's speech for lucidity, logic, conciseness +and strong reasoning. Butler laid down a law, a doctrine--and what he +lays down as such, contains more cardinal truth and reason than all +that was ever uttered by the Administration. And Butler is shelved and +bartered to France by Seward as long since as 1862; and the people +bear it, and the great clear-sighted press subsides, instead of day +and night battering the Administration for pushing aside the _only +man_, emphatically the ONLY MAN who was always and everywhere equal to +every emergency--who never was found amiss, and who never forgot that +an abyss separates the condition of a rebel, be he armed or unarmed, +(the second even more dangerous,) from a loyal citizen and from the +loyal Government. + +_April 4._--The annals of the Navy during this war will constitute a +cheering and consoling page for any future historian. If the Navy at +times is unsuccessful, the want of success can be traced to +altogether different reasons than many of the disasters on land. +Nothing similar to McClellanism pollutes the Navy--and want of +vigilance and other mistakes become virtues when compared with want +of convictions, with selfishness, and with intrigue. I have not yet +heard any justified complaint against the honesty of the Navy +Department; I feel so happy not to be disappointed in the tars of +all grades, and that Neptune Welles, with his Fox, (but not a +red-haired, thieving fox,) keep steady, clean, and as active as +possible. + +_April 5._--Senator Sumner pines and laments, Jeremiah-like, on the +ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses Seward of it--behind his +back. Why has not _pater conscriptus_ uttered a single word of +condemnation from his Senatorial _fauteuil_, and kept mute during +three sessions? _Sunt nobis homunculi sed non homines._ + +_April 5._--A letter in the papers, in all probability written under +the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all +the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the +writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders +General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men, +(he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave +and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse +for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from +head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones, +suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless--at the +best--helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand +men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack. +Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in +Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order +from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of +a large part of the army--or rather such a crime not to support a +part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special +orders from head-quarters prescribed his doing so--such a case or +excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And when such +cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in command. Three +bloody groans for Franklin! + +_April 6._--George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian. +Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth, +and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and +embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless, +and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of +the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the +pilots. + +_April 6._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War +will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No +one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been +thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there +could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and +constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most disgusting +psychological anomaly. It is an evidence how a mental poison rapidly +spreads and permeates all. As was repeatedly pointed out in this +DIARY, individuals who started the McClellan fetishism, were +admirers of the _Southern gentlemen_, were worshippers of slavery, +were secret or open partisans of rebellion. Many such subsequently +appear as Copperheads, peace men, as Union men, as Conservatives. +The other stratum of McClellanism is composed of intriguers. These +combined forces, supported by would-be wise ignorance, spread the +worship, and poisoned thousands and tens of thousands of honest but +not clear-sighted minds. The Report, or rather the investigation was +conducted with the utmost fairness; of course Ben Wade could not act +otherwise than fairly and nobly. Some critics say that McClellan's +case could have been yet more strongly brought out, and the fetish +could have been shown to the people in his most disgustingly true +nakedness. + +_April 6._--The people feel how the treason of the English +evilwishers slowly extends through its organs. By Butler, Wade, +Grimes and others, the people ask for non-intercourse with the +English assassin, who surreptitiously, stealthily under cover of +darkness, of legal formality, deals, or attempts to deal, a deadly +blow. The American sentimentalists strain to the utmost their soft +brains, to find excuses for English treason. + +English lordlings, scholars, moralists of the Carlyleian mental +perversion comment Homer, instead of being clear sighted +commentators of what passes under their noses. The English +phrase-mongering philanthropists all with joy smacked their bloody +lips at the, by them ardently wished and expected downfall of a +noble, free and self-governing people. Tigers, hyenas and jackals! +clatter your teeth, smack your lips! but you shall not get at the +prey. + +_April 7._--The President visits the Potomac army at Falmouth. +Seward wished to be of the party, offering to make a stirring speech +to the soldiers--that is, to impress the heroes with the notion that +in Seward they beheld a still greater hero, a patriot reeking with +Unionism and sacrifices, and eventually prepare their votes for the +next presidential election. Certain influences took the wind out of +Seward's sails, and as a naughty, arrogant boy, he was left behind +to bite his nails, and to pour out a logomachy. + +_April 7._--I am very uneasy about Charleston. It seems that +something works foul. Either they have not men enough, or brains +enough. A good artillerist, having confidence in the guns, and +having the needed insight how and where to use them, ought to +command our forces. Will the iron-clads resist the concentric fire +from so numerous batteries? + +The diplomats of the _prospective mediation_ and their tails are +scared by the elections in Connecticut. Others, however, of that +illustrious European body are out-spoken friends of Union and of +freedom. The representatives of the American republics are to be +relied upon. St. Domingo, Mexico sufficiently teaches all races, +_latin_ (_?_) as well as non-latin, that honey-mouthed governmental +Europe is an all-devouring wolf under a sheep's skin. + +Non-intercourse! no intercourse with England and with France as +long as France chooses to be ridden by the _Decembriseur_! Such +ought to be the watchword for a long, long time to come. + +_April 8._--The New York _Times_ is now boiling with patriotic wrath +against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns +at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our +soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the _Times_ was +extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured +plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan--and at that epoch the +_Times_ powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion. + +_April 8._--A Mr. Ockford, (or of similar name,) who for many years, +was a ship broker in England, advised our government and above all, +Mr. Seward, to institute proceedings before the English courts +against the building and arming of the iron-clads for the rebels. +Seward, of course, snubbed him off with the Sewardian verdict that +the jury in England will give or pronounce no verdict of guilty, in +our favor, as our jury would not find any one guilty of treason. +Good for a Seward. + +Patriots from various States, among them Boutwell, now member of +Congress from Massachusetts, urged the Cabinet; 1st, to declare +peremptorily to the English Government that if the rebel iron-clads +are allowed to go out from English ports, our government will +consider it as being a deliberate and willful act of hostility; 2d, +to publish at once the above declaration, that the English people +at large may judge of the affair. Seward opposed such a bold +step--Sumner ditto. + +_April 9._--I am at a loss to find in history, any government +whatever that so little took or takes into account the intrinsic and +intellectual fitness of an individual for the office entrusted to +him, as does the government of Mr. Lincoln. I cannot imagine that it +could have been always so, under previous administrations. It seems +that in the opinion of the Executive, not only geniuses, but men of +studies, and of special and specific preparation and knowledge run +in the streets, crowd the villages and states, and the Executive has +only to stretch his hand from the window, to take hold of an +unmistakable capacity, etc. The Executive ought to have some +experience by this time; but alas, _experientia non docet_ in the +White House. + +_April 10._--Agitated as my existence has been, I never fell among +so much littleness, meanness, servility as here. To avoid it, and +not to despair, or rage, or despond, several times a day, it is +necessary to avoid contact with politicians, and reduce to few, very +few, all intercourse with them. I cannot complain, as I find +compensation--but nevertheless, I am afraid that the study and the +analysis of so much mud and offal may tell upon me. Physical +monstrosities are attractive to physiologists or rather to +pathologists. But an anthropologist prefers normal nobleness of +mind, and shudders at sight and contact with intellectual and moral +crookedness. + +_April 11._--Sumter day. Two years elapsed, and treason not yet +crushed; Charleston not yet ploughed over and sown with salt; +Beauregard still in command, and the snake still keeping at bay the +eagle. And all this because in December, 1861, and in January, 1862, +McClellan wished not, Seward wished not, and Mr. Lincoln could not +decide whether to wish that Charleston and Savannah--defenceless at +that time--be taken after the fall of Port Royal. Two years! and the +people still bleed, and the exterminating angel strikes not the +malefactors, and the earth bursts not, and they are not yet in +Gehenna's embrace. + +Old patriot Everett made an uncompromising speech. That is by far +better than to make a hero out of a McClellan. But the misdeeds of +the Administration easily confused such impressionable receptive +minds as is Edward Everett's. + +_April 11._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, +discloses how McClellan deliberately ruined General Stone, and I +have little doubt that McClellan ruined Fitz-John Porter. + +_April 12._--Our navy makes brilliant prizes of Anglo-rebel flags +and ships. But Mr. Seward does his utmost to render the labor of our +cruisers as difficult and as dangerous as possible. Of course he +does it not intentionally, only because he so _masterly masters_ the +international laws, the laws and rules of search, the rights and +duties of neutrals, etc., and as a genuine incarnation of _fiat +justitia_, he is indifferent to national interests and to the +national flag. + +I am curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known +concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then +the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what _turpe_ +Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what +an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England +of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade +runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by +Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible the +condemnation of the Anglo-rebel property. The people would know how +_turpe_ Seward tried to urge and to persuade Neptune Welles to +violate the statutes of the country; how the great Secretary of +State declared that he cared very little for law, and how he and +Lincoln, by a Sultan's firman, directed the decision of the Judge on +his bench. + +_April 14._--My gloomy forebodings about the attack on Charleston +are already partly realized. Beaten off! that is the short solution +of a long story. But of course nobody will be at fault. This attack +on Charleston to some extent justifies: _parturiunt montes_, etc. + +_De profundis clamavi_ for light and some inklings of sense and +energy. But to search for sense and energy among counterfeits!... +The condition here vividly brings to mind Ovid's + + ...... ...... quem dixere chaos! + +_April 14._--In a letter to the Loyal League of New York, Mr. Seward +is out with his--at least--one hundred and fiftieth prophecy. As +fate finds a particular pleasure in quickly giving the lie to the +inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, and some +other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to pass a law +forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself ridiculous? +Among others, hear the following query: _Whether this unconquerable +and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through imbecility?_ +etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and mercilessly +criticise your own deeds and policy? Seward squints toward the +presidency that he may complete that masterly production. + +Oh! how the old hacks turn their dizzy heads towards the White +House. It would be ludicrous, and the lowest comedy of life, were +not the track running through blood and among corpses. I am told +that even Halleck squints that way. And why not? All is possible; +and Halleck's nag has as long ears as have the nags and hacks of the +other race-runners. + +_April 14._--Halleck consolidates the regiments and incidentally +deprives the army of the best and most experienced officers. The +numerically smaller regiment is dissolved in the larger one. But +most generally the smaller regiment was the bravest and has seen +more fire which melted it. Thus good officers are mustered out and +thrown on the pavement, and the enthusiasm for the flag of the +regiment destroyed, for its victorious memories, for the +recollections of common hardships and all the like noble cements of +a military life. Certainly, great difficulty exists to remount or to +restore a regiment. But O, Hallecks! O, Thomases! O, McDowells! all +of you, genii, or genuises, surmount difficulties. + +_April 14._--In a public speech in New York, General Fremont has +explained the duty and the obligations of a soldier in a republic. +Few, very few, of our striped and starred citizens, and still less +those educated at West Point have a comprehension of what a +Republican citizen soldier is. + +_April 14._--Halleck directly and indirectly exercises a fatal +influence on our army. I learn that his book on military not-science +largely circulates; above all, in the Potomac Army. + +_April 14._--It is the mission of the American people to make all +the trials and experiences by which all other nations will hereafter +profit. So the social experiment of self-government; the same with +various mechanical and commercial inventions. The Americans +experiment in political and domestic economy, in the art provided +for man's well-being and in the art of killing him. New fire-arms, +guns, etc., are now first used. + +The until now undecided question between batteries on land and +floating ones will be decided in Charleston harbor. Who will have +the best, the Monitors or the batteries? + +_April 15._--I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake of the +country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to the +carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be they +wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of crinolines. + +_April 15._--Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same +capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to +puff McClellan when in power. + +_April 16._--Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why +not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on +sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere +Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and +lickspittles are numberless. + + Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude, + Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebauede! + +My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ... +it would be all over. + + ... tibi desinet. + +_April 17._--I met one of the best and of the most radical +ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at +the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and +notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr. +Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities +finally will save the country. _Et tu, Brute_, exclaimed I, without +the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in his pocket +a nomination for an influential office. + +_April 17._--Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts, +equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless +abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for +more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood. + + _Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis._ + +A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as +patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous +condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least +the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their +indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of +resources." What was to be answered? + +_April 18._--As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy, +whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of +every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of +JOHN S. MILL, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and +then the two peoples may be friends. + +_April 18._--Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army +victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put +by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire +Hooker's genius. Such a manoeuvre will be a revelation. + +_April 18._--I learn that General Hunter has about seven thousand +disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of +Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has +not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order, +or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston. + +_April 18._--Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to +violate the national statutes and the international rules, by +insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that +Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner +enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail +agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously, +neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the +mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the +State Department knows better. + +In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr. +Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide, +ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the +English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for +costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is +the incarnation of wisdom and of justice! + +_April 20._--The not quite heavenly trio--Lincoln, Seward and +Halleck--maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to +believe them, that they, the trio, could not as yet, act decidedly +in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in other +questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! Those +_lumina mundi_ believe that the people will forget their records. To +be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily forget the +misdeeds of _yesterday_, but this _yesterday_ shall be somehow +recalled to their memory. + +If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard +and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would +be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad +clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating +influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in +disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers +are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar +their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, _esprit +du corps_. + +_April 20._--The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in +court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the +egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the +assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in Administration, +in politics, in war. + + _Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!_ + +_April 20._--Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide, +Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit Hooker, to have a peep into +his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope Hooker will +most politely keep his own secrets. + +_April 21._--The American people never will and never can know and +realize the whole immensity of McClellan's treasonable incapacity, +and to what extent all subsequent disasters have their roots in the +inactivity of McClellan during 1861-62. Whatever may be the official +reports, or private investigations, chronicles, confessions, +memoirs, all the facts will never be known. Never will it be known +how almost from the day when he was intrusted with the command, +McClellan was without any settled plans, always hesitating, +irresolute; how almost hourly he (deliberately or not, I will not +decide) stuffed Mr. Lincoln with lies, and did the same to others +members of the Cabinet. The evidences thereof are scattered in all +directions, and it is impossible to gather them all. Mr Lincoln +could testify--if he would. Almost every day I learn some such fact, +but I could not gather and record them all. Seward mostly sided with +McClellan, and so did Blair, _par nobile fratrum_. + +Few, if any, detailed reports of the campaigns and battles fought +by McClellan have been sent by him to the President or to the War +Department. Such reports ought to be made immediately; so it is done +in every well regulated government. It is the duty of the staff of +the army to prepare the like reports. But McClellan did in his own +way, and his reports, if ever he sends them, would only be +disquisitions elaborated _ex post_, and even apart from their +truthfulness--null. + +All kinds of lies against Stanton have been elaborated by McClellan +and his partisans, and circulated in the public. The truth is, that +when Stanton became McClellan's superior, Stanton tried in every +friendly and devoted way to awake McClellan to the sense of honor +and duty, to make him fight the enemy, and not dodge the fight under +false pretenses. Stanton implored McClellan to get ready, and not to +evade from day to day; and only when utterly disappointed by +McClellan's hesitation and untruthfulness, Stanton, so to say, in +despair, forced McClellan to action. Stanton was a friend of +McClellan, but sacrificed friendship to the sacred duty of a +patriot. + +_April 21._--England plays as false in Europe as she does here. +England makes a noise about Poland, and after a few speeches will +give up Poland. More than forty years of experience satisfied me +about England's political honesty. In 1831, Englishmen made +speeches, the Russian fought and finally overpowered us. England +hates Russia as it hates this country, and fears them both. I hope a +time will come when America and Russia joining hands will throttle +that perfidious England. Were only Russia represented here in her +tendencies, convictions and aspirations! What a brilliant, elevated, +dominating position could have been that of a Russian diplomat here, +during this civil war. England and France would have been always in +his _ante-chambre_. + +_April 21._--Letter-writing is the fashion of the day. Halleck +treads into Seward's footsteps or shoes. Halleck thunders to Union +leagues; to meetings; it reads splendidly, had only Halleck not +contributed to increase the "perils" of the country. Letter-writing +is to atone for deadly blunders. The same with Seward as with +Halleck. If Halleck would not have been fooled by Beauregard, if +Halleck had taken Corinth instead of approaching the city by +parallels distant _five miles_; the "peril" would no longer exist. + +_April 21._--Foreign and domestic papers herald that the honorable +Sanford, United States Minister to Belgium, and residing in +Brussels, has given a great and highly admired diplomatic dinner, +etc., etc. I hope the Sewing machine was in honor and exposed as a +_surtout_ on the banquet's table, and that only the guano-claim +successfully recovered from Venezuela, and other equally innocent +pickings paid the piper. _Vive la bagatelle_, and Seward's _alter +ego_ at the European courts. + +_April 22._--I so often meet men pushed into the background of +affairs; men young, intelligent, active, clear-sighted, in one word, +fitted out with all mental and intellectual requisites for +commanders, leaders, pilots and helmsmen of every kind; and +nevertheless twenty times a day I hear repeated the question: "Whom +shall we put? we have no men."--It is wonderful that such men cannot +cut their way through the apathy of public opinion, which seems to +prefer old hacks for dragging a steam engine instead of putting to +it good, energetic engineers, and let the steam work. Young men! +young men, it is likewise your fault; you ought to assert +yourselves; you ought to act, and push the fogies aside, instead of +subsiding into useless criticism, and useless consideration for +_experienced_ narrow-mindedness, for ignorance or for helplessness. +In times as trying as ours are, men and not counterfeits are needed. + +_April 22._--In Europe, they wonder at our manner of carrying on the +war, at our General-in-Chief, who, in the eyes and the judgment of +European generals, acts without a plan and without _an ensemble_; +they wonder at the groping and shy general policy, and nevertheless +a policy full of contradictions. The Europeans thus astonished are +true friends of the North, of the emancipation, and are competent +judges. + +_April 22._--I hear that Hooker intends to make a kind of feint +against Lee. Feints are old, silly tricks, almost impossible with +large armies, and therefore very seldom feints are successful. Lee +is not to be caught in this way, and the less so as he has as many +spies as inhabitants, in, and around Hooker's camp. To cross the +river on a well selected point, and, Hooker-like, attack the +surprised enemy is the thing. + +_April 22._--"Loyalty, loyalty," resounds in speeches, is re-echoed +in letters, in newspapers. Well, Loyalty, but to whom? I hope not to +the person of any president, but to the ever-living principle of +human liberty. Next eureka is, "the administration must be +sustained." Of course, but not because it intrinsically deserves it, +but because no better one can be had, and no radical change can be +effected. + +_April 22._--The English Cabinet takes in sails, and begins to show +less impudence in the violation of neutral duties. Lord John +Russell's letter to the constructors of the piratical ships. +Certainly Mr. Seward will claim the credit of having brought England +to terms by his eloquent dispatches. Sumner may dispute with Seward +the influence on English fogies. In reality, the bitter and +exasperated feeling of the people frightened England. + +_April 24._--It is repulsive to read how the press exults that the +famine in the South is our best ally. Well! I hate the rebels, but I +would rather that the superiority of brains may crush them, and not +famine. The rebels manfully supporting famine, give evidence of +heroism; and why is it in such disgusting cause! + +_April 23._--Senator Sumner emphatically receives and admits into +church and communion, the freshly to emancipation converted General +Thomas, Adjutant General, now organizing Africo-American regiments +in the Mississippi valley. Better _late than never_, for such +Thomases, Hallecks, etc., only I doubt if a Thomas will ever become +a Paul. + +_April 24._--Our State Department does not enjoy a high +consideration abroad. I see this from public diplomatic acts, and +from private letters. I am sure that Mr. Dayton has found this out +long ago, and I suppose so did Mr. Adams. Of course not a Sanford. +If the State Department had not at its back twenty-two millions of +Americans, foreign Cabinets would treat us--God, alone, knows how. + +_April 24._--I hope to live long enough to see the end of this war, +and then to disentangle my brains from the pursuits which now fill +them. Then goodbye, O, international laws, with your customs and +rules. England handled them for centuries, as the wolf with the lamb +at the spring. When I witness the confusion and worse, here, I seem +to see--_en miniature_--reproduced some parts of the Byzantine +times. All cracks but not the people, and to ---- I am indebted that +my brains hold out. + +_April 24._--What a confusion Burnside's order No. 8 reveals; the +president willing, unwilling, shifting, and time rapidly running on. + +_April 24._--Senator Sumner, without being called as he ought to +have been--to give advice, discovered the Peterhoff case. The +Senator laid before the President, all the authorities bearing on +the case, showed by them to the President, that the mail was not to +be returned to the English Consul, but lawfully ought to be opened +by the Prize Court. The Senator so far convinced the President, that +Mr. Lincoln, next morning at once violated the statutes, and through +Mr. Seward, instructed the District Attorney to instruct the Court +to give up the mail unopened to England. + +Brave and good Sumner exercises influence on Mr. Lincoln. + +_April 24._--Every one has his word to say about civilized warfare, +about international warfare, laws of war, etc. In principle, no laws +of public war are applicable to rebels, and if they are, it is only +on the grounds of expediency or of humanity. Laws of international +warfare are applicable to independent nations, and not to rebels. +Has England ever treated the Irish according to the laws of +international warfare? Has England considered Napper Tandy and his +aids as belligerents? The word _war_ in its legal or international +sense ought to have been suppressed at the start from the official, +national vocabulary; to suppress a rebellion is not to _wage a war_. + +_April 25._--When the bloody tornado shall pass over, and the normal +condition be restored, then only will begin to germinate the seeds +of good and of evil, seeds so broadcast sown by this rebellion. All +will become either recast or renovated, the plough of war having +penetrated to the core of the people. Customs, habits, notions, +modes of thinking and of appreciating events and men, political, +social, domestic morals will be changed or modified. The men +baptized in blood and fire will shake all. Many of them endowed with +all the rays of manhood, others lawless and reckless. Many domestic +hearths will be upturned, extinct, destroyed; the women likewise +passing through the terrible probation. Many women remained true to +the loftiest womanhood, others became carried away by the impure +turmoil. All this will tell and shape out the next generations. + +I ardently hope that this war will breed and educate a population +strong, clear-sighted, manly, decided in ideas and in action; and +such a population will be scattered all over this extensive country. +Men who stood the test of battles, will not submit to the village, +township, or to politicians at large, but will judge for themselves, +and will take the lead. These men went into the field a common iron +ore, they will return steel. The shock will tear the scales from the +people's eyes, and the people easily will discern between pure grain +and chaff. I am sure that a man who fought for the great cause, who +brought home honorable wounds and scars, whose limbs are rotting on +fields of battle; such a man will become an authority; and +death-knell to the abject race of politicians; the days of shallow, +cold, rhetors are numbered, and vanity and selfishness will be +doomed. _Non vobis, non vobis--sed populo...._ + +_April 25._--Mr. Seward is elated, triumphant, grand. Emigration +from Europe, evoked, beckoned by him is to replace the population +lost in the war. + +What is to be more scorned? Seward's heartless cruelty or his +reckless ignorance, to believe that such a numerous emigration will +pour in, as to at once make up for those of whom at least one third +were butchered by flippancy of Mr. Seward's policy to which Lincoln +became committed. + +_April 26._--The people are bound onwards _per aspera ad astra_: the +giddy brained helmsmen, military and civil chiefs and commanders may +hurl the people in an opposite direction. + +_April 26._--Whoever will dispassionately read the various statutes +published by the 37th Congress; will speak of its labors as I do, +and the future historian will find in those statutes the best light +by which to comprehend and to appreciate the prevailing temper of +the people. + +_April 27._--Rhetors and some abolitionists of the small church--not +Wendell Phillips--still are satisfied with mistakes and disasters, +because _otherwise slavery would not have been destroyed_. If they +have a heart, it is a clump of ice, and their brains are common +jelly. With men at the head who would have had faith and a lofty +consciousness of their task, the rebellion and slavery could have +been both crushed in the year 1861, or any time in 1862. Any one but +an idiot ought to have seen at the start, that as the rebels fight +to maintain slavery, in striking slavery you strike at the rebels. +The blood spilt because of the narrow-mindedness of the leaders, +that blood will cry to heaven, whatever be the absolution granted by +the rhetors and by the small church. + +_April 27._--Mr. Seward went on a visit to the army, dragging with +him some diplomats. The army was not to forget the existence of the +Secretary of State, this foremost Union-saviour, and the candidate +for the next Presidency. Others say that Seward ran away to dodge +the Peterhoff case. + +_April 27._--How the politicians of the _Times_ and of the +_Chronicle_ lustily attack--NOW--McClellan. If I am well informed, +it was the editor of the _Chronicle_, himself a leading politician, +and influential in both Houses, who instigated Lovejoy, Member of +Congress, to move resolutions in favor of McClellan for the battle +at Williamsburgh, where McClellan did what he could to have his own +army destroyed. + +_April 28._--Mr. Seward elaborated for the President a paper in the +Peterhoff case--and, _horribile dictu_, as I am told--even the +President found the argument, or whatever else it was, very, very +light. The President sent for the chief clerk to explain to him the +unintelligible document--and more darkness prevailed. Bravo, Mr. +Seward! your name and your place in the history of the times are +firmly nailed! + +_April 28._--The time will come, and even I may yet witness it, when +these deep wounds struck by the rebellion will be healed; when even +the scars of blows dealt to the people by such Lincolns, Sewards, +McClellans, Hallecks, the other _minor gens_, will be invisible--and +this great people, steeled by events, will be more powerful than it +ever was. Then the Monroe doctrine will be applied in all its +sternness and rigor, and from pole to pole no European power will +defile this continent. The so-called Americo-Hispano-Latin races +humbugged by Europe, will have found how cursed is _any whatever_ +European influence. The main land and the Isles must be purified +therefrom. Will any European government, power, or statesman permit +the United States to acquire even the most barren rock on the +European continent? The American continent is equal, if not more to +Europe, and the degrading stigma of European colonies and +possessions must be blotted from this American soil. + +_April 29._--The President appoints a day of fasting and prayer. +Well! it is not for the people to fast and to pray, but for the +evil-doers. Lead on, Mr. Lincoln, attended by Seward and +Halleck--all in sackcloth and ashes. + +_April 29._--The President's and General Martindale's proclamations +officially recognize the existence of God. It is consoling, and +knocks down the far-famed _Deo erexit Voltaire_. + +_April 29._--To the right and to the left I hear praise of Mr. Chase +as the great financier. Well he may be praised, having in his hand +thousands and thousands of cows to be milked. The _financier_ is the +people, and prevents Chase from ruining the country. + +_April 29._--A Richmond paper calls McClellan a compound of lies and +of cowardice. McClellan, the fetish of Copperheads and of +peace-makers. The Richmond paper must have some special reasons +which justify this stern appreciation. + +_April 30._--The _World_, a paper born in barter, in mud and in +shamelessness, condemns General Wadsworth's name to eternal infamy. +What a court of honor the _World's_ scribblers! The one a hireling +of the brothers Woods, and sold by them in the lump to some other +Copperhead financier; the other a pants and overcoats stealing beau. +The rest must be similar. + +_April 30._--The abomination of slavery makes such a splendid field +to any rhetor attacking that curse. Were it not so, how many rhetors +would be abolitionists? + + + + +MAY, 1863. + + Advance -- Crossing -- Chancellorsville -- Hooker -- Staff -- Lee + -- Jackson -- Stunned -- Suggestions -- Meade -- Swinton -- La + Fayette -- Intrigues -- Happy Grant -- Rosecrans -- Halleck -- + Foote -- Elections -- Re-elections -- Tracks -- Seward -- 413 -- + etc., etc., etc. + + +_May 1._--General anxiety about Hooker. If he successfully crosses +the river, this alone will count among the most brilliant actions in +military history. To cross a river with a large army under the eyes, +almost under the guns of an enemy, concentrated, strong, vigilant, +and supported by the population, would honor the name of any +world-renowned captain. + +_May 2._--Mr. Seward forces upon the Department of the Navy, +instructions for our cruizers that are so obviously favorable to +blockade-runners, that our officers may rather give up capturing. +Mr. Seward's instructions concede more to England, than was ever +asked by England, or by any neutral from a belligerent of a third +class power. + +_May 2._--How could Mr. Adams to that extent violate all the +international proprieties, and deliver a kind of pass to a vessel +loaded in England with arms and ammunition for Matamoras. It is an +offence against England, and a flagrant violation of neutrality to +France. Not yet time to show our teeth to them. And all this in +favor of that adventurer and almost pickpocket Zermann, this +mock-admiral, mock-general, whom twice here they put up for a +general in our army. But for me they would have made him one, and +disgraced the American uniform. This police malefactor was +patronised by some New Yorkers, by Senator Harris and from Mr. +Seward may have got strong letters for Mr. Adams. It is probable +that Zermann sold Mr. Adams to secessionists who may have wished to +stir up trouble by this passport business. I am sure the affair will +be hushed up and entirely forgotten. + +_May 2._--Glorious! glorious. Hooker crossed--and successfully. The +rebels, caught napping, disturbed him not. Now at them, at them, +without loss of an hour! The soldiers will perform wonders when in +the hands of true soldiers for commanders, when led on by a true +soldier. + +O heaven! Why does Hooker publish such a proclamation? It is the +merest nonsense. To thank the soldiers, few words were needed. But +to say that the enemy must come and fight us on our own ground. O +heaven! Hooker ought not to have had time to write a proclamation, +but ought to pitch into the rebels, surprise and confuse them, and +not wait for them. What is the matter? I tremble. + +_May 3._--Rumors, anxiety. The patriots feverish. One might easily +become delirious.... Copperheads, Washington secessionists, spread +all kinds of disastrous rumors. The secessionists here in +Washington, are always invisible when any success attends our arms; +but when we are worsted, they are forth coming on all corners, as +toads are after a shower of rain. + +_May 4._--Confused news, but it seems that Hooker is successful. +Still not so complete as was expected. Hooker's manoeuvring seems +heavy, slow. + +The Copperheads more dangerous and more envenomed than the +secessionists. And very natural. The secesh risks all for a bad +cause and a bad creed. But the _World_ has no conviction, only envy +and mischief, and risks nothing. + +_May 5._--Nothing decided; nothing certain. From what I can gather, +the new generation or stratum of generals fights differently from +the style of the Simon-pure McClellan tribe. They are in front, and +not in the rear according to regulations. + +Halleck digs, digs entrenchments around Washington. I meet +battalions with spades. Engineers show their poor skill! and Mr. +Lincoln is comforted to be strongly defended! + +_May 5._--Night, storm, rain. News rather doubtful. Stanton said to +me that he believes in Hooker, even if Hooker be unsuccessful. +Bravo! Not want of success condemns a general, but the way and +manner in which he acted; and how he dealt with events. + +_May 6._--Seward is bitterly attacked by the _World_, and by other +Copperheads. I could not unite with a _World_ and with Copperheads +to attack even a Seward. They are too filthy.--_Arcades ambo._ + +_May 6._--Hooker retreats and recrosses the river. Say now what you +will to make it swallow, at the best it is an unsuccessful affair, +if not an actual disaster. I believe not in the swelling of the +river. Bosh! in three days these rivers fell. Have any generals +Franklinized? I dare not ask; I most wish not to know anything. + +_May 7._--_Nocte pluit tota (not) redeunt spectacula mane_; grim, +dark, cold, rainy night. Are the Gods against us? Or has imbecility +exasperated even the merciful but rational Christian God to that +extent, that God turns his back upon us? + +_May 7._--Hiob's news come in, confused to sure, but still one finds +something like a foothold. I am thunderstruck, annihilated. I +listened to Hooker's best friends but can hardly help crying. Hooker +is a failure as a commander of a large army. Hooker is good for a +corps or two, but not for the whole command and responsibility. From +all that I can learn, Hooker fights well, courageously, but he, like +the others, _has not the greatest and truest gift_ in a commander: +_Hooker cannot manoeuvre his army._ All that I hear up to this +moment strengthened my conclusion, and I am sure that the more the +details come in, the stronger the truth will come out. Hooker can +not manoeuvre an army. Hooker may attack vigorously, stand as a +rock, but cannot manoeuvre. + +Hooker seems to have committed the same faults and mistake as his +predecessors did. He kept more men out of the fire than in the fire. +And this from Hooker who accused his former chiefs of that very +fault. But poor Hooker was unsupported by a good staff. This check +may turn out to be a great disaster. At any rate, a whole campaign +is lost, and one more commander may go overboard. Hooker will raise +against him a terrible storm. God grant that Hooker could be +honestly defended. + +--_La critique est aisee, mais l'art est difficile_ is perhaps again +illustrated by Hooker. If Hooker is in fault, then he ought not to +survive this disaster. After all that he said, after all that we +said and repeated in his favor, to turn out an awful mistake! + +_May 8._--Worse and worse. I do not learn one single fact +exculpating Hooker. I scarcely dare to look in the people's faces. +The rain is no justification. Hooker showed no vigor before the +rain. After he crossed, and had his army in hand, instead of +attacking, he subsided, seemingly trying to find out the plans of +the rebels instead of acting so as not to give them time to make +plans or to execute them. + +_Tel brille au second rang qui s'eclipse au premier_, is almost all +to be said in Hooker's defense. I tremble to know all the minute +details. A paroled prisoner returned from Richmond said to me that +terror was terrible in Richmond--that Lee and his army had no +supplies. No troops in Richmond--Stoneman cut the bridges. The +rebels were on the brink of a precipice, and extricated themselves. + +_May 8._--Boutwell, Member of Congress, told me that the district of +St. Louis paid more new taxes to January than any other district in +the United States. Bravo, Missourians. That is loyalty. + +_May 8: Evening_--More details about this unhappy Chancellorsville. +Lee and the rebel generals have been decidedly surprised--in the +military sense--by the crossing of the river, and by Hooker coming +thus in part in their rear. But we lost time, they retrieved and +_manoeuvred_ splendidly; better than they ever have done before. Lee +showed that he has learned something. Lee showed that, by a year's +practice, he has at length acquired skill in handling a large army. +The apprenticeship on our side is not so successful; our generals +have no experience therein, and McClellan was worse at Harper's +Ferry in November than at Williamsburg in the spring. McClellan +learned nothing. Will it be possible to find among our Potomac +generals one in whom revelation will supply experience? + +The more I learn about that affair the more thoroughly I am +convinced that Hooker's misfortune had the same cause and source as +the misfortunes of those before him. No military scientific staff +and chief-of-staff. Butterfield was not even with Hooker, but at +Falmouth at the telegraph. If it is so, then no words can +sufficiently condemn them all. + +If Kepler, or Herschel, or Fulton, or Ericcson had violated axioms +and laws of mathematics and dynamics, their labors would have been +as so much chaff and dust. War is mechanism and science, inspiration +and rule; a genuine staff for an army is a scientific law, and if +this law is not recognized and is violated, then the disasters +become a mathematically certain result. + +_May 8._--The defenders of Hooker call the result a drawn battle. +Mr. Lincoln calls it a lost battle. I call it a miscarried, if not +altogether lost, campaign. + +_May 9._--The poorest defence of Hooker is that the terrain was +such that he could not manoeuvre. If the terrain was so bad, Hooker +ought to have known it beforehand, and not brought his army there. +The rebels have not been prevented from marching and manoeuvring on +the same ground, and not prevented from attacking Hooker, all of +which ought to have been done by our army. + +_May 9._--All is again in unspeakable confusion. All seems to crack. +This time, more than ever, a powerful mind is necessary to +disentangle the country. If all is confirmed concerning Hooker's +incapacity, then it is a crime to keep him in command; but who after +him? It becomes now only a guess, a lottery. + +The acting Chief-of Staff on the battle-field was General Van Alen. +Brave and devoted; but Van Alen saw the fire for the first time, and +makes no claims to be a scientific soldier. + +_May 10._--I wrote to Stanton to call his attention to, and explain +the reasons of Hooker's so-called miscarriage. The insufficiency, +the inadequacy of his staff and of chief-of-staff. Hooker attempted +what not even Napoleon would have dared to attempt, to fight an army +of more than one hundred thousand men, literally without a staff, or +without a thorough, scientific and experienced chief-of-staff. I +directed Stanton's attention to evidences from military history. +Persons interested in such questions read Battle of Ligny and +Waterloo, by Thiers. + +Cobden, Cobden the friend of the Union, can no more stand Mr. +Seward's confused logomachy, and in a speech sneers at Mr. Seward's +dispatches. The New York _Times_ _dutifully_ perverts Cobden's +speech; other papers _dutifully_ keep silent. + +_May 10._--To extenuate Hooker's misconduct, his supporters assert +that he was struck, stunned, and his brains affected. Hooker was +stunned on Friday, and his campaign was already lost on Tuesday +before, when he wrote his silly proclamation, when he subsided with +the army in a _semi-lunar_ (the worst form of all) camp, and +challenged Lee to come and fight him. Lee did it. Hooker was +intellectually stunned on Tuesday. Further: the results of the +material stunning on Friday could never have been so fatal if the +army had been organized on the basis of common sense, as are all the +armies of intelligent governments in Europe. The chief-of-staff +elaborates with the commander the plan of the action; he is +therefore familiar with the intentions of the commander. When the +commander is disabled, the chief-of-staff continues the action. At +the storming of Warsaw, in 1831, Prince Paschkewitsch, the +commander, was disabled or stunned, and his chief-of-staff, Count +Toll, directed the storm for two days, and Warsaw fell into Russian +hands. + +No more effective is the defence of the defeat, by throwing the +fault on the Eleventh Army Corps. The Eleventh Corps was put so much +in advance of a very foggishly--if not worse--laid out camp, that +it was temptingly exposed to any attack of the enemy. The Eleventh +Corps was separated from the rest of the army, as was Casey's +division in the Chickahominy. The laying of a camp, the distribution +of the corps, in a well organized army, is the work of the staff and +of its chief; but Butterfield was not even then in Chancellorsville. +Lee, who if caught napping, quickly awoke, wheeled his army as if it +were a child's toy, cut his way through woods which amazed Hooker, +and arrived before Hooker's semi-lunar camp. We, all the time, as it +seems, were ignorant of Lee's movements. A good staff, and what Lee +did, we would have accomplished. Lee quietly found out our +vulnerable point; and struck the blow. That, if you please, _was_ a +stunner. Finally: the Eleventh Corps was eleven or twelve thousand +strong. The weakest in the army, equal to a strong division in a +European army of one hundred thousand men. The breaking of a +division or of twelve thousand men posted at the extreme flank, +ought not and could not have been so fatal to the whole campaign. A +true captain would have been prepared for such eventuality. Battles +are recorded in history when a whole wing broke down and retreated, +and nevertheless the true captain restored order and fortunes, and +won the battle. + +I am told that the rebels attacked in columns, and not in lines. The +rebels learn and learned, and are not conceited. The terrain here in +Virginia is specially fit for attacks in columns, according to +continental European tactics. We will not learn, we know all, we +have graduated--at West Point. + +_May 11._--I have it from a very reliable source, that Mr. Lincoln +considers Sumner to be not very entertaining. + +_May 11._--The confusion is on the increase. Statesmen, politicians, +honest, dishonest, stupid and intelligent, all huddled together. +Their name is legion--and what a stench. It is abominable! And many +think, and many may think, that I find pleasure in dwelling on such +events, on such men as are here. When I was a child, my tutor +ingrained into my memory the _Cum stercore dum certo_, etc. But at +any cost, I shall try to preserve the true reflection of events, of +times, and of the actors. + +_May 12._--Jackson dead. Dead invincible! and therefore fell in time +for his heroic name. Jackson took a sham, a falsehood, for faith and +for truth--but he stood up faithfully, earnestly, devotedly to his +convictions. Whatever have been his political errors, Jackson will +pass to posterity, the hero of history, of poetry, and of the +legend. His name was a terror, it was an army for friend and for +enemy. For Jackson + + _O selig der, dem er in Siegesglantze, + Die blutigen Lorbeer'n um die Schlaefe windet._ + +_May 12._--_Sewardiana._ Lord Lyons, or rather the English +government, objects and protests against the instructions given to +our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr. +Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to +our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this +time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was +quashed, or, at least, recast. + +The Morning _Chronicle_, of Washington--_magnum_ Administration's +_excrementum_--attacks SCHALK and his military reasonings. Oh! great +politician. + + _Sus Minervam docet._ + +_May 13._--The defenders of Hooker affirm that Sedgwick was in +fault, and disobeyed orders. + +1st. I have good reasons firmly to believe that Sedgwick heroically +obeyed and executed orders sent to him. No doubt can exist about it. + +2d. The orders written by _such_ a staff as Hooker's might have been +written in _such_ a way as to confuse the God Mars himself. Marshal +Soult could fight, but as a chief of Napoleon's staff at Waterloo, +could not write intelligible orders. + +3d. Setting aside Sedgwick's disobedience of orders, it does not in +the least justify Hooker in hearing the roar of cannon, and knowing +what was going on, and at the head of eighty thousand men allowing +Sedgwick to be crushed; and all this within a few miles. Fitz-John +Porter was cashiered for a similar offense. Hooker's action is by +far worse, and thus Hooker deserves to be shot. + +_May 13._--Rumors that Halleck is to take the command of the army, +together with Hooker. I almost believe it, because it is nameless, +and here all that is illogical is, eventually, probable. + +Poor Hooker. Undoubtedly, he had a soldier's spark in him. But +adulation, flunkeyism, concert, covered the spark with dirt and mud. +I pity him, but for all that, down with Hooker! + +If Hooker or Halleck commands the army, Lee will have the _knack_ to +always whip them. + +_May 14._--Wrote a paper for Senators Wade and Chandler, to point +out the reasons of Hooker's failure. Did my utmost to explain to +them that warfare to-day is not empiricism, but science, and that +empiricism is only better when sham-science has the upper hand. +Hooker's staff was worse than sham-science, and was not even +empiricism. + +I explained that such evils, although very deeply rooted, can, +nevertheless, be remedied. An energetic government can, and ought to +look for and find, the remedy. The army, as it is, contains good +materials for every branch of organization; it is the duty of the +government to discover them and give them adequate functions. + +Further: I suggested to these patriotic Senators that as in the +present emergency, it is difficult to put the hand on any general +inspiring confidence, the President, the Secretary of War and the +Senators, ought immediately to go to the army, and call together +all the commanders of corps and of divisions. The President ought +to explain to the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of making a new +choice. But as the generals are well aware that there must be a +commander, and that they know each other in the fire, the President +appeals to their patriotism, and asks them to elect, by secret +ballot on the spot, one from among themselves. + +_May 14: One o'clock, P. M._--The President, Halleck and Hooker in +secret conclave. Stanton, it seems, is excluded. If so, I am glad on +his account. God have mercy on this wronged and slaughtered people. +No holy spirit will inspire the Conclave. + +_May 15._--The English Government shelters behind the Enlistment +Act. The Act is a municipal law, and a foreign nation has nothing to +do with it. We are with England on friendly terms, and England has +towards us duties of friendly comity, whatever be the municipal law. +To invoke the Enlistment Act against us, is a mean pettifogger's +trick. + +A good-natured imbecile, C----, everybody's friend, and friend of +Lincoln, Seward and the Administration in the lump, C---- asked me +what I want by thus bitterly attacking everybody. + +"I want the rebellion crushed, the slaves emancipated; but above all +I want human life not to be sacrilegiously wasted; I want men, not +counterfeits." + +"Well, my dear, point out where to find them?" answered everybody's +friend. + +_May 15._--On their return from Falmouth, the patriotic Senators +told me that they felt the ground for my proposed election of a +commander by his colleagues, and that General Meade would have the +greatest chance of being elected. _Va pour Meade._ Some say that +Meade is a Copperhead at heart. Nonsense. Let him be a Copperhead at +heart, and fight as he fought under Franklin, or fight as he would +have fought at Chancellorsville if Hooker had not been trebly +_stunned_. + +_May 15._--Much that I see here reminds me of the debauched times in +France; on a microscopic scale, however; as well as of the times of +the _Directoire_. The jobbers, contractors, lobbyists, etc., here +could perhaps carry the prize even over the supereminently infamous +jobbers, etc., during the _Directoire_. + +_May 15._--"Peel of Halleck, Seward and Sumner," exclaims Wendell +Philips, the apostle. Wendell Samson shakes the pillars, and the +roof may crush the Philistines, and those who lack the needed pluck. + +_May 16._--The President visited Falmouth, consoled Hooker and +Butterfield, shook hands with the generals, told them a story, and +returned as wise as he went concerning the miscarriage at +Chancellorsville. The repulse of our army does not frighten Mr. +Lincoln, and this I must applaud from my whole heart. It is however +another thing to admire the cool philosophy with which are swallowed +the causes of a Fredericksburgh and a Chancellorsville--causes +which devoured about twenty thousand men, if not more. + +_May 16._--Strange stories, and incredible, if any thing now-a-days +is incredible. Mr. Lincoln, inspired by Hitchcock and Owen, turns +spiritualist and rapper. Poor spirits, to be obliged to answer such +calls! + +_May 17._--A high-minded, devoted, ardent patriot, a general of the +army, had a long conversation with the President, who was sad, and +very earnest. The patriot observed that Mr. Lincoln wanted only +encouragement to take himself the command of the Army of the +Potomac. As it stands now, this would be even better than any other +choice. I am sure that once with the army, separated from Seward & +Co., Mr. Lincoln will show great courage. If only Mr. Lincoln could +then give the _walking papers_ to General Halleck! + +On the authority of the above conversation, I respectfully wrote to +the President, and urged him to take the army's command, but to +create a genuine staff for the army around his person. + +I submitted to the President that the question relating to a staff +for the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy [the President] and +for the commander-in-chief of the Army, Major-General Halleck, has +been often discussed by some New York, Boston and Washington +dailies, and the wonted amount of confusion is thereby thrown +broadcast among the public. The names of several generals have been +mentioned by the press as a staff of the President. I doubt if any +of them are properly qualified for such an important position. They +are rather fitted for a military council _ad latus_ to the +President. Such a council exists in Russia near the person of the +emperor; but it has nothing in common with a staff, with staff +duties, or with the intellectual qualification for such duties. The +project of such a council here was many months ago submitted to the +Secretary of War. A Commander-in-chief, as mentioned above--one +fighting and manoeuvring on paper--making plans in his office, +unfamiliar with every thing constituting a genuine military, +scientific or practical soldier--to whom field and battle are +uncongenial or improper--to whom grand and even small tactics are a +_terra incognita_--such a chief is at best but an imitation of the +English military organization, and certainly it is only in this +country that obsolete English routine is almost uniformly imitated. +Such a Commander-in-chief might have been of some small usefulness +when our Army was but thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand strong, +was scattered over the country, or warred only with Indians on the +frontier. But all the great and highly perfected military powers on +the continent of Europe consider such a commander a wholly +unnecessary luxury, and not even Austria indulges in it now. + +During the campaign against Napoleon in 1813-14 the allies were +commanded by a generalissimo, the Prince Schwartzenberg; but he +moved with the army, actively directed that great campaign. + +The Continental sovereigns of Europe are born Commanders-in-chief of +their respective land and naval forces. As such, each of them has a +personal staff; but such a personal staff must not be confused with +a general, central staff, the paramount necessity of which for any +military organization is similar to the nervous system and the brain +for the human body. Special extensive studies as well as practical +familiarity with the use of the drill and the tactics of infantry, +cavalry and artillery, constitute absolutely essential requirements +for an officer of such a staff. The necessary military special +information also, as well as the duties, are very varied and +complicated (see "_Logistics_" by Jomini and others.) This country +has no such school of staff. West Point neither instructs nor +provides the Army with officers for staff duties; and of course the +difficulty now to obtain efficient officers for a staff, if not +insurmountable, is appalling, and is only to be mastered by a great +deal of good will, by insight and by discernment. + +Many months ago, I pointed out, in the press, this paramount +deficiency in the organization of the Federal Army. The Prince de +Joinville ascribes General McClellan's military failures to the +paramount inefficiency of that General's staff. Any one in the least +familiar with military organization and military science is +thunderstruck to find how the Federal military organization deal +with staffs, and what is their comprehension of the qualification +for staff duties. + +It deserves a mention that engineers and engineering constitute what +is rather a secondary element in the organization of a special or of +a general central staff. + +Plans of wide comprehensive campaigns are generally elaborated by +such general staffs. In the campaigns of 1813-14, the sovereigns of +Russia and Prussia were surrounded by their respective general, and +not only personal staffs. With the Colonels Dybitsch and Toll, of +the Russian general staff, originated that bold, direct march on +Paris, whose results changed the destinies of Europe. Other similar, +although not so mighty facts are easily found in general military +history. + +Finally, I pointed out to the President, the names of Generals +Sedgewick, Meade, Warren, Humphries, and Colonel J. Fry as fit for, +and understanding, the duties of the staff. + +_May 17._--I record a rumor, which I supposed, and found out to be, +without much foundation; it is nevertheless worth recording. + +The rumor in question says that the President wished to dismiss +Stanton and to take General Butler; that Mr. Seward was to decide +between the two, and that he declined the responsibility. Seward and +Butler in the same sack! Butler would have swallowed Seward, hat, +international laws and all--and of course Seward declined the +responsibility. + +But now a story comes, which is a sad truth. William Swinton, +military reporter for the _Times_, a young man of uncommon ability +and truthfulness, prepared for his paper a detailed article about +the whole of Hooker's Chancellorsville expedition. Before being +published, the article was shown to Mr. Lincoln; and it was +telegraphed to New York that if the article comes out, the author +may accidentally find himself a boarder in Fort Lafayette. Almost +the same day the President telegraphed to a patriot to whom Mr. +Lincoln unbuttoned himself, not to reveal to anybody the +conversation. Both these occurrences had in view only one object--it +was to keep truth out of the people's knowledge. Truth is a +dangerous weapon in the hands of a people. + +_May 19._--The President repeatedly refuses to make General Butler +useful to the country's cause, notwithstanding the best men in the +country ask Butler's appointment. I am only astonished that the best +men can hope and expect anything of the sort; for, when a Butler will +come up, then Sewards and Hallecks easily may go down--but--_pia +desideria_. + +_May 20._--From many, many and various quarters, continually unholy +efforts are made to excuse Hooker and Butterfield; the President +seemingly listens and excuses. Well, I know what a Napoleon, or any +other even unmilitary sovereign, would do with both. + +_May 21._--O, for light! for light! O, to find a man! one to prize, +to trust, to have faith in him! It is so sickening to almost hourly +dip the pen in--mud! I regret now to have started this _Diary_. I go +on because it is started, and because I wish to contribute, even in +the smallest manner, towards rendering justice to a great people, +besides being always on the watch, always expecting to have to +record a chain of brilliant actions, accomplished by noble and +eminent men. But day after day passes by, page heaps on page, and I +must criticise, when I would be so happy to prize. + +As a watchdog faithful to the people's cause, I try to stir up the +shepherds--but alas! alas.... + +_May 22._--Wrote a letter to Senator Wade explaining to him how +incapable is Hooker of commanding a large army, how his habits and +associations are contaminating and ruinous to the spirit of the +army, and that Hooker is to return to the command of a corps or two. + +_May 23._--Vainly! vainly in all directions, among the helmsmen, +leaders and commanders I search for a man inspired, or, at least, an +enthusiast wholly forgetting himself for the holiness of the aim. +Enthusiasm is eliminated from higher regions; is outlawed, is almost +spit upon. Enthusiasm! that most powerful stimulus for heart and +reason, and which alone expands, purifies, elevates man's +intellectual faculties. Here the people, the unnamed, have +enthusiasm, and to the people belong those noble patriots so often +mentioned. But the men in power are cold, and extinguished as ashes. +Jackson the President, Jackson the general, was an enthusiast. +Enthusiasts have been the founders of this Republic. + +Whatever was done great and noble in this world, was done by +enthusiasts. The whole scientific progress of the human mind is the +work of enthusiasm! + +_May 24._--Grant and the Western army before Vicksburgh unfold +endurance, and fertility of resources, which, if shown by a +McClellan and his successors, having in their hands such a powerful +engine as was and is the Potomac Army, would have made an end to the +rebellion. Happy Grant, Rosecrans and their armies! to be far off +from the deleterious Washington influences and adulations. +Influences and adulations ruined the commanders and many among the +generals of the Potomac army. Adulations, intrigue, and helplessness +fill, nay constitute the generals atmosphere. In various ways every +body contributes to that atmosphere--participates in it. Every body +influences or intrigues in the army. The President, the various +Secretaries, Senators, Congressmen, newspapers, contractors, +sutlers, jobbers, politicians, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts +and loose crinolines. Jews, publicans, etc., and the rest of social +leprosy. All this cannot thus immediately and directly reach the +Western armies, the Western commanders, when it reaches, it is +already--to some extent--weakened, oxygenated, purified. Add to it +here the direct influence and meddling of the head-quarters. I pity +this fated army here, and at times I even pity the commanders and +the generals. + +_May 25._--Grant is an eminent man as to character and as to +capacity. To Admiral Foote and to him are due the victories at Fort +Henry, of Donelson, and the bold stroke to enter into the interior +of Secessia. Had Halleck not intervened, had Halleck and Buell not +taken the affairs in their hands, _Foote_ and _Grant_ would have +taken Nashville early in the spring of 1862, and cleared perhaps +half of the Mississippi. After the capture of Fort Donelson, Foote +demanded to be allowed at once to go with his gunboats to Nashville, +to clear the Tennessee; but Halleck caved in, or rather comprehended +not. Grant and Rosecrans restored what Halleck and Buell brought to +the brink of ruin. + +_May 28._--Mr. Seward, omnipotent in the White House, tries to +conciliate the public, and in letters, etc., whitewashes himself +from arrests of persons, etc. Mr. Seward is therefore innocent, +thereof, as a lamb. But who inaugurated and directed them in 1861? I +know the necessities of certain times, and am far from accusing; but +how can Seward attempt to throw upon others the first steps made in +the direction of arrests? + +_May 28._--Hooker still in command, and not even his staff changed. +I am certain that Stanton is for the change in the staff. + +_May 28._--I am assured that the Blairs (I am not sure if General +Blair is counted in) are the pedlars for Mr. Lincoln's re-election, +as stated by the New York _Herald_. If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected, +then the self-government is not yet founded on reason, intellect, +and on sound judgment. + +_May 31._--I am assured by a diplomat that four hundred and thirteen +is the last number of the correspondence between the Department of +State and Lord Lyons. Oh, how much ink and paper wasted, and what a +writing dysentery on both sides. The diplomat in question added that +it was only from January first--of course it was a joke. + + + + +JUNE, 1863. + + Banks -- "The Enemy Crippled" -- Count Zeppelin -- + Hooker-Stanton -- "Give Him a Chance" -- Mr. Lincoln's Looks -- + Rappahannock -- Slaughter -- North Invaded -- "To be Stirred up" + -- Blasphemous Curtin -- Banquetting -- Desperate -- Groping -- + Retaliation -- Foote -- Hooker -- Seward -- Panama -- Chase -- + Relieved -- Meade -- Nobody's fault -- Staffs, etc., etc., etc. + + +_June 1._--For some time Banks seems to move in the right direction. +Banks no more intends to destroy slavery, and not thereby to hurt +the slave-holders. So Banks has become himself again, and the +Sewardean creed is evaporated. Banks has under him very good +officers, and intelligent, fighting generals; some of them left by +Butler, others, as for instance, Generals Augur, Stone, etc., who +embarked with Banks. + +_June 2._--I hear it reported that Hooker maintains that he has +worsted and crippled the enemy more than if he had taken Richmond. + +If the enemy in reality was worsted to that extent, it was not in +the least done by Hooker, Butterfield & Co.'s generalship, but this +time, as always, it was done by the bravery of the troops, +notwithstanding the bad generalship, not by, but _in spite of_, that +bad generalship. + +_June 3._--Count Zeppelin, an officer of the staff and aide to the +King of Wurtemberg, came here to observe and to learn how _not_ to +do it! The Count visited the army at Falmouth. He was horror-struck +at the prevailing disorder, and at the general and special +miscomprehension of the needed knowledge and of the duties +prevailing in the staff of the army. The Count says that if this +confusion continues, the rebels may dare almost every thing. Count +Zeppelin is what would be called here, a thorough Union man. He +revolted greatly at witnessing the _nonchalance_ with which human +life is dealt with in the army, and the carelessness of commanders +about the condition of soldiers; the latter he most heartily +admires, and therefore the more pities their fate. He assured me +that rebel agents scattered in Germany tried their utmost to secure +for the rebel army officers of the various arms. This explains the +organization and the brilliant manoeuvrings of the celebrated +Stuart's cavalry, the novel rebel tactics in the use of artillery, +and the attack by columns at Chancellorsville. + +_June 3._--Hooker, they say, waits to see what Lee will do. In other +words, we are on the defensive, after such efforts and so much blood +wasted. O, Ezekiel! O, Deuteronomy! help me to bless the leaders and +the chiefs of this people. + +I am told by a very good authority, that Mr. Lincoln takes a special +care of his fellow-townsmen in Springfield. What a good, honest, +neighborly sentiment, provided always that the public good is not +suffering by it! + +_June 3._--A senator, who urged Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Halleck, was +answered, that "as Halleck has not a single friend in the country, +Mr. Lincoln feels himself in duty bound to stand by him." Admirable, +but costly stubbornness. + +_June 3._--Poor Hooker! He is now the laughingstock of Europe. I +wish he may recover what he has lost or squandered. But alas! even +now Hooker makes no attempt to surround himself with a genuine +staff. + +I wrote to Stanton, imploring him for the country's and for his own +sake, to compel Hooker to reform his staff, and not to allow science +to be any longer trodden under foot. I implored Stanton that either +the President or he would select and nominate a chief-of-staff for +Hooker, or rather for the Potomac army, as it is done in Europe. +Stanton understands well the disastrous deficiency, and if he could, +he would immediately go at it and change. But, first, the statutes +or regulations, obligatory here, leave it with the commander to +appoint his own staff and its chief. Stupid, rusty, foggyish and +fogyish regulations, so perfectly in harmony with the general +ignorance of what ought to be the staff of an army! Second, Stanton +must yield to another will, and to what is believed here to be the +higher knowledge of military affairs. + +_June 3._--"Give to Hooker one chance more," says Mr. Lincoln, and +so say several members of the Cabinet; "McClellan had so +many."--Because they allowed McClellan to waste human life and time, +it surely is no reason to repeat the sacrilegious condescension. A +general may be unfortunate, lose a battle, or even lose a campaign; +all this without being damnable when he has shown capacity, when he +did his utmost, but could not conciliate _fatum_ on his side. But +such is not the case with Hooker, and such _emphatically_ was _not_ +the case with McClellan and with Burnside. + +_June 3._--During these last fourteen days, the _big men_ have been +expecting a raid on Washington. More fortifications are constructed, +and rifle pits dug. This time the Administration is perfectly right. +All is probable and possible when capacity, decision, and +lightning-like execution are on the one side, and on the other +sham-science, want of earnestness, slowness and indecision. + +_June 5._--A very reliable and honorable patriot tells me that +_grandissimo_ Chase _looks down_ upon any advice, suggestion, or +warning. O, the great man! A time must come when all these great men +will be held to a terrible account, will shed tears of blood, and +their names will be scorned by coming generations, and the track to +the White House may become also the track to the Tarpeian rock. + +_June 5._--I often meet Mr. Lincoln in the streets. Poor man! He +looks exhausted, care-worn, spiritless, extinct. I pity him! Mr. +Lincoln's looks are those of a man whose nights are sleepless, and +whose days are comfortless. That is the price for a greatness to +which he is not equal. Yet Mr. Lincoln, they say, wishes to be +re-elected! + +_June 5._--Mr. Seward makes a speech to the volunteers of Auburn. +All the same logomachy, all the same cold patriotism, all the same +_I_, and all the same squint towards the next presidential election. + +_June 6._--Lincoln cannot realize to what extent Seward is and has +been his evil spirit. Even the nearest in blood and heart to Lincoln +know it, feel it, are awe-struck by it, warn him, and he is +insensible. + +_June 7._--How I sympathize with Stanton, and admire his +rude--others call it coarse--contempt of all that is said about him. +That impure, lying, McClellan-Copperhead motley crew, accuse Stanton +of all the numberless criminal mistakes committed in the conduct of +the war--committed by the generals, etc. Stanton never interferes +with Mr. Lincoln nor with Halleck in matters that exclusively relate +to pure warfare, as where and how to march the respective armies, +how and in what way to attack the enemy, etc. + +Reliable patriots coincide with me, that Stanton as clearly sees +every thing to-day, as he saw it when entering on his thorny duty. I +only wonder that he holds out in such an atmosphere. Stanton's +energy is indomitable. Blair's party says that "Stanton goes off at +half-cock." It is not true; but even if true, better to go off at +half-cock than not at all. Many say that Stanton ought to retire, if +he is hampered by others in the exercise of his duties. But if he +were to retire, he could not at this moment reveal to the people the +causes of such a step, and by remaining at his post, Stanton +prevents still greater disasters and disgraces. He never asks any of +his friends to say or to write a word in his defence, or rather to +dispel the lies with which McClellanites and copperheads poison the +atmosphere all around them. + +_June 8._--Alexandria fortified, rifle-pits dug, etc. The third +year of the war is the third terror upon Washington, and upon those +counterfeit penates. + +_June 8._--What for--for heaven's or devil's sake--Hooker throws a +division of cavalry across the Rappahannock, right in the dragon's +jaw! All the rebel army is on the other side, and this, our +division, can never be decidedly supported. It cannot be a +_reconnaissance_--of what? It cannot be a stratagem to surprise Lee. +If Lee wants to march anywhere north or west, this demonstration of +Hooker's will not for a minute arrest Lee. + +_June 9._--The great Henry Ward Beecher emigrates for a time to +Europe. His parish richly supports him for the trip, and the +preacher sells his choice, and as it is said, beloved picture +gallery. It is not for want of money. Strange! What a curious +manifestation of patriotism! + +_June 10._--The demonstration over the Rappahannock turned out to be +a slaughter of the cavalry. What! Was Hooker again stunned, to make +such a deliberate mistake--nay, crime? Such a demonstration never +could prevent Stuart from moving, even if our troops had defeated or +worried him--even if victorious, our cavalry would have been forced +to recross the Rappahannock, and Stuart, having behind him Lee's +whole army, which could easily reinforce him, would then move again. +Our force of nine thousand men, distant from support, attack a +superior force of fifteen thousand, who besides have within +supporting distance a whole army! This demonstration prevents +nothing, decides nothing, beyond the worst, the most damnable +generalship. General Hooker and his chief-of-staff are personally +responsible for every soldier lost there. + +_June 11._--Again visitings to the army. Senators, ladies, magnifico +Chase leading on. O, if the guerrillas could sweep them! + +_June 12._--Crippled men are to be met in all directions, on all the +streets. One-third of the amputated limbs undoubtedly could have +been saved by the Medical Department, were it in better hands, and +above all, if surgeons had been called in from Europe--the domestic +surgeons not being sufficient for the demand. + +_June 13._--The principle of election, the only true one, a principle +recognized and asserted as well by antiquity as by the primitive +Church, recognized by rationalists, by Fourier, by radical, or any +democracy whatever--that principle must undergo an immense improvement +before it shall act in all its perfection. The elector must be +altogether self-governing, and not governed or influenced by anybody +in his choice and vote. The elector himself must stand on an elevated +level before by his vote he raises one or several above that level. +When the people's vote confers the highest trust to one rather below +than in the level, and still less one above the level, then even the +most intelligent people in the world, being thus misdirected, +misconducted, confused, in a very short time become almost enervated, +and, so to speak, loses its self-possession, and its sense of duty and +of right becomes shaken, its intellectual light dimmed. _Exempla sunt +odiosa._ + +_June 14._--The cavalry expedition over the Rappahannock was to +arrest any further offensive movements of the rebels. But lo! the +rebel army, so to speak, spreads in all directions, and takes the +offensive. We do not even know positively where Lee is going, where +he will appear and strike. We are shaking in, and for, Washington. + + "Weh, Messina! wehe, wehe, wehe!" + +Mr. Lincoln is unshaken in his confidence in Hooker and Butterfield. + +_June 15._--By a bold and rapid manoeuvre Lee has thrown his troops +over the valley, over the Potomac, into Maryland, and God alone +knows where Lee will stop. Lee's advance must have been already on +the Potomac when the slaughter of our cavalry over the Rappahannock +was planned at the various head-quarters. How splendidly Lee's +movements have been arrested by that demonstration! Lee is on the +Potomac, and it seems that his movements have been ignored. His +armies, to be sure, have not been surrounded by a cloud, as the +Jews were in their exodus from the land of bondage, but the cloud +was hanging over the head-quarters in the army and in Washington. + +_June 16._--The North invaded--threatened, shaken to the marrow! The +audacity of the rebels is stimulated by our sluggishness. If the +accounts in the War Department are true, then from Fortress Monroe +to the Potomac, including Baltimore and Maryland, we have about two +hundred thousand men, and the rebels dare! O, the rebels! what a +desperate conception, what a lightning-like execution! Dutifully +re-echoing the words uttered by their masters, the partisans of the +Administration console themselves by saying that "this invasion of +the North will have the effect of stirring up the North from its +lethargy." O, you blasphemers! worse blasphemers than ever have been +stoned or burned alive! Is the North not pouring forth its blood and +its treasures, and are they not all squandered by counterfeits? + +_June 16._--The draft is not put in motion, because for weeks and +months Mr. Lincoln adjusts the appointments to be made under this +law, adjusts them to the exigencies of politicians. Jeff Davis +executes the draft with an iron hand. Mr. Lincoln thus gives time to +the Copperheads, to the disciples of the Seymours, of the Woods, of +the _World_, to organize a resistance. Bloodshed may come! + +_June 16._--This invasion of Pennsylvania ought to be investigated. +Light must be brought into this dark, muddy, stinking labyrinth. +Weeks ago, honest, clear-sighted, patriotic Governor Curtin asked +authority to arm the militia of his State, and was snubbed in +Washington. Will this new disgrace serve to strengthen the +Administration? Quite possible. + +_June 16._--Pennsylvania invaded, the country disgraced, and our +helmsmen, our Secretaries of State and of the Treasury, give +banquets! O, what a stoicism! a stoicism _sui generis_. The homes of +the farmers whose sons bleed on fields of battle, are invaded, their +hearths threatened with desolation, and the helmsmen sip Champagne, +paid for by the people! + +_June 17._--_Halleckiana._ Rosecrans telegraphed to head-quarters +that he cannot send any troops to Grant, and that if he, Rosecrans, +is to attack Bragg, he must have reinforcements. Answer: "Do what +you like, on your own responsibility." + +_June 17._--Hooker seems to have lost his former _dash_. He must +have known that the rebels extended from Gordonsville to +Pennsylvania, and he, moving in almost a parallel direction to that +line, ought to have cut it, or at least its tail. + +General Ewell at Winchester. Hooker seems to doubt what he can do. +The soldiers of his army can do anything ever done by any soldiers +in the world--but lead them on, O Generals! Hooker has ninety-four +thousand men, and, McClellan-like, waits for more; laments that he +is outnumbered. A good general, having such a number, and of such +troops, would never hesitate to attack an enemy numbering one +hundred and twenty thousand, and the more so, as Hooker's command +is massed, while Lee's is not. And I'll risk my head that Lee's +whole army, all over the valley, and over Pennsylvania, and over +Maryland, is smaller than Hooker's. It is the same old trick of the +rebels and of their friends, to throw dust in our eyes by magnifying +their numbers. The trick is always successful, because on our side +it is wished to extenuate incapacity by the supposed large numbers +of the rebel armies. + +_June 18._--The North rises. New York sends its militia. The people +fails not, but how about the helmsmen? + +The Democrats--the Copperheads roar for McClellan. Well! the like +Democrats glorifying McClellan, show their patriotism, their metal +and their judgment. These Copperhead-Democrats may insist upon +calling McClellan a captain and a hero, but history will give +another verdict, and history will credit to the Democrats the fact +that they have adroitly poisoned and perverted the good faith of the +honest but credulous Democratic rank and file. + +_June 18._--The Administration's _simon pure_ echoes, politicians, +etc., try to persuade everybody that the invasion of Pennsylvania is +nothing, a mere tempest in a tea-pot. Whom do they hope to humbug in +this way? The disgrace is nameless, only they are callous enough not +to feel it. Their cheeks can no more redden.... However, Stanton is +not so optimist. It would look so farcical if it were not so deadly +to witness. Hooker groping his way after Lee; Lincoln and the +all-knowing head-quarters in the utmost darkness about Lee, his +army, his movements, and his plans. And all this while the country, +the people, is kept officially ignorant of its honor, of its fate. +All publicity and communication is suppressed--not to inform thereby +the enemy of our movements. How idiotic, how silly! As if the march +and the movements of an army of one hundred thousand men could be +kept secret from a vigilant and desperate enemy, and the enemy +wanted to read the papers for it. Good for us! + +I cannot hope against hope, and expect that Hooker, Butterfield, +Lincoln, Halleck will out-manoeuvre Lee, bold, quick, and desperate +as he is. + +_June 19._--The jobbers, the contractors, the gold, stock, and +exchange speculators wish for the prolongation of the war. For this +reason, disasters are rather welcome to them. Oh! to crush those +ignoble and demoniac monsters. + +_June 20._--I cannot comprehend how Lee could have dared such a +desperate movement, even if relying on the confusion and +senselessness prevailing in _our_ military movements. Lee must have +had some kind of encouragement from the Copperheads before he risked +a step, which ought to end in his utter destruction, even with a +Halleck, Hooker and Butterfield as our commanders. + +_June 20._--Hooker has more than ninety thousand men in hand--his +rear, his supplies, his _depots_ covered by Heintzelman, and by the +defences of Washington. This alone is equal to fifty thousand more. +And with all this, the treble head-quarters, in the White House in +G street, and in the army cannot find Lee, and therefore the rebels +are not attacked, and lay Pennsylvania waste. O, staffs, O, staffs! + +_June 20._--More than any other army in the world, the American army +requires to have a thoroughly organized staff, with very intelligent +staff officers. Such staff officers carry orders to generals and to +colonels who, although brave and devoted, may often not altogether +comprehend certain sacramental technicalities of an order delivered +by mouth, or written briefly in the saddle. + +The officer ought to be able to explain the order. Think of it, you +wiseacres and organisers of American armies. + +_June 21._--Small cavalry skirmishes without signification. The +curtain is not rended, and the enemy rolls towards the heart of +Pennsylvania. How will it end? + +_June 22._--Nobody of the various upper and lower Chiefs can find +Lee. Give twenty thousand men to a bold man even not a general, and +in twenty-four hours he will bring you positive news about Lee's +army. + +_June 23._--It seems that Lee waits, if we divide our army, to +strike a blow on Washington. Thus he will be baffled; there is a +limit even to our military blunders. + +_June 24._--Incorrigible Seward. France invites our Government to +participate in the diplomatic coercion against Russia. Of course, +Americans refuse. Mr. Seward, in harmony with the feeling of the +people politely snuff off France. But O, Mr. Seward, why pervert +history or show your ignorance, even of the national events and of +Congressional records. The United States, Adams II., President, sent +commissioners to the Congress of Panama, and the United States +Congress did it after a discussion of several days. What is the use +to deny it now? Then Mr. Seward is insincere to both parties. +Speaking of "_a temporary transient revolt here_" he seemingly +insinuates, that but for this _transient revolt_ he would perhaps +try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in +company with the _Decembriseur_. Then the only impediment would be +the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! _The refusal_ in +the dispatch re-echoes the convictions of the American people; its +shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism and only fit +to catch a Russian diplomat in Washington. + +_June 25._--Hooker crosses to Maryland with nearly one hundred +thousand men. Lee is still on both sides of the Potomac. By a blow +Hooker could cut Lee's army, break it, and retrieve what he lost at +Chancellorsville. Oh, how I wish he may do it. But since Hooker has +refused to mend his staff, all hope is lost. Stanton sees the +condition very clearly, but Butterfield is in good odor in the White +House. + +_June 26._--Lee's movements and invasion puzzle me more and more. +The raid into Pennsylvania is the move of a desperate commander, +almost of a madman, playing his whole fortune on one card. If Lee +comes safe out of it, then doubtless he is the best general of our +times, and we the best nincompoops that ever the sun looked upon and +blushed for. + +_June 26._--The reports give to Lee an army of two hundred thousand +men. Impossible! Where could the rebels scrabble together such a +number? The old trick to frighten us. If, however, Lee should have +even only from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand, then +relying on the high capacity of our various head-quarters, the rebel +chiefs may have gathered what they could take from Charleston and +from Bragg, and massed it to try a decided blow on Washington. But +this cloud, this dust cannot last long; whatever be our +head-quarters, light must come, and the cloud burst with blood and +thunder. + +One meets in Washington individuals praising sky-high Mr. Lincoln's +military capacity, and saying that he alone embraces all the +extensive line of military operations, combines, directs them, etc. +Pretty well has all this succeeded, and why cannot the younger +generation seize the helm in this terrible crisis? How I ardently +wish to see there an Andrew, Boutwell, Coffey, and more, more of +those new men. + +_June 27._--From a very reliable, honest, and _not conspiring_ +secessionist in Washington, I learn that a Northern Copperhead +visited Jeff Davis in Richmond, and stimulated the rebel chief to +carry into the north a war of retaliation by fire and sword, but +that Jeff Davis refused to instruct Lee for devastation. I instantly +told Stanton my news; and now I doubt not in the least that the +invasion is concerted with Northern Copperheads. + +_June 28._--The following is this morning the military condition of +the city with the forts and defences: Hooker took all he could and +all he met on his way. To defend the works around Washington +Heintzelman has six thousand infantry, and not two hundred cavalry. +The rebels have cavalry all around, within six or eight miles. A +dash of twenty thousand infantry, and Washington is done! + +_June 28._--Admiral Foote dead. Irreparable loss. Foote was of the +stamp of Lyon, of the stamp of patriot-heroes. He died of +exhaustion, that is, of devotion to the country. Foote was an honor +to the navy and to the American people. + +_June 28._--Yesterday, Friday, the candidate for presidency, +splendid Chase, stood up mightily for Hooker. Oh, Mr. Chase! you may +be a great or a doubtful financier, but keep rather mute on military +matters. You know as much about them as this d---- mosquito that is +just now biting my nose. + +_June 28._--At last, Hooker relieved. I pity Meade to receive a +command at such a critical moment. But now or never, to show his +mettle, his capacity! The army thinks very highly of Meade. Will +Halleck soon be sent to California? Then the country's cause will be +safe. + +_June 29._--Yesterday a rebel cavalry raid captured an immense +train of provisions, cattle, etc., worth about five hundred thousand +dollars, and within eight or twelve miles of Washington! Of course, +it is nobody's fault. In other armies and countries, such a large +train would have a very strong convoy--here it had scarcely a small +squadron of cavalry. The original fault is, first, with Hooker's +chief-of-staff, who is responsible for providing the army, and for +the security of the provision trains. So at least it is in European +armies. Second, with the head-quarters at Washington, who ought to +have known that the enemy, ant-like, spreads in the rear of Hooker. +The head-quarters ought to have informed the quartermaster thereof, +and provided a strong convoy. This train affair is the younger +brother of the Fredericksburg pontoons. + +Third, the head-quarters of the army and the quartermasters ought to +have inquired at the head-quarters of the defenses of Washington, if +the roads are safe. But of course it was not done, as the _big men_ +here possess all the prescience, and need no valuable information. +All of them appear to me as ostriches, who hide their heads and +eyes, not to see the danger. + +_June 29._--General Heintzelman is as thorough a soldier as any +to-day in Washington--a soldier superior to head-quarters of the +army. Heintzelman commands the military district which south, west +and north touches on the theatre of the present campaign. In similar +conditions and circumstances, any other government, sovereign, +commander-in-chief, etc., would consult with the commander of the +defences of the capital and of the military district around the +city; here Heintzelman is not noticed. + +_June 30._--How will Meade compose his staff? All depends on that. +In the present positions of Meade's and Lee's armies, even a +Napoleon could not do much without a very good staff. + +Were the staffs of the American armies organized as they are in +Europe, no difficulty would exist. In Europe the staffs of the +armies are independent from the persons of their commanders. When a +commander is changed, the staff and its chief remains, and thus the +new commander at a glance and in a few hours can become thoroughly +familiar with the position and condition of the army, and with the +plans of his predecessor, etc., etc. Often such commanders are +changed and sent from one end of the country to the other. In 1831, +PASCHKEWITSCH was ordered from the Caucasus to Poland, to supersede +DIESBITSCH. + +_June 30._--Since Calhoun, the creed of the _simon pure_ Democratic +party intrinsically marked a degradation of man and of humanity. Its +logical, unavoidable and final outlets must have been secession, +treason, and copperheadism; its apotheosis, South, the rebels; +North, the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams and the _World_. +The creed of the Republican party is humane. The _simon pure_ +democratic rank and file, North and South, intellectually and +morally constitute the lowest stratum of American society. Progress, +civilization, intellectual, healthy activity principally are +embodied in the Republican rank and file. True men, as a Marcy, a +Guthrie, and some few similar, throw a pure and bright light on the +Democratic party; many from among the official and political +Republican notabilities throw a dismal and dark shadow on the +intrinsically elevated and pure principles of the party. + + + + +JULY, 1863. + + Eneas -- Anchises -- General Warren -- Aldie -- General + Pleasanton -- Superior mettle -- Gettysburgh -- Cholera morbus -- + Vicksburgh -- Army of heroes -- Apotheosis -- "Not name the + Generals" -- Indian warfare -- Politicians -- Spittoons -- Riots + -- Council of War -- Lords and Lordlings -- Williamsport -- Shame + -- Wadsworth -- "To meet the Empress Eugenie," etc., etc., etc. + + +_July 1._--It is worth while to ascertain if the Administration is +prepared to run. During last year's invasion of Maryland, at the +foot of C street a swift vessel was, day and night, kept under +steam--(in the greatest secrecy)--to carry away the American gods. +_Eneas-Seward_ was to carry on his shoulders ANCHISES-LINCOLN. I was +told that certain gallant secretaries promised to certain gallant +_ladies_ to take them into the ark. + +_July 1._--Meade makes General Warren his chief-of-staff. For the +first time in this war, in-doors and out-doors, a man for the place. +I never saw Warren, but have heard much in his favor. Then he is +young. Then he is not conceited. Then he is no intriguer. Then he +is fighting always and everywhere. Then he speaks not of strategy. A +brighter promise. Genuine science and intelligence dawn on our +muddy, dark, ignorant horizon. + +Four weeks ago Meade might have been already in the command of the +army. (See after Chancellorsville.) Perhaps Lee would have been +to-day shut up in Richmond instead of laying waste Pennsylvania. + +_July 1._--The people will never know to what extent Mr. +Lincoln-Halleck are stumbling-blocks in all military affairs. If +Lincoln had even a _Carnot_ for Secretary of War, the affairs would +not go better than they go now. + +_July 1._--General Meade is the pure, simple result of military +necessity. His choice is not adulterated by any party spirit. +Success may be probable, if Meade is in reality what his colleagues +suppose or assert him to be. + +_July 2._--The property of the great patriot THADDEUS STEVENS +destroyed by the rebels. I am as sure as of my existence, that the +rebel hordes were urged by the Copperheads and by Northern traitors, +by the disciples of the _World_, etc. + +_July 2._--Copperheads and their organs scream to have McClellan at +the head of the armies. This enthusiasm for McClellan soon will be a +burning shame. For many it is a mental disease, and almost +unparallelled in the history of our race. A man of defeats and of +incapacity to be thus worshipped as a hero! To what extent sound +intellects can become poisoned by lies! O, Democrats! what a kin and +kith you are! The stubborn, undaunted bravery of the people keeps +the country above water, when McClellan and his medley of believers +dragged and drags her down into the abyss. Soon infamy will cover +the names of those who wail for McClellan's glory, the names of +these deliberate betrayers of the people's good faith. + +_July 2._--Count Zeppelin was at the cavalry fight at Aldie. In his +appreciation, General Pleasanton is almost the ideal of a general of +cavalry, in the manner in which he fought his forces. The Count says +that our soldiers are by far superior to the rebels, that our +regiments, squadrons, showed the utmost bravery, that in +single-handed _meles_ our soldiers showed a superior mettle, and +that during the whole fight he did not see a single soldier back out +or retire. + +Count Zeppelin spent three weeks with Hooker. The Count _never_ saw +Hooker intoxicated, but nevertheless, he does not believe Hooker to +be the man for the command of a large army. The Count, an educated +officer of staff, deplores the utter absence of that special science +in the heads of the staff. + +The Count was with the army during its march from Falmouth to +Frederick. He admires the endurance, the good spirit, and the +cohesion shown by the army marching under great difficulties, such +as bad roads, heat, &c. + +_July 2._--News of fight at Gettysburgh. It seems that this time a +plan was boldly conceived, and carried out with rapidity and +bravery. It seems that _now a general_ commands, and has at his side +_a chief-of-staff_. + +_July 2._--A crystalized section of abolitionists has, it seems, +dispatched to England a Rev. Dr. _Conway_, who put on airs, began a +silly correspondence with Mason the traitor, and has thrown ridicule +on the cause and on the men whom he is supposed to represent. + +_July 3._--Some details from Gettysburgh. Most sanguinary and +stubborn fighting. General Reynolds, the flower of our army, killed. +The unblemished patriot, General Wadsworth, fought most splendidly, +and is reported to be wounded. His son was beside Reynolds. Mark +this, you world's offals in the WORLD. Nothing like you can be found +in the purlieus of the most stinking social sewers. + +_July 3._--Whoever wishes to know how, in Mr. Seward's mind, right +and law are equipoised, should read the correspondence between the +State Department and the Attorney-General in the case of a criminal +runaway from Saxony. _Astraea-Themis_-BATES is always bold and manly +when right, justice, when individual or general human rights are +questioned. BATES' official, legal opinions will remain as a noble +record of his official activity during this bloody tornado. + +_July 3._--Most contradictory news and rumors. To a great extent, +the fortunes of the Union may be decided at Gettysburgh. Copperheads +alias Peace-Democrats more dangerous than the rebels in arms. The +Copperheads poisoned and paralyzed the spirit of the people; the +Pennsylvanians look on, and rise not as a man in the defence of +their invaded state. + +_July 4._--General Wallbridge the orator of the day. _O tempora +Lincolniana!_ + +It is fortunate for the country and for General Meade that no +telegraphic communication exists between Washington and his camp. + +_July 8._--July 4th, in the evening, I was struck with _cholera +morbus_. In two hours I was delirious, and the end of the DIARY and +of myself was at hand. Those who may be interested in the DIARY, be +thankful to _fatum_ and to my friend in whose house I was taken +sick. I am up and again on the watch. + +_July 8._--However, I have lost the run of events. I have lost the +_piquant_ of observation how the events of Gettysburgh affected the +_big men_ here. I may have lost the echo of some stories told on the +occasion at the White House. + +Vicksburgh taken! No words to glorify GRANT, FARRAGUT, PORTER, _and +the army of heroes on land and on the waters_. + +I wake up and open a paper. Apotheosis! Yesterday evening Mr. Seward +made a speech and glorified himself into CHRIST. Why not? At the +beginning of this internecine war, Mr. Seward repeatedly played the +inspired, the prophet, and even the SPIRIT, having the polyglotic +gift. _In illo tempore_ Mr. Seward advised the foreign diplomats to +bring to him their respective dispatches received from their +respective governments, and he, Seward, would explain to each +diplomat the meanings of what the dispatches contain. Perhaps the +spirit was an after-dinner spirit! + +In the above-mentioned speech Mr. Seward exclaimed, "If I fall!" O, +you will fall, and you will be covered with ... I shall not stain +the paper. Plenty of lickspittles glorifying Lincoln-Seward. + +_July 8._--The battles at Gettysburgh will stand almost unparalleled +in history for the courage, tenacity, and martial rage shown on both +sides, by the soldiers, the officers and the generals. This +four-days' struggle may be put above Attila's fight in the plains of +Chalons; it stands above the celebrated battle of giants at Marignan +between the French and the Swiss. No legions, no troops ever did +more, nay, ever did the same. At Waterloo one-third of the French +infantry was not engaged in the previous days of Ligny and of +Quatres-bras, and three-fourths of the Anglo-allied army were fresh, +and not fatigued even by forced marches. I am sure that no other +troops in the world could fight with such a stubborn bravery four +consecutive days; not the English, not even the _iron-muscled_ +Russians. + +I learn that during the invasion of Pennsylvania, and above all, +during the last days, all the country expected something +extraordinary from the army at Fortress Monroe, under General Dix's +command. But the affair ended in expectations. + +A few days ago the President declared in a speech that he dares not +introduce the names of the generals. Not to name the victor at +Gettysburgh, the undaunted captor of Vicksburgh! The people repeat +your names, O heroes! even if the President remains dumb. + +Already a back-fire against Meade. I cannot believe that his heart +fainted, and that other generals kept him from breaking before the +enemy. But Meade is the man of their own kith and kin, and they +ought to have known him. + +It is now so difficult to disentangle truth from lies, from stories +and from intrigue. It will not do, however, to uphold Hooker--it +will not do. Hooker is a brilliant fighter, but was and always will +be _stunned_ when in command of an army. It is a crime to put up +Hooker as a captain. + +Somebody put in the head of the patriotic but mercurial Senator +Wilson that the terrible onslaught of the rebel columns is not the +result of their having adopted European, continental tactics, but +that the rebels are formidable because they have adopted the Indian +mode of warfare. God forgive him who thus confused my friend's +understanding! Indian tactics or warfare for masses of forty, fifty, +or one hundred thousand men! + +I learn that Christ-Seward wishes to force the hoary, but brave, +steady, and not at all fogyish Neptune WELLES, to recognize to Spain +or Cuba, or to somebody else and to all the world, an extension of +the maritime league. It is excellent. Such extension is _altogether_ +advantageous to the maritime neutrals--all of them, Russia excepted, +our covert or open ill-wishers. + +Mr. Seward, as a good, scriptural Christian, minds not an offense, +and is not rancorous. The Imperial _Decembriseur_, and all the +imperialist liveried lackeys, look with contempt on the cause of the +people, side with secessionists, with copperheads, etc., etc., and +Mr. Seward insists on giving a license for the exportation of +tobacco bought in Richmond for French accounts. Again Neptune +defends the country's honor and interests. + +In proportion as the presidential electioneering season approaches, +Mr. Seward repeatedly and repeatedly attempts to impress upon the +people's mind that he will not accept from the nation any high +reward for his services. Well, it is not cunning--as by this time +Mr. Seward ought to have found in what estimation he is held by +nine-tenths of the people. + +This is all that I caught in one day, after several days' +interruption. + +_July 9._--Lee retreats towards the Potomac. If they let him recross +there, our shame is nameless. Will Meade be after Lee _l'epee dans +les reins_. + +_Halleckiana, minus._ Nobody in Washington, not even the +head-quarters, has any notion or idea what means Lee has to recross +the Potomac. + +_Halleckiana, plus._ I am told that Halleck refused to telegraph to +Meade Mr. Lincoln's strategical conceptions. + +_July 9._--Chewing and spitting paramount here, require incalculable +numbers of spittoons. The lickspittles outnumber the spittoons. + +_July 10._--The politicians already begin to broadly _play their +game_. I use the sacramental expressions. What a disgusting +monstrosity is a thorough politician! Not even a eunuch! There is +nothing in a politician to be emasculated: no mind, no heart, no +manhood. In what a _galere_ I got--not by personal contact--but by +intellectually observing the worms on the body politic of my--at any +rate heartily adopted--country. + +_July 11._--Repeatedly and repeatedly certain newspaper +correspondents announce to the world that Senator Sumner exercises +considerable influence on the supreme power. All things considered, +I wish it may be so, but I see it is not. Sumner's influence ought +to have produced some palpable results. I see none. + +The international maritime complications are watched and defeated +by Welles. + +_Drapez vous, messieurs, drapez vous_--in the statesman toga, +history and truth will take it off from your shoulders. + +_July 12._--Mr. Seward is very ardently at work--Weed marshaling +Seward--to reconstruct slavery and Union, to give a very large if +not a general amnesty to the rebels, to shake hands with them, in +pursuance of the Mercier-Richmond programme, and to be carried into +the White House on the shoulders of the grateful Union-saviours, +Copperheads, and blood-stained traitors. The _Herald_, the _World_, +the _National Intelligencer_ and others of that creed will sing +_gloria in excelsis_ to Seward. + +_July 13._--What is _Meade_ doing? It is exciting to know why a blow +is not yet dealt on the head of retreating rebels. Or is it that +though West Point generals--on both sides--tolerably understand how +to fight a battle, they subside when the finishing stroke is to be +dealt. Oh for a general who understands how to manoeuvre against the +enemy!!! + +I hear from a very reliable source, that during the excitement +brewing before the day of Gettysburgh, the honorable Post Master +General by a special biped message insinuated to the honorable +governor of New York that the governor may ask the removal of +Stanton for the safety of the country and of patriots of the +Postmaster's and the governor's species. + +_July 13._--Besides what _Meade_ has in hand, there must be a +considerable number of troops in Baltimore, in Fortress Monroe and +the volunteer militia. Why not, Lincoln-Halleck! mass them on the +south side of the Potomac under such generals as Heintzelman, Sigel, +etc., and take the enemy between two fires? + +_July 14._--Bloody riots in New York. The teaching of the Woods, of +their former hireling, the _World_, and of those who pay that offal +now. Seymour's democracy; mob, pillage, massacre. + +_July 14._--Lincoln has nominated so many Major-Generals who are +relieved from duty, so many of them, that the Major-Generals ought +to be formed into a squadron, and, Halleck at the head, McClellan at +the tail, make them charge on Lee's centre. In such a way the +major-generals would be some use. + +_July 14._--I meet many who attempt to exculpate Mr. Seward from +_this_ or _that_ untruth which he is accused having told to the +President. Such _Seward's_ men often contradict not the fact, but +attempt to insinuate that somebody else might have told it. To all +this I answer with the Roman Praetor: + + _Ille fecit cui prodest_ + +_July 14._--GRANT has overpowered men, soil--and elements. GRANT, +PORTER, FARRAGUT, and their men overpowered land and waters. They +overpowered _the Mississippi_, hear: the Mississippi's and its +mighty affluents as the Yazoo, the Red River, and others. McClellan +caved in before a brook, as the Chickahominy. McClellan had the +most gigantic resources in men and material ever put in the hands of +a commander, and caved in. O, worshippers of heavy incapacity, take +and digest it if you can. + +_July 16._--Lee re-crossed the Potomac! Thundering storms, rising +waters and about one hundred and fifty thousand at his heels! What a +general! And our brave soldiers again baffled, almost dishonored by +domestic, know-nothing generalship. We have lost the occasion to crush +three-fourths of the rebellion. But where is the responsibility? Foul +work somewhere, but, as always, it will be nobody's fault. + +_July 15._--Stanton in rage and despair. Riots everywhere. All these +riots must be the result of a skillfully laid mine. They coincide +with the invasion by the rebels. At the best, these riots are +generated by Fourth of July Seymourite speeches and by the long +uninterrupted series of incendiary articles in New York papers, like +World, etc., and in Boston, where emasculated parasites as Hilliard, +a Cain Curtis etc., soothingly tried their hands to disgrace their +city and to mislead the people. All the Lincoln-Seward-Halleck +actions cannot excuse these riots and their matricidal, secret +inciters. + +_July 15._--The Administration ought to recall Wool and put Butler +in New York. Butler understands how to deal with riotous traitors. + +_July 15._--Good news from Banks. Now he comes out and will recover +the confidence of all good men. + +_July 15._--If it is true that _Meade_ convoked a council of war, +and that the generals decided not to attack Lee, then whoever voted +and decided so, ought, at the best, to be sent to the hospital of +mental invalids, and the army put in the hands of fighting men. +Lee's escape will henceforth occupy the cardinal place in the annals +of disgraceful generalships of the Potomac army. + +_July 16._--One of the truest men and citizens in this country, +George Forbes, of Milton Hill, returned from England. Forbes says +that aristocracy and the commercial classes (with few exceptions) +are generally against us. But the people at large are on our side. + +Oh! that some method may be found to separate the interests of the +good and noble English people, from the interests of the other +classes; then to have intercourse only with the people; and towards +the other English fulfil: + + _Vos autem o Tyrii prolem gentemque futuram,_ + +and that not one of those lords, lordlings, of inborn snobs and +flunkeys, that not one of that English social sham may ever be +allowed to tread the sacred American soil. And if such an Englishman +ever touches these shores, then be he treated as leprous, and as +carrying in him the most contagious plague, and let the house of any +American that shall be opened to such an Englishman, be torn down +and burned, and its ashes scattered to the winds; and the curse of +the people upon any American harboring those snobbish upstarts of +liberty. + +_July 16._--The incendiaries and murderers in New York cheered +McClellan and came to his house. Bravo! Can, now, any honest man who +is not an idiot, doubt where are the main springs and the animus of +those New York blood-thirsty miscreants, and who are those of whose +hearts McClellan got hold? What a nice Copperhead combination for +saving the Union. Very likely Seymour, Dictator or President, +McClellan Commander-in-chief, or Secretary of War, some of the Woods +or Duncans or Barlows in the Treasury, their hireling any Marble for +Foreign Affairs, and with them some others from among the favorites +of the New York blood-thirsty incendiaries. + +I read in one of the New York poison-dealers, _alias_ Copperhead +newspapers, that McClellanites was ruined by politicians. So-called +honest, but idiotic conservatives sanctimoniously repeat that lie. +It was McClellan, who, inspired by _Barlow_, by the _Herald_ and by +his aristocratic West Point pro-slavery friends, introduced +democratic politics into the army at a time when the army was yet in +an embryo state, already in September and October, 1861. O, impudent +liars! history will nail your names to the gallows, together with +the name of your fetish and of his military tail. + +_July 16._--In that fated, cursed council of war which allowed Lee +to escape, my patriot WADSWORTH was the most decided, the most +out-spoken in favor of attacking Lee. Wadsworth never fails where +honor and patriotism are to be sustained. Warren with Wadsworth. So +Humphries, Pleasanton and Howard. Those names ought to coruscate as +the purest light of patriotism for future generations. Meade's vote +is of no account. He, the commander, ought to have acted up to his +vote. If only Meade had imitated _Radetzky_. In 1849 after the +denunciation of the Armistice of Milan, _Radetzky_ called a council +of war to decide whether the _Po_ was to be crossed and Piedmont +invaded. All the best Austrian generals--_Hesse_ with them, voted +against the proposition. Radetzky quietly listened, then rose and +give orders to cross immediately. + +The result was the battle of Novara and the temporary humiliation of +the house of Savoy. That was a model for _Meade_. And this General +_French_ who advised to entrench! To entrench in pursuit of a +retreating enemy! This French honors West Point and engineering. The +generals who voted to entrench and not to attack Lee, and Meade with +them, they can never, never retrieve. Whatever be their future or +eventual success it will not heal the wound given to the country by +thus allowing Lee to escape. O, God! O, God! + +Such _Frenches_ and others asserted that "Lee will attack before he +crosses." Oh what _Marses!_ _Lee's position at Williamsport was on +heights_, etc., etc., assert those braves. + +When a country is hilly and undulating there will always be found +one point or hill commanding the others. I shall risk my head on the +fact, that around Lee's entrenchments at Williamsport, there exist +other elevations which command Williamsport, and are within +artillery distance. _Natura semper sibi consona._ I am sure that +better positions than that selected by Lee could easily have been +occupied by our troops or artillery. The same must have been the +case at Hagerstown. And if the generals were afraid to fight Lee's +whole army they ought to have more vigilantly watched his crossing. +There was a time when a part only of the rebel army was facing us, +and at least this part ought to have been attacked and crippled, if +not destroyed. Sound common sense teaches it. But it seems that no +will to fight Lee, or to impede his safe recrossing, no such will +animated the majority of the council of war. It seems that some of +the West Point nurslings are still awe-struck at the sight of their +slavocratic former companions, as they were at the time of their +studies at West Point. + +I was told by an officer coming from the army that the soldiers are +exasperated. The soldiers say that the generals did not wish to +destroy Lee's army and finish the rebellion, because their "stars +were to set down." Who knows how far the soldiers are right? + +_July 17._--In New York the _unterrified_ democracy went to arson +and murder, hand in hand with the immense majority of Irishry. +Meagher, Nugent, Corcoran and thousands like you, are exceptions. +The O'Connors, O'Gormans, etc., are the unterrified. For these +bloody saturnalia the wedding was consecrated by the Iro-Roman +priesthood. As the _unterrified_ Democrats pollute the sacred name +of genuine Democracy, so the Irishry stain even the Catholic +confession. The Iro-Roman Church in this country is not even a +Roman-Catholic end. This Iro-Romanism here is a mixture of cunning, +ignorance, brutality and extortion. A European Roman-Catholic at +once finds out the difference in the spirit, and even to a certain +extent, in the form. The incendiaries and murderers in the New York +riots are the nurslings and disciples of the Iro-Roman clergy and +the Iro-hierarchy. + +_July 17._--Mr. Lincoln ought to dismiss every general who voted +against fighting; dismiss _Meade_ for not understanding his power as +commander of an army, and give the places to such Howards, Warrens, +Pleasantons, Humphreys, Wadsworths, and all others, generals, +colonels, etc. who clamorously asked an order for attack. If the +army shall depend upon such generals who let Lee escape, then lay +down arms, and drag not the people's children to a slaughter house. + +To excuse the generals, it is asserted that at Chancellorsville Lee +has allowed to Hooker to recross the river without annoying us, +which Lee could easily do, and damage us considerably. Well! are our +Generals to carry on a mere war of civilities? If Lee committed a +fault, are you, gentlemen, in duty bound to imitate his mistakes? +Imitation for imitation, then rather imitate Lee's several splendid +manoeuvring and tactics. + +_July 17._--I learn that the deep-dyed Copperheads and +slavery-saviours do not consider Seymour of New York safe enough. +They turn now to a certain Seymour in Connecticut. It seems that the +Connecticut Seymour still more hates human rights, self-government, +light and progress, and is a still more ardent lickspittle of +slavocracy, of barbarism, and of the slave-driving whip. + +_July 18._--Splendid Chase urged Wadsworth to go to Florida and +organize that country--very likely to prepare votes for Chase's +presidency. It is not such high-toned men as Wadsworth who become +tools of schemers. + +Again rumors say that Stanton joined the scheme of Lincoln's +re-election. As far as I can judge, Stanton's cardinal aim is to +crush the rebellion. + +_July 18._--The greatest glory for Wadsworth is that the majority +against him in the last November elections is now murdering and +_arsoning_ New York. All of them are unterrified, hard shell +democrats, and cheer McClellan. These murderers are the "friends" of +Seymour--they are the pets of that _World_, itself below the offal +of hell--they are the "gentlemen" incendiaries of H. E. the +Archbishop Hughes. On your head, most eminent Archbishop, is the +whole responsibility. These "gentlemen" are brought up, +Christianized and moralized under your care and direction, and under +that of your tonsured crew. The "gentlemen" murderers are your herd, +O most eminent shepherd! You ought to have and you could have +stopped the rioters. And now your _stola_ is a halter and your +_pallium_ gored with blood, otherwise innocent as is the blood of +the lamb incensed on the altar of Saint Agnes in Rome. + +Mr. Seward strongly opposed the appointment of General Butler to New +York. Mr. Seward wished no harm to the "gentlemen" of his dear +friend the Most Eminent Archbishop, and to the select ones who +helped him to defeat Wadsworth. + +_July 19._--Difficult will be the task of the historian of these +episodes of riots, as well as of the whole civil war. If gifted with +the sacred spark, the future historian must carefully disentangle +the various agencies and forces in this convulsion. Some such +agencies are-- + +_a_ The righteousness of the cause of the North, defending +civilization, justice, humanity. + +_b_ The devotion, the self-sacrifice of the people. + +_c_ The littleness, helplessness, selfishness, cunning, +heartlessness, empty-headedness, narrow-mindedness of the various +leaders. + +_d_ The plague of politicians. + +_e_ The untiring efforts of the heathen, that is, of the Northern +worshippers of the slavocrat and of his whip, efforts to uphold and +save their idol. + +_f_ The fatal influence of the press. The republican or patriot +press neither sufficiently vigilant, nor clear-sighted, nor +intelligent, nor undaunted; not reinvigorated by new, young +agencies; the bad press reckless, unprincipled, without honor and +conscience, but bold, ferocious in its lies, and sacrificing all +that is noble, human and pure to the idol of slavery. + +_July 19._--The more details about the shame of Hagerstown and of +Williamsport, the more it rends heart and mind. I saw many soldiers +and officers, sick, wounded and healthy. Their accounts agree, and +cut to the quick. Our army was flushed with victory, craving for +fight, and in a state of enthusiastic exaltation. But our generals +were not therein in communion with the officers, with the rank and +file. Enthusiasm! this highest and most powerful element to secure +victory, and on which rely all the true captains; enthusiasm, that +made invincible the phalanx of Alexander; invincible Caesar's legions +and Napoleon's columns; enthusiasm was of no account for the +generals in council. O _Meade_! better were it for you if your +council was held among, or with the soldiers. + +The Rebel army was demoralized, as a retreating army always is; no +doubt exists concerning a partial, at least, disorganization of the +rebels. But Lee and his generals understood how to make a bold show, +and a bold, menacing front, with what was not yet disorganized, and +our generals caved in, in the council. + +This July 19th is heavy, dark and gloomy.... I wish it were all +over. + +_July 19._--Thurlow Weed puffs Stanton and patronises him. O, God! +It is a terrible blow to Stanton. How, now, can one have confidence +in Stanton's manhood. Are contracts at the bottom of the puff, or is +it only one of _Weed's_ tricks to defile and to ruin _Stanton_? + +_July 20._--It is almost humiliating to witness how mongrels and +pigmies attempt to rob the people of their due glory, how they +attempt to absorb to their own credit what the pitiless pressure of +events forced upon them. All of them limped after events as lame +ducks in mud; not one foresaw any thing, not one understood the +_to-day_. Neither emancipation nor the transformation of slave into +free states, are of your special, individual work, O, great men; but +you strut now. + + _Mirmidons, race feconde, enfin nous commandons._ + +Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to +humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan. + +_July 20._--Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses, +but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No +brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And +perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure +it is nobody's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather, +and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub. + +_July 20._--Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war, +captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere +in the vicinity of Bermuda. England asserts that the shoal is a +shore, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once +yields, Neptune defends as he always does, the rights of the +national _Tritons_, and of the national flag. The supreme power +sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or +something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that +Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be +consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand. + +The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's +claims to the _salvage_ of the country. + +_July 20._--From all that I learn, _Meade_ has a better and larger +army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest +brains of the two. + +_July 20._--From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by +the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress +served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of +legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of +patriotic, devoted, far-seeing and undaunted minds and brains. All +glory to the majority of the Thirty-seventh Congress! + +_July 21._--A manly and patriotic letter from James T. Brady is +published in the papers. Such Democrats, Irishmen and lawyers, like +Brady, honor the party, the nationality, and the profession. + +_July 21._--A mystery surrounds the appointment of _Grant_ to the +command of the fated Potomac army. _Yes_ and _no_ say the helmsmen. +The truth seems to be, it was offered to Grant, and he respectfully +refused to accept it. If so, it is an evidence in favor of Grant. To +give up glory and devoted companions in arms, to give all this up +for the sake of running into the unknown, and into the jaws of the +still breathing McClellanism, and into the vicinity of the central +telegraphic station! Grant believes in volunteers; and for this +reason it is to be regretted that he refused to correct the West +Point notions. + +_July 21._--The draft occasions much bad blood, and evokes violent +dissatisfaction. The draft is a dire necessity; but it could have +been avoided if time, men, and the people's enthusiasm had not been +so sacrilegiously wasted. The three hundred dollar clause is not a +happy invention, and its omission would have given a better +character to that law. + +_July 21._--If the New York traitors succeed in preventing the +draft, then they will riot against taxes; after breaking down the +taxes, they will riot against the greenbacks, against the +emancipation, and finally force the reconstruction of the Union with +the murderous rebel chiefs in the senatorial chairs, according to +the Seward-Mercier-Richmond programme. Any one can see in the +Cain-Copperhead newspapers of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, +and in the letters and speeches of those matricides, what are their +aims, and how their plans are laid out. + +_July 21._--Again I am most positively assured that some time ago a +friendly offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between W. +H. Seward and Edwin Stanton. The high powers were represented by +Thurlow Weed and Morgan for Seward, and the virtuous, lachrymose, +white-cravated Whiting acted for Stanton. I was told that this +alliance drove Watson, (Assistant Secretary,) from the War Department. +This would be infernal, if true. I know that no _Weed_ whatever could +approach such a man as Watson; but Watson assured me that he returns +back, and I cannot believe that Stanton could consent to be thus sold. + +_July 22._--Honorable, virtuous, tear-shedding, jockey-dressing +Whiting wanted to make a trip to Europe. Sharp and acute, the great +expounder found out at once that Mr. Seward is one of the greatest +and noblest patriots of all times. Reward followed. Whiting goes to +Europe on a special mission--to dine, if he is invited, with all the +great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce +him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the +Whitings, &c., are the _creme de la creme_ of the American people. +_Vive la bagatelle._ + +_July 22._--How putrescent is all around! But it is not the nation, +not the people. And as the sun raises above the darkest and heaviest +vapors, so in America the spirit of mankind, incarnated in and +animating the people, towers above the filth of politicians, of +cabinet-makers, of presidential-peddlers, etc. Look to the masses to +find consolation. How splendidly acts Massachusetts and New +England's sons! And what free State is not New England's son? The +youth of Massachusetts are almost all in the field--the rich and the +poor, those of the best social standing, and of the genuine good +blood and standing; scholars and mechanics, all of them shouldered +the musket. + +_July 23._--How strangely and how slowly Meade manoeuvres! It looks +McClellan-like. O, God of battles, warm and inspire Meade! + +_July 23._--Only boys in the corps of invalids. It has its good. For +scores of years to come, these invalids will be the living legend of +this treasonable, matricidal rebellion, and of the atrocious +misconduct of our helmsmen. I hope that when returned home, these +invalids will be as many extirpators of all kinds of _Weeds_ in +their respective townships and villages. They will become the lights +of the new era. + +_July 23._--Were it not for the murdered, these New York riots could +be considered welcome. The rioting cannibals, and their prompters +and defenders showed their hands. No one in his senses can now doubt +how heartily and devotedly Jeff Davis was served by his hirelings +among the Copperhead leaders and among the New York Copperhead +press. The cannibals cheered for McClellan, and the Administration +has neither enough courage nor self respect to put that fetish on +the retired list. + +In the old, flourishing times of Romanism and papacy, such a Most +Eminent Hughes would long ago have been suspended by the Holy See. +The Most Eminent's standing among the continental European +Episcopacy is not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion. +The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of the papal +bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. The spirit +animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman Sapienzia. +I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman papal +university. + +_July 24._--As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers +around Washington, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross +over to the Cumberland valley. It seems that the generals whose +council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed +that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to +his brow and eye. + +The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in +the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone +for it. + +It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the +civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and +countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a +splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed +to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science! + +_July 25._--I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten +thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and +defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it +is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to +organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other +within a short, very short supporting distance. And the losses will +almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread repulse and +heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to be quartered +for such a distribution of troops. With the immense resources and +means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty thousand +troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then carry the +troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and act in +masses is not the _credo_ of the--not yet quartered--head-quarters. + +_July 26._--Old--but not slow--Welles again gives to Seward a lesson +of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international +laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white +wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, +unflinching, and progressive. + +_July 26._--O, could I only exclaim, _Exegi monumentum aere +perennius_, to the noble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to +the helpless, the selfish, and the counterfeits. + +_July 27._--_Philadelphia._ Flags in all the streets, volunteers +parading and drilling. Prosperity, activity and devotion permeate +the country. So at least I am led to believe. All this is so +refreshing, after witnessing in Washington such strenuous efforts +how not to do it. + +Bad news. I learn that Gilmore is repulsed. When the _forlorn hope_ +entered Fort Wagner, no support promptly came, and the heroes, black +and white, were massacred or expelled. Gilmore ought to have been +more cautious, and not to have undertaken an operation which was on +its outside stamped with impossibility. Perhaps Gilmore obeyed +peremptory orders. Who gave them? + +Lee's army escapes through Chester Gap, and thus we have not cut the +rebels from Richmond, and now they are ahead of us. Again +out-manoeuvred! and _nobody's fault_, only the campaign prolonged +_ad infinitum_. Perhaps it is in the programme! + +_July 28._--_Philadelphia._ The petty, narrow, school conceit +imbibed in the West Point nursery, is the stumbling-block barring +everywhere the expansion of a healthy and vigorous activity. I +listened to the heaviest absurdities and fogyism on military affairs +_oracularly_ preached by one of the great West Pointers on duty +here. + +_July 31._--_Long Branch._ Away from personal contact, even from the +view of politicians, of plotters, of lickspittles. How refreshing, +how invigorating, how soothing! + +Mr. Seward, with a due tail, visits Fortress Monroe. What for? +Is it to organize some underground road to reunion on the +Mercier-Seward-Richmond programme? + +One well-informed writes me that the last programme of Lincoln, +Halleck and Meade is, that the army of the Potomac is to keep Lee at +bay, but not to attack. If true, how well designed to give time to +Lee to do what he likes, to reorganize, to send away his troops +where he may please, to call them back--in one word to be fully at +his ease on our account. Will this country ever escape the tutorship +of sham science? + +_July 31._--_Long Branch._ Seward's concession policy towards France +bears fruit in Mexico. Of course the _Decembriseur_ outwitted the +Weed-Albany-Auburn politician statesman. But it is not the ignorant +foreign policy which strengthened and strengthens the French policy +in Mexico. It is the blunders, the tergiversations, the gropings, +and the crimes of our internal domestic policy, which, protracting +the war, allows the French conspirator to murder the Mexicans. + +_July 31. L. B._--So the _Decembriseur_ amuses himself in creating +an Imperial throne in Mexico for some European princely idiot or +intriguer. All right. I have confidence in the Mexicans. The future +Emperor, even if established for some time on the cushion of treason +propped by French bayonets, that manikin before short or long will +be _Iturbidised_. Further: I have confidence in the French people. +The upper crust is pestilential. Bonapartists, lickspittles, lackeys +and incarnations of all imaginary corruptions compose that upper +crust. But I would bet a fortune, had I one, that in the course of +the next five years, the _Decembriseur_ and his _Prince Imperial_ +will be visible at Barnum's, and that some shoddy grandee from 5th +Avenue, will issue cards inviting _to meet the Empress Eugenie_. + + + + +AUGUST, 1863. + + Stanton -- Twenty Thousand -- Canadians -- Peterhoff -- Coffey -- + Initiation -- Electioneering -- Reports -- Grant -- McClellan -- + Belligerent Rights -- Menagerie -- Watson -- Jury -- Democrats -- + Bristles -- "Where is Stanton?" -- "Fight the monster" -- + Chasiana -- Luminaries -- Ballistic -- Political Economy, etc., + etc., etc. + + +_August 2. Long Branch._--The organs of all shades and of all +gradations of ill-wishers to the cause of the North, and to that of +Emancipation, the secret friends of Jeff Davis, and the open +supporters of McClellan are untiring in their open, slanderous, +treacherous accusations of _Stanton_; others spread sanctimoniously +perfidious suggestions against the Secretary of War, and so does the +_National Intelligencer_, this foremost Whig-Conservative, double or +treble-faced organ. _Stanton_ is called to account for all mishaps, +mismanagement, disasters and disgraces which befall our armies +between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. Such accusations, to a +certain degree, could be justified if the Secretary of War were +clothed with the same powers, and therefore with the same +responsibilities as is the case in European governments. + +But every one knows that here the war machinery is very complicated, +because wheels turn within wheels. The Secretary of War is not alone +to answer and he is not exclusively responsible for the appointment +of good, middling, or wholly bad generals and commanders. Every one +knows it. _Stanton_ may have all the possible shortcomings and +faults with which his enemies so richly clothe him; one thing is +certain, that _Stanton_ advocated and always advocates fighting, and +Stanton furnishes the generals and commanders with all means and +resources at the country's and the department's disposition. If many +respectable men are to be trusted, _Stanton_ never interferes with +intrinsic military operations, never orders or insinuates, or +dictates to the commanders of our armies where and in what way they +are to get at the enemy and to fight him. As far as I know Stanton +keeps aloof from strategy. + +Stanton _is insincere and untruthful_, say his enemies. Granted. I +never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or +relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be +sincere and truthful. + + Trust in thy sword, + Rather than prince's (president's) word; + Trust in fortuna's sinister, + Rather than prince's minister. + +But _Stanton_ is truthful and sincere to the cause, and that is all +that I want from him. Stanton's alleged _malice_ against McClellan +had the noblest and the most patriotic sources, which, of course, +could not be understood or appreciated by Stanton's revilers. + +The organs of treason and of infamy refer always to McClellan. _O +race, knitted of the devils excrements mixed with his saliva_, [see +Talleyrand about Thiers] your treason is only equal to your +impudence and ignorance. If in February, 1862, Stanton had not urged +McClellan to move, probably the Potomac Army would have spent all +the year in its tents before Washington. McClellan's henchmen and +minions thrusted and still thrust the grossest lies down the throat +of a certain public, eager to gulp slander as sugar plums. +McClellan's stupidity at Yorktown and in the Chickahominy is +vindicated by his crew with the following counter accusation: that +all disasters have been generated because McDowell with his twenty +thousand men did not join McClellan. If McClellan had in him the +soldiership of a non-commissioned officer, on his knees he ought to +implore his crew not to expose him in this way. When a general has +in hand about one hundred and ten thousand men, as McClellan had on +entering the peninsula, and accomplishes nothing, then it is a proof +that he, the general, is wholly unable and ignorant how to handle +large masses. If McClellan could not manage one hundred thousand +men, still less would he have been able to manage the twenty +thousand more of McDowell's corps. + +The stupidity of attempting to invest Richmond is beyond words, and +for such an operation several hundred thousand men would have been +necessary. [Spoke of it in Vol. I.] If twenty thousand men arrive +not at a certain day or hour when a battle is raging, most surely +this failure may occasion a defeat--Grouchy at Waterloo--but in +McClellan's Chickahominy operations, twenty thousand men more would +have served only still more plainly to expose his incapacity, and to +be a prey to fevers and diseases. + +The bulk of the rebel army in Richmond was always less numerous than +McClellan's; the rebels always understood to have more troops than +had McClellan when they attacked him. During that whole cursed and +ignominious (for McClellan) Chickahominy campaign, McClellan never +fought at once more of his men than about thirty thousand. It was +not the absence of twenty thousand men that prevented a commander +of one hundred thousand from engaging more of his troops, and for +quickly supporting such corps as were attacked by the enemy. + +_August 3: L. B._--The Colonists, that is, the appendixes of +England, as the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, and of any other +colonial dignity and name, together with their great statesmen, +certain Howes and Johnsons, etc. etc. etc. agitate; they are in +trances like little fish out of water. They find it so pleasant to +seize an occasion to look like something great. Poor frogs! trying +to blow themselves into leviathans. Their whelpish snarling at the +North reminds one of little curs snarling at a mastiff. How can +these colonists imagine that a royal prince of England could reside +among something which is as indefinite as are colonists--something +neither fish nor flesh. + +_August 3._--The _Evening Post_ contains a letter on the difference +between the behavior of Union men in Missouri during the treasonable +riots in St. Louis in the Spring of 1861, and the conduct of the +Union men in New York during the recent riots. But the Saint Louis +patriot is silent--has forgotten the immortal Lyons who saved that +city and its patriots, who saved Missouri. (General Scott insisted +upon courtmartialing Lyons.) + +Also, have you already forgotten the foremost among heroes and +patriots, and whose loss is more telling now than it was in 1861. +Forgotten one of the purest and noblest victims of Washington +blindness, of General Scott's unmilitary policy and conduct. +Forgotten the true son of the people? But O Lyons! thy name will be +venerated by coming generations. + +_August 4: L. B._--_The Cliques._ + +_a_ The worst, and the womb of all evils is the Weed-Seward clique. +Around it group contractors, jobbers, shoddy, and all kinds of other +social impurities. + +_b_ The ambitious, intriguing, selfish, narrow-minded West Point +clique. + +_c_ The not brave, not patriotic, and freedom-hating, unintelligent +McClellan clique. + +_d_ Copperheads of various hues and gradations. + +Cliques _a_, _b_, and _c_, generated and fostered Copperheads, and +facilitated their expansion. + +_e_ Imbeciles, lickspittles, politicians, etc. + +_f_ The Lincolnites, closely intertwined with the _genus e_; the +Blair men, etc. + +_g_ The partisans of Chase. This clique is the most variously and +most curiously composed. Honest imbeciles, makers of phrases, +rhetors, heavy and narrow-minded, office-hunters, office expectants, +politicians, contractors, admirers of pompousness and of would-be +radicalism, all who turn round and round, and see not beyond their +noses, etc. + +Several minor cliques exist, but deserve not to be mentioned. Behind +these mud-hills rises the true people, as the Himalayas rise above +the plains of Asia. + +_August 4._--Why could not Everett, that good and true patriot, +preside over our relations with Europe; or why is that thorough +American statesman, Governor Marcy, dead! How different, how +respected, how truly American would have been the character of our +relations with Europe! No prophecies, no lies would have been told, +no gross ignorance displayed! + +_August 4. L. B._--In the columns of the _Times_ a friend of Halleck +tries to make a great man of the General-in-chief. Halleck +repudiates Burnside and Hooker, but claims the victory at +Gettysburgh, because Meade, being a good disciplinarian, executed +Halleck's orders. So from his room in G street Washington, Halleck +directed the repulse of the furiously attacking columns. Bravo! more +bravo as no telegraph connects Washington with Gettysburgh! + +Meade being a good disciplinarian, the crime of Williamsport falls +upon Halleck; the commander-in-chief is the more responsible, as the +crime was perpetrated under his nose; about four hours' drive could +have brought him to our army, and then Halleck in person could have +directed the attack upon the enemy. + +From all that transpires about Williamsport one must conclude that +Lee must have known that he would not be seriously attacked, and +that he was not much afraid of the combined disciplinarian +generalship. + +Further: Halleck claims for himself Grant's success, because Grant +obeyed orders, and Rosecrans did the same. How astonishing, +therefore, that their campaigns ended in victories and not in such +shame as Halleck at Corinth, in 1862. Rosecrans was inspired by +telegraph to change defeat into victory; the indomitable Grant +received by telegraph the fertility of resources shown by him at +Vicksburgh. Oh! Halleck! you cannot succeed in thus belittling the +two heroes, and you may tell your little story to the marines. + +_August 4._--The Proclamation on retaliation is a well-written +document; but like all Mr. Lincoln's acts it is done almost too +late, only when the poor President was so cornered by events, that +shifting and escape became impossible. If I am well informed Stanton +long ago demanded such a Proclamation, but Lincoln's familiar demons +prevented it. Nevertheless Lincoln will be credited for what +intrinsically is not his. + +_August 5: L. B._--Thomas--not Paul--Lincoln's pet, returns to the +Mississippi to organise Africo-American regiments. For six months +they organize, organize and have not yet fifteen thousand in field. +If Stanton had been left alone, we would have to-day in battle order +at least fifty thousand Africo-Americans. + +_August 5: L. B._--All computed together, among all Western +Continental European nations, the Germans, both here and in Germany, +behave the best towards the North. I mean the genuine German people. +Thinkers and rationalists are seldom, if ever, found on the wrong +side. I rejoice to see the Germans behave so nobly. + +_August 5._--The Peterhoff condemned, notwithstanding all the +efforts to the contrary of our brilliant, versatile and highly +erudite in international laws Secretary of state. But Mr. Seward +will not understand the lesson. How could he? + +_August 5: L. B._--At least for the fiftieth time, Seward insinuates +to the public that we are on the eve of a breach with England--but +Seward will prevent it. Oh, Oh! Yes, O Seward! when backed by the +iron clads and by twenty-two millions of a brave and stubborn +people! + +_August 5: L. B._--Poor Stanton, I pity him! After Weed comes the +"little villain," with his puffs. Happily, the _World_ abuses +Stanton, and this alone makes up even for the applause of Weed and +his consorts. + +_August 7: L. B._--COFFEY, Assistant Attorney-General, published a +legal, official opinion on maritime, commercial _copperheadism_; +that is, when an American vessel, from an American port, is sent in +ballast to a neutral port to load there, afterwards to run the +blockade, Coffey proves it to be treason and criminality. The +document is clear, logical, precise and not wordy: not in the style +of the State Department logomachy. Why, O why cannot such younger +men be at the head! Emancipation would have been carried out, +slavery destroyed, the Union restored, rebels crushed, and the +French murderers and imperial lackeys would cut very respectful +capers to please a great people. + +_August 8: L. B._--I shudder as I pass in review what little is done +at such an enormous expenditure of human limbs and of human life, +not to speak of squandered time, labor and money. + +It seems that the prevailing rule is to reach the smallest results +at the greatest possible cost. General Scott, Seward and Lincoln +early laid down that rule. McClellan, that quintessence of all +unsoldierlike capacities, faithfully continued what was already +inaugurated. Halleck almost perfected it; and so it became a chronic +disease of the leading spirits in the Administration, Stanton and +Welles excepted. That sacrilegious, murderous method and rule, at +times was forcibly violated by Grant, by Rosecrans, by Banks, by the +glorious Farragut, by Admiral Porter. The would-be statesmen either +see nothing or do not wish to see what ill-disposed minds could +consider to be an almost premeditated slaughter. + +I know too well that every initiation is with sacrifice or blood. It +is a law of progress, absolute, not made by man, but cut out for him +by fate or providence. In a stream of his mother's life-blood man +enters this world; by the blood of the Redeemer the Christian +becomes initiated to another, called a better world. Sacrifice and +blood prevail throughout the eons of the initiation of human +societies and religions. Through sacrifice and blood the Reformation +became a redeemer. Great results are reached at great cost. I am an +atom in a generation which, to assert her deep, earnest +convictions, never caved in before blood and sacrifice; a generation +that has labored and still labors, spreads seed and begins to +harvest; a generation which regrets nothing, and cheerfully takes +the responsibility of its actions. And with all this, the men of +convictions and of undaunted revolutionary courage in Europe, +bestowed and bestow more care upon any unnecessary sacrifice of +human life than I witness here. By heavens! Marat, Saint Just, +Robespierre, could be considered lambs when compared with the +_faiseurs_ here. And Marat, Saint Just, and Robespierre were +fanatics of ideas: here they are _fanaticised_ by selfishness, +intrigue, helplessness and imbecility. + +_August 9: L. B._--For the last few months men of sound and +dispassionate judgment tried to convince me that there is somewhere, +in high regions, a settled purpose to prolong the war until the next +presidential election. I always disbelieved such assertions; but +now, considering all this criminal sluggishness, I begin to believe +in the existence of such a criminal purpose. + +_August 9: L. B._--All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a +shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general +Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the +field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the +next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a +Report of each of his military movements and operations. McClellan +ought to have immediately made a Report to the Government after his +_bloodless victory_ at Centreville and Manassas; a victory crowned +with maple trophies! Then McClellan ought to have sent another +Report after the great success at Yorktown, and so on. Every period +of his campaign ought to have been separately reported. It is done +in all well organized governments and armies, and it is the duty of +the staff of the army to prepare such periodical, successive +Reports. Even if the sovereign himself takes the field, the staff of +the army sends such Reports to the Secretary of War. Nobody stood in +the way of McClellan's doing what it was his imperative duty to do, +and to do immediately. + +But it is unheard of that a commander during a year at the head of +an army, should take another year to prepare his Report. No +self-respecting government would allow such an insubordination, or +accept such a tardy Report. If a government should act upon such a +Report, it would be rather by dismissing from service, etc., the +sluggish--if not worse--commander. + +The so-called "McClellan's Report," concocted by a board of choice +Copperheads in New York, and of which the _World's_ hireling was an +amanuensis, that production is certainly an elaborate essay on +McClellan's campaigns, is certainly bristling with afterthoughts and +_post facta_, as pedestals for the fetish's altar. It must have on +its face the mark of combination, but not of truth. Such a +Report--not written on the spot, in the atmosphere of activity, not +written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff--such a +Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and +ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan +may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein +may shine this labor of a _dasippus_ assisted by vipers. + +_August 11: L. B._--In Washington they seem to insist that Grant +shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he +will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon +will see stained his glorious and matchless military record. He will +not withstand the cliques and the underground intrigues of craving, +selfish and unsatisfied ambitions. + +If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows, +Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment +must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I +spoke somewhere about it.) + +_August 13: L. B._--Can it be possible that several from among the +Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already +begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so--if the +people submit to such an imposition--O, then, genius of history, go +in mourning! + +_August 13: L. B._--The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate +into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its +dissertation--very poor--in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended +to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so +well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating--as do the +three wise men in their Report--on certain psychological qualities +and _non-qualities_ of the Africo-American? The paramount question +is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom. +When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if +not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new +citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for +an old psychological re-hash, without any social or moral +signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at +least, a quarter of a century _behind_ the scientific elucidations +on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons. + +_August 15: L. B._--Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the +various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did +not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did +McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report +resounds with military spirit and simplicity. Grant has not to put +truth on the rack and throw dust into people's eyes. Three cheers +for McClellan! Grant has confidence in the volunteers; not so +McClellan, who had only confidence in shams. Grant and his army, at +the best, were the second sons of the Administration--not of the +people; to the last day McClellan was the pet, the spoiled child, +and as such he disgraced his parents, tutors, etc., and ruined his +parent's house. + +_August 15._--A letter published by the Honorable W. Whiting, (who +is now traveling,) occasions much noise. The letter is pointed and +keen, but the writer knows mighty little about international laws. +Almost _a priori_ he recognizes in the rebels, as he says, "only the +rights of belligerents." Only the rights of belligerents! Such +rights are very ample, and for this reason they belong in their +plenitude exclusively to absolutely independent nations. To +recognize _a priori_ such rights in the rebels, is equivalent to +recognizing them as an independent nation. In pure and absolute +principle of modern (not Roman) _jus gentium_, rebels have not only +no belligerent rights, but not any rights at all. Rebels are _ipso +facto_ outlaws in full. Writers like Abbe Galiano, Vatel, etc., for +the sake of humanity and expediency, recommend to the lawful +sovereign to use mercy, to treat rebels _in parte_ as belligerents, +and not as _a priori_ condemned criminals. + +_August 16: L. B._--Seward is to promenade the diplomats over the +country. He is Barnum, the diplomats are the menagerie. Poor Lord +Lyons. Very probably it is Seward's last rocket to draw upon himself +the attention of the people. + +_August 16. L. B._--The probabilities of a rupture with France are +upon the public mind. I still misbelieve it. I have not the +slightest doubt that the _Decembriseur_ is full of treachery towards +the North, and that his Imperialist lackeys blow brimstone against +the Northern principles. But are the French people so debased as to +submit? We shall see. Let that crowned conspirator begin a war of +treason against the North. Before long the French people will put an +end to the war and to the Decembriseur. + +_August 16. L. B._--I learn that Watson has very gravely injured his +health by labor, that is, by being the most faithful servant of the +country and of its cause. I never, anywhere in my life, met a public +officer so undaunted at his duties, so unassuming, so quiet as +Watson, in his duties of Assistant Secretary of War, which are as +thorny as can be imagined. Watson was, and I hope will be for the +future, the terror of lobbyists, of bad contractors, of jobbers--in +one word, the terror of all the leeches of the people's pocket. And +it honors Stanton to have brought into his Department such a man as +Watson. I heard and hear, and read a great many accusations against +Stanton; but I never found any proofs which could virtually diminish +my confidence. To use a classical, stupid, rhetorical figure: +Stanton is not of antique mould. And who is now? But he is a +sincere, devoted and ardent patriot; he broadly comprehends the task +and the duty to save the country, and he sees clearly and distinctly +the ways and means to reach the sacred aim. Stanton may have, and +very many assert that he has, numerous bristles in his character, in +his deportment. Let it be so. It is the worse for him, but not for +the cause he serves. + +_August 16. L. B._--Are the people again to receive a President from +the hand of intriguers, from politicians, or from honest imbeciles? +If the people will stand it, then they deserve to be kept in leading +strings by all that medley. + +_August 16. L. B._--Rosecrans wants mounted infantry. The men of the +day, the men who understand and comprehend the exigencies, the +necessities of the war, they pierce through the rotten crust of +fogyism. That is promise and hope. The great organizers of the +army--the McClellans and the Hallecks--could never have found out +that mounted infantry is necessary, and will render good service. +Mounted infantry was not considered a necessity in the West Point +halls, and Jomini mentions it not. How should a Halleck do so? + +_August 17. L. B._--A defender of slavery, a Copperhead, and a +traitor, differ so little from each other, that a microscope +magnifying ten thousand times would not disclose the difference. A +proslaveryist, a Copperhead, and a traitor, are the most perfect +_tres in unum_. + +_August 18. L. B._--General Meade is absent from the army, and +Humphreys, his chief-of-staff, is temporarily in command. I notice +this fact as a proof that a more rational, intelligent comprehension +prevails in the military service. A chief-of-staff is the only man +to be the _locum-tenens_ of the commander. At Williamsport Humphreys +voted for fight. It would be well if Meade should not return to +again take the command. + +_August 18._--A patriotic gentlewoman asked me why I write a diary? +"To give conscientious evidence before the jury appointed by +history." + +_August 20._--On the first day of the draft, I had occasion to visit +New York. All was quiet. In Broadway and around the City Hall I saw +less soldiers than I expected. The people are quiet; the true +conspirators are thunderstruck. Before long, the names will be known +of the genuine instigators of arson and of murder in July last. The +tools are in the hands of justice, but the main spirits are hidden. +Smart and keen wretches as are the leading Copperheads, they +successfully screen their names; nevertheless before long their +names will be nailed to the gallows. The _World_--which, for weeks +and weeks, so devotedly, so ardently poisoned the minds, and thus +prepared the way for any riot--the _World_ was and is a tool in the +hands of the hidden traitors. The _World_ is a hireling, and does +the work by order. + +_August 21. L. B._--The final destiny of the Potomac Army seems to +be to keep Lee at bay but not to attack him. Oh! the disgraced +soldiers and officers! Chickahominy, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, +Gettysburgh, are the indestructible evidences of the mettle of the +army, and of the poverty or total eclipse of generalship. + +_August 21._--Impressionable, excitable, wave-like agitated as are +my dear American countrymen, they altogether forget _the yesterday_, +and shout the last success. Further: the people cannot see clearly +through the stultifying or the dirty dust blown in the peoples' +eyes; 1st, by the politicians of all hues, from the Woods, Weeds, +Forneys, to the Greeleys, by the simon-pures or the lobby-impures; +2d, by the press of all parties and shades of parties. The people +may again make a mistake. Is not Lincoln hailed as the new Moses? as +the man for the times, as the only one God sent to direct the +people, and to grapple with the stern, earnest emergencies and +perils? Emancipation is not Lincoln's, is not Sumner's, is not +anybody's personal special work. The necessities, the emergencies of +the times and of the hour did it. Their current drifted Mr. Lincoln +irresistibly along, and to a shore where he must land or perish. + +_August 23. L. B._--From the tone of certain papers, and from +private letters, I perceive that Weed-Seward are hard at work to +pacify, to reunite, to save slavery and to leave unnoticed humanity +and national honor. The unterrified Democrats become Weed's allies, +and the alliance is to carry Seward into the White House. _Nous +verrons._ + +Chase is to overturn Seward-Weed and to secure the prize. Oh, the +intriguers. + +On the authority of the published "DIARY," I am asked, even by +letters, "Where is Stanton?" "I do not know, and I do not care," is +my answer. I would however, like to be sure that Stanton is not in +that dirty path. I am Stanton's man, as they call it; but only as +long as I find him to be _a man_. + +_August 24. L. B._--The Democrats are arrogant in asserting their +superior capacity for government, for carrying on the war, and for +other great things. However, I am sure that the so-called Northern +Democrats would have managed the affairs even worse than do now +those sham representatives of the principles of the Republican +party. No faith in a fundamental human, broad principle ever +actuated the hard shell Democrats. McClellan and the immense +majority of generals, have been, or are full-blooded Democrats, and +their warlike prowess dragged the people into deep, deep mire. +Democrats have to thank God for not being in power; in this way +their incapacity to cope with such gigantic events is not exposed. +The other fortunate occurrence for the Democrats is that the +power-holders for the Republican party are--what everybody sees. + +_August 24. L. B._--I very strongly and urgently advised Gen. +Wadsworth to resign. No one in the country has fulfilled more nobly +his civic and patriotic duty. I urged upon his mind that when the +war is finished, the cause of right, of justice, the interests of a +genuine self-government will require true men to rescue the people +from the hands of the politicians. Vainly I remonstrated. Wadsworth +prefers to remain in the service, and to fight the monster. + +_August 24. L. B._--_Chasiana._ The New York leaders of the Chase +scheme make all possible efforts and platitudes to _conciliate_ Weed +and win him over. What dregs all around! + +The immaculate Chase! to look for support to a Weed! To Weed-Seward, +who for twenty-five years fanned the anti-slavery flame! Seward, +whom the anti-slavery wave elevated where he is, and who now kicks +and spits upon the men most ardent in the cause of emancipation! O +dregs! O dregs! + +_August 24: L. B._--The question of confiscation drags itself slowly +on, and soon it may resound in the courts of the whole country. If +confiscation is ever stringently executed, it will generate +law-suits _ad libitum_ and _ad infinitum_. From the first day when +the banner of rebellion was unfolded, _each State_ became an +_outlaw_ in its relations with the Union. Such a rebel State has not +a legal existence, and any legal act whatever between individual +members--or rather, politically, sovereigns in and of the +State--such acts are valueless in relation to the lawful sovereign, +as is the Union. + +The Confiscation Act is based on a wrong principle--the right to +confiscate the whole rebel property in America. This right is +derived from the public law. A conqueror of a country becomes _ipso +facto_ the proprietor of all that belonged to the conquered +sovereign and what is called public property, as domains, taxes, +revenues, public institutions, etc. The rebels claim to be +sovereigns--that is each freeman in each respective State is a +respective sovereign. The area of such revolted State, with all the +lands, cultivated or uncultivated, with the farms, and all +industrial, mercantile or mining establishments whatever, is the +property of the sovereign, or of the sovereigns. Property of a, or +of many sovereigns, is in its whole nature a public property, and as +such, _ipso facto_, is liable to be confiscated by the conqueror. + +_August 24: L. B._--The massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, must +exclusively be credited to those who appointed for that region a +pro-slavery military commander. But the power-holders are not +troubled by more or less blood, by more or less victims of their +incapacity and double-dealing! + +_August 25: L. B._--Any future historian must beware not to seek +light in the newspapers of this epoch. The so-called good press +throws no light on events; that press is not in the hands of +statesmen or of thinkers, or of ardent students of human events, or +of men having for their aim any pursuits of science or knowledge. +The luminaries of the press are no beacons for the people during +this bloody and deadly tempest! For the sake of what is called +political capital, the most simple fact often becomes distorted and +upturned by this political, short-sighted, and selfishly envious +press. + +_August 26: L. B._--All things considered, the inflation of the +currency and the rise in gold has proved to be beneficial to the +country. The agricultural interest, above all, in the West, was +particularly sustained thereby. Wheat and grain would have fallen to +prices ruinous for the farmers. When the gold fell, the farmer felt +it by the reduction of the price of his produce. The agriculturist, +the backbone and marrow of the country, spends less money for +manufactured products than he netted clear profits by the rise in +gold. If the farmer sold now his wheat for six shillings, without +inflation the price might have been four shillings, and then the +farmer would have been bankrupt, unable to pay the taxes. The +inflation saved the greatest interest in the country. And thus +agriculture and industry flourish, the country is not ruined, is not +bankrupt, as the European wiseacres took great pleasure in +foreboding that it would be. So much for _absolute_ laws of +political economy. + +_August 27: L. B._--The New York Republican papers insinuate that a +Mr. Evarts, who was sent to Europe by Mr. Seward, has given +assurances to European governments that slavery will be abolished. +If such declaration was needed, why not make it through the regular +representatives of the country, as are Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton? Mr. +Seward is incorrigible. I am curious to know where he learned this +original mode of _diplomatizing_. Such unofficial, confidential, +semi-confidential agents confuse European governments. They inspire +very little, if any respect for our statesmanship, and are offensive +to our regularly appointed ministers. What must the crown lawyers in +England have thought of Mr. Evart's great mastery of international +laws? + +_August 30._--Our military powers in Washington, led on and inspired +by Halleck, cannot put an end to guerrillas, or rather to those +highwaymen who rob, so to speak, at the military gates of +Washington. Lieber-Halleck-Hitchcock's treatise frightened not the +guerrillas, but most assuredly the gallows will do it. Everywhere +else the like banditti would be summarily treated; and these +would-be guerrillas here are evidences of the uttermost social +dissolution. They are no soldiers, no guerrillas, and deserve no +mercy. + +_August 31: L. B._--According to the _Tribune_, Mr. Lincoln deserves +all the credit for General Gilmore's success before Charleston. +There we have it! Mr. Lincoln, outdoing Carnot for military sagacity +and capacity, Mr. Lincoln approved Gilmore's plans. Mr. +Lincoln-Halleck aiding--at once understood the laws of ballistics, +and other _et ceteras_ which underlay the plan of every siege. And +now to doubt that Lincoln, with his Halleck, are military geniuses! +O _Tribune_! + +_August 31: L. B._--I learned that Grant most positively refused to +accept the command of the Potomac Army. They cannot ruin Grant--they +will neutralize him. + + + + +SEPTEMBER, 1863. + + Jeff Davis -- Incubuerunt -- O, Youth! -- Lucubrations -- Genuine + Europe -- It is forgotten -- Fremont -- Prof. Draper -- New + Yorkers -- Senator Sumner's Gauntlet -- Prince Gortschakoff -- + Governor Andrew -- New Englanders -- Re-elections -- Loyalty -- + Cruizers -- Matamoras -- Hurrah for Lincoln -- Rosecrans -- + Strategy -- Sabine Pass, etc., etc., etc. + + +_September 1: L. B._--Jeff Davis is to emancipate eight hundred +thousand slaves--calls them to arms, and promises fifty acres of +land to each. Prodigious, marvellous, wonderful--if true. Jeff Davis +will become immortal! With eight hundred thousand Africo-Americans +in arms, Secession becomes consolidated--and Emancipation a fixed +fact, as the eight hundred thousand armed will emancipate themselves +and their kindred. Lincoln emancipates by tenths of an inch, Jeff +Davis by the wholesale. But it is impossible, as--after all--such a +step of the rebel chiefs is as much or even more, a death-warrant of +their political existence, as the eventual and definitive victory of +the Union armies would be. If the above news has any foundation in +truth, then the sacredness of the principle of right and of liberty +is victoriously asserted in such a way as never before was any great +principle. The most criminal and ignominious enterprise recorded in +history, the attempt to make human bondage the corner-stone of an +independent polity, this attempt ending in breaking the corner-stone +to atoms, and by the hands of the architects and builders +themselves. Satan's revolt was virtuous, when compared with that of +the Southern slavers, and Satan's revolt ended not in transforming +Hell into an Eden, as will be the South for the slaves when their +emancipation is accomplished. Emancipation, _n'importe par qui_, +must end in the reconstruction of the Union. + +_September 2: L. B._--Garibaldi to Lincoln. The letter, if genuine, is +well-intentioned trash. I am afraid that this prolific letter-writing +will use up Garibaldi. It seems that in letter-writing Garibaldi +intends to rival Lincoln or Seward. + +_September 3: L. B._--More and more manifestations in favor of +Lincoln's re-election. All the New York Republican papers begin to +be lined with Lincoln. And thus politicians in and out of the press +will-- + + _Incubuerunt mare (people) totumque a sedibus imis._ + +_September 3: L. B._--In the great Barnum diplomatic tour, Seward +killed under him nearly all the diplomats, and returned to Washington +in company with one. Poor Europe, and its representatives, to be used +up in such a way! But it is only the official Europe, the crowned +privileged stratum patched up with rotten relics of massacre (December +2d,) of official, regal heartlessness and of servile cunning. That +crust presses down the genuine Europe, the marrow of mankind. The +genuine Europe is ardent, noble, progressive and coruscant; and from +Cadiz to the White Sea, that genuine Europe is on the side of freedom, +on the side of the North. + +_September 3: L. B._--Lincoln to Grant, July 13. This letter shows +how the President dabbles in military operations. It clearly +establishes Mr. Lincoln's right to be considered at least a Carnot, +if not a Napoleon, _vide_ the Republican newspapers. + +_September 3: L. B._--State Conventions, and the old party-hacks +under arms. Will not the younger generation rise in its might, break +the chains of this intellectual subserviency, scatter the hacks to +the winds, take the lead, enlighten the masses, find out new, not +used-up men, brains and hearts, for the sacred duty of serving the +people. To witness so much intelligence, knowledge, ardor, +elasticity, clear-sightedness as animate the American youth, to +witness all this subdued, curbed by the hacks!--O, youth, awake! + +It is the most sacred duty of the younger generation, to rescue the +country from the hands of the old politicians of every kind; to call +to political paramount activity the better and purer agencies. It is +a task as emphatically, nay, even more, urgent and meritorious than +emancipation of the Africo-Americans. + +_September 4: L. B._--In their official or unofficial quality, +numerous Americans amorously dabble in International questions and +laws. How much the _rights of war_, etc., have been discussed; how +many letters, signed, anonymous, official and unofficial, have been +published--and very little, if any light thrown on these questions. +What a cruel fate of a future historian, who, if conscientious, will +be obliged to read all these darkness-spreading lucubrations! + +_September 5: L. B._--Mr. Lincoln's letter to the Illinois +Convention stirs up the whole country. It is a very, _very_ good +manifesto,--had it not a terrible YESTERDAY. It is a heavy bid for +re-election and may secure it. The Americans forget the _yesterday_, +and Mr. Lincoln's _yesterday!_ ... is full of shiftings, +hesitations, mistakes which draw out the people's life-blood. The +people will forget that a man of energy and of firm purpose in the +White House, such a man would have at once clearly seen his way, and +then a year ago rebellion and slavery would have been crushed. + +A man of energy would not have had for his familiar demons, the +Scotts, the Sewards, the Blairs, the border-state politicians, the +Weeds, etc. + +_September 5: L. B._--The siege of Charleston _tire en longueur_; it +has cost thousand of lives and millions upon millions, and will +still cost more. And it is already forgotten that when nearly two +years ago Sherman and Dupont took Port Royal, Charleston and +Savannah were defenceless; it is forgotten that Sherman asked for +orders to siege the two cities, _but such were not given_ from +Washington, because Mr. Lincoln-Seward (literally) was afraid to get +possession of the focuses of rebellion, and General McClellan, with +one hundred and fifty thousand men in Washington, could not bear the +idea that the rebels should be disturbed either in Centerville or in +their _chivalric_ homes in South Carolina. It is forgotten that +civil and military leaders and chiefs then and there refused to deal +a death blow to the rebellion. + +And as I am _en train_ to recall to memory what is already +forgotten, and what the Illinois letter intends to wholly erase from +the people's memory; I go on. + +In the first days and months after the explosion of the rebellion, +Mr. Lincoln was as innocent of any wish to emancipate the slaves, as +could be a Seward, or a Yancey, or McClellan, or a Magruder or a +Wise or a Halleck. All this is forgotten. It is forgotten that +General Butler is the earliest initiator of emancipation, and that +to him exclusively belongs the word and the fact of an emancipated +_contraband_. It is forgotten that when Butler began to emancipate +the contrabands, the _big men_ in the Administration, Lincoln, +General Scott, and Seward, became almost frantic against Butler for +thus introducing the "nigger" into the struggle. The fate of Fremont +is forgotten. Fremont was ahead of the times. Fremont emancipated +when Lincoln-Seward-Scott-Blair, etc., heartily wished to save and +preserve slavery. Down went Fremont. + +Early in the summer of 1861 General Fremont wished to do what was now +accomplished by the, until yet, _sans pareil_ Grant--that is, to clear +the Mississippi at a time when neither Island No. 10, nor Vicksburgh, +nor Port Hudson nor any other port was fortified. But the plan +displeased and frightened the powers in Washington. Fremont was never +to be pardoned for having shown farsightedness when _the great men_ +deliberately blindfolded themselves. Fremont might not be a Napoleon, +not a captain; Fremont committed military mistakes,--other generals +commit military crimes. + +The angel of justice very easily will white-wash Fremont from +military responsibility for the unnecessary waste of human life; and +with all his various faults Fremont's aspirations are patriotic and +lofty, and he is by far a better and nobler man than all his +revilers put together. But all this seems to be forgotten. + +It is, or will be forgotten, what a bloody trail over the North is +left, and has been imprinted by the half measures, the indecisions, +and the vascillations of the Administration. + +The medley composed of politicians, jobbers, contractors, and +newspapers, already scream "Hosanna," and attempt to spatter with +lies and dust the road to the White House, and thus to prepare the +way. And the medley already shakes hands, and enemies kiss each +other, because if their _elect_ succeeds, there will be peace over, +and pickings for all the world. But the justice of history will +overtake them all, and the better, younger generation will crush +them to atoms. + +_September 6. L. B._--Wilkes' _Spirit of the Times_ maintains its +paramount, independent position in the American press. I cannot +detect any shadow of a politician in its columns. It is all over +independent and patriotic. The _Spirit_ fights the miscreants. + +"_Principles not men_," is an axiom, but the axiom must be well +understood and applied, and it has its limitations. Are bad, +worthless, insincere, selfish men to be the agencies and the factors +of great and lofty principles? Is such a thing possible? Is the +example of Judas forgotten? O, you Bible-reading people, can Judases +and rotten consciences carry out good principles? The press that +teaches and preaches _principles not men_, that never dares to +attack bad men in its own ranks, such a press betrays the confidence +of the people, and degrades below expression the elevated and noble +position which the press ought to occupy in the development of the +progress of human society. + +_September 6._--Computing together and comparing the mental and +intellectual characteristics, the manifestations and utterances of +passions in the Africo American and in the Irish of the Iro-Roman +nursery, the anthropologist, the psychologist and the philosopher +must give the palm to the Africo-American. And nevertheless Doctors +of Divinity and many truly religious men plead in favor of slavery, +that is, of brute force. I ask all such to meditate the words of +Professor J. W. DRAPER, in his great and profound _History of the +Intellectual Development of Europe: That brute force must give way +to intellect, and that even the meanest human being has rights in +the sight of God._ + +_September 10: New York._--Head-quarters of all kinds of politicians, +of schemers, of perpetrators of treasonable attempts, of falsifiers, +of poisoners of the people's mind. The rendezvous of those who +devour the vitals of the country--who, as contractors, jobbers, +brokers, stock and gold speculators, _agioteurs_, etc. are the most +ardent patriots, and wish that the war may be indefinitely +continued. In the columns of the _Herald_ the future historian will +find the best information concerning all that--not-blessed race. The +race deserves to be recorded and _scavenged_ in the _Herald_. + +And nevertheless New York contains the most pure and the most +devoted patriots. New York and New Yorkers have been foremost in +coming to the rescue when the matricide rebels dealt their first +blow. From New York came the best and the most energetic urgings on +the gasping and vascillating Administration. + +The New Yorkers originated the Sanitary Commission, for which I can +find no words of sufficiently warm praise. New York contains many +young, fresh, elevated and noble minds and intellects. Why, O why do +some of them disappear in the muddy part of the great city, and +others are overawed and overleaped by the hacks and by the +politicians, or the so-called wire-pullers. + +_September 10. New York._--It is the place to ascertain the +manoeuvres of political schemers. Those who know, most emphatically +assure me of the existence of the following _Sewardiana_. + +1. Seward has given up in despair all dreams of finding people to +back him for the next Presidency. + +2. Seward hesitated between McClellan and Banks, + +3. And finally settled on Lincoln; + +4. And although afraid of being finally shelved by Lincoln, he +advocates Lincoln's re-election-- + +5. As being the paramount means to politically murder Chase. + +Oh American people! Oh American people! how those foul political +pilferers dice for thy blood and thy destinies! + +Years ago, I justified the existence and asserted the necessity of +politicians in the political public life of America. I considered +them an unavoidable and harmless result of free democratic +institutions. [See "America and Europe."] At that time I observed +the politician from a distance, and reasoned on him altogether +metaphysically, after the so-called German fashion. Since 1861 I +have come into personal contact with the genus politician--and oh! +what a monstrous breed they are! + +_September 10. New York._--Senator Sumner on our foreign relations. +The Senator enumerates all the violations of good comity, of +international duties, of the obligations of neutrals, violations so +deliberately and so maliciously perpetrated by England and by +France. But why has the Senator forgotten to ascend to one of the +paramount causes? Previous to England or France, the State +Department in Washington and Mr. Lincoln recognized in the rebels +_the condition of belligerents_. It was done by the Proclamation +instituting the blockade. The _Blue Book_ fully proves that already +months before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the English Government had +a perfect knowledge of the vascillating policy which was to be +inaugurated after March 1, 1861. At the same time, the English +Government knew well that already previous to March 4, the rebel +conspirators were fully decided on carrying out their treacherous +aim across streams of blood. A long war was imminent, and a +recognition of the rebels as _in parte_ belligerents, could not have +been avoided. A part of the English nation, a part of the English +Cabinet, was and is overflowing with the most malicious ill will, +and such ones crave for an occasion to satisfy their hatred. But our +domestic and foreign policy singularly served our English +ill-wishers. + +I deeply regret that the Senator preferred the halls of the Cooper +Institute to the hall of the United States Senate; that he threw the +gauntlet to Europe as a lecturer, when for days and months he could +have done it so authoritatively as a Senator of the United States; +could have done it from his senatorial chair, and in the fulfilment +of the most sacred public and patriotic duty. How could the Senator +thus belittle one of the most elevated political positions in the +world, that of a Senator of the United States? + +Not so happy is the part of the lecture concerning _Intervention_. +It is rather sentimental than statesmanlike. _Intervention_ is, and +will remain, an act of physical, material force, and history largely +teaches that _Intervention_, even for higher moral purposes, was +always exercised by the strong against the weak, the strong always +invoking "higher motives." Thus did the Romans; and about a century +ago, the Powers which partitioned Poland began by an _Intervention_, +justified on "higher moral, etc. grounds." + +_September 11: New York._--Prince Gortschakoff's answer to the +demonstration of lying, hypocritical, official diplomatic sympathies +made in favor of the Poles by the cabinets of France, of England, +and of Austria. The Gortschakoff notes are masterpieces for their +clear, quiet, but bold and decided exposition and argument, and in +the records of diplomacy those notes will occupy the most prominent +place. O, why cannot Mr. Seward learn from Gortschakoff how not to +put gas in such weighty documents? Could Seward learn how to be +earnest, precise and clear, without spread-eagleism? The greater and +stronger a nation, the less empty phraseology is needed when one +speaks in the nation's name. + +_September 15._--Returned to Washington. From what I see and hear, +Mr. Lincoln is earnestly and hard at work to secure his re-election. +I hope that Mr. Lincoln is as earnest in his efforts to destroy +Lee's army and to put an end to the guerrillas who rob to the right +and to the left, and under the nose of the supreme military +authorities. + +Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, always the same--active, +intelligent, clear and far-sighted. Andrew is the man to act for, +and in the name of the most intelligent community on the globe, +which the State of Massachusetts undoubtedly is. As I have observed +several times, Andrew is among the leading (_Americanize_, tip-top,) +men of the younger generation, is no politician, and never was one. +If a civilian is to be elected to the Presidency, Andrew ought to be +the choice of the people, if the people will be emancipated from the +politicians. + +I learn that that monster, the politician, has almost wholly +disappeared from New England, above all from Massachusetts. The New +England people are too earnest and too intelligent to be the prey of +the monster. Sound reason throttled the politician. All hail to this +result of the bloody storm! I hope the other States will soon follow +the example of Massachusetts. + +The State of Massachusetts and the city of Boston noiselessly spend +millions for their coast and harbor defences. Governor Andrew has +the confidence of the people, and is untiring in procuring the best +war material. He sent an agent to England to buy heavy guns. + +If the English government take in sail, if it come to its senses and +cease to be the rebels' army and navy arsenal, then all this will be +due to such quiet and decisive active demonstrations as that above +mentioned in Boston, in Massachusetts, and the similar activity of +the New Yorkers, and not at all to any persuasive arguments of Mr. +Seward's dispatches. + +_September 16._--Mr. Seward is slightly mending his ways. His last +circular for the foreign market is considerably sobered, and almost +barren of prophecy. Almost no spread-eagleism, no perversion, +although geography and history, of course, are a little maltreated. + +And so, Mr. Prophet, you at least recognize the utility of arming +the Africo-Americans. And who is it that openly and by secret advice +and influence in the cabinet and out of it, who, during more than a +year, did his utmost to counteract all the efforts to emancipate and +to arm the oppressed? + +_September 16._--The draft is seriously complained of, and the +drafted desert in all directions. To tell the truth, drafting is +odious to every nation, whatever be its government. But it is a dire +necessity, and it is impossible to avoid or to turn it. The draft +became here imperatively necessary by the long uninterrupted chain +of helplessness and mismanagement of events, the sacrifice of blood +and of time. But for the advice of the Scotts, of the Sewards, of +the Blairs, but for the military prowess of McClellan and his +_minions_, but for the high military science of a Halleck, Mr. +Lincoln would not have been obliged to draft. + +In the West, everything is action, operation and victory. Grant, +Rosecrans, Banks, their officers and soldiers honor the American +name; even good Burnside acts and succeeds;--but here the Army of +the Potomac is observing and watching Lee's brow! McClellan's spirit +seems still to permeate these blessed generals, and then +Halleckiana, and then God knows what. The fear of losing won laurels +probably palsies the brains of the commanders; at any rate it is +certain that the inactivity of the Potomac army throws unsurpassed +splendor on the annals of this war. O, the brave, brave soldiers and +officers! how they are maltreated! + +_September 16._--Matamoras will fall into the hands of the +_Decembriseur's_ freebooters, and then Texas will be almost lost. +Matamoras ought long ago to have been seized by us, or at least very +closely blockaded and surrounded; then all the war-contraband to +Texas would have had an end. + +In 1861, when microscopical specks began to loom over Mexico's +destinies, when the _Decembriseur_ began to feel the pulse of Spain +and of England, I most respectfully suggested to Mr. Seward to +blockade Matamoras. No foreign country or government could call us +to account for such a step, if the Mexican government would not +protest. And it was so easy to satisfy and hush the Mexican +liberals. Besides, a paragraph in the treaty of Mexico expressly +stipulates that any violation of the respective territory will not +be considered as a _casus belli_, but the case will be peacefully +investigated, etc., etc. Surely the Mexican government would have +preferred to see Matamoras in our hands, than in those of that +bloody Forey's bands. + +_September 17._--"Loyalty," "loyalty," resounds from all sides. +Loyalty to principles? Why, no. Loyalty to Mr. Lincoln and to his +official crew. If such maxims mark not the downfall of manhood, then +I am at loss to find what does. Such a construction of loyalty +brings many otherwise honest and intelligent men to foster Mr. +Lincoln's re-election. + +_September 17._--At the beginning of the war, Lord John Russell +issued orders for the regulation of the English ports in cases of +belligerents. Our great Doctor of International Law in the State +Department mistook such municipal, English regulations; he considers +them to be absolute international rules and principles, and +concocts instructions for our cruisers, instructions which smell as +if written under Lord Lyons' dictation. As always, Neptune stands up +for the national interests and for the interests of his tars, +because the instructions concocted by the Doctor make it impossible +for our cruisers to fulfill their duties. As always, Mr. Lincoln +bends rather towards the Doctor, who in his world-embracing +_humanitarianism_ defends the interests of all the neutrals at the +cost of the interests of the country and of our brave navy. The +Doctor was right when, some time ago, he compared himself to Christ. + +_September 17._--The border-State politicians establish that the +revolted States are not out of the Union. The States are no +abstractions, no metaphysical notions, but geographical and +political entities. They are States because they are peopled with +individuals, free, intelligent, and who, to give a legality to their +rebellion, claim to be sovereigns. It is not the soil constituting a +State that represents a sovereignty, but the soil or State acquires +political signification through the population dwelling in or on it. +When the population revolted, the State revolted. From Jeff Davis to +the lowest "clay-eater," each rebel who took up arms claims to have +done this in the exercise of his sovereign will and choice. The +revolt quashed all privileges conceded by the Union to a State, and +the Union reconquers its property in reconquering the former States. + +_September 18._--Hurrah for Lincoln! He sends an expedition to +Texas, say his admirers. He forgets nothing. Well, why has Lincoln +forgotten Texas all this time? Notwithstanding all the prayers of +the Texans and of the northern patriots, I am not sure that at this +moment it is expedient to break up our armies into smaller +expeditions instead of concentrating them in Tennessee, Georgia, and +here. Strike on the head or at the heart if you wish to kill the +monster, but not at its extremities. But perhaps the Government and +Halleck have men enough to do the one and the other. But why not put +at the head of the Texan expedition a noble, high-minded, devoted +patriot, such as General Hamilton, instead of putting a Franklin, +unknown to the Texans, who can inspire no confidence, and of whom +the best that can be said is, that he never succeeded in anything, +and disorganized everything. See Pope in Virginia, Burnside at +Fredericksburgh. + +If Hamilton, the Texan, is to participate in this expedition, not +Lincoln and his advisers put Hamilton there--the pressure exercised +by the combined efforts of the governors of New England States did +the work. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and for his crew. + +_September 19._--Governor Andrew's activity and initiative are +admirable. More than any body in the country, Andrew has done to +clear up, and to firmly establish the condition of Africo-Americans +as soldiers, and to push them up to the level with other men. + +_September 19._--_Hurrah for Lincoln_, who hurries the organization +of Africo-American regiments! Oh yes! he hurries them; _festina +lente_. And how many regiments have been organized in Norfolk, which +ought to have been established as _the_ central point to attract +and to organize contrabands? Is not Virginia the first in the slave +States for the number of slaves? In the hands of a clear-sighted +man, Norfolk ought to have been used as a glue to which the slaves +would have wandered from all parts of Virginia, and even from North +Carolina. Norfolk ought to have to-day an army of fifty thousand +Africo-Americans born in Virginia, and not a few regiments of them +raised in the North. An Africo-American army in Norfolk doubtless +would have more impressed Jeff Davis and Lee, than they are +impressed by the marches of the commanders of the Potomac army. And +what is done? Oh, hurrah for Lincoln! A General Naglee, or of some +other name, appointed by Halleck, sustained by Lincoln, and by, who +knows whom--commands in Norfolk. This general so appointed, and so +sustained is the most devoted worshipper of slavery. This favored +general hob-nobs with the slave-making, slave-breeding and +slave-selling aristocracy of Norfolk and of the vicinity, looks down +upon the _nigger_ with all the haughtiness of a plantation whip, and +haughtily snubs off the not slave-breeding Union men in Norfolk, the +mechanics, and the small farmers. Mr. Lincoln knows this all and +keeps the general. Rhetors roar, Hurrah for Lincoln. + +_September 19._--Massachusetts and New England men and women! you +true apostles! your names are unknown but they are recorded by the +genius of humanity. These men and women feel what is the true +apostolate. They follow our armies, take care of the contrabands, +take care of poor whites, establish schools for the children and for +the grown up of both hues, and thus they reorganize society. O +sneer at them you fashionables, you flirts, you ...; but such men +and women, and not you, make one believe in the highest destinies of +our race. + +_September 20._--Grant is the only general who accomplished an +object, showed high, soldier-like qualities, organized and commanded +an excellent army. But scarcely had _Grant_ taken Vicksburgh, when +his army was broken up and scattered in all directions, he himself +was neutralized and reduced to inactivity. It could be considered a +crime against the people's cause--but--hurrah for Lincoln. + +After the shame of Corinth, 1862, the Western army disappeared in +the same way. But it was nobody's fault, oh no! So it is nobody's +fault that Grant is shelved. Will a man start up in the next +Congress and call the malefactors to account? + +_September 20._--This day, General Meade has about eighty thousand +men. General Meade himself estimates the enemy's forces in front of +him at no more than forty thousand men, and General Meade does +nothing beyond feeling his way. O, cunctator! + +_September 20._--The partisans of Mr. Lincoln admit that he came +slowly _to the mark_, but he came to it. Of course, better late than +never, but in Mr. Lincoln's case, the people's honor and the +people's blood paid for Mr. Lincoln's experimental ways. Mr. Lincoln +may now be serious in a great many matters, but if he could have +been serious a year ago--how much money would have been economized? + +Hurrah for Lincoln! + +_September 21._--Rosecrans worsted. Burnside joined him not. They +say that Burnside disobeyed orders. I doubt it, and would wish to +see what orders have been given. Meade or Halleck quietly allow a +third of Lee's army to go and help to crush Rosecrans. + +_September 21._--General Franklin was, in his own way, successful at +the Sabine Pass, as every where. But how could the government +entrust him with this expedition? He graduated _first_ at West +Point. Washingtonians and tip-top West Pointers speak highly of +Franklin. Enough!-- + +_September 22._--The rebels concentrated every available and +fighting man on Chattanooga; we scattered our forces to all winds. +The rebels march on concentrating lines, we select radii running out +in the infinite, or in opposite directions. That is the head +quarters paramount strategy. + +Rosecrans is worsted. Hurrah for Lincoln, who believes in Halleck! + +And to know, as I know, that our army and country has young men who +could carry on the war better in darkness than Lincoln-Halleck do in +broad daylight! + +_September 22._--By depleting the banks by means of loans, by +establishing the so-called National Bank, by creating an army of +officials, by taking into his hands the traffic in the great staple +of the rebel States, by providing the South with the various +Northern products, by holding all the money in his hand, Mr. Chase +concentrated into his hand a patronage never held by any secretary, +nay, scarcely if ever, held by a president. Mr. Chase has more +patronage than even any constitutional king. It is to be seen how +all this will end. + +_September 22._--On all sides I hear the question put, Who is +Gilmore? It seems to me that Gilmore is one of the men generated by +new events and not by Washington or West Point estimation. It seems +to me that Gilmore may be one of the representative men of the +better generation, so luxuriant here, and whose advent to power +would save the country; a generation who alone can give the last +solution, and whose advent I expect as the Jews expected the +Messiah, and I shall hail it as did Anna, Elizabeth, Simeon, etc. +put together. + +_September 23._--As a result of the Meade-Halleck combined military +wisdom, a part of Lee's army fought Rosecrans at Chattanooga, and +may in a very short time be again in Virginia, and it is nobody's +fault. O strategy! thy name is imbecility! + +_September 23._--Better news from Rosecrans. The stubbornness of the +troops, the stubbornness of General Thomas saved the day. +Reinforcements join Rosecrans now. But why not previous to the +battle? If Rosecrans had had men enough on the 19th and 20th, then +Bragg would have been broken, and the rebels almost on their last +legs. But perhaps such glory and victory are not needed! Hurrah for +Lincoln! + +_September 24._--Many of Mr. Lincoln's partisans admit that at the +most favorable calculation, the results obtained up to to-day by the +war and by emancipation, could easily have been obtained by a +smaller expenditure of life, blood, money and time, if any will, and +foresight, and energy presided at the helm. And, nevertheless, +hurrah for Lincoln! And the highest destinies of the principle of +self-government to again be trusted in such hands! + +_September 24._--How could Meade let Lee send troops to Bragg, and +why Meade attacked or attacks not? Those rebel generals show but +little consideration for our commanders, and it would be curious to +know what Lee and his companions think of our Marses. It seems that +a conception of a plan of campaign or of a military operation is +altogether beyond the reach of Meade's _cerebellum_. As commander of +a division, of a corps, Meade had _dash in him_--he lost all when +elevated above the level. + +I am sure that Stanton urges or urged Meade to do something, without +telling him how or where. Had Lincoln, had Halleck meddled? If so, +Meade ought to tell it. The best to do for a commander of the Army +of the Potomac is to keep his secrets to himself and have in his +confidence only his chief-of-staff--not to tell them to any one in +the camp, and still less to any one in Washington. But it seems that +Meade had no plan whatever in view, and had no secrets to keep or +to tell. + +_September 25._--It is to-day exactly a week since Rosecrans was +attacked. At the head-quarters they ought to have known Rosecrans' +force, and the imperative, the paramount necessity of reinforcing +him in time, as they _ought_ to have known that Lee sent to Bragg a +part of his army. But probably the precious head of the +head-quarters is confused by some translation, or by reading +proof-sheets instead of reports. By simply looking on the map, the +head-quarters--perhaps headless--ought to have found out that +Chattanooga and Atlanta are the keys of the black country, and that +the rebels--who neither write silly books nor translate--will +concentrate all available forces to stop Rosecrans's advance, and +eventually to crush him. Weeks ago the head-quarters ought to have +reinforced Rosecrans; it is done to-day, a week after the defeat. +Hurrah for Lincoln, who sustains a Halleck! + +One of the most cautious men that I met in life, and who is in a +position to be well informed, in the most cautious and distant +manner suggested to me that Rosecrans is obnoxious to the +head-quarters, and that in G street, Washington, they may have +wished to see Rosecrans worsted. + +Hurrah for Lincoln! Halleck is his true prophet! + +Shake an apple tree, and the foul fruit falls down; and so it is +with Halleck's western military combinations. All the army of Grant +running dispersed on centrifugal radii, Burnside sent in a direction +opposite to Rosecrans. Bravo, Halleck! You outdo McClellan! + +_September 25._--It seems that with a little, a very little dash, we +could go in the rear of Lee, who is weakened by sending troops to +crush Rosecrans. But we have given Lee time to fortify his position, +and of course we will wait until Lee is again strong, either by +position or by numbers. Then we march a few miles onwards, more +miles backwards, and what not? What splendid combinations coruscate +from the head-quarters here, or in the army! Caesar, Napoleon, +Frederick, bow your heads in dust before our great captains! + +_September 26._--It seems that at Chattanooga the rebels massed +their infantry in columns _per_ battalion, and Crittenden's and +McCook's troops could not withstand the attack. It was not at West +Point that the rebel generals learned the like continental tactics. +It seems that the rebels like to learn. + +_September 27._--In defence of the _Franklinade_ at the Sabine Pass, +it is alleged that the expedition had bad old vessels, and was +poorly fitted out. Then why make it? It is a crime in this country +to complain of any want of material and of bad vessels--provided no +one steals thereby. In America, not to have an adequate material? +What an infamous slander on the most industrious people! Not +material, but brains, or something else are not adequate. But, of +course, it is nobody's fault, and nobody will be taken to account. + +_September 29._--Hooker is to have a command, and to supersede +Burnside. Probably again a separate command. If generals refuse to +serve under each other, under the plea of seniority, at once expel +such _recalcitrant_ generals from the service; better and younger +men will be found. The French Convention beheaded such generals, not +on paper, but physiologically. The French Directory was not a master +of honesty or energy, but it had sufficient energy to select +Napoleon, twenty-six years old, over the heads of older generals, +and put him in command of the Army of the Alps, which in his hands +became the Army of Italy. And as long as the world shall stand, the +consequences of that violation of the rule of seniority will not be +forgotten. + +_September 29._--General Thomas ought to have the command, if +Rosecrans failed, but not Hooker or Butterfield. + +Halleck's _officina_ of military incongruities and to unmilitary +combinations ought to be shut up, and the occupants sent about the +world. The War Department and the President would get better advice +from the young Colonels in the Department, and around Stanton, than +it gets from all that concern in G street. + +_September 29._--The papers say that all over Europe and the rest of +the world Seward _ex officio_ scatters Sumner's Cooper Institute +oration. Well may Seward do it. Sumner suppressed true events, not +to hurt Seward. + +Now Sumner will find Seward an admirable statesman. + +_September 30._--The suspension of the _habeas corpus_ makes great +noise. It was emphatically necessary. But it would not have been +emphatically, indeed not in the least necessary, if the domestic and +war policy were different. Then the people would not have been +disheartened. If the people's holy enthusiasm--so dreaded in +Washington--were not so sacrilegiously misused and squandered, +volunteers would be forthcoming. + +_September 30._--If Lincoln-Halleck could create a military +department on the moon, they would instantly send thither some +troops and a major-general, so strong is their passion to break up +the armies into fragmentary bodies. + +_September 30._--If this war has already devoured or destroyed three +hundred thousand men in dead, crippled, and disabled in various +ways, then the responsibility is to be divided as follows: + +_a_ 100,000 lost by the policy initiated by Lincoln, Seward, Scott. + +_b_ 100,000 to be credited to McClellan and Halleck's military +combinations; Halleck by half with Lincoln. + +_c_ 100,000 to be credited to the war itself. + +_September 30._--England mends her ways, and stops the arming of +vessels for the rebels. The _Decembriseur_ more and more +treacherous--as a matter of course. + +_September 30._--I understand now, what I never could understand in +Europe. I understand how an all polluting power can force into +alliance men of strong convictions, but of the most deadly opposite +social and political extremes. Such extremes meet in the wish to put +an end to a power whom they hate and despise. + + + + +OCTOBER, 1863. + + Aghast -- Firing -- Supported -- Russian Fleet -- Opposition -- + Amor scelerated -- Cautious -- Mastiffs -- _Grande guerre_ -- + Manoeuvring -- Tambour battant -- Warning, etc., etc., etc. + + +_October 1._--Rosecrans, Bragg, Lee, Meade, Gilmore, Dahlgren and +the iron-clads keep the nation breathless aghast. A terrible and +painful lull. The politicians furiously continue their mole-like +work; election, re-election is inscribed on the mole hills. + +_October 2._--Chase men fire into Blair's men, and Blair's men are +supposed to be Lincoln's men. The skirmishing, the scouting before +the battle. But the day of battle is yet far off, and the proverb, +"many a slip," etc., may yet save the nation from becoming a prey of +politicians. + +_October 3._--News arrives that reinforcements sent from here +reached Rosecrans. For the first time the troops have been +forwarded with such rapidity. The War Department has brought almost +to perfection the system of transportation of large bodies. The +head-quarters, who combine, decide and direct the movements, the +distribution, and the scattering of troops all over the country +could have therefore ordered the troops to Rosecrans, and the War +Department would have rapidly forwarded them there. And if Grant's +army was not broken, and he himself virtually shelved or +neutralized--if he had marched towards Georgia, Secession would have +been compressed to two or three States; Bragg crushed, Alabama and +Georgia rescued! Hurrah for Lincoln-Halleck. + +_October 4._--The Russian fleet evokes an unparalleled enthusiasm in +New York, and all over the country. _Attrappez_ treacherous England +and France! The Russian Emperor, the Russian Statesman Gortschakoff, +and the whole Russian people held steadfast and nobly to the North, +to the cause of right and of freedom. Diplomatic bickerings here +could not destroy the genuine sympathy between the two nations. + +_October 4._--The probable majority in the next Congress is the +great object of present calculation and speculation. The +Administration seems to be of the opinion, that a small republican +majority will do as well, because it will be more compact and more +easily to be played upon. God save the country from a majority +_twistable_ by the Administration! If the majority is small, then it +may be unable to drag such dead-weight as was the Administration +directed by its master spirit. + +The Administration ought to be dusted and pruned. This +Administration especially needs to be shaken and kept always on the +_qui vive_ by an honest and a patriotic opposition. The opposition +made by Copperheads is neither honest nor patriotic. Opposition is a +vital element of parliamentary government; and as by a curse, the +opposition here is made not to acts of the Administration--the +Copperheads wish to throttle the principle which inspires the best +part of the people. If it was possible to have an opposition strong +enough to control the misdeeds of the Administration, to serve for +the Administration as a telescope to penetrate space, and as a +microscope to find out the vermin: if such an opposition could be +built up, it would have forced the Administration to act vigorously +and decidedly, it could have preserved the Administration from +repeated violations of the rules of common sense, and in certain +Administrative brains the opposition could have kindled sagacity and +farsightedness:--such counterpoise would have spared thousands and +thousands of lives, and thousands of millions of money. + +_October 6._--Meade will retreat or already retreats. The choice of +the army, Meade, has not yet greatly justified itself. And Meade, +too, builds up in the army a clique of generals, and therein Meade +begins to imitate McClellan. Likewise McClellan seems to have been +Meade's model at Williamsport, and, McClellan-like, Meade has wasted +precious time. + +And thus the month of October sees us on the defensive on the whole +line, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. After two and a half years +of military misdirection, of rivers of blood, of mines of +money--there we are. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and for his apostles! + +_October 6._--How the world's history is handled, twisted, and +_bungled_. Wiseacres put history on the rack to evidence their own +ignorance. The one invokes England's example during Wellington's +expedition to Spain, as if that war in the Peninsula had been a +civil war, and England's integrity, national independence, and +political institutions had been endangered. And another compares +this war to the civil wars of Rome, and censures the impatience of +those who wish for more energy in the Administration. Do the +wiseacres wish for an + + Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus aetas. + +Others point to Caesar, and forget that Caesar fought almost in person +everywhere, in Europe, Africa, and Asia. + +Great commanders-in-chief point out to their subordinates the +example of Napoleon and of Frederick visiting their pickets. Yes, +great military scholars! Frederick and Napoleon visited the pickets +when their armies faced--nay, when they almost touched the lines of +the enemy. But Frederick and Napoleon were with the armies--they +were in the tents, and directed not the movements of armies from a +well warmed and cosy room or office. + +_October 6._--Blair, a member of the Cabinet, in a public speech +delivered in Maryland, most bitterly attacks the emancipationists +and emancipation. Blair is perfectly true to himself. That speech +would honor a Yancey. Blair peddles for Mr. Lincoln's re-election. +Blair thus semi-officially spoke for the President, and for the +Cabinet. Such at least is the construction put in England on an +out-door speech made by a member of the Cabinet, or else another +member takes another occasion to refute the former. Mr. Splendid +Chase is a member of the Cabinet, and claims to represent there the +aspirations, the tendencies, and the aims of the radicals and of the +emancipationists. Such a conflict between two members of the Cabinet +shakes the shaky situation. What will Chase do? Nothing, or very +little. + +_October 7._--Months, weeks and days of the most splendid weather, +and Meade, the choice of the West Point clique in the army, Meade +did nothing. If Meade had not, or has not troops enough, why is not +Foster ordered here with all he has? Keep Fortress Monroe well +garrisoned, and for a time abandon the few points in North Carolina. +Destroy Lee, and then a squad of invalids will reconquer North +Carolina, or that State may then reconquer itself. This, or some +other combination ought to be made. I am told that more than seven +hundred thousand men are now on the Paymasters' rolls. Where are +they? Is it forgery or stealing? Where, oh where are the paid men? +On paper or in the grave? If the half, three hundred and fifty +thousand men, were well kept in hand, Lee and Bragg ought to be +annihilated. + +Hurrah for Lincoln and Halleck! + +_October 8._--From various sides I am assured that Stanton passed +into the camp of Lincoln, with horse, foot and artillery. I doubt +it, but--all is possible in this good-natured world. Stanton, like +others, may be stimulated by the _amor sceleratus_ of power. + +_October 8._--Lee's Report, containing the operations after the +battle of Chancellorsville, the invasion of Pennsylvania, and his +recrossing of the Potomac at Williamsport, is published now. But +Lee, a true soldier, made his report in the last days of July, +therefore almost instantly after the campaign was finished. +Sympathizers with McClellan's essays on military or on other +matters! there is another example for you, how and when such things +ought to be done. Meade has not yet made his Report. + +_October 9._--The cautiousness of Meade and his fidelity to +McClellan-like warfare are above admiration. General Buford, brave +and daring, weeks ago offered to make with his cavalry a raid in the +rear of Lee and destroy the railroads to the south-west--those main +arteries for Virginia. The offer was vetoed by the commander of the +Potomac army. Had Lee ever vetoed Stewart's raids? Lee rather +stimulated and directed them. + +_October 10._--And the power-holders let loose their mastiffs. And +the mastiffs ran at my heels and tried to tear my inexpressibles and +all. And they did not, because they could not. Because my friends +(J. H. Bradley,) stood by me. And the people's justice stepped in +between the mastiffs and me, and I exclaim with the miller of +Potsdam, "There are judges in Washington." + +_October 11._--I most positively learn that even Thurlow Weed urged +upon the President the immediate removal of Halleck, and even +Thurlow Weed could not prevail. Many and many sins be forgiven to +the Prince of the Lobby, to the man who understood how to fish out a +fortune in these national troubles. + +_October 12._--_Caesar morituri te salutant_, say our brave soldiers +to Lincoln. + +The Meades and the McClellans, like most of the greatnesses of the +West Point clique, have no impulse, no sense for attack, because +what is called _la grande guerre_, that is the offensive war, was +not among the special objects of the military education in West +Point. This is evident by the pre-eminence given to engineering, and +to the engineers who represent the defensive war; and therefore the +contrast to the _grande guerre_. Some of our generals, as Grant, +Rosecrans, Reno, Reynolds, and others, and as I hear likewise of +Warren, made and make up in enthusiasm for the deficiency of +the West Point education. But the majority of the _educated_ +Potomac commanders and generals were not, and are not much troubled +by enthusiasm. + +_October 12._--In his answer to the Missouri patriotic deputation, +Mr. Lincoln, with one eye at least to the re-election, proves to +the observer that he, Lincoln, has not yet found out which party +will be the stronger when the election shall be at the door. Mr. +Lincoln has not yet made his choice between the radical, immediate +emancipationists and those who wish a slow, do-nothing, successive, +_pro rata_ emancipation. Not having yet found it out, Mr. Lincoln +has not yet fully decided which direction finally he has to take; +and therefore he shifts a little to the right, a little to the left, +and tries to hush up both parties. Our so characteristic military +operations are closely connected with the vascillating policy and +with the hesitation to cut the knot. + +_October 13._--Unparalleled in the world's history is the manner in +which the war is conducted here, from May, 1861, to this day. The +annals of the Asiatic, ancient, and of modern Tartar warfare, the +annals of Greece, of Macedon, of Rome, the annals of all wars fought +in Europe since the overthrow of the Romans down to the day of +Solferino, all have nothing similar to what is done here. This new +method henceforth will constitute an epoch in military _un_-science. + +_October 13._--General Meade in full and quick retreat. The most +contradictory rumors and explications of this retreat; some of the +explications having even the flavor of official authority. One thing +is certain, that when a general who confronted an enemy at once +begins to manoeuvre backwards, without having fought or lost a +battle, such a general is out-manoeuvred by his enemy. O for a young +man with enthusiasm, and with inspiration! Suggested to Stanton to +shun the men of Williamsport, or to look for enthusiasts such as +Warren. + +Chaos everywhere; chaos in the direction of affairs, and a +disgraceful chaos in the military operations. But as always, so this +time, it is nobody's fault. + +Fetish McClellan finally and distinctly showed his hand, and joined +the Copperheads in the Pennsylvania election. McClellan is now ripe +for the dictatorship of the Copperheads. Will Mr. Lincoln have +courage to dismiss McClellan from the army? A self-respecting +Government ought to do it. Let McClellan be taken care of by the +_World_. _Par nobile fratrum._ + +_October 14._-- + + _Nox erat et coelo fulgebat luna sereno_, + +and the virtuous city of Washington enjoyed the sleep of innocence: +the genius of the country was watchful. Halleck slept not. +Orderlies, patrols, generals, officers, cavalry, infantry, all were +on their legs. Halleck took the command in person. What a running! +First in the rooms, then in the streets and on the roads, and on the +bridges whose planks were taken off. And thus about the cock's crow +the nightmare vanished, and Halleck, satisfied to have fulfilled his +duty towards the country and towards the innocent Washingtonians, +Halleck went to bed. + +_October 15._--Our head-quarters at Fairfax Court House. It is not +a retreat. O no! It is only splendid backward manoeuvring! + +As far as the Virginia campaign is concerned, the situation to-day +is below that previous to the first Bull Run. Lee menacing, going we +know not where; guerrillas in the rear of our army, at the +gates--literally and geographically at the gates of Alexandria and +of Washington. Previous to the first Bull Run, the country bled not; +to-day the people is minus thousands and thousands of its children, +and to see Lee twenty to thirty miles from Washington! What will be +the manoeuvring to-morrow? + +Warren fought well, but if Sykes was within supporting distance, why +did they not annihilate the rebel corps? Two corps ought not to have +been afraid to be cut off from the rest of the army distant only a +few miles. Or perhaps orders exist not to bring about a general +engagement? All is now possible and probable. _Our great plans may +not yet be ripe._ + +When the smoke and dust of the manoeuvring will be over, I heartily +wish that our losses in the retreat may prove innocent and as +insignificant as they are reported to be. + +On the outside, Lee's movement appears as brilliant as it is +desperate. Has not this time Lee overshot the mark? Cunctator Meade +may have some lucid moment, and punish Lee for his impertinence. And +every and any thing can be done with our brave boys, provided they +are commanded and generaled. + +In military sciences and history, it would be said that Lee has +_ramene tambour battant_ Meade under the defences of Washington. +Such a result obtained without a battle, counts among the most +splendid military accomplishments, and reveals true generalship. + +_October 17._--Meade was decided to retreat, even before Lee began +to move, say the knowing ones, say the military authorities. If +Meade wanted not to go to Culpepper Court-house, or to march towards +the enemy, or to occupy the head waters of those rivers, then why +was our army promenaded in that direction? To amuse the people? to +increase losses in men and in material? Was it done without any +plan? I supposed, and the country supposed, that Meade marched south +to fight Lee where he would have found him; but it turns out that it +was done in order to bring Lee towards Washington and towards the +Potomac. What a snare! + +_October 17._--The electoral victory in Pennsylvania marks a new +evolution in the internal _polity_ of the country. It is the victory +of the younger and better men as represented by Curtin, by Coffey, +etc., over the old hacks, old sepulchres, old tricposters and over +men who sucked the treasury and the people's pocket; they did it +scientifically, thoroughly, and with a coolness of masters. Oh! +could other States therein imitate Pennsylvania, then, the salvation +of the country is certain. + +_October 17: Evening._--The knowing ones promise a battle for +to-morrow. Yes, if Lee will. But if not, will Meade attack Lee? who +I am sure will continue his movement and operation whatever these +may be. We are at _guessing_. + +Repeatedly and repeatedly it is half-officially trumpeted to the +country, that this or that general selected his ground and awaits a +battle. It reminds one of the wars in Italy during the thirteenth +and fourteenth centuries. And if the general who forced backwards +his antagonist, if he prefers not to attack, but continues to +manoeuvre, what becomes of the select, own ground? Who ever read +that Alexander, or Cesar, or Frederic, or Napoleon, or even captains +of lesser fame, selected their ground? All of them fought the enemy +where they found him, or by skillful manoeuvring hemmed the enemy or +forced him to abandon his select position. Cases where a general can +really force the antagonist to attack _such a select, own ground_, +such cases are special, and very rare. + +And so for the second time in this year, Lee shakes and disturbs our +quiet in Washington. Oh why is Lee engaged on the bad and damnable +side? + +_October 18._--A new _whereas_ calling for three hundred thousand +volunteers. The people will volunteer. Oh this great people is ready +for every sacrifice. But you, O you! who so recklessly waste all the +people's sacrifices, will you volunteer more brains and less +selfishness? + +_October 18._--And when all the efforts of great men converged to +the re-election and election, Lee converged towards Washington. Be +the people on their guard and warned! + + NOTE.--The publication of this book has occurred at a culminating + period of annoyances and inconveniences which may possibly have + left traces in the volume now finished. The Author's residence in + Washington--unprecedented delays of the mails--scarcity of + compositors--and beyond all, the confusion from unavoidable + duplication of proofs, have so annoyed the Author, that it is but + just to make this brief explanation and apology. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Diary from November 12, 1862, to +October 18, 1863, by Adam Gurowski + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** + +***** This file should be named 29264.txt or 29264.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/2/6/29264/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. 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