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Title: Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863
Author: De Gurowski, Adam G., count, 1805-1866
Language: English
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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 this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863" ***
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